Tips for Old School Gaming 2

In this “episode”, we talk about interacting with the environment, how to recognize when you need to do more of it (pretty much always), and how to avoid building a situation where you’re passive, basically watching the GM narrate like they’re on TV.

Interrogate the Environment

Ask Questions. Once you’re in the dungeon, your GM will start describing what your character senses. When the GM finishes describing the scene, don’t just assume that’s all there is to know. It’s widely known (even if it isn’t necessarily a supportible “fact”) that players don’t particularly care for “read aloud” or descriptive text. Thus GMs tend to avoid it, and most published adventures lack long descriptive text blocks. It’s up to you to find threads in descriptive text and pull them. 

For example, here’s a bit of descriptive text:

There’s a large four-poster bed against the far wall between two full-length wooden wardrobes and partly atop a plush carpet covering the wooden floor. Tapestries hang on two walls, and on the third, behind a glowing brazier, is a life-sized portrait of a man in plate armor. The fireplace contains nothing but ashes.

This satisfies the prevailing RPG social-media opinion of “more than three sentences is too much read-aloud text”, but (like most examples of that stupid, arbitrary rule) doesn’t give you enough information to actually do anything in the room. You have to ask questions.

You should be able to think of any number of questions based on threads you’ve found to pull even in that paltry description. Here are some that leap out:

• What’s under the bed? 
• What’s in the wardrobes?
• Are the eyes cut out of the portrait so someone can peer through? 
• Why is the brazier alight? Can it be moved? 
• Is there anything up the chimney? In the ashes? 
• What’s under the carpet?

If you just say “I make a Perception check”, you’re not only breaking 5e’s rules (you only make a check when the GM asks for one), you’re also missing out. The 5e rules say:

“In most cases, you need to describe where you are looking in order for the DM to determine your chance of success. For example, a key is hidden beneath a set of folded clothes in the top drawer of a bureau. If you tell the DM that you pace around the room, looking at the walls and furniture for clues, you have no chance of finding the key, regardless of your Wisdom (Perception) check result. You would have to specify that you were opening the drawers or searching the bureau in order to have any chance of success.”

D&D Basic Rules, p. 64

In this case, the wardrobes are closed. Without opening the doors and rummaging through the stuff therein, the portal to Narnia could be in one, and you will never, ever find it.

Always Seek a Polder. Here in the Netherlands, much of the country consists of polderland. A polder is a protected area where people are (at least mostly) safe. When you’re on an adventure, you’ll need a safe place to rest, whether that’s a short or long rest. In a dungeon, it might be a room that has but one solid door that can be secured. In the wilderness, it might be a shallow cave or ruined cottage. Without a polder you won’t be able to actually complete a rest, and that will lead to suckage in very short order; you won’t regain hit points, hit dice, or spell slots. You won’t be able to prepare new spells or identify magic items. Class abilities won’t reset. 

Once you wedge the door shut, confirm nobody’s peeping at you from behind the portrait, and that there are no secret passages, you can use the bedroom described above as a delightful polder. But to get there, you have to interact with and interrogate the environment.

Be an Active Participant. Enthusiastically and tenaciously interrogating the game environment demands you become an active participant in the game rather than passively absorbing entertainment. All too often we see — even in the most famous “actual play” webcasts — the players sitting there absorbing the GM’s words as though they’re watching TV. 

The problem with that is manifold. Most importantly, it places an unfair and often overwhelming demand on the GM. They’re forced to basically be a captive TV show for a room full of people. Unless the GM is super into that, it leads to burnout really quickly. If that’s the way you like to play, fine. In our experience, it works better if everyone at the table makes an effort to immerse themselves in the game world by actively exploring it.

Next Time

Our next installment focuses on encounter balance. Stay tuned!