User:Average/Godroll
The godroll develops the DM as script-writer in a vast play. Every 24 time quanta (one round if four players, approximately every four rounds if one player) the DM rolls a d12, inserting a non-player & non-DM-initiated inter-action: STUB
There are three main types of interaction:
- TYPE 3: gods <--> Player domain
- TYPE 2: other human-level exchanges (PC & NPC)
- TYPE 1: Oerth <--> player interactions
There are an equal number of interactions for each type, noted in parenthesiis:
- (TYPE 3): Nothing happens.
- (TYPE 2): NPC interaction-grande (may create dialog or exchange of goods): ("a villager passes by on the road": the more general you leave the description, the easier to improvise if players ask questions, but they might ask where they're from, what services lie in the village, etc.)
- (TYPE 1): Environment-landscape: ("You see a river running down a mountain range to the east.")
- (TYPE 3): interaction with power ("a lightning storm takes place far to the north" -- where the DM knows there is an ongoing battle between two factions)
- (TYPE 2): Inert interaction (won't create any dialog): ("an unusual stone(?) is to your right" -- a dropped artifact of a mining cart that passed by a day ago)
- (TYPE 1): Environment-other life: ("You hear the screech of an owl chirping in the [relatively safe] woods to the West.", "A crow flies overhead heading south.")
- (TYPE 1): Contextual interaction (if near a city that lies to the south: "you smell the scent of fresh-baked bread in the northern wind", "a aged copper piece on the ground") Note: A type 3 interaction with a man-made object indicates an adverse relationship to the object.
- (TYPE 2): Player self-interaction ("your shoulder is getting a little sore from your backpack", "You're feeling a little hungry.")
- (TYPE 3): DM-player interaction: You tap underneath the table. You roll a d20 for no reason. (Keeps players from catching on to you, subconsciously.)
- (TYPE 1): Environment-aether: ("The scent of rain is in the air.", "The sun is well and gives you the feeling of safe passages.", "A foreboding feeling sends a chill up your neck.")
- (TYPE 2): Player-player interaction ("you notice your companions short sword is in need of sharpening"). If one player, a statement about your internal state: "You're feeling lackadaisical", "A feeling of ease fills your steps".
- (TYPE 3): God-player interaction: Give a piece of information or advice -- something of which their gods could know and/or inform them. If they are leaders who have been crowned, they get a piece of insight about the campaign or something they've wanted ("You sense that the gemstone of Aragon lies in the Sword Mountains") otherwise something mundane but still highly informative in a way that may not be immediately apparent or useful ("The metal in your broadsword came from ore in those mines", "You're intuition tells you that something interesting lies to the west" where you, the DM, know there's a relic from a past campaign never claimed). If you don't have any info to give, make an unexpected noise like tapping under the table, a whistle, or get up and get something to drink -- it must be something that just gives a slight, out-of-game interruption.
Here's how this works. If a cave entrance, for example, is undiscovered and uncharted and merely awaits, then the quiet notice of it would be a TYPE 1 interaction (the land itself is showing you). OTOH, if another same-race character had discovered and charted it already, then it is a TYPE 2 interaction (collective consciousness directing your attention, pointing out already visited items). Thirdly, if there are monsters down there and some evil gods is trying to get you, it is a TYPE 3 interaction.
This will develop DM and player imagination, as well as fill out the game world. You must be very familiar with that world, so that your cues are consistent and add value rather than become an annoyance, generating inconsistencies. In each case, you’re trying to weave the silent narrative of events taking place in the deep background. Lightning may strike the mountains to the east because you know, as DM, that there’s a mine and a Necromancer that lives there (but did you add clouds on previous rolls?). Of course, the Leader class probably already knows this through the insight ability.
