An Argument for Open-Ended Stories

For the years I have run this site, I have long argued for open-ended writing from GMs. I've argued that it prevents us from railroading, one of the cardinal sins of tabletop games. I've argued why it makes modules better than the traditional closed writing we see in that world. I've addressed how to keep going when players derail what you had hoped would happen--I regard it as inevitable and think we should be prepared. But here, I want to come at this from a different angle. Today, I want to address how an open-ended story provides something that all veteran GMs will recognize as important: open-ended stories are the perfect and sometimes only response to the natural chaos of players and characters. 

This is broadly true of all tabletop games, but let's use D&D as a simple example. In D&D, characters get alignments. If even one out of a whole party of adventurers has "chaotic" in their alignment, you will be likely to have to deal with some really surprising behavior. If multiple characters are chaotic, this effect compounds. And even if you have a party of all lawful characters, that doesn't mean that the players won't make an occasional choice that isn't pretty chaotic. In other ttrpgs, though we don't always quantify alignment, the same principle is true: players and their characters are going to make some unpredictable choices, and we need to be able to deal with that as GMs. 

Keeping stories open-ended is an easy solution to this. You can't derail a plan that doesn't exist, and your players won't be able to throw off your plans if you don't have plans. Already, I'm sure that some readers are alarmed at me casually mentioning not having plans. What I mean is less radical than that. I do prepare for sessions, but I don't write out any events. I only develop characters. 

What I mean by this is pretty simple, actually. At the beginning of a campaign and as we play, I generate NPCs. I work hard to develop realistic personalities, motivations, and relationships for these NPCs. Then, when the player's actions affect these NPCs, I know from their personalities how they would react and behave. This takes very little time or effort because I have worked to know these characters well enough to know how they think and feel. I can then easily improvise how those NPCs behave and carry on a scene with the players. 

This is not to say that the NPCs are just along for the ride. They have big agendas and take meaningful actions like the player characters do. In my most recent campaign, Of Gods and Dragons, the main NPCs were gods and dragons, all at least level 30, and their impact on the world was huge, for good and for bad. But I never sat down and decided "the red dragon accomplishes this goal while the god of the elves fails to accomplish this other goal." I might decide that "the red dragon tries to accomplish this goal while the god of the elves tries to accomplish this other goal," but I let the players decide the actual fate of things. That gives them agency, which most all players enjoy (if not all players), and it also makes the story about them. But that's not my focus here. Today, my focus is on why this method is important. And to do that, I want to tell a few stories about chaotic players and the games they played in. 

When I first started DMing, I was a college freshman with more ambition than skill. I also lacked a fundamental understanding of how the collaborative nature of tabletop games worked, and so I was guilty of a fair amount of railroading. I remember one of the games I was running had a player who was intensely curious about everything I described. He would interrogate every NPC and pore over every vaguely noteworthy object in the world. I should have taken this as a compliment--my player was fascinated by my world and wanted to connect to it. But I foolishly grew impatient and summoned up a mean little gnomish wizard NPC to threaten the group with death if they didn't get going on a questline soon. I cringe to think of it now, and I wish I could apologize to that player for my stupidity. 

What I didn't see at the time was that my player was deviating only mildly from what I expected. I wanted him to follow the plot I was laying down, and he was, but I wanted it done efficiently. It was a very rookie mistake to make. This may not sound very chaotic, and it honestly wasn't; his other actions tended towards chaos, like randomly deciding to seek the god of death as a level 1 character. But either way, I saw something that deviated from what I expected, and I punished it. This is the opposite of how it should be done, and I'm ashamed to have messed it up so badly. 

Shortly thereafter, I ran a campaign I describe here often. I had a long list of assassination contracts drawn up with the big twist at the end to be that one of the last contracts was the questgiver, and the final contracts would eliminate the royal family of the city. My players began to chafe under the questgiver's violent goals, and they turned against her about 10% of the way through the campaign. Instead, the party split upon finding the twist, and the game turned into a civil war in which the guard organization they were a part of either defended the royals or turned against them. 

By this point, I had learned not to railroad, but I also hadn't learned to anticipate player actions very well. So when the party split, I was totally confounded about how to proceed. I ended up just refereeing the civil war, which resolved in a tense battle between the party members and their allies. But the shock to my system was all I needed: I realized I couldn't assume much of anything about the players, and I resolved to spend the rest of my tabletop career writing more open-ended adventures that allowed my players to actually have freedom of choice. 

I will acknowledge that this isn't a "more freedom equals better experience" situation. For a while after the civil war campaign, I was a little too far the other direction. I ran campaigns designed in part by my players where I never guided my players away from anything they seemed interested in for a few years, one set in a lush and varied forest and another in a Wild West setting. I look back on both campaigns with general satisfaction but some disappointment. In the forest campaign, I was running four main quests at the same time--one for each player. In the Wild West setting, I was running a very loose antics campaign for my silliest friends. In both campaigns, I let my players wander to their hearts' content, but I never thought to keep the pace going as the DM. I learned from that mistake moving forward. 

Most recently, as mentioned above, I ran the Of Gods and Dragons campaign. I consider this campaign the high point of my work as a GM. I credit much of that success to finding just the right group of players and to finally getting the balance right as far as open-ended writing. The truth is, I've been GMing since I was eighteen; I'm thirty-six now, and that means half my life has been spent doing this. Whenever I have written events that occur, the result has been disappointing. My players and I always seem to feel that something has been lost, perhaps their agency, perhaps some of the fun, perhaps both. If I give only a world to explore, things are aimless. But if I script characters to populate the world and let the players fill in the events with their actions, things seem to go exceedingly well. 

So I suppose in the end that by an open-ended story, I don't just mean that some details are not filled in, but also that the players must be given the ability to fill in what the GM does not. And most players enjoy filling those details in, so the opportunity to do so is very important. I think that if there is a true challenge that defined my experience in growing as a GM, it's been finding the right balance of how much to ask the players to contribute. At first, I didn't see the importance of it. Then, I underestimated it. Then, I overestimated it. It was only with the striking the balance that things felt truly right. 

How do you strike the balance to create open-ended stories that suit your style? I suggest trying the character-driven model I described above--having detailed characters' intentions be the driving force that meets your player characters, not events that were decided in advance--and seeing what works and doesn't. It will take some practice and calibration to get just right. But there's also a chance that that method just doesn't suit your personal style, in which case you should think about the following:

• What can you do to offer part of a story--a beginning--to your players?
• How can you influence the world aside from directly controlling the world around the players? Can you use characters or worldbuilding to influence the players?
• What can you do, without deciding anything for the players, to advance a story?

Thinking about these things will get you going in the right direction. Remember: the ultimate goal is to give your players a good time, and that can mean learning to do things in a new way. I like to remind myself that there are several players at the table who will benefit from and enjoy playing an open-ended game, and rising to that challenge serves more than my own enjoyment. Besides, the satisfaction I have after managing to do something difficult that benefits my players (my friends) is greater than what I would experience if I just lazily manipulated events to tell my own story instead of my players'. 

So in the end, an open-ended story is something that benefits your players immensely. I would argue that an underwhelming story idea that is open-ended enough to really let the players tell a part of the story themselves is usually a bigger hit than a beautiful tale narrated to players who aren't really doing much. It's all about finding the way you can provide the open-ended story that fits your style. And I believe that since keeping the players' experiences in mind in this way can be very simple, any GM can do it if they work at it. 

I'll say from my own experiences as a player, when I'm given the ability to have real control of my character and be a part of the story we're telling as a group, that's when I'm having the best time. I've tried to reflect on that as a GM--how could I give my favorite experiences as a player to my own players? That's really the heart of what send me on the journey I described above, and I hope your own journey serves you well too. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: an expansion to the Paladin class, a guide to the planes, and the role of setting in tabletop games. Until next time, happy gaming!

How to Get into Your GM's Story as a Player

One thing I know can be vexing as a player--this was especially the case for me as an early player, but the issue can happen to anybody--is struggling to get into the story when you're playing. Modules might be too simplistic to dig your teeth into, and homebrew material can be imperfect and strange. How do you get into the story the GM is presenting, even when you aren't sure how to do that? I have some suggestions about how to find your way to developing your own stakes on the campaign, and I think that with some roleplaying, it's possible to find a way to get your character into most stories. (I will say that some characters are just not made for some games. I once made a really terrifying lawful evil combat rogue in 3.5 and realized after playing him that he was all wrong for the heroic quest of good in the campaign. Sometimes, the fit just won't be right. But you can adapt to most other situations.) 

The first thing you need is a solid understanding of your character. What are they excited by? What values motivate them? What and who do they care about? Answers to these questions are important because they'll tell us who your character really is, and we'll need to know that to move forward. I've written before about really connecting to your character through exercises like these, but even just having a good idea of your character's personality can be enough. 

Then you want to do an honest reading of the story as you know it out of game. What interests you, the player about it? It is storytelling or details about a particular part of the world or the way the quests are structured or just how it feels to be in the world or to get to be your character at all? Be generous here. What are your favorite parts of the story so far? There's going to be something you like, and you can build on it. 

Then, with your combined knowledge of your character and favorite elements of the story, you pick out things that your player character is motivated to do. In what ways might your character be interested in the things you thought of as your favorite things? You can choose to engage with that more, even if it just means telling the GM you want to see more of something or asking NPCs about it. You may find that you're on the right track with the story, or that you've given your GM a chance to do something fun, and either case is good news. 

Let's use an example. I recently started a text campaign with my best friend, and my character is Daylight, a human Druid with the Haunted One background. For a while, I didn't really know how to play her. I defaulted to the Haunted One background and made her nervous around people given my backstory for why she was haunted. My friend and I played out a long moment in the story where my character recovered from her trauma and was able to function normally, but now I really didn't know what to do with her. So I did these steps. 

First, I needed a solid understanding of Daylight. I'd come to understand her as a direct and sometimes awkward conversationalist, a staunch advocate of nonviolence and nonlethal combat, and a devout follower of a homebrew god my friend had made who honors crafts (like Daylight's alchemy), protection (her efforts as a Druid), and honorable combat (her nonlethal fighting style). I knew that she viewed that people working with her on the main quest were good people who had forgiven her faults and wanted to show her appreciation by being useful to the mission. 

Then I asked myself, what am I interested in? I loved my friend's story--I was part of a team investigating and mapping the continent of the dragonborn, a place isolated for centuries. I liked talking to the different tribes, using diplomacy with them to form relationships and learn from them. Daylight is practical and knows the locals will know more about local wildlife than she can learn for herself, so these relationships are important to her. I also really wanted to see where Daylight could go with her greatest limitation removed--I wanted her to live up to her name. 

Finally, I combined these to answer the question of what Daylight should want to do. I think that for starters, I need to make Daylight more active. She was reactive before, and she made a pretty small impact on the story so far. I want her to be able to go out and forge relationships with dragonborn. I decided that and made it a priority to learn their language in my next session, and now I get to actually talk to dragonborn instead of hoping they understand my improvised sign language and don't attack Daylight (a hope that has been wrong before). This also helps her to forge relationships with the tribes, and that's a great double benefit. I can also make an effort to roleplay Daylight as more positive and warm so that she can be happier about how people see her. 

So now, moving forward, I have goals related to the story, and I can pursue my goals alongside pursuing the main story. I care more about the mapping mission because my character is invested in it. I gave my character the ability to speak to the residents of the island she's exploring. It's really all open possibility, and I'm excited to get to see where it goes. And it took me about ten minutes to think about--that's all it takes to recalibrate a character or get a new reason to enjoy a game.

So with an exercise that only takes a short amount of time, you can give yourself stakes in the story. Even if your style and your GM's style are totally different, you can still find something to enjoy, so just spend as much time as you can pursuing that in game. And if there's literally nothing you enjoy, it sounds like you might need to find a different group. Gaming is supposed to be fun, and when it isn't anymore, it's time to play a different game. 

I'll close by saying this--it's possible to enjoy a bad story. I've saved a few bad one-shots by acting really silly to embrace how chaotic everything was, and I ended up having a pretty good time despite the bad situations. I embraced silliness but also chose specific things in the game that interested me for my characters to fixate on, which let me indulge my interest while still roleplaying within the world. In my book, even a bad ttrpg experience is often preferable to no ttrpg experience, so make the most out of what you can. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: friendship in my homebrew setting, changes made to my homebrew setting by players, and how to work with other players. Until next time, happy gaming!

Why Philosophical Conundrums Make Great Stories

We as GMs and DMs are always on the hunt for that perfect story idea, that shocking twist, that ideal NPC to provide the game we want. You can find or engineer those things--I've addressed campaign ideas twice before as well as how to make lovable allies and interesting villains (plus a list of villains to use). Other things feel more elusive. How do you ensure your players will engage with the story? How do you give them room to roleplay and define the story? How do you push them to play based on ideas rather than strategy? Fortunately, I have a way to accomplish all three of these things: philosophical conundrums. A good philosophical conundrum makes the players use their brains, which means trying to think as their characters. As I'll describe below, that's one of the most rewarding things we can introduce as GMs. 

What exactly is a philosophical conundrum? In essence, it's an issue of some sort that's difficult to resolve (conundrum) due to the philosophical implications of the issue itself. A classic example of this idea is called the Ship of Theseus. The story goes that the Ship of Theseus goes off to sea, and over years of damage from battle and the elements, many parts of the ship have been replaced. In fact, the whole ship has been replaced at one point or another. The question is, is it still the Ship of Theseus? Do the changes make it something new, or is it just revision of a constant whole? This philosophical conundrum is more an intellectual exercise than what we want as GMs--we want something practical that requires action--but it illustrates the concept. What we really want is some issue that enters moral territory. 

In order to really engage the players, we want an issue that is complicated and messy. This will get a direct and real reaction from the players, for one, and for two, it makes your story more engaging by having a connection to the player's own values. The standard construction for this type of story is that someone is doing something, and that something is both really good in outcomes for some people and really bad in outcomes for other people. By way of more concrete example, new settlers in an in-game territory have helped improve the lives of the people already living there, but this new relationship is threatening the culture of the people already living there. Some will argue that the livelihood of everyone is the most important issue, and others will argue that the culture is too important to lose. As the players move through this story, you can continue to layer in details that further complicate the scenario. In the end, you'll have a complex moral issue that the players will have to resolve. (And they'll love it.)

I promised that philosophical conundrums give us our best chance at three important things: engagement with the story, providing space and inspiration for roleplaying, and making them think inside of the game. Let's address how using examples of campaigns I've run that have included philosophical conundrums and how it's gone. 

About two years ago, I ran a mystery campaign for a group of friends I've been playing with for years. You can read summary and analysis of the whole campaign, but in brief, the party was tasked with solving a murder; in their pursuit, they were required to gather clues and witness testimony to discover the killer. As they worked, they discovered that the richest person in town, a known philanthropist, was somehow involved. I'll leave the rest for you to read if you choose, but the philanthropist detail was a big complication for the party. They encountered the philanthropist several times in the story and always had a difficult-to-articulate dislike of her, but it was only when she was implicated in the crime that that feeling entered the storyline. The idea of going after the benefactor of the city complicated the situation, and it caused them to pursue multiple other angles before going after her. 

This is to say that the players were more engaged with the story than just solving a mystery would have prompted. Before I introduced the philanthropist to the story, it was a fairly procedural investigation; adding her shook things up and made the party take note of the larger city around them. But when she was implicated, the philosophical issue entered the fray. Now, their investigation would impact the entire city. It ratcheted up the tension, and it resulted in a series of serious discussions about what to do which hadn't happened earlier in the campaign. I spoke about this campaign with a friend who played in it recently, and he told me that his favorite part of the campaign was [spoiler redacted], which entirely relied on the reveal that the philanthropist was involved in the murder. It really was the moment that placed the campaign on the final stretch, and I'm really glad I could pull them in with this simple philosophical conundrum. 

Why does this work? Well, I think of it this way: there are practically limitless ways to play tabletop RPGs, all of which engage the brain of a player differently. A combat scene makes the player think strategically and according to structured rules. A puzzle scene requires logical thinking and caution. A roleplaying scene involves abstract thinking and imagination. Good battles and puzzles engage those ordered thoughts, but for roleplaying, a good story asks the players to take a personal stake in the action. It's not "we have to win this battle to keep playing the campaign"--it's "we have to win this battle because hundreds of people will suffer if we fail." Having played in both kinds of situations before, I can tell you it feels completely different to be totally engaged with the story. And philosophical conundrums make us engage deeply because they bring us further into the story and world. 

Much more than two years ago, I ran one of the first D&D podcasts ever. Our show, called Listen Check, was a showcase for roleplaying. With an audio only medium, relying on roleplaying seemed a logical choice, which was nice because it was already what we wanted to do. The first quest they encountered in our three-year campaign was a conundrum: the orcish god Gruumsh wanted the party to help him get revenge on the descendants of people who had slaughtered orcs in the past. This presented a philosophical conundrum in that not righting the wrong was morally upsetting, but carrying out Gruumsh's wrath on people who didn't commit the crime. Further, Gruumsh was demanding the deaths of the governor and sheriff of town, and this only complicated things. The party was always in support of turning against Gruumsh, but they often wavered--frequently, they would discuss alternatives and revisit old conversations rather than commit to one position completely. And because they were always debating this issue, there was a great opportunity for roleplaying. 

An opportunity for roleplaying really depends on your campaign, but if you're focusing on roleplaying, it's priceless. And the truth is that the most reliable source of material for roleplaying is a discussion of what all the players are going through together. And beyond that, what they're going through together is the story of the campaign. So if there's some complicated issue at the heart of that campaign, there's essentially endless opportunities to roleplay. In the campaign I'm in now as a player, our DM has us acting as diplomats to the hostile elven government, fighting for peace. Just about every time we have downtime as a group, our complicated main quest comes up. I often wonder in character how my quiet con artist (who used to pose as a diplomat) ended up part of a royal diplomatic party. It's a rich source of roleplaying for all of us, and it's only apparent when the GM makes room for it. A good philosophical conundrum can do that for you. 

Why does this work? Well, I think of it this way: most of us don't create literally multiple novels of backstory for our characters, so we need some reference point to respond to. And having something to respond to means that the GM or another player needs to give input. Most of what a player says is more roleplaying responding to other players roleplaying, but GM input can go beyond that moment. GMs know that typically, any sufficiently interesting detail will be discussed, but this is usually for only a moment or two. A philosophical conundrum gets greater distance because the details you add to complicate the conundrum change it enough to inspire new discussion. I remember that on Listen Check, revealing that an arch-villain they players fought in the middle of the campaign was actually a possessed but sweet-hearted and helpful NPC from a campaign I'd run with mostly the same group of players. This detail--the NPC's backstory being cherished--made fighting him harder, and the players were even inspired to try to save the character after defeating him. That kind of roleplaying doesn't happen when you're just fighting goblins. 

The last element to consider is making the players think inside the game, which philosophical conundrums accomplish perfectly. To provide an example, the first real campaign I ran (ever more years ago now) involved an ill-conceived story about the party infiltrating the city guard and assassinating all the important governmental officials. The party abandoned it almost immediately, turning on the questgiver, who revealed themself to be an avowed anarchist member of the royal family, seeking to destroy her family's kingdom. The conundrum was that the kingdom was doing a generally good job (no civil unrest), but the anarchist had stories about terrible corruption. The result was the most dramatic response to a philosophical conundrum I have ever seen: the party split in half. Half of them sought to topple the kingdom, and the other half strove to defend it. The campaign ended in a climactic battle, a draw. We ended the campaign with a fractured party, and everyone couldn't have been happier. 

The thing that went completely right with this situation was that the players did something really special: they thought inside the game. It would have been easy to say, "We don't want a party split--let's just agree to defend the kingdom" and go on with the mission. But they decidedly didn't do that. They thought as their characters, and it transformed my bad writing into a really exciting story. Watching the players work against each other in front of each other became one of the thrills of that campaign. Seeing how different situations arose and unfolded was exhilarating. It was all a product of how the conundrum made the players think. Once they were thinking as their characters, it became suddenly possible to give them further and further prompts to define the story. In one climactic moment, the head of the anarchists assassinated the king, and the defenders brought in a cleric to revive the king, leading to a series of complicated rulings on my part that led to the final battle. This again shows the great value of a conundrum--the players weren't just fighting to win the conflict against the other players; they were fighting to do what they believed was right. 

Why does this work? I think of it this way: it's a sink-or-swim roleplaying prompt. At the end of the day, roleplaying really just comes down to thinking as your character. And a philosophical conundrum demands one of three responses: you simply don't know how to respond, so you guess (sinking); you consider the conundrum from your own perspective as a human being in reality (sinking that looks like swimming); or you think about what your character would think (swimming). The good news is, almost nobody completely sinks. Answering for yourself instead of your character is unfortunate but can't be helped--you can't make someone roleplay. But you can give them an incentive to. And a philosophical conundrum is a great incentive. I'll tell you now that I have GMed for dozens and dozens of people with no interest in or history of roleplaying, but if you offer them a philosophical conundrum, I'd say 90% of people will immediately catch on. I've GMed for large groups of sixth graders before, and even most of them get the prompt. A philosophical conundrum makes you use your brain; encountering a conundrum as your character makes you feel inclined to use their brain. 

So there you have it: a variety of ways to think about conundrums and their role in your games. As a bit of a post-script, I want to mention a tabletop game that I've created (but not published yet) that uses time travel. (You can play a short time loop adventure I wrote here in the meantime.) The larger game basically uses a mechanic that changes the rest of the timelines you can visit based on your actions. And as players make changes, and as intentional and unintentional side effects pile up, it inherently creates philosophical conundrums for the players to deal with. As you can see, I'm very passionate about these conundrums, and I hope that experimenting with them in your games shows you why. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: home décor by culture in my homebrew setting, lessons from GMing for children, and how to know what class to play. Until next time, happy gaming!

How to Develop a Random Idea into Worldbuilding and Storylines

Worldbuilding is one of the best parts of tabletop games for many GMs, and there are many benefits to digging into the details and elaborating on your world. But sometimes, trying to figure out where to start is an issue. You've got a whole world in front of you, so what needs your attention first? 

In my experience, you don't have to have everything figured out from the start. I've been GMing for over 15 years and only recently bothered to explain the major historical movements and natural world of my setting. It hadn't been a major issue, but developing those things helped me to better understand my world and run a more interesting and immersive game. If you're interested in worldbuilding from a conceptual approach in terms of things like that, check out the main page under the category "My Homebrew Setting" a little over halfway down the page. The many articles and guides there may inspire you to create a similar profile for your world. 

But many of us think not in the conceptual reality of our game, and more in terms of the practical realities of the gameworld. The standard of this kind of worldbuilding is in creating settlements and dungeons--making the physical world accessible to players. The same problem exists, though: where do you start? With a huge map as your canvas, what part gets the first worldbuilding paint? 

My solution is simple. If you have a campaign in mind, designing a campaign setting is your best strategy. But if you're just trying to expand your world, trust your gut: what would be the most interesting for you to build? It's supposed to be fun, after all. If you're still stuck, then I have good news. This article is about the simple solution to this problem: pick a random place on the map and go to town. 

I'm not joking. In order to illustrate my sincerity, I'm going to start with a random mid-sized settlement from my homebrew world; I'll pick it by using a random number generator compared to a list of 40 mid-sized settlements. Then, I will begin to write up details about what that settlement is like, and along the way, we'll discover all sorts of unique and interesting details I only found through doing this work. Let's get started. 

I got an 11, which is the town of Pliat. Here it is on my political map of my main continent on my homebrew world:

Your own worldbuilding should follow whatever your instincts tell you, and mine tell me that there's some information I've developed before that will influence what Pliat is like. The first thing I know is that Pliat is between the elven lands and the halfling lands, so the population there will reflect that. It's also near the heart of half-elven country and would bear evidence of that. And since I know a lot of the cultural and social details of my world, I can begin to piece together ideas like what foods are eaten here and what shapes buildings are in a general way. These details can help to characterize a settlement and make it distinct from the others the players encounter. In Pliat's case, most restaurants serve fish from nearby rivers and Lake Playbor as well as lots of grains and fruits and vegetables; most homes and businesses are L-shaped buildings, longhouses, or dugout underground homes. 

But that's basically all I know, and that's not much. My next instinct tells me that it would be good to develop the government, which will tell me a lot about the town and give me some ideas for possible quests. If Pliat's government is like its architecture and cuisine, then it would likely be some manner of loosely-defined council; the half-elven preference for committee and the halfling tendency towards loose government might combine that way. But to spice things up, I want to make Pliat different. I'm going to make up a form of government that I haven't heard of before to make Pliat an interesting place for players. Pliat is led by a Mayor, but the mayoral position is mandatory and changes on a weekly basis--that is to say, every citizen serves as the Mayor at some point for a week. This is intended to keep government representative and be open to new ideas, as well as inspiring civic duty. 

I could now go in two different directions: I might further develop the psychological implications of this policy, or I might write some of the history of how the policy has worked out. In my opinion, the public sentiment about it is likely to follow the historical results, so I'll start with the history of it. For narrative reasons, I want the system to be working well when the players get to Pliat. Let's say that in the earliest days of the mayoral policy, there were some bumps in the road--people unfit to lead with no example of how to do so, people acting on old grudges while in charge, occasional bribes accepted--but in the last few generations, Pliat has become a place that is more collectively run by the whole community with changing official titles, but wherein everyone generally behaves in the community's best interest. 

I mentioned narrative reasons for making Pliat pretty functional and almost idyllic. I think that one of the great tropes of tabletop games, particularly D&D, is depicting the oppressive government which demoralizes its people. It's not a bad trope, and it's certainly fun to be the hero who overthrows the unjust leader. But I think that some people also play tabletop games to be chaotic and wild in a safe space, and giving them a wonderful place where everything is okay is both a big change of pace (more memorable and unique) and an invitation to the players to interfere (a potential storyline). I have a party currently who just like making crazy things happen, and I am certain that they would destroy Pliat in tops two sessions if they went there. As I have said, breadth is important in worldbuilding, so Pliat will be something that helps me create more distinct locations in my world. 

This was general history. Let's consider a few of the temporary leaders who were notable. I need one that covers the old failures, so meet Carson Wettersley, the corrupt lumberjack who tried to sell the town to Finiel to the north and was run out of town, beginning a new era in which Mayors knew they had to fear public retribution. Then I need an early formative expert, so meet Juliet Sweep, the apothecary who introduced the idea of keeping policies of earlier Mayors and herself introduced the notion of holding town hall meetings at the beginning of each new Mayor's term to suggest new ideas for the week. I also want a colorful example that really lends some rich detail to the town, so meet Grynn Garryg, the orcish tinker who was appointed Mayor just hours after arriving in town and personally helped every member of the town in need before leaving at the end of the week. This gives me a good brief history to be able to convey to players who come to Pliat. 

I should also know about the current moment. Let's say that Georgia Illesin, a farmer, has been Mayor for two days, and she has been generally doing a good job, but some people are of the opinion that she's favoring farming projects over other industries in her decisions. If the players end up here long enough to see the next Mayor, it will be Henry Borchester, a tailor who will worry so much about pleasing everyone that he won't take much action at all. At the current moment, people are generally content with the system of government, but feel that they have been on a run of mediocre Mayors. This gives me enough information to have players show up and feel like there's a complete little community here with something interesting going on. 

I play with a wide variety of players; I have some who could indefinitely guide themselves through a sandbox world, and I have some who need some direction to get even small tasks done. As a result, I might have different needs for how much preparation for quests and storylines I need relative the group. But even with self-guiding players, it's a good idea to have at least the beginning of a few storylines so that the world seems to have its own living, breathing components. So given what I know so far, here are a few potential storylines: 

• I want a politically-related quest, so nearby town Terron is struggling to keep up diplomatic relations with Pliat due to the constantly changing leadership. Terron's governor, Yarro Nillenor, is willing to pay the party handsomely if they can convince the people of Pliat to appoint a more permanent diplomatic leader to make things easier for everyone. 
• I want a sort of culture-clash quest--something that plays with the multicultural dimension of the town, so let's say that some halflings, who chafe under the rule of changing leaders, have begun to organize along community lines, causing a rift between them and the rest of the town. One halfling elder, Darwin Rope, is offering a magical item (perhaps a Bag of Holding or a similar item which is prized by players) to anyone who can negotiate a compromise between the Mayoral position and the community organizations--Rope has already tried and failed. 
• I'll add one more, something that is also relevant to the setting; since Pliat is not directly near a water source, they depend on trade for fish (a staple for elves and half-elves), and they need occasional extra water for crops in dry seasons. Gnomish engineer Worki Serpon has proposed a large project wherein the Playbor River to the north would be split and routed south to a manufactured lake, which the city could depend on. Completing the project would require gaining public support, raising funds for the materials and labor, and protecting labor crews from bandits and monsters during construction. 

This gives me a pretty broad base to pull from--whatever my players are most interested in can become the main focus of their time in Pliat, and these quests are really only possible here in this specific settlement. That's something that matters to me a lot as a GM because I like to play multiple campaigns with my players, and I want them to get a sense of how diverse the world is. And just as importantly, I get to have a broad and varied experience too--my time in my homebrew setting has been different every time because I have been sure to give myself different settings every time. 

If I were to use Pliat as a major hub of a campaign as opposed to a stop between other locations, I would want to make a map of the city. A short stop doesn't really require a detailed map, but we should generally know what's in town. Let's say for my own reference in-game and if I do decide to make a map that Pliat is divided roughly into four quarters. The northwest and southwest quarters are primarily agricultural and are home to most Pliatian farmers, food service workers, and loggers. The southeast quarter is a trade section, mostly characterized by a large marketplace and several major thoroughfares of businesses. The northeast corner is home to public buildings like town hall and its various temples, but is also the biggest residential area in town, the site of various neighborhoods generally divided along cultural lines. Notable buildings would include the Pliat Lumber Depot, a huge lumberyard and processing facility; a large public worship house with private spaces for each faith; and the legendary High Horse Brewery, a tavern known far and wide for its generous portions and wide range of drinks. This tells me enough about the place to have a sense of what's here and what the players might encounter in their time in the city. 

There's other preparation that I might do here in Pliat to be ready to game, but I have already developed a number of resources to cut down on that work. If I need a character, I can use this list of character names and personalities to drop a fairly fully-formed character into the game. If the characters want a tavern besides High Horse Brewery, then I can offer them a range of other unique taverns complete with bartenders. Those details will allow me to portray Pliat as the complex and dynamic place that I've developed it to be. 

So now we've developed Pliat into a game-ready place with a variety of good information to keep it going. But I promised you something else in addition to the worldbuilding process; I said that we would learn something about the world in the process. It's time to make good on that promise. So what have I learned? Well, for one thing, I've changed my mental picture of this region of the map, for starters. If you had pointed to Pliat on the map before I started this article and asked me what kind of people live there, I would have though, "half-elves are sort of centered on that part of the map, so maybe half-elves and their parent races, elves and Faninites live there." I would generally have said the same about the other towns in the area; nearby settlements Gamna, Hasphatal, Terron, and Atir are all in the same general region. But by sitting down with Pliat and setting out to make it distinct, I created a version of it which is more complex than being a half-elven city like many of its neighbors. It's true that a good number of the people of Pliat are half-elves or elves, but the inclusion of halflings makes the settlement more complex and interesting. 

I learned about the region's racial population, and I also learned about the relationship between some of the settlements in the region. If you look back at the map, you'll see two small settlements right next to each other in the northeast--Zunard and Dozain. These two settlements are bound to have a complicated relationship, and I know this just by looking at the map:

But Pliat didn't have that clear indication that it would have a particular relationship with the neighboring cities. Writing the storyline for Terron's complication diplomatic relationship opened a door for me--now I know that these two settlements have a regular relationship and that it's strained. This tells me more about the region, and it even suggests other possible strained relationships. If we follow the logical conclusion of the manufactured river and lake storyline, a strained relationship with Atir is likely, as the new river would partially deplete Atir's water supply (and Truscan's to the northwest as well). 

Beyond even the implications of all this, there is still more: I set out to include an interesting idea for the politics in the region, and the worldbuilding I have done around it has informed the storyline of Pliat's leadership. Now players can see the functioning community with rotating leadership from the internal perspective (community-building and representative) and the external perspective (the city is difficult to work with for other cities). This has given us a more realistically complex presentation of the idea, and now I have an idea what tone I want to adopt when presenting the details of the city. 

I learned one final thing from the worldbuilding process around Pliat: when I needed conflict for this region, I did not reach for physical danger. This is in part because I gravitate towards roleplaying when it comes to tabletop games, which demands more abstract challenges that can allow a player to really inhabit their character. I feel that you can achieve this with combat, but I find it easier through more social interactions. That's why each of the quests here are more about talking with people than fighting. But that also tells me about this area: this is not an area where people are afraid for their safety, and the quality of life is good enough that average people could meet the needs of the community. This means that Pliat or perhaps even the larger area around it is pretty peaceful and calm, which is a good thing to know about a region. 

So we've started with just a point on the map and ended up with enough information to make Pliat a viable location for a few sessions or even the beginning of a campaign. We've also learned important things about the context in which Pliat exists and some details about the towns around it. All of that came out of just asking ourselves basic questions about what life is like here. I may or may not ever use Pliat as a location, but I won't lose the worldbuilding that came out of writing about it. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: a guide to conspiracy theories in my gameworld, how to find and use inspiration, and a guide to the various languages in my gameworld. Until next time, happy gaming!

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How to Use Dreams and Hallucinations in Your Story

Years ago, when I was DMing for Listen Check, a D&D campaign live broadcast on the radio and podcasted, I needed a way for my developing arch villain of the story, Gruumsh, to needle the players into helping him with a quest. I don't remember how the idea came to me, but I decided it would be interesting to have him communicate with them and torture them through their dreams. 

It was a very dramatic effect. The campaign's players told me that the dream sequences were some of the most affecting parts of the game, and in large part, I believe, because the idea of our minds not being fully our own is very compelling to humans. Most all of us dream, at least a few times, so we're familiar with the ways that dreams usually work. But if you're like me--I have have about 5 dreams in my 32 years of life, and they are a bit more consistent logically than what others describe, so I don't really know what the average dream life is like--it bears mentioning a few of the things that characterize dreams and hallucinations (which I do have some considerable experience with, unfortunately). 

So why should you take this example up and follow it? If you're a storytelling campaign, you probably know that interesting and strange experiences are usually the most exciting for players. Being dropped into a virtual dreamworld where someone is actually consciously guiding the experience is exactly that kind of experience. And you can really move the plot along in fun ways. In the example I mentioned above, Gruumsh gave the characters terrible nightmares on every day that they did not put forth effort to serve him. This created a new dynamic in the storyline where the players felt compelled to plan their days carefully and could roleplay the dread of realizing there was no time left to pursue the quest. And this opened doors for me to deliver news in interesting ways. On one occasion, a character unknowingly advanced the quest, and when they didn't receive a nightmare, they spent a while scrutinizing their actions in the day, trying to figure it out--an organic puzzle! My point here is, it can really spice the game up. 

So how do we create an experience like this? A surreal out-of-mind experience like a dream or a hallucination is mostly defined by its strange logic. I have learned three main things in this regard about common dreams:

1. Oftentimes, you know that something is true even though it is not obvious at all, for instance seeing a dog and knowing that it's your Aunt Brenda somehow. This is a good detail to include: "You see your party mate, but you know it's actually the evil lich." You can also use this to set up a surprise; the dreamer/hallucinator might "know" something like this throughout a dream only to be shocked when the opposite is true later on. 
2. The narrative direction of dreams changes rapidly, and the transitions between ideas do not explain the change. To replicate this in a game dream, you can say something like, "The green knight gives you the package. You turn. Now you're on a boat in a desert. It smells like toasted almonds." This sensory overload helps set the dream up. 
3. There is an emotional undercurrent to a dream or hallucination. In my experience, it can feel like the experience was tailored specifically to have an effect on me. Without trying to force our players to feel negative emotions, we can gently offer them the suggestion of a feeling to roleplay by either describing a general tone, or even just saying explicitly, "After the clouds go away, you feel very sad and lonely." 

This is our basic toolbox; the rest will be the same storytelling and improvising that GMing always is. We're basically aiming to set up a dreamlike environment, and then we add in drama related to the narrative. I think that an example of a dream or hallucination can help to illustration what this looks like. 

The game Don't Rest Your Head is set in a nightmare realm. But in order to get your character into the Mad City, as it is called, your GM is going to have to get you from the world we know into a city of dreams and waking dreamers. When I was introduced to this game as a player, my GM (who had played D&D in a group I ran around the same time) asked me what I was likely to be doing. I had designed a very aggressive computer hacker and gamer, so I said he'd be stealing electronics at the mall. And so my GM improvised a story about my getting caught at the mall and fleeing to a bus stop where I got picked up just in time--all very dramatic and lovely--and then the bus changed. My character was surrounded by monsters from nightmares. It was frightening and affecting, and then my character woke up in the Mad City. It was a fun introduction, and he used a hallucination or waking dream to deliver it. 

On thing that is worth acknowledging from the DM perspective before breaking this example down is that you will taking more narrative control with a dream than you ordinarily would for regular storytelling. You have to describe things in better detail to make the dreamworld seem colorful. You have to take some control away from the player to replicate how we are not acting consciously in our dreams (most of us, anyway). You have to tell the player how they feel in the dream, whereas you would ordinarily never want to do that. In the above example, my GM spoke uninterrupted for a lot longer than he normally likes to because that's what the situation called for. 

Other things of note about the paragraph include that it unfolded following the three points I set out above. The first sign on the bus that something was wrong was that my GM said something like, "You feel like everyone is watching you, but when you look at them, nobody is, but you still feel like they are." This is a good "You just know something is off" moment. Then there was rapid change: the people on the bus transformed, we were suddenly surrounded by different scenery, I think I remember the sensation of falling. And then there was an emotional moment: my character was left alone in the streets, knowing he was in danger he could do nothing to defend against. 

One final takeaway is that it's good to have a goal in mind when you're using dreams and hallucinations. They are fun to use, but it can feel a little like aimless goofing around if there's no idea being communicated by the dream. In my example, my GM was performing the important task of introducing my character to the gameworld. And even in a game that was set in a city of nightmares, my GM never again took away narrative focus to deliver another dream sequence. When I used dreams and hallucinations in Listen Check, I did so only when the story called for it, and even that was partially dictated by the players themselves. The other times I have used a dream or hallucination in a game have been spare--I have only used perhaps one dream sequence in an entire campaign when there wasn't some narrative reason that the information was being conveyed that way. 

It's worth noting as well that the more you know about your players' characters' backstories, the better. The most affecting dreams that happened in Listen Check involved characters' families and friends, which are only created when the player develops a backstory. So pay attention to those details more than you normally would (which should be a lot--paying attention to what your players put into the game always makes you a better GM). 

That's all for now. Coming soon: a profile on famous people in my homebrew setting, a list of more campaign ideas, and tips for creating an interesting villain. Until next time, happy gaming!

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An Argument for Convenient Storytelling

Almost a year ago, I wrote down an idea for an article: an argument for convenient storytelling. I knew I had something in mind, but it hadn't developed yet. For unrelated reasons (because I started full-time work as a teacher), I became too busy to continue posting regularly. Now, on summer break, I've returned and reconsidered that idea, and fortunately, I have new insight on it. 

The reason for this insight is related to the reason I had to stop writing: because of school. As part of my school's final week, the students pick between fun activities offered by teachers. Samples from this year included a variety of hikes, a murder mystery package, and a buffet of video games. I offered a D&D event: five days of adventures with characters we would create together, plus a set of roleplaying dice for every student to take home thanks to a small budget. I was excited to see how it would go, especially given one wrinkle of the event. 

I would need to take care of 30 students simultaneously. You can already see the issue--no one could satisfyingly run a campaign for 30 people at once. Combat alone would be a colossal mess. So I devised a solution: I would DM for a group of 10 students (a more manageable if still wild number of players) for 5 minutes, then advance to the next group of 10 for 5 minutes, then spend a last 5 minutes with the third 10 before repeating the cycle. 

For the players, this was not a terrible bargain. A lot of time at the table is planning and talking and joking, so some down time was okay. This allowed me to expect the players to have plans in mind when I was with them so that they could maximize their time. And only having 10 minutes between bursts of play meant either a quick break or just time at the table with friends getting ready to play. It was a good solution, except for one thing. 

I would need to be improvising three narratives simultaneously and trying to keep 30 different player characters in mind at once. To say it was a mental feat is an understatement; my brain was taxed for 5 days. We would play for 4 hours a day, so for 4 hours a day I was juggling multiple campaigns, all while my players had the advantage of being overprepared in response. It was a challenge.

 But it came out okay! After the players voted, I had a group of 6th and 7th graders playing a classic dungeon crawl seeking a powerful magical artifact which allowed the holder unlimited spells of any level; a group of 6th and 7th graders trying to solve a murder mystery at a dinner party they were attending; and a group of 9th graders handling a similar but distinct dungeon seeking the same artifact. Each story came out well, especially given my obstacles. 

My measurement of that success is in how the stories ebbed and flowed as a conversation between myself and the players, just as I have always said it should be. With the middle school dungeon, their decision to start at 1st level meant combat was hairy, so I compensated by fudging a lot of rolls to make combat exciting but manageable. With the murder mystery, the players would "need" to find a specific solution if the outline I'd made in preparation were to be followed, so I made a lot of their first guesses right and changed my plans. With the high school dungeon, they cleared their way to the artifact much more quickly than the middle schoolers, so I had to improvise a whole new extension to the story that stemmed from their getting the magical artifact on the beginning of day 4 (with 40% of the story time still to fill); that extension was largely seeing what they wanted to do and giving mild resistance to it. The common theme here is convenient storytelling. I made these players' lives considerably easier than I might have. Why?

You may be pointing out some details that complicate this. I was playing with children--of course the storytelling will be convenient at times because that's what the audience needs. Or perhaps you'd say that the convenient storytelling was just a way of escaping my own poor design for the mini-campaigns. You could make these arguments, but I feel as though something bigger is at play here. Yes, children need different stories than adults, and yes, I always knew I would adjust my outline, but consider this:

There are 211,568 possible games of tic-tac-toe. 9 squares, 2 players, almost no rules. 211,568 possibilities. There is an abstract book of poetry called Hundred Million Billion Poems by Raymond Queneau; it is 10 sonnets printed on paper that is cut into strips, and rearranging the strips creates poems. 10 poems of 14 lines can create 100 quadrillion unique poems. These numbers are possible to calculate because they are closed systems that have finite possibilities. We literally cannot calculate the different ways that a group of players may try to solve an abstract puzzle which is only described to them with words (without a visual or the possibility of tactile feedback). I can bet, though, that there are more than 100 quadrillion possible ways that a group of players might respond to any given clue.

And so, when I ask a group of players--of any age--to evaluate an idea of a situation that only exists so far as I can explain it and make a meaningful guess as to how to proceed, I am forced to make a choice. Either I can insist that they get it exactly right or else face the consequences, or I can allow good ideas to work too. And let's be honest, here: the DM is not the only person at the table entitled to creative thinking and good writing. I often feel that my players come up with better solutions and perceptions of situations than I was able to do in anticipation of their playing. It's simply D&D's nature that the product of a session is a collaboration, so why not extend that to your players?

I want to return to the examples of my D&D event and describe ways that a convenient story was more satisying than a carefully prepared one. The middle school dungeon: these boys were bloodthirsty maniacs. I put literally one puzzle in front of them before they fought the boss, and they stewed for several turns before really committing to trying to solve it. (There was a lot of talk of destroying the locked door instead of unlocking it via the puzzle.) I didn't relent on requiring them to solve a puzzle, but as soon as they offered a good idea that could conceivably solve it, I accepted the answer. This allowed them to feel as though they had really beaten the puzzle, and it allowed them to get back to their lives as murder hoboes more quickly.

The murder mystery group was lost in the decisions they had to make. I gave them control of the investigation but had to have the murdered man's right hand woman step in to make suggestions when they ran into trouble. But more importantly, I had planned from the start that the culprit was actually a ghost haunting the estate and not another guest. But my players were hell-bent on accusing the gnomish circus ringleader Pango, no matter what he had to say in his defense. So I mentioned a chill in the air and a glowing orb and the sound of moaning in the attic, leading them to investigate and find several clues pointing towards the ghost. From one perspective, I gave the crucial info about the ghost's existence away; from another, I allowed my players to feel as though they had cracked the case themselves by limiting my hint to a very slight suggestion rather than saying, "You hear a ghost upstairs." The self-satisfied looks on my players' faces told me that they appreciated their convenient storytelling.

The high school dungeon was convenient storytelling of another type altogether. My high school boys had, quite frankly, utterly destroyed every encounter I threw at them. They used the spell Shatter on the artifact--the Crown of Krantor--and I judged that it broke into three identical crowns when the spell worked, allowing each member of the party to wear their own. Keep in mind that this artifact's effect is unlimited spells of any level. Multiple wishes were cast, and things began to get out of hand. I could tell that the players wanted a real challenge. I was completely improvising at this point because getting the crown was the last thing I had written. So I had a worthy mage challenge them to a duel using glyphs. Now, I had taught several of these boys, so I knew what they really wanted. In the duel, I fudged a roll so that the mage banished them back to the dungeon without the crowns. Their delighted cries told me that convenient storytelling--your spell didn't stop him, you lose--was precisely what they needed.

In the end, I am not arguing that every story should be easily resolved on the first try. But time constraints are a real issue in tabletop games. Being mentally exhausted is a factor, as is imagination exhaustion, as is player distraction. The thing that makes players flock to roleplaying games is the feeling of agency that the games give them, which comes from being able to reliably do the things we set out to do. Narrative obstacles are good, but not every battle needs to be hard-won. Sometimes, it's not worth making what could have been a moment into a long lull in the game. Sometimes, you just have to make things a little easier.

That's all for this time. Coming soon: how to write a murder mystery party one-shot, a profile on politics in my homebrew setting, and a guide for creating 5E characters quickly and easily. Until next time, happy gaming!

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The Asp/Daisy Stories

Two and a half years ago, I set out to play a character I'd been daydreaming about for years. Although I had for a long time toyed with the idea of the character, I really only had some broad strokes of who she really was. I knew she was a con artist, that she was very crafty and clever, and that she went through life pretending to be a host of characters that would benefit her in most situations. I named her Asp because the asp--a type of venomous snake--has venom that I read was actually enjoyable to experience even as the person bitten died. I felt like she'd leave her victims that way--happy about their encounter with her (so charismatic and charming was she) that they didn't register their loss until it was too late. I knew one of her character was a diplomat, which would allow her to use pretend governmental powers to talk people into and out of things. At the time, I felt this was a pretty complete sketch of the character, and when my dear friend (who you may have read about as the player of characters like Carric, Beor, and Brokk in my campaigns) let me know he was running a campaign which I was invited into, I knew it was time for Asp to leap into action. 

The thing was, though, that once we started playing, I actually had very little idea how to play Asp. She was a con artist, true, but that didn't inform her personality or decision-making. In her first intro session, Asp was just responding to conversation and hiding her identity, and she chafed at people's suggestions that helping people was worth it. In a later into session, she decided to antagonize a guard and got mixed up in trying to find some missing children. Our first few sessions as a group were messy--Asp was willing to help do good things like track down the missing children, but mostly because she felt it would let her call in favors. But this was a good-aligned campaign, and Asp soon began to grate on the other party members, who were more unequivocally inclined to helping people. I started pushing Asp to put aside her selfishness for the good of the party and campaign, but I didn't know how I felt about letting her existing characterization go. I was in trouble as a player, and I needed to figure out who she really was, and quickly. 

So I decided to write a short story about her. I took her back to her home city, the capital of halflings in our DM's world. In the story, she developed a reporter character to defend herself from being arrested, only to be turned in by her mother and having to flee the city. It was fun to write, and I suddenly had a better idea of her--she was more an opportunist with an eye on the future, which was consistent with her behavior in the party but I hadn't been able to articulate. I also got some real pain out of her--having to leave everything behind because of the betrayal by her mother was something that helped me to understand her more. But I felt like the short story only raised more questions and didn't offer enough answers, so I decided to follow that story up with another that would continue the tale. After that story, I had the same feeling. I decided I would write five stories as a little introduction in her backstory so I could better understand and play her. 

By the time I finished those five stories, I realized I was actually making something much larger. I told my DM, who had read those stories as I'd written them, that I thought that they were actually the first five chapters in a novel. I spent a few weeks frantically writing and ended up with a book I called "Nobody Knows Me," which was a complete telling of how Asp had gone from solo criminal in the halfling capital to a member of a gang in diverse metropolis to a solo criminal in the elven lands where the campaign began. All of this was written with editorial direction and worldbuilding information from my DM, who read every words of that novel as I went, cheering me along the whole way. It felt great to finish, and we'd only played maybe two sessions since I'd begun writing, and suddenly, Asp was the most complete, detailed, and realistic character I'd ever made and very much the emotional heart and leader of the party. I was cautious to not make the campaign about Asp, but my rich backstory meant that I could draw on lots of inspiration, and my DM could give really fun personalized storylines to Asp. It was the best experience I ever had as a player. 

But I wasn't done writing about Asp. I agreed with my DM to write a novelization of the campaign when it was complete, which would take another year and change to happen. In the meantime, I realized I had started Nobody Knows Me around Asp's thirtieth birthday and had plenty of room for a prequel. In a mad dash, I wrote that prequel--Two Different Things Can Just Be Different--which went from Asp as a troubled five-year-old to the exact moment that Nobody Knows Me Began. I started writing short stories that filled in moments between gaps in both novels, and when the campaign ended, I worked feverishly with my DM to turn it into its own novel. That book, You Changed Too, stretched from Asp's intro session to five years after the end of the campaign. And reader, you may not be surprised to hear that even that wasn't enough--I started work shortly thereafter on what would be the final book in the series, a tale of my character as an older woman that has her revisit everywhere she'd caused trouble as a younger woman in an effort to make things right. As of this writing, I'm only a few chapters from finishing it. And when it's done, I've decided it's time to properly share those stories. 

At a few points since I started writing all these stories, I've had them posted here on this site for free. I decided, however, that Asp's story is something I believe in. I tried conventional publishing but was told the saga was too unconventional--publishers want something similar to big-selling books, stories that are not radically different from the ones already succeeding. I kept trying for a while before giving up after dozens of rejections and reposted the stories here. But recently, I've realized that I'd rather try self-publishing these stories than simply take a "no" from publishers, and so I've taken the stories down on this site. Below, I'll post links to where you can affordably get these stories through the Kindle Marketplace once they're ready. 

But I do want to say that writing these stories has made Asp a crucial part of my heart, mind, and soul, and I think she will always be my favorite character I've gotten the opportunity to play. She's as real to me as a flesh and blood friend or family member, and that never would have been possible if I had taken the time to really invest in making her that way. And without spoiling anything about the series, the person she becomes being a part of me is a wonderful thing--her voice is invaluable to me, and I am grateful to my DM for the chance to turn a one-dimensional con artist into a truly complex person I will always carry with me. 

Please enjoy reading these stories. I'm truly proud of them, and I hope they touch you as they've touched me.

A Story-Based Dungeon

Dungeons are a key part of D&D. It's in the name--just as dragons are key to the mythos of the game, so are dungeons, the home of much combat and treasure hunting across so many games. The core experience of most dungeons is combat--how will the players strategically defeat a number of enemies to get the treasure? But a dungeon doesn't have to be a combat-only affair. The following resource is a complete dungeon which revolves around story--specifically the story of a cursed artifact and the person who it consumes. Read on for a full dungeon to play with your group. 

Mystery Campaign Notes Session 11: More Chaos

Last time on the mystery campaign, the party assembled a device which multiplies liquids with the aim of producing mass quantities of healing potions. They also learned that murder victim Hildy Analeth's employer was seen speaking with a turbanned figure just before her murder. This time, the party works on their business goals and deals with repercussions of the chaos storms that plague the city. Read on for the full details of their adventures. 

The session began in the mid-afternoon; the party intended to go to the tower of George Turnbuckle, Hildy's employer. But on the way, a chaos storm struck, and both Montana and Ais were affected. Montana transformed into a grey macaw, and Ais suddenly began speaking with "Back in my day" at the beginning of every sentence. The party recognized that their ability to successfully question Turnbuckle would be impacted by these chaos effects, and they resolved to change plans and not risk messing up their investigation. 

I want to take a moment to call out this scene. I really wanted my players to speak with Turnbuckle--there's an exciting moment I have planned for the end of this chapter, and I wanted my group to get to experience it. When the chaos effects were chosen, I thought, "These will be fun challenges for the players to deal with." But they didn't go that route. They've become cautious and prudent, and so the chaos storm actively set the story back. It's not what I ideally would have liked, but it is a detail of the setting that I cannot change at this point. If you're the kind of GM who wants their players to always be pursuing the story, you'll want to think carefully about mechanisms like the chaos storms. But I am okay with the campaign stretching longer, and I really enjoyed the effects on roleplaying that were created, so in the end, I am happy to have my players attending to other goals because they're taking the story seriously. 

So instead, the party returned to the site of their business. There, they checked in with Nyrill, who was painting the interior of the building with elegant designs; he also made plans to return to the business with a professional painter who could provide portraits of calming scenes for the business's private rooms. Davil was also making considerable progress on the public housing the party had asked for; he was nearly halfway done with the four housing units when the party checked in. Davil talked a bit about what life was like before the chaos storms, which he said started about 300 years ago, when the town was still growing. 

An idea suddenly struck the party: Montana, as a bird, was still able to use his voice as though he hadn't transformed at all. The party decided to have Montana perform an impromptu musical show on a busy street corner in an effort to raise some funds. Montana ended up playing three songs, each thematically related to being a bird, such as a blues song about being stuck in a cage. As has become the norm for Montana, the audience loved his performances and the people of Yamseth tossed coins to the party for their show. The party made a considerable amount of coins from this show, and in the end, Montana transformed back into his orcish form. 

With money in hand, the party decided to investigate a member of the Above they have heard is a powerful mage--Polly Bridgerman, head of the Yamseth College of Magic. At her office, the party asked a few questions about the chaos storms (Bridgerman revealed that magic cannot counter the storms as the storms as pure chaos energy and not magical in nature) and quickly realized they had forgotten to develop a strategy for questioning Bridgerman. So they cut the conversation short and prepared to leave, but Beor asked a series of questions about mind control before they left. Bridgerman also leant Beor a book on natural healing to help with the development of the business. 

After leaving the College of Magic, Montana decided to scry Bridgerman using the borrowed book as a focus to see what she does when people are not around, hoping for some damning evidence of wrongdoing. But watching for ten minutes, all Montana saw was Bridgerman taking notes and developing theories on the chaos storms. Content that Bridgerman was innocent enough for now, the party agreed to spend their efforts elsewhere for the time being. 

The party had heard from Nyrill that a weekly meeting of healers and apothecaries would be happening later that evening as Sebastian Cliffracer's Tavern. The party hoped to discover a few healers they could hire for the natural healing center, and indeed, they found a small circle of healers debating methods and materials in the tavern. Beor asked a handful of questions of the healers and described the business; Montana opted for a more stressful interview, and cut both his forearm and his leg badly to provide the healers with a way to prove their skills. In the end, they hired Josephine Glass, a halfling druid; Nicole Fyrra, a half-elf druid/cleric of Ehlonna; and Grat Sharn, an orcish generalist with abilities from most every class--the first two would be dedicated healers, and Grat would be the caretaker of the liquid multiplier. Content with their new hires, the party agreed to meet with everyone at the business the following day at noon to show them the building and talk about responsibilities. 

Worried about the setting sun and Beor's potential transformation into a werebear, the party decided to call it a night and returned to Ais's place. There, Montana prayed to Fharlanghn for guidance, and his prayers were answered. He appeared suddenly in a beautiful scene, walking alongside the god of journeys. Fharlanghn told Montana that the case was important and that he was uniquely qualified to help resolve the case and find justice. He also told Montana that whatever was waiting at the end of the journey would change the world and help many people. Montana found himself back at Ais's place, and everyone turned in for the night.

I mentioned that Beor borrowed a book from Polly Bridgerman; it is called Natural Healing and Its Applications. In order to transmit the knowledge of that book to the players, I will be writing a series of notes that Beor took on the book. I've covered document creation before, both shorter texts and whole books, but another route you can use is notes. For now, you can view the notes Beor wrote. Soon, I will publish a guide to creating notes in this style, but the basis of the idea is this: rather than providing a glimpse of complete information like we would with a full book or a comprehensive document, we provide bullet points of the information that would be relevant to the player character reading it. There are plenty of ways to make this interesting, and I'll cover that soon. But for now, this is how the 11th mystery campaign session took place. 

That's all for now. Next time on the mystery campaign, the party will investigate George Turnbuckle and continue to build their business. Until next time, happy gaming!

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How to Design a Custom TRPG

Much of the world of TRPGs--and much of this site, for that matter--is about Dungeons & Dragons. But there are many other games out there which provide different experiences for players, both well-known in the world of TRPGs and relatively unknown. What matters with a TRPG system is that the game's rules support the type of experience you want your players to have. And you can create your own system to meet the needs of your campaign and your players with a bit of time and attention; all it takes is thinking about what the players should experience. Read on for a guide to designing your own tabletop roleplaying game. 

I personally have created two tabletop games from scratch. I want to keep my descriptions of them here minimal, as I want to be able to retain publishing rights for later, but I will provide examples by way of these games in addition to directing the creation of a brand new TRPG system, one which revolves around the solving of mysteries (something near and dear to my heart). The first step is to devise a setting. You want something that is somewhat unique. For my first custom TRPG, which I call Algernon's Tower, I wanted a high-flying, spectacular combat system that allowed the players to creatively use their abilities. So Algernon's Tower is about combat, and in order to provide a variety of settings to enrich combat, I set the game in a dizzying tower where each floor of the tower provides a different setting: a lava level, an Old West level, a creepy museum level, etc. The second game I created I call A Time and Place, and it is dedicated to the concept of time travel; players choose a time and place from a set of options and can play sessions in three different time periods in that setting, trying to use time manipulation to creatively solve problems. The game is supposed to feature the setting heavily, so I chose places and time periods that would be broadly appealing, such as 1750s London or 1870s San Francisco. Finally, we have our to-be-designed system involving a mystery concept--we want a unique setting that also serves the mystery format. We might choose Victorian England for the game, casting it as a classic Sherlock Holmes-style game. We might similarly choose 1930s America and run a film noir-style campaign. But for the sake of making something that is more unique, let's pick a less reality-based setting. I am going to go with 1970s California; that way, we get a more modern setting that still doesn't have the narrative-destroyer that is the cell phone, and the setting is broad enough that practically any story could fit into it. 

Next, we need to consider win conditions and lose conditions. For some games, this is simple: as in Algernon's Tower, winning means being the best at combat, and losing means being defeated. It's more nebulous for A Time and Place; the GM will select a certain condition for winning, like "prevent such-and-such disaster from happening," and the players win when they prevent it; because the players can time travel, there is no such thing as a real loss condition, only more time spent trying to solve the problem. For the mystery system, which we'll call Truths for Sleuths (TfS) from here out, we need to know how the players win or lose. Let's say that the players must solve the crime correctly before a certain deadline in order to win; dying, identifying the wrong suspect as the perpetrator, or running out of time constitutes losing the campaign. 

Then we get to my favorite part of the design process: mechanics. This may be a surprise for regular readers of this site; I am a very storytelling-and-roleplaying focused GM, so designing numerical values is not exactly my wheelhouse. But it is very fun to determine mechanics because this is where your game really comes to life. You decide in this step how the players engage with challenges, and that means a great deal to the players. There are two main elements to the mechanics you'll need: player abilities and game mechanics. Let's start with abilities. 

In Algernon's Tower, players are outfitted almost entirely along the lines of combat. I created a series of five attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Knowledge, Thought, and Socialization) with five skills under each attribute (hit points and melee weapons under Strength, reading others and screen presence under Socialization). [Screen Presence refers to the fact that the fights in Algernon's Tower are broadcast live on television, and there is a mechanic whereby players advance through their powers by attracting more viewers.] Between these 25 skills, every action in combat should be represented. This is a system, which like most TRPGs, has a set selection of skills that the player chooses proficiency in. Your system doesn't have to work like that, though: in A Time and Place, the players choose their own skills altogether. It's a relatively simple system. Each player starts with a pyramid, with one slot at the top, two on the next rung, three on the next, and all the way down the the bottom. The pyramid has six rungs--one for each type of dice included in a standard set. The player places their most proficient skill in the top rung and rolls a d20 for it; the two next-most skilled areas go on the next rung down and roll d12s for their checks, and so on down the line. Players can choose any skill they choose; the more specific, the greater their successes, and the more broad, the lesser their successes (all as a mechanism to balance narrow versus broad skills). Now we need to design the player abilities for TfS. 

The most important thing in designing player abilities is in asking how they serve the players. This means we need to be thinking about how people will actually play the game, and that means you'll probably need to playtest your game to ensure that you've covered everything. Before you get there, though, you have to make some educated guesses. Let's shoot for a system that's somewhere in between Algernon's Tower and A Time and Place, a system that allows the players to use an array of skills, but with enough structure to allow for the creation of unique characters. For that, let's have a small number of attributes to work with and a slightly larger collection of skills related to them. I'm imagining three overall detective archetypes with a handful of skills underneath them, perhaps four or so skills per archetype. Let's go ahead and fill in those details.

For our three archetypes for detectives, we want to represent different styles of investigation. The classics that jump to mind would be brawler (a detective who gets into scrapes and fights his way out, like Bigby Wolf in The Wolf Among Us), a smooth talker (a detective who uses their wit and charisma to solve crimes, like Columbo), and a sneak (a detective whose specialty is moving about undetected, like some versions of Batman). This gives us some range to let the players express themselves, but all while providing a framework that reinforces the game's design and setting. 

Now we want some skills that can be associated with each archetype. The archetypes won't be something that the players are forced to stick with--they can choose skills from all three archetypes without issue--but they represent pure images of detectives. We might choose to grant a player a bonus for choosing all of an archetype's skills, and we may not, depending on what we want out of the structure. I'm of the mind that it's better to not grant a bonus, as I want my players to choose skills that inform their characters rather than build super-effective characters. So let's go ahead and create four skills for each archetype: 

Brawler:

1. Fists of Fury - Raises unarmed damage from 1d6 to 1d10. 
2. Pile of Bruises - When reduced to 0 hit points, you regain 3 hit points. This can be used once per day. 
3. Sap the Sap - Once per day, you can cleanly knock unconscious one distracted person with a sap.
4. Nerves of Steel - Once per day, you may intimidate someone into sharing what they know. 

Smooth Talker

1. Kind Eyes - Once per day, you may appeal to someone's emotions, convincing them to share what they know. 
2. Fast Talker - Once per day, you may confuse someone, possibly causing them to reveal what they know. 
3. Truce - Once per day, you may talk your way out of being physically attacked. 
4. Con Artist - Once per day, you can visually or audibly impersonate someone. Requires a roll of 1d10, and any roll of 4 or below blows your cover. 

Sneak

1. Right Place, Right Time - Once per day, you can overhear someone discussing important information. 
2. Silent Step - Once per day, you can approach someone without their noticing it. 
3. Shadow Strike - Once per day, you can render someone unconscious if they are unaware of you. 
4. Invisible - Once per day, you can create a distraction and evade anyone who had previously noticed you. 

You'll notice that none of these archetypes or skills are really related to intelligence--that's because I want all detective characters to have a certain intelligence to them, and I don't believe that any of the archetypes disqualify an intelligent character. Further, since none of the skills between archetypes have a monopoly on obtaining information, any character can be vital to uncovering the mystery. As written, these skills allow players to choose their strategy and roleplaying matches in almost any way they wish. I would advise awarding players either 3 or 4 skills at the beginning of a game and then awarding an additional skill each time a player levels up, which in this case will be determined according to progress through the story (as the players discover new secrets, they will be rewarded with new skills). 

So now we have both our archetypes and our skills. We just have a few more details to work out. I mentioned in the "Fists of Fury" skill that unarmed damage begins at 1d6 and goes up to 1d10, so let's fill in other weapon information. A melee weapon grants d10 damage, and a firearm grants 1d20 damage. Though it's tempting to add a "to hit" mechanic to combat, I don't really want combat to be the heart of this game, so I would rather simply say that any attack made by a player character or a non-trivial enemy should have a 75% chance of hitting, regardless of other details. We can have our players roll a d20 and opt for 6-20 being successes, or 26-100 on a d100, or 3-8 on a d8--whatever works best for you and inspires the most excitement. I think bigger dice generally equal greater excitement, but again what works for you is what matters most. 

Then we have the issue of hit points, which are mentioned in the "Pile of Bruises" skill. Again, combat isn't our focus, but detectives often end up in precarious situations, and we need to know how much punishment they can take. I intended 3 hit points to be non-neglible but also not huge; we want a firearm to be able to kill someone in one hit and the melee options to be more drawn-out. I think that a set 15 hit points would serve us well; that would be about three strikes from a melee weapon or one accurate shot with a firearm to render someone unconscious or dead. That's about the balance I want; my detectives are not meant to be running around killing people, but solving crimes, so quick and deadly combat works pretty well, as it will discourage players from spending too much time fighting. 

You may notice that most of these skills are not dice roll-based; rather, they grant the players daily abilities to act in special ways. This means that most of the game is based on strategy rather than luck, which is ideal for a mystery game. Generally speaking, storytelling- and roleplaying-focused games benefit from less randomization, and so I have opted for less dice rolls. But if you're designing a system that is chaotic or disorienting, lots of rolls should be factored into your system. 

This is enough of a framework to playtest. When playtesting, watch for which abilities seem to tilt the game away from where you want it to go, and pay extra special attention to the things your players get excited about. After playtesting, revise your system with your findings in mind; curtail the effects of overpowered abilities and expand on the things your players enjoy the most. But don't lose sight of why you designed the game this way in the first place--you want to keep the spirit you were aiming for alive throughout any revisions unless it doesn't serve you anymore. 

All you would really need now to run a game of Truths for Sleuths would be a story. You could turn to my guide for writing a mystery campaign, or you could use the following sample story, which illustrates how Truths for Sleuths might actually run. Let's pick something that suits our setting (1970s California). I think GMs should go where their inspiration guides them, and my inspiration reminds me that tarot cards (a great passion of mine) were of great popularity in California in the '70s. So this mystery will be a mystical one revolving around tracking down a deck of fabled tarot cards which were stolen from a medium. Now, as the players investigate the missing deck, they will meet a variety of colorful characters from the mystical reaches of California: the sniveling assistant to a mystic who dreams of one day being a master mystic themself, the retired detective who has reinvented themself as a palm reader, the eccentric millionaire who pays handsomely for the advice of the mystic. The deck will seem out of reach, always changing hands before the players can locate it. And as they investigate the mystical community, strange things begin to happen, things which suggest the mystics know more than they're letting on. 

So we started from the framework of "what do we want our game to accomplish?" and now, just a few pages later, we have a full TRPG system and notes for a campaign. It's really isn't too daunting if you take it a step at a time. Just remember to keep asking the question, "how do I create the experience for players that I'm imagining?" And don't be discouraged if your ideas come slowly or if playtesting reveals you need to return to the drawing board. This is just part of the process, and the more you work at it, the better your system will become for both you and your players. Good luck, and have fun!

That's all for now. Coming soon: how to roleplay learning new skills and abilities, descriptions of temples in D&D, and details about agriculture in the gameworld. Until next time, happy gaming!

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