Write What You Know - Zing!

I'm watching Wednesday on Netflix. The second episode leads with the line: 

"I've always hated the expression 'write what you know.' It's a hall pass for the imagination-impaired." 

Wednesday then shifts her opinion. To paraphrase, "if the things you know are weird, maybe you should lean into it." I like that. It comes up very often in role-playing games. Here is the odd thing, the DM or game master is trying to offer scenarios that make sense to the players, no matter who they are. Since the players don't know what the referee has in mind, things get weird. 

For example, in my last post, I refused to say, "Solo Play". I know how some people will react to that phrase. When I shared the post, someone commented exactly as I expected even though I tried to avoid it. Such is the world of RPGs and social media. I tried to avoid the probable and walked right into it anyway. And this happens at the table, too. 

Anyway, Wednesday is right. A game master and a player really don't know what is going to come of the words. Things are bound to get weird, so lean into it. 

If you design things from the exclusively top down, you start with big topics and get smaller. The larger and more vague a topic is, the more likely that basic concepts will get skewed by the listener. My next project (recap - part 1, part 2) is being built top-down but the solo adventure I am running is in that world and is very bottom-level. Facts over concepts. 

How and why do I link small details to large concepts? 

Well, let's look at the basic map in relation to what is happening. There are 3 buildings, a tree, and a fountain. Or more simply, it's a hub with spokes. The center of the hub is the fountain and stuff radiates out. The three buildings and the tree are the edges of the hub and the start of the spokes. It's designed like many cities and towns, and amusement parks. The mini-map is simple, familiar,  and hard to get lost in. The reason for this is player and character comfort. They can forget mapping and wander for a bit. 

The buildings are much the same way. The general store is very much like a free-standing market stall, the store in Little House on the Prarie, or any number of old buildings in a zillion cities around the world. The image makes itself, which is very player friendly. You don't have to see it to know it. The details build themselves. 

Let me press on with the adventure for a moment. The players entered the shop to the east. It's a rug shop. The players checked it out and found nothing of interest. Until they tried to leave. Then a couple of them fell through the floor in front of the door. This is a subverted pit trap. 

If I had real players at the table, they probably would have picked up on the slapstick amusement of slowly sinking into a carpet over a hole in the ground. It was hard to get out of but not too hard with friends to help. How many old TV shows and movies have someone sinking into quicksand or Tom Hanks getting trapped in a hole in the Money Pit. 

But it isn't just for humor. The characters and the players will discover the why in a bit. 

Moving on, they hazard the church or temple. Actually, the structure is neither. It's a mansion. Outside, they find a couple of decaying bodies which presents the first mystery. Entering the building, they realize that it had collapsed first and caught fire at some point, much later than the collapse. 

They also solve the minor mystery of the missing tools. They were used to recover the bodies. Each body shows signs of trauma from falling or having things fall on them. They were obviously cared for after being recovered and placed in repose. Unfortunately, burial never occurred. The Clerics and the Magic-User might surmise some sort of magical protection was used on them. 

As the players explore, aside from the tools, they find nothing of value except information. A lot of debris has been moved. Strangely, more than what could be done by the shovels and pickaxes they found. They also find several openings leading to a cave system. As they advance in the dark, they are ambushed by giant ants. 

They fight a retreating battle in the tunnels of the anthill until they discover a soft squishy cloth covering an exit. Hum... they are back in the pit trap in the carpet shop. Fearing pursuit, they run through the fountain and back to the general store, baring the doors. 

You see, these tiny details have been placed not randomly but purposefully to echo the overreaching theme of romanticism.  Seeking answers in places and people long gone. The players will see that someone who cared about something lived here.  

And then there is the weanie in the middle of it all. The fountain and table are what is called a weanie. It towns and cities, the center of the hub has something significant like a fountain or a town hall. Those things draw your attention, they pull you in. For Walt Disney, the weanie was the Castle. It pulls people in and pushes them out to the edges in a repeating pattern. The Castle as a hub insures that people are always pulled in no matter how many times they move out. 

(Walt Disney used to have a dog that he would lead around with a hot dog, which is where the term comes from. I can't imagine he was the first to think of it, but he was known to make the comparison. There I go again, putting amusement parks in my games...)

What gives the table and fountain drawing power is what they do mechanically. The party was dumped there by the Game Master, a ridiculously petty person who teleports away his problems. The party can't be depleted because more characters will appear at the table. 

The fountain also has a purpose that is far less deadly than it appears. The giant catfish are a replenishing food source. The party doesn't have to enter the pool to hunt them, they can be hunted without entering the water. It's not entirely safe, but much safer than starving. 

I had thought that giant catfish were fantasy monsters, but they are real and do like brackish saltwater. They can often get to be hundreds of pounds. Taking one down feeds the party for an incredible amount of time for minimal risk. 

The players, I hope would be left with a feeling of wonder. Wonder at who lived here. Wonder at where they went. That sense of a real living place is the core concept behind romanticism. It's deviated but still there. 

PS: You can pick up a copy of Old School Essentials Characters, Magic, Monsters, and Treasures on DriveThruRPG. You can also try Wordlographer before you buy.