Game Ideas Un limited: Foreshadowed

  For as long as my wife knew her father, he was always melancholy in November.  Sometimes just looking at the world would bring a tear to his eye.  She never knew why; all she knew was that there was something about November that touched him emotionally, rather deeply.

  I know--I'm getting esoteric again, after only just pulling out of an esoteric streak last week.  I should write something more practical, to keep the series fresh.  It's just that I wanted to get this published before November was too far behind us, and I only just realized it as November was drawing to a close.  You see, my father-in-law died in the month of November, the month in which he had always seemed a bit sad.  It only just struck me how oddly significant that was.

  Of course, it's probably not significant.  Those of you with scientific minds will note that it need not be entirely coincidental and still not have any special meaning.  After all, if indeed he was always depressed at a particular time of year, once he was near ninety years old (my wife was the child of his old age) it was entirely likely that such depression would contribute to his health problems and bring the long-delayed end of his life.  His melancholy at that time of year could have stemmed from events in the past of which he never spoke, or even which he no longer recalled.  In our modern practical terms, it means nothing.  Yet the realization that he died in that month which for long years had touched him deeply for no known reason has feeling of wonder to it, as if there were something magical there.

  Samuel Clemens was born the year Haley's Comet passed through the center of the Solar System.  He once said that he had come in with the comet and he expected to go out with it.  Indeed, sometime around his seventy-fifth birthday as the famed comet made its return he died.  Was it just coincidence, or did he will it--or was his death foreshadowed by the comet in some way that he recognized but could not articulate?

  Character deaths, particularly player character deaths, are rather tricky events in traditional role playing games.  We don't plan them; they take us rather by surprise, sometimes shock us entirely.  We're on an adventure, and something goes wrong, and we do everything we can but it's not enough, and that's the end.  On the other hand, there are new approaches to play on the market now in which players have control over the deaths of their characters, and in which this control is given to them specifically so that they can create great stories around those characters.  Such games lend themselves potentially to foreshadowing, to creating impressions, connecting to times and places, anticipating events.  Whether it is November or the Comet or Dunsinane Castle, moods and facts can be brought together to provide a glimpse of the future, or the potential future, enhancing the story in an almost magical way.

  Even when such prediction of character death is inconsistent with the play techniques of a particular game, foreshadowing of events can still be used effectively, and can set a mood of mystery or of anticipation.  Something is going to happen, it says.  Of course something is going to happen.  After all, this is an adventure game, and things happen.  Yet by foreshadowing something, not too specifically, you can set the players on edge awaiting the thud of the other shoe.

  Some referees use heavy-handed illusionist techniques to bring about desired events.  This enables them to foreshadow and even prophesy those events, because it's not that difficult for a player with the credibility ordinarily granted referees in traditional games to predetermine a few events.  The difficulty here is that heavy foreshadowing of predetermined events that will be brought to pass by illusionist techniques alerts players to their own limited credibility in play--that is, they realize that their choices aren't going to matter if they see that the referee has already decided what is going to happen.  The more clearly this appears, the more it becomes apparent that the referee is going to run roughshod over his players, and the less likely they are to enjoy it.  It takes unusual skill to tell the players what is going to happen, then cause it to happen, while making them feel that it was entirely due to their own choices.  It also becomes more difficult to do without tipping your hand the more times you do it with the same players, as eventually they see the man behind the curtain and throw in their cards, take their football and go home, to badly mix several metaphors.

  A more interesting approach is taken by some who project an impression that something significant is about to happen.  This is a referee who really has no idea nor expectation of events ahead, but knows that if he acts like he expects something important to occur the players will latch onto that and attach importance to whatever does happen, leading them to think he planned it and they walked right into it.  Foreshadowing in this case remains vague, undirected, like spooky music in a movie which tells us that something is going to happen but without any particulars.  This requires considerably more flexibility after the fact, as once the foreshadowed event is identified the referee must adjust the world such that this event is significant in whatever way fits the foreshadowing.

  Non-specific foreshadowing can be used in less flexible situations as well.  For example, it can be foretold that if the explorers enter this area, someone will die, and the referee can guarantee the fulfillment of that prediction without forcing anything.  It would be a bit silly if the outcome was that the enemies they encounter therein died (that, after all, is probably what they want, and hardly feels like what was foreshadowed).  However, if the enemies hold prisoners, some of the prisoners may be killed, making the prediction true and meaningful to the players without involving the deaths of their characters.

  In talking about an Anniversary a couple weeks back, we suggested that a player could create for his character a significant date, and state why it was significant.  Perhaps it could also be so that the character has a significant time of year for which he has no explanation, something that is foreshadowing his future in ways he does not understand.  It's a tricky notion to manage in play, but there are ways to do it, and it might be worth exploring.

  Next week, something different.

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M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.