It’s time for another Ask Angry Mailbag. That’s where I answer a bunch of reader-submitted questions. Are you a reader who wants to submit a question for answery? Send it to ask.angry@angry.games. Just remember to get to the point, to leave out the extraneous crap, and to tell me explicitly what to call you.

As a side note, I’m thinking about turning this Ask Angry thing into a twice-monthly podcast or YouTube video series. Or both. Probably both as it’s easy to turn th’one into th’other. People love this Ask Angry crap, but my content plan for the year doesn’t leave room for it as a regular thing.

What do you think? Would you watch? Listen? Both? Neither? Let me know in the comments below.

Anyway…

Professor Angry is busy organizing his class notes for the next True Game Mastery lesson. Y’all got a breather lesson about dice last week, but he still had to write that lesson. So he’s taking a breather this week by answering some reader questions.

Enjoy…

Jan asks…

Guten Tag Angry! How do you start 1st level PCs in medias res? I feel like I have to make the PCs as clueless as the players; am I wrong?

Guten tag, Jan! Wie läufts?

Also, I’m sorry to say this, but nein! Du liegst falsch. You don’t have to make the PCs as clueless as the players. The trick isn’t just to start in medias res, but to start with a good, old-school cold open.

I realize Jan and I are confusing you with these crazy terms. So let me explain. Jan and I are exchanging pleasantries in German or Deutsch as its speakers call it. It’s the official language in Germany and Austria and one of several official languages in Switzerland. Along with English, Dutch, and others, German is part of the Western Germanic family of Indo-European languages, though, in the case of English, that has more to do with syntax and structure. Over sixty percent of English words are derived from Latin or Greek.

That should put us on the same page… oh… wait… in medias res and cold open confused you too? Fine.

In medias res is Latin. It means “right in the middle of the goings-on” and refers to a story that’s already going on when the audience arrives. There’s no setup, no once upon a time, no text crawl, just people doing things. And the audience is left to figure out who’s who and what the hell is going on.

Many movies and shows these days start in medias res because audiences have short attention spans and beginnings are boring. At least, that’s what the pants-on-head moron screenwriters think these days. They’re terrified that if you don’t immediately throw some flashing lights and loud noises at people, they’ll head for the exit. Maybe so, maybe no, but I prefer to show my audience a little more respect. After all, Long, Rambling Introductions™ never hurt my readership.

These days, it’s de rigueur — which is not German or Latin — to follow such an opening with a flashback that explains clearly what the hell just happened. Again, screenwriters are afraid to let audiences figure anything out for themselves. Then again, modern screenwriters think audiences are toxic, inattentive, drooling idiots. And how does that make you feel about dropping fifteen bucks to see a movie?

Anyway…

That “here’s some action to get you hooked, now I’ll explain” thing is amateur-hour bullshit. For my tastes, I like the old kind of cold open we used to get. Which is, admittedly, a specific kind of in medias res. Some folks will say it amounts to the same thing. I say it doesn’t.

A cold open gets the plot rolling with a little mini-narrative and then the plot keeps moving forward from there. The audience is left to pick shit up as the story develops. And the talented screenwriter who respects his audience provides context clues and weaves enough exposition in the dialogue to make sure the audience is never too confused to keep up.

For instance, I started a campaign once with the line, “the bandaged merchant’s guard points ahead to where the road rounds a rise and says, ‘there, that’s where the giant spiders attacked us.’” Then, as the merchant’s cart came into view, the party saw some feral dogs rooting around the site. They snarled and attacked. Roll initiative!

That was it. All the players knew apart from that a merchant had been attacked by giant spiders was that their characters were returning to their hometown for a festival after a long time away. That was it.

After the fight was won, the minstrel — who had apparently been with the party the whole time — pointed to the hilltop above and said, “that must be the ruin the innkeeper mentioned? Where the spiders nest?” Meanwhile, the merchant’s guard said, “hey, someone’s looted this since the attack yesterday; and look in the mud, are those footprints?” A mystery! “Why don’t you investigate,” the minstrel said, “while I take our friend back to the roadside inn. It’s barely an hour’s walk; we’ll be safe.”

And thus began the dungeon crawl.

A good cold opens provides a clear goal and as much context as the players need to make the next choice. Beyond that, it leaves the players to fill in the blanks from context. If they can’t, the players can ask for more information. But if your players ask for too much information, you can say, “that’s not important right now.” If they balk at the goal, you can say, “there are giant spiders attacking travelers on the road to your hometown, and maybe someone else robbing them; do you really want to let this trail go cold?”

Yeah, you’re forcing the players’ hands a little and making assumptions about the characters’ off-screen actions, but that’s okay. Especially at the start of a campaign. Though I know some people will whine and scream otherwise.

Apart from providing a goal and context, a cold open also always sets up the next thing. In addition to telling the players where their characters had come from, the minstrel’s remark about the roadside inn also told the players where to go when they were done.

Just remember: clear goal, clear context, set up the next thing, answer relevant questions, handwave irrelevant questions away, and guilt the players into playing the game you wrote.

Peter asks…

Suppose you were inclined to do horror or suspense in a session? Would you incorporate your Tension Pool™? How?

Thanks, Peter, for saving me the trouble of plugging the Tension Pool™. And the Tension Dice™ that are coming soon from Angry Games, Inc.

See, years ago, I designed a system I called the Time Pool™ to help GMs add risks and costs to time-consuming and repeated dungeon-delving actions like searching for traps and picking locks. At the time, it was a thing I just threw out, but it became the most popular thing I ever designed. And I’ve been tweaking and refining it ever since.

In a few weeks, I’ll be releasing — for free — the official Tension Pool™ rules — and the Time Pool™ variant — in polished PDF format. This summer, you’ll have the chance to get custom Angry Games Tension Dice™ by backing the project on Kickstarter. You’ll get the dice, an official rulebook, and some nice bonus content. So watch out for that.

But enough with the sponsored ad…

The Tension Pool™ is just a pile of dice. Whenever the players take time-consuming actions, the pile grows. Whenever the players take risky actions, the GM rolls the pile. And whenever the pile gets to six dice, the GM rolls it and then resets it. Depending on the roll, Complications arise.

The Tension Pool™ is a perfect fit for a horror game. It perfectly instills a sense of dread which is one of the three basic elements of horror. The other two are shock and disgust. Dread is a burning, anxious fear of what’s coming next.

That said, there are a few ways to get the most from the Tension Pool™ in a horror session.

First, just use the vague rule that time-consuming actions fill the pool and risky actions roll the pool. Don’t try to use the precise timekeeping variation.

Second, make sure the players can see the Tension Pool™, that they know exactly how it works, and roll it right in front of them.

Third, don’t throw Complications into the game immediately when the Tension Dice™ evoke one. Instead, wait for an opportune moment later in the game. And don’t call Complications out as special. Keep the players wondering which events are Complications and which are Planned Encounters.

Fourth, ensure that at least half the Complications are harmless scares. Don’t use the Tension Pool™ as a wandering monster system the way some folks do. Instead, use the Complications to instill the three kinds of horror: Dread, Shock, and Disgust. Complications might include bleeding walls, ghostly sounds, claw marks or footprints, mutilated puppy corpses, and other set dressing that doesn’t actually hurt anyone but does scare the crap out of them. Mix in monsters, traps, and hazards, of course.

The point is to let the players know something bad is always around the corner but not to let them know what it actually is. To keep the tension high instead of bleeding it off with each emptying of the Tension Pool™.

A.B. asks…

… a really long, boring question I almost trashed because A.B. can’t get to the frigging point. But I’m answering it anyway because it’s a question I get a lot in a lot of ways. And it involves people not understanding something I’ve written a lot about. So let me distill A.B.’s question down to its essence.

Based on your advice, I had my players start characters with minimal backstories for my latest campaign. Most of my players bought in, but one complained about the difficulty of playing a character without an extensive backstory. I know that player likes the chance for creative expression that RPGs afford. How can I introduce Expression as a core gameplay engagement outside character creation?

Question, A.B.: if you don’t want to read pages of pointless expository bullshit about your players’ characters, why do you think I want to read the same about your campaign? Holy crap! Do you think I give a crap about how much of my advice you followed or that you’re using the dumbass D&D in Saaaaaaaaccccceeeeeeee Spelljammer rules? I don’t.

Anyway…

First, understand you’re conflating two issues. Either your player is rationalizing or you’re doing so for them. When you won’t let them write long-ass backstories, lots of players complain about their inability to play characters they don’t know inside and out. But often, the player’s upset because they like writing backstory. It’s fun. And you’ve taken that away. You monster.

Writing backstory doesn’t help players know their characters or build relationships with them.

Second, Expression is already a core aesthetic in tabletop roleplaying games. It’s just that most people have a very superficial view of Expression. If you can’t adjust a bunch of sliders in a character creation window, there’s no Expression. But that’s just plain wrong. In tabletop roleplaying games, the players’ characters can do or say anything y’all can imagine. Every action and every word of dialogue is a creative Expression. It’s Expression through play. And it’s interactive.

This ain’t really about Expression, it’s about control. Your player wants to tell a story. One they — and they alone — wrote. They’re not interested in Expression generally, but rather, a specific kind of Expression. One that tabletop roleplaying games aren’t for. TTRPGs aren’t about monologues and non-interactive performances. They’re about creatively playing to see what happens next.

And I suggest you tell your player so. Tell the player the point isn’t to define a character but to bring a character to life through play. Say that players’ characters’ are supposed to be shaped by the world and the other players’ characters. And that building a personal relationship with a character is supposed to take time.

Your player won’t like it. They’ll resist. It’ll take weeks of sulking for them to get over it. But get over it they must. And when they do, they’ll probably start having fun. They’ll realize they didn’t lose anything by not having a backstory.

Or maybe they won’t.

Some players are so closed-off to the idea that they’ll just keep on resisting it and make themselves miserable. Or they’ll write a secret backstory and not tell you about it. That’s fine. It doesn’t matter. Unless they start ruining the game for the other players. And for you. And then you address it.

To make a long story short — the way your e-mail failed to do — don’t give your player a ship-customization minigame bone to make them happy. That’s like giving a kid candy to shut them up. Instead, tell the player how it is, run your game, and let them choose to play it or not. Give them a few sessions of leeway to get over themselves, but if they become a problem after that, tell them to grow up and shape up or ship out.

Matthew asks…

You stated that you assume that the character always takes all reasonable steps for that character. But where do you draw the line? Isn’t the rogue always checking for traps? So why bother hiding them. Just ask for die rolls based on the fact that the rogue should be searching anyway.

Thanks for the question, Matthew. I noticed a whole bunch of extraneous bullshit after the question below a big divider that read, “I know this is too long, ignore it.” Can I ask what point you think it served to include a bunch of extra stuff in an e-mail to me that I was instructed to ignore? Or were you afraid I was too stupid to understand your question that you hoped I’d be like, “durrrh… I doesn’t understand all these words so I’ll just take a sneaksy-peak at the other words and maybe they’ll make the words make sense.”

Considering you can’t even quote me properly, maybe my intelligence isn’t the one we should be questioning here?

Anyway, I followed your instructions and ignored everything below the big divider.

As to your question…

First, I didn’t say, “I assume characters do everything reasonable at all times and in all situations,” I said, “I assume a character takes the most reasonable path to their goal.” And I specifically cited combat movement as an example. I said that if there was a risk-and-consequence-free path to the player’s stated goal, I’d assume the character followed that path. And if there wasn’t such a path, I’d warn them of such.

Your example is quite different. For lots of reasons. The main reason is that it amounts to the GM playing the character. Which obviously isn’t satisfying. And since you’re questioning it, I assume you know it’s not satisfying. So, there must be something wrong. Since I don’t say wrong things, whatever’s wrong must be on your end.

For example, do you really think it’s reasonable to assume a rogue is always searching for traps? I don’t. Searching for traps is, at the very least, a time-consuming endeavor. In most game systems and most editions, searching even a small area for traps takes minutes, and searching even a short hallway or room could take an hour. An adventure site with more than a half-dozen rooms and halls would take days to clear. Is that reasonable? No. Might the other members of the party intervene? Yes. Further, it’s not reasonable to assume the players can just pass long stretches of time in hostile territory inching down hallways. If they can, the territory actually isn’t very hostile, is it?

There are resource costs — time, for example — and risks — being jumped by wandering monsters — inherent in searching for traps. A Reasonable Game Master should recognize that. And no Reasonable Game Master would assume players take risks or spend resources without their input.

That said, the rules of D&D 5E — and other editions of D&D and other game systems — assume the characters remain alert while delving. That’s the idea behind Passive Perception checks and, before that, behind secret Spot and Listen checks behind the GM screen, which arduous task Passive Perception checks replaced. While it isn’t reasonable to assume the characters inch down every hallway and spend hours in every wing of the dungeon tapping on every brick and tile, it is reasonable to assume the characters keep a watchful eye and ear on their surroundings. This is precisely why I’m a fan of both Passive Perception Checks and secretly rolling Spot and Listen checks behind the screen whenever there’s something the characters might notice nearby.

Not both at the same time, obviously. One system or the other.

As to where to draw the line? You draw it where it’s reasonable. Hence the Reasonable Game Master, Reasonable Player, and Reasonable Character standards. Reasonable people use reason on a case-by-case and situation-by-situation basis to figure out the best approach. It’s impossible to draw hard-and-fast lines that apply to every game situation and no Reasonable Game Master would seek one.

The series you’re quoting is explicitly written for True Game Masters, not Mere Game Executors, and — as I’ve explicitly said — True Game Masters rely on good judgment developed through practice. They don’t blindly obey hard-and-fast rules, bright lines, and checklists otherwise they’re no better than video game consoles executing pre-coded adventures.

You knew that if you took my — admittedly misread — edict to give players the benefit of the doubt to an extreme, it’d lead to problems. That means that you actually do have good judgment despite your terrible reading comprehension skills and inability to follow simple instructions.

Simply put, I assume my audience comprises Reasonable Game Masters. That they’ll use their reason and good judgment instead of following blindly everything I say to the exact letter even when they can see it taking their game somewhere it ought not to go.

And I do so knowing full well that sometimes that’s a bad assumption.