An Elemental Framework

© Jonathan M. Dobson, 2002-2003

Forewarning

This writ assumes that you, the reader, are a Storyteller of particular milieu.  I have dubbed this particular milieu “freeform”.  If you are this type of Storyteller (see definition below), or at least partial to this type of storytelling, what follows throughout the length of this text may be very beneficial to you.  If you are not this type of Storyteller, there is something you should do at this exact moment, depending upon the media used to view this work:

If your media is…

a)      A web page:  hit the “back” button now

b)      Plain paper:  pass this essay through the shredder

c)      A book:  skip this part of the book

d)      A neural download:  erase “last download” from your databank

A Freeform Storyteller:  A Storyteller who, though meticulous in planning his RP sessions, is not only willing to throw his plans out the window, but eager to pursue any path presented during the course of his sessions, even when such paths are in direct conflict with his plans and he may just have to “wing everything”.  A Storyteller who, though loyal to his plots and devices, and quick at every moment to steer the course of action back his way, is ultimately willing to jump off into the unknown:  no back material, no ready-made NPC’s, just his imagination and the imaginations of the Players.  In short, a Storyteller who allows her Players to shape the general and specific details of roleplay (plot, character, self-expression, Element) with as much freedom as the Storyteller herself.  A Storyteller who recognizes that a Player can, with one small, simple character action, wipe out the entirety of the Storyteller’s well laid strategies.  Most importantly, a Storyteller whose primary, uncompromising, and inherently formidable weapon is simply Creativity.  The final gun.  The last stronghold.

Storytelling like this is tiring.  It certainly drains you.  But such tiring is pure testament to the wonder that is going on:  you are gushing creativity.  You need to refuel.  Take a break, read a novel, listen to some inspiring music, and exercise.

This writ also assumes that you have read its precursor, Pursue the Element.  If you have not read Pursue the Element, then what follows will surely confound.

Introduction

A previous essay, Pursue the Element, expounded the quest for the Elements in roleplaying.  It briefly touched upon how to do this, but gave little in the way of hard, workable methodology.  It left much up to the Storyteller, and in that way offered the reader a personal pursuit of creativity.  Afterall, what is roleplaying but deliberate, conscious creativity?  This second essay, An Elemental Framework, serves to further exemplify the creation of an element-based roleplaying game or campaign.  But an important note before we begin:  the first essay stands entirely on its own, and this follow-up document can be skipped altogether.  It is not usually a good idea to tell potential readers that they don’t need to keep reading your work in the introduction.  I am somewhat of an idiot.  But this essay begins to take roleplaying into an intellectual realm that can often stagnate creativity.  I know this.  But so convinced am I of the worth of process and creativity unionized, that I can barely not write down what has served me so well in the latter of my roleplaying years.

There is a careful balance.  At first, excessive analyzing can drain one of the effortless inner power to create.  That is exactly what might happen as you continue to read this.  But after all is done, analysis can lead to the sharpening of your creativity, and you may find that such cerebral effort has caused your creative bounds to focus and therefore become more powerful.  The potential is there.  If that horizon is intimidating, I urge you to read just a little ahead anyway.  If you find that the probable practice of the following idea directly contends with your creative prowess, stop reading.  Curse my name.  Never read anything written by me again.  (Well, fiction might be okay…and a poem or two.)

What is a Framework?

A Framework is a flexible structure used to guide roleplaying to heights of efficiency and excitement by maintaining the pursuit of the Elements.

A Framework is like a path that your story follows – a path able to withstand the impulsive and spontaneous changes of your roleplaying.  A Framework has definable variables, and it leads your story through those variables while simultaneously containing the movements and contortions of your plot and characters.  A Framework is comprised of interlocked Elements, and serves to bring about those Elements.  Try to think of a Framework not as a rigid structure found in the construction of houses or buildings, but rather as a compromising, elasticizing cell – responsive to the demands of dynamic roleplay.

The Organic Principle

A story is organic.  It is alive.  Rather than a system, a story is exactly the opposite.  This implies several significant things.

Firstly, a story is spontaneous.  Like life, a story is an unpredictable thing.  It changes and expands without pretence, without explicit rules, able to alter its own rules in order to expand.

Which is the second property of a story:  it grows.  It gets bigger, more complex, wider in scope.  A story in a novel does this in a unidirectional way to the reader.  To a writer, the story is experienced as an organic entity because the writer is present for the creative process.  It is symbiotic, bi-directional.  Roleplayers, like writers, are present during the creation of the story.  Moreso, they are the main characters of the story, and therefore the organism of the Tale is all the more imminent.  It’s experiential. 

So it makes sense that the Framework created for a story will also be organic:  flexible, able to handle spontaneous growth.  It is the cell that contains the life of the story.  This is the organic principle.

Harlequin gives their contracted writers outlines or structures that all Harlequin novels must follow.  The tale must be so long, of particular flavor, and modeled to a plethora of other plot and character requirements.  This system is quite rigid, yet Harlequin is able to produce many stories within the confines of that system.

A Framework is like a Harlequin outline.  The difference is that where a Harlequin outline is demanding, specific, and strict concerning the upholding of its structural integrity, a Framework is free to alter itself to suit the specific demands and structural integrity of the story.  A Harlequin story is subservient to a Harlequin outline.  An Elemental Framework, however, is subservient to an element-based story.  The subservience is reversed.  This means that the system is attempting to gratify the story, not strictly vice-versa.

An Example Framework

Simple and Conceptual

A Framework begins simple.  It must begin simple, because roleplay will by default add layers of complexity.  Because both the Players and the Storyteller will be reshaping the story (and by relation the Framework), an initially complex Framework can restrict its own malleability or lose its initial purpose.

Roleplay is glorified conversation.  Truly!  What is actually happening when you roleplay?  You are conversing with other people.  That’s it.  Nothing actually happens.  The difference between normal conversation and roleplaying is that the World of Imagination has been lit up.  Because of this heightened interaction, roleplay is basically conversation glorified.  If that is true, how does a conversation begin?  Simple!  Someone says “Hello,” and the rest follows.  A good conversation ends up light years away from where it begins.  So the same with good roleplay.  It begins simple and grows to become something exponentially greater.

A Framework is not specific.  That is, it does not supply detail, only concept.  It gives the big picture, and is therefore conceptual.  The story itself is all of the detail, and swims around inside the generality of the Framework.

The steps to building a Framework are as follows, and we will go through each sequentially:

1)      Choose your Elements

2)      Define your Elements

3)      Extract the variables from the definitions

4)      Link your variables

5)      Fill up your variables

The Element Path

A Framework exists to guide roleplaying towards the Elements.  Consequently, a Framework must have its origin in one or more Elements.  To be consistent with the previous essay, let’s use wonder, suspense, and courage.

Element Path:  Wonder – Suspense – Courage

The Element Path is your Framework’s underlying structure.  This is the first step in creating your Framework.  Decide which Elements are its roots, and how they are to be loosely ordered.

Definitions

The second step is to define each Element.

Wonder is a sense of awe – an experiencing of something outside of oneself, outside of one’s own conceptions and expectations.  The experience can be physical (visual, audio, etc.), or the experience can be less concrete, and spiritual.  In any case, wonder is brought about by the greatness of something.  Something unexpected.

Suspense comes by way of threat.  There is an object that I value that is threatened.  The outcome of that threat is uncertain, and it is the prolonging and heightening of this uncertainty that makes suspense bloom.

Courage is triumph over fear.  There is a perceived danger, and that danger is making me afraid.  If it does not make me afraid, then I cannot triumph over it – I’ve already beaten it (or think I have).  Faced with the fear, I pursue a course of action anyway, even though such an action may take me into the heart of the fear, or destroy me.

Variables

The third step is to extract the variables from these definitions.

Wonder Variables:  an experience, an object of greatness, an unexpected

Suspense Variables:  a valued object, a threat to a valued object, an uncertainty

Courage Variables:  a danger, a fear

These variables have been taken directly from the aforementioned definitions.  A variable is an empty container into which we may place a value.  For instance, the Wonder Variable an experience, can have many values, but of itself is empty.  We insert a value into this variable to give it meaning:  true love, a vast explosion, the sight of a monumental palace, a spiritual quickening.  All of these are experiences, and so valid values we can insert into the variable of an experience.  The Element Path of Wonder-Suspense-Courage has revealed a total of eight variables.  These variables are not, of course, extensive, and you may discover more of your own.  If you are having difficulty finding the variables of an Element, simply write down an expansive definition of your Element.  Leave nothing out, no matter how trivial.  From this description you should be able to uncover some variables with ease.

Linking:  The Framework Imaged

Before you fill up your variables, however, draw out a diagram linking them together.  This will serve to create a mental construct of your Framework.

An Experience--------an object of greatness------the unexpected

            |           _________/    

            |           |

A valued object------A threat to valued object----an uncertainty

            |                  ____________________________|

            |                  |

A danger--------A fear

The above lines indicate where two variables are linked.  A link shows that the values of the linked variables may be the same, very similar, or causal.  For instance, the object of greatness variable is linked to the valued object variable, which can mean that the same value occupies both.  It makes sense that an object of greatness would also be an object of value.  I have also linked experience to the valued object, which is also linked to danger.  This might mean that the experience the character’s have is the valued object, and that such experience has given rise to a danger.  Has J.R.R. Tolkien’s One Ring popped into your head yet?  When you extract the variables from a definition, and link them creatively, (or even randomly), you will begin to see the bones of great stories and myths.  Alternately, the linking between the experience, the valued object, and the danger variables can mean that they are causal:  one must precede the other, and in order.  The characters must go through the experience before they get to the value object, and they must possess the valued object before they face the danger.

For ease of Internet publication and redistribution, I have not used any graphics or drawings to create this diagram.  Normally, I would use circles or squares to encapsulate different variables, and arrows of multiple directions to link them up.  I also use colors, or odd shapes to denote variables of particular importance.  This usually fills up a half to full sheet of standard notepaper, so that I can keep it with me during play.  Try to make it as unique and memorable as you can.  This allows you to recall it mentally during the heat of action.  Because your Framework is now spatial, it has exited the exclusive realm of language to partner with the inclusive realm of imagery.  I cannot stress how central this is:  roleplay is about induced imagery, the events take place in the imagination, the excitement happens on an internal movie screen.  If your Framework becomes an image, it can slip in and mesh with your roleplay all that much easier.  In fact, sometimes (and this is great, I call this the “zone”) the Framework begins to incorporate itself unconsciously, and you don’t even have to think about it.  Your mind will recall that red box to the left with the danger variable, how it has been linked to the black fear variable, and an idea will swiftly populate your Framework.

You can also insert actual images in the place of boxes and words.  An image, however, carries a value already.  This is iconography.  Ancient hermeticists used icons in their mind to store vast troughs of knowledge.  The strong worker of memory did not have to “memorize” things in the traditional way.  He would construct a building in his mind, a visualized artifice designed to be as vivid as possible.  In this building were many rooms, and each room had a series of icons.  The icons were used to store and retrieve information.  If a “mage” wanted to retrieve some information, he would travel in his mind to the particular room that held the particular icon.  For instance, if he desired knowledge about ginseng, he would traverse to the herbology icon in his mind.  Tapping that icon, he could “scroll” through all that he had ever learned about herbs, including ginseng.  In this way, the memory-worker trained his mind to act as a computer.  Only they didn’t know what a computer was back then – their mind was the computer.  Now we have machines to do it all for us.  And in very similar fashion!  We have graphical interfaces, with icons that we can “click”.  What do these icons do?  The exact same thing:  they open up a program or a file that we can use or peruse.

Regardless, I find myself off topic.  While icons are useful, they imply values.  I use boxes and words, and then insert mutable images as I fill in the values.

Populating

And that is the fifth and final step:  filling your variables.  Your variables mean nothing unless you imbue them with specific values.  These values will give your Framework life.  At this point the Framework is an exoskeleton, devoid of the juicy innards that make up its powers of flight, descent, attack, evasion, and motion.  It’s got the hardware, but no software.

There are two methods of populating your variables, or, to be more accurate, two different times to do it.  I have stolen programming terminology to describe these two times:  design-time, and run-time.  Design-time is that phase when, absent from your Players, you are constructing your game or campaign.  Run-time is when the game is actually happening.

Design-time

Design-time is great, but it requires some very crucial tools.  Your Players should supply these tools before you even think about your Framework, although I’ll probably have a hard time convincing you of that.  Story-building to some is one of those supreme joys offered by life, and construction is a constant habit.  Storytellers who are also writers or authors will know this all too well.  But let me make my case.

The tools you require are the PC’s created by the Players.  Don’t think of the PC’s as characters yet, but rather as wrenches, hammers, saws, nails, better yet – blueprints.  The Tale you tell must fit the PC’s.  Look at their skills, their attributes, their gifts and faults, their personalities, backgrounds, and relations.  And above that, the person who is playing the PC – their likes, dislikes, tendencies, habits, etc.  Stew all that together in a big cauldron of free-association, add some cement of creativity, dump the lot into a form-setter, and let it dry.  From this sculpture you will be able to fill your variables.

By using your PC’s and Players as the wellsprings of inspiration, you avoid the trap of creating a Framework that fails to seduce your group.  Trust me, this can happen.  It’s like meeting someone good-looking, but then finding out that they have a horrible personality.  The hardware is great, but the software, the insides, are completely erroneous.  If the values of your variables gain substance from the impetus of your PC’s, however, the Framework will inherently incorporate both the strengths and weaknesses of the PC’s, thereby involving them effortlessly and intuitively.  You won’t have to think hard about getting them into the action, or spurring them into scenes and conflicts.  They will pursue them on their own.  It is in this way that you create honey for bears and salt for cows.

Now, this stewing in the cauldron with the cement and form-setter business may seem a little daunting.  The key word here is free-association.  What I mean by this is that you take all of the things you know about the PC’s and jam it into your head.  I usually write it all down in lists, or dump it into a database.  Think of all of this information as a vast and unorganized collection of independent details.  None of the details know one another, or agree that any other detail exists.  Let them swim around.  Just let them drift, passing by one another, oblivious, ignorant of anything outside of themselves.  Now.  Seek out connections.  Find one detail that has some sort of connection with another detail, a similarity, a grafting fault or feature, an opposite function even.  When you find something, join the two details together.  You now have your first association.  Continue to do so, until more and more details connect to each other.  You will begin to have isolated pockets of connections, little groups here and there, and then bigger groups, until eventually you get an emerging, cohesive picture.  The connections themselves are the ideas and values that you can use to fill your variables.  For instance, if you notice that all the PC’s have strong verbal skills, a threat variable can be filled with the value of “cut their tongues out”.  How and when and who have not been fleshed out, but you have a value for that variable you can bring into the game.  This variable will have intrinsic threat, because the PC’s are renowned for their powers of communication and oration.  The object of value variable could now be filled with the engrossing value of “the tongues of the PC’s”!  Each time you do this you may come out with totally different cohesions.  Two different Storytellers can take the exact same raw material and produce alternate, or even opposed, structures.

Note that these values are not specific.  They are general.  They do not give exact plot configuration.  The Framework exists as an energy source in your mind, a burning heart that you can tap into for on-the-fly plot/character creation.

Run-time

But this is not, of course, the end of the road.  For a story can suddenly change and surge off where it is least expected to go.  This can cause one of two things to happen:

1)      It destroys your Framework, because it contradicts it, and you throw your work away.  This is the same as a Harlequin writer who attempts to write within the confines of the Harlequin outline, and fails.  She throws her work away, or she throws the outline away.

2)      Your Framework is responsive to the unexpected change in your story, and you evolve your Framework to accommodate the change.

One of the strengths of a Framework is that it is flexible enough to handle the changes in the story.  A character kills someone he’s not supposed to, an integral quest-giver.  That quest-giver was supposed to fill the object of value variable with “Staff of Arcane Brilliance”, and then was herself to become the value of the danger and threat variables.

Now is that crucial time when you call up the mental image of your Framework.  Regard that all you’re seeing is the exoskeleton, and some – if not all – of the variables have been emptied because of PC action.  You’ve got work to do, quick work.  Remember free-association.  This is where you practice rapid free-association.  You’ve got an object of value variable to fill, along with threat and danger.  Depending upon your linking, you may have other variables to permeate as well.  Perhaps the quest-giver, recently deceased, is now an avenging spirit, and will hamper or corrupt the party.  The old quest-giver’s repressed assistant tells them of a new object of value (or perhaps even the same one?) that they can use to destroy the avenging spirit.  Then you have a new quest-giver, a same or similar or new object of value, and a same (though altered) threat and danger.  Done. 

What about new and unexpected Elements or variables that pop up?  This happens when the characters do something, and you inject some fresh idea into the story without even thinking, or because they telegraphed it.*  This new idea perhaps does not fit into your Framework at all!  This is okay.  Just add a new box or circle to your Framework, link it to the other variables, and off you go.  The idea here is integration.  The best kinds of Elements in a game are the ones that Players bring to the table.  They might not be the Elements you were thinking of, but they need to be explored – pursued more fervently than the ones you brought.  Just graft them into your Framework!  Don’t throw it all out, simply attach it in somewhere, and make that Element or its variables a part of your growing Tale.  When the session is over, you may have some redrafting to do, but here is the wondrous benefit:

The next session has you in full control of the conceptual picture of the Tale.

A Framework alters itself to accommodate any change in your Tale.  Once the Framework begins to serve the story, instead of vice versa, you have hit a sweet place.  But a quick thought:  if the Framework is just following the story, what’s the point of having it at all?  Isn’t it just a bunch of unnecessary work?

And this is where I ultimately condemn myself: it is unnecessary work.  You don’t need it.  It is not essential.  But while it is not essential, it is beneficial.  It has its payback.  Your Framework is the conceptualized version of your story.  This has a variety of reimbursements.

The variables and their values are concepts, which, when brought together, form up a path of Elements.  These Elements themselves are conceptual as well!  You can look at your Framework and, dwelling upon the concepts therein, make connections and relationships between different plot twists, characters, or goals with a spirit of ease and mobility.  You are no longer looking at a myriad of concrete events and people, but rather the “broad picture”, or the “meaning” behind all that activity.  This is especially true with sprawling campaigns that have been going on for a long time, and which are supported by reams of information.  There can be a lot to consider and weigh if you stick to the details of your information.  But if a Framework exists for such a campaign, and it has been evolving with the presiding story, a Storyteller need only look to the concepts in his Framework for guidance.  You see, there are two worlds to your Tale:  the detail, and the concept.  The detail is all that actually happens in the story, who it happens to, where, etc.  The concept is the why.  Not to the characters, but to the Players and the Storyteller.  The concept is why you’re getting together to roleplay.  That is because the concepts (your Framework) have root in the Elements, and you can easily see through the concepts the different ways of making your plot, character, and self-expression work to the fruition of those Elements.  This is just a deeper, more presiding way to Tell a Tale!

We have a cyclical relationship here, then. 

1)      The Framework serves the evolving Tale

2)      The Tale serves the evolving plot, characters, and self-expression, because through them the Tale is initially created and continues to develop

3)      And the plot, characters, and self-expression serve the evolving Framework

This cycle is like rock-paper-scissors, except that the parts are related by mutual service, not mutual destruction.

When it is absolutely impossible to avoid game building before you secure character sheets, due to impatience or impracticality, you may have to totally revamp your Framework at run-time.  This is fun or hell, depending upon your powers of spontanivity.  (See next.)

Spontanivity:  Spontaneous Creativity

But now an obvious problem occurs.  If you have little or no experience with spontanivity, you are going to have a difficult time flexing or shifting your Framework.  Now I realize that all creativity is, by nature, spontaneous.  But there is a deliberating, laboring kind of creativity, where much time is spent foraging the forests of the imagination.  And then there is the impromptu kind, that which I have dubbed spontanivity.  Design-time allows for the former, and run-time demands the latter.  In roleplaying you must have a focused spontanivity, for what you create should mesh with what has already been created.  Spontanivity then, includes problem solving. There are three ways to build up your powers of creativity and problem solving.  The first two are simple and solitary – Problem Paragraphs, and Parameter Quicks.  The third is Telegraphing, an exercise employed in-game.

Problem Paragraphs

Get a blank sheet of paper, or a word processor.  Write down the first thing that comes to your mind.  Make it at least three sentences.  It does not matter if it is nonsense, or is a bunch of jibberish.  Just keep writing.  Read it over.  This is your problem paragraph.

The samsonite turned across the river, a broad strip of black and silver, and while the thunder rolled above, slipped beneath the water and disappeared.  Jackson screamed.  The opposite bank flickered with lamplight, and an awful two-tone horn-blast struck the air like twin cries of doom and deceit.  Powder-sun and star-havoc.

This is a problem paragraph.  It doesn’t make sense by itself.  What can you do with it?  Now, spend some time writing beyond your paragraph with the intent of making the paragraph have sense.  What is a samsonite?  Why did Jackson scream?  What were the lamplight and the horn-blast, and why did they signal doom and deceit?  What about the cryptic powder-sun and star-havoc?  Until all of the questions posed by your problem paragraph have been answered, do not cease writing.  Even if you must write in jot-note form, make sure you answer all the implied unknowns.

This exercise does two things:

1)      The initial paragraph flexes creativity

2)      The follow up explanation of the paragraph flexes problem-solving

When your plot rages against your Framework, you have a problem you need to solve, and you need to do it spontaneously and creatively. 

Have you ever been in a game where the PC’s didn’t know what the heck was going on, were confused, or were generally puzzled by their current surroundings?  Problem paragraphs teach you how to get the PC’s out of the woods.  How to bring them back so that they can later say “So that’s what was going on!”  Many times the Storyteller is in the exact same position as the PC’s, especially when she is being spontaneous.  When you’re screaming “I don’t know what the PC’s are doing, I have no clue what to give them next!”, then this exercise will have prepared a way for you.  I have backed myself into some nasty corners (some I never got out of!), and quick puzzle cracking has set me free many a time.  No one wants to be saved by the hand of some oblivious god, or rescued at each turn by seeming coincidence.  When this happens frequently, the Storyteller just has a weak creative muscle.  It needs to be worked out, torn and re-sown, brought to exhaustion so that later it might have stamina.

Parameter Quicks

A parameter quick is similar to a problem paragraph in that the goal is to write a paragraph.  But there are two main differences:

1)      A set of predetermined rules govern the writing

2)      The paragraph must make some sort of sense

The rules for a parameter quick are selected before the paragraph is written.  For instance:

a)      Must be 97 words long

b)      Cannot use words beginning with “P”

c)      Must be written in a first-person point-of-view

These rules were selected randomly, and are the parameters of the paragraph.  Now one must write a paragraph that satisfies these parameters.  It is also fun to do this exercise in a group, because one may see the radically different sorts of paragraphs that can come out of a small system of rules.

The reason I suggest that the paragraph should make some sort of sense is to force your powers of problem solving into action.  But you might have seen this coming:  it is just as easy to develop some nasty problem paragraphs from a parameter quick as well.  Whereas problem paragraphs allow you free-range across the sprawling fields of Imagination, parameter quicks restrict that field with rule-fences.  This simulates in-game creativity, for your creations are limited by what has gone on before.  What you create must fit in with what has already been created.  The application of rules establishes boundaries similar to those that innately exist in a session.

Example Parameters

a)      Must begin with the letter “R”

b)      Must end with the letter “T”

c)      Must be 140 words or less

a)      Must use the word “suffering” at least twice

b)      No word limits

a)      Must be about anger

a)      Cannot use the words “I” or “a”

b)      Sentences must be no longer than 10 words

c)      Must incorporate a dream

d)      Must end in tragedy

The original publication of this writ on the Internet included a link to a Windows program that generated random rules for parameter quicks.  You can use this to write paragraphs, or simply make up your own rules.

Telegraphing

In the Foreword, a freeform Storyteller is described as someone who is willing to let the Players shape the Tale with as much freedom as the Storyteller herself.  This proclamation may sound alien or absurd.  How do Players shape the Tale?  Well, the most obvious way is through their actions, but this only indirectly affects the shaping.  The Storyteller is still responding and coming up with all of the plot and NPC activity.  A more direct way for a Player to story-shape is through telegraphing.

For a short period in my life I dabbled with the martial arts, particularly Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid form of combat developed by Bruce Lee.  One of the sections of Lee’s book teaches that most people telegraph their punches.  A telegraphed punch is one that, with a good eye, you can tell is coming and therefore block or dodge.  If your opponent pulls back a few millimeters, or twists in a certain way, or twitches his shoulder, you can safely expect a punch within seconds.  Jeet Kune Do teaches how to see telegraphed attacks, and how to eliminate your own personal habits of telegraphing.

Roleplaying has its own kind of telegraphing – a good kind, a kind that should be welcomed.  In this case, a telegraph is usually an idea or concept.  Reiteration:  When a Player telegraphs an idea, it means that they are surmising or guessing at an aspect of your plot, an event that is to come, the personality or secret of an NPC, etc.  For example:

Storyteller:  You come to the black door.  There is no door handle, and no keyhole.

Player:  The Count had a door like this in his manor!  I’ll bet this room is his…

Or another…

Storyteller:  “My name is Hafron”, he says brusquely, extending his hand.  There is a tattoo of a golden snake on his forearm.

Player:   A golden snake?  Like the Amerix Corporation?

Storyteller:  Yes, actually.

In the first example, the Player is telegraphing that he thinks the room belongs to the Count.  The Player then may anticipate something particular to the Count on the other side of the door, like a trap or a guardian.  Or maybe nothing.  Whether or not the room is actually the Count’s is up in the air:  a freeform Storyteller is free to change her plans for the room, even if she’s planned it all out.  Chances are, she won’t.  But the second example is a little more flexible.  In this instance, the Storyteller’s description of the tattoo actually had nothing to do with the Amerix Corporation.  But because of the Player’s prompt, or telegraph, the Storyteller altered the Tale and linked Hafron to Amerix.  The repercussions of this may alter the Tale drastically!  It is easy for one small connection or creative leap to severely twist the routes and goals of a Tale.

But what if you’re Players don’t telegraph?  Telegraphs actually come up quite frequently – more often than you might think.  Sometimes characters won’t telegraph because the constant inner dialogue doesn’t suit them.  More often than not, however, the Players will telegraph in meta-play.  And meta-play doesn’t necessarily have to be at the session, either.  If you find yourself talking on the phone to a member of your group, or lodged on a patio with beer in hand, keep those roleplay conversations in memory.  Players like to talk about their characters and the game, even when they are far from the dice, so to speak.  In fact, I find Players talk more about the game when the environment excludes gaming!  It is in this way that a Storyteller never actually leaves a session.  Sessions continue even after everyone has left the table.

But to press the notion, it is of unfathomable benefit to occasionally reward a Player for a particularly nice telegraph.  If they come up with something that you never thought of, something that would work just as well as your original plan, make their conjecture an actuality.  Embed it into your Framework – replace the value of a variable with their conjecture, or create a new variable.  It rewards the intellect, boosts up confidence, and strengthens the group’s attachment to the PC’s.

A tertiary, but no less valuable benefit is that it takes some of the stress off of the Storyteller!  You can preserve some of your creative juices by supplementing what you are building with what the Players are telegraphing.  This is a mutual craftsmanship.  Your Players consume what you give them, they are being fed all the time.  That energy you expend becomes their food.  But they can expend some of their own energy (and it is boundless when they are excited), energy that you can use as your own food.  As a Storyteller, it is easy to give when you’ve already got a lot, when you’re charged up, like at the beginning of a session.  In the midst of a long session, however, it may not be so easy, especially towards the end.  Learn to take, even as you give.

A word of caution:  it may be wise to keep these telegraphed injections to a minimum if your Players know you use this technique.  Otherwise, they might constantly telegraph, just so that they can anticipate the game more completely.  If you have mature Players, however, you will not have to worry about over-telegraphing, even if they know you allow telegraphing at all.

But if you do allow it, constant practice will bring the telegraph into a place of unconscious assessment.  As Players interact with you, an innate critique of the telegraph will occur.  It will either “feel good” or “feel bad”.  That feeling will determine whether or not you incorporate a Player inference.  By using your mood or feelings to decide the outcome of telegraphs, you let your emotions supplant your intellect.  This is a much higher way to function as a Storyteller.  The mind doesn’t really do as great a job as the soul.  When your base is emotion, and intellect is the servant of those emotions, you bring about the Elements with surprising ease.  That is because the Elements are emotions – moods – feelings.  If you want cabbages, it makes sense to look in a cabbage patch.  Vegetation is much harder to find on the hard, clean roadways of the intellect.

Conclusion

Elements may not always come out in the order you originally designed them.  This is especially true once your Framework has evolved, or when a campaign has continued for six or seven sessions.  There will be many variables at work, and your spontanivity will labor constantly and laterally to find new ways to bring about the Elements.  It’s true!  Once you’ve hit the “zone”, that gleaming void where a single pin-prick of inspiration can mean an entire year of gaming, your creative mind instinctively turns towards the pursuit of the Elements.  There’s nothing more a creative person demands than the Elements.  She needs these emotions to re-juice.  If you sweat, you need to drink water.  Every car needs gasoline, or diesel, or sunlight, to keep it going.  If you want to pace it at one hundred miles an hour, you’ll need all of the Element you can get to keep it up.  And though cars don’t need to rest, you do.

I have dissuaded you, the reader, twice from reading this writ.  If all good things come in threes, then why not the bad things too? 

Firstly, if you were not a free-form storyteller (or curious about being one!), you wouldn’t have read this far.  This preeminent guardian is like the magic mirror outside the lair of the beast.  You look into it, and, if you are worthy, you pass on through.  If what you see in the reflection is false, abject, unworthy, then shame or loathing or fear prevents your passage. 

Secondly, if the mental striving promoted in this text stems your creative juices, then you would also have given up reading these words long ago.  But you haven’t.  It was said that this work was unnecessary – this is the room beyond the mirror, where you have the choice to fight the fifty evil orcs to the left, or sneak around them.  You don’t have to fight.  But you did.  (It’s worth 50,000 XP, damn it!)

And that really should be enough, these two obstructions, but here is a third:  there is a monster, a terrible beast of gigantic proportions, who wields an axe crafted from an entire mountain and a shield wrought from the acreage of a vast forest; its breath is poisonous, and lofted on the winds is the most damning force of all:  its voice.  You see, without its voice, this monster is powerless.  Without its voice, the axe is like a spoon and the shield a plate.  Without its voice, it simply cannot exist.  We like to give things names, so that we may identify them – bring them easily into language, and sequester power over them with the foci of tongue and syllable.  Without a name, we are afraid.  And that’s exactly what this monster is:  nameless.  Only the unknown prevents you from becoming a master Storyteller.  And at that, the unknown is but a puff of smoke.  Once you take a few letters, arrange them just so, combine and recombine, you bring all that is unknown into the realm of knowledge.  The first suicides were not brought on by depression or insanity.  They were brought on by curiosity.  And that, my dearest friends, is the challenge.

It takes a certain nerve to walk into a session with the full knowledge that you will be facing the unknown.  It takes a greater nerve to repeat this weekly, throughout an entire campaign.  Especially if your Players are high-calibre.  My best advice?  For the striving Storyteller, the Storyteller who seeks the ultimate highs of great Tales and superb gaming:  prepare to be crucified.  You will screw up. 

The best Storytellers are the ones who have been humbled by their Players.

It is said that the artist suffers.  How much more so for the Storyteller, whose Players are his true works of art, his true teachers.  His truest critics.

If you’d like to contact me with your own opinion(s) on RP, you can email me at [email protected]a