For the most part, I pick the games I am going to run by, as the kids today say, vibes. It has always been instinctual. I hear about a game, the right ones set off my Spidey Sense, and I am hooked. That has been my method for the last 43 years. At different points during those years, I have thought to myself, “perhaps there are no more interesting games to play”, only to find time and time again something that I was excited to bring to the table.  

Last week, I thought I had hit rock bottom. For the first time in 43 years, I struggled to find a game to bring to the table. One of my game groups reorganized, and I lost a few players, so I was looking for a game to offer up, and my list was empty; the well was dry. I spent several nights wandering my PDF collection and scrolling through DriveThruRPG looking for something that would vibe, that would create that spark. Nothing. I started to worry that perhaps this was the end, no more games to interest me. 

I then did what I often do when I get stuck on a problem, and started to break the problem down into parts I could name, so that I could try to get some kind of control over what was going on. I learned some things about that “vibe”.. Oh, and I found a game too. 

What was I vibing on? 

My attraction to certain games had to be a combination of different factors. When it comes to understanding the larger parts of what makes up a game, I think that Jason Pitre did best with their Four Structures. Read the article for details, but in a nutshell, the four structures are: 

• Setting – the world that the characters inhabit.
• System – the rules of the game.
• Situation – the things the characters do when you play. 
• Subtext – the hidden message or theme of the game. 

When I looked back at past games I have been excited about, I can identify which structures excited me the most. Some games may be just one thing, and others may be multiples, with the best fits being all four structures. When I think about Forbidden Lands, my initial attraction was through the System, because of its rules for travel. For Night’s Black Agents, it was a combination of System (Gumshoe) and Setting (Jason Bourne vs Vampires). For Blades in the Dark, it was the Situation (doing jobs), more than the setting or system. While initially, I liked Underground’s Setting, what really got me was the Subtext of when all you have been trained for is war, how else can you solve any problems? 

Those are broad categories. It is entirely possible to like things in a more granular way. My interest in Forbidden Lands was for just one subsystem, not the entire mechanics of the game. There is a point of diminishing returns in granularity; it would be hard for me to be excited to get a game to the table just because I think one character class is interesting. For me, there needs to be a preponderance of interest in one of the Structures for me to connect. 

Another thing I observed upon reflection was that the more I connected with one Structure, the less I needed to for the others. I really don’t love the setting of Blades in the Dark, it’s ok. But I really like the Situation of a gang doing jobs to raise their status in the underworld. 

Also, if one structure supports another, that is a multiplier for me. In the case of Night’s Black Agents, the Setting and Situation are superbly supported by the System. That is to say, there are rules for all the parts of the Setting and Situation (investigations, combat, chases, vampires, etc). Specifically, I want the System to reinforce the Setting, Situation, Subtext, or all of them. I find that when the System is not tightly coupled to the other structures, it makes it less appealing to me. 

Novelty and Predictability 

Thinking about the four structures and games I enjoyed in the past gave me a framework for looking at games and trying to understand why I was not finding anything I vibed with. While scrolling through lists of games, I now found myself saying things like, “I have played that system before”, “I don’t like to run fantasy”, “What do the characters do in this game?” It made looking at games more ordered, less vibes, and now more formulaic. 

During this exploration, I began to uncover two other factors in play. I love to run things I have not run before. I love the novelty of things. I rarely play the same game twice; I would rather play something totally new than run something I have played before. At the same time, I do have favorite game systems, because they are predictable. I like the feel of a PbtA system, and I have recently grown more comfortable with Forged in the Dark games. 

As I thought about these two factors in conjunction with the four structures, I realized that there was some nuance. Not every structure had to be novel, but they could not all be predictable. At least one structure had to be novel. Also, I found I get hesitant if everything is novel, meaning I like something to be predictable. For instance, a system could be totally novel if the setting (or genre – a component of setting) were predictable. 

Just what was I looking for? 

This added information about novelty and predictability provided some nuance to my searches, but more importantly, I was finally able to articulate what I was looking for, for this group for this game.

I wanted a predictable system. Where I am right now, I did not want to take on learning a new system. But I need some novelty, which eliminates replaying any past games. The game I was looking for was going to be a system I am comfortable with, but a setting and/or situation that was novel. 

This made searching much more efficient. I was now able to eliminate systems I was not comfortable with and games I had played in the systems with which I was familiar. Quickly, a short list of candidates popped up, and within a day, I settled on the game I wanted to try: 

Transit by Fiddleback Productions.

Transit is a PbtA game. Very predictable for me. I knew I would have no problem learning the System and being comfortable running it. The general Setting is SciFi, which is also familiar to me, but the characters take the form of AIs embedded into spaceships; a novel Situation! This was a solid combination for me. A System that I was comfortable running, in a general Setting that I am comfortable running and am well versed in its tropes, but a very novel kind of story to tell. I have not, in my 43 years, run a game where the characters were spaceships. 

Just like that, I was excited to get this game to the table. The drought was ended, and the age-old question of “are there no more games I am interested in?” was staved off for another day. 

Use the Force, Luke

The alchemy of why we like games is complex and contains many factors. By giving some of those factors names, we are able to create language for why we are intrigued by and turned off by games. In that naming, we give ourselves the power to move from instinct to rationalization. We no longer have to wander, hoping something will fall in our laps, but rather we can create a set of search parameters and hone in on candidates.

What structures attract you to games? What roles do novelty and predictability play for you? Do you like them in certain structures or not in others? 

One of the things I love about Blades in the Dark is that it has a mechanism for creating background events for your campaign. During Downtime (though I do this after a session), you roll to see how various factions make progress (or not) on their goals. Mechanically, this is a series of Fortune rolls that advance various project clocks for each faction. The result of this is that while the characters are off doing their own things, the factions in the city also progress with their agendas and goals. Mechanisms like this give a campaign a life of its own. So let’s talk about it. 

Background Events

Let’s start with a definition: a background event is a narrative element that occurs without the direct intervention of the PCs. It can take many forms, such as actions of individual NPCs, groups, or even natural events. Background events can take place in one-shots and campaigns, and they can take place during stories or between stories. 

Background Events have a few effects in the game: 

• They create a sense of a dynamic background to the game. Having NPCs, groups, and natural events occur gives players the feeling that the campaign world is alive and breathing around them, and not just a static background that freezes when the characters change locations. 
• They create potential stories. The players may take an interest in the background events and may want to intervene, giving you and your table a new story to play. 
• They can create tension and drama. Having a main story and several concurrent background stories will create decision points in the game. Do the characters stay on the main story, or should they take a session and help the baker who is about to lose their bakery because of the lost shipment of flour? Which decision will they make, and what consequence will come of it? 

Several games have this built into their mechanics. Dungeon World uses Signs & Portents, and the Forged in the Dark games have the Faction Downtime actions. Even if a game does not have specific mechanics for it, they can be done narratively in any game, by just making up some news and events and conveying them to the players. 

A Framework for Good Background Events

Here is a model for a mechanized version of background events, if your game does not have a mechanism for this. This draws heavily upon both Dungeon World and Forged in the Dark: 

First, come up with some groups or individuals that are up to something. 

Second, for each group or individual, give them a goal and some arbitrary steps they would take to accomplish that goal. Here we are building a clock.

Third, decide what interval you want to update these clocks. A good starting interval is between stories. 

Fourth, at the specified interval, decide if the clock advances and how much. You can just decide this for yourself, or you can assign some dice to determine this effect. Perhaps roll a d6 and advance the clock that many ticks. 

Fifth, convey the outcomes of some or all of the clocks to the characters during the session. 

Conveying The Information

Regardless of whether you arbitrarily create background events or use a mechanism for creating them, the most important part is that you convey their progress to the characters. Like character backgrounds that are written down and not discussed at the table, creating background events and keeping them to yourself does nothing to enhance your game. The events you create have to reach the characters to create the effects above. 

For your game, you need to think of how news and information are conveyed. If you are playing a modern supers game, information and news are nearly instantaneous. It will be livestreamed or posted to social media before traditional news can report it. If you are playing a SciFi game where news has to travel great distances but is limited to the speed of light, then perhaps couriers jump from system to system in their FTL ships with news. News is dependent on the arrival of couriers. This will change how the news reaches the players; there could be delays or bundles of news. 

Give thought to how news travels in your setting and what constraints or features will be created in your game. The most important consideration is timing. If you want the characters to potentially act on some background events, then the information needs to arrive at them with time to react; otherwise, they will receive the news of the event and write it off because it will take too long to intervene. 

How To Present The Information

Once you work out how the information of the background events reaches the characters, take a moment and think of how narratively you can present the information. The least interesting way to do this is a GM to player data dump, where the GM just tells the players several events going on, “From around town you hear the following… blah, blah, blah”. 

The more interesting approach is to present the information in the context of how the characters would receive it. This can be solely narrative (the GM just saying things) or it could be a post or handout (for the more creative types). In a modern game, you might put the information in the form of social media posts. In a Roaring 20s game, this could be done as a radio broadcast or a newspaper front page. If you have an NPC that could present the events, they could come in and do it in character. 

In my Blades in the Dark game, the crew has an information network of newsies who gather rumors and events while selling newspapers throughout the city. The head of the newsies, Red, comes to the crew’s HQ and presents a briefing to the players. For this, I write out the events in Red’s voice, and during the Free Play phase of the game, we do a scene where Red is reporting to the crew.

Did You Hear? 

Background events are a great way to make a campaign feel more alive and can foreshadow events or create dramatic decisions for the characters. You can create these arbitrarily or using a mechanical approach. If you do use background events, give thought to how the information reaches your players, and when you do present it, think of a creative way to deliver the news. 

Do you use background events in your games? How do you create and track them? What’s the most challenging way information has had to reach your players? What is your favorite method to present the information? 

In my current Blades in the Dark game, I started to post preludes in our Slack channel a few days before the game. These preludes are short narrative pieces, centered on one of the characters, and convey some information to the players about the upcoming session. It is not the first time I have employed this technique, but I have not done it in a while. So I thought I would talk about it today.

The Prelude

By definition, a prelude is: an action or event that serves as an introduction to something more significant. In RPG terms, it is a small scene that acts as the introduction to the session. Typically, the scene is a short narrative piece that the players read; however, there may be cases where this is an actual playable scene between the GM and one or two players. For simplicity, let’s stick to a short narrative piece. 

What Does a Prelude Do? 

There are a few things that a prelude will do in your game. The first, and most obvious, is that it introduces the coming session. The second is that it can convey information. Third, it is a form of metagame (the game outside of the game), which is a tool for creating emotional investment. Fourth, it helps to get the game started. 

Let’s talk about each of these in more detail:  

Introduction of the Coming Session

The prelude introduces the coming session. It is a free scene to frame out the coming adventure. It helps set the tone, set up the first scenes at the table, and foreshadow things to come in the game. 

Conveying Information

The prelude is a place where you can infodump useful information for the session. You can name NPCs, provide facts that might be commonly known, etc. By including information here, the players arrive at the game with that information, without you having to do it at the table.

The Metagame

Preludes are playing the game outside of the session, which is a great way to build engagement in the game between sessions. If you release your prelude days before your session, then your players are engaging with it and thinking about the game before the game starts. It can often be a struggle to get players to think about the game outside of the session; the prelude is a way to jump-start that process.

Getting the Game Started

You can use the prelude to get out of the way of slower narrative parts, and let you start the game closer to the action. You can have a prelude that describes the characters facing down their enemy as the enemy monologues (infodump), and then when you start your session, you can go in media res, and jump right into an initiative roll for combat, which will make the start of your game far more exciting. This also works great for things like missions and heists, where the prelude can infodump some of the more common facts, allowing the game to start closer to beginning the mission or heist. This is how I use it for Blades.

Creating A Prelude

Now that we have discussed what goes into a prelude, we can look at how to create one. My personal favorite for this is a small piece of flash fiction, just a few paragraphs long. I like this form for a few reasons. One, it’s not too much work to prep, and you can make them entertaining. I will always work as much information as I can into the prelude so that I don’t have to find ways to inject that information into the session. 

Once you have your prelude set, you need to get it to your players. In this day and age, you most likely have an electronic forum where you can share this — Discord, Slack, Group Chat, etc. Drop it into that. The more important consideration is when.

You want to do it a few days before your session, so that people who do not check the Discord all the time will have time to check it before the game. At the same time, you do not want to do it so early that everyone sees it, and then enough time passes to forget what was written…that will undo all the benefits of the prelude. 

I find two days before the session is nice. It is within the window where people start checking the group chat heading into the game, far enough out from the game that if someone were to post a question about the prelude, I would have time to answer it, and close enough to the session that people will remember it. 

Prelude vs. Recap

These two things are different. The prelude is the introduction to the coming session, while the recap is an infodump about what happened last time. It is possible to do both of these online, but it’s more work for you. If you want to use both a recap and a prelude, I would do your prelude online, because it builds engagement, and do your recap while people are setting up for the session and getting settled in.

Recaps are good to do in person because if there are questions or discrepancies, the group can address them in real time. 

The Man Stepped out of the Shadows…

The prelude is a simple tool that can help start your sessions. It is a bit of extra work to create, but it has a number of benefits for your session and your campaign. It is not something you need to use every game, but like any good spice, its occasional use spices up your upcoming session. 

Do you employ a prelude for your game? What form does it take? How often do you use them?