Sunday 19 March 2017

Dungeon Master: The Rare and Wondrous

Wonder often plays an important part in a fantasy world. Discovering alien environments, monstrosities beyond imagination and items of nearly unbelievable power are common parts of many campaigns and contribute to the wonder. However, there is quite a lot you can play with in these areas. And as you run more and more campaigns with the same group, you'll need to come up with new ways to make the world full of wonder.

The Value of Rareness

Rareness by its own has a large impact on what fills players with a sense of wonder. A while ago I played in a campaign where the first large part was spent out in the wilderness. It was nice, but the contrast of the big city when we finally got there was something special. The fact that we hadn't been to one and experienced the difference made it something that created a sense of wonder. Similarly, I ran a campaign a while ago that was heavy on political intrigue and so was largely set in cities. However, due to a series of events that involved assassins and a political overthrow, they were forced into the wilderness. That the players hadn't experienced much wilderness exploration and features made it interesting, a welcome change, and gave the new environment a sense of wonder. These same kinds of ideas extend to creatures, magic items, etc.

The Impossible

Impossible situations or locations are a common method I've seen to create wonder. This is similar to the above, however, it's one step further. Instead of playing with rareness in terms of physical things, impossible situations play with the rules themselves. Rare exceptions to the rules can themselves create a sense of wonder. Again, the trick is to not break the rules too often. If you do, it really is more like a new rule instead of being an exception to a rule. How much such a rule is broken is very situational. For some, having a situation where falling is greatly slowed down will be enough to inspire wonder. For others, it might take full weightlessness to be wowed.

What Kinds of Things?

Big, impressive things tend to be best remembered from my experience. Incredibly large pieces of architecture, giant forest fires, large armies clashing, tall waterfalls, the vast open oceans (ship based campaigns are a bit tough to run but a one-shot on the open seas tends to go over well after a classic campaign) and kilometer long cliff drops are all examples of such big things. However, when I say big things, I don't mean just in terms of physical size. Big and impressive effects are enough. There was a very low magic mini-campaign I was a part of where one of the magic items we got was an old music box that seemed to be impervious to damage and time. In such a situation, even such a seemingly small and non-useful effect seemed wondrous. It also helped that the party was offered a lot of money on multiple occasions for it.

Over Description

We of course want to occasionally inspire wonder, but the line between that and tedious can be very thin. In these kinds of cases it's better to just cut your losses and move forward. An interesting location that doesn't quite inspire wonder is better than a situation that bores players by running too long. Careful choice of words and situation are far more effective. Choosing at least one sense when possible is also a good idea. When close to the tall waterfall, maybe describe the sound or the feeling of the mist. Architecture is usually more difficult in this situation because you mostly have appearance to go on. Complicated architecture is also hard to get across in a succinct way. However, I'll usually try to identify at least one architectural feature to focus on and describe. You don't have to describe all of it at once either. If they are far away, you can leave out the fine carving detail on the door.

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