General Describing backgrounds?

[Spinward Scout]

Does anyone know a tutorial or such about backgrounds in gaming?

How to describe them?

Adding to the scenery?

Making a scene like in Star Wars where the Droid C-3P0 is walking across the desert and there's a skeleton of a creature behind him? There's no real use for the skeleton except to be background imagery.

How do you do it in your game?

 

[Grav_Moped]

Is this a question about how to describe background details, or how to come up with background details?

 

[Mår Ekkertsen]

How to describe them?

Adding to the scenery?

I think the word that covers the subject is worldbuilding. See more about what worldbuilding is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldbuilding

Like anything well documented the process can appear overwhelming. My key is to remember I only need to build enough to give my players' imaginations a start. Less "writer's bible" to my universe. More the sparse lines of text between scenes in a screenplay. I want to hit on sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.

 

[whartung]

That skeleton in Star Wars was there for a reason.

One thing l like to tell myself about movies (and books): Everything on the screen is there for a reason. Someone sat down, and consciously decided to put that in the scene (or, in other examples, leave that in the scene -- such as in a scene done on location).

But everything, from the can on the table, to the number on the door, to the time on the wall, was put there for a reason. Most of the time, those reasons are not specifically germane to the story. The apartment number may not mean anything. On the other hand, it could be the lucky number of the protagonist. Or the age of the directors child.

There's another technique that can be applied call the "5 whys". "Why is the skeleton there?" Because the lizard died there. "Why did it die there?" ...why...why...why.

The first couple can be easy. Getting deeper, is harder. (It can also be annoying, ask any parent.)

You can apply that to varying levels to situations to help fill out details in the story.

I'm not some Tolkien fan. I liked the movies, never read the books. But, as I'm sure folks know, Tolkien spent a lot of time developing his world, which comes through in the text.

But one of my favorite anecdotes is that, apparently, Saruman, the wizard in Two Towers, came as a surprise to Tolkien. Not only did he come as a surprise, he came quite late in the development of the story. He didn't set out to have him, but he sort of just showed up.

That's what happens when you start filling in the gaps, the details that go unsaid.

Now, obviously, no everyone does this, especially to the detail of Tolkien, but use photos of things, of locations, etc. to inspire your stories. Have a story for as much as you can, even if you don't tell anyone. If everything has a story, other things fall in to place very easily.

You could have a coffee cup in a lab left there by an assistant. Not only is it a coffee cup, but it's a #1 Dad coffee cup given to them by their son, who passed away while young. Now you have perhaps some idea of what happens if a character bumbles in and breaks the cup.

But, see? From just a cup what do we know? There's a lab assistant. He's a father. His son passed away (of what?). The father holds on to mementos of emotional weight. All from a cup.

It takes practice. Take a pen and pad with you and jot stuff down. Inspiration comes at all sorts of times.

 

[McPerth]

IMHO, this is one of the most challenging points of refereeing. Give the players too much dtail, and you will have them bored. Give them too few, and any detail you give will be known to be important.

 

[Condottiere]

More that if they ask, you have the details ready.

I think there used to be a cottage publishing niche that let you randomize lots of stuff, useful if you had to make up an ad hoc detail immediately.

 

[Shadowrunner]

I used to design 3-D maps for Deus Ex mods. Worlds came to life when sounds and small creatures were added. The sound of water dripping in a tunnel with a wind sound always made a place eerie. Rats scuffling around told players a place was dirty.

In "Alien" in the vehicle bay, water is dripping quite profusely from the roof. If you think about it, it's quite unlikely in a working spaceship, but it added a huge amount of description to the scene.

The coffee cup analogy is great. It could mean something to Poirot or Sherlock Holmes. Storytelling is an art more than a science?

 

[whartung]

One thing I do, I like to tell my wife, is when things occur to me, I say "That's going in to my next movie."

Mind, I'm not making any movies. I don't make movies, not going to make movies. But I like to note these things that pop in to my head, that I usually push to some absurd limit for humor value. And the I say "That's going in my next movie."

I had a couple recent ones.

So, here's what's going in my next movie.

Nervous hero is about to confront antagonist. He's planning on secretly recording the conversation on his phone, even though they said "no phones".

So, just before he enters the room, he pulls the phone out, fumbles with it, turns on the Audio recording mode, and puts it back in his pocket. He then smoothes back his hair, puts on a nervous smile, and walks in.

The antagonist sees him come in, stand up from behind her desk, crosses her arms, and says "Is that phone in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

"What!? No. No...I..I didn't bring a phone. You...you said no phones...so...you know."

We zoom back from the protagonist and see his left pocket, with a brightly lit rectangle blasting through the pocket.

That happened to me the other night, coming back from my dark office I had the phone backwards in my pocket, and it lit up the hallway.

Here's another. Saw this in a pet store.

There's this thing called a snuffle mat for dogs and cats. It's a rough, cloth mat that you can put and hide treats and kibble in that the pet has to rummage around with their nose to hunt out the food. It's a kind of food puzzle.

Fastidious man sees the snuffle mat as an opportunity to give his pet some mental stimulation, while at the same time keeping the treats and such contained (vs just having them sliding around on a plate, napkin, or the floor).

He comes home, puts the mat down on the floor. After scattering treats, and pushing them down in to the crevices, he invites his dog over. Dog, a shepherd mix, comes over, cocks his head, gives it that goofy inquisitive dog look, then, quickly, it grabs the mat in his mouth and shakes it like a rabbit in death throes, scattering kibble around the entire room.

I'll see you all...at the Oscars.

 

[Vargr Breath]

Does anyone know a tutorial or such about backgrounds in gaming?

How to describe them?

Adding to the scenery?

Making a scene like in Star Wars where the Droid C-3P0 is walking across the desert and there's a skeleton of a creature behind him? There's no real use for the skeleton except to be background imagery.

How do you do it in your game?

I always thought it was a shout out to Dune and that it was supposed to be a Sand Worm.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I always thought it was a shout out to Dune and that it was supposed to be a Sand Worm.

That's an overly simplistic view.

Making a scene like in Star Wars where the Droid C-3P0 is walking across the desert and there's a skeleton of a creature behind him? There's no real use for the skeleton except to be background imagery.

That skeleton in the desert did multiple things at once.

1. This is NOT EARTH. There are no creatures that size on Earth (currently). This is an ALIEN WORLD.
2. This alien world C3PO is on has MEGAFAUNA on it ... even in a desert like this one!
3. That megafauna is not guaranteed to survive the environment ... here's an example that died and got picked clean!
4. C3PO may be a droid, so he doesn't get heat stroke or thirsty, but this desert is NOT SAFE FOR DROIDS.
5. Look at how small C3PO is compared to that megafauna skeleton! If he ran into a live one, he would have no chance!
6. What ELSE might be out there in this desert wasteland??

All of those elements rather immediately and conclusively underscored and reaffirmed the whole Galaxy Far Far Away thing and the idea that just because all you can see is sand everywhere doesn't mean there aren't any potentially hostile life forms living there. In other words, you can't take your "normal everyday Earth experience matrix" and automatically apply it to the situation that R2D2 and C3PO find themselves in.

That giant skeleton in the desert was the "We're Not In Kansas Anymore..." moment for the film's audience, above and beyond the space ships and blaster fire and escape pod seen earlier. Seeing that skeleton told you that you did NOT know what was out there in that desert ... and that NOT KNOWING could make the audience uneasy with regards to how dangerous the setting was (due to a lack of local knowledge about it).

That giant skeleton being seen on the screen meant that there were far more possibilities available than just the mundane terrestrial ones of ordinary everyday life on Earth.

 

[Vargr Breath]

That's an overly simplistic view.

That skeleton in the desert did multiple things at once.

1. This is NOT EARTH. There are no creatures that size on Earth (currently). This is an ALIEN WORLD.
2. This alien world C3PO is on has MEGAFAUNA on it ... even in a desert like this one!
3. That megafauna is not guaranteed to survive the environment ... here's an example that died and got picked clean!
4. C3PO may be a droid, so he doesn't get heat stroke or thirsty, but this desert is NOT SAFE FOR DROIDS.
5. Look at how small C3PO is compared to that megafauna skeleton! If he ran into a live one, he would have no chance!
6. What ELSE might be out there in this desert wasteland??

All of those elements rather immediately and conclusively underscored and reaffirmed the whole Galaxy Far Far Away thing and the idea that just because all you can see is sand everywhere doesn't mean there aren't any potentially hostile life forms living there. In other words, you can't take your "normal everyday Earth experience matrix" and automatically apply it to the situation that R2D2 and C3PO find themselves in.

That giant skeleton in the desert was the "We're Not In Kansas Anymore..." moment for the film's audience, above and beyond the space ships and blaster fire and escape pod seen earlier. Seeing that skeleton told you that you did NOT know what was out there in that desert ... and that NOT KNOWING could make the audience uneasy with regards to how dangerous the setting was (due to a lack of local knowledge about it).

That giant skeleton being seen on the screen meant that there were far more possibilities available than just the mundane terrestrial ones of ordinary everyday life on Earth.

I'm a simple guy.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I'm a simple guy.

It happens to the best of us.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Is this a question about how to describe background details, or how to come up with background details?

A little of both maybe. I think what I'm looking for could be called 'scene-building'. Similar to worldbuilding, but just not as large (I hope).

Besides the basic characters involved, what do the players, or readers, need to know about the specific scene? How do you set the scene, so to speak?

 

[Grav_Moped]

First, figure out what the location is. Then, think about what has to be there for it to be that location (if it's a warehouse, there will be crates, barrels, and containers; there will be offices, there will be the equivalent of trucks and trailers). What shape is it in (clean, dusty, forklift damage to support pillars)?

Then, figure out what each character would notice about it. Someone with Admin would see markings on a container, Streetwise might note the hidden spot where the staff takes breaks, Tactics might be thinking in terms of cover and lines of sight, and so on. Merchants would be trying to figure out origins and destinations for what's stored there. And so on.

And, as noted above, in an RPG you only need to give enough information for the players to connect their own interpretations to -- enough that they won't have mutually-exclusive images of the scene, but not so much that they don't get to take ownership of the experience.

 

[Spinward Flow]

And, as noted above, in an RPG you only need to give enough information for the players to connect their own interpretations to -- enough that they won't have mutually-exclusive images of the scene, but not so much that they don't get to take ownership of the experience.

Case in point ... Boughene Station Blues ... where @Grav_Moped provided a few scant details about the Albatross (battle damage to fuel tank, bodged job repairing the jump drive visible to external inspection). That set the scene for a condition of "this ship isn't in mint condition" as the setup.

Then @Grav_Moped solicited ideas for what the interior would be like and I threw out a few ideas (holographic interfaces, zero-g rails around floors and ceilings, benign neglect of a hangar queen) which promptly got incorporated as background flavor in a collaborative fashion between Player and Referee. No shame in inviting such collaborations to happen when it gets everyone invested.

Next @Grav_Moped picked up on the way I'd been going on (and on and on) about wanting to inspect the sensor systems (because as Navigator those would be my responsibility, just like drives are an Engineer's responsibility) and let my character "klutz" her way into finding something she shouldn't have (due to use of Jack of All Trades skill and a lack of familiarity with the systems). That then prompted my character to speculatively "put the pieces together" (battle damage, lackluster repair effort, hidden error messages) and postulate, in character, that there might have been foul play involved.

Puch and Thompson "check it out" and start finding things they weren't expecting to, and now we've got a bit of a pilfering mystery on our hands.

And what did it take to kick all of that off?
A damaged starship, that wasn't fully repaired ... gets a new crew who have a vested interest in "digging into" what the actual state of the ship and its systems are so the ship doesn't come out of overhaul maintenance "still a lemon" (or words to that effect).

I'm just doing what I usually do in the games I roleplay in ... I sit back, soak up information and find the patterns embedded in those snippets and details. I've had a GM that I played with in person at the table for years tell me that my play style as a Player was rather "spider like" in that I would have my character "lurking" around the edges of the action, wait for my opportunity and then STRIKE from a direction the GM hadn't been expecting or anticipating.



All roleplaying in a group is a collaborative effort to entertain.
Being able to INSPIRE other people with your contributions to that collective entertainment is what keeps the party going.

 

[Spinward Flow]

And then there's the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot angle.



I once Refereed a Teenagers From Outer Space campaign that lasted for about 6 months playing nearly every weekend until it fizzled out (because the gaming group scattered). To this day, some 20+ years later, my Players will gush about how much FUN they had in that campaign.

When the campaign started out, we had character sheets with stats and I was planning to run a D6 campaign from the start (because that's how the rules for the game were structured for TFOS). I had a scenario all worked out for the first session and everything, so I had a basic idea of what I wanted to do for the introductory session, getting everyone to the school (Skye High) ... introducing them to their homeroom teacher in the first class of the day ... and almost immediately ran into problems.

The dice weren't cooperating.
We'd roll the dice and the result would not only slow down the speed of play but the dice were also yielding results that weren't satisfying.

I had a group of people who were eager to entertain each other with all the clever things they would come up with for their characters to do ... and then the dice would fumble whatever notion they had been trying to execute. It wasn't fun, it was frustrating.

So about an hour into the gaming session I could feel the dissatisfaction building, because people really didn't want to be rolling dice for stuff, so I paused the game and told everyone that I had come to a decision (as Game Master) based on how the group dynamics for play had been developing thus far. I then picked up the rulebook, very obviously held it up so everyone could see what I was doing ... basically chucked it behind me (carefully so there would be no damage to anything, including the book).

I then told my gaming group ... FORGET THE RULES.

From now on, there is only ONE RULE that determines outcomes.

Needless to say, at this point I had everyone's completely undivided attention.


Then, with a flourish for showmanship, I announced to the group ... WHATEVER'S FUNNIEST HAPPENS.


It took them a few moments to recognize the impact of what I had just said.
I was going to run a comedy themed game without dice determining success/failure or even randomness ... and instead rely on what amounted to "instant runoff polling" of the group consensus towards whatever the group decided would have the greatest comedic value ... and we would go with that.

The shift in the group dynamic was so overwhelming that it was almost embarrassing.
Suddenly, instead of trying to upstage each other in power levels or importance or "my PC can do what your PC can't" kinds of competition, now the race was on to get the biggest laughs for the most entertaining possibilities at every moment. It wasn't about self-aggrandizement (look at me! look at me!) anymore ... it was about throwing comedy into the pot and watching the hilarity collectively pour forth ... because whatever was funniest happened.

At that point it wasn't PvE or even PvP ... it was Players vs Rolling On The Floor Laughing with finding out what everyone wanted to come up with during every moment of game play. We didn't NEED dice ever again after that, because dice couldn't determine what was funny (let alone what was funniest). But as a Game Master all I had to do was watch my Players react to a proposition and see them weigh alternatives that they came up with themselves and it was never a really close contest for which ideas won each round to decide what happened, because it was always obvious.

Whatever was funniest happened.



Their homeroom teacher arrived in the classroom after the bell rang.
The teacher's desk materialized at the front of the class with a TARDIS-like wheezing and groaning sound and The Master (of Doctor Who fame) stepped out from behind the teacher's desk that had materialized in front of them.
The Master was their homeroom teacher ... who would teach them MATH.
Specifically ... Block Transfer Computation.

I told my Players that I was handing them a PLOT HOLE in the form of Block Transfer Computation which they could use at any time ... AT THEIR OWN RISK. They could (theoretically) use it do ANYTHING ... and I (as Game Master) could exploit their use of it to do ANYTHING TO THEM. One of those "be careful with those Genie Wishes" kinds of deals.

Since I'd already tossed the rules and instituted the Whatever's Funniest Happens Rule on them, this announcement basically put the Fear Of Gott™ in them, such that NONE of them ever seriously wanted to try and use the trap door I had just placed in front of them. One Player did eventually try to use it to get out of a jam they had gotten themselves into ... at which point I simply opened the floor up and asked what the funniest thing that could happen in response to this Are You Sure?(Y/N) deliberate action ... and got simply buried in ideas for hilarity. I even let the Player *choose* the most hilarious outcome from the choices offered(!) ... because Whatever's Funniest Happens.



Another thing that I did put the absolutely most powerful Good Behavior™ compulsion on my Players that I have ever seen.

SHACC.
The Skye High Alien Control Commander.
SHACC ... (sounds like "shack").

There were Three Laws that governed SHACC.
The multiverse would END before any of these laws could be broken.

1. SHACC was always in his office.
2. SHACC was always drinking tea.
3. SHACC knew EVERYTHING...

Parents were afraid of SHACC.
The Mayor was scared of SHACC.
The Governor was terrified of SHACC.

One time, a school club set up a 24 hour watch for over a month on SHACC, just to test how ironclad the Three Laws were. During that time, SHACC never left his office, drank more than his own body weight in tea and never went to the bathroom even once.

Nobody ... and I mean NOBODY ... among my Players wanted to mess with SHACC.
NOBODY.
And all it took was explaining the Three Laws to them and watching that "deer in the headlights" look suffuse their facial expressions.

It was glorious.



So naturally, after everyone had gotten well accustomed to the campaign and living at Skye High as teenagers, I threw them all a curve ball that just wiped them all out.

One day, everyone got to school and the security forces were in a panic lockdown of the school (checkpoints every 10 paces, that kind of thing).
My Players were utterly baffled by it all ... so they started trying to investigate.
What they found out just stunned them all speechless.

SHACC was missing.

And it wasn't like SHACC had been kidnapped or "wandered off" or anything so benign.

HIS OFFICE WAS MISSING.
His whole office ... with SHACC in it (presumably) ... was GONE!



I think I broke the brains of my Players pretty badly because the shocked silence reigned for about a half a minute before anyone could breathe.
And then, predictably enough ... pandemonium ensued!

Ah, that was a fun game session to Referee ...