Beyond the Cardboard Game World

Before having any possibility of comprehending an NPC's motivations, we've simply got to free ourselves from the ludicrous, narrow, flimsy story-development that pretends to operate as a "game world."  For that, let's look again at the mystery novel — and by extension, ANY story.

It doesn't matter if we're talking of Frederic Dannay's Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie's Miss Marple or Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer.  Even if the novel runs into a hundred thousand words, the amount of world that has to be created is pitifully small.  We need a train, an Egyptian resort, a library or a conservatory; a few street corners, a shop maybe; or an empty highway at night.  We don't need to explain any of this!  At most, we give the name of the house owner and maybe how he made his money; but these are a few fleeting paragraphs that provide no hard details about anything except the character's relation to it.  We don't need to set our novel in the whole country of Egypt; a few set-pieces will do as a stand-in.  And while the train needs porters and engineers, or the house needs servants, or the dirty side of town needs some hoods and cops, none of this needs to be meaningfully researched and portrayed.  In fact, it doesn't remotely need to be accurate, in any sense.  If the reader is told that Luxor is in the city of Karnak, the number of readers who actually know that "Luxor" was an ancient city and that Karnak is a temple doesn't actually matter, because most readers are dead ignorant and it's not going to hurt our sales.  In the framework of the book, Karnak serves as a city name as well as any other "Egyptian-sounding" word.  John Oliver's been pointing this out for years.  As far as the book's story goes, it changes nothing.

This habit is exactly reflected in D&D:  we need a town, a dungeon, a road between the town and the dungeon, a few necessary shops, some kind of faction that wants to overthrow something, a villain, a wiseman ... and there, we're pretty much done.  The "story" that gets pitched as "the thing" needn't have too many characters or place names, because they're hard to remember and anyway, they all look alike.  In a novel, even if we want two different planets, such as Arrakis and Caladan, it's easy enough to declare both have homogenous geographies and cultures — which we need only describe with regards to exactly those things that apply to the story — even though the only planet we actually know has neither a homogeneous geography or a homogeneous culture.  But hey, it's the future.  Of course that's how it shakes out.  After all, our knowledge of the future amounts to nil.

Since we know it's "impossible" to create a game world, because it's too much work, we can see how the shrinking straightjacket of the "story campaign" grossly simplifies the DM's workload.  If the gameworld is as narrow as a set of railroad tracks, we only need a train station, enough roads to hold a carriage, a hotel and thus an action scene ... before returning to the station to get on to the next town.  As a DM, I have to create very few things.  In fact, I don't have to "create" the station, since we know what a station looks like.  The hotel is memory-banked too.  It's all familiar.  As far as the rest, the town might as well be the set-up that fools Mongo and Hedley's goons ... which, point of fact, is a movie satirizing weak Hollywood storytelling, something lost amidst the adoration of fart jokes.

Even when a DM prances and struts about, talking about the cool stories in their game world, it's a STAGE they're running, with cardboard houses and cardboard people ... it makes perfect sense to give them black-and-white character traits like "all watchmen are bad," "beggers rob foreigners" and the like.  It's an eensie-weensie bit removed from "immigrants are rapists" and "people from shit-hole countries."  These are the stories that "work" with the masses.  The countries look like shit-holes on the news because we pick the camera angles that make the story simple.  The news shows us how superior and exceptional we are, which supports the argument that foreigners want "our stuff."  The houses have one side.  It's enough for a "story."

Therefore, when I say we want a "game world," I mean doing more than inventing a plausible reason for players to visit a set piece, which we paint up real pretty and hang with combat opportunities and treasure.  And let's have it understood: apart from conceiving the game in terms of whom the party meets, and where they go, most DMs have no clue what I'm talking about.  Everything past "person," "place" and "conflict" is a total fucking mystery.  And this is why I'm calling this series of posts right now "The Other D&D."  

To address this mystery, I'll start with a traditional source, one that won't get me in trouble:

"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

"Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return.  The riches he had brought back from his travels had now become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk might say, that the Hill at Bag End was full of tunnels stuffed with treasure.  And if that was not enough for fame, there was also his prolonged vigour to marvel at.  Time wore on, but it seemed to have little effect on Mr. Baggins.  At ninety he was much the same as at fifty.  At ninety-nine they began to call him well-preserved; but unchanged would have been nearer the mark.  There were some that shook their heads and though this was too much of a good thing; it seemed unfair that anyone should possess (apparently) perpetual youth as well as (reputedly) inexaustible wealth.

" 'It will have to be paid for,' they said.  'It isn't natural, and trouble will come of it.' "

On first reading, this is certainly about Bilbo, a person about whom you've never heard.  But knowing Bilbo as we do, it's equally clear that this paragraph is also about the people who aren't Bilbo.  It gives us a very clear idea of what this "Hobbiton" is like — and it's a place not unfamiliar.  The people are rather plodding and filled with simple minded platitudes; while they can recognize a detail when they see it, they haven't the imagination, even in a world filled with magic, to imagine what Bilbo's nature is or where it comes from.  They are sure they're getting the short end of the stick; and equally sure that in the end, everyone does — otherwise, it's hard to reconcile one's stick-handle.

Note also that while a consequence is expected, there's no hint of an action that ought to be taken.  There isn't for paragraph after paragraph, except perhaps a feeling that Frodo, at 33, ought to take a wife.  We learn all about the various persons in Hobbiton and their opinions of Bilbo and Frodo, but nothing whatsoever is suggested of an "adventure."  Why would it be?  None of the people in Hobbiton, except for Bilbo, have any inkling of such a thing — and Bilbo only does because he was pulled off down a road many years before and he wants to return to a place he's been.

I'm saying that when we create a setting, we don't create motives for the players with it.  If the players were to enter Hobbiton, such as we readers of the story do, they would meet a bunch of farmers; and hear a bunch of rumours, all of which were about what a queer fellow this Bilbo is and none of which would suggest the least adventure.  And if the players were to meet Bilbo, thinking he represented an adventure, they would find very, very little there, indeed.

Do remember that the first part of the novel covers a space of twelve years ... years of conjecture, of watching Frodo grow older and listening to the town's folk talk.  If the reader is thinking, "Ah, but then Gandalf shows up," consider if the player characters happen across the town when Bilbo is only 106.  What then?  The most powerful ring in the world is in Bilbo's possession, but how would anyone know?

Exactly.

Tolkein is interested in getting on with the story, and does in his good time ... but before then, he's also interested in describing a world in which other stories can take place.  He carefully crafts the town and its environs, introduces rumours of dwarves and Gandalf visiting Bilbo, cleverly building the setting between the chattering of the townsfolk.  We get a sense of these people as they tell "stories" ... but none of these stories have arcs.  They're gossiping.  They're not building quests.

If the PCs get it in their heads to visit Bilbo, then it's their idea, not the setting-maker's.  Just as it's up to the reader to turn the page and go on reading.  The writer won't do it for you.  Oh, we'll entice you, work on your curiousity, build up the habit of your turning pages ... but it's still an action that you perform.  And as you do, you learn.

Now, when Agatha tells you about the Orient Express, she tells you virtually nothing.  She doesn't care if you ever get on that train.  She may mention a few details, but they'll be fleeting because, hey, the cravat or boots of this or that possible murderer is what really matters.  In all truth, "Oriental Express" sounds romantic.  It has no more bearing on the plot than the "mysterious-sounding" and yet utterly forgettable town names the train rolls through as the mystery is solved.

Cultivating players from traditional D&D into the Other D&D begins first with introducing them to a game world where the residents and the day-to-day goings on matter.  Where conversations with the locals tend to be about tangible local things; their lives, the local gossip, things beyond their ken, troubles they can't manage, their worries about the season's food supply and so on.  But under that, all the things they know but they don't say.  The stories they don't tell.  At least, not until they trust.  Until then, it's business as usual: grow the crops, fish the sea, haul this or that to town, open the shop, respect the strong, prey on the weak.  And hide everything the party wishes they could know about.

Initially, without experiencing it, this seems a hard game to sell.  But in fact, as you add more and more details, teaching the players where they are and how things work, the tactile sensations and descriptions gather and take shape.  As these NPCs who have no game agenda become familiar and fundamental to the experience, the players grow fond of them; the PCs become concerned for their well-being.  They become an entity worth fighting for — beyond the simple motivations of rushing to enrich themselves.  With time, the players either put down roots, or they move on ... but somehow, moving on through a world that's constantly full of description and people doing something fruitful becomes wearying.  The panoply of rambling seems empty and fruitless compared to the possibility of building something permanent.

For a person who rambles in the real world, this is very hard to understand.  In the real world, it's very hard to build anything.  It's hard to get a stake, to risk the pleasure of eating, to risk losing everything that's invested ... which is why many of us never feel inclined.  But D&D has far less of a downside; and where it comes to fantasy, the possibility of doing something great, which we know we'll never do in real life, has an appeal all its own.

There's no appeal in building something in a game world that is all false-fronts and empty cardboard husks.  There's no fondness for meaningless placenames and expositional characters.  There's just "do the next thing," like working on an assembly line where someone else gets to play with the toys being assembled.  True enough, traditional D&D is better than a lot of things.  But it falls far, far short in enabling players to do things that matter.

We'll talk more of this, digging deeper into how a world that educates players cultivates better players.