Tabletop Tales: Rashomon

I've been playing a lot of tabletop role-playing games lately, mostly the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, although I've tried 7th Sea, Edge of the Empire and some Legend of the Five Rings. I run games on occasion too and I thought I'd write about my thoughts on "game-mastering" or whatever you call it. 

I'm no expert and there's plenty of guides online already but I figure it's better to write about something I actually enjoy for a change instead of government or whatever outrage du jour is on social media. Maybe other people might find these useful. Maybe not.

The Rashomon Effect

Rashomon is a 1950 Japanese thriller directed by Akira Kurosawa. The premise of the movie is simple: a murder was committed and the account of the incident is told from the perspective of four different characters. Each character's version of events vary wildly given their subjective individual experiences, bias and self-interest. Just like the movie, the same problem of competing perspectives may pop-up at the gaming table.

An important job of the game-master (GM) is to keep everyone on the same page. Everything the players know about their environment and the world depends entirely on what the GM says and how he says it. Players have different mindsets. A player may fixate on a thing you didn't expect him to and then he'll proceed to gnaw on it like a dog on a bone. Sometimes players will miss clues entirely or choose not to pursue them at all.

Then there's the matter of remembering details. Some players take notes while others rely on memory. Now, this is the tricky part because what is worth taking note of or remembering varies from player to player. You cannot rely on your players remembering things. I do not mean it as an insult but it's really impractical to expect them to. They may not know what's important or what it is you want them to consider as important. See, even the storyteller suffers from this Rashomon effect. People can't read each other's minds.

A skipped detail here or there won't hurt the game too bad but sometimes if the players' views widely diverge, you'll end up with competing narratives. Players will then propose different courses of action which may be shot down as impossible by the others, even if it isn't, or decide to make poorly thought out decisions due to misinformation or misapprehension of the given facts. At worst, there might be arguments.

The goal of the GM is to make it clear to the players what is important and what is not. Therefore, he/she must take care to communicate information to the players in an effective manner. I've found some methods to be helpful:

1. Don't say too much. The more words you use to layout the situation, the more useless filler you're cramming into your players' brains. Keep it brief and mention only the very important bits.

2. Speak clearly. You don't have to be the grand Toastmaster of the Rotary Club or anything. It's enough to just speak in a way that people can easily understand.

2. Repetition is key. If there's something you want the players to know or remember you have to mention it a couple of times from different sources. You have to be subtle though and not seem like you're bullying the players into doing something.

3. Do a recap. I find that it helps to do a recap of events at the start of every session. There, you can emphasize the important persons, places and things of the campaign.

It's easy to get caught up in the game-play bits and forget that playing tabletop RPGs is also an exercise in communication. It's been difficult, personally, but I expect people used to public speaking and speeches will have a better go at it.