Story Time: Empty Spaces & Loneliness

Empty Spaces, what are we playing for?

For those of you who are reading these posts in order, trawling through whatever mess of an archive I have, firstly I apologise, secondly, if you read the massive "Real Talk" segment from Seltyiel's last journal entry, may have gleaned that I'm both annoyed with my DM, and bored/confused with his campaign, I should probably clear this up in my normal rambling, tangential, circular manner.

Firstly I should probably talk about what the DM said he was trying to do with the campaign. He was, and I paraphrase "Trying to get a very "Game of Thrones" style sandbox campaign with the big bads being the Seven Sins" now this being his first campaign I sent him two APs, "Kingmaker" and "Rise of the Runelords" both having themes that touch with what he was/is trying to do.

Secondly, he's only, as far as I know, watched the "Game of Thrones" series on TV. Now I'm not being some kind of elitist reading snob, there are plenty of positive sides to telling a story through a televised series, for one thing it allows the environments and world to feel solid and tangible, and it makes the action far more visceral, however I think "A Song of Fire and Ice" lost something very important in its translation to the small screen; scale.

Watching the TV series and reading each book side by side, the world feels somehow smaller, like cramming the books into 10 episodes, 60 minutes of runtime each means that a lot of the non-essential world building has to be thrown to the roadside so we can have more sex, violence, politics, and memes. I feel like I'm watching a world in snippets only being shown the bare essentials where the only things happening on screen are vitally important to the plot.

Now I know that's not fair, if you're going to take the time out of your schedule to read a 600+ page book, and a 1 hour TV show you obviously have differing amounts of free time, and you can't have an episode where all the characters do is ride on horseback and make small talk about how nice the weather is, or how they're interested in old books, while dedicating several pages in a book to such activities is much easier, if no less boring when done incorrectly; but Pathfinder is neither a TV show or a Book, it is an RPG.

It is equally reliant on the players and the DM to tell the story. A story that can change with the roll of a dice.

It is a game reliant on clear, concise, communication.

It is a world populated by one person.

It is easy to fuck up.

So let's start at the beginning.

Campaign begins, M, K, and S are in a battle with their NPC charge, a prince. the battle goes poorly and they flee into the forest, where they eventually meet Me, C and V's original character, and get to the city of Kentonborough within a day. After staying the night at Kentonborough, we get a cart to the Capital city of Rhuen, along the way we are attacked by a mysterious assassin after the life of the Prince. We keep the prince alive as we travel to Rhuen, and spend the night there, before leaving the next day, the prince rewarding us for escorting him and saving his life. It takes us half a day to make our way to Bastion Zenith (which considering it's twice the distance on the map from Kentonborough to Rhuen astounds me) where M, S, C and K are given their continuing orders, M has a duel to the death because he felt insulted and wins because he cheated, before we rest another night, M and V perform a blood sacrifice to an unknown deity that whispers 2 days in their heads, before M, breaks all of his vows and breaks a small girl out of jail. We continue on towards High Haven, a journey that takes another 1/2 day despite what the map says, and pick up another jail-breaker on the way. Once we reach High-Haven we don't rest for the night, except Seltyiel who makes the most of his Ring of Sustenance and naps for 2 hours on a rooftop, before we are kicked out of the city to deal with the Von Heltzer Army that is laying siege to the city, which we do in one night, as the Lord of High Haven, and Sij, V's original character are killed by an assassin. We are then given a night of rest, and leave the city for the 4 hour road trip back to bastion Zenith which I have ceased caring about because space is warped and time is bendable, where M reports back to his boss, and is told to go conquer High Haven in the name of the Queen, which we do in probably the most violent and bloody way possible, because of course D'n'D has to bloody and violent, what's this diplomacy shit you keep talking about, and that's where we got up to.

If you've noticed one thing missing from this wall of text, it would be, we take the day to recuperate, relax, craft some potions, try and find some better gear; additionally, although the DM took the time to make what is quite literally the first world map I have seen made for any of our campaigns, he refuses to use it, instead warping distances so we arrive whenever he wants us to, and removing any chance for world building, or learning about the world, instead just throwing us into combat after combat, not realising that all he's doing is basically running a dungeon crawl with no roof.

Empty space is incredibly important for setting atmosphere and setting, allowing characters to slowly get invested in a world, especially when your players know next to nothing about the world they're in, good examples of this would be Dark Souls and Fallout 3, both massively empty games, full of desolation, monsters, and a storied history that you're only going to find out if you explore; this is especially important for PC's who are already separated from the game world by the 4th wall, unable to know what their character feels, tastes, smells, sees and hears, except what snippets are told to them by the DM.

Empty space also allows PC's and Players to rest, recover, absorb what just happened, there has to be a calm point, an up to a down, a yin to a yang. If all you eat is chicken mcnuggets then your body is going to go, get the fuck out, and throw them out, possibly shut-down completely.

The point I'm trying laboriously to get to is this, Pathfinder is not a TV show; without empty space or rest time you confuse and tire your players, and lessen the importance of your campaign world. I could tell you more about the seaside, mining town we spent three days in, than I could tell you about A's entire world, and it's all because we had to wait there with nothing to do but explore.

Leave your world empty, it'll be that much more fun to explore, for both you and your PC's.