Narration Philosophy

Roleplaying vs. Roll-Playing

Roleplaying is fun because it allows players to step into another person's shoes, but not all players are comfortable doing this. In a game where some “roleplay” and others simply state their character’s actions and roll the dice, it is important to understand the value of each behavior. Both do have their uses. 

Roleplaying is useful for character development and immersion, but it is time-consuming. Any scene that turns into a dialogue between the players and the narrator (portraying one or more NPCs) should either advance the plot or contribute to character development in some fashion. Character development can involve innocuous things like banter or revelry, which don’t necessarily advance the story. However, they flesh out the relationships between characters and create realism in the campaign world, which improves the quality of the experience.  

Roll-Playing is useful for summation and driving progress, but it is superficial. Any scene that can be resolved with a few dice rolls should either accomplish an objective or overcome an obstacle or delay of some sort. Rolling dice to summarize unimportant scenes allows the narrator to impress upon the group what is or is not important to their current objectives and keep the game focused on the action. 

When narrating a tabletop game, it’s important to remember this and consciously decide what approach to use at what times. 

Resilient Plotlines 

When designing an adventure, it’s important to remember that players are only really “playing” if they have the agency to act as they wish and behave in a manner that collaborates with the narrative rather than disrupts it. Simply put, players should be free to choose how they accomplish objectives as long as they remain committed to them. If a plotline is too rigid or assumes players will approach a situation in a specific way, the story can become derailed when they exercise creativity. Not only does this force the narrator to improvise, it also wastes hours of careful preparation. No narrator enjoys watching their work ignored or tossed aside thanks to chaotic party behavior. 

The simplest method of building plotlines that can “withstand” player agency is to design them as a framework of bullet points rather than a linear progression. Important events that *must* happen for the plot to advance should rarely require a specific action on the player’s part. Narrative choke points keep the action moving by forcing players to deal with unfolding events and giving the impression players don’t have infinite time. If you need players to focus on something, add separate objectives that involve more specific action. 

It’s also important to directly explain things that aren’t obvious to players but should be obvious to the characters, rather than sitting back and hoping they get the hint. 

Challenges 

Contribution is the cornerstone of player satisfaction. Players who do not contribute meaningfully to the party's success may as well not be there, so before each session try to identify at least 2-3 problems, encounters, or skill checks that each character is well suited to resolve. These challenges don't necessarily need to be mechanical. They could also have to do with a character's backstory, faith, clan, etc. Create a list of things each character is “good at” early on, so you can sprinkle these things into an existing narrative to validate each character. Locked doors, mysterious writing, cursed idols, dangerous but easily dispatched minions (quick fights), grouped enemies begging to be blasted by an area spell, dangerous climbs or places that must be snuck through, tracking challenges, corpse autopsies, etc. 

Pacing 

Boredom kills games. To allay boredom, players must be engaged (interested) in the plot and feel like progress or gains are being made. This can mean many things: victory, clues, treasure, etc. Disaster and failure are risks to be recovered from, and that too can be a satisfying goal. The average human can focus on a single topic for about 15-20 minutes, so this should be your yardstick for how long encounters or scenes should last. Not every character needs to have a role in every scene, but the goal should be to include at least two players in every scene. This ensures that one character isn't hogging the spotlight for too long. 

Rewards

Unless they are purely motivated by ideology, heroes seek profit. Treasure is an important element of fantasy because it serves as a measure of success. If too scarce, it feels like the narrator is persecuting or sabotaging the players. If too plentiful, it becomes meaningless. There are three narrative elements to rewards: giving them, taking them, and keeping them relevant. Giving rewards is simple. The party will naturally find, claim, or be given rewards as they explore and fulfill quest objectives. These can take many forms: money, favors, alliances, land, magic items, etc. 

Taking rewards is harder. Players naturally want to keep what they gain, so they resent feeling “robbed.” The simplest way to take excess wealth from a party is to give them a money sink: a project or cause that can consume any volume of resources. Clans, families, castles, libraries, public funds, and so forth allow players to invest their gains instead of simply losing them. This imparts a sense of progress and compels them to go out looking for more rewards. 

Basic goods and services are items of expense, but these (travel, food, etc.) should also be affordable to normal people. If the heroes are wealthier than normal people, a surplus will accumulate over time unless they also have exceptional expenses to match. Exceptional expenses include things like spell research, buying potions or scrolls, paying hirelings, etc. 

Keeping rewards relevant is the most challenging task of all. It isn't satisfying for players to constantly earn rewards and then have them be lost or made meaningless (that qualifies as narrator vs player sabotage), so at some point a successful party will have made their fortune. Once this happens characters are expected to do what all financially successful people-of-action do: turn their attention to higher things. Once this shift occurs, sit down with the party and ask them what their characters now aim for. This forces them to clarify their character goals, and it advises your plotlines as a narrator. 

Magic & Fantasy

In every fantasy setting the Storyteller must decide early on how society regards magic. This is important because it sets the tone of the game. While it is technically possible to imagine any sort of magical genre you wish, there are three primary paradigms in medieval fantasy. Most settings use some version of them because they are versatile and uncomplicated. 

High fantasy settings gentrify and normalize magic, making it a dangerous tool the affluent use. In a high fantasy setting, magicians are elite professionals who form guilds, orders, and schools with public recognition. Mumbo jumbo is minimal, superstition is low, and the cosmos is generally understood by those with access to the arcane community. Armies utilize spellcasters, and the tactical value of magic is factored into military strategy. 

Low fantasy settings keep magic mysterious and rare, miring it in fear and superstition. Magicians tend to be sinister outcasts or retainers to powerful rulers in a low fantasy setting. They form cabals, societies, and mystic covenants to guard their secrets. Here magic is scary and dangerous, superstition is high, and folklore has a greater role in the occult. Armies may rely on a handful of spellcasters to solve supernatural problems they encounter, but it is rare enough that mainstream military strategy does not account for it. 

Dark Fantasy settings have plenty of magical monsters and supernatural phenomena, but actual spellcasters are rare. Here, normal people perceive magic as a deadly and mysterious force that strange creatures possess (breathing fire, petrification, mesmerism, etc.). Only gifted mortals can wield it, and they are regarded with fear and awe. Superstition is high, and ingenuity is used to counter supernatural beings or problems. 

Bounded Gains Theory

The GSS system was created after a thorough study of preceding d20 rulesets. During this process it was discovered that certain games enjoyed a healthy culture of “high-level play”, while others rarely explored high-level content due to balance issues. Simply put, if bonuses and health pools become too large, the game becomes boring or impossible to manage. The same is true with defense. If characters are completely unhittable and there is no longer any dramatic tension to combat, players tend to think less and behave recklessly. 

This is not a new concept. It was well understood in the earliest d20 rulesets that certain benefits should peter off around mid-level to preserve the power dynamic of the game. Over time these failsafes were abandoned in favor of steep linear power progression, but in recent years the long-term consequences of unchecked power creep have become more apparent. The global role-playing community has begun adapting some of these older concepts to keep things simple and preserve the fun. Two key rules have been built into GSS to offset the negative consequences of power creep: Combat Chaos and Bounded Health. 

Combat Chaos. When rolling attacks, a 1-2 is always a miss and a 19-20 is always a hit. This is intended to simulate the reality that combat is chaotic and filled with unforeseen variables. Twenty percent of all attacks made in battle come down to pure luck, regardless of how strong or skillful the combatants are.

Bounded Health. Characters stop gaining hit dice after 10th level, though they continue to add their endurance modifier to their health pool. This prevents characters from becoming so tough that they can shrug off absurd levels of punishment. Surviving combat is a matter of damage mitigation, whether by armor or the skillful use of class abilities. 

Author's Note. All combat classes have different methods of mitigating the damage they take; Barbarians enjoy extra health and a soak mechanic built into their rage ability. Fighters enjoy heavy armor and an avoidance mechanic built into their counter ability. Rangers are ambush predators who strike hard at range and have primal magic to bolster their survivability. Paladins get heavy armor, divine spells, and the ability to self-heal in combat using chierotonia. Monks enjoy high mobility, the tranquility mechanic, and multiple reactions to reduce incoming damage using the elusive ability.