Out meta-gaming meta-gaming

One of my older kids is away at school and is DMing a game. She is the only person who has played D&D before, but there are a large number of enthusiastic teenagers who are very into it. I've been helping her troubleshoot some issues in her game. For lack of better terms, her group has gravitated toward "murder-hoboing" and "chaotic stupid" alignment, without tapping into some of the really juicy intrigue, synergistic problem solving and social interaction the game is capable of providing. I'm new to 5e and I haven't DMed in a very long time, but I've played the game since 1981, and some truths are universal. I realized that the insights I was relaying to her would be very useful for our own game table. It's just helpful to see the game from multiple vantage points. So I modified the observations to be more general and sent it to our group email. Since this is the season for little pieces of candy, I thought I’d share this little piece of candy of a post here, too. My emails to my daughter have ranged over a variety of topics, so I broke it up. The first thing I talked about was "story over character":

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At its core, D&D is collaborative storytelling. Let that sink in right there. Really think about what that means before you move on.

In practical terms, this means that the best times are usually had when story is prioritized over individual characters. The worst times are had when players don't recognize that character motives need to be fairly independent of player motives. (And player motives are generally, "What makes a great story?")

Players are not their characters. You can of course live vicariously through them, but the more you become wrapped up in an individual character's "success" (however you define it), the more you subvert the basic premise of D&D. Not only is storytelling not real (so don't bring "real life" into the game - e.g. Don't  try to do mean things to another player's character because you don't like the player), in great stories, bad things happen to loved characters. In great stories, things aren't always distributed evenly. In great stories, one person doesn't get to be the center of attention all the time. You want a great time? Tell a great story. Sometimes that means your character gets the short end of the stick. Care about the whole thing. Care about how all the pieces fit into the story. Care about characters beyond your own. The story will never be as good (and therefore the game will not be as fun) if all you care about is yourself and your role in things. COMMIT TO THE ART. The art is the story.

(And yes, I washed the dice before I put them in the candy bowl. I'm not a cretin.)