Maintaining the Horror Campaign – Start Well, End Well, Sacrifice the Middle

“I can’t imagine being stuck down a well all alone like that. How long could you survive?”

-Noah, from The Ring

I don’t know about you, but everyone else reading this article is a human.  Humans have this funny trick they use to remember events:  They remember how events begin, and how they end.  Sometimes they remember small details from the middle – sharp edges and climatic thrusts – but most middling details aren’t stored.  Why?  Because a human brain is a deduction processor.  It doesn’t need to remember details to remember details.  All it needs is a point to anchor information around, and it can derive the most likely result from there.

I hate to drag out this old meme from 2003 e-mails, but it gets the job done, so we’ll give it one more pass:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

That’s not always true.  Denis DeBanardy points out that:

Nreuuoms pmeeononnhs peossss uiapocmltecnd etaaoilxnpn; nwttdtsniinoahg, the pdseuo-snfiiiectc spssliiimtm is not snfiiiectc and eieecndvs are oetfn mdanleiisg.

It isn’t even likely that Cambridge University had anything to do with said lexiconical order studies.  But the proof of the first paragraph is hard to ignore.  You can read it, and I can read it, so what difference does it make if the order is wrong?

We go through life with this idea that there are things we can remember, and things we can’t.  That our head is a gigantic filing cabinet, and all the information we’ve been privy to is in a folder somewhere, lost adrift a sea of other folders.  It’s a great analogy, but it’s bunk.  Don’t believe me?  There’s an excellent episode of Radiolab that explores this subject.  Since much of what we remember follows a linear progression, the end result of the story we tell ourselves is linear, but there’s nothing linear about how we remember it.  Instead, memories are pulled from nested connections.  My house is beige, but it used to be red.  The trees on the property and their relative position to each other.  The definition of a tree, and the different types you may or may not see.  The quantity and type of insects.  The sounds of traffic and bats.  All these things are globules of information fighting for dominance when I tell you the story of “Where I live”.  Depending on who I am talking to, different details will come to the front.  While listening to my story, you will make your own connections:  The color of red barns.  The difference between deciduous and coniferous trees.  The dragonfly you once tried to keep as a pet.  All these new connections will strengthen in your brain.  In the future, when someone asks you where I live, and what the place is like, you ‘ll have your own story, crafted from your own connections, and two of the strongest connections you made were how I began my story, and how I chose to finish it.

For example, let’s take this article’s theme movie, The Ring, and examine its first scene.  Two girls are hanging out.  One of them explains that there’s this haunted video tape.  After you watch it, your phone will ring.  When you pick up the phone, a voice will tell you you will die in seven days.

“Who told you?”

“What’s your problem?”

“I’ve watched it.”

“Ugh.  It’s a story Katie.”

“No… me and Josh – we saw it last weekend.”

Bam.  We’re in the story.  At the 56 second mark, The Ring not only told us all we need to know about the movie’s premise, but put that information to immediate use, transitioning us into a tense scene.  This opening sequence frames everything that happens, and, if we somehow forgot the rest of this movie, this scene will let us reconstruct what the movie must have been about.

It’s this immediate comprehension and call to action that should be a part of most role-playing games we take part in.  It’s not the only way to tell a story, but until you’ve mastered the quick grab, you don’t understand what it takes to sell a story.  The pace and direction your game takes will be dictated by your story’s first scene.  The entire campaign will take its lead from your first game.

Equally important to how a great piece of work opens is how it closes.  I’m not giving away spoilers, but for those who remember how The Ring ended, you have an excellent idea of what I’m getting at.  The Ring’s first scenes set us up for its last scenes. That end sequence is the result of events piled into the plot, until there were a small selection of inevitable paths the movie could take.  Certainly, the movie is full of interesting scenes leading to the climax.  But what if we removed everything from the movie except the first six minutes, and the last six minutes, and we didn’t know that there was more to The Ring?  The movie would still make sense, and we’d be entertained; albeit, for a shorter amount of time.

Writers make a big deal out of whether or not we should make outlines.  J.K. Rowling uses large grids to stay on top of her plots and character relationships.  Neil Gaiman, on the other hand, hates to outline, insisting that “it sort of takes all the fun out”.  It’s something authors either enjoy doing, or don’t, then they justify their emotional preferences with after the fact logic.  If it makes you feel better, I’ll take the burden off of your shoulders so you don’t feel like you’re a lazy writer.  You don’t need to outline.  Your story won’t suffer for lack of one.

But, and this is a huge but, you must know both how you want your story to start, and where you plan for your story to be when you’re done.  Your campaign may survive without either of these things, but you’re leaving far too much to chance.  It’s the equivalent of throwing an apple out the window and hoping an apple tree will grow.  Your seed needs good soil and water to germinate:  that’s where you want your story to start.  Your tree needs plenty of space to grow into:  That’s where you plan for your story to be when you’re done.  Outside of that, you have some maintenance to do, but, mostly, the tree will grow itself.

The middle of your campaign, ultimately, will be an assorted pile of details which form into experiences, which will be remembered based on how those experiences correlate to one another.  Your players will pick the pieces they enjoyed the most out of the center of the campaign, and encapsulate it in whatever material you chose to begin and end the game with.  If that’s the case, then you should start with all of your best ideas.  If something about the campaign excites you, use it right now.  You are not wasting potential.  Indeed, you can’t waste something that you have an infinite supply of.  There will always be more stories to tell.  What story do you want to tell your players right now?

It’s very easy to lose the plot in the nature of role-playing games.  Players start at level one, and must adventure to achieve accolades.  They start from humble beginnings and work their way up the chain of command to become heroes, gaining various skills and fabulous treasures along the way.  There’s a reason why our plots often follow this pattern, and it has to do with how humans love to be micro-rewarded for every achievement they accomplish.  Micro-achievements are good, and make your players feel good.  But if the micro-achievements become the goal, then the game loses substance.  Achievements without goals are meaningless.

Give your players a goal.  Let’s take a look at a sample plot outline for a standard role-playing game:

1.)  The characters meet at a tavern.

2.) An old scholar notices the adventeurers and tells them about an ancient dungeon.  There are many fabulous treasures inside, but there’s also an old artifact which is meaningless to the players.  If the players bring that tablet back to The Scholar, they will be rewarded.

3.) After a few nights of delving through the dungeon, the adventurers find the tablet and give it to The Scholar.  He’s good with his coin.

4.)  After a few days of deciphering the tablet, The Scholar discovers another dungeon.  Inside this dungeon is a mystic orb.  If the players bring it back to the scholar, they will be well rewarded.

5.)  After a number of days, the players do so and are rewarded.  A few days later, the scholar discovers another magical item.  Repeat Ad Nauseum.

6.)  After The Scholar has recieved five such magic items, he cackles with glee, and gives the players a warning, since they’ve been so loyal:  They should leave, for in seven days this city will be razed to the ground.  The Scholar then disappears in a puff of smoke.

7.)  Confused as to what The Scholar meant, the players do their own research.  After asking around they find that The Scholar perfectly matches the description of a wizard who was hung by the townsfolk thirty years ago.

8.)  The players take a stand, and fight for the town.  The Scholar brings an army of elementals.  The fighting is fierce.  In the end, perhaps the players win and the town is saved, or perhaps The Scholar wins, and the town is razed.

That’s a good plot, by the way.  It has a place to start, and a goal.  You could play this campaign out for years, and your players are bound to remember the climax.  But when your players tell this story to other players, where will they begin?  If they start at point one, they’re bound to bore their listener.  The campaign starts at a tavern?  A mysterious robed stranger brings them to his table?  You might as well explain the basics of how to role-play.

If your players know how to keep an audience, however, they will begin by saying “We’ve been playing this campaign for two years, getting this old man all these ancient artifacts, when one day he ups and dissappears on us…”  That’s the story.  It began at point six.  If your story begins at point six, why are you bothering to run players through points one through five?  Instead, talk to your players before the game begins.  Explain that they’ve been working for an old scholar for years.  Have them come up with a few stories of the dungeons they delved, and missions they’ve performed.  Fictionalize their history with The Scholar, then pull the rug out from under them on adventure number one, when he betrays them.  Even with a fictional history between the players and The Scholar, his betrayal will be a shock if done in the first ten minutes of the campaign.  Your players have a history with a character that betrayed them.  That’s an excellent way to start a story, since it will dictate every adventure that comes after it until justice is served, or the adventurers are destroyed.

If you save your best ideas for the end, you may never have a great campaign.  Use your best ideas now, and you will be rewarded with better ones.  If your story is exciting, and your players respond in turn, then you create a feedback loop consisting of an exciting plot tailored to the player’s interests.  Save your best ideas for later, and your game will stagnate, wallowing until the plot begins.

Return to Maintiaining the Horror Campaign – Introduction:  Why?!  Why?!!