We open in Winter

image: Ilya Shichkin

Because its been half a year without posting. Didn't play rpgs at all in this time. On the other hand, I have been playing a LOT of Magic: The Gathering, specifically PREMODERN. That game is like a hard drug. But despite of it, and maybe inspired by it, I have a couple of gaming related ideas I want to put into text ASAP.

1. Shifting aim of descriptions. During a walk, I noticed that everytime I narrate places and situations to the players, I speak to their senses: I tell you what you see, hear or smell, so you have information and put the whole scene in your mind, so you react accordingly. I think that is the most natural for a prosaic GM to do, but I have fed this "vice" by sticking to what I read that other GMS do. Fantasy books, or any books, however, rarely do this: they speak to the readers or the characters mind, straight away.

An example from the top of my head could be like: 

GM A: "you notice a rush of air moving towards you"
PLAYER: "which corridor does it seem to come from?"
GM A: "north one. It also carries smell of manure and hay"
PLAYER: "is the current strong?"
GM A: "enough to make your hair move a little"

This is how I do it normally, and while its good to make players take informed decisions ("does wind interfere with my prepared spells?") and actually takes very little time, i'm a bit tired of having this kind of conversations. They come up a lot into a game and they feel like describing an elephant to a blind man everytime: that small time they take its enormous when compared to the split second it takes for the character to absorb that information.. And bigger yet when compared to the relevance of such information: probably none and is there only to give the place a sense of identity. Knowing this, I could just go like:

GM B: "You arrive at a bifurcation of two corridors, and while the two are very similar, the gust of wind coming from the left one carries a smell of labored fields that reminds you of the spring nights at your village before it was destroyed, fighter. It fills you with a strong feeling of nostalgia"
PLAYER: "NOOOOOO you cant tell me what I feel likeeeeeee"
GM B: "I dont care, this is a much natural and evocative way to narrate and will do it whenever I want"

However it is probably the best of it all to use both narrative approaches at once depending on what you want the players to feel and prepare for. This is why GMing is an art and not a science.

2. Emulating nature VS emulating plot. Following the same trail of thoughts, I realized that OSR procedures, generators and random tables normally emulate a nature: You can picture and ecosystem and nature of a place by observing the results of those tables: How likely is a goblin to appear in this forest in contrast with a boar? how much treasure does the average bandit have in his stash, and how much does he steal in this road every year? Those, of course, can be improvised or generated with absurd numbers sometimes, but yet, once they appear at the table, they tell you something about the place. The other thing procedures do is to create the passing of time: if you spend time at a certain place, monsters appear. Weather changes. HP restores. As I don't like to keep strict time records nor a calendar of any sort, an idea I want to try is to have certain time related events, both of a natural nature (the passing of the seasons) or of a plot nature (a war striking, an NPC dying, an alliance forged between factions, some relevant person or thing from the current adventure being captured, etc) be ingrained on some kind of random event table; possibly one that activates during downtime.

3. Worldbuilding is better robust than wide.  I am very confortable with my latest houserules. Achieving a ruleset that scratched all my autisms and that played nicely for other people was like an obsession for me for years. Now I want to focus on some next shit I already talked about: A magic system that, instead of different classes (druid, wizard, cleric, etc) has spells of five natures, or "colors" that a magic user can choose from: one at first, then two and maybe three. The main thing that draws me to it is that it is a simple way to picture magic in-game, that can be learn and exploited by players while giving me things to work to paint the world as a GM.

If one plants the core foundations of how a world works (in difference or addition to our real work) is very easy for players to act around it, think around it and feel more like home on it. Campaigns are sometimes based in media: everybody knows more or less what their character can be in the Middle Earth, or what kind of background, common information or customs they might have. But sometimes campaigns are based on the GMs imagination and the idea of a mythic age we more or less agree upon. But some hard guidelines are always needed, specially when I run a "sandbox" style game. I have realized over time that is very important to tell the players a handful of "constants" that will be true in the game world, no matter where they go, and that are related to things they will see and do in game. One can be, for example: "the world is full of dungeons which have gold inside" or "The wilderness is filled with monsters". Other can be "The world is full of bandits of different dangerousness, and all cities in the world have agreed to pay a reward for any criminal that is important enough".

I think that I can do well by doing "The world has five "pure" types of magicians, and they tend to live and behave in five different ways. Their wizard schools have helped to shape this earth: you will find all of them across the globe, and If you are a wizard, might learn from them or be duelled by them"

4. Descriptions of combat at high levels: Something I read about in this blog. The author inquires on the best way to narrate combat descriptions at higher levels, when the nature of the monsters makes attacks physically obtuse (hitting a giant or a dragon on a vital spot, for example). Normally I would rule that monsters expose themselves during combat, while making their "attack routines". But I liked this comment on the entry and want to pin it here to give it a thought.

Dwiz wrote: This is a good example of where it becomes important to revisit the core mechanic's logic: the players can do anything that seems reasonably feasible in the fiction. Therefore, the burden is on the players to describe to you a plausible means of performing those attacks. If they can't, then they don't get to make the attack roll to begin with. You're right: trying to get a meaningful stab at the giant from the ground seems silly. So the players are going to have to come up with a more appropriately OSR "combat as war" tactic like luring the giant into a trap.

Have a nice year everyone. Take a little moment today to enjoy the winter mood!