From the article archive
Writing Practice, Nov. 15th 2001
News: Still feeling punk, so no work on Ki. This whole experience has given me an idea for a column, but you'll have to wait a few days to see it.
Essay: Yesterday (Nov. 14th, 2001) I asked about stories in your campaign. Today the question is, how accurate are those stories?
Consider the tales told in real life. Consider the stories sent through email or appearing in bulletin boards. The noise to signal ratio can be high. Think it was any different back in the old days? Not really.
Old traveller's tales were full of misinformation. The baboons of East Africa became the fabled dog-headed men of Ethiopia. Marmots in the Hindu Kush digging burrows and carrying out gold dust on their fur became giant ants industriously mining gold. An Anatolian mining technique turned into the Golden Fleece. If misinformation is common in the real world, why not in your campaign?
Say you have a gilded hole a few miles from downtown Newbieville. What are the odds nobody's gone to check it out in the last couple of centuries? What are the odds there are no stories about the monsters and treasures to be found within? Even worse then in the first case, I bet.
The treasure is going to draw people. The monsters are going to make getting the treasure hard. Both are going to inspire stories. Even if the stories have some accuracy in the begining, over the course of time they will become inaccurate. Sometimes grossly inaccurate.
Let's say one party runs into a band of goblins in one part of the dungeon. A fight ensues and the party manages to escape with its life. They tell of their adventures in a Newbieville tavern, then go on to other adventures. So now all the adventurers and prospective adventurers in Newbieville know about the goblins. Back in the gilded hole the goblins get chased out of their lair by a band of gnolls, taking advantage of the goblins' losses. A couple more adventuring parties drop on by, expecting goblins, and get wiped out. Now it's the PCs' turn.
Of course, every now and then you do run across a story that is accurate. That is, indeed, factual. But often the facts are well hidden beneath a layer of fantabulism and fable.
For example, the story of an orc band with a mighty vizard. The band in question does indeed have a wizard, an orc with an innate talent who's largely self taught. His claim to fame was a staff of the magi he got off a long dead human wizard. A staff that is now all used up and is mostly used now as a tent pole.
Then you have those rare tales that do impart factual information, and in a fairly straight forward fashion. These should be rare, but not non-existant.
If all your stories are either outright fiction, or hidden beneath layers of confabulation, your players are going to get frustrated sooner or later, and likely leave the game. So with all the made up tales, mistakes in transmission, exaggerations, etc. include a minority that are factual. Above all, make sure your players understand that most of the tales are going to be wrong. Or, if not wrong outright, largely erroneous. Should add a lot to your game.
In The Future: If I'm feeling better I'll be writing about the stellar system Ki is in tomorrow. Give you a look at the universe and what not. If not, it'll be something else. Yes, I do have colmun ideas, but sometimes they hide on me. So it's lie back, cogitate, and hope something develops. Till then.
Alan
Essay: Yesterday (Nov. 14th, 2001) I asked about stories in your campaign. Today the question is, how accurate are those stories?
Consider the tales told in real life. Consider the stories sent through email or appearing in bulletin boards. The noise to signal ratio can be high. Think it was any different back in the old days? Not really.
Old traveller's tales were full of misinformation. The baboons of East Africa became the fabled dog-headed men of Ethiopia. Marmots in the Hindu Kush digging burrows and carrying out gold dust on their fur became giant ants industriously mining gold. An Anatolian mining technique turned into the Golden Fleece. If misinformation is common in the real world, why not in your campaign?
Say you have a gilded hole a few miles from downtown Newbieville. What are the odds nobody's gone to check it out in the last couple of centuries? What are the odds there are no stories about the monsters and treasures to be found within? Even worse then in the first case, I bet.
The treasure is going to draw people. The monsters are going to make getting the treasure hard. Both are going to inspire stories. Even if the stories have some accuracy in the begining, over the course of time they will become inaccurate. Sometimes grossly inaccurate.
Let's say one party runs into a band of goblins in one part of the dungeon. A fight ensues and the party manages to escape with its life. They tell of their adventures in a Newbieville tavern, then go on to other adventures. So now all the adventurers and prospective adventurers in Newbieville know about the goblins. Back in the gilded hole the goblins get chased out of their lair by a band of gnolls, taking advantage of the goblins' losses. A couple more adventuring parties drop on by, expecting goblins, and get wiped out. Now it's the PCs' turn.
Of course, every now and then you do run across a story that is accurate. That is, indeed, factual. But often the facts are well hidden beneath a layer of fantabulism and fable.
For example, the story of an orc band with a mighty vizard. The band in question does indeed have a wizard, an orc with an innate talent who's largely self taught. His claim to fame was a staff of the magi he got off a long dead human wizard. A staff that is now all used up and is mostly used now as a tent pole.
Then you have those rare tales that do impart factual information, and in a fairly straight forward fashion. These should be rare, but not non-existant.
If all your stories are either outright fiction, or hidden beneath layers of confabulation, your players are going to get frustrated sooner or later, and likely leave the game. So with all the made up tales, mistakes in transmission, exaggerations, etc. include a minority that are factual. Above all, make sure your players understand that most of the tales are going to be wrong. Or, if not wrong outright, largely erroneous. Should add a lot to your game.
In The Future: If I'm feeling better I'll be writing about the stellar system Ki is in tomorrow. Give you a look at the universe and what not. If not, it'll be something else. Yes, I do have colmun ideas, but sometimes they hide on me. So it's lie back, cogitate, and hope something develops. Till then.
Alan
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