First, yes... late blog post is late. My apologies, this month has been quite full of
stuff, like GDC Online and an upcoming Seattle trip.
I owe the inspiration for this week’s blog post to my friend
Matthew Steen, who wanted to find out some of my thoughts about setting the
scene in an RPG. Matt is a very creative person and very interested in the
narrative aspects of RPGs, so I thought his suggestion was quite interesting.
My History With RPG Scenery
I’ve been playing RPGs for about 27 years now, and setting
the scene was always something I found to be important. After all, the heart of
an RPG is all about imagination—so I generally tried hard to make each game as
immersive as possible. When I started out, this idea was mostly expressed as
focusing on the “cool” parts of the game while relegating rules mechanics to a
far secondary role. Thanks to another friend of mine, Brad Wilson, I did learn
to let the story and the mechanics work together a lot more harmoniously during
my high school years.
This, just the camera is in your mind.
When I got to college, I joined a Champions group that met
very near to the University of Wyoming campus. In this group I learned a lot,
but one of the most memorable things about the group was the way that describing
the scene worked. I was actually co-GMing the campaign with another player, and
I often found myself jumping in to help out by adding detail to the
descriptions of various scenes—particularly the flashy superheroic battles that
the group engaged in. During my time in the military, I discovered how powerful
setting the scene can be when trying to evoke a particular genre or emotion in
your players. This was further defined with my gaming group in Maryland where
we reached some truly spectacular heights with a horror-themed game that relied
heavily on the ambience and description of each scene.
My journey of discovery with setting the scene in RPGs has
been quite instructive to me, and I’m glad to share my thoughts on the subject.
Evocative roleplay is my favorite kind!
Note: the subject of
this blog post is highly subjective and is unlikely to apply in equal measure
across all groups. I’ve done my best to give broad advice here, but you should
keep in mind that every group has their own approach to RPGs.
What is Setting the Scene?
Setting the scene is all about effective description;
whenever an environment, character, action or event is being described, that is
part of “setting the scene.” This kind of description can vary from extremely
basic (“You see a 10’ by 10’ room. Inside is an Orc guarding a pie.”) to flowery
and detailed. Switching from one style to the other is often considered a
telltale sign that something is special about the upcoming action. One of my
favorite quotes to this effect comes from
Knights of the Dinner Table: “Anything
with that much flavor text is obviously a trap.”
Basically, this. If the cheeseburger was flowery description.
Basic descriptions provide the bare minimum needed. I like
to think that many Game Masters provide more than just the nuts and bolts—they try
to make an impact with their descriptions. This is what I think about when I
imagine “setting the scene.”
Here’s an example of setting the scene from one of my early
Shadows Angelus games where the party was investigating a mysterious asylum:
“You are standing outside the darkened asylum
as rain hisses down all around you. A light fog roils around your ankles and you
sense a sharp, coppery scent of blood in the air. There’s a hushed, expectant
atmosphere as if your arrival here was no coincidence. Suddenly, you can hear a
thunderous roar erupt from the asylum’s depths – a primal sound of endless
hate.”
Tools for Setting the Scene
If you’re looking for some methods to use to help craft
immersive and interesting scenes in your RPG, here are some tools that I use to
benefit this approach:
Excite the Senses
Often, describing the scene is purely visual (see the
example of the Orc and the pie above). However, we all have many more senses
than just our sight – describing what the scene sounds or smells like, providing
details about the texture or subtle vibration in the floor, and adding some
information about the gritty wind blowing across the plains can all help bring
the action to life in the minds of your players. Sight, hearing and scent are
the easiest cues to build into a scene, but also consider the other senses from
time to time.
The accordion kings want to remind you that hearing is important.
In one of my Birthright games in Louisville, Kentucky, my
good friend Bryant Smith was playing a fallen paladin who had succumbed to
alcoholism. In a truly memorable scene, he found the only cure for a terrible
disease ravaging his body involved drinking from a unique liquor known as the
wine of dreams. Because this was a very important scene for his character, I
went all-out describing the thick, honey-like substance, the sweet and spicy
scent, and the riot of flavors across his tongue as he downed the bottle.
Relate to the Real
It is sometimes easy to forget that the players don’t always
have the same context and memories as yourself. It’s not hard for me to
remember, for example, the size and majesty of Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.
However, it would be a mistake to assume that my players can all relate to that
same image if I attempt to describe the monster as being “roughly the same size
as Devil’s Tower.” On the other hand, I can generally assume that most players
have seen a skyscraper building at some point in their lives—so describing the
monster as being “several skyscrapers high” is much more effective.
Consider using measurements that are easily relatable… and
the more easily memorable, the better. If you can use the dimensions of the
room, for example, that is generally a good way to help people imagine the
scene. You could also use nearby features, such as the parking lot across the
street to establish the general dimensions of an abandoned keep, or point to a
visible water tower out the window as an example of the wizard’s tower.
Similarly, don’t forget weather effects! Not every single
adventure needs to take place during a sunny day – rain, snow, high winds, or fog
can all enhance a typical scene and add extra drama to a confrontation in-game.
For my Shadows Angelus campaign, I had decided that the city
experienced weather similar to London – high amounts of rain and fog. Consistently
adding these details helped set the game experience apart and made certain
moments in the game very memorable.
Find the Right Words
Vocabulary can make quite a difference in the description of
a scene. Consider the following two examples:
Description 1: “The
creature staggers towards you, covered in slime. Instead of a face, there is
only a wriggling mass of tentacles.”
Description 2: “The
creature lurched across the threshold, noxious slime dripping from every pore.
Its face was merely a squamous mass of writhing tentacles.”
While these are both perfectly serviceable descriptions, the
second has a particular flavor that is missing in the first. Choosing the right
words to describe the scene can add or enhance the tone of the game. If you
have a particularly heroic, high-fantasy game, for example, you could consider
using words like “valorous,” “bastion,” or “sublime.” A gritty, street-focused
modern or near-future game might instead benefit from terms such as “grimy,” “glaring,”
or “suspicious.”
Antidisestablishmentarianism is a great word for nearly any RPG. Okay, maybe not.
Like much of the rest of this blog post, vocabulary choice
is very subjective—thus, your mileage may vary, and you should always take into
account your personal style and that of your group.
Props!
Don’t underestimate the power of physical props to get your
players immersed in the game. Obviously, some games are going to find this
easier than others – high fantasy rarely lends itself to common props that a
game master can easily get his hands on, for example. However, even just some
basic actions or objects can really enhance the experience.
During a very memorable Dungeons and Dragons game, my
character encountered a disguised monster known as a Lamia. Taking the role of
the Lamia, the GM moved in close and constantly made small touches to my leg
while we were talking. (If this sounds vaguely uncomfortable, that’s okay… it
was /meant/ to be!) The Lamia drains Wisdom as a touch attack, and my poor
character had been reduced to a wreck without rolling a single die.
Another time, I was running a game of Dark Champions where
the player characters were all street-level superheroes. During one of their
investigations, they came across the wallet of a dead man containing vital
clues. I had actually acquired a used wallet and mocked up various items found
inside, such as business cards, ID, etc. Rather than describing what they
found, I simply handed over the wallet and let the players go from there.
Building Atmosphere
Using evocative description is a great way to build a proper
atmosphere for your game. This can be done over a single session or over an
entire story arc, depending on the scope of the theme or mood you wish to
highlight.
What I do when I want to build atmosphere is select a
certain theme; “betrayal,” for instance, or “fairy kingdom.” Next, I use a set
of key words that bring that theme to the forefront and scatter them throughout
the descriptions I use for the game. If I am trying to build atmosphere during
a single session, I like to a slow build—maybe two or three references at the
beginning, moving up to about double that at the middle, and then hitting it
really hard in the third act.
For a long-term campaign, building atmosphere relies on
consistency—if you refer to the Swanwood as peaceful in one session, it shouldn’t
suddenly feel threatening later on unless there’s a very good reason for that.
I’m currently part of a Birthright campaign where this
concept has been used well; the Swanwood is a place of peace and serenity, and
visitors to it always feel as if a weight had been lifted from their shoulders.
Wisely, the GM makes small references to that whenever we visit the Swanwood
after the first time, even if we’re just passing through.
Similarly, in Shadows Angelus, the extradimensional Entities
always invoke feelings of nausea and illness (known as “Entity Sickness”) to
any being nearby. Every time an Entity shows up, I tried to be inventive about
how sick it made the player character’s feel just to be around them.
I recommend using an index card listing a specific theme and
the vocabulary choices you want to use to reinforce that theme. Keeping a small
set of these cards handy to review during breaks can be helpful.
Narrating the Action
One thing that I like to pay close attention to during any
RPG I am playing in is how the narrative aspects of combat are handled. I’ve
seen a lot of games (probably too many) that rely simply on “I hit, you miss,”
and similar comments. Even more games have battles that (aside from spell
effects or gunfire) are eerily silent.
For me, I like to imagine each game as a movie in my head,
and that means I lean towards the cinematic as often as possible. This also
means that I like to have my characters (and NPCs) talk during combat,
exchanging quips or threats, or even just stating the obvious (as you do,
especially in a superheroic game) such as “Our weapons are useless!” or “You’ll
never get away with this!”
I recommend varying things up more than this, though.
I believe that the player characters are meant to be the
protagonists of the story, and that means they should generally feel competent
in what they do in combat. This means that when I am narrating the action, I
try to do so in a way that empowers the character concept and furthers the
story. Few things can affect a player as strongly as when he feels he or his
character is being mocked—it is easy to chuckle over a critical failure now and
then, but it can easily damage a player’s enjoyment of the game if he
constantly feels like the narrative description of his actions casts him in a
bad light.
Take a look at the following two examples of narrating the
action, both occurring after a player has made a bad roll against an opponent
during a combat scene:
Example 1: “You swing
at the Orc and nearly drop your sword, fumbling the weapon and almost tripping
over the scabbard.”
Example 2: “You swing
at the Orc, but he brings his axe up to intercept it, snarling defiantly at you,
‘No one gets out of this dungeon alive.’”
The first example de-protagonizes the character and makes
him seem foolish. This is occasionally fine (and more often acceptable in a
lighthearted or comedy-styled campaign), but it often is harmful to the player’s
overall enjoyment of the game. The second example empowers both the character
and the story, giving the player something to riff off of should he choose to
respond.
How Much is Too Much?
The pace of a game is very important, and it should be noted
that descriptions can get overly flowery and detailed—thus slowing down the
game for little benefit. Naturally, a game’s pace will vary based on the group
and the GM, and every group has their own unique style. That having been said,
I would recommend that most scene-setting descriptions should get the idea
across as concisely as possible.
My recommendation is to write down what you would consider a
typical description and time yourself – any descriptions that take more than
twenty seconds or so is probably too long.
In combat, keep things short and snappy in order for the
action to flow smoothly.
In Conclusion
Setting the scene, as you can probably tell by reading this,
is important to me. I’m pleased to have the opportunity to talk about it, and I
hope that you find this blog post helpful for setting the scene in your own RPG
games. If you have any suggestions for other ways to help set the scene, please
don’t hesitate to mention them in the comments section below.
