Dungeon Master: Weird Narratives

Sometimes, we Dungeon Masters like to shake things up a little bit. You know, do something we haven't done before. Unleash some chaos. Subvert rules and expectations we usually adhere to. These kinds of desires can lead to very entertaining and fresh sessions. However, there are also some difficulties with this approach. I hope to address some of them and hopefully make things a little easier for someone out there in the process.

What's a Weird Narrative?

For my purposes and for this article (blog post, whatever you want to call it), what I mean is a type of narrative that does not follow the typical rules (could be mechanical or could be thematic, such as good always wins), methods, ideas, or take place in a typical setting (a setting is influenced by the previous things I mentioned but might not be thought of the same way) that the players are used to. Based on that definition, the real meaning could vary largely from group to group. Since expectations also change over time, the same kind of narrative could be "weird" if enough time has passed. If you haven't seen it for a 5 years, it could be weird to you and a pleasant surprise.

The Start

When your players are first thrown into a weird narrative, a couple of things can happen. New players tend to be cautious from my experience because they don't know what to expect. They often don't even have a firm grasp on the rules so are often willing to go along with whatever comes. However, more experienced players have an idea in their heads of what the session will be like. This can be a factor when you have experienced players join your in-progress campaign, but it can be far worse when the basic assumptions they have are invalid and they don't know it.

It might be a good idea to warn your players coming into it that things will be different. You can also do this in less direct ways through the game itself. Having an assumption shown to be false right away makes it just as obvious but sometimes doing it in-game can really enhance the experience. On the narrative side though, your players might end up freezing if they don't know what to do. If you have some players that will just make a decision and roll with it, it's not a problem. Otherwise, the players will need at least a little bit of knowledge. I'd also argue that giving your players some knowledge tends to work better. This is because often times the characters your players will be playing will be familiar with the weirdness even though your players won't be (unless your players got pulled into the world D&D cartoon style).

Grasping the Rules

When you play around with non-standard narratives, either through rules/world reasons or through story telling itself, your players end up being in the dark on a large variety of subjects. This is good. Some fumbling around in the dark can make for a fun experience. However, I'd say you can't keep that state going on forever. To do so would be to try to violate cause and effect. As your players take actions and see their results, they will get a sense of how things work and start to figure things out. This won't give them 100% clarity, but it does make it no longer completely unknown.

Discovery

I find that a large part of the fun in these kinds of cases is the discovery. How do things work? What is the relationship between those 2 characters? Why are things as they are? What makes the narrative weird is that they probably don't know what to expect. It's not just a subversion, where they expect one thing and get another. It's different from normal so they don't quite know what to expect. However, the discovery has to come. The goal is not to try and hold of the players understanding of the rules or to keep the players away from the discovery. It's to make it impactful and earned when it does come. It also doesn't have to be, and usually isn't, a single discovery. A weird narrative tends to have many different twists and turns.

Don't Hold Things Back for the Sake of Holding Them Back and Don't Let It Become Pure Randomness

Always a Dash

Most campaigns I've played in have at least one part where the players can't be sure about which option leads to the best outcome. This is a good thing. Being completely predictable isn't a good thing. Likewise, being completely unpredictable isn't a good thing either since it leads to a feeling that choices don't matter. It's still not to enough of an extent to make it a weird narrative, since weird narratives rely on the weirdness and on the players being in the dark (it's almost a mild confusion). However, it is a somewhat similar idea. It's based on what the players are used to and novelty is part of the reason for them.

An Example

The story of Planescape: Torment takes place in a rather odd setting (most Planescape fans would agree) and features a story I'd argue is quite different from the norm. However, it is governed by rules and as you go through the story, you discover things. The rules aren't continuously broken. There is a consistent narrative. Of course, if you've been playing in that setting for a while, it will no longer feel weird to you.