From General to Specific: System to Setting to Adventure

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I am a big fan of putting the cool stuff of a game in the adventure. As loot, or interactive elements in the constrained environment of a dungeon. I avoid games where the cool stuff is in the system. "Cool stuff" includes, but is not limited to, unusual powers, items, magical effects, character aspects, anything that hooks the players into wanting more of it. So then let's revisit my premise. I like cool stuff in the adventure, not in the system.

The main reason is that it keeps players engaged with the fiction and the situation at hand. If the cool stuff is in the system, then players will figure out how to get to the cool stuff while avoiding the world. If you play XP  for gold, the players will find the path of least resistance to obtaining gold, so you shouldn't expect players to go into high-risk dungeons if they could become black marketeers or landlords instead.

What's the problem? Mismatched expectations. You expect players to follow what you prepare, naturally, but players want the path of least resistance. What's the solution? One idea is the "milestone" reward system, where advancement is rewarded for completing the milestone of the GM's choosing. I think this will get the job done, but is tenuous at best. It creates a work-reward expectation, where doing the GM's quest gives you the thing you want. It's transactional. Instead, put cool stuff in your adventure. You could even go so far as to rip out system elements, tie them to an object or location, and insert them into a place of your choice. The same applies for buy-in expectations. There can still be miscommunication of vibe there.

I think this idea of "cool stuff adventure" really alludes to a bigger concept: A specificity funnel, where some parts of a game are kept very broad (the open end of the funnel), while other parts include the specific details (the narrow part of the funnel).

My thought on the composition of this funnel is that system should be broad, setting moderately broad, and adventures the most specific, to the extent that these things are separated in a game (which I generally believe in).

Broad systems allow a lot of portability and versatility. Playing within a broad system, you can run many different settings and adventures, with only minor tweaks or interpretations that match the specifics of the other aspects. I think Vaults of Vaarn does this well: Charisma and Wisdom from Knave being renamed as Ego and Psyche is a great way to minorly tweak a very open system into the specifics. That's just one example of a tweak to specifics. Suddenly Knave has a specific instance in the world of Vaarn through its system.

Settings should be moderately specific. My preferred method for this is random tables. This gives many different ways to expand a setting (new results on the table), while keeping overhead minimal (no reading of a setting's "canon"). Front loading many details limits the creativity of a GM in improvising and developing a setting in their own way, which I think is vital for a GM to have a living, back-of-the-hand known world. The more it is yours, the better you can know it and how it works. A setting guide I got recently that exemplifies this is Rakehell: The Rift of Mar-Milloir.

Adventures should have nearly everything spelled out. Not in a "what does this room contain" way, but also in a "what IS this thing and what does it do" kind of way. In accordance with OSR ideas, we shouldn't presume how a thing will be used, but instead we should describe what it can do. And that should be crystal clear. Do this for everything in an adventure, and you have the specificity to keep players interested in a dungeon. I'm taking for granted that you can rip off or imagine your own cool ideas to begin with. Example: Deep Carbon Observatory.

I hope to stop theory-posting soon. I think it gets monotonous. I have on my mind to post reviews or some gameable creation of my own soon.

 

 

Enjoyed this article? Hate it? Thought it was trite and derivative? Leave me a comment on any thoughts you have on it. If you have no thoughts, you might be an orange cat.

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