6b: Known and Unknown Setting Composition

Part 6a: Setting Composition
Part 5: Managing Cognitive Load
Part 4: Projecting Engagement
Part 3: Cognitive Load & Information Filtering
Part 2c: Governing the Game
Part 2b: Setting Player Boundaries
Part 2a: The DM's Mental Toolbox
Part 1: Introduction to Session Management

Apart from the characters' memory, apart from their immediate surroundings, we move onto a discussion of "known unknowns." These are places, things and persons the characters have heard of, and know about, but which remain outside the players' experience. This can include the interior of a building the characters pass every day, or the uncle of a character that lives in another city, or the entire continent of — to pick an example — Asia, which is almost certainly there but which, in a theoretical campaign, the players have never actually been. Thus, known unknowns comprise a tremendous part of the setting.

As with our own experiences, these are not "secrets" or "hooks." They are simply places the players haven't yet investigated. A backpack, apparently filled with something, but which has yet to be opened, is a known unknown. These things are a natural consequence of living in a complex, unmapped, effectively infinite reality. The players, like real people, are surrounded by information of which they possess only the narrowest understanding. And if the setting is large enough, players must likewise accept that there will always be known unknowns. There's no way within the space of a game that played every two weeks, for even six hours a session, for the entire setting to be made "known."

The value of this ambiguity is that, unlike an adventure hook, which exists in isolation so as to manipulate the characters to undertake a specific action, the sheer abundancy of known unknowns allows players to assign their own weight to whatever they encounter. In effect, it's not the dungeon master that elevates the importance of a thing, but the players, through their character's perspective or curiosity. As they pass by a particular habitation, or hear of a dungeon, or the name of a person and their rank, the players automatically self-assign how important each is according to how it potentially fits their goals, fears, hunches and emotional investments. This supports a personalised agency, which in turn makes the players responsible for their actions — and the consequences of their actions.

For example, when in an adventure, the party is assisted by a man, Otto, who gives his origin as a place called "Lothven." During the adventure, Otto dies in a manner that he cannot be raised. The party, having grown attached to Otto, take it upon themselves to take the remains of Otto, or his personal effects, to Lothven, though they know nothing about the location except its name. We are not telling the players to do so; we are merely assigned the task to provide the players a route to Lothven, the presence of whatever it happens to be, as a responsibility we have towards the players. Initially, we may never have had any intention of adding Lothven meaningfully to the campaign; we might have introduced it merely as flavour. But now, the players are creating their own adventure. That gives them agency, it enriches the setting from their perspective, and we have nothing invested ourselves in seeing anything happen except to perhaps put a few random obstacles in their way and provide something interesting to find once they reach the end of their quest.

Through providing hundreds of such opportunities, as dungeon masters we're freed from assigning any importance to anything. We can emplace taverns, towns, rivers, mountain ranges, farmlands, market places and scores of realms and lands without concerning ourselves the least for what's there... until such time as the players choose to go. At that time, we create the path, add details to it, arrange the end locations and enrich as much as we have time for — with this very important condition. Lothven, wherever it is, must have characteristics that make it unique. We cannot just cookie-cut other places with the same shape and purpose, else the players have no special need to go there. No, whatever, Lothven is, it must have a nature that fits not only the place Otto came from, but elements of the Otto that the players knew. This is understandably challenging, since it means we must "make up something" when it's needed, even though we were not the perpetrators of that need.

As such, we must not strive to create "generic codes" for towns beyond their basic structure and presence. We must service the players' choices not only by providing adventure on demand, but by giving their choices weight, respecting the players enough to make every place memorable in its own fashion.

Realistically, then, not every place warrants an adventure. Lothven might be four hovels and a gristmill; but all it needs to have, if we want to give cause for the players to feel good about going there, is one small detail that's "worth it." Otto's mother, weeping, upon being given the things brought a hundred miles to her, says, "Woe is me; one son dead, the other lost forever... what shall I do?"

There it is, an actual hook — but not one forced on the party, but rather surreptitiously given as a reward. This line isn't a demand that the party now search out the whereabouts of the other son — it's the subtle curve in the road that the players may or may not decide to follow. Yet because it's Otto's brother, they may want to learn what's happened to Werner. First, however, we must talk about unknown unknowns.

Beyond what the players have heard about the setting, there are many, many things about which the players know nothing. The aforementioned Werner, for example, never spoken of by Otto, which the players cannot guess at until we speak of it. This is the DM's unexplained prerogative: not only the filling in of gaps in what's already understood, but the vast secret mechanisms of the game world that also exist, whose presence remains an utter mystery until we choose the moment of their invocation.

Some things may be guessed at: it is probable that assassins' guilds exist in the world, but where they are located, or if one is in fact just a few hundred yards from where the players are just now, is utterly unknown. Numerous events may seem perfectly random, but in fact we are keeping it a secret from the party that these things are together mechanised by a cabal, whose purpose has nothing to do with the party. No one knows, presently, that the Duke's son intends, in a few months time, to kill both his father and the king — and so, for the present, only we as dungeon master know it, keeping the secret in our minds until such time that it's right to reveal it.

Our purpose to having such unknowns, and not creating them on a whim, is in part so that we can stir the pot for the players for awhile. They can then imagine they're acting without observation, without the influence of others who are, in fact, ensuring their agency to some degree. This plays in our favour, accomplishing several important facets about our setting, when the reveal comes. To begin with, that all is not as it seems, that expresses that what they see is just a small sliver of a much larger reality — which isn't there to make the humble, but to provide structure for the day when they themselves become part of the manipulators when reaching that capability. Additionally, we establish that the world is going on independent of player knowledge. This provides depth and a sense of purpose to the setting, taking yet another step away from the notion that things happen only for the party's benefit.

Finally, when it's revealed, it doesn't feel like an arbitrary addition. It feels like something that has been earned — a momentum from the "outside" to the inside of things. Discovering the usurpation shouldn't make them feel like the world is too big to manage; it should be done so as to make them feel they're becoming involved in things that really matter. Not as pawns, but as protectors of the king... or, if so inclined, that they have the capability of contributing to the removal of power on that scale. Done right, this should feel like empowerment.

What elevates this approach above a twist-for-twist's sake is the emotional and mechanical resonance it fosters. The world feels earned, not given. The setting mirrors real epistemic growth: awareness, context, larger choices to make, consequential results of which the participants are a part. It lifts them from "just another dungeon" to "what kingdom might we topple today." This drives them towards preparation, gathering of resources, a hyper-readiness that dwarfs the necessity of just buying another sword or picking up a new rope. Now we need ropes and swords for hundreds, perhaps thousands of soldiers — which demands an outlay of resources that can't be collected by raiding a few dungeons. Because the setting is bigger, the players must be bigger too. They're not just heroes any more: they're moving towards becoming majestic.

To envision a game setting this large, the dungeon master must begin to think in layers. As stated already, there are those things in the characters' memories; there's what they SEE; there's what they vaguely know about. Now, there's all the world they do not know, even in reference. The measure isn't just geographical, though — it's economic, social, political, cultural, strategic, technological, with each aspect providing unexpected opportunity and detail. Yet of course we simply cannot draw a setting on this scale as we would a dungeon, which conveys the illusion of total control over every possibility the players might pursue. The world is simply too BIG for that. Mindfully, we must inhabit such a world ourselves, seeing the city and realm with such clarity in our minds that we can make it breathe at our whim — without drawings, maps, lists of character sheets or pretty much everything associated with Candyland-structure role-playing. There's no story; no agenda; no hyper-detailed depictions of room-sized spaces.

Instead, we must embrace "emergent play." This describes a living, layered setting that's too vast to script: one that is run by managing implications, not events. Imagine that the players arrive in a town and encounter an individual involved in a lucrative opportunity: the town is crying out for timber, as shipbuilding is booming in light of a naval conflict that is ongoing. This fellow, Nevis, has just brought in a large shipment of wood from a distant forest, where his family is in the present already logging and trimming another such shipment. As a DM, we must ask ourselves, what are the implications of these details?

The rise of shipbuilding implies a growing demand for many things, not just wood. It implies that the town is relatively safe from the war, or at least protected somehow, so that the docks aren't merely raided by an enemy and destroyed. It implies that Nevis alone cannot supply all the wood that the town needs. It implies that Nevis might need a partner, as he already has invented a supply line. And finally, it encourages the players to ask questions about the situation described, that they might discover, for themselves, what part they'd like to play.

We're not trading in "plot points." These are ongoing dynamics — the depth of which depends on our capacity as DM to understand what's going on, what could be going on, what consequences would arise from what decisions the players make... and ultimately, how the players' choices could change the balance of these dynamics. Inserted into this are moments of sabotage, attempted assassinations, raids, defense of property — great opportunities for combat, plunder, reward, status, acquisition of special items and so on, all without the limitations or repetitiveness of just another dungeon.

For the present, grasping that this form of play is possible is sufficient. It's made possible when the players look at a situation like this from the point of view, "There's a lot of unknowns here, that I can't begin to grasp or understand; but I trust my dungeon master. If I ask questions, I can learn what the unknowns are, which makes them known enough that I can begin to investigate them."

These are the four scales of the setting's composition. We're now free to move on.

6a. Setting Composition

Part 5: Managing Cognitive Load

Part 4: Projecting Engagement

Part 3: Cognitive Load & Information Filtering
Part 2c: Governing the Game

Part 2b: Setting Player Boundaries

Part 2a: The DM's Mental Toolbox

Part 1: Introduction to Session Management

The easiest setting for a DM to run is one that merely frames the players' actions and serves as scenery. This demands very little of us beyond surface description. We need no internal logic — the monsters are here to contend with the players, the residents of the town exist to give the players the information they need, especially for the next adventure. Apart from that, the village or town exists to supply the players' needs. This might be things to buy, special magical gifts granted by non-player characters, a safe place to sleep, healing or recreation. Like a theme park, these NPCs function like workers behind the scenes of the players' experience. They have no lives; their aspiration is to wait for and serve the party when they arrive. Their morality or behaviour is whatever the adventure needs it to be. Some are good, some are moustache-twirling evil, but none need depth because either they exist as the party's allies or their enemies. When they perform, it's role-play theatre, the purpose of which is to provide colour, not consequence. Nuance isn't necessary, as that wouldn't help the players gain experience, become wealthier and more powerful, or feel important as heroes.

Because the NPCs and monsters have no agency, there's no need to think through the logic of their statements or the convenience of their appearing at a specific place or time. Because they're just props, they can present themselves spontaneously as a danger — and when their usefulness in that is done, they can blip out of existence without another thought. Causality does not need to be tracked. Shopkeepers have no accounts to keep, no families to feed, no deliveries to receive. Stuff in their places is just there, ready to be picked off the shelf, apparently without limitation. And the player characters, too, have no real history; a player is asked to write out a few pages to explain the character's "motivations," but there's no concrete idea of childhood, accident, regret, time lived or experience gained in the time between their birth and the moment they enter the campaign. They are blank slates, with no awareness or memory of the world they grew up in.

The simplicity of all this is seductive because it's mechanically easy for the DM to maintain, precisely because it's not a world in any true sense. Everything is a stage set. Empires are borders on a map, which the players enter and leave, dressed up so as to appear marginally different — but in reality, each is just a different land of hats. Every day in this empire versus that kingdom is the same. There are always farmers, always wagons rolling over roads, always the same villages, always the same medieval political structure, etcetera. There are no seasons to keep track of: every day is a California 72-degrees, where the farmers endlessly plough the fields, in the same way, for 183 days of the year — whereupon they change over to harvesting. Because ploughing and harvesting is all farmers do.

All this delivers what the DM wants: a frictionless, low-effort experience where the players get what they want. It succeeds because no one at the table cares or expects continuity. The goal is immediate entertainment, power fantasy, casual group fun — where the absence of agency, sense or causality isn't a flaw. The setting doesn't need to make sense because that's not the game being run.

This correlates with the over time diminishment in the game's experience. Ideals of a deeper, more resilient world faded away in the decades after the game's inception.  The cause was not, however,  attributed to a fault of the setting, but to faults in the game's rules and interpretation. This led to new rules — which didn't and still haven't solved the problem — and inevitably to a growing expansion of game role-performance, in an effort to provide depth the setting does not possess. Since, the misdiagnosis has led to an ever more accommodating and permissive effort to keep the players engaged through every means possible except a correction of the setting's now intrinsically hollow structure. Dungeon masters, lacking a structural setting, have been forced to replace it with elaborate character arcs and exaggerated emotional performances, like circuses or theatres have to do nowadays, in an ever more desperate quest to put bottoms in seats. Because an intense, immersive setting proved too difficult to provide logistically, and could not easily be created from scratch, the community simply "gave up" on it — and now, what has been steadily built up to replace it is proving to be un-runnable and staggeringly disjointed.

To be specific, efforts taken to provide massive tomes dedicated towards "worldbuilding," have proved to be little more than travel brochures designed to entice the players to go there, while providing little value upon arrival. We have drama without weight. The game's trajectory over decades reflects a culture-wide capitulation: because the setting proved too hard to build and too complex to sustain, it's been replaced with an overwhelming sprawl of systems, sourcebooks and advice trying to reverse-engineer depth from the outside in. As a result, we have massive worldbuilding guides full of page count and vocabulary which, once read, prove to be all hat and no cow. There's no machinery behind the façade. It's assumed the DM will simply provide it, on demand — but no tools, no handbook, no defined methodology has ever been provided to make this possible.

An immersive setting assumes the reverse of this. The dungeon master provides the world's setting and no more. Like those in the real world, the people in the imagined setting are assumed to have intentions, aspirations, loyalties and troubles that have nothing whatsoever to do with the player character's arrival or appearance. They do not exist to provide anything for the party. Their exposition, when it's given, reflects what these people might normally speak about regardless of the players. If asked to provide a "rumour," these people have no idea what the player is talking about. The word "lore," a game-industry term, is anachronistic and has no meaning. There are no "arcs," because unlike a story and like the real world, things just happen and don't have to fit into a pre-modelled construction. Events occur because the residents, whomever they might be, sleep, wake, eat, hunt, search and carry forth an agenda that sometimes supports and sometimes threatens the players, depending on what the players want and where they happen to go. No one is "evil" or "good." Everyone is an amalgam of indifferent motivations, gained through their childhood, their personal experience, their allegiances and their concern for one another.

Interactions are not devices to move a plot forward but windows into a complex, autonomous structure. The complexity doesn't need to be flaunted. Initially, the surface of a village's daily life might appear to be staid and uninteresting — but as with the Village of Hommlet, the truth, whatever it may happen to be, emerges piece by piece, through player choices, interactions, the decision to remain or the decision to investigate deeper into puzzling behaviours. Unlike Hommlet, the truth might be anything, it doesn't need to be hidden evil; but it exists not because the players are there, but because intelligent beings pursue both positive and negative compulsions that lead to things they have every reason to keep hidden. The division supplies the dual-narrative: the place as it appears to be, and the place as it really is.

With the players, the DM's first responsibility is to define what the player's characters already know. Characters do not start the game at birth; they have already lived 15 or more years in the setting, so we must assume they have knowledge that we would automatically ascribe to people of their age. They don't need "rumours" to tell them about dangerous places nearby — they have been hearing stories about these places since infancy. They understand the structure of human habitations, who is in authority and what that authority allows. Because they are educated and proficient in weapons, spells, skills and the possession of natural advantages, they have likely visited nearby towns and cities, or crisscrossed the local realm by a number of its roads. They know the names of every important person in the locality, and most likely which groups oppose the general welfare of the realm and themselves. Asking questions about these things shouldn't be interactions between the players and non-player characters, but between the players and the DM, assuming the characters already know what the DM is now telling them.

More than this, characters are products of their world. They have learned not to behave sociopathically. While a player might perceive that there's nothing to lose by burning down the tavern (because the character isn't "real" anyway), the characters themselves would be inhibited by years of indoctrination and upbringing. They would not be able to set the tavern aflame because they could not, by virtue of having dwelt in the game world to this date. In like fashion, the characters have been socialised, trained and shaped by their geography, politics and customs. It's completely natural that they should believe in monarchy as the "correct" form of government; that they should hate the residents of another realm that has fought four wars in the last century with their realm. That the presence of slaves, if the setting permits it, is simply how things are. If the setting is based on a pre-Industrial world, then the ideologies, doctrines and egalitarianism of their industrially-built sentimentality have no place in the setting.

The advantage of this is self-evident: the players are free from an assumption that they're here to sustain social justice. The "justice" of their world already exists as it should be. They don't perceive themselves to be outsiders who have just arrived, with none of the characteristics of these other, alien people. In turn, the DM is freed from having to explain patterns of behaviour in terms of present-day beliefs or morality. We can, of course — if the players decide they want to eliminate slavery as a social construct, they're perfectly free to do so, though they might pause and think about the enormity of this task as it would have been, say, in the 14th century. But realistically, it shouldn't occur to them to do so, any more than it should ever occur to anyone to spontaneously, for giggles, to burn down an establishment. Because of this, as the governing body of the game, it's in our rights to demand that players recognise these restrictions, and hold them to it. We are here to play in another space and time, not to impune these fine people with their lives through disdain and contempt for something they thought, at the time, was perfectly right. Just as we assume we're perfectly right now.

This is what it means to roleplay in another time and place. Not to carry present righteousness as a badge, but to live honestly in the assumptions of the age. The justice of that world is not ours, and it doesn't need to be. That difference is not something to correct — it is something to play.

Traditionally, information in a bare-bones setting has to be carefully hoarded, because there is so little of it. Since every bit of knowledge the DM has about the keep or the caves the players will adventure into is critical to the game experience, DMs are naturally reticent to give out anything beyond what is strictly allowed, given where the players are or what questions they ask. In the more immersive setting, however, knowledge ceases to be at a premium. Like with the real world, it's impossible for the players to know everything — more and more information only invites more questions. Therefore, we need only decide what a player's character should logically know according to their past and their present skill-set... and give this information freely. Everything else, we simply say to the player, "You don't know." Eventually, once the player understands enough about the world to feel comfortable acting in it, we can move onto the next setting knowledge we're meant to provide as dungeon master.

At all times, we must have an accurate, solid idea of where the players are in the immediate moment — and we must be able to communicate the sensory and positional information about this location exactly enough that what we see in our minds is what the players see in theirs. It cannot be a game of telephone, where the message is garbled or convoluted. As such, we need to habitually check the players' knowledge: the wall is on their left, the open space sweeps out to their right, the tower is 200 yards away, the copse of trees is behind them and to their right, the wall is 15 feet high and made of granite, the ground has surface cover, wild grass mixed with small shrubs that do not block line-of-sight... and so on. The space must have dimension, the players must be able to orient themselves... and most of all, the space must be concretely navigable in some degree. The players must be able to say, "We go across the grass," "we climb the wall" or "we travel along the wall away from the tower," with a surety that as the dungeon master we're prepared for this, whatever choice they make. Any object in the space, whether it's a shrub or a coin sitting on the ground, must include a capacity to be interacted with — remembering that, in most cases in the real world, interacting with a plant or a found coin is unlikely to have much import. Nonetheless, the potential must exist.

This is difficult to accomplish for the new DM not versed in making declarative statements. Our statements about the location of the tower cannot be vague or stated without rigidity. Once named as a "tower" it cannot be lazily referred to as a keep or an outpost. It must have clear attributes in our mind from the moment we've declared its existence — and we must accept its existence ourselves as a responsibility, so that if the players go there, it is made of definable things, it has a logical entranceway, a floorplan, a reason for it having been built, a builder, a resident or a reason why there are no residents. Because the purpose of the tower is not to "give the players a place to adventure," but because "someone wanted a tower there," we must give the tower causality as well as existence. And we must do so unreservedly and responsibly, embracing the tower's existence ourselves, as something we're proud of, not something we regret adding.

It is likewise necessary that we possess an instinctive visual awareness. This describes an ability to imagine a space or object in spatial terms, enabling us not only to describe the dimension of things, but to see past the physical into the lived experience of the residents. If we imagine a village, we don't just see the buildings and the pathways: we automatically see the people, and in seeing them, we grasp automatically that they are about their purpose, moving this way and that, interacting, looking at ease, concerned, happy or whatnot. Each expression, in our imagination, immediately suggests a reason: at ease because all is going well, concerned because of a family member's health, happy because the day is nice. We see the residents as people — because in our everyday life in the place where we live, we're forever conscious that there are others around us, who have trials, urges, hopes, expectations and emotional weights that they're carrying. Many DMs come to the game without this reflective capacity. They travel through their real world with blinders on, never having thought to look into the faces of others, or note daily changes in their environment, or even care if the day is sunny or not. Such persons lack many of the basic skills necessary to make a world "come alive," because their own world isn't.

These are both learnable skills. We return again to the concept of mindfulness, which we earlier described as a contemplative process by which we "thought" at length about our game setting. The process directs us to deliberately walk around a space, starting with our own, looking over and gazing thoughtfully at objects that we ourselves keep. This bit of chintz here, this tapestry, this collection of cups we gather over the space of years... and puzzle out the manner in which each thing we own has come into our possession. We take a walk around our neighbourhood, reflecting on memories we have of the residents in other houses, now and in the past... and consider those places where we grew up, or where we visited, and remark in our thoughts how we would describe those to other people. From here, we give the same substance to imaginary things in our game's setting, reviewing how large things ought to be, how certain races come to have certain viewpoints on the world, why rivers flow as they do. As a body, this knowledge is shored up by reading about the fabrication of things like metal and ceramic objects, how things are constructed, the descriptive nature of personal histories, anthropology, sociology, geography — literally anything that can inform us more about the real world, so we can make our fictional world more real. The effective fallout of this isn't just that we become better DMs... we also become better read and more fashionably interesting as human beings.

The riddle of how we come to see the shape of the village is solved through lived attentiveness: not just observation but participation in the experience of others. This is extremely difficult for one kind of role-player... the kind that retreats to RPG gaming in order to have a social experience, having failed nearly everywhere else due to their demanding behaviour and lack of empathy. Such persons must embrace the flat, featureless game world, because they cannot begin to comprehend a world with residents that are both imaginary AND worthy of consideration.

For everyone else, however, this cohesiveness is a must — and it is learned through sharing the expressions, moods and subtle shifts of other people, not just in personal relationships but always and everywhere. Readers are invited to deliberately seek out places with lots of people and just watch... not just one time, but often, especially since many of us must be with other people a lot of the time. Time on the bus, time eating outside in the office mall, time attending a sports event or seeing a child's play are opportunities to watch and self-query about other people. We don't need to be right in our guesses. We only need to develop the skill that allows us to guess, and thus activate that visual awareness we can use when we make our guesses "real" for the player characters.

This is probably enough for now; the second part will have to be filled out with another post.

5. Managing Cognitive Load

Part 4: Projecting Engagement

Part 3: Cognitive Load & Information Filtering
Part 2c: Governing the Game

Part 2b: Setting Player Boundaries

Part 2a: The DM's Mental Toolbox

Part 1: Introduction to Session Management

It's believed that managing a session is demanding and difficult, what with constant, stressful pressures that both compromise our focus and drain our energy reserves. It's fair to ask why anyone would do it — while admitting that many don't want to, precisely because of what's involved. After all, we must keep the players engaged, we must improvise content, we must juggle unpredictable demands and manage pacing — simultaneously. This would seem to present an insurmountable problem — something which, in discussing session management, we must address.

We should best start by establishing in clear terms what the DM's responsibilities are. First, setting presentation: describing the physical space, maintaining a consistency in the world's environment, animating NPC behaviour and representing dynamic changes that take place in the game world. These would include weather, passage of time, mass movements of people, pressures wrought by food supply and technological equivalency, and all those things that make it possible for the players to feel grounded in a world that also contains magic, monsters, excessive technology, whatever the genre specifies. We're responsible for relaying those things that fall within the players' five senses, and those things the players are able to understand about the setting in the big picture.

Second, the control of this information, based upon the party's personal experiences and things they're told — which may be either truth or deception. We may tell the players they see a wall; that the wall appears to be solid. But should the players doubt us, we have it clear in our minds what the players must say for us to reveal that it really is solid or if it's a deception. This premise can apply to anything in the setting: which means the players must do more than experience the setting — they must, to be sure about it, interact with it. The setting is indifferent to the players. It does not clarify itself; the players must earn clarity through behaviour.

Finally, adjudication. This includes interpreting rules as they apply to the players' actions, in combat and otherwise. This defines what's possible, what can be done physically, by the players against or for the setting. This clarifies the DM's role as governing body over the rules, as previously explained.

This is a tremendous load for the DM. We must not only present the setting, but consciously create two narratives in our own minds: one for what the players' believe, prior to experimentation, and one for what experimentation reveals. This for the vast and considerable scope of the setting, involving incomprehensible geographic spaces, professions, purchasable items, the effects of all those items, as well as every person the players may ever interact with. This on top of knowing the rules cold, so that instant judgments can be made with the precision of a tennis judge calling ins and outs during a match where the ball moves at 140 m.p.h.

We must be clear, however, about what we're not doing, recalling the principle that the DM's responsibility stops at the setting's edge. Tailoring the setting to suit the players loads a considerable and unfair expectation upon the DM that ought to be, and was once upon a time, shouldered by the player. Expecting the DM to take responsibility for the player's engagement or enjoyment is, again, a burden the player should be responsible for, not the DM. While creating a "story," complete with set pieces and curated moments designed for the players is, again, work the DM shouldn't have to do; it is, in fact, the players who are responsible for deciding what they want to do, where they want to go, and what they want to achieve in the setting. We appreciate that there are lazy players, who want to treat role-playing as a form of personal entertainment for themselves; but having several players, each with individual needs and expectations, demanding that the DM satisfy everyone, is too big an ask. If role-playing is going to be a collaborative experience, then let's have it be one: with everyone accepting the responsibility for their own enjoyment, and not demanding this duty of others.

Moreover, again for the benefit of the DM's managing of role-playing's cognitive load, we should remember that RPGs are games, not a means to personal gratification and fantasy. There are conduits for that indulgence: artwork, fiction writing, the use of one's private imagination — all perfectly acceptable pursuits for the individual's expression, with a possibility of achieving notoriety and even wealth through skill and interpersonal empathy. But this sort of fulfillment is and should remain a personal aspiration. It's not acceptable to perceive that another person, one who does not share your fantasy, should nevertheless be responsible for ensuring you achieve your fantasy, merely because some RPGs happen to include the adjective "fantasy" as an activity description. "Fantasy," in this context, refers to the literary concept of a world where reality is tempered with elements of unreality. It does not actually mean that players are granted fantasies through the game's process.

Granted, those who have been misled, who have been inaccurately encouraged to redefine the DM's role as they see it, will contend with this position. Some will argue vehemently, taking the position that because we are a DM, we are responsible to them: a form of obligation that exists nowhere. It's structurally absurd to attach this viewpoint to a leisure activity. Moreover, this responsibility they wish to impose is not necessary to run the game. That others think otherwise is of no consequence. Their power over us can be obviated easily: they depend on our accepting their argument. Their dependence is not a position of strength.

Having dispensed with this invented responsibility to others, we are left with our responsibility to the game, which is real and follows those precepts described. At the outset of our dungeon mastering experience, these can be filtered also, to again reduce the strain on our mental energy. The dual narrative, for example, can be initially suspended — we can, if we so choose, present things exactly as they are, without exception, until we're ready to engage with both. For example, without this duality, if a group of enemies confronts the players with the intent to kill, we can accept this as fact. Their motives can be simplified; their sense of right and wrong, black and white, can likewise be assumed. This is not the end-goal: but where our effort to grasp and overcome the cognitive load of role-play is at stake, we can make this concession for the present, assigning our stretch into a more multi-dimensional setting structure for another time.

This stretch would include the enemies' motivations as part of their initial attack: are they really aggressive, or do they feel wronged? Are they being manipulated by an unseen force? Would they, in fact, be open to parley and negotiation if the players shouted, over the initial swordplay, that they "Come in peace"? Such additional characteristics, later, should be part and parcel with the game's setting. Imaginably, these would not be mere things for the players to fight and overcome — but would, by our scaling up of complexity, be driven by those motives that might influence anyone: the need for safety, stability, things they don't have, a desire to expand their control or their potential lack of agency due to a force more powerful. We may imagine anything — and yet present the creatures exactly as before, mere marauders with no more self-conception than what the players choose to believe. Such is the dual narrative we described: that there is more going on in the setting than meets the eye, though what "meets the eye" is what we are always responsible for providing as DM.

Because this dual narrative can be factored incrementally, we're not bound by a binary assumption that either the dual narrative is highly complex or non-existent. As DMs increase in skill, deferred knowledge not immediately evident can be introduced gradually, as we build our capacity in-game, expanding the game's functionality without becoming overwhelmed.

Setting that aside, however. What we're left with is the base sensory presence of the setting and the adjudication of the rules. This latter, too, can be mitigated — not by discarding, simplifying or imposing arbitrariness in place of the rules, but by strengthening our comprehension of the rules, both with regards to their purpose and their construction.

We benefit when we introduce new characters to the game who are limited in their skills, powers or technological access. This reduces the number of descriptions with which we must be fluent. It also provides a measure of containment upon the players: the world is too dangerous, in the main, for them to assume confidence or believe themselves to be important. This is something we should stress when introducing them to the game. We should not rush to make them more powerful, largely, because we're still just learning the game; until we fully grasp the effectiveness of low-level tools and traits, we should not assume the responsibility of comprehending mid-level or high-level equivalents. Should we rush to do so, we're bound to find ourselves quickly out of our depth, and the players dance rings around us through the use of skill sets that we don't know well enough how to regulate.

Narrative humility — the players are not the centre of the world, nor are they safe in it — provides an existential clarity that reinforces the game's ruleset. Rules exist as boundaries, dictating what the players can and cannot do. Suspending the boundary on a rule, even a little bit, risks increasing the player's self-importance, perhaps deluding them to believe that with this change, they ARE safe in the world. That small bit of confidence can be their undoing, easily, especially when we impose some other rule which we haven't changed. A good example would be the presence of dice, which are indifferent to player confidence. The smack-down that results, the set-back experienced by an over-confident player, is more traumatic than what a vigilant, threat-aware player feels.

The resultant fall-out of the set-back can easily undermine a player's respect for the rules. In turn, this can create a campaign-destructive loop: the DM, wishing to placate the player, mitigates the die roll, which increases the players' confidence, which requires another adjustment, so that round and round we go until all rules and all consequences are suspect. This is why we must first understand any rule fully before making a change to it, and second why we must stress to the player that the change in the rule in no way should make the player feel safe, because consequences that result regardless won't be mitigated. Otherwise, the cognitive load of trying to keep track of what rule changes have occurred, or what ought to occur, and what conditions must be observed to assure that a harsh consequence befalls a player, soon compromises our ability to properly run other aspects of the game that we should be prioritising.

Rules can be changed: but never in-game and never without first understanding all the implications of that rule, not just those that might affect a given situation. This allows rules to help us maintain order. Our minds are clear when the players understand, also, what the purpose of the rule is, and why it is so limited, not only from their perspective but also ours. We have a reason for respecting a rule because of what it allows us to present in terms of the setting; the player's wish to change it cannot be the priority.

Thus, when sharing out skill sets, at the start of each session, time should be taken to explain what the skill is meant to allow, its limitations, how we see it from our vantage point, and why such and such point won't be changed. At this time, the players can ask questions, make proposals and suggest circumstances where the rule may need reconsideration. Yet we make the final decision about that, and we make our decision based on what our setting requires, and what we're able to cognitively manage... and not on what the player wants or feels.

This establishes that rules are not merely mechanical assets, but negotiated points of interaction between setting logic, player understanding and our adjudication. Agreed, conceptual communication is an absolute necessity: the players should be as versed in their particulars of those rules governing their abilities as we are — and must, particularly, be on the same page. This reduces chaos and misinterpretion in game, subsequently reducing our cognitive load, making us better able to manage the game's more important detail, the conveyance of the setting.

We'll discuss this in our next class.

4. Projecting Engagement

Back in the OSR, when we used to really rock the game.

Part 3: Cognitive Load & Information Filtering
Part 2c: Governing the Game

Part 2b: Setting Player Boundaries

Part 2a: The DM's Mental Toolbox

Part 1: Introduction to Session Management

As a dungeon master presenting the game, we're asked to provide an experience that makes players want to engage: this means a setting with immersive atmosphere, individual personalities, threats — and the imparting of a keen interest to either succeed or accumulate for themselves within the game. It need not be "real," but it must connect with the players on a level that interests them, holding their attention while circumventing confusion or hesitation, which would let them become bored. Importantly, it is our personality that matters most; we must pull attention, compelling engagement. This is done through our passion and competence; but most of all, through our personal magnetism, which demands the players' participation in ways even they don't consciously understand.

Personal magnetism is an expression of our internal stability when communicating with others. Those with a high magnetism are well able to modulate and manage their emotions, focusing their attention on the task at hand, while maintaining a sense of purpose beyond the immediate moment. Earlier, we discussed the value of mindfulness, of consciously being self-aware of our setting and ourselves — magnetism takes this same internal alignment and projects it outwards to the players, so that we're not only invested in our setting for ourselves, but for the communication of that setting for others. It is our belief in that setting, our passion for it, and for the game itself, that supplies a believability in others; not out of obedience, but in the sense that as we convey our excitement about a thing, it is natural for others to be swept into excitement for that thing also.

It's a mistake to think that DMing is a question of "authority," which would stipulate giving orders — a thing most of us are uncomfortable with doing. In fact, this expectation impels us to hesitate before speaking, to comprehend too keenly that because we're expected to be "in command," we're going to utterly fail in that effort. We seek approval too hard; rather than order our players this way or that, what we want is to match our posture to theirs, to be one of them, to feel safe in their number. This isn't weakness, it is a natural instinct, borne of human social mirroring, where being a part of others' engagement is what we want. Pushed into dungeon mastering, we conceive that we're forced into a place of our own, where we're subject to being judged, held accountable and ultimately dissected for our failings. It is precisely the sense of having to be a "commander" that destroys our capacity to understand that DMing isn't "separating ourselves from the players," but having a vision that pulls them along, so that we're all together in that vision.

Those who embrace authority as dungeon masters are monsters: telling players what to do, how to play, what module they'll be playing today, what rules can be freely ignored as the DM prefers arbitrary rule-making and a host of other frankly abusive behaviours associated with a position the DM sees as "ruling over the players." There's no hesitation among this sort to claim it as such, in plain terms, as though they've come to the gaming table through divine right. This species of DM are merely those who have bought into the fallacy of the DM-God King, jumping in with both feet because they love the idea.

Some believe this authority is just so long as it's covert. They choose the module but they explain "it's all we have," skipping over the time the DM has had to prepare an alternative. They curate the experience of their players by removing or adding opponents surreptitiously, believing that so long as they act like gods behind the curtain, where they can't be seen, it's fine. They fudge dice, assuming it's their part to constantly regulate the players' experience without the players' awareness. Such persons have even succeeded in creating a widespread philosophy that all DMs should act this way, that it's "expected" and that there's no reason not to lie, cheat or swindle their players however they wish.

The larger difficulty that upends this ideology, however, remains confusion. We need an approach for governing the players without ordering them about, for inspiring their interest in our setting and our game. No such approach, so far as we know, exists. The absence of a clear method or model, for having standing as a dungeon master without slipping into domination, permits a terrain of abuse, coercion and power-grabbing.

We assume that when we struggle as a DM, that the problem is in the gifts that have been granted to us. We perceive that we're not charismatic enough, or that we lack a strong voice, or that we're not possessed of the thinking process that would let us succeed. We see others we respect and assume that they have a natural instinct for the role: they seem so confident, so in control, so comfortably poised. And we imagine, understandably, that whatever we have, it isn't sufficient for what a dungeon master needs.

But to quote Cassius, the fault is not in our stars, but ourselves; we simply don't understand what works, or how practical is to acquire the necessary set of skills that would get us past the imposter syndrome that possesses us. Note that here I have no intention of suggesting a group of self-help tricks or "exercises" that, if followed, will magically produce a result. Rather, the goal here is to outline why we react viscerally to certain behaviours, so that we may understand why those behaviours affect us so. This awareness, presumably, should allow us to first comprehend the behaviour when we see it, knowing now what it is; and then, knowing what it is, have a path towards emulating it.

This may be something of a leap: much of our originating consciousness as humans developed through our capacity to get rid of those clan members who acted against the clan's well-being by decisively getting rid of them. The result was, over many thousands of years, a more definitively egalitarian relationship between the survivors, who were ready to share meat, oppose bullies and act cooperatively in large-game hunting parties. As put by Christopher Boehm in Moral Origins,

"As a result of this very likely conflict, those powerful individuals who were better able to restrain their potential aggressions would have had better reproductive success than those who didn't — and got themselves killed. Thus, the evolution of more effective personal self-control could have been selected strongly. This can be taken as the beginning phase of moral origins, because it would have led to the internalisation of rules and the development of a self-judgmental sense of right and wrong."

As such, those individuals possessed certain characteristics that acted as cues indicating competence, confidence and a capacity as a threat: not a bully, but an individual supremely capable of acting efficiently violent in moments of necessity. Such persons earned the respect of the clan, both because they proved to be effective hunters (still in possession of their aggressive instincts), but also in that challenging such persons would more likely result in punishment than in success.

This is not to equate the "alpha" — a poor term, but recognisable so we'll use it — and that capacity as a threat with the dungeon master, but merely to discuss those as-yet undefined traits with respect to ourselves, where they still linger. And where they still, anthropologically, produce an instinctive reaction in us, carrying with it our perception of competence and an urge to both cooperate and join with the source. The alpha archetype, as defined presently by anthropology, is not the "dominant," but rather the individual most concerned with the well-being of others, and best possessed of skillset that allows this. Alphas who act as "dominant" in a pre-developed culture are culled, because they are bullies, because they hog all the meat and they don't share. This distinction is visibly lost in a culture where bullies rush to buy t-shirts that define themselves as the "alpha" — a classic example of behaviour a true alpha wouldn't betray.

The first of these traits is stillness. Stillness is a necessary trait in skilled hunters, expressing their capacity to wait, to remain fearlessly within a certain distance of dangerous prey without feeling the compulsion to flee. Moreover, stillness is readiness. In a fight, the one who rushes forward is, using the primitive tools of combat, the most exposed. We see this in cultural adaptations of battle-ready protagonists all the time; the one in control is the one depicted as ready, waiting... unmoving... then able to dispatch the enemy with a minimum of movement. The practice is expressed through martial arts from multiple geographic sources; the one who is fearless, who do not give in to fear, is the more dangerous. Those who desire to fight, who feel the pressure rising, who cannot restrain themselves, rush forward.

When we are afraid and not in control of ourselves, our posture and outward behaviour expresses this. We pace, we prowl, we waver as we stand, we move our feet, we shift our posture, we scan the environment; we feel pressure that we're being perceived by others, and our lack of self-control betrays itself through movement. Other humans, selected through countless generations, recognise these signals intuitively as fear, without realising it — just as we experience stillness in others as something to be afraid of. Some of this stems from large animals, particularly cats, who hunt through slow approach and moments of stillness: but it's actually more at home in our associations with each other, where older, more self-aware persons in our past learned to acquire stillness — in classrooms, as ministers, as police officers and other authorities — as a strong, practical posture.

Which means, it's achievable. By anyone. Any number of activities can train this into us, particularly martial arts, but also time spent in theatre, sports and other activities where we're engaged with something larger than ourselves. We learn to focus and not move; to be self-aware and mindful of our bodies. To stop leaking our emotional state into movement. It takes time, but anyone committed can do it.

With stillness, we also convey our readiness through eye contact — not only with other persons, but otherwise also. While a direct, provocative gaze functions as a challenge or a test of rank, when we focus with intensity upon something, our facial expression conveys importance. Looking over our notes during a game, motionless, intent on the numbers or details there, we present a physical message that something significant is in the works, that it has been prepared... and thus, it's about to be unleashed from a place of apparent competence and readiness. The more intense the stare, the more intuitive the awareness becomes of those around us.

We can easily imagine a still, efficient clan leader freezing and then concentrating upon some physical space: a patch of green, a bit of sky, a cliff-face. Seeing them absorbed in something to the point of immobility produces an immediate response: we brace, anticipating. In readiness ourselves, watching the other, our adrenaline jumps, our expectation as well, and we feel the power of suggestive game-management in precisely the way that we want it. The power of these moments, which we can create simply by pausing, holding a die so tightly in our hand that the whiteness of our knuckles is picked up intuitively by the party, scales upwards as we're able to unleash portions of our setting with force and power to match the intuitive build-up just described.

The players cannot help themselves; as before, anthropologically, their nervous systems are attuned to latch onto these signals without needing narration, through visual cues alone. This builds a physical atmosphere; a shared atmosphere, which everyone feels, not attained through role-playing or posturing, but through fundamental biological characteristics that as humans we can neither control nor ignore. If we have reason to feel threatened, or that something of great importance is about to happen, we become excited... because, once upon a time, this is how we survived in the wild.

If we can compel ourselves to invest more firmly into the game, disregarding perceived consequences or judgement, then as we engage with our own material, the players will also. Once our attention remains vividly fixed upon the miniatures, the next players' turn, the ongoing events — and if we can enforce the players' desire to disengage with their nervousness through derailing the game by speaking of second-hand accounts of things happening elsewhere (which relieves the tension of a player who is uncomfortable with tension), then we can effectively manage several one or two-minute "events" in a given session to start. Over time, these events can be extended as we grow in comfort, keeping our eye on the game (a skill learned in many sports opportunities), and multiplied, producing a "good game" that might even give the players the shakes over time, as their adrenaline rises.

This is possible when we realise it's our gaze, and not our speech, our costuming, even the actual game, that grants importance to things. It may not, conjecturally, seem evident... but this is a behaviour installed firmly into our biology long before speech or even intuitive thought began. It's an evolutionary lever evolved from our fundamental cognitive origin. And therefore a comprehension of ourselves and our anatomy, not a trick.

Yet, another characteristic of the alpha is speech — more likely a set of diphthonic expressions at first (the term used figuratively, not technically), but meant to express emotional-based communications conveying warning, instruction or uncertainty. The manner these were used more sincerely conveyed the emotion than the sounds themselves: in the way that the tone and expressiveness we can use with a single word, say a curse, provides a fantastic range of feeling or response. In a context where confusion might result in the death of individuals engaged in a hunt or a fight, or seeking aid for a clan member who had slipped and become injured, or trapped, the intensity and emotiveness of the sound is more important than the mix of vowels and conjunctions themselves.

Knowing this, we may comprehend that others do not hear the exact words of our descriptions nearly as precisely as we might imagine — but are, instead, seeking the urgency of those words. A long meandering passage lacks urgency, and therefore importance; short, grunted phrases are rude, threatening; rhythmic phrases convey beauty, without the need for long descriptions. Directions can be brief: "Neema, your turn." Urgency, expressed through clipped, minimalistic language, conveys tension. Long tedious stories delivered by shopkeepers, nobles or other expository characters are dull, trivial... and therefore not worthy of the player's time.

The alpha personality speaks in short, decisive statements, without filler or uncertainty. This is perceived as prepared and keeping one's own counsel; to others, it conveys a knowledge that is possessed but not shared. Such persons are automatically read as not needing to say much, because they don't "need." Speech is another way that persons have of leaking their emotions, their concerns, their shortcomings and the lack of preparation for what's coming. Nervous, uncomfortable players ask multiple questions intended to reassure them. Short, uncompromising answers provide little of this, so that such players are forced to accept fear as a template to action. Often, this can freeze some players, making them so uncomfortable they can't act at all. Which, point in fact, reduces demands on the DM's time. In a resource-allocation sense, where pressure on the DM is high, an intra-party discussion between those who want to enter and those that don't, as it wages back and forth, provides plenty of time for us to get up, stretch, get a coffee, visit the facilities or get whatever is coming next ready. Meanwhile, we've achieved what we've sought: the players are actively, emotionally, deeply engaged in the setting, without our need to keep poking that fire.

These behaviours — stillness, gaze, controlled speech and the concomitant emotional transparency — emerge as adaptive traits for dungeon masters who want to gain more control over their game table while providing a better experience. As we become the source for the players' fascination with the setting, their desire to hear what we have to say next eliminates our need to impose any authority; we become the most interesting voice by default, so that when we speak, with a mix of urgency and short phrasing, the desire is to listen because what we have to say matters more to them than it does to us.

It is interesting to note that these characteristics, employed, are not manipulative or challenging; they merely represent what human beings have become comfortable with, these past 800,000 years or so, as adaptations.

Aloe

Using this blog as a diary.  Here's a pic of my aloe as it was the end of last October, 2024:

And here is the same aloe today:

Crazy, huh?

3: Cognitive Load & Information Filtering

Part 2c: Governing the Game

Part 2b: Setting Player Boundaries

Part 2a: The DM's Mental Toolbox
Part 1: Introduction to Session Management

Most sources describe dungeon mastering as a highly complex and difficult process, given that there are so many things to keep track of and be prepared for. However, as described in yesterday's post, many of these things are actually "add ons," non-game elements dumped by either the company or game culture on the DM — such as how long a particular game process is taking (because we must worry about player boredom) or the enjoyment state of the players (as something we're supposed to monitor and provide). Many systems stress the importance of "timekeeping," which does matter a great deal in combat, with regard to whose round it is, how long a spell lasts, or when we expect reinforcements to arrive. But the hour of the day, or how long exactly the players have been in a dungeon, are things we can account for at our convenience. We don't need to know such details down to the minute.

In the RPG 201 class, we discussed automatic processing, as contrasted with "controlled" processing. Briefly, that class explained that as dungeon masters move from "novice" to "beginner" status, they cease concentrating on word choices or the perceived mental process of the players. Where before they might have needed to reference game details not yet committed to memory, this information now comes instantly to mind upon thinking about it. Further, the DM begins to predict the players as a group instead of individuals, as well as their probable behaviour in certain repeatable situations, such as readying themselves for battle or arriving at a village. In effect, the DM's cognitive load is lightened with regard to basic facts such as rules, setting details, the process of combat and so on... because we become proficient in these things.

Further, when we cease to question the "logic" of things, particularly rules, simply accepting that no, room is not given for the players to interpret the use of the rules during game time, but to accept them as written; and that the rules are explanatory for the purpose of game play, not for the purpose of personal simulated experiential action, a great deal of time is saved. If the player suggests, for example, that sharpening their sword should make it hit better, we must answer, first, "It is assumed already that you do that, that everyone does that, and therefore that does not change the in-game reality," and second, "The game rules clearly state how the game is played, and how you are expected to play it," and finally, if need be, "The time to discuss the rules is not during the game but after it." In this, we should imagine ourselves as an umpire facing a player who is arguing that the player was "safe" and not, as we called it, "out." Even if this argument was brought by a loving parent, and the player was a five-year-old, our answer would be the same: "You're out of order, sit down, or you will be ejected from this game and made to leave immediately." Because this is how the real world deals with those who won't obey the rules, or who won't see the rules as deserving of being obeyed.

Once we comprehend that we are here to uphold the integrity of the game and not as a judge whose role is to entertain rule changes during play, our confidence rapidly improves. Once we see the rules as "methods of process" and not "subjects of query," we cease to assign mental cognition to moments when we use a spell, or cause damage to a character, or kill one. Those are the rules. We're just playing the rules. Later, after the game, we can and SHOULD entertain interpretation, coming to a consensus, always remembering that we need to hold our ground on what works, not on what the player wants. Every baseball player who perceives their skill-set to be lower than their companions wants four strikes, not three; and many want the "four-strike" rule applied to them personally, alone — not to the other players and certainly not to the other team. But that is not how rules work. Rules are meant to be impersonal; they're meant to compel all persons, regardless of skill or mindset, to measure themselves equally against the same rules that everyone else does. This is what "levelling the playing field" means.

When a rule has been in place for decades, that rule in particular must be firmly enforced. And many rules from many role-playing games have exactly this degree of cachet. There are cases where rules in place that functioned perfectly for 25 or more years, only to be absurdly changed to suit some fashionable notion. But we need not and should not give way to such; the very idea that we should toss out a rule that's demonstrated its sustainability and effectiveness, simply because it is "old," is almost certain to be the death of something that once functioned well, and now doesn't. Moreover, by preserving the functionality of the rule over its "sensibility," we ease our cognitive load during game play, not only because we're very familiar with the rule, but because our players are as well — whether they agree with it or not. Everyone knows how the rule works; this alone lightens the mental load on everyone at the table, not only the DM, and keeps the game moving.

Further, reapplying the same rules over and over without change builds cognitive memory, allowing their memorisation through use. This applies not only to those we know by heart, but also those whose location in a book, or in a computer file, makes them easier to fetch within a space of 15 to 20 seconds, when needed. In time, rule use becomes a part of our reflexive memory, and not a task we need account for at all, any more than we need to remember which die is the 12-sided or what to do first when running a combat.

In toto, the substance of the above is to establish a demarcation between ongoing awareness and everything else that can be disregarded; this reduces the load to a place where it can be managed, despite its complexity. In like fashion, a far more complex operation is managed daily by a surgeon, who during the operation is not concerned with the patient's long-term health diagnosis, hospital politics, the emotional state of the patient's family, nor anything not directly applicable to the specifics of surgery. These, in turn, are not arbitrary or improvised. Each step is codified, in order of action: preparation, incision, exposure, intervention, closure and post-operative management. Every step has a name, every name an exact meaning, every meaning is intensively communicated to the surgeon and the team so that every person at the operating table has perfect coherence with one another — no individual speaks with language that compromises this understanding, because life and death are at stake.

Role-playing obviously is not so dire. Yet clarity — in vocabulary, exposition, explanation, rule use, phrasing and so on — reduces cognitive load, as does comprehending exactly what is asked of us as a dungeon master from moment to moment, not in squidgy uncertain flowered language like "imagination" or "storytelling," but in precise language that permits instant comprehension, both in ourselves and in others.

Combat is the most rigid part of an RPG. Time slows to permit exact descriptions of what each character does, in the immediate present. The consequences of their actions then leave a wake of effect — defeated creatures, frustration and anger of those still engaged, desperation, items lost, abilities and benefits expended — which round by round alters the contest in some degree that requires re-evaluation and tactics that must be applied on the fly. This also includes the sound of the battle, should this trigger an alarm, as well as other effects of this kind. Ahead of the combat is that which hasn't happened yet: an enemy with a withheld weapon, that as DM we've decided is going to be used when these preconditions are met; reinforcements that are due to arrive in such and such a turn; anything we know, which the players don't, but which will come into play at some point. All of these must remain in our mind when DMing to some degree; concentrating on those things at the fore from moment to moment, while the rest remains in the back of our mind.

We should think of those things as "queued," so that while we're running the combat in our RAM, the CPU cycles are regularly checking against those deferred elements sitting in memory, each with their condition for execution. They're not being actively processed, but they’re part of the loop. Our DM's CPU polls those queues every round, briefly: how many rounds left before the effect of the sound carrying brings someone, is the defender with the power weapon sufficiently desperate enough, has a change in the players' movements enabled one of them to see the homunculus hidden behind the pillar? Everything has a flag, an "if-then" condition, which we're waiting for, remaining situationally aware of the moment to bring that detail into play, once again changing the balance of the combat.

In a larger sense, we're doing this all the time, where the setting is concerned. In the immediate moment, wherever the party happens to be, we track the shape of the space, those in it, their agendas, the players' stated agenda, access into the space... and the CPU flags of those we imagine would logically enter at some point: a member of the guard, several members if the party or someone else has put the guard on alert, a chance entry by a friend or foe of the party, anything we might think of that takes place in the next five or ten minutes of game time while the party is planning, chatting about out-of-game things, asking questions of us and so on.

Wherever the party has been to this point, like with combat, they've left changes in their wake: enemies that are searching for them, a growing reputation, an NPC who has joined the party as a servant and is now becoming disgruntled because no one has mentioned his or her name in four runnings and so on. Generally, when a boat moves through water, creating the "wake," the water just folds back into place without much consequence, so for the most part, we can see a lot of what the party does the same way. But when we can see a usable consequence of their actions, something that can be posited into the present campaign's action, the players can be imbued with a sense of accomplishment (which can make their buttons burst in response) or a sense of foreboding or regret ("I knew we shouldn't have done that," says one party member. Either help deepen the campaign experience, while allowing our DMing to appear better considered and significant. This is accomplished simply by considering what the players have done, considering what good or bad things might happen as a result, and then imposing that result into the next campaign session.

And again like with combat, there are those things the players have not yet encountered, but which are "out there and part of the setting" nonetheless. There are always dungeons, castles and other sites we haven't made yet, and we might imagine important figures in the game world ready to become a part of the party's experience once they reach a certain level, or become interested in establishing themselves in a location, such as powerful spellcasters, monarchs, organised cabals, banking consortiums, guilds or whatnot. Most of these aren't at all part of the moment-to-moment, but we should still be functionally ready for something the players say, or a plan they make, to "unlock" one of these elements so that they're now ready to confront the party.

Comprehending how we do these things forms the substance of much that follows in the next ten classes or so.

Issues in Mentoring

I have to pause today before undertaking the next class, and discuss the structural mess as it applies to the dungeon master's role. This is content that needs to find its way into the preface or forward of a book; but for the moment, it's simply a point I have to clarify.

Presently, a would-be DM is being handed a broken compass.  There are three directional pulls being placed on the DM, two of them hopelessly corrupt, the last hopelessly lost in the chaos, but all three presented with the same apparent legitimacy.

First, we have the "entertainment model," where the DM's role is seen as someone who provides amusement or enjoyment for others, selflessly as it happens, ensuring that the emotional temperature of the game is kept exciting. If the DM senses boredom — and this is something the DM is expected to keep tabs on, like a technician looking at dials in a large factory plant — then it's our place to rush in and, like a casino host whose job is to offer free meals, hotel rooms or show tickets to losing gamblers, make the players happy so they'll keep playing.  Interestingly, the job title for someone in a casino who's focused on identifying and retaining valuable players is called a "player development host"... and is this not a more perfect phrase for a DM nowadays whose expected to act like this?  Shall I stop using DM and just adopt PDH instead?

The pressure many DMs feel is that they're supposed to retain users, to keep them seated, to keep the session "engaging," to monitor satisfaction levels and adjust the content accordingly.  We're responsible for everyone's mood, for everyone's fun, for keeping the energy up, like a tired emcee doing work at a dead wedding.  Whether or not you or I feel this is what our job is, this message is hammered and hammered by site after site, by youtube video after video, as what matters, what we're supposed to do, and that if we do not do this, we're both selfish and irresponsible.

Then, we have the "corporate entity model," where the DM becomes the enforcer of a design philosophy that doesn't work, but must be protected from criticism.  We're expected to balance combats on the fly, incorporate near-perfect equalisation between player characters while providing maximum individualism and uniqueness, resolve inconsistences in the game with arbitrary rulings, and carry the burden of "making the game work" with our own effort, rather than acknowledge or say out loud that the system is a joke.  Meanwhile, it's on us to ensure that our game table is "inclusive," "supportive" or "collaborative."  If a player wants a "combat wheelchair," so that disabled persons can be represented and feel empowered, then as DMs we should want that too, because the company wants it.  Refusing to do so makes us hostile, regressive, or "unsafe" to be played with.

This isn't about our running a functional game, but about absorbing the company's liability.  The rules don't mesh, the setting is inconsistent, the mechanics are absent or nonsensical, but it's okay that the company doesn't address those things because as the DM, they're your problem.  Fix it, invisibly, kindly and in real time, but not in a way that might embarrass the company or suggest that they did anything wrong in their release of the game.  Our role is to be the compliance filter, to enforce the brand experience, and to do so loudly, blindly and with a desire to take full responsibility when the system fails, the players flail and the game falls apart.

And last, there's the "DM as World Function."  The old way.  The way that built everything that exists now.  The one that says the players are responsible for their own fun, the DM is there to make a setting and keep it solid, to adjudicate action, to carry out the consequences existing in the old game rules, and only this.  Except that this method receives zero support, across the board.  Every notable voice, official or unofficial, decries it, disputes its legitimacy, argues that the old game doesn't work, that those who say that it does are deluded, and in any case it's really old and therefore not worth playing now.

It's not flashy. It's not inclusive. The players act, the DM adjudicates. Players don't feel "seen" or supported, they're not special, they're not unique, there's no room for role-playing, or for player creativity, or for player spotlight moments and it's possible for cherished characters to die.  All this, and much, much more that disparages and trashes the old way of doing so, is the favoured message of all those who are bent on systematically erasing the old game... because as a product, there's nothing there.

So what are we to do?

The problem is, for 25 years, between the birth of D&D and the OGL, no official representative undertook to write more than a paragraph on the problem of "how to DM a game."  No one discussed even as much as I have in the previous four posts on this topic, either because they couldn't or they didn't see it as necessary.  And this left a void, which various persons with an agenda eventually, after a long time had passed, and following the ability to collaborate on their agendas through the internet, eventually exploited with the two conflicting yet corrupt versions of DMing above.  And now, there is no text to return to.  At best, we have this:

Is Dungeon Mastering an art or a science? An interesting question!

If you consider the pure creative aspect of starting from scratch, the “personal touch” of individual flair that goes into preparing and running a unique campaign, or the particular style of moderating a game adventure, then Dungeon Mastering may indeed be thought of as an art.

If you consider the aspect of experimentation, the painstaking effort of preparation and attention to detail, and the continuing search for new ideas and approaches, then Dungeon Mastering is perhaps more like a science—not always exacting in a literal sense, but exacting in terms of what is required to do the job well.

Esoteric questions aside, one thing is for certain—Dungeon Mastering is, above all, a labor of love. It is demanding, time-consuming, and certainly not a task to be undertaken lightly (the sheer bulk of the book you hold in your hand will tell you that!). But, as all DMs know, the rewards are great—an endless challenge to the imagination and intellect, an enjoyable pastime to fill many hours with fantastic and often unpredictable happenings, and an opportunity to watch a story unfold and a grand idea grow and flourish. The imagination knows no bounds, and the possibilities of the game of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS are just as limitless. Who can say what awaits each player, except a cornucopia of fantasy and heroic adventure? So much is waiting, indeed!

This book holds much in store for you as a DM—it is your primary tool in constructing your own “world,” or milieu. It contains a wealth of material, and combined with the other works of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (the MONSTER MANUAL and PLAYERS HANDBOOK) gives you all the information you need to play AD&D. But, as always, one more thing is needed—your imagination. Use the written material as your foundation and inspiration, then explore the creative possibilities you have in your own mind to make your game something special.

Dungeon Mastering itself is no easy undertaking, to be sure. But Dungeon Mastering well is doubly difficult. There are few gamemasters around who are so superb in their conduct of play that they could disdain the opportunity to improve themselves in some way. Fortunately, this work addresses the matter at length, and gives you plenty of suggestions on all aspects of Dungeon Mastering (as well as some of the finer points) in order to help you improve your own efforts. Take heed, and always endeavor to make the game the best it can be—and all that it can be!

Which basically says, hands in the air, "Huh? No idea. Your problem."

The great originators of D&D, faced with the central issue of their game, the presence of the dungeon master which they lauded as the thing that made their game "GREAT, UNLIKE ANY OTHER GAME!!"... phoned it in when talking about what the DM actually does.  And kept phoning it in, even as game edition after game edition was released.  The Dragon Magazine never really addresses it.  No "core DM" ever addressed it in a single book designed just to explain the role.  And while the silence continued, while the matter sat and mouldered, like cabbage left open in a basement for decades, no mass of players ever rose and said, "What the fuck?"

And what do we have now?  Overwritten politically driven pandering.  Sanitised jargon.  Theories of play designed to serve a brand.  Rot.

I believe intrinsically, from the way people struggle with and discuss the game, there's a sense that what they're doing isn't working.  DMs feel the pressure being dumped on them.  One after another, they talk about not knowing what they were supposed to do, about not having the skills, about not being sure what the game is, about the confusion brought by the resources they read, about their inability to handle "weird game stuff" that the rules don't cover, about unrestrained cheating and lying, about the irrationality of excessive role-playing and posturing... the list really does just go on and on, and all of it is tainted with this sense of "I just have no fucking clue what I'm doing."

Yet, they sense that others do know the answer to this, but they're just not telling.  Because there's money to be made in "seeming to know" what running is; even when the lack of knowledge is so painfully on display, it's used as "evidence of status."  It's a content economy running a confidence game, where the DM's confusion is being harvested, turned into monetisable insecurity, clicks, videos, advice columns, patreon tiers, affiliate links, endless guides that promise certainty while never giving it.

I know how to do it.  And I can explain it.  But anything I say is going to be lost in the maelstrom of internet distraction and disruption that's already learned to make money from those who don't know how to do it.  Not knowing is more profitable than knowing; therefore, there's no motivation left to mentor a DM. It's better to let them slowly rot, like that cabbage, while continuing to pay out.

My next class means to address the mental pressure of setting presentation, fielding questions, decision making, managing game mechanics and rules, while retaining one's equilibrium, sense of self and enjoyment of the DM experience, while under stress.  This is so removed from the game's culture, so absolutely beyond the game presence that exists in any capacity online, that my only choice in addressing the matter is to turn to source material having nothing to do with gaming or role-playing, such as business management and danger-based situational awareness heavy occupations, such as fire-fighting and the military.  The very idea of role-playing being discussed in actual concrete terms has putrefied out of existence.  It's very sad.  Particularly when I have no expectation that anything I write can have the least influence on what my favourite activity has become.  It is interesting to be a self-aware expert in something that millions of people want to do... and yet be unable to teach them, for free, because the surrounding structure cherishes ignorance for the money that ignorant people are willing and able to spend.

2c: Governing the Game

Part 2b: Setting Player Boundaries

Part 2a: The DM's Mental Toolbox
Part 1: Introduction to Session Management

As the dungeon master is positioned as having ultimate authority within the game, our role goes beyond simply presenting the setting and limiting the player's behaviour. From the moment that play begins, we are responsible for maintaining order, enforcing the rules and ensuring that the players both cooperate and act fairly with the rules' expectations, both with respect to us and with each other. Our judgment in these matters shape the flow and outcome of the game, as we decide whether a player has acted wrongly or falsely, whether a die roll counts, whether a chosen action is legitimate, or the consequences of that action. When making a ruling of this kind, that judgment is final.

At the same time, despite our broad authority, we must perceive that DMs must act strictly within the bounds of the agreed-upon rules. We cannot invent rules without discussion, or make decisions that contradict the written rules. Our authority is interpretive and situational, NOT legislative. For example, if a rolled die clearly indicates a hit, we cannot redefine the target's armour class or increase the number of hit points the target has, even in unusual circumstances. We should, if more enemy suddenly enters a room, have a justifiable reason for why the did not arrive earlier, as well as a defensible explanation for where they came from within the structure of the setting we're presenting. We cannot, and should not, simply invent them out of the air, despite that being in our power.

Additionally, while our calls are final, the rules prohibit us from arbitrarily applying penalties or making decisions based on emotion or bias. If player A performs an action that saves the kingdom, we should not reward the crown to player B, simply because we prefer player B. Further, if we eject a player from a game, it must be based on misconduct or a violation of conduct codes — failure to appear, open disrespect for the rules, an excessive display of emotional dissatisfaction. Lastly, we should not influence gameplay to produce the results we want, regardless of the reason; we are here to be neutral, not to enforce an outcome that we might desire, merely because we desire it. Our expectations must end at the setting's edge — and should not apply to the player's success outside those game processes that produce success.

From here, we're duty bound to consider a number of custodian-like duties that must be upheld prior to our actually running the game, fixing in our head what makes a game judgment "correct" for ourselves. This requires our interpretation of the game we want to run, and what we want to achieve in our part of running it. Let's address a number of these points one at a time, with the understanding that this list is not and cannot be exhaustive, given the nature of role-playing.

1. The DM must require strict observance of all game rules, by the DM also, governing the manner in which the players communicate and accept the consequences of their actions. This includes limitations upon what "coaching" the DM is allowed to provide, including the freedom to express unsolicited advice, and what consequences ought to befall the DM who fails to uphold the rules or these expectations.

This means observing the rules by submitting to them in the same way the players are expected to. We thus apply them consistently, without alteration or omission — within the best of our ability, there being so many rules — and accept the consequences of those rules where it comes to how non-player monsters, persons or game entities are affected. If the players "luck out" and kill our favourite monster, we accept that as a matter of course and do not invent reasons why it hasn't happened. If a rule is vague, and we are required to interpret the rule, then we make a note of that interpretation and that interpretation becomes a precedent for future incidents.

If no rules exist, we review the game setting itself: can a judgment be rendered on physical limitations deriving from natural laws, or the premise established by already existing magic, or the likelihood of a given event taking place? If not, then instead of imposing an arbitrary ruling, we should allow arguments for or against to be presented by the players, then attempt to rule in their favour if we can — later returning to the issue by establishing a rule of some kind for it, then directly informing the players that while it worked that one time, now the rules clearly state it won't again, and therefore they should not rely upon it. Slowly, steadily, this approach suspends rulings intended to defacto block player actions, while imposing a new structure for later on that allows the players to make informed decisions. In this manner, we use rulings in a measured, fair and pragmatic fashion, not as a tool for our maintain our DM's power, but as a guide to growing the world's internal logic over time.

In giving counsel to a player in-game, we are justifiable if that counsel is to make the player aware of a rule or a long-established option the player may not be aware of. For example, if a rule states that it's possible to run forward at an enemy, draw an axe and throw it all as one movement, then the player is entitled to know this as an option. If the distance to be leaped is 9 feet, and the player has automatically discounted that as an option because they believe they cannot jump 9 feet, then this applies as something their character can do, and therefore something the player has a right to know about their character. We're not saying to the player, "Jump the distance," we're only saying, "You can jump the distance." Anything the DM believes the player's character would know ought to be conveyed to the player, as a matter of indicating what the rules say about the character's knowledge and state of mind, thereby allowing the DM to inform the player thereto.

The DM should not tell which door should be opened, nor give information that the characters could not possibly know, nor give advice in the form of, "You'd be smart to do this," or any such judgmentally framed manner of speaking about a player's choice of action. The game's integrity hinges on the idea that player choices are meaningful because they arise from the players themselves — not from cues, nudges or value-laden suggestions from the person running the world... and absolutely not granted to one player more often than any other. The DM should not play favourites in who gets to know and who doesn't.

Prior to game play, we must review these precepts in our mind — and, where we perceive ourselves that something isn't wholly clear in our mind, we should sit and make specific rules regarding those things, which can then be explained to the players before such cases ever emerge. Suppose we have a situation where a player chooses that his character is going to set the tavern on fire, without cause, or again without cause, kill an NPC that the player perceives exists solely to give the party exposition about the setting. Is it acceptable for the player to perform either action, given that a certain meta-gaming is imposed here on the character's mental state. Players are sometimes ready to say, "This is something my character would do," as a justification for something which, in fact, the player is prepared to do regardless of the character's knowledge, training, awareness of social norms or expectation of consequences that would certainly arise from committing such an act. Players are easily allowed to "live with" what a character might do, but is it relevant whether or not characters, being people, would be able to "live with themselves?" Is it even relevant to consider this? A DM should decide, beforehand, what the policy is, because this is bound to come up.

It is perfectly acceptable to impose a rule that violent disruptive action without cause is not permitted, so long as this rule is applied to everyone, including the DM, and "cause" is rigidly defined. Because this is a game, and games have boundaries, this is completely legitimate rule in any form of game. Two game pieces sharing the same square, say in Monopoly, cannot "steal one another's money" simply because of this proximal coincidence. The purpose of D&D can be defined as the players vs. threats in the game world; anything that isn't a threat, therefore, is out of bounds. It is as simple as that. Players not ready to play by this rule need not apply.

2. The player's character sheets must be kept accurately, in a fashion that is readable, accounting for every possible game element including, but not limited to, hit points, experience, wealth, equipment and details relating to the character directly, such as height, weight, present armour class, present level, present lists of abilities and spells, etcetera. These sheets are subject to inspection by the DM at any time.

Characters sheets are not private. Players may record private notes outside their character sheets, but any element that applies to the game must count as a part of the knowledge that the dungeon master, as well as the player, is privy to. Moreover, because other characters live in the company of the player's character, any overtly evident equipment should be included in the knowledge of those other characters; for example, how many weapons a character has, how many belts he or she wears, how tall the character is, how much he eats, or what other large items that are carried or stored upon a cart or an animal. If the character owns a house, then unless very careful effort is taken in-game, then it stands to reason the other characters would know about it, having probably seen it from the outside for certain.

Because character sheets serve a game function, players must reliably maintain them, and be prepared to offer explanations for how certain items came to be included on their sheets, or how it was that they used a piece of equipment in the past that does not now appear on their sheet. If the character's experience points are grossly out of line with others in the party, or if they have far more wealth, it is upon the player to allay the suspicions this arouses, and NOT our responsibility as DM to be forgiving or to overlook such discrepancies. As custodians of the game and the governing body dictating how the game is played, we have a right to ask how a player came to have such and such an amount of something, and to receive satisfactory answers. If we do not, we are licensed by our position to make revisions or restore the balance of the character to match the circumstances of other characters around the table.

Players overly concerned with this should take steps to account, with language, every substantial gain they make, so that they can then present their case in full to the DM, if need be. Otherwise, they should accept that it's more than likely they've committed a perfectly acceptable mathematical error, adding an extra zero where they shouldn't have, or misunderstanding a number when it was given. Thus no punitive consequences should be imposed upon a player who has kept an inexplicable character sheet. It need only be aligned with the sheets of other persons, as necessary.

3. An understanding must be conveyed to the participants how dice fit into the game's structure, which dice may be used, and what may be done with dice while in play. Restrictions on the random tossing of dice, which creates ambient, distracting noise, can be curtailed fairly. How the dice are thrown must be addressed, as well as what counts as a "throw" and what counts as a "land."

Any die which, due to its origin, shape, apparent materials or possessing large holes, gouges, misshaping and such, may be fairly suspended from use in the game, regardless of the player's attachment to that die. Many dice made by computer 3D generation can often be counted as insufficiently weighted or balanced, and therefore not "official" in the eyes of the governing body. Certain dice whose colour makes it difficult to read from across the table, so that the result must be taken on the player's word rather than by direct observation, may similarly be discounted. Such items may be wonderful bits of fetish-kitsch, but they're not sufficient for proper game play. All sports and game governing bodies have such rules.

Likewise, it is within the dungeon master's privilege to decide if computer generated dice systems are acceptable for use in game play, and under which conditions. For example, it may be possible to use an electronic die roll to determine who gets the cherished magical treasure that's been given, but not where an attack roll is needed. Such stipulations can be outlined and defined as acceptable in some circumstances and not in others. Of course, where a roll against other players is to take place, those other players must unanimously accept the digital tool according to their judgment, regardless of the DM's position. Fairness is not only vertical (DM-to-player), it must be lateral as well (player-to-player).

As it is possible to practice throwing even 20-sided dice in just such a manner, letting them roll off the fingers with minimal contact with the table, that the result can be controlled. It's therefore within the governance of die use to stipulate that a die must be dropped from a certain height, or thrown a certain distance, or that a tray be used, or that a cup or die-tower be used, to ensure a correctly random result. We can further decide if a die must land on a flat surface, so that even if the tilt of the die is minimal, and the result apparently evident, the fact that there is a tilt can be dictated as a need to re-roll the die. In addition, it can be stipulated that only die rolls that land on a table, or within a defined area of the table, be counted. Such regulations, again, reflect those of sports where what is counted as "out-of-bounds" applies, or where a pitcher's foot must be placed upon throwing the ball, or what counts as "touching a piece," or any number of other like restrictions found throughout the gaming world.

4. We should decide if players who do not attend should be assigned a consequence, and have an explanation for what their characters are doing when those players are not present, within the bounds of believability; while also stipulating that within a game, the bounds of believability can be stretched quite a lot.

For example, if a player is not in attendance, we may impose a fine of food eaten or coins lost, due to the character's choice to go on a bender away from the party, if the party were located at the start of the running at the time the player did not attend. The character can then "catch up" to the party afterwards, should they attend the next session. Likewise, the non-attending player's character might simply "hang back" at the rear of a group in a dungeon, fearful of engaging, stepping out for the combat to pass water, or even that they took part and somehow failed to hit every attempt to do so, while being missed consistently by the enemy (no die rolls necessary). In the case of a battle under these conditions, however, it should be noted that if the entire party is killed, then the non-attending player's character should also die; after all, the player not in attendance is, in truth, trusting the party to protect their character. If the party is unable to do so, then the logical consequence should result.

We may decide whether or not a "custodian" of the character can be assigned by the player in advance, providing that the player provide a copy of the character sheet, at least sufficiently that those details applying to the game can be known. It's suggested that during this time, the player's character be considered a "temporary henchfolk," and thus receive half the experience and share of treasure, in compensation for the player not appearing. It's assumed the departed player will choose a fellow player who is trustworthy, and concerned about keeping the departed player's character alive, but if this arrangement is allowed, the DM is under no obligation to treat the assigned character as special with regards to game consequences or probable survival.

If the player quits, or is absent so often that we decide the game is better off without them, commensurate with the agreement of the party, then the continued existence of this henchfolk is subject to the DM's judgment. The character, now an NPC, could remain as is; or the character could be demoted further to that of "follower," with a quarter share in experience in treasure rather than half. Or the character might be said to have "decided to seek adventure elsewhere," whereupon they cease to be part of the campaign. The DM may freely take over the character as an NPC as well.

5. We are responsible as the DM for providing sufficient clarity in outlining the game world, with our words, our body language and with visual aids, sufficient for the players to be able to determine where they are, what consequences they face, what's happening and a clear idea of what a practical response would be.

This is a vast and considerable issue that will be addressed in the 4th class of this series. The matter is included here because we must establish in our minds how this is to be accomplished prior to game play. If it means spending time making the materials needed, purchasing them, or assigning others the responsibility to "bring their own miniature" or some such, every necessary detail must be worked out before game play begins.

6. We should develop a specific way in which we indicate when game play has begun and when it is suspended. When the game is in motion, we are in our rights to dictate that every word the players say can potentially be heard by an NPC who is "present" in the same locale where the player characters are. If a player shouts out in a combat, "Use the Fireball," then we are free to assume that every intelligent enemy in the combat has also heard this, and is therefore free to act accordingly.

We need not impose a constraint to this degree; but we may declare, "When this candle is lit, the enemy can hear every word you say." Likewise, we can stipulate that the clock is running when players must make a decision about their characters in combat, or recognise that if they're communicating about something while at a tavern, the other patrons can overhear them, or any other similar game consequence might apply based on the player's present circumstances. Players may perceive that they are talking to players, but since it is characters within the game who are obstensibly being represented, a player offering a strategy can be described as "doing so out loud in the game world," should that seem rational given what's happening.

We may refer to this as the "state of play," which disregards the basic conceit of players who assume that they're allowed to have a group mind with regards to planning and action, without this needing explanation. Should we adopt this idea, however, the players should be informed; and it falls on us to light the candle, and ensure it stays lit, before we impose the rule. It's probably best if the candle, or whatever physical representation we use, is put in a place where it can't be blown out or its purpose subtly interrupted, since during the game we're likely not to have the time to keep an eye on it.

Collectively, these precepts contribute to the governance we're able to impose on the game, remembering always that the players must have as much understanding of how they work just as we ourselves do. Dungeon mastering is communication, not just of game play but the structure around game play; and we must ourselves have a full and ready comprehension of that structure, before sitting down to start.