Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games - Jennifer Grouling Cover [48]
In this sample story, the detail that the labels on the message tubes were switched was not included until Alex (playing David) asked about the labels. This fact was added in by the DM on the spot as a response to the player’s question, and it changed the way the characters interacted with that encounter. My party was entirely convinced that the labels being switched meant that someone had purposely tried to disrupt communication at the Blaze Arrow outpost, when in fact this was simply a detail added at the whim of the DM to answer Alex’s (playing David) question. From reading the final narrative, it is impossible to tell which details were created beforehand and which were added during the gaming session (although my interview with the DM revealed this). Some stories, then, come not from the space created before the beginning of the game, but from questions asked and directions suggested by the players during the game.
Many details of the world get fleshed out only as the players (characters) progress through them; however, certain events in the world progress regardless of the characters’ involvement with them. For example, my interview with Scott revealed that once the party had moved on from their encounter with the orcs, the Blood Fist tribe continued on to fight the Skullbash tribe and win. This storyline is one of many in the world that was not narrated (at least not until my interview), but it clearly shows that an expansive world exists outside the narrative. In this way, we see that the storyworld itself does not mean that any given story will become a part of the game.
Campaign settings are designed not to tell stories, but to create spaces for stories. Monte Cook explained that he consulted travel guides in order to get a feel for the layout and format he wanted for the published version of Ptolus (personal communication, June 30, 2009). He wanted his manual to read like a travel guide to a fictional world. While he did include a set of adventures that DMs could run within the Ptolus world, Cook also created a space with the potential for many stories, not just those he engineered.
Manuals for Stories
In addition to ready-made campaign settings, gaming companies also publish ready-made adventures, or modules. These modules give the DM a setting, NPC characters (complete with motivations and suggested actions), and a plot outline. As we have seen in the case of The Temple of Elemental Evil (Temple), which is part of the Greyhawk campaign setting, the form of these modules often reads more like an instruction manual or report than a narrative. For example, there may be an overview of the entire adventure at the beginning, like an abstract. Then, there might be a list of characters, or a list of locations. These characters may be given certain motivations, and certain events may be triggered at certain locations. However, the players may never visit certain locations or may visit them in a different order than the DM anticipates. It isn’t until the DM arranges the features in the process of the game that the text begins to resemble a narrative format.
Often these modules are intended to be one-time adventures, although a DM may string together a series of them to create a more coherent campaign. In doing so, the DM often adapts these modules to fit his or her needs and, thus, takes a degree of authorship over these texts—a point I engage more fully with in chapter 7. For example, although the world