An open door
‘Anything can happen in RPGs!’ we say. But, generally, it doesn’t.
Players meet funny little creatures and larger, scarier ones. They woddle down dungeons, poking at grimacing statues and glaring terminals. They shoot laser beams and swing axes. They do all that adventure stuff. Fun, if samey.
We daydream of tension, drama, even shock. It can be achieved, but it’s a fine balance along the edge of a wide and comforting groove made of bias and assumption, convention and tradition.
I think storygames were invented for this purpose. They take the blank page of imagination, and demark a space somewhere to the left of the comfort zone. A venn diagram of fun. The circles they draw, their systems, pull us away from the cosy embrace of the familiar.
But they don’t half lay it on thick! Not so much a demarkation as a diagram, a blueprint, an equation. Insert player agency into this fruitful void here, and leave the rest to me.
I prefer a lighter touch. An invitation rather than an instruction. I usually know roughly what direction I want to go in. If I’m stuck between the walls of my comfort zone; all I really need is a friend to say ‘hey, let’s go outside’.
Running
Inspired by Dozens and Sigve I have decided to write about how I run games.
This isn’t advice, and I’m not trying to justify why I do it this way. This is just where I’ve ended up after several years, what works for me.
Before play
I mostly don’t do any ‘prep’.
If there’s a module that I’m using then I try to skim it at least once prior to running it. If I really like it—and I have time—I read it front to back. If I’m really busy I might not get the chance to even skim it.
I don’t write any notes. Experience has proven conclusively to me that my notes are worse than useless. I occasionally write down names, but even then I usually misplace them. I just do my best to remember the things that matter, and trust that my friends will help fill in the gaps.
I don’t do any special setup. Years ago I would set up play mats or miniatures or a DM screen or what have you, and I have also messed around with Roll20 and the like a fair bit. But I’ve found that those things don’t usually make the play any more fun for me. They mostly just stressed me out by giving me more to do, so I don’t bother anymore.
I do think, a lot. I think about the next games I have scheduled. And potential future games. And random ideas for things that might be games, or that might fit into games. This is almost all unstructured day dreaming—I don’t dedicate time to it, or schedule it. It happens in spare moments, or very often while I’m trying to sleep. Generally if I am looking forward to a game that means I’m thinking about it, and I only run games I’m looking forward to.
At the start of play
We agree a time when we can all play—I’m definitely not getting into that here—and when that time comes someone sends a Zoom invite or starts a Discord call. As people join we start chatting, and at some point someone says ‘let’s play’ and then usually we do. Sometimes we never start to play, and we just chat instead, that’s okay.
I don’t put music on, I don’t ‘set the tone’, I don’t speak in a peculiar meter or announce that the game is afoot. We just start playing, or don’t.
If we’re starting a new game I might raise discussions about what sort of setting we want to explore, what sort of tone we want to set. I might introduce safety tools or mention sensitive topics that could come up. How much time we spend on these things depends on the group. If I’m very familiar with the players it won’t be a lot.
In play
I describe as clearly as possible the ‘starting situation’. I ask questions if there’s things I’m not clear on, and often defer to the players to describe ‘what happened last time’. Then I listen to what the players say, and I respond.
I try my best to describe how the world reacts to the characters’ actions, the new things they see and hear, what ‘non-player’ characters say, how they act, and so on. I keep in mind what I know about the characters, and describe things differently to each of them, based on how I think they might perceive things, or what they might pay attention to.
I try to be clear and thorough, and to reveal everything I think the character could reasonably perceive. I generally let characters discover secrets, if there are secrets to be discovered. I try not to hide information behind mechanics.
When characters take risky or uncertain actions I take a little time to think them through, and then I propose what happens next. I try to make clear to players who are unfamiliar with me that everything I say is open to discussion, but if I say something I think will be contentious I introduce it as a discussion. I say what I think happens next and ask for input.
If we’re using a system, it will usually specify moments when the conversation is supposed to stop, and we consult dice (or whatever) instead to see what happens next. I keep the conversation going for as long as possible, over, past, or through those moments, minimising them in frequency and duration.
My goal is to make the conversation as natural and unstructured as possible. I don’t mind the dice making decisions, but I don’t want them to replace the fiction itself. I always ask what the character actually does, what happens, not just the result of the roll.
Sometimes the natural flow of the conversation leads to chat and jokes, and that’s fine.
At the end of play
At some point—sometimes predefined, but more often not—we stop playing. Usually someone remembers an errand they have to perform, or suggests that we’ve met a natural stopping point, or maybe just yawns loudly, and we know it is time to end.
Sometimes we chat a bit more at this point, about the game or life or whatever. But eventually we all say our good byes or good nights. And then that’s it, and I go back to thinking about the game.
Toys please
RPG texts are like toys.
Toys are invitations to imagine. Building blocks, useful but not necessary.
When we play, some toys are the centre of attention; big, bright, and colourful. Others rest contentedly in the background, a piece of something larger. Toys are what they are, and our play is what we want it to be.
Toy making can be professional, but even the most rigorous toy maker knows they make toys, not play. Play is what happens to toys, around or with them, maybe in spite of them.
I don’t think RPG texts are toys. I think they’re texts. But if we’re using similes, toys is the one I’d choose. Not elegant, experience-manifesting systems, not refined, problem-solving tools. Toys please.
See also: (Doll)Making a Roleplaying Text
By design
Say I am a game designer, and I have designed a game. And that game for now exists as a memory or a possibility, something I experienced, or hope to, supported perhaps by a scaffold of notes. It is a shape of play either imagined or real. And I describe it in words and I pass the text to you. And I say ‘this is my game’.
And say you are a player, and you read what I have given you. And you have an idea now, a possibility, an imagined shape of play. And the shape might be quite close to what I imagined. Or it might be nothing like it. Most likely somewhere in between. And later you express this to your friends and they imagine their own shapes. And together those imagined shapes collide and become real. The game happens. Your game.
What if your game is very similar to mine, my idea for the shape of play was passed to you intact? Does that mean you successfully played my game? Does that make me a good designer? Is this a good outcome?
What if your game is dissimilar to mine, my idea for the shape of play has been lost, and you have created something new? Does that mean you failed to play my game? Does that make me a bad designer? Is this a bad outcome?
What if you enjoy your game? Who takes credit?
What if you don’t? Who is to blame?
Perhaps good game design is accurate communication. Perhaps if I have a good idea for a game, I should strive to communicate it to you intact. Solid. To refine that idea it into something unyielding and beautiful, to be embedded in your mind like a pearl.
Or perhaps I should treat good ideas like waves. Washing over and past us and sometimes changing and moving us, sometimes a lot, sometimes not at all.
Is there a game in the wave?
Are we connected, you and I? Is any of this? And if not, if your ideas, the game you play, the fun you have—or don’t—are all at best an imperfect reflection of mine, then what did I design? My ideas? Yours?
What is game design?
Is it the skill of devising systems of play? Dice mechanics and stats and balance and probabilities? Do games require these things?
Is it the skill of describing games in written language? Or is that just writing? Is it the skill of having ideas for games? Or is that just ingenuity?
Is game design nothing at all? A flimsy framework of borrowed legitimacy hanging off our art so we can disclaim responsibility for our acts of self expression? Another game we play?
It is daunting to put oneself on the page. Sometimes it helps to have an excuse.