Storytelling

There are other hard lines that need to be addressed, but I suspect the last post was a bit of a downer.  So instead, let's address the prospect of introducing the players to the game world from a denser perspective.  For that, we can revisit The Fellowship of the Ring, not because it's the best example necessarily, but because among fantasy gamers it's fairly universal.

I'm steadily building several themes towards a single argument.  That parties are united through a fear of the game world; that fear is essentially the same thing as excitement; that "story campaigns" encourage passivity; and that the substance of stories skirts over the necessary details that are needed for a role-playing game world.  These matters are complex; I've written more than 8,000 words on the subject already.  It's hard to keep all this in mind at the same time ... which is why I strongly urge the reader NOT to jump to black-and-white conclusions about what is and what is not "fantasy adventure," or notions that dense game worlds will solve all the DM's problems, or even that I'm arguing the players should be thrown into the game world like a baby in a swimming pool, to drown or not.  RPG theory has been rife with simplifications of this kind, positing that what the DM does must fit into a narrow argument that can be instantly understood by a child.  My belief is that running an RPG is a staggeringly complex enterprise, with multiple disparate practices that must be incorporated to create the game's function ... and that these things cannot be done "in order of importance."  Nor can they be measured by the failure of other campaigns, run by people who most probably didn't understand fully what they needed to do.

We cannot rely on any part of running to make a good game.  Role-playing alone will not do it, nor will finalizing the rules, proposing rulings over rules, inventing a great game setting, imposing a sandbox instead of rails or changing any single part of the mechanism.  Quality is obtained by doing everything, in coordination, in the measure and according to the necessity required, with both measure and need modulating appropriately to the actions of the players and the circumstances that arise.  We cannot build a living, working doctrine of gaming by fixing or perfecting any one part.

I never advise this.  I always warn against it.  If it should happen, at any time, that I seem to be advocating such an approach, it can only appear that way because the reader has deliberately ignored millions of words that I have written on D&D and all of its aspects.

Let's have that clear.

The reader must, therefore, to understand any of what I'm attempting to explain, put aside those trite arguments we've heard made by people looking for simple answers to the matter at hand.  I wrote earlier that making the game "matter" to players beyond the transient, superfluous goal of "gaming for fun" would make "as much sense as my saying there's no D&D without a monkey, seven ballerinas and the exhumed corpse of Modest Mussorgsky."  Yet here we are, as I attempt to do so.

It's a credit to the reader, therefore, to forsake what they know long enough to be convinced of something which, presently, they do not know.  It is my duty to make it knowable.  It is on both of us — I as teacher, you as student — to attend to our roles in this manner.  Else this time is wasted.

Starting off with this post, I need to make a distinction between "storytelling" and a "story campaign."  With the latter, we invent a series of "if-then" sequences that are arranged to reveal the pre-conceived narrative to the players.  Once the players choose to perform a specific action within this program, then the reveal is given, followed by a new sequence of choices and further reveals.  Eventually, all the right choices are taken and all the right reveals are known.  The appeal comes from the story being interesting and therefore worth going through, particularly if the final set of reveals are exciting and compelling.

For the rest of this post and this series, when I speak of a "story" without specifying a "story campaign," I am describing the age-old habit of human discourse, where A tells B what happened, which B may find interesting enough to relay to C, then D and E and so on.  In the process of this storytelling, the various listeners are provided with knowledge.  We learn about A, what sort of person A is, what A did, what happened to A, how A resolved the situation and — largely unstated — how all this mattered to B, C, D and so on up the line, as each relayed the story in a manner that was important to them.

If the reader will excuse the pedantry, there is a great deal of difference in a story like Snow White and a story like King Arthur.  While a storytelling tradition exists for both stories, we can read versions of the King Arthur story as it was told direct from the 12th century, since books of that time writing about Arthur exist.  Whereas no extant works exist for the story of Snow White until the 19th century, though traditional word-of-mouth accounts originate with dozens of cultures — tracking its variants has been a life-long task for many scholars.

The flavour of the King Arthur books from eight centuries ago are very different from the flavour of Grimm's fairy tale; yet we can be sure that if we could return to a gathering around a storyteller in 1190, we wouldn't be surprised to hear either tale ... nor should we be surprised to learn that the King Arthur tale has changed and adapted itself in a hundred ways since the original book was written.

These stories tell more than the plotlines or the characters' motives.  They describe a culture where there are princes and kings, where there is love and cruelty; where persons are persecuted and redeemed.  These stories give us a perception of parents and farms, of magic and mystery, where there are parties and revelry, where horses are ridden, where hunters kill pigs, where mining is done and men wear armour and fight for ladies, who use their love to bring about their downfall.  People go on very long journeys and believe in things and have hopes and dreams.

It is in using this pattern, studied from a young age by the man, that Tolkein seeks to tell us about his world: through the stories he chooses.  He tells how the neighbours gossip, about the little joke the Bilbo pulls, about Gandalf and how he's seen by various persons; and Gandalf reveals his part of the story later when he tells Frodo and Sam about the ring.  And then we watch a story progress in real time; a story that is interrupted repeatedly by other stories, where we learn more about the Frodo's quest and other times, places and peoples.  This compendium of bits and pieces are the key to understand Tolkein's Middle Earth.  He applies the same technique to the Hobbit, the Silmarillion and the "Unfinished Tales" ... if he had lived another thirty years, we'd have had more stories, more adventures, more substance and verve to ponder and use for further invention.

Understand that when I talk about the lives and troubles experienced by game world's NPCs, their worries about food supplies and having their menfolk at sea for a month, and the other dreary aspects of their small worlds, I am NOT speaking of a tallied list of factual details without soul.  "1. Farmer Brown's younger son knocked up the tailor's daughter; 2. The butcher is selling rat meat; 3. The Grant sisters never married," and so on.

[yes, Cavalier, I know it's a joke, but by Poe's Law, some people don't know it was].

I am speaking of the party's accumulation of imaginative, interesting stories that are NOT a parade of obvious plothooks:

"Yer the new folk round these parts, are you?  Have yeh met Molly yet?  She came down from the king's city last year; didn't adjust too well to the pace of life here at first, especially in the manner of her dress.  Made a few women in the town upset, she did.  Settled down now, though.  Not that I want to put you folk back on your heels.  You're welcome here; anybody is, that's got the will to work.  Not an easy life.  But you take ol' Molly there.  She learned, she did.  She's gotten to be quite the fixture around here.  So once you settle yourselves in, get yourselves sorted, you ought to take a walk along Bennet creek.  You're sure to meet her or her daughter there.  It's the house with the blue roof.  Stands right out, yeh can't miss it."

Is Molly important, or not?  Is that a hook, or not?  You don't know ... because I haven't told you, and I haven't committed myself to anything.  Maybe there's a secret to be learned and maybe there isn't; and maybe the secret's only available to the right player who says the right thing in the right way at the right time.  Maybe that time's in tonight's running and maybe it comes in ten runnings.  You don't know.  Meanwhile, as you consider what sort of person Molly is, there comes another story.

"Ah, you're the new owners.  Glad to meet you; Jakob, marshwarden.  You'll see me around from time to time.  Nice to see people in the Fraser place again.  Last decade or so, it's stood empty you know.  We had some out of towners living here about twelve years ago — had some crazy notion of raising mustard and selling it in the city.  None of 'em knew what they were doin' of course ... and of course they ran foul of the city's guild.  Nasty business that.  They all got slaughtered one night.  Right here.  Yep, one was layin' in the yard over there, and two were cut to bits inside.  They hanged the last one; hung her on that tree.  Don't know why they felt they needed to hang a woman.  But that's city types for yeh.  Oh, I'm sorry if it's all a bit gruesome for you.  Twelve years ago, though; and I never heard of the house bein' haunted.  You're likely safe.  Well, I've got to be off.  I'll come around in a few days, once you've settled in.  Good idea if we talk over a few of the laws around here.  G'day."

Is the house haunted?  Have I said it is?  In fact, I've said it isn't.  Am I responsible for what the players think?  No, I'm not.  One way or t'other, the players don't know ... and this is the crux of the matter.

These are not ongoing stories; they're stories about the past; about something that has taken place.  Yet there are doors open for the players to investigate or ignore ... and thus decide if meeting Molly or revisiting the interior of their new house is the beginning of another story.

The trick is to tell story after story, and to tell stories of every kind.  Stories about criminals, about lovers, about matters of business or the workings of the state ... stories about villainy, generosity, hardship and perseverance.  Stories about every kind of person in the game world ... about locals and outsiders, rich and poor, artisans, nobles, peasants, soldiers, little girls and "those who must not be named."  Stories that happened in ancient times, stories that happened to grandfathers and mothers, and stories that happened this morning.  And always with the point of view that the story may be something very important or it may be utterly unimportant.  The details may be critical to the character's survival; or the details may be incidental.  The trick is to learn which is which.  As DM, of course I know what matters.  I know everything.  I know about Molly's past, I know why the woman was hanged and not the men ... and I know where the treasure is buried on Molly's property and where it's buried on the player's new property.

But ... I'm not telling.  And because I'm not, and because the players have every reason to believe, through the stories, that very bad things can happen, for reasons that are not known ... yes, it's true.  They don't know which way to turn and what to do.

Aha.  That is not a bad thing.  Because, unlike throwing them into a setting where they know nothing, they know lots of things.  Some of which are a bit, shall we say, distressing.  We make sure to add those distressing things to the stories we tell.  But unlike the heavy hand of Lovecraft, we don't make the consequences crystal clear.  We let the players' imaginations gnaw at them.

When the players lack knowledge, they don't know if they're in jeopardy or not.  This is why actual jeopardy is not the same thing as fear.  You're perfectly capable of being afraid when there's nothing to be afraid of ... if you're convinced there is.  D&D is a wonderful vehicle for this.  We know there are dragons and magic, demonic possession, hideous monsters, horrific diseases, assassins, undead ... we don't need to advertise.  The players know these things exist; any of them could appear at any time, on any pretext.  This knowledge preys on them, particularly as things become less and less clear.

Push this mind fuckery far enough and you won't need jump scares to freak out your players.  They'll freak themselves out ... and letting their imaginations run, they'll naturally move a closer together as a consequence.  They'll even jump at shadows:

DM: What with delay after delay, by the time the party finds Molly's house, it's dark.  Your lanterns reveal a hint of blue in the roof; you're fairly sure this is the place.  Oscar, as you move around a small hedge towards the gate, with Simone on your right, the tree on the left makes a little movement.

Oscar: What?

DM:  The elm tree.  It's about five feet from you.  It's not moving now but you're sure it moved a couple of moments ago.

Oscar: I draw my sword.

Simone: Wait a moment.

Oscar: I'm just going to poke it.

Simone: If it's alive, we'd better both be ready.  I draw my axe.

DM: [shaking my head doubtfully]  If that's what you want.  A treant this big would have a lot of hit points.

Oscar: Fuck.

DM:  From the corner of your eye, you see the branch above you shift.

Simone:  I attack it.

DM:  Roll.

Simone:  A 17!

DM:  The tree gives no reaction.

Oscar:  I attack.

DM:  Roll.

Oscar:  Damn.  10.

DM:  It still manages to hit.  At that moment, a large portly woman slams open the door of the house and shouts, "WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING MY TREE?"

It really depends on how well you can massage the party's natural paranoia.  See, the problem with real, actual "peril" is that everyone knows what's going on ... so they can relax.  How does the line go?  "I prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around."  Ask a vet.  Three weeks in a jungle without seeing hide nor hair of the enemy is way, way worse ... and what happens, automatically, is that we start to see enemies everywhere.  Not knowing is creepy.  Peril is a relief.  And peril all the time merely cheapens the value of peril.

What's wanted is for our players to struggle for a while like a fly caught in mud; then to find themselves in a "straight fight," patting themselves on the back for getting there; then to have everything go terrifically sour that the straight fight is more than they can handle — forcing a retreat back to the mundane-yet-uncertain world they left.  And so on.  Never entirely sure of their best action, muddling along, doing their best, clinging to each other for support and steadily, through the stories they hear, learning about the world.

Ah, but how do we invent these stories?  Where do they come from?  How do we know which are the best stories to tell?

That, if it's possible to explain, will have to wait for another post.