The Layer Cake of Gaming

Every time we sit down to play a role-playing game, we build this layer cake, stacking each level upon the previous one:

First we decide what our game is about. What are the themes.

Then we make a setting that reflects those themes.

Then we make characters who fit that setting and those themes.

Then we create a situation that fits the characters, the setting, and those themes.

Then we see what those characters do about that situation.

Keep repeating that last step, and when the situation is settled either end the game or make a new situation.

Now go back and add that, at every step, we’re a bunch of people with different ideas and preferences who may not agree about anything. We have to come to agreement or the game stops. Sometimes the game makes these decisions for us, like having a preset theme, setting, or even premade characters, but often it doesn’t. If you’re playing a GMed game, maybe the GM makes some of those decisions all by themselves, which is very different than making them together.

And if your game skips a step, the next step is harder to figure out.

Your Favorite Movie or Book

That’s what you do in just about any role-playing game. But it is nothing like what I tell someone who has never played and asks me what role-playing games are like.

To them I say: It’s like your favorite movie or book, except instead of just watching or reading it, we decide what the characters do and then see what happens.

West Marches: Finding the Dungeons

There was a question in the comments about whether a West Marches GM should tell the players where the dungeons are or make them go out and search.

Players having the free will to make decisions–and get themselves into trouble doing “a little light exploring”–is at the very heart of the West Marches charter. But equally essential is the idea that, to make interesting and useful choices, you have to have information to work with. Making decisions totally blind (“you’re in a forest, do you go left or right???”) is not much different than having no choice.

Think of each dungeon as falling into one of three categories of visibility:

• LANDMARKS: A landmark dungeon is someplace well-known and generally easy to find, like the ruins of a castle on a hillside or a prominent canyon. Anyone nearby can see it, and lots of people know it’s there. It’s name is common knowledge, along with maybe some snippet of history, like who built the castle before it fell to ruins, which may be right or entirely wrong.
• RUMORED: A rumored dungeon is a place some people have heard of, without knowing exactly where it is or what it’s really like. There’s talk of barrow mounds in the Wil Wood, or caves on the banks of the lake in Pike Hollow. Or the dungeon itself might not be known, but other trouble might point to it: there are goblins all over Cradle Wood, so it seems likely they have a lair there. Adventurers might know vaguely where to look for a rumored dungeon, but they’ve got to go search if they want to find the place.
• UNKNOWN: The third type is a dungeon that is completely unknown. It might be because it’s a relatively minor location, or some place brand new, or somewhere that is well-hidden and forgotten. A party might find clues that lead them to make a grand discovery, because treasure tells a story, or they might just stumble across it in the wilds.

So when you’re making your West Marches wilderness, you want to start with a few landmark dungeons, some rumored dungeons, and then a bunch of unknowns. That gives players some information to work with, some obvious targets but also a lot of opportunities to explore. Mix this with your layers of history and you’ve got a good framework.

As I’ve said before, if you’ve got players who are totally new to the West Marches idea, start them off with a crude treasure map to get them out of town so they can start looking around and discovering. You want to get the ball rolling. And of course as your parties come back and keep updating their table map at the inn, rumors become known spots, unknowns get discovered, etc.

You can also use this method to categorize how well-known whole regions of the wilderness are. Everyone knows the Frog Marsh is right over there, but adventurers might hear rumors of the Rotting Oaks long before they know where it actually is, and whether the terrible stories are true.

“I’ve got the big wrenches out, I’m gonna go smash the machines”

I had a great time talking to Justin Gary on his Think Like A Game Designer podcast. Justin includes a great text outline of some of the big topics we hit on the web page, including some of the major takeaways.

Think Like A Game Designer: Ben Robbins — World Building in Microscope, Gaming with Strangers and Writing Effective Rules (#64)

Yes, that’s me in a museum. I suppose I should say it was because I was talking about Microscope so I used a picture involving history, but honestly they wanted a landscape picture and it’s what I could find. Bonus points if you can name that museum!

I’ve done a few interviews recently and they’re always so much fun. I think it’s because instead of treating it like it’s about me, I think of it as a chance to talk with someone about all the stuff we love. How could that not be fun???

A Microscope For The People

In a previous post I talked about the issues with scenes in Microscope. Issues that often lead players to avoid scenes, which (I think) robs you of the full experience of seeing how the big history affects human lives.

The good news is that I’ve been working on a solution, which is to make scenes focus on what they were supposed to be about all along: People.

These are the rules changes I’ve been testing. There are only three small but critical updates, and you can start using them in your Microscope games right now:

• When you make a Question for a scene, it must be about people. Like what someone does, says, or thinks. It could be one person (“Does the doctor regret her decision?”, “Is the soldier remembered as a hero?”) or a category of people (“Do the miners go on strike?”, “Do the villagers believe the prophet?”)
• Questions must be phrased to have a yes or no answer (“Did the priest bless the crown?”) or a similar simple binary choice. (This is a change I introduced in the new edition of Union a while back)
• When you’re in a scene, just play your character. Describe what they do, say, and think. Don’t introduce new facts about the world, just work with what you already know. If you need to introduce or clarify something about the world outside of your character, discuss it with the other players. It’s only true if everyone else agrees.

With these changes, scenes are out of the business of narrating world-facts, and are purely focused on seeing what people do and think. We’ve already got Periods and Events for declaring big history, so we don’t lose anything by removing that option from Scenes. Which also means the Push mechanic can go on the scrap heap. Rest in peace, Push!

The player making the scene can of course add details as part of describing the situation, just as they always could. And when in doubt, they have final say over any kind of background action or the situation where the scene is taking place, because they made it.

Answering questions also gets a lot easier. Since questions are now always about people, someone playing that character is in a position to decide the answer. That’s intentional! If the question is “does the Captain believe in her mission?” and you’re playing the Captain, everyone knows from the start of the scene that what you do is critical. Other players can use their characters to add context and or try to change what you think about the situation, but ultimately you decide what the Captain believes.

Sometimes you make a game better by adding things, but in this case I think the right solution was to take things away and work in a smaller space. Going back and evaluating these changes in light of the five issues I described, I don’t want to do anything about #1, I can’t eliminate but I can reduce #2 and #3, and I’m completely eliminating #4 and drastically reducing #5 (avoiding it entirely in most scenes). Scenes still take longer than just making a Period or Event, but with these changes they run smoother and go faster because there is less potential for fumbling around. It’s easier for everyone to understand what we’re doing and get it done.

With these changes, we spend more time thinking about the lives of these characters than being caught up in our own heads. Scenes *feel* right.

Chronicle 2.0

So yes, I’m very happy with these changes and how they play out. But I’m not done yet. I have even more upgrades I want to try. Which means I’ll need to play more Microscope games with a lot of scenes to test them. And you know what’s perfect for that? Chronicle from Microscope Explorer.

The original idea of Chronicle was to simplify Microscope by centering the history on a single thing, like a city, a magic sword, or a secret society. The whole history would be the story of that place, object, or concept.

But another important aspect of Chronicle was to make Microscope histories that were more focused on people. Each Period had “anchor” characters whose lives showed us how the chronicle changed over time: the smith that forged the sword, the knight that wielded it, the tomb robber who stole it, or the wealthy baron who hung it over his mantle as a trophy. A classic example is Flight of the Madamas aka the Citizen Kane of spaceship games.

When I made the Chronicle, I think that, if anything, I didn’t go far enough in pushing people and scenes. Part of that was because I originally wrote all the Microscope Explorer variants (Chronicle, Union, and Echo) as supplemental instructions rather than standalone rules. You had to read the new rules, and then go back and look at the core Microscope rules and combine them on the fly. As I saw when I revised Union, turning it into a standalone game with all the rules in one place made it a lot easier to just do whatever seemed best for *this* game rather than worrying if jumping back and forth between the two texts made things too confusing.

So I’m revising Chronicle as a standalone game, not only to experiment with these scene rules to improve Microscope-proper, but also so Chronicle can fulfill its destiny as a more focused, character-driven take on Microscope…

There will doubtless be calls for playtesters when the new Chronicle is ready, but you don’t have to wait: you can start trying out the rules I already described in your Microscope games right now. I want to hear how the new scenes work for you.

In This World, In This Classroom

Okay, show of hands: who’s interested in a course called “Science Fiction & Public Health”??? Sign me up!

In their latest podcast, Alexis Dinno and Nell Carter talk about how they brought In This World to the classroom at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health:

Science Fiction & Public Health Podcast, Episode 8

The In This World part starts about 33 minutes in, but the whole thing is an interesting listen. Their topic? Libraries! Which has been on my wishlist for a while now. Caveat is they had a larger group (8 people) and only got to make one world, so they only got a taste and packed a lot of ideas into that one world.

Educators everywhere: the gauntlet has been thrown down.

The Problem With Microscope Scenes

Microscope is great, but as a designer I’m always looking for ways to make my games better. And Microscope has some spots that could use an upgrade.

What’s the problem? Scenes.

I think scenes are important to Microscope, because scenes are when we zoom all the way in and see how the big history impacts individual people. It makes the whole thing more personal and meaningful. You have a better total experience when you include scenes.

But players use Scenes less than other parts of the game. Some groups leave them out entirely. People are missing out on the full experience.

I want to fix that, and this is a design journal peek into how I’m going to do it. First I’ll review the issues that push people away from scenes, then I’ll talk about the improvements I’ve been experimenting with. Solutions you can start using in your Microscope games right now.

Issue #1: Making Big History Is Fun

This first issue makes total sense to me, and I’m not even really against it: It’s that lots of games let you play scenes, but most don’t let you raise up or destroy entire empires with a wave of your hand. So players gravitate to the unique opportunities Microscope gives them and use their turns to make big history in Periods or Events instead.

People wanting to flex their big creation muscles is actually great, but I’d like to tilt the balance a little bit back towards a healthy dose of scenes.

Issue #2: Scenes Take More Time

It’s no surprise that scenes take up more playtime. It naturally takes longer to frame a situation, have everyone pick characters, and role-play together, then it does to just have one player narrate a Period or Event.

On the plus side, everyone at the table gets to participate in a scene, so the time is being shared, but you could argue that in that same amount of time the group could “cover more ground” by sticking to Periods or Events (or dictated scenes): everyone would get to contribute just as much by taking their own turns, and we’d make more big history.

Issue #3: You Have To Switch Styles of Play

Scenes require players to shift to an entirely different style of play. Instead of taking turns and solo narrating, everyone is talking together and being their character on the fly. There’s a whole different set of rules for how to play.

That change of tempo can actually be a lovely break from the rigid structure of the rest of the game, but there is mental overhead learning a whole new system. Game designers take note: every time you require players to switch gears and use a whole different system, you are adding overhead. Make sure it pays off.

Issue #4: Too Much World-Building In Scenes

In addition to role-playing, every player in a scene can invent world-facts as fast as they can talk. Want an earthquake? Just describe feeling the ground tremble. It’s like the world-building power each player has on their turn when they make Periods or Events, except now everyone can do it all at once. Microscope is all about making stuff up, but while carefully moderating everyone’s ability to contribute — scenes have practically no limits.

Making up world stuff is also a distraction from role-playing. You’re trying to explore these character and their decisions, but you’re also busy trying to make up big history. You’re doing two things at once, which makes it harder to really get into the characters.

Issue #5: Fuzzy Answers

Everyone in the scene is supposed to be trying to work towards an answer to the Question. But that can be a very fuzzy process, because none of us has “dibs” on the answer and we all might be moving in different directions. What if two people have strong but contradictory ideas? What if no one has a clear idea? Do we roll for initiative? What? It can be awkward.

The Push mechanic was intended to help resolve disagreements but it’s a very crude fix. Note for designers: providing a veto is not as good as avoiding an undesired behavior in the first place.

…

So those are the issues that I’m seeing. They all interact, and they are not all problems that can be solved. But if I want people to use scenes more (and get the full Microscope experience) I need to make sure they get a satisfying return on the time they invest making and playing them.

The good news is that I have already been testing some changes to improve scenes, hinging on one key idea: Giving scenes back to the people…

Next up: Microscope Scenes 2.0

Union: Cousins Once Removed

Say you want to make characters who are all from the same small town. Or from related noble houses. Or who all came to this planet on the same generation ship.

Maybe you just want to make up their backstories, or maybe these are characters you’re actually going to play in a campaign.

Normally you could play Union and explore the family ancestry of one character: find out all about the lives of their grandparents and great parents and how all their unions led to next generation, and so on.

But what if instead of just playing one family history, you do quick games of Union for each character, except you intentionally crossover characters in the family tree. Make sure at least one person appears from one of the other histories, either as an actual shared ancestor or someone important to their story.

Maybe we share the same great-grandmother, but our grandparents were different siblings, or even children from different marriages. Or maybe our grandfathers were childhood friends before they got older and became rival suitors for the hand of my grandmother. Or maybe the Fate of one of my ancestors was that one of your ancestors killed them in a duel.

Do that for a while and you will have an *elaborate* shared history full of juicy stories and old grudges… or adorable bonds and crowded holiday dinners.

Campaign Zero

The idea of “session zero” is a genuine step forward in the technology of gaming. Instead of just leaping into a game blindly and hoping we all enjoy the same things, we sit down together and talk about it. What kind of world do we want? Want kind of themes do we want to explore? Will our elves be imperialist jerks? Will our space smugglers struggle with debt or just do hijinks?

Discussion and consensus is a good thing. But clever gamers realized that instead of just improvising the whole process, they could use other systems that were designed for world-building and group setting creation to structure the session. Why reinvent the wheel when there’s a perfectly good wheel right over there?

So you bust out Microscope. You bust out In This World. You bust out Downfall. You bust out Shock. You bust out A Thousand Years Under the Sun. And you play a session of that to help create the setting for the other game you’re going play.

And heck, that was pretty fun. Maybe you should do another session, with that game or maybe a different one, just to really flesh out this world. And then you’re playing Kingdom week after week, confronting Crossroads and trying wrestling for control of your community… but still to get ready for that D&D game you intend to play!!!

And that’s how you start with Session Zero and wind up with Campaign Zero…

More Worlds In The Wild

Even more copies of In This World arriving around the globe (and also Portland).

The kickstarter is done and done! There are still stragglers who haven’t answered their surveys (there are always stragglers) but the vast majority have gone out.

And I have to say that, as a game designer, it is tremendously satisfying seeing an idea you kicked around turn into a book that people can hold in their hand and play.

Dress For the Job You Want

People have had a long week, everyone’s tired, but we still want to do a little gaming-something-something. This looks like a job for… IN THIS WORLD!

Our topic: Clothing! We were doing the normal brainstorming and we had some good topics (but also “trains!!!”) but when Caroline threw out Clothing I knew that was the one I wanted. I’m always looking for ideas that hit that sweet spot where physical culture and human behavior interact, because I think that makes for really tasty worlds.

If you’re not familiar with In This World, the idea is that you start off with true statements about your topic in the real world and then use those as springboards to say how your fictional world is not the same. And instead of making just one world, you make several, rapid-fire, so you get to explore a bunch of different takes on the same starting point.

We had barely finished our statements and Marc was ready to come out of the gate strong: no, in this world the statement “Uniforms identify profession” isn’t true. You dress for the job you WANT.

I could see him wavering between making a realistic world, where we’d have ways of distinguishing between real firefighters and people who just put on a firefighter outfit that morning, but then he made the leap and said, nope, there’s no way to tell them apart. Full hijinks, which was clearly the best of all choices. Everyone gets to chase their dreams, every single day.

For the next world, Caroline swung us back in a more grounded direction, where the statement “Clothing is made of natural or synthetic textiles” is not true: we have abandoned synthetics in our clothing entirely, choosing sustainably grown materials and outfits made to last much longer. It’s a day-after-tomorrow future where climate change has almost gotten the better of us, but we’re working together to bring the balance back, and wearing cozy outfits in the process. Repair instead of replace, and no plastics in our shirts, thank you very much.

So now it was time for me to kick-off world three, but I was ready, because Caroline’s had got me thinking: what if clothing wasn’t made of either natural *or* synethetic textiles? What if it was made of… nothing? Instead of wearing physical clothing at all, people are robed in holograms of clothing. It looks like you’re dressed but it’s just light, coming from a tiny projector on a bracelet or necklace. And you can swap to a new outfit at the press of a button.

“But they’re wearing underwear or something under the holograms?” Me: thinks about my commitment to the concept. No. No underwear. Nothing. That’s the idea. Yes, that means everyone is just sitting bare ass on the same park benches. Caroline: “Thanks, I hate it.” Luckily it’s all future-perfect domed cities, so no one has to worry about getting cold…

Boom, three worlds and we’re done, all in a little over an hour.

Shifting Into Human Gear

There’s this thing that happens every time we make a world, where you have the starting idea, the main concept, but then as people add detail we start to really tinker with the implications. We shift down gears from big picture to nuance. That’s often where the real human vibes kick in.

Like in the second world, instead of people not wanting to be seen wearing the same outfit twice, it’s the exact opposite, because wearing the same outfit over and over again (and keeping it in good shape) shows that you are environmentally conscious and not being a wasteful consumer. You could cynically call it virtue signaling except it’s not just a signal, it’s actually doing the right thing.

And in the third world, with the hologram clothes, we added that people can change their outfit at the click of a button, but not only can people change their look on a whim they will often see someone else who has a look they like and immediately imitate it. Fashions ripple through passersby on the street.

But we never talked about anyone actually *creating* those designs in the first place. Which raises the question, are we just cycling through some huge digital catalog, with so many options that we don’t even know what’s possible until we see it on someone else? Is everyone just copying other people’s TikTok moves instead of making something new?

And in the first world, since everyone has dreams of being someone else and putting on outfits to match, yes, sexy dress-up roleplay is everyone’s bedroom kink. You’ve got a pile of different uniforms stuffed in your closet, so “sexy firefighter” or whatever is always at your fingertips. It’s like a college Halloween party all year round.

Which is trashy and funny, but also kind of bittersweet when you remember that anyone who has a particular uniform at one time actually wanted to be that thing. Their dress-up fantasies might be coming from a much more sincere place.

That’s something we’ve seen time and again in our In This World games, that even the most light-hearted, funny world can shine a genuine light on human nature. And I love it.

Follow Neue Questen

German-speaking Follow players, today is your lucky day. Plotbunny Games, who did the translation of Follow, have released a bunch of brand new quests.

Are these destined to be released in English too? I have it on good authority that they just might. And if that is something you’d like to see, let Plotbunny know it!

A Wild Lukehart Appears at ECCC!

Are you going to Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle this weekend? Swing by artist alley and say hi to Al Lukehart at booth F-23! Al did the cover art for In This World, Kingdom 2nd edition, and Follow, not to mention our awesome Kingdo-monsters.

What’s it like to work with Al behind the scenes?

Because yeah, the cover of In This World does look kind of like a big caterpillar, and now you can’t unsee it. Do not disappoint the caterpillar!

And if you’ve never been to ECCC but the name sounds strangely familiar, it might be because I’ve talked about all the epic story game events we ran there back in the day, because we had a truly awesome crew of facilitators.

A Spacesuit and A Wrench, But No Gun

You’re trying to earn a living doing salvage and repair. Maybe on Mars, maybe near the moons of Saturn. Take contracts, fix things, and upgrade your ship.

And there is no combat system whatsoever.

Does that sound interesting to you? It sounds interesting to me. The game is Void Above, and I just heard about it when Jwalt posted a link a few days ago.

I haven’t played it yet, but the free QuickStart looks like the mechanics back up the concept, instead of just doing vague hand-waving. It is a GMed game, not GMless, which is less my jam, but for a premise like this I have been known to make exceptions. I’m in.

The kickstarter is closing in mere days, and it doesn’t seem to be getting as much love as I think it deserves.

Cathy Grant is Captain Danger’s Sister (part 2)

During our long-running superhero campaign I introduced a new character, Cathy Grant. But I didn’t tell the players she wasn’t really a new character at all, she was an existing character, Captain Danger’s sister Felicity, using a fake name to get a job and get out on her own in the big city.

Did you read that post? Yeah, read that post first.

Eleven games had gone by without anyone putting two and two together, so in Episode 36, “Luck Under Glass”, I figured it was time to let the players in on the joke, so we could move on and see how Captain Danger felt about her sister stepping on her toes, intruding into the superhero world, getting into constant danger, and hanging around with Guardian of all people.

So I set up a big reveal and… it fell completely flat.

What happened? It’s the start of the session and we’re jumping between Guardian and Captain Danger, both in their secret identities, separately going about life in the city. Captain Danger (in her secret identity) is having lunch with her sister at a street cafe, arguing about something as they usually do. It might have even been about how she hasn’t seen Felicity much recently, with Felicity being evasive, of course.

And then cut to Guardian (in his secret identity) strolling down the street. And look, there’s his assistant, Grant. So of course he strolls up and starts giving her a hard time about not writing his latest story for him (like we said: bad boss). And Grant looks awkward and hems and haws.

There’s a full five beat pause before the players realize that now we’re not playing two different scenes, this is the *same* scene, and Captain Danger is sitting there listening to some total stranger call her sister “Grant” and haranguing her about some job she didn’t know Felicity had.

Dead silence follows. Seth and Ping are just starring at me. There is another full five beat pause before Guardian pulls a “I’ve got to return some video tapes” and strides off, leaving Felicity and Captain Danger just sitting there. And then robot battlepods attack, sparing us further awkwardness.

But *Why* Did That Happen?

In the moment, the total lack of reaction was cringe-inducing. The kind of thing that makes a GM just weep. But talking about it afterwards, Ping and Seth explained that they were so surprised they couldn’t think how to react. Which in hindsight makes a lot of sense because if you look at the situation more closely the players know something weird just happened, but the characters… don’t?

In-character, Guardian has no reason to think anything is weird. He just saw Grant having lunch with another woman he doesn’t recognize. So from Seth’s point of view, there really is nothing to say. No big reaction would make sense, even if he *wanted* to have a big reaction.

And in-character, Captain Danger heard this total stranger call her sister by a different name and make some references to working together, but that’s not exactly earth-shattering? She should have questions, but no reason to flip out. It’s not like she just learned that her sister was living a double life, hanging out with superheroes and getting caught in the middle of battles with mutant bikers from the apocalyptic wasteland…

Sidenote: An Apology to Paul

And here is a quick sidenote, where I apologize to Paul, another player in the campaign. Because in Cathy Grant’s very first appearance, she actually did get caught in the middle of a battle with mutant bikers from the apocalyptic wasteland. Mutant bikers who had burst through a rift into the middle of the high society soiree that the reporters were covering and that Paul’s character, Dr. Daedalus, was attending in his secret identity as the wealthy heir to his family fortune. Which of course was why Episode 25 was named “High Society”. And yeah that sounds very random, but it was part of the big “worlds in collision” storyline that was the main plot of the campaign. It totally made sense, in comic book land.

Right as the action breaks out, and choppers are skidding across the parquet floors and knocking over champagne glasses and canapés, and everyone is freaking out, Paul has his Iron Man-esque inventor quickly improvise a flash bomb and hurl it at the mutant bikers to stun them so the terrified guests can get out of the way and he can dash off and change into his armor without blowing his secret identity.

But the GM (me) says *click, buzz* nothing happens. It’s a dud. And Paul is looks at me with a “hmmm?” look on his face. Because he totally made the roll.

But I know that it failed because, unbeknownst to everyone (at least until Episode #39 “Luck Under Glass (part 2)”), Felicity has probability-warping luck powers, just like her sister Captain Danger. Not even Felicity knows, which is fitting, since Captain Danger kind-of sort-of doesn’t know her own incredibly daring escapes and escapades are a product of an actual superpower either. She thinks she’s just a two-fisted badass who sometimes can’t catch a break.

And in addition to the mutant bikers, who else was in the blast radius of the flash grenade? Yep, plucky junior reporter Cathy Grant aka Felicity. So her luck power protected her from the attack by making the circuitry fizzle.

But I also know that from Paul’s point-of-view, it probably looks like I’m being a bad GM and sabotaging a clever move on his part to avoid spoiling my awesome combat set piece. A classic GM injustice. So I take him into the kitchen and I say “I know that looked bogus, but there is absolutely a reason that didn’t work, and I can’t tell you what it is right now, but some day I will. Trust me.” And Paul was totally fine with that and the game kept rolling, because Paul is a great player.

I showed that I respected his place as a player and asked him to believe I wasn’t violating that trust. And I could write a whole separate post about just that interaction and the nature of the trust between GM and players and the need to protect that trust… and what happens when you fail: I’m looking at you, Seven Steps!

When Your Reveal Is Not A Reveal

So the reveal fell flat because the players were shocked, but the characters weren’t, because the characters hadn’t seen anything truly surprising. The reveal was all player-knowledge, not character-knowledge. A player-reveal, but not a reveal for the characters.

I think that split threw the players into role-playing paralysis, where they couldn’t figure out how their characters should react in the moment because they were trying to untangle what their characters knew. And keep in mind that the moment the players saw that Grant was Felicity, their first reflex would be to mentally jump back through all the previous games, look at everything that happened in a new light, and try to quickly understand what it all meant. Their brains were busy for a few minutes, so of course play grinds to a halt.

And part of that was because I had failed to provide any hints or foreshadowing, any clues that would lead someone to figure it out or at least slap themselves in the forehead for not spotting it sooner. The only real hint was that Grant acted just like Felicity, which is a pretty subtle clue that hilariously was interpreted as me just having a narrow role-playing range.

So instead of a hilarious “doh, of course!” I got a stunned silence.

Ironically I think if their characters had not been in the scene when the truth was revealed — if they had just been watching someone else play a scene where it came out — the players would have had more freedom to just go “oh my god!” and enjoy the moment, because they would not have been trying to figure out an appropriate reaction for their characters at the same time.

Twenty Years Later…

The whole New Century City campaign was a long time ago, in a game far, far away. Which leads to the question, would I run a game that way now?

Not at all. I have a very different view of the dynamic of the people at the table, or maybe I just enjoy different things. Nowadays instead of keeping it a secret that only I knew, I would eagerly tell everyone “That’s really Captain Danger’s sister, Felicity, but the characters don’t know it, so let’s see how far this goes before it all blows up!” Because there are few things quite as fun as role-playing your character unwittingly throwing bombs into a situation that the players all understand but the characters don’t. Dramatic irony!

Think of it as time of enjoyment: I spent a dozen games being the only one knowing how truly interesting the situation with Felicigrant was. I was hogging all the fun. If I had told the other players, we could have all enjoyed every awkward moment together.

That’s how I play nowadays: let everyone in on the fun, whenever possible.

Worlds In The Wild

I’m getting verified sightings of In This World deliveries in the wild!

Books are showing up on people’s doorsteps, which means it’s time to get folks together and make some new worlds. Cats not included.

Update: If you too want to show everyone your beautiful book (with or without pets) drop a link in the comments or send them to me at info at lamemage.com and I’ll share them.