Storytelling in TTRPG Design
and the final days of the Foul Kickstarter
What can the study of storytelling teach us about how we design and play TTRPGs? In this issue of Ink & Dice, I’ll talk a bit about what I’m learning from Will Storr’s The Science of Storytelling and how I see it applying to TTRPG design, particularly for adventure writing.
Inside
Foul Kickstarter
Unmoored
The Science of Storytelling
Foul Kickstarter
To start with a quick plug, Foul, my MÖRK BORG funnel adventure, is in its final days on Kickstarter. While I said at the outset I was not going to be adding stretch goals, I have added some extra goodies to the rewards, including some A5 leaflets that will fit the end panels of the official MÖRK BORG GM screen to display important tables from the module while you play.
I also couldn’t stop myself from making stickers again, so everyone that is getting a physical reward will also be getting a tentacle sticker in the green/black halftone style that the book is illustrated with.
Unmoored
Since my last post, I managed to pull together a second submission for the Pirate Borg Cabin Fever Jam on Itch.io! In Unmoored, your characters arrive on the Unmoored Isle as the aquatic cultists of the Inevitable Darkness begin the ritual of sinking the island in an attempt to disrupt the plans of the necromancer Granzko, who is amassing an army of undead at the top of the island’s small mountain.
The adventure is laid out as a point-crawl, with 12 different locations to be visited. As the island is canonically adrift in the Dark Caribbean, it can appear anywhere, so the module works great as a random location to come across during a sandbox campaign. There is also a d6 table of reasons why a pirate crew might seek out the island, with each reason requiring the characters to reach a different point on the map.
When I set out to write this adventure, I really wanted to lean into the idea that there were events in motion that would proceed with or without the interference of the players. I also wanted to make sure that this was a module that could be played GMless/solo, which meant that I had to build in a mechanism to track and progress those “events in motion” without the intervention of a GM. Here is where I landed:
Each time you move between points on the island, you roll 1d6. On a 1-4, you have a random event (from a 1d12 table), and on a 5-6, the next location sinks. If you ever re-roll an event you have already used, the next location sinks. This accelerates the sinking with each event used.
This mechanism, which could be described as a “clock” or “timer” in the adventure, goes a long way to making the world feel alive by creating change.
The Science of Storytelling
A quick thought experiment: let’s say you commute to work by car. Even though it’s the same drive every day, you still open up the map on your phone, just to be sure. On a normal day, the 30 minute drive passes in the blink of an eye. You don’t really remember each turn, each mile of highway, each traffic light. You get in the car, and all of a sudden, you’re at work. The same as yesterday.
Now, imagine there was an accident, or a bridge was closed for construction. Without warning, your phone starts screaming, “RECALCULATING,” since you didn’t notice it was telling you to take the last exit. You sit up a little straighter. You check your mirrors. You glance at the phone, waiting for a new set of directions. You’re worried now. Will you be late? Will you need to turn around? What happened on the road ahead? Could the app on your phone be wrong? When you finally get to work, which seems like it took twice as long today, even though it was only an extra five minutes, you’re exhausted.
Almost all perception is based on the detection of change.
In the first chapter of The Science of Storytelling, Storr quotes neuroscientist Sophie Scott as saying, “Almost all perception is based on the detection of change.” We barely process our boring morning commute until it changes. Change draws our attention. Change gets our imagination and curiosity rolling. We want to understand it. Why? How? To or by whom?
Engaging stories leverage change.
If playing a TTRPG is engaging in collaborative storytelling (as I believe it is), then the game designer is one of those collaborators. This becomes critically important in solo games, where the designer is the only collaborator that the player has. It is up to the designer to put in front of the player the tools they need to tell an engaging story. Engaging stories leverage change.
What kind of change? Any kind, really, but two major categories are relevant to TTRPG play.
Change in the environment.
Change in the character.
Think about the sinking of the Unmoored Isle. That is change in the environment. Think about other adventures where the contents of rooms change, or where the pathways available to characters change, or where the dungeon itself slowly comes alive, or where a populist uprising is going to occur regardless of the characters’ actions. All of these are examples of change being built into the adventure by the designer. The player then tells the story of how their character experiences and reacts to that change. That’s a setup for an engaging story.
Change in the character is (arguably, I guess) much more interesting. If you look at what makes classic literature become classic or award-winning movies win awards, compelling character change is going to beat convoluted plot twists and flashy visual effects (almost) every time.
In TTRPGs, while a proactive player could build character change into any story, it is more frequently up to the system designer to create this opportunity. When you have a system with characters leveling up (or down?), gaining (or losing) abilities, gaining (or losing) scars, or gaining (or losing) flaws, you have a system designed to allow for character change.
In my game Sprinkles is Missing!, characters are students just learning magic, so each time a character successfully uses a spell, they get better at using it.
In The Lost Bay, when a character fails an attempt to use a Weird power, they gain a Scar. Scars may be beneficial or harmful mechanically, but they are all powerful thematically.
In Mothership, when a character Panics, they might gain a new permanent Phobia. This is a brilliant opportunity for engaging storytelling both now and the next time they encounter the target of their Phobia. (There are certainly other opportunities for character change in this system. This is just the example that jumped to mind.)
I hope to share more thoughts on how to implement learnings from this book in the future, but for now, we’ll leave it at this. When designing TTRPGs and adventures for them, introduce opportunities for change. When playing TTRPGs, lean into those changes, and think about how a change in the environment might effect a change in your character.
Thank you!
I had some other things I wanted to touch on, but I think I’ve gone on long enough for this issue of Ink & Dice. If you made it this far, thank you for reading! I’ll be back in a week or two with production updates on my projects, as well as plans for the rest of 2024. I’ll leave one last plug for here for the Kickstarter for Foul (which offers plenty of opportunities for character change).
—MAH
Very insightful look at how mechanical change in games affects play. Looking forward to more insights as you continue the book!
Great post! Really got me thinking about change in character and change in environment.
Can you think of any other "change in environment" examples from either things you've creator or that others have made?