Scribbles and Horrors

“Prep scenarios, not plots” is a big ole’ touchstone for playing dungeon or field games in my circles. The idea is that it’s not the referee’s job to plan out players’ adventures for them.

What you should do instead is come up with a situation you find interesting and plop it in front of ‘em. Trust your friends who you’re playing with to take your idea seriously and explore it earnestly—and if you’re playing a Fantasy Roleplaying Game with someone you should be at minimum friendly because otherwise what are you even doing?

It’s a trust thing, right, you have to be willing to risk an imperfect game experience in the hopes that your game companions will put in their own kind of investment and make something with you that none of you could do on your own.

So far so good: eager referees are taking notes down for How To Play D&D.

…

Okay but I have another DM Advice I wanna throw out there in the same vein: when writing or drawing stuff, it’s not your job to make it playable.

In the same way it’s the players’ job to make an adventure out of a scenario, it’s the at-the-table referee’s job to make the map/key into a game.

The writer, on the other hand—the version of yourself who that draws the maps and writes the keys and publishes the rules you run? They shouldn’t worry about playability, or even intelligibility. Their job is just to make something inspiring for the oracular art of playing a board game.

High trust is the way. At each stage of the hobby, you have to have faith that those operating the next stage will pick up what you’re putting down, or at least find something worthwhile and run with it.

Don’t worry about making something that’s effective or principled or in accordance with expectations: make something that’s beautiful and engaging to you right now. Life is too short, and play-time is even shorter, to bother with anxiety about whether your near-future hypothetical self will find your work fun.

its all made up anyway