Building Bhakashal - I Feel Free

“Feel when I dance with you,

We move like the sea.

You, you're all I want to know,

I feel free,

I feel free,

I feel free.”

Twitter is an interesting resource for someone into TTRPGs. Over the last few years seeing what people are saying about games has really helped me to crystalize my refereeing style. 

Sometimes you have to see what other people are doing to realize you are doing it differently.

And, as is almost always the case, I’m at home in neither camp.

Two Horses, One Cart

As odd as this might sound, I have found a connecting thread between modern “narrative focused” gamers and hard core BTB/RAW OSR types. 

Perfectionism.

For the former crowd I see many, many posts about how they are sad/upset/dissapointed about their sessions.

“The fight was too easy.”

“The fight was too hard.”

“The tone wasn’t right.”

“The players didn’t enjoy this session as much as the last few, how can I do better.”

“The BBEG went down without a big fight.”

“The PC didn’t get their dramatic payoff.”

“This was too slow”

“This was too fast.”

“I’m having trouble setting the difficulty for the encounters”

“I haven’t been able to fit in the PC’s backstories”

“The players only want to go shopping”

“They missed a big clue, and I don’t know how to get them back on track”

Etc.

What fascinates me is that none of these things are a problem, unless you have a particular mindset about the game. These are problems if the referee has expectations about where the game is going. The fight wasn’t “too easy” unless you had expectations about the difficulty that weren’t met. The fight can be “easy” or “hard”, but “too easy” implies that you expected it to be different, and that’s a problem.

On the other end of the 10’ pole there are the “elite level gamers” of the BROsr. For them, there is one right way to play the game, and the ONLY acceptable way to achieve gaming greatness is to play according to their interpretation of RAW / BTB. For the moment lets set aside the question of whether or not their interpretation of RAW is correct or not.

The same problem appears in this gaming style, except this time it’s fidelity to the system that is the perfectionism. Minimal house rules, RAW playstyle, relentless proselytizing about purity and elite play. It sounds like so much work. 

Modern gamers want PERFECTION. Drama, pathos, excitement, player fulfillment, skin of your teeth fights… every time. I see people beating themselves up about this all the time, or suggesting that D&D might not be for them as it doesn’t have the mechanics to get you to these narratively focused ends. Sure, you can fudge your way to having your players shine, but why not play a game with mechanics for that? 

And that’s not a bad idea, because they would likely be a better fit.

But here’s an anecdote. 

I started playing D&D in the 80’s with AD&D, got the PHB, MM and DMG and read bits and bobs, then started to play with pre-bought modules and a lot of home brew dungeons. We got the rules wrong, hopelessly so in some cases. We forgot rules, we missed rules, we read them incorrectly, we house ruled things that didn’t need it as we were experimenting. We shoehorned in things from other games. In terms of “meeting dramatic expectations” it was a rank disaster. In terms of adherence to the rules as written is was similarly terrible. 

And it was pure, unadulterated joy. We played D&D every weekday and some weekends for an entire summer, glorious hours of adventure, PCs dying by the ton, and NONE of it was done in service of “the narrative”, none of it was done “RAW/BTB”.

And it didn’t matter at all. We were friends fighting monsters and hauling treasure. You don’t need to manufacture drama or account for backstories, you don’t need to adhere to the rules exactly as written. 

You can just play, and let it happen.

Last year I ran seven concurrent D&D campaigns with over 40 players between them. If I had worried about dramatic tension and player backstory fulfillment I would have lost my mind. If I had worried about absolute adherence to the rules as written I would have lost my mind. 

Instead, I created a setting, the players explored it, and I had the world respond to them, often making my decisions by rolling the dice. I didn’t worry about making each session dramatic, if they want a dramatic session, DO DRAMATIC THINGS! I don’t prep plots and “expected conclusions”, I prep environments and relationships, the players make things happen.

“I don’t have aarakocra in my game as giving the PCs flight makes things too easy”. I have no such concern. You want an aarakocra, OK.” That flying PC will have an easy time with some things, so what? It’s not my job to worry that. Let them have their “easy time”, there will be a hard time soon enough. 

I can’t overstate how powerful this realization was for me when I made it. I looked up from running 7 separate campaigns and realized I WASN’T DOING THE WORK. My players were driving everything, in tandem with the dice and the bounded randomness of the tables in my setting. Yes, my imagination was involved, but primarily in interpreting the interaction between PCs and game world. 

Over the years I have come to realize that sometimes the meaningful things are meaningful precisely because of the spaces in between. Travel in our game takes time, we don’t hand wave it, so when you get somewhere it feels like an achievement, and the game world feels real. But that means that you will spend some time traveling without anything “dramatic” happening. 

Oh no, the players might be bored!

Nah, “non-dramatic” bits help to make the dramatic bits more dramatic. Travel time between destinations builds tension as the players anticipate challenges. Rather than working to make EVERY SESSION AND ENCOUNTER PEAK DRAMA, the referee should simply have the game world react to the players, and their responses and actions will CREATE plenty of drama. 

The relentless, self-deprecating need to give each player their own tailored dramatic D&D experience, the fierce, focused need to play the game according to ONE and ONLY ONE interpretation of the RAW, this wild need to have a perfect, hermetically sealed experience, whether it be because you feel you are TELLING A STORY, or EXACTLY FOLLOWING THE RULES produces the same thing: a wildly unfair burden on the referee and the need to be constantly scrambling to adjust the dials and levers to keep things where you need them to be.

Me, on the other hand, I sit down every session with no real idea of what we will be doing or where it will go. I get surprised every session, and so do my players. We don’t have big dramatic moments every session, nor do we obsess over whether or not we are using the rules correctly.

Instead, they explore and have fun, they f#ck around and find out. My job is to make that process fair and responsive to their actions. I have no preference as to where things are going in terms of pace, theme, or any other narrative concern.

Honestly, what happens at a lot of tables, if what I see on Twitter is any indication, sounds like a chore, endless tinkering to produce an idealized experience rather than just letting the game happen and letting the group create the dramatic, exciting experiences through in-game choices and their consequences. 

I know that my style of play is not for everyone. It involves a LOT of improvisation, and it means that the materials you create may get shelved indefinitely. It means that PCs don’t get custom backstories to weave into the game, instead their choices and actions provide the fodder for stories told when they leave the game table, and stories told by local bards about their exploits.

I see a lot of refs trying to control everything, and tell their story, or keep the game in a rules as written box. 

Too much work.

, I suggest letting the PCs run the game, and then tell stories about it afterwards. 

I feel free.