Don't write Lore, write tables

Lore doesn't have to be dumped, it can be drip-fed

Image by Daniel Locke from ECO MOFOS!!

Tables not Lore dumps

One thing I wish I’d been told years ago as a ttrpg writer: Write tables. Not lore, not stories. Richly written tables. Tables of things that can happen, people (human & otherwise) that can be met, threats and treasures. The stories are what happens at the table along the way.

What this does is it turns ideas about the setting into something gameable, into events, objects and characters that the players can interact with. After all, what’s more useful during play? A page of text outlining the complications of a royal lineage over the last 500 years, or finding a ring engraved with the words “the bearer of this ring is the true heir”? An object that’s loaded with meaning or an NPC with a compelling story will do all the work of the page of lore, but from within the game space itself. More importantly, the players are instantly implicated and invested in this lore, it touches them directly, rather than being something abstract that doesn’t impact their characters’ lives.

Lore in tables works particularly well in area-wide encounter tables. Encounter tables are not just a list of creatures to fight or flee from. They’re an opportunity to let the life of the world bleed into the player’s game space.

A conventional list of creatures, when combined with rolling for reaction, already fries a lot of work- it implies the ecosystem of the area being travelled through, can set up factions and food-chains. But add in an entry for a Wandering NPC (which can then prompt a roll on a seperate “wandering NPC table”), and the world is instantly richer.

The stories of the local world become embodied, the NPC telling the party how they’ve been exiled, or hunted, or lost, or looking for a loved one, and the players have an emotional stake in that story that a sign on a tavern notice board could never convey. The NPC becomes a hook, potential ally or foe, a way of introducing and describing what could be a complicated political situation, and introducing or adding complexity to a site on the map. All that from an entry on an Encounter table.

An example

So let’s make an encounter table for an area I’m building. It’s a watery archipelago of islands, traversed by small boats (because giant undersea monsters, known locally as Giants, attack bigger boats). A 2d6 table is nice, as the bell-curve lets you have more common encounters in the middle numbers (6,7,8) and rare ones on the two extremes, 2 and 12. So 12 has to be a Giant. And 2 can be a Huge shark. Everybody loves Jaws. Then there’s a change in the winds - winds are important as everyone’s sailing, but winds changing is relatively rare, so lets make that 3. So that leaves 9 entries. The NPC table (below) has a lot of entries, so that can be in the middle somewhere. Maybe 5. And the rest are creatures to build the world.

The most common creature- Dolphins. It’s a broadly hopeful setting and Dolphins are fun, and can have complex interactions. But the most common occurance will be Flotsam- things floating on the surface of the water. I made 6 and 8 a choice of 2 each, for variation. These are broadly scene-setting entries, but could lead to interaction depending on the players and the situation. If one of the players is overboard in a bloom of Jellyfish, that could be pretty interesting.

Then we have the last few entries that introduce factions from the world. The Mermon, people who are adapted to live in the water; the Bandits, people who prey on others to survive; The Corpo Scout Drone, a foreshadowing of a larger menace, like the Scout robot at the beginning of Empire Strike Back.

Finally I’ve put in Large Squid. Depending on the reaction roll that can be a rare sighting or a terrifying encounter with tentacles wrapping around the bough.

And so you have the seeds of a campaign, in a couple of simple tables.

Encounter Table 2d6

2. Huge Shark

3. The Wind changes

4. d6 Mermon

5. Roll on the NPC Table

6. Bloom of Jellyfish/Shoal of fish

7. Flotsam (roll on the Flotsam table)

8. d6 Dolphins/School of Mantarays

9. d6 Bandits in a makeshift boat

10. Corpo Scout Drone

11. Large Squid

12. A Giant rises from the deep

NPC table d12

1. Yage, the travelling mask salesman, on his skiff.

2. Mika, woodswoman on her overloaded boat.

3. Samben the musician with their homemade lute, on a little raft.

4. Barbara Shay “Sparks” jovial engineer from Brundale, in a sturdy sailboat, mechanic and tinker, with gossip and trade

5. A punk gang, Xena, their face-tattooed leader, Blink, Chasea and Merew. “No we don’t believe in hierarchies, we just do what she says”. Lost, looking for the Commune. They have a message from their Glade that a former member’s mother is dying.

6. Lushtah the Seer sailing alone- lonely waif of a Punk, spikey black hair and a white stripe of makeup across her gaunt black face and shimmering light blue eyes. If spoken to she will have a vision of that character’s future. And then run off.

7. d4 Corpos, on sleek catamaran, stealthy and cunning, from a recently-landed dropship.

8. d4 Bandits, raiders from Dinoland, on a slow Junk, wary thieves

9. d6 Ratlins in a hollowed out canoe, seeking out the root of the “sad water”

10. d3 replicants, newly escaped from a Corpo dropship, swimming

11. d3 Wasters in a skiff, travelling to investigate (and lay claim to) the Dark Tower, cunning and suspicious

12. Jendo, exiled from Downfalls for heresy (wanting to use their Mecha for destructive purposes), seeks allies to raid Downfalls and steal the Mecha

Further reading

If you like this appoach, check out the Vaults of Vaarn series by Leo Hunt, 2400 by Jason Tocci and pretty much anything by Chris McDowall. The 2d6 approach here comes from lots of places, but I like how Nick LS Whelan talks about it on his blog