Sept 30th, 2020
What stories do you like to watch, listen, or read? Game of Thrones? Podcasts? Magazines? Community? Maybe the Simpsons? Web comics?
They are all similar in terms of storytelling, but they differ in some interesting but honestly quite simple ways. When I was doing my research for this topic there seemed to be a lot of very minutely different terminology. So, I'm going to make everything worse by making my own.
Episodes, Seasons and Series.
***
Episodes and Episodic Storytelling
Probably the easiest method for a Designated Talky Human just setting out in telling their tales, an episodic style can help organize thoughts and provide a structure that is easy to understand and relate to your players. Everything is in neat little packages that you can even arrange in certain orders to create a more complex ongoing story as you move through each episode.
The basics here are that each session (or a couple in a row) has a start point and an end point for the same group of characters. The entire story is encompassed in a relatively neat package and any outcome has little in the way of lasting long-term consequences.
Lots of television sitcoms are built around this premise. No matter what happens during the episode everyone is at the exact point they were at the start, ready for the next episode. This can be illuminate a little bit by expanding on "sitcom" or, "situational comedy."
This means a core group of characters are placed in situations and the story is how they deal with those situations. Sound familiar? During episodic campaigns, the focus is on the players and their decisions. NPCs are less important overall, and characters have no real need to grow or develop attachments to anything or anyone. Not my personal favourite but a lot of players do not actually want a complicated story and instead only want to focus on things like gaining xp and loot.
A group of adventurers clearing a mine of bad guys and celebrating in a tavern afterwards is a decent episode. The next episode might simply be them on a pirate ship, having been captured and waking up in the brig. Same characters but no connecting story to rationalize why they are where they are. Only a contained story.
***
Seasons and Seasonal Storytelling
Again, I'm drawing from television here, seasons are usually a set of episodes with an over-arching story. Netflix seasons tend towards 10 episodes whereas old-school television tended to be 20 ish episodes per season. I think you can make a 'season' out of anything other than one or two episodes.
Now, for any of you across the pond from me or just fans of British television, a season here can mean series for you guys. I think that's how that works; I could research it a bit, but I don't want to. Someone let me know below if series and season mean the same thing.
Regardless, seasons are a great way to step up from episodes and add in more of the things most fantasy role players love: hilarious NPCs, villains, and consequences. Yes, consequences are important to long-term storytelling, even the bad ones.
Whereas episodic storytelling focuses on the players, seasonal storytelling focuses on events and how the players react and adapt to them.
In the example I gave above, those same characters in the tavern would have bene approached by a friend of theirs who mentions that the bandits that took over the mine were supplying someone with metal and minerals. They have a plan to find out who it is and put a stop to this whole thing, but the characters are not going to like it. That friend needs the players to let themselves get caught.
Ultimately the 'episode' is still a pirate prison episode, but the 'friend' of the party gives context to the story. No longer is it simply another disjointed challenge to overcome, now it has meaning and risk. Contextualizing the events that happen in your stories can really drag those players into the deeper parts of your story.
***
Series and Serial Storytelling
The term serial storytelling is going to be a bit confusing if you google it. News serials and serial style movies and short stories are not exactly what I mean to convey; those things are much more like what I term seasonal above.
My intent behind my definition of series is to continue the kind-of-linear explanation I have going on here. Episodes are small stories devoid of context, seasons are groups of episodes given that missing context and series are groups of seasons strung together to create meaning.
Context and meaning have similar definitions; what I mean is the difference between why this is happening and how does that happening affect the world. It is not an easy distinction; one that is difficult for me to explain. Let's see if this helps:
The ongoing story from above has now gone from bandits in a mine to smugglers and pirates. Beyond that, all the factions the players have dealt with have been sponsored by a foreign empire to assist in the destabilization in the region to weaken the area and make it easier to conquer.
Should the empire succeed in their plans thousand of people will be forced into slavery to feed the war machine as that empire seeks even more lands to stomp under its bootheel. This will fundamentally change the world in ways that cannot be foreseen.
By meaning I suppose I mean those consequences I talked about above. Only these consequences impact far more than just the characters themselves, they affect the surrounding world as well.
***
Putting all these methods of storytelling together can create a blend of styles that can make storytelling easier for the storyteller and more enjoyable for the players. Each way is a completely viable method of telling your stories, its far more important to be comfortable with whatever you choose.
Hopefully, all that up there was helpful today, until next time.
Eric
Hey, look: links!