Jun 10, 2017 3:07 pm
I rather liked this angrydm article about information management. I think I might try to break down the backstory in my current campaign and do this. It seems like a pretty good tool for rewarding the players for exploration and creating a cohesive narrative.
(Caveat: yes, angrydm's writing is terrible and I wish there was an alternate site that edited his very useful articles down to half as many words. I think he has some great ideas about running the game though)
http://theangrygm.com/information-management-by-the-numbers/
Excerpts:
"discovering the history of the environment is one of the core engagements of the adventure. That is, it is intended to give a satisfying experience to players who like uncovering stories through play. Explorer-type players. Discovery seekers."
"Now, in general, any bit of information can either Interesting, Useful, or Necessary. Those are my classifications and, again, I’ll cover them in more detail in a future article. For now, understand that Interesting information is backstory and context. It’s information that fills in details about the world and story, it helps the players make sense of things, but it doesn’t serve any useful purpose beyond that. Useful information empowers the players by improving their odds of success or by providing them with additional options that will help them achieve their goals. Knowledge of a monster’s vulnerabilities is an example of the odds-improving kind of Useful information. Knowledge of a secret passage that allows the players to take a secret route around the monster is an example of the options-adding Useful information. Knowledge of NPCs motivations, desires, and fears can also be Useful information. Necessary information without which the players cannot succeed. Basically, without a certain bit of Necessary information, the players might stand around without any idea of where to go next or they might not be able to overcome a specific obstacle. At all. The heroes fail without Necessary information."
"Any given bit of information can be Useful, Helpful, or Necessary (and lots of information can be two or three of those). And any given bit of information can be Hidden, Missable, or Unmissable."
"Now, we’ve done a very interesting thing in our Megadungeon. We’ve keyed some of our advancement to discovering the backstory of the adventure site. That is, the more the players discover about the site, the more optional experience points they gain. Remember? We even worked it into our progression chart. And as strange as that sounds, it actually just codifies on the player side a method of information management that most GMs would benefit from adopting anyway. That is to say, there’s a pretty neat way of handling information management that is echoed in the system of providing experience points for discrete "units" of discovery. And it works really, REALLY well with Backstory information."
"Basically, it works like this: take your backstory and break it down into some number of key points. Then, treat each of those key points as a little treasure you’re going to hide in your adventure. You don’t have to worry yet about the form each of those bits of Information Loot will take. You’ll figure that out when you actually plant them around the dungeon. But at least you have a list.
This, by the way, also works REALLY WELL with mystery adventures.
And that’s what we’re going to do. We’ll we’re going to do two things. We’re going to solidify our backstory AND we’re going to break it down into Informational Loot. And this is a process we WILL revisit again several times with different bits of information later on. In fact, as we do this, what we’re going to find is that some of our informational nuggets HERE overlap with other bits of information, like Objectives and Motivations."
And then he gives some examples from the current project he's working on, which I like because it's neat to see how he thinks through things.
(Caveat: yes, angrydm's writing is terrible and I wish there was an alternate site that edited his very useful articles down to half as many words. I think he has some great ideas about running the game though)
http://theangrygm.com/information-management-by-the-numbers/
Excerpts:
"discovering the history of the environment is one of the core engagements of the adventure. That is, it is intended to give a satisfying experience to players who like uncovering stories through play. Explorer-type players. Discovery seekers."
"Now, in general, any bit of information can either Interesting, Useful, or Necessary. Those are my classifications and, again, I’ll cover them in more detail in a future article. For now, understand that Interesting information is backstory and context. It’s information that fills in details about the world and story, it helps the players make sense of things, but it doesn’t serve any useful purpose beyond that. Useful information empowers the players by improving their odds of success or by providing them with additional options that will help them achieve their goals. Knowledge of a monster’s vulnerabilities is an example of the odds-improving kind of Useful information. Knowledge of a secret passage that allows the players to take a secret route around the monster is an example of the options-adding Useful information. Knowledge of NPCs motivations, desires, and fears can also be Useful information. Necessary information without which the players cannot succeed. Basically, without a certain bit of Necessary information, the players might stand around without any idea of where to go next or they might not be able to overcome a specific obstacle. At all. The heroes fail without Necessary information."
"Any given bit of information can be Useful, Helpful, or Necessary (and lots of information can be two or three of those). And any given bit of information can be Hidden, Missable, or Unmissable."
"Now, we’ve done a very interesting thing in our Megadungeon. We’ve keyed some of our advancement to discovering the backstory of the adventure site. That is, the more the players discover about the site, the more optional experience points they gain. Remember? We even worked it into our progression chart. And as strange as that sounds, it actually just codifies on the player side a method of information management that most GMs would benefit from adopting anyway. That is to say, there’s a pretty neat way of handling information management that is echoed in the system of providing experience points for discrete "units" of discovery. And it works really, REALLY well with Backstory information."
"Basically, it works like this: take your backstory and break it down into some number of key points. Then, treat each of those key points as a little treasure you’re going to hide in your adventure. You don’t have to worry yet about the form each of those bits of Information Loot will take. You’ll figure that out when you actually plant them around the dungeon. But at least you have a list.
This, by the way, also works REALLY WELL with mystery adventures.
And that’s what we’re going to do. We’ll we’re going to do two things. We’re going to solidify our backstory AND we’re going to break it down into Informational Loot. And this is a process we WILL revisit again several times with different bits of information later on. In fact, as we do this, what we’re going to find is that some of our informational nuggets HERE overlap with other bits of information, like Objectives and Motivations."
And then he gives some examples from the current project he's working on, which I like because it's neat to see how he thinks through things.