I’ve been thinking about scenarios and railroading and ease of GMing.

Let me take a step back. GMing is hard. It’s not so hard that people don’t constantly just learn how to do it on their own but it’s hard enough that many people don’t do it. It’s also hard to talk about how hard GMing is because GMing isn’t the same thing. Different playstyles demand different skills. Different prospective GMs have different expectations for what they want to achieve.

But to me, the fundamental problem is the strength of RPGs: anything can happen. Tactical infinity, if you will. So how do you ever get comfortable with that? How do you prepare for everything?

The solution to the fundamental problem is pretty fundamental as well: you have to limit the possibilities. The typical way to do this is through your scenario. In fact, that’s the main thing a scenario does for you. The logic is simple: if the whole adventure happens in this 5×5 square, then you don’t need to improvise what the weather is like in Klatch.

The next thing a scenario does is help you envision an ending. In a location-based adventure, what’s at the end? In a monster hunt, there’s the monster. In a mystery, there’s the answer. The less obvious the ending, the harder the scenario is to run. Or to put it another way, the easier it is to hold the shape of the whole scenario in your head, the better.

If you’re interested in adventure or challenge or problem-solving, a dungeon with a clear goal (get the treasure) is great because the possibility space is literally bounded by the walls. Players aren’t going to ask to speak to their childhood friend, Zorp, or try to start a flying carpet business. They’re going to only engage with the ingredients listed in the recipe. Expanding this a little: What’s the difference between a dungeon and a long winding road through the desert? Or a creepy forest with a monster in it? The physical constraints are a little less obvious and the scenario becomes incrementally harder to the same extent.

But what about the GMs who imagine their games in terms of genre and narrative and not challenge? Here, the solutions are less well-theorized. All my favourite story games are all big lifts but not because the rules are more complicated necessarily. But because they don’t offer an easy way to limit possibilities into something manageable. They might come with scenario starters but they don’t tend to be starter scenarios. They don’t tend to be bounded enough so it’s easy to hold the possibility space in your head.

When I discussed my Blades in ’68 game, I explained my scenario: Suicide Squad-style team of criminals gets charged with killing 5 villains before they destroy the city in 5 days. I did this to make the game easier for myself. This scenario has organic limits: space, time, people. You can politely explain to players that no, there isn’t time to invent a whole new type of bomb. If they don’t stick to task, their handlers will chase ’em down with prejudice. (They can choose to abandon the mission of course but that’s a sign the whole game isn’t working. Time to talk.)

When D&D (1974) first came out, it wasn’t a complete game. In The Elusive Shift, Jon Peterson quotes a person saying in 1979 that “D&D is, in fact, less a game than a design-a-game kit”. Over the last 50 years, that’s a tension that hasn’t gone anywhere. Today, there are lots of games that are games and lots that are design-a-game kits.

There are games that say “this is what the game is about” and games that ask “what do you want it to be about?”.

If the appeal for both isn’t clear, think about buying a table and making one. I’m sure 99% of people reading this would buy a table but surely, it’s clear that making one could be extremely enjoyable and rewarding.

What I like about this analogy is that even as I really dislike games that ask me to make the game, I’m quite delighted to know that there is a culture where people make their own tables. It’s nice. And maybe I would do it if I wasn’t doing other things.

(I say “could be rewarding” because if you’re going to be doing so much work, you better not be hinging it on someone else liking your table. That sounds like a recipe for disappointment and so many RPG horror stories are about just that.)

But the funny thing about the RPG industry is because of the weight of tradition, most games feel like they’re not complete games – they all seem to require some amount of work to finish. The amount of work can vary. When I prep to run Impossible Landscapes, the module has some great stuff but it’s so dense and can’t be referenced during play. So I have to make extensive, exhaustive notes. When I play Pasion de la Pasiones, there’s some great moves at the heart of it but there’s a lot of setting and genre that has to be constructed around it.

(I don’t think this is bad per se. It’s hard to play the saxophone but I would never say it was designed badly. But there is a reason why there are only a few saxophonists.)

I go back to Johnstone Metzger’s post about how you can classify games based on the GM materials: “a pre-designed map, a pre-designed world, a linear storyline, a pre-designed relationship matrix, and materials for improvisation.” These are all ways that designer nudge RPGs towards being complete. It’s not about picking one, it’s about combining as many as you need.

(It’s also instantly clear how “materials for improvisation” is the least clear term in that list and someone needs to get in there and build on that.)

This is probably the most exciting trend for me in game design right now. The movement towards completeness and all the paths it takes. But in Elusive Shift, Peterson’s argument is that with AD&D, the goal was to make a complete game as well as a closed one. Peterson is wistful, almost sad, for the period of creativity that came before. If we want to learn from history, it’s good to remember that even as we seek complete games, we’re not trying to create homogeneity or stultify creativity.

On this episode, we talk to J Strautman and B Marsollier. J Strautman is a bass player, composer, sound designer, game designer, and podcaster. B Marsollier is an illustrator, voice over artist, game designer, podcaster and former antique rug salesperson. They are the co-DMs of the D&D actual play podcast, Planet Arcana. The podcast is fully sound designed and scored with original music by J. Last year, 2023, Planet Arcana received 9 nominations at the New Jersey and Minnesota Webfests, winning 3 awards, 2 for “Best D&D Actual Play” and 1 for “Best GM”.

Earth Mother, Sky Father: A two-player game based on Maori creation myth exploring the relationship between the two deities, people, and the world. (takataapui)

Blackacre: A noir game based on Fate with British gangsters and occult magic. It features beautiful black and white line art and a unique-sounding world. (Symberzite)

Wacky Race RPG: A narrative party-game where you adlib as sportcasters and play out wacky Contestants trying to outdo each other. (DeReel)

Dwellers Under the High Grave: An Ironsworn setting inspired by the folklore and history of Ukraine. (Mendercap)

Band-Aids & Bullet Holes: A card-based game of debts, vendettas, and revenge among a society of professional assassins. Basically, John Wick. (S Dunnewold)

One Last Dollar: A hack of Trophy where you play desperate people doing jobs in a weird, wild Great Depression. (Mynar Lenahan)

The Song of Eastlake: A really interesting group project where every hex is a multiversal reworking of the same prompt. I love that each location has the same monsters by name but each time, they’ve been completely reimagined.

Hirelings: You play a hireling climbing a tall tower on behalf of a hero. You also build a tower out of cards and answer prompts. (Armiger Games)

With the Cult of Crimson Revelers: A light-hearted OSR adventure of debauchery and drugs with art by Mun Kao and Dwiz. (Directsun Games)

Abode 2e: A gothic game of family and lineage where you build out a family tree and tell a story of inevitable doom. You know, ruin has come to our family, that kind of stuff. (Crackerjackalope)