Unknown And Known Otherworlds

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Grounding

When I am talking about a group of player characters in longform play in an open world setting, I mean they make the decisions based on having characters who they are invested in to enable “in character/as character” play in an emergent way where any story or narrative is merely the history of what they do. In my observation, this is greatly aided by “grounding.”  The players’ characters are from the otherworld, of the otherworld and therefore must engage with it.  Now, assuming of course that the goal is “adventure” of some kind (working a daily job and going to the grocery store probably isn’t the vibe we are looking for at our tables) the framing and engagement of the overall setting may impact this.  I think of it as two poles or extremes: Unknown Otherworlds and Known Otherworlds.

On one end we have the Unknown Otherworld, where the player characters will be outsiders and know nothing of an otherworld.  This can be enhanced by the players themselves knowing nothing or very little of this otherworld.  This offers vast opportunities for discovery, uncovering mysteries and allowing an influence by the players on what they discover if the GM plays it loose and doesn’t have a complete otherworld designed in advance in micro-detail.  This all can be a great positive.  The potential negative is that the player characters then may feel no connection to that otherworld.  There are fewer family, social, cultural, etc. threads and motivations to be explored and poked at in such a campaign.  This can lead to a group of outsider characters dealing with obstacles but never feeling a part of the otherworld, they are discovering due to a lack of grounding in that otherworld. Examples that veer towards this the above would be the “off the boat” campaign premise in Tekumel or Talislanta, or in a GM’s self-created otherworld. The key here is that the characters have no knowledge of or connection to this otherworld. This could be aided by or lean into a player’s lack of knowledge, but that’s not what I am talking about here.

On the other end we have a Known Otherworld campaign.  The player characters are intimately familiar with the world.  Even if adventuring, they know the customs, rough borders of lands, sentient species, magical possibilities, creatures, , etc. in that world.  Discoveries and mysteries can occur, but the framing of the world is around them.  We have grounding here but are probably sacrificing a significant amount of surprise.  I think most otherworlds veer here; Traveller’s Universe is well-defined, as an example.  D&D provides magical assumptions in its mechanics as the player makes a character, let alone setting information, Monster Manuals and whatnot. Having said all that most otherworlds fall on a spectrum, they are rarely all of one or all of another. Selection of Otherworld to gain these effects is another good discussion for another day, but lets just stay on target here, Pat. 🙂

Techniques for the Unknown Otherworld

In my Twilight: 2000 Campaign powered by GURPS, it provided an interesting mix.  That campaign veered toward “Known World” but the player characters early on displayed a bit of grounding-related “identity crisis” because they were fishes out of water – US soldiers in a strange place and with a large goal of getting home but needed to find a way home from a war-torn Poland.  All those social, etc. threads weren’t there in the moment.  I tried to mitigate this for the players by using short flashback vignettes for individual characters from time to time that helped get them into their characters as characters despite the disconnect caused by the situation in setting.

In a new Campaign I am starting, the conundrum was that the players were all on board for a setting where they would wake up from suspended animation and discover a post-apocalyptic earth that they were going to rebuild for a large, incredibly resourced organization.  And discover a strange, fantastical-at-times otherworld.  This premise (or pretense???) by this otherworld organization is loosely based on the premise for the “The Morrow Project”, a post-apocalyptic (of the Nuclear-War-in-a very-realistic-fashion-variety) game and setting.  That game, released originally in 1980, tries to have it both ways on the Known/Unknown spectrum.  The player characters don’t know exactly what will be encountered in a campaign or the obstacles they will face when they arise from their cryogenic slumber, but the players do, and the lines are pretty clear on what is possible or impossible.  It is a gritty and mundane, realistic otherworld.  The player characters are expected to be task-solvers.  No real detail for grounding and no expectation for in character/as character play.

From my perspective, this was going to be an issue.  Popsicle people, even with bio sheets and utilizing GURPS, would present a problem for in character/as character play as the players wouldn’t have the ability to be grounded in anything other than a mission (that called for them to essentially “die”, leaving their prior world behind in an extreme manner).  And at the heart of what we are trying to do is the fun itself of encountering a world they have no information about as characters or players. What to do?

Immediacy

I decided on two basic approaches to aid grounding.  The first was to move the setting closer to a Known Otherworld by a tick.  The player characters would be members of an organization that would activate its members to proceed to secret sites and enter suspended animation when an impending global collapse (that they are soooo sure will occur) is predicted by their secret experts.  The campaign would start 10 years in the future, in a world much like the one we are in.  Part of being a member of this somewhat extreme secret organization is the benefit that up to four loved ones will be sent to habitats (if their character has that many) to escape the crisis.  So, we get some grounding in a real world with a weird secret organization and some decisions about loved ones to aid grounding.

The second approach to aid grounding is to play out the last days before the crisis.  The first session or two would be a bit more “narrative-y”, allowing the players to play their characters as they negotiate the tension and chaos of the impending crisis, get their families to intake points for their habitats and get themselves to their underground bunkers to save civilization after the storm of crisis has passed.  This would be done a bit breezily with the players fully aware that their characters have some plot armor, but with knowledge that some decisions made in this time will have unknown consequences when they wake up in the Unknown otherworld.  This would allow the players to just simply get into their characters.  Experience who the characters are and what their motivations are actively in play.  That way when they wake up, they’ll have a better grasp on who their characters are as people when they discover and engage with a strange new world.

We’ll see how it works in practice. This table is very practiced at In Character/As Character and has bought into the idea of an Unknown World as Characters, and to a large extent as Players. Surprise and discovery will be the payoff. As well as adventure. And mysteries and secrets being revealed. Maybe I’ll talk with Che about it.