Ah, right. Overtly chummy prologue time. Do you want me to describe the metaphysical space we’re about to share, or should I go collect the suspiciously precise scale model I have squirrelled away? I’m quite proud of it, as I truly didn’t think I could capture the vast sea of glistening wet meat and dried pink viscera that surrounds us. Turns out that smearing the right kind of resin adhesive across thread does the job after a little pink and red paint! There, feel comforted by that little patter? Excellent.
Hello and welcome back to the fifth entry in a series of articles we’re calling “TTRPG Essentials”, each of which focuses on welcoming you into the robust hobby of tabletop roleplaying games. If you want to read the articles that preceded this one, you can find them here.
Last article we focused on Players and some of those tools and tricks that might best avail them in achieving the best possible cooperative play experience. Today we’ll be looking to the gameplay itself, or what the structure and firmament of play at your table might look like. As all those that proceeded it, this article is in no way intended to be exhaustive and is instead written with the intent of introducing you (the reader) to a vertical slice of some of the knowledge or resources available to you within this hobby.
Let’s get to it.
Theatre of the Mind (ToTM)
A term originating in radio (more specifically the American Radio Broadcaster Steve Allen) to describe the strengths of the format over that of the then recently emergent format of television, ToTM has found a new home within the TTRPG hobby in describing a style of gameplay. Theatre of the Mind doesn’t measure hexes or squares, and instead works to create a play space within the imaginations of the players. Systems that rely on this style of gameplay tend to be far less concerned with the granular measurements of a room or a foe, and more interested in your character’s emotional relationship to them.
One of the best modern examples to me of this style of roleplay is Orbital Blues by Soul Muppet Publishing; which offers consistent thematic mechanics to remain immersed within, and act upon the world of your game through roleplay as opposed to concern for granular details. The swan song element serves as perfect example, allowing players to immerse themselves within their character’s final moment of glory without worrying about a bad roll cutting it short.
“Traditional Roleplay” (Tactical Gameplay)
A style of gameplay that provides the tools for your table to get stuck in the granular physical details of a wargame. Systems that rely on this style of gameplay tend to be extremely tactical, as they allow for players at the table to incorporate and understand the physical details and scale of the scene currently unfolding. This space can take the form of physical maps or minis, digital proxies, etc.
One of the best modern examples to me of this style of gameplay is Lancer by Massif Press; whose mechanical focus allows players to really slot themselves into the cockpits of highly technical superweapons. Understanding mechanical synergies, positioning, and managing the resource of HEAT moves the play experience into an unparalleled tactical world.
Immersion & Interpretation
First and foremost, I want to express that neither Tactical Gameplay or Theatre of the Mind are adversely affected by the inclusion of the other. In fact, one invariably incorporates qualities of the other when it comes to handling the twin responsibilities of Immersion and Interpretation. As well, according to both apocrypha & written records of the origin of tabletop roleplaying, both methods are nearly coterminous with their existence and application within the hobby.
Interpretation is how you, the player are able to understand the various qualities or factors at hand in the current moment. For example, this can mean understanding that your character is currently standing in a 8’x8′ room, with steel racking on either side of them, and a locked door ahead of them.
Immersion is how you, the player are able to place yourself within the shoes of your character, and inform you of various qualities that might not be tracked by statistics. For example, you understand that the air within in the room is so cold that your character can see their breath, and the frost that’s gathered upon the flat surfaces of their body matches that upon the racking that flanks them.
With both Immersion and Interpretation working for you, you might piece together that your character is currently standing within a freezer. With only one or the other, it might be difficult for a player to understand either how they can effect their environment, or why they might want to. The best roleplay experience weaves both together, and the same can be said for our two types of gameplay.
Application
Now obviously there are aspects of the roleplaying experience better supported by one form of gameplay than the other. Theatre of the Mind is an excellent way to immerse yourself within the role of your character, acting and reacting based on their moment to moment feelings. The same can not be said for ensuring an equilateral degree of understanding the finer details or consequences of each of those actions and reactions. Maps & Minis excels in situations where you want to have a top-down view of the action, and it allows each player to better plan out their next turn, or how they might better support or synergize with each other. Unfortunately, this style can also encourage a detached quality in the moment to moment gameplay, as not every player can effortlessly flit between mechanical minutiae and immersive roleplay.
The result is that few tabletop roleplaying games rely on one of these forms of gameplay at the complete exclusion of the other, and many instead attempt to thread the needle between them, with varied results. Dungeons & Dragons; a game whose combat has a firm expectation of physical distances and spatial awareness, still consistently works best when players are located firmly within the shoes of the characters, describing each attack or spell, or reacting to each grievous wound. Much of the player fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons, or at least the one the system attempts to sell, is of the transportation into character, not tactical combat.
One of the best examples of a similar dissonance in application comes from the realm of Actual Play; (TTRPG sessions performed and recorded and then shared in a multitude of mediums) wherein even the most tactically-focused ttrpg is generally still performed in a character-forward manner, as the latter is more appealing to general audiences.
Performance
No matter the system, there’s always going to be a degree of friction that exists between player and mechanic, and theatre of the mind vs tactical gameplay. This can take the form of mechanical limitations for your actions (ex: Spell slots limiting your access to magic both in and outside of combat), mechanical consequences for failure (ex: Your missed shot doesn’t just miss, it becomes a misfire, damaging your character or one of their fellows), mechanical requirements for interactivity (ex: Feeding in Vampire the Masquerade), and many others. In the moment, this friction might feel frustrating or limiting. The Houserule™ exists as a balm for this, but it doesn’t solve the issue at hand, being that mechanics could be limiting to your imagination in a game that supposedly cares about both.
In game designer Jay Dragon’s (Wanderhome, Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, Seven Part Pact) essay “Rules Are A Cage (and I’m a Puppygirl)”, she reckons with this friction in a positive light. To quote her article:
“The reason I’m playing any particular tabletop RPG, instead of playing make-believe, is because I want the game to challenge and vex the fictional world I’m moving through. I want the game to cage me, to make it hard for me to do something I’m normally able to do, to create moments of inefficiency that sculpt how I behave. It’s why we chose the game for the table!”
This captures a truth about the ttrpg hobby; namely that your table chose the system for the very mechanics that you’re finding to be a sturdy and limiting cage. Therefore, why not use this friction as an inspiration for different interaction with the game world. Think creatively, press against those boundaries as much as possible, and you might find that your imagination is nurtured, not limited as you previously thought.
Violence (Do You Like to Hurt People?)
Partially as a result of its origin out of the wargaming space, violence is a common theme across TTRPG systems of all kinds. In many games, you might be a group of fantastical adventurers with hopes and dreams, but the system you’re playing within assumes that you also happen to be comfortable with the inevitability of violence. Some systems attempt to reckon with this by lingering upon social, physical, or mental consequences of this violence, but even many of these do little to confront the bloody truth of the matter.
Dungeons & Dragons might have rules for casting fantastical spells and creating wonders, but the mechanics of both are nearly always designed “combat forward”. Fireball has a reputation for a reason, after all. Vampire the Masquerade warns players of the cost to their characters souls if they engage in vampiric cannibalism but also provides exhaustive rules and mechanical benefits for engaging in such a supposedly vile act.
For many systems this tonal dissonance ensures that the delineation between Theatre of the Mind and Maps & Minis is one that extends into the performance of its mechanics. When you weight the options of violence, you’re in theatre of the mind. When you engage in that violence, you might delineate the physical details of it using Map & Minis. If you reckon with the blood on your hands, you’ll do it in Theatre of the Mind. Unlike in video games, there’s no pressing F to pay your respects; you’ll have to do that outside of the system.
Except, that’s a bit of a lie if you’ve looked beyond the mainstream. TTRPGs like Wanderhome by Possum Creek Games, Clerk & Dagger by Dice Kapital, and a large portion of the entire genre of investigative TTRPGs treat violence and its relationship to the mechanics in a wildly different fashion. Wanderhome exists within a world at peace, and though one of the playbooks (The Veteran) carries a weapon, if they ever draw it…that happens to be that character’s last scene. Clerk & Dagger treats violence like a weird clumsy thing to bring to bear, wherein whole abilities do nothing but make the situation louder or just plain worse for the current heist in progress. In certain investigative TTRPGs, getting shot or stabbed isn’t a minor inconvenience, it’s designed to be a character’s undoing.
All of this is to say that both methods of mechanical activity exist in a multitude of fashions throughout the TTRPG hobby, and what’s presented as a hard and fast delineation between the two in one system, might not be nearly as cut and dry in another. There is no unilateral rubric for the place of violence in TTRPGs, and no table should ever feel like they’re stuck in one that doesn’t work for them.
Final Thoughts
In the end, the best play experience possible exists at the crux between interpretive and tactical gameplay, the position of this crux is just up to your table. As mentioned in our previous articles, finding the best possible play experience for your table is a matter of communication, observation, and adaptation. Notice what you enjoy, what you don’t, and keep learning and growing your experience along the way. Speaking of which; if you have a good example of finding this happy balance, share it in the comments!
UP NEXT IN ESSENTIALS: ONE SHOT & CAMPAIGN PLAY.
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.
