There’s an idea that adventures are like trains. Each train car is a scene that has an obstacle. You need to overcome the obstacle in the train car before you move onto the next train car. When you get to the last train car the adventure is over. You get off the train at the station and then get on another train to have another adventure. Doing this repeatedly gives you a campaign. All the GM needs to do is keep providing trains and all the players need to do is keep getting on them. Classic. Simple. Easy. Nothing wrong with it.
But what if we don’t just look at creating trains with a series of train cars for PCs to overcome? What if we provide something that is happening? Something that will have a distinct end if the PCs don’t get involved. What if that something has a variety of potential endings depending on: how the PCs get involved, the choices they make, and how those choices have an impact on the something that’s going on? That’s designing a situation.
The “Situation” in RPGs
I like to think of the situation as a moment of instability in the ongoing narrative where multiple forces want incompatible outcomes and time or pressure will push events forward whether the PCs act or not. I don’t think of a situation as a scene, or an encounter, or a plot point. I see it as an evolving problem. By reframing adventure design to fit this idea we can craft and facilitate games where there is a lot of choice, unexpected outcomes, and tension beyond someone living or dying.
One. Something Is Already Wrong
A situation begins in motion. The problem exists before the PCs get involved and it doesn’t wait for them to get involved. If nothing is currently happening, you do not have a situation yet.
- The thieves guild has stolen the art pieces from the gallery and two of the pieces are magical artifacts that are wards against demonic entities, but they can be corrupted to help summon a powerful demon.
- A necromancer has built up their undead forces and is sending them into the town to steal resources and assassinate people.
- A CEO of a company has been murdered and it looks like a retired serial killer is back at killing.
Practice this by coming up with problems in your own games that exist without having the PCs involved.
Two. There Are Competing Interests
At least two entities want different things, and those desires cannot all be satisfied at once. These entities may be people, factions, creatures, institutions, environments, or abstract forces like law or tradition. One of these competing interests should be the PCs and a GM should make it personal to one or more PCs if possible… and it’s almost always possible.
- The thieves want money for the pieces they stole. The gallery wants their items returned. The PCs would like to get paid for recovering the items and keep them from being used for evil purposes. A group of evil cultists wants two of the stolen items because they hold significant spiritual and magical significance to their cult and their goals of summoning their demonic patron. A group of protectors want the two specific items returned because they understand the power they hold and don’t want the demonic patron summoned.
- The necromancer wants revenge on the town since he believes he was wronged in being removed from the magic guild for lack of skill and then being kicked out of his home by his parents for his failure. The town wants to exist in peace. The necromancer’s parents want to live. The PCs live in the town and would like their homes to not be destroyed by undead.
- A secret society group organized the murder because they want a CEO in their organization to gain a lucrative contract. A husband wants out of the marriage and to gain the money from the deceased’s will. The serial killer is upset someone is using their MO. The PCs are friends of the deceased CEO and want justice and the previous victim of the serial killer before they stopped killing, was the brother of one of the PCs.
Practice this by taking the problem you came up with and figuring out who the competing interests are and what they want. Make one of them the PCs and decide how you can make it personal for them.
Three. Pressure Exists Independent of the Players
Time, danger, scarcity, or attention applies pressure that escalates the situation. If the players do nothing, the situation changes on its own. This creates tension and a sense of urgency. While things escalate it’s worth asking yourself and maybe even jotting down a note or two about how far an interest will go to achieve their desire and when they’ll back off. What’s too much? When is desperate action their only recourse? That way you can understand how the pressure will push these interests when deciding how things progress and have a better idea of what to do when the PCs apply their own pressure.
- The thieves will hold a black market auction to sell off the goods, making it potentially harder for the PCs to recover the items. The GM knows the auction will happen in three days and the evil cult will purchase the two items of power. This would make it difficult if not impossible for the items to be recovered.
- The necromancer is gathering power and once he locates and then retrieves enough resources, he’ll raise the skeletal dragon and attack. This would put the town and its people at great risk.
- If the PCs do nothing then their friend’s murder will go unsolved and the company will eventually be sold off and dismantled. The serial killer will track down the actual killer and deal with them, putting the spotlight on a prominent society family. Now let’s take a slightly different road and ask what happens if the PCs try to solve the murder since it’s very personal to them. The secret society will try to dissuade the PCs with money, influence, and violence, to get them to back off. Even if the PCs don’t back off the secret society is working to tie up loose ends, and if the PCs take too long the clues and proof of wrongdoing dry up and the murder becomes unsolvable.
Practice this by deciding how the situation ends if the PCs do not get involved. How will the different competing interests fare when the situation resolves itself? Many games have mechanics, formats, or frameworks for how things can escalate. If the game you’re running doesn’t have methods for escalation, just write down a couple of ways you think the situation escalates and what drives those escalations. You should give yourself at least two escalations that can be felt in the setting so the PCs have a way to know what’s going on.
Four. The Outcome Is Not Predetermined
A situation does not assume its ending. Throwing down, talking, switching sides, letting go, success, and failure are all possible outcomes. The GM can think about consequences but their time is better spent understanding how the competing interests think and react when pressured, so when the PCs act the competing interests act in a manner that suits the narrative in the game. People only do something to their ultimate doom or demise when they’re desperate and have no other recourse. It’s worth giving it some thought to when an interest has had enough and will decide to take a different path. Last thing on this: while it’s ok to telegraph potential danger and pay it off when appropriate, this kind of play isn’t about set piece scenes you’re driving the game towards. It’s about making choices matter on a larger narrative scale.
- The thieves want to sell the goods at auction, make their cash, and then disappear. The cult wants the special items. We know these things will happen if the PCs do nothing. But when the PCs grab one of the thieves off the street and bring them back to their base of operations to get information out of them, things start changing. The other thieves want their friend back. They attack the PCs base to get their friend. The PCs have already moved their friend to a safe house, though. The Thieves bail, understanding that they can’t recover their friend so they have no reason to fight further. With their friend missing they decide to disappear with the items and sell them later. The PCs get the location of the thieves base. Unfortunately they fail the roll to get to the base before the thieves go to ground. The evil cult doesn’t get the items but the PCs don’t recover them so they don’t get paid and the thieves get away.
- The PCs only have so much time before the necromancer is ready to attack and they have to decide if they’re going to defend the town from these assassinations or look for the necromancer in his lair within the complex beneath the town. How they interfere with the necromancer’s preparations can alter the necromancer’s plans, maybe even causing the necromancer to take their leave and look to seek revenge another day. Maybe they encounter the necromancer and taunt them enough to infuriate them to the point of attacking early without the skeletal dragon. If the PCs inform the town of what kinds of forces the necromancer has and where they’ll come from, then the town will be better prepared to weather the attack.
- There are plenty of things happening here. Will the PCs discover who killed their friend and bring them to justice? Will they root out the secret society and bring them to light? Will they find out who the serial killer is and what will they do, especially if the serial killer has been helping them to find the actual killer? Will the secret society tie up all their loose ends and get away with it all? Will the secret society of the rich and powerful sacrifice a few members to keep their secrets? Any of these things can lead to the end of the scenario.
Practice this by asking yourself what the potential outcomes you can see are. If you can’t see more than two then you don’t have enough competing interests with differing desires, ways for the situation to escalate, or moments when a competing interest decides their current desire can’t be satisfied by the way they’re doing things and either need to escalate or deescalate their influence on the situation.
Five. The PCs Actions Change the Setting and Ongoing Situation
Even when the players “solve” the current situation it should change the setting in some meaningful ways. Their choices shift alliances, have costs, create future problems, and can impact how the setting views the PCs. They can even create the next situation from the complications and costs of the PCs previous choices. Even if the next situation doesn’t have a direct relationship to the previous situation, those events should have had a lasting impact on the setting.
- The PCs fail to recover the items but their actions cause the thieves to delay selling the items. The thieves go into hiding. The evil cult can’t use the items to their advantage. The people who run the art gallery are disappointed and do not see the PCs as competent allies, this hurts the PCs reputation among the upper class.
- The PCs find the necromancer deep in his lair as he’s just finished raising his skeletal dragon, and they manage to defeat the dragon and the necromancer. The undead attacks stop on the town but the town never knows about the PCs heroics. Conversely the town never learns about the underground complex beneath the town and the PCs have a new base of operations they can finish exploring and then use going forward.
- The PCs learn who the actual serial killer is, but work with the serial killer who’s in a position of authority and catch the real killer of their friend. The real killer is jailed as are some of their conspirators, but this provides the actual serial killer a promotion to a higher position of authority. The company that was going to get the large contract is implicated in the conspiracy of murder and their CEO is arrested and their company takes a huge hit financially. It’s not a complete win but it’s better than nothing.
Practice this by answering some of the questions that arise from step four, kind of like a game of make believe in your head. Once you do, ask yourself how the setting would change if those questions you just answered happened.
Situations aren’t much different from other kinds of adventures. There’s just more narrative choices to be made instead of mechanical choices. Instead of which spell to use we ask “What do these interests do?” Instead of spell lists we have desires and how far these interests are willing to go. As the situation evolves you just do the thing that feels like the most reasonable and enjoyable action that interest would take. When the dust settles, make sure things have been affected. The fact that ttrpgs have these features is a strength and we shouldn’t be afraid to utilize that strength.
If you do decide to practice these ideas, I’d love to see what you come up with in the comments. Each of the examples I’ve provided is a very cribbed notes version of games I’ve run. The third example is from the AP on the polygamero.us site called Skritches. All episodes are out right now for you to listen to. Now I’m off to find some stew from the stew pot. I heard we just threw in some JT and Vecchione in there and that makes for some savory stew. Later.
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