I’m going to try and take part
in the #RPGaDay writing prompts for 2021. The idea is there’s a prompt every
day that asks you to write about something in RPG’s you really like. There are
a couple of alternate prompts offered but I’m going to try and do the main one
every day. If you want to try it yourself, you can head here for the calendar
for this year.
There’s
a lot of ways to use theme when writing adventures. For myself I tend to weave
theme into anything I run in two different ways. Either by the concepts I weave
into the narrative or the recurring types of encounters. Though I suppose the
second one could be more considered aesthetic.
For
the first one, I like to focus on the ways in which my players interact with
things and how the world around them reflects those ideas back at them. In a
Through the Breach campaign I designed I had a focus on family in my game. The
overall idea behind the campaign was built around them being assembled by a
professor in Malifaux to work as an investigative team working out of his manor
house. I wanted the campaign to focus on the mystery but I wanted family to be
a big part of the story.
Part
of bringing this idea across was to use their first case as a way of
introducing the idea of family to the party. They were going to investigate a
stolen painting. While doing so they’d discover that the thief was being forced
to steal the art by a local crime faction. When the thief turns up dead so he
couldn’t reveal who his employers were I was going to arrange for his widow and
son to be brought into the house as NPC’s by the professor. This was going to
be how I started to inform family as part of the story.
I
wanted the game to have this background focus on how family effects the decisions
we make and the things in our lives. Even the villain for that campaign was
partially motivated by their relationship with their family.
The other
way I use theme is by how I add motif to specific adventures. I’ll have
something that pops up over and over as a way of foreshadowing things that are
coming. One adventure I enjoy for doing this is from Tales from the Loop.
Spoilers for the first adventure in the main rule book will be found in the
next paragraph.
In
that adventure there is a recurring bird motif; birds show up everywhere. They’re
decorations in houses, books on tables, and they show up in the description of
the various locals. As the group travels through the adventure they’ll
eventually come across birds as part of the antagonists plan. Hostile birds
start showing up in town. But by the time the first bird attack happens, the
players will have already seen some reference to birds a couple of times.
Moments
like those, that subtly suggest what’s coming without saying it, are some of my
favorite. You can also find a great example of foreshadowing themes in a recent
episode of the Dungeons and Daddies podcast. Though that one is by the players
and not the DM.
I
think these things are important in helping build a great narrative. Though
even if your group doesn’t play for story and just enjoys a good dungeon crawl
the use of theme can be a great addition to the flow of the dungeon. I think
back to the old days of D&D where random monsters lived in complex cave
systems with no real logic behind what was where or how it got there. You know
the maze of 10 foot hall ways that lead to a single massive room with a giant
living inside of it despite the fact that there’s no way for them to reach that
room.
However,
that’s a rant for another day. I’ll see you all tomorrow for foundation.
Until
next time. Stay safe and be well.
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