Oct 5th, 2020
There is one more important stylistic choice for storytellers to make, one that is the most visual aspect of your story and your game. We can call it three different options here, but there are only two real choices and likely you will use both. Let me explain.
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The last major point in creating a campaign is how to deal with the shared experience itself. I was recently having a conversation with my daughter about how to relate your experiences to other people; it is not easy. Everyone in this world has a unique set of experiences and perceptions and trying to explain them to another person can be a tricky endeavour even in the best of times.
Think about what makes those movies you like so good. Is it all the special effects? The dialogue? Interesting characters and situations to find them in? I'm not sure if you are following me yet but if you are: damn you're good, that was vague. Anyway, let me explain.
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Suspension of disbelief is the crucial part of movies, books, and stories of all types. Unless you are watching a documentary, most stories are not entirely true. Even if it is a movie based on a true story, liberties are taken. Sometimes just some graphics or editing can make all the difference in how viewers perceive the information being thrown at them.
How then do you encourage that same suspension of disbelief when all of your players know it absolutely is all being made up by you, in front of them and with them having some or even a great deal of choice and influence on the whole thing?
There are two main schools of thought here: Miniatures and Theatre of The Mind.
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Theatre of the Mind is the original way of playing the classic Dungeons and Dragons adventures. For some more modern ideas on this watch any time the guys played D&D in Stranger Things. One example I really liked was Stephen Colbert playing solo with Matt Mercer. You can YouTube that one, it's a fun watch.
The crux of this idea is the Designated Talky Human talks while the players picture everything in their head, or with their mind's eye. Hence the 'Theatre of the Mind.' This method requires a great deal of skill in storytelling and, in some cases, patience. The entirety of what the players experience comes directly from the storyteller, every NPC's dialogue or descriptions of rooms has a one-way path into the player's mind. Specificity is both the best tool a storyteller has here and is their worst enemy.
If you are playing a straightforward sort of adventure, here are the bad guys - get the bad guys, it is very easy to give simple accurate descriptions and worry about relaying every detail and letting the players do with those details as they wish. Tell them about the size of the room, what is everything made of, and how many bad guys are in front of them, etc. You can just lay it all out and not worry about giving away secret things and surprises.
Once you get into a more intrigue and role-playing based adventure, this approach has a few things to worry about. In order for players in these games to get the information they need, you need to describe things like the way a person's mouth twitches when they lie, the soft footfall they hear when the enemy stalking them fails their stealth, even the way that A.I. Talks being just different enough to give the layers a chance to notice something is amiss.
It is amazingly easy to give away things you want hidden behind a few more sessions of investigation or some ability checks. Conversely, if you do not give that info, you run the risk of your players not trusting you to be fair. If they genuinely don't roll well enough to figure something out or notice something, you can surprise them with it later. But if you have not yet established a base level of trust and fairness, this can come across as a DM cheating.
And yes, there are arguments out there that a DM cannot cheat because they are the world and everything, this is not the place for that discussion. Fair warning all you rules-y people out there.
Regardless of the style of adventure you run, working with theatre of the mind is a versatile, rewarding and sometimes eminently frustrating method to use. It works far better for more intrigue and non-combat style adventures but can be just as effective when your character's backs are against the wall and blades are the only option left at hand.
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If you are much more focused on combat-oriented adventures, miniatures may be a crucial necessity. Using miniatures with a grid map or hex map is a fantastic way to cut down on the time spent on describing the area surrounding your heroes. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a nice battle map setup is ten thousand at least.
Entire rulesets have been created for using miniatures. In fact, Dungeons and Dragons itself is adapted from even older tabletop war games. Using miniatures cuts down again on people arguing about what is where or what words you used to describe the direction that orc is facing. With a battle map, it is all right there in front of everyone. And everyone sees the same thing.
Theatre of the Mind suffers from one major drawback; everyone sees things differently. It can be incredibly difficult to get across a shared experience when everyone pictures things differently in their own mind. Miniatures however, they are the same for everyone.
The major drawback of miniatures is the cost. Good sets of miniatures, especially branded ones, are expensive. With the advent of home 3D printing and just the raw natural talent of some humans out there, the cost can be brought down a significant amount.
I plan on using a button maker to make one-inch circular tokens to use on our battle maps here at home. Bottlecaps, cardboard and all manner of other things can be used to substitute for proper miniatures if you want the battle map experience without all the extra cost.
When I first started storytelling, I used a die from everyone's sets of dice to represent them and then used a bunch from my pile to represent the bad guys. This did not look pretty, not even a little. But it worked for things like sight lines and flanking, which was good enough for me. The dice I used also helped the players call out who they are attacking and let me keep track of hit points on individual enemies much more easily.
Miniatures themselves should never be the focus of your story, a focus during combat certainly but if you find yourself bogged down by the rulesets or simply find it hard to understand, don't be afraid to figure out what is best for you and your players.
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At home I tend to use a mixture of both, as you may have noticed a lot of my articles end with - creature of habit I guess, though I can't really afford proper miniatures and our house currently doesn't have a proper table to game at. So, Theatre of the Mind is a better focus for us right now.
After all is said, the most important thing is the story and how much everyone enjoys it. Whether in your mind or on the table, remember to get those involved to suspend that disbelief and really get into it.
Eric
No links today, though I suppose you can search YouTube for that Colbert/Mercer video, it really is a great example of Theatre of the Mind.
Maybe I will find someone who wants to put a sponsorship here one day... Everyone cross your fingers!
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