Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games - Jennifer Grouling Cover [47]
Jenkins (2002) mentions that before collaborative story development can take place, the DM must create the space for it. In order to know more about how world building works in D&D, I talked to both the DM of the Sorpraedor campaign and well known game developer, Monte Cook. In particular, I discussed with Cook the way that he developed the Ptolus campaign setting. Rather than a module that is meant to be played in one setting, Ptolus is a published campaign world. It involves the details about the city of Ptolus and the world surrounding it. Furthermore, it involves a set of adventures for players to engage in and non-player characters (NPCs) for players to interact with. Both Sorpraedor and Ptolus are considered campaign settings. In other words, they are settings for the adventures in a D&D campaign to take place in. The major difference between these two worlds is that Sorpraedor was created for a home campaign by one gaming group and DM, while Ptolus has gone on to be published for multiple gaming groups to use.
Sorpraedor, like Ptolus, is based on the rules from the D&D rule books, yet, as a creation, it stands as a text on its own. Scott created multiple maps that visually laid out the world. Much like Earth, Sorpraedor has continents, bodies of water, countries, cities, mountain ranges, etc. The DM must create more detail about the world than he or she conveys in the narrative. However, while the world exists independently from the way the characters and players progress through it, the participants of TRPGs do influence the development of the world. For example, Scott created a town named Lugyere that had twin brothers as rulers. He knew that that one brother was good and the other was evil. However, it was not until the party decided to visit Lugyere that he fleshed out the motives of the two brothers and their city. Any part of the Sorpraedor world can be fully created as the participants express an interest in it.
In addition, players may influence parts of the world as they determine the background for their characters. The way that Ptolus evolved as a storyworld is very similar to the way Sorpraedor evolved. Monte Cook explained to me that he created Ptolus as the world for his own home run D&D campaign. Like Scott, Cook added certain elements of the world based on player interest. He explained that one of his players really wanted to create a character with an Arabian sort of background, so Cook incorporated a setting where this was possible in the world of Ptolus (personal communication, June 30, 2009).
The interests of the players and the questions they ask also affect the world in more detailed ways that more directly influence the narrative. For example, the following section of the Blaze Arrow story shows the way the players both explored the spatial environment, but also added details to that environment.
I slide the message down the tube and a whooshing sound carried it away. I then composed a message to Gateway, “Orcs took Blaze Arrow, 12 dead. Orcs after Skullbash group in the mountains near Barrenstone. We told them to leave humans alone. So far they have complied.” As I dropped this message in the tube, it made a sputtering sound like it had gotten stuck. I looked at David. We decided to send a “test” message to the Black Tower tube asking them to confirm receipt. About three minutes later a note arrived back saying the message was received. I replied that the tube to Gateway seemed not to be working and asked them to forward my message and ask the magistrate to reply directly to me.
While we were waiting for a response,