Bright‑Dark 3d6 - Session 0 Checklist

Bright-Dark 3d6 Role-Playing Game doesn’t need a sprawling D&D-style Session 0 because the game already solves the ambiguity problem. The tone, genre, danger level, and realism are baked into the system. So instead of 30 questions, Bright‑Dark needs about 6-9 all laser-focused on the emotional, thematic, and narrative cohesion that makes Bright‑Dark work.

The Essential Bright-Dark 3d6 Session‑0 Questions

These aren’t generic TTRPG questions. They’re tailored to the Bright-Dark tone: grounded, melancholy, hopeful, dangerous, human.

1. What does your character care about deeply enough that the GM can build stakes from it? In other words, what matters to you so deeply that losing it would hurt?
   *This is the most important question to running Bright-Dark!
2. What kind of Bright-Dark story are we telling?
3. How grounded and dangerous should the world feel?
4. What themes do you want your character to explore?
5. What level of supernatural presence do we want?
6. How connected are the characters emotionally?
7. What boundaries or sensitivities should we respect?
8. How much spotlight do you want?
9. What is your character’s quiet hope?

1. What does your character care about deeply enough that the GM can build stakes from it?

In Bright-Dark, stakes are personal.

The world may be dangerous, but danger only becomes meaningful when it touches something the characters care about. 

• Before play begins, each player should tell the GM what matters most to their character: a hope, a fear, a relationship, a promise, or a fragile part of themselves they cannot bear to lose.

This is not backstory for its own sake.

It is the emotional anchor the GM uses to shape conflict, tension, and consequence. Adventures begin with the world’s troubles, but they become Bright-Dark stories only when those troubles threaten the things the characters hold close.

Knowing the Characters to Create Stakes

When the GM knows the characters, the stakes write themselves. When the GM does not, the story has no weight.

2. What kind of Bright-Dark story are we telling?
Bright-Dark is a tone, not a genre, but there are flavors:

• wandering melancholy adventure
• intimate character drama
• quiet survival
• mythic but grounded fantasy
• soft supernatural intrusion
• political or social tension

This question aligns everyone’s expectations for emotional weight and pacing.


3. How grounded is the world’s danger?
Bright-Dark thrives on believable stakes.

• Are you comfortable with realistic injury?
• Are you comfortable with characters being afraid, shaken, or vulnerable?
• Should danger feel constant, occasional, or rare but serious?

This sets the lethality dial without needing D&D’s “gritty realism” debates.


4. What themes do you want your character to explore?
Bright-Dark characters carry wounds and small hopes. Examples:

• Grief
• Redemption
• Trust
• Found family
• Quiet courage
• Moral ambiguity
• Healing
• Sacrifice

This question ensures every character has emotional weight that fits the tone.


5. What level of supernatural presence do you want?
Bright-Dark uses magic sparingly and meaningfully. Options:

• Low magic (rare, subtle, mysterious)
• Medium magic (present but not flashy)
• Mythic intrusions (angels, spirits, cosmic forces)
• No magic (pure grounded drama)

This prevents mismatched expectations like “I want flashy spells” vs “I want realism.”


6. How connected are the characters?
Bright-Dark works best when characters care about each other.

• Do you already know each other?
• Do you share a wound?
• Do you share a hope?
• What binds you emotionally?

This avoids the “we meet in a tavern” problem entirely.


7. What boundaries or sensitivities should we respect?
Bright-Dark deals with melancholy and vulnerability, so you need clarity on:

• Violence level
• Emotional triggers
• Interpersonal conflict
• Romance boundaries
• Moral themes
• Lines and veils

This keeps the tone safe without breaking immersion.


8. How much spotlight do you want?
Bright-Dark is character‑driven, so ask:

• Do you want lots of personal scenes?
• Do you prefer ensemble scenes?
• Do you want slow‑burn arcs or fast arcs?

This prevents overshadowing or under‑involvement.


9. What is your character’s quiet hope?
This is the most Bright-Dark question of all.

• What small thing keeps your character going?  
• What fragile hope do they cling to?  
• What do they want to protect?  

This gives you emotional anchors for the entire campaign.

Why Bright-Dark Only Needs These 9
Because the system already defines:

• Tone  
• Realism  
• Danger  
• Genre  
• Pacing  
• Supernatural logic  
• Moral texture  

D&D needs 30 questions because it can be anything. 
Bright-Dark needs 9 because it is something.

• This game is focused.  
• The tone is intentional.  
• The implied world is coherent.  
• The mechanics reinforce your themes.
• So, Session 0 is elegant, not bloated.

Download: Full Rulebook PDF version 0.9

Main: Table of Contents - (Full game single post)

Game Mechanics Are About Feel, Not Function

I think what makes a game mechanic work is not that it's functional or logical, rather, it's how it feels to the participants when playing with it. Let's look at HP for example. What is HP but your margin of error? More HP, more margin of error. Less HP... You get it. 

Once you have the realization that HP is your margin of error, you might ask yourself how much HP is too little, too much, or just right? One odd question you might ask yourself is what else can be treated as a margin of error? This is where game mechanics get creative. A game called Crown and Skull doesn't have HP. Instead, your skills temporarily go down from hits. This represents how your characters wounds and injuries affect them. When players take a hit, players get to decide which skill gets diminished, and so players have some say in the narrative, and the game doesn't have to burden the GM with everything.

So, for instance, let's say sword is a skill and your sword skill is 5. You get hit, you lower it to 4. When all your skills are 0, this represents an accumulation of wounds that finally end you. When you get an opportunity to improve a skill, you're also improving your toughness in a manner like HP. Sounds logical, right?

With game mechanics and systems, what I'm concerned with is not how they work, but how they feel. Does the game feel fun, does the game feels tense, or does it feel like too much bookkeeping. Does the mechanic make me overthink the concept to the extent that its distracting?

Importantly, would I rather be using another or a simpler mechanic?

So, let's say I had a game where gold replaces HP. The first thing I ask is what sense does that make? What if characters had magic hour glasses. The hour glasses turn gold and golden treasure into gold dust. The gold dust drains away at a rate of one gold piece per day. If you run out of gold dust, you die. The magic of the hourglass makes you indestructible, but in exchange it takes gold away when you should be hurt. In effect, your life is dependent on gold. The scarcity of gold is what makes the game tense. Too much gold, no tension. No tension means you have a boring game. Too little gold, players become too risk averse, and the game is too stressful.

From the GM side, the tracking and allocating of gold becomes a major function. It sounds like finding the goldilocks zone is really, really challenging and once players discover the formula, does that spoil the illusion of the game? How do you feel like you improve? By being able to carry more gold than before?

I think the reason why HP or health is so ubiquitous is it’s ease of use which comes from its intuitiveness, in spite of its other problems like being an over-abstraction of damage and healing. And also, taking a hit and subtracting HP feels better than taking a hit and subtracting skills or items or money or armor. Even though gold as HP basically eliminates the need to spend gold on healing items and other supplies, and skills as HP eliminates a need for a wounds and injuries system, at the end of the day, HP feels better than other mechanics, probably because it's familiar, simple, and easy to visualize.

There are different ways to do HP. In D&D for instance, HP models luck, skill, and fatigue as a buffer until 0 HP which implies a single, serious wound has KO'ed you and threatens your life. You can sleep off a major fall or massive beating. Because it's an easily relishable resource, it has less value. Because you can have 10 HP at level 1 and 100 HP at level 10, it doesn't objectively describe or model actual harm in the world. D&D 5e makes HP feel like a cartoon character or cinematic action hero getting beat up. It makes combat feel like a sport or a game to live out a power fantasy. It's intended to be fun. The opposite is GURPS which explicitly describes HP as a measure of your body's capacity for injury. There is a low HP cap. If you take a massive hit, you roll for shock and knock down. If your HP drops to 0, you roll against incapacitation and death. GURPS makes HP loss feel like sustaining actual harm, and it makes combat feel deadly and frightening, and consequences can last.

GURPS HP inspired Bright-Dark 3d6 HP, not D&D HP. Bright-Dark 3d6 uses low HP to keep tension high and consequences meaningful.

If you're going to create or critique a game, I want you to think in terms of what do the mechanics model, how do game mechanics feel, and how do all the mechanics feel when used together. That's important because the way a game feels is ultimately why people play it. If it feels good, they play it and they enjoy playing it. If it feels bad and they're still playing it, are they enjoying it? What do they enjoy about it? How much enjoyment are they getting, and is it worth the parts they don't enjoy? The way a game feels is part of the value of the game to the participants.

But also remember that everyone has their own kind of fun; see also: Types of Fun (MDA Framework)

We Can Be Heroes - Index Card RPG

One of my favorite lines from any TTRPG book I've ever read is "We can be heroes!" This is the first subheading in the player's guide section on page 21 of the Master's Edition. The reason why this stands out in my memory is because one of my main sources of disappointment in TTRPGs is that many players want to play chaotic stupid @ssholes, and many game masters are permissive or supportive of their choice to do it.

By the way, just because D&D has all nine alignments and no rules about permitting them or restricting them, that doesn't mean GMs can't impose restrictions. You should!

I don't want to be an evil character, I don't want to play with other players playing evil PCs, and I don't want to make a character who would associate with evil characters. I don't want to run a game for evil player characters. Evil or chaotic player characters is not what interests me about this hobby. I want to be a hero, and I want heroic stories.

Index Card RPG is one of my favorite TTRPGs. If I could only have one TTRPG, I think it would be this one. My hesitation is that the book has a lot of stuff I don't want to use, like charisma or certain fantasy races, but because it's in the book, players may expect to be allowed to use it. Managing expectations is one of the hardest things to do, especially when the tone you want is heroic.

Someone please sell a TTRPG book that says "we can be heroes", but make it a central theme of the game.

In the meantime, here's my proposed solution for GMs. Ahem. Tell players when you pitch the game or send them the invite, “I am running a game for heroic characters. If you don't think you would have fun playing a heroic character, this game isn't for you." Add some softener to the end of that as you please. This explanation is firm but not harsh, and it respects people's time. They don't have to read between the lines to figure out what you're trying to tell them, and they don't smell an opportunity to bend the rules or negotiate. You're also protecting the tone which is easy to spoil.

Related posts:

Alignment and Morality in TTRPGs and D&D Alignments - How to Use Them!

And if you want a game that's all about tone, click here: Bright-Dark 3d6 Role-Playing Game

Conflict is King - Story Writing Advice

Do you want to write but don't know where to start or how? Start with the conflict. Conflict comes before plot. Conflict is about the drama; Completely absent of the setting, myth, magic, cool powers, fate, or whatever. These other things are not a factor in drama, they're only flavor.

Here is your checklist for conflict; Not plot, conflict. Fill in the blanks for Protagonist, Antagonist, X, Y, and Z:

• The protagonist wants X. If the protagonist does not get X, then Y happens.
• The antagonist wants Z. In order for the antagonist to have Z, the protagonist cannot have X.
• The antagonist therefore threatens to cause Y.
• The protagonist is small. The antagonist is big. The protagonist cannot beat the antagonist.

For clarity:

• X is the protagonist's goal.
• Y is what's at stake. The stakes should feel very important to the protagonist.
• Z is the antagonist's goal. This is the obstacle for the protagonist.

Example: Max is a barbarian prince (Protagonist) who wants to marry Carry (X), a sickly barbarian peasant without wide child-bearing hips. If Max doesn't marry Carry, he will never have love (Y happens). Max's dad, Maximillan (Antagonist), says no, your role is to be a leader of men for our people, and my role is to make sure of that. Therefore, I will arrange your marriage with a proper woman so your lineage will be strong (Z).

The conflict here is that Max (Protagonist) is opposed to his dad, Maximillan, and is expressed in the because. Max wants Carry because. Maximillan wants Max to marry a proper woman because. Each character has valid reasons.

Setting can be functional. All you have to do is come up with consequences for the setting if Max chooses Carry. For example, if Max chooses Carry, Maximum will disown Max and instate his second born son, Mini-Max, as heir. Mini-Max is a git and a prat who wants to make war with all the other barbarian clans (neighbors) and take over the region. This may cause war and destabilize the region, making the region weak and vulnerable to attacks from people outside the region (foreign threats).

Player Skill vs Character Skill - Managing Expectations

There is a discussion in the TTRPG hobby called Player Skill versus Character Skill.

Player Skill describes a playstyle where players solve problems in the game using their own creativity and problem-solving skills. Examples:

• 1. Players using their own persuasiveness to convince NPCs to help them. The player makes an argument in character, and the GM evaluates it in character, then responds.
• 2. A player describes how they interact with a feature of a room or scene. If their description would reasonably allow them to find something hidden, then they just find it. For example, if they describe pouring water onto the floor and the game master describes that it drains through a crack of a pressure plate in the floor. They player has revealed a trap automatically!
• 3. If a player wants to sneak, they describe how they use their environment effectively to avoid line of sight, how they minimize sounds like taking off their noisy armor or jangling weapons, etc.

Character Skill describes a playstyle where players solve problems in the game primarily using powers and abilities on their character sheet.

• 1. A player declares an intent to persuade an NPC, then rolls some dice and invokes a game mechanic, such as a speech skill.
• 2. The player declares an intent to search the floor for traps, invokes a search or perception mechanic, and rolls a die.
• 3. A player declares an intent to be sneaky and invokes a game mechanic by rolling a die.

Player Skill and Character Skill describe two completely different kinds of games. They feel different.

The feel of games with player skill

• 1. Gives more value to game master descriptions of the room or scene.
• 2. Incentivizes good player narration, creativity and improv in the moment.
• 3. Rolling dice is a fail-state for poor creativity, planning, or decision making!
• 4. Deemphasizes the need for rules knowledge and systems mastery.
• 5. Solve problems with your wits and know that the dice won't arbitrarily spoil a perfectly good idea!
• 6. More freeform, rules-lite game.
• 7. The game becomes simpler and more intuitive. You don't need to know the rules; instead, just understand that anything that can reasonably happen in real life is allowed in the game.

The feel of games with character skill:

• 1. Players make decisions based on knowledge of game mechanics rather than imagining and describing clear actions.
• 2. Players are incentivized to master the rules and systems of the game, and even exploit weaknesses in the game design.
• 3. A greater emphasis is placed on rolling dice, and the game master's interpretations of the dice can feel arbitrary or contrived. Actions that have no business succeeding can succeed, and actions that have no business failing can fail. This can cause ludo narrative dissonance and loss of suspension of disbelief.
• 4. Creative actions and good planning can grant bonuses, but some players are most creative outside the game when creating their character.
• 5. Players refer to or rely on their character sheet for answers to problems.
• 6. Character options get classified as either optimal or sub-optimal, and all decisions eventually become a matter of doing the optimal thing over and over ad nauseum.
• 7. Good ideas get questioned because there isn't a clear rule for it, and we look for the rulebook to tell us if it's allowed or if it will be helpful, even if it reasonably would or be.

So, if we're playing a game that emphasizes player skill, why do we have game mechanics? Mechanics are not for solving problems, and they're not for resolving uncertainty. They give structure to the game, and they're for simulating actions that need to be simulated. If you want to strike a stationary object, you can just do it because there's no chance of failure. If you want to strike an opponent who's actively fighting back, then we use the mechanics and dice to simulate the outcome. We need to simulate combat because we can't hit each other with swords at the game table, but we don't need to simulate lying and haggling because we can actually do that!

Further, you don't need a mechanic for everything. Mechanics are only needed for things that absolutely need simulation, nothing more. Everything that can reasonably be solved through the logic of the world or narrative should be. This is what the game master (aka the referee) is for! If your opponent is no longer able to defend themself, you don't need to roll a die to hit them! You don't need a rule to tell you that if you take off your heavy metal armor and heavy backpack full of treasure, you can sneak, climb, swim, run and jump better.

What Does My Character Know?

Sometimes, players ask the GM something like "would my character know anything about X?" Either the player is knowledgeable about the game and the setting and wants to confirm what of their player knowledge they may use, or the player has no knowledge about the game and setting, and they want the GM to tell them what their character would reasonably know.

The Character Skill approach to the game is to allow the player to roll an Intellect or Knowledge check or test, or to invoke some feature of their character that lets them automatically possess and recall that knowledge.

The Player Skill approach to the game is to instead tell the player "why don't you explore the world and find someone who does know?"

Consider that this situation is a regular part of that game and liken it to a puzzle. It's a puzzle that can be solved in different ways. With the Character Skill approach, the player merely has to think to use a game mechanic. The solution is then either presented to them or it isn't. If it's presented, the players can then move onto the next challenge. The pacing of the game or major points in the narrative is fast.

With the Player Skill approach, the player has to rely on their own creativity and work out their own solution within the setting and narrative to solve the problem. They can think to research at a library, gather rumors and news from a tavern, or to search for an NPC expert within the setting and ask for knowledge. Access to that expert may have some prerequisites, like gold or a positive reputation. The player may first have to learn about the expert by asking around town. This is a type of discovery and is fun and rewarding to some players. Earning access to an expert NPC can also feel rewarding to some players. It gives more value to the setting by placing more need on the players to learn and understand the setting and the people in it.

The differences between the two styles also means that the player characters are either self-sufficient with non-material resources, or they are a group who occasionally have to make time to gather non-material resources.

Which approach to play is preferrable? Depends on you! How do you have fun? Do you want to solve the puzzles by flexing your own mental muscles, or do you want to solve puzzles by rolling dice? I'm sure there's pros and cons, and there might even be times when one approach is preferrable, and times when the other approach is preferrable.

Mapping

While exploring, either a wilderness or dungeon, how do your characters know when they're lost?

A Character Skill approach would say that players can use a game mechanic and know that they're lost, and then potentially use the game mechanics to figure out where they are. The players may also have access to a map or other visual aid to show the world and their process in it.

The Player Skill approach might say that your characters will know when they're lost in-game the same way that you would know you're lost in real life. You walk or drive around for long enough asking "how far is it? How long have we been traveling? Are you sure we're going the right way? Did we pass it? Does anyone recognize where we're at?" In my experience, recognizing that I'm lost in real life is a process rather than a eureka moment.

Getting lost in the wilderness or dungeon can be dangerous. You can run out of resources, get sick, die to exposure, or be attacked by some dangerous wild animal, monster, or human. Being lost is the obstacle and a source of tension. Being able to find your own way out of it is the solution, and to improve at navigation to avoid getting lost in the future is another solution.

Imagine the roleplay prompt: "you're lost in the dangerous wilderness with limited supplies and a deadline to save the victim of the monster. What do you do?" Some people want to work this out scene by scene, and they want to un-stuck themselves using their player skills. There's potential for team building and learning skills. One solution is to find higher ground, like climbing a hill or a tall tree, then you can see further. The game master will describe what you can see, and then you can work out landmarks and navigate your way back. The adventure was unexpected. There's also a chance to discover something you weren't looking for while you're lost.

Player Skill Over Character Stats

Your player skill is your character's luck, wisdom, intelligence, and charisma. Think. Be careful. If you the player get a funny feeling that something is not right, it's OK to use that feeling in play to keep your character safe. Don't hold back just because your character has low stats!

Game Balance

Do not assume the obstacles and challenges are balanced to match your character's abilities. Rely on your own creativity and ingenuity. There is no right way to overcome a challenge. Not all obstacles need to be overcome; some can be circumvented. Fleeing is always valid. Make sure you always have a way out.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, Player Skill vs Character Skill isn’t just a mechanical distinction, it’s a question of what kind of game you actually want to play. Some tables thrive on dice-driven certainty and character sheets full of buttons to press; others want a grounded, intuitive world where clever ideas matter more than modifiers. Neither approach is universally better, but they create completely different experiences, and mismatched expectations will ruin a game faster than any bad die roll. So decide what kind of play you enjoy, communicate it clearly, and build a table that buys into the same style. When everyone understands the expectations, the game becomes smoother, more immersive, and a lot more fun.

Related: Game Design Sins - Character-Skill over Player-Skill is a post about D&D 4e skill challenges and why they stink.

One-Page Campaign Form - Managing Expectations

Today, I want to show you some GM aids that reveal two completely different philosophies about running TTRPGs. We're going to talk about them, then we're going to talk about why using a GM aid like this important. First thing to note is that both of these documents are created by the GM / DM and are made available to the players.

Below is a link to a one-page Campaign Planning Form that is standard in GURPS. Open it up and read. Then come back.

https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/resources/CampaignPlanning.pdf

What did you notice? What does it emphasize?

Below is a link to a one-page My Campaign form by Matthew Coleville (of MCDM). Read it and come back.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZK5E4Qg3AnfZLj68v6_3sioGrPmrw4Be/view

What did you notice? What does it emphasize?

Comparison: Contract vs Syllabus

Let's compare and contrast these campaign forms as they are both the same tool, but they show different approaches to TTRPGs.

The GURPS campaign form is about defining the limitations of the game and the setting. It starts broadly with genre, realism vs cinematic, and theme. It defines the level of technologic development (stone/bronze/iron age, medieval, steam, modern, futuristic, etc.) and tells you what kind of political powers are in charge and how much control they use. Then it tells you what is allowed at character creation and what isn't, and what the setting thinks about some characters. Finally, it tells you which supplemental books are permitted because GURPS has a lot of them.

Meanwhile, the MCDM campaign form tells players what's in the setting. It's more of a checklist of cool and useful stuff. I'm not sure if its author intended it to be a GM only document, but it can definitely be a player aid. It helps you structure your setting by establishing the pieces of it so that players can do cool stuff and have fun adventures.

The GURPS form is a contract. The MCDM form is a syllabus.

Analysis

The GURPS form defines the scope of the game. It is the GM telling the players "here's the kind of game I'm running, and you need to create a character who fits." It's a constraint document that intentionally narrows the scope of the game. It prevents mismatched expectations. If you join the campaign, you agree to these terms.

The MCDM form, if used as a player aid, orients the players. It gives context. It assumes (high) fantasy genre already and it does only a little to modify the genre or tone. It tells you about one small location, it hints at the greater political system and cosmology, shows a few geographical features, and a few small enemy factions responsible for conflict. Here's what you know, here's who you talk to if you want to learn more. The "Here's what locals think about dwarves, hobbits, elves" section softly tells the players how these fantasy races are in this setting, framed as how they are perceived.

Both forms are useful. Both are smart. But one campaign form solves more problems than the other.

The GURPS form is better suited for managing expectations than the MCDM form. The MCDM form, while it has a space for you to detail how different fantasy races are like in his world, it does not restrict their use by players. The from does not detail what is allowed or disallowed: classes, races, backgrounds, race-class-background combinations, languages, feats, multi-classing, equipment, magic. It doesn't explicitly state what kind of style or tone to expect. It is still a kitchen-sink. Meanwhile, the GURPS form can directly, explicitly say it's a fantasy-sci-fi genre, elves and magic are not in this game, and here's what happens in this setting if you use Psi abilities.

Use the GURPS form if you want to tell your players what nonsense isn’t allowed. Use the MCDM form if you’re fine with whatever nonsense is allowed.

One of the problems with a social contract is that it's unspoken. This sort of campaign document is a snapshot of your specific game, and it should be standard in TTRPGs. Seriously. It's not just "oh, we're playing an Eberron campaign, and the big bad is a tarrasque". This also lets players know all the little particularities of your presentation of the Eberron setting. Your particularities are the highlight of the form because you're the GM and you need to let the players know what kind of game you can handle running, and what kind of game you can't. This should be completed and available when you pitch your game to prospective players.

My Form

After reading these two forms, I decided I wanted one that suited my game, Bright-Dark 3d6 Role-Playing Game. Below, I have provided a link to a one-page campaign document with the items that I think are valuable right now. Your needs / tastes may vary.

Link: Bright-Dark 3d6 Role-Playing Game Campaign Form

Leave a comment on this post. I would appreciate come feedback on this concept and on my form.

Optional / Add-Ons:

What else could be added that's valuable?

• Related Media: What books, movies, etc. that are similar to your game. This helps orient players fast. If you list Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind or Firefly, that might stop them from thinking about making a character who would suit The Fifth Element or Breaking Bad.
• Recommended Reading: Supplemental RPG books, documents, etc. Maybe you wrote a short story about characters in your world, or maybe you have a detailed setting document.
• Homebrew: Are you big on homebrew? What's your homebrew stuff, or what play-brew stuff is allowed?
• House Rules / Optional Rules: Every table has this. Make yours clear.
• All that Lovely, Lovely Session Zero stuff: You know, violence, gore, and whatever other weird no-go zone types of stuff. Player vs Player? Play-styles focus / emphasis, heavy roleplay or heavy bookkeeping, PC death, game balance, game fouls, etc., etc.
• Miscellaneous. More things in life need a misc. section than you think. 

Related

Hyper-Gratuitousness in Fiction and TTRPGs is an excellent post that you might find valuable for your TTRPGs if you want to include darker subject matter with care.

Also: Managing Expectations in TTRPGs - Discussing What We Do and Don't Like

And: Managing Expectations in TTRPGs - GM Expectations Framework

And how about: The DM Shortage - Why 5e Doesn't Have Enough

Worldbuidling: Geopolitical Hotspots = Human-Scale Conflict

When I see worldbuilding content on the internet, people don't start with the geopolitical hotspots, and that's a problem.

What is a geopolitical hotspot? It's a place where two or more cultures come into military, political, or economic tension. Often due to disputes or competition over territory and resources.

Geopolitical hotspots = conflict

Starting with the geopolitical hotspots is the shortcut you need to make your world map interesting. In fact, throw out the concept of the world map for a second and just focus on a regional map. Your campaign isn't global scale (yet). You only need one region where multiple cultures are fighting over the good stuff. That's what makes a good fantasy map.

What people tend to do is they get lost in the weeds of realistic world map or they want a map that's visually pretty or exciting. They ask, "do the mountains belong there?" and they get stuck. I'm not telling you that it's wrong to ask if the mountains would logically form there like that; That actually can serve to make your map more believable. What I'm advising is to make concessions on realism for the sake of forcing, even contriving a geopolitical hotspot into your world.

Serious man, just put it in!

Sample Region Map - The Calean

Here’s a simple example to show how a geopolitical hotspot turns a plain map into a story engine. Below is a region called The Calean. It's named after the central feature, the Calea Sea. It's a very simple map I cooked up in I don't know, half an hour?

Full disclosure: I traced it from another map found in this video by the YouTuber likealightart9414. I hope he doesn't mind. Then I named everything. In his video, likealightart9414 said he didn't like this map. *Scoffs* excuse me?

For this map, realism, scale, aesthetics, or ready-to-play-ness are not the intent or goal. It's here to teach. 

Cultures

Distinct cultures turn geography into a story. I want you to identify the four major kingdoms / nations: Adamia, Bethland, Erlina, and Gregoria. I know there's other stuff on this map, but these four areas are the main points. Arbitrarily, we're going to ascribe to them distinct cultural identities.

• Adamia: Militaristic, imperial. Value law and order. Lots of noble houses and bloodlines.
• Bethland: Famous for art and science. Value luxury. Perceived as soft. Meritocracy with a raising merchant class.
• Gregoria: Very religious, courageous, humanitarian. An unmatched naval power. A budding republic with a powerful symbolic monarch.
• Erlina: Stubbornly proud, tough, and wealthy. Famously use mercenaries and foreign armies to fight for them. They have resources and you can't take them away.

What's important (to me) is that the cultures are distinct. You can immediately evaluate the aspects of the culture like the colors and mascot of a team in a competition and pick the one you like.

Boundaries

Next, let's look at how geography shapes their relationships. Creating a few boundaries means you have an area where kingdoms may blend without losing their distinction, and where the contrast is most immediate. These are places where political, economic, or military tension is most apparent.  

River Nina separates Adamia and Bethland, and it also coincidentally marks a climate boundary. Which climates specifically? Well, scientifically speaking, Adamia is kind of cold, Bethland is kind of warm. There you go. These are now two distinct areas, and it adds variety to the cultures and political powers.

Gregoria is connected to Adamia by an impassible isthmus where The Stellas mountains are. The logistics of marching an army across are mindboggling, so there are no land invasions. 

Reina Mountains separate Bethland from Erlina. You could say there are a few mountain passes, but it's easier to travel by sea.

The Calea Sea has not one but two choke points: The Delilian Straight controlled by Gregoria and the Felixan Straight controlled by Erlina. If you want to get in and out of the Calea Sea, you have to be on good terms with at least one of these cultures. Naturally, Erlinda and Gregoria compete over Isle Levi which creates both straights.

The fact the Erlinda and Gregoria have a competition going, there isn't one single power who monopolizes passage in and out of the Calea Sea. This competition is important because it makes being on good terms with one nation or the other important.  

Calea Sea

This sea is the main artery connecting everything. That's what's the point of the sea, but why is there conflict here? Resources? Trade? Colonialism? War? Religious conflict? Bad blood? That's up to you, but it is important to define why these powers are in conflict. Try and come up with a few conflicts. Here's an example:

• Adamia and Bethland compete over control of the River Nina. It's an nutrient-rich, important waterway that can take you inland. Adamia claims that their snowcapped Adamant Mountains (just off the map) feed the Nina. 
• Erlina competes with Gregoria over control of the Isle Levi and both straights.
• Adamia competes with Gregoria over silver mines in The Stellas. Both nations are also competing for control of that northern coast.
• Erlinda and Bethland have territorial disputes and the various passages of the Reina Mountains as boundary is unclear. There are smaller cultures here too: Mountain people who make iron goods and practice war, and valley folk who farm goods for them.
• There are also small islands. The inlanders consider themselves part of the kingdom that controls them, but because they are isolated, they also consider themselves distinct from their continental peers and resent the continental conflicts.

Finale

Geopolitical hotspots matter because they give your setting human-scale, actionable content to engage in. It's not "We must take the ring to Mordor" content, it's "The British are Coming!" content. It's "Then the Fire Nation attacked" content.

Checklist

• Major powers with distinct cultures
• Vulnerable minor cultures in between
• Valuable resources
• Natural boundaries
• Choke points
• Territorial disputes
• Competing interests
• Climates, history, terrain, myth as flavor at the end

Use this checklist to turn any blank region into a living engine of story, politics, and adventure.

Related: How to Create a Fantasy Setting (Loria) shows you what to do from here.

The DM Shortage - Why 5e Doesn't Have Enough

First thing's first, I don't actually know if D&D 5e is suffering from a DM shortage, but this topic gets revisited a lot in the YouTube spaces that I frequent. I can't back up this position. I also can't back up if it's just D&D or all TTRPGs.

There is no published ratio of players to GMs, no official report on DM availability, no formal study on how many people want to GM vs play. WotC, Paizo, Chaosium, Mongoose, and Modiphius have never released this kind of data. So the DM shortage is not a documented fact; it's anecdotal.

The closest thing to a real number that we get is Roll20 which shows that 20% - 25% of users ever run a game on their platform. There's also been snippets of interviews from industry professionals saying DMs are the ones primarily purchasing TTRPG products. This implies that data may exist supporting a gap in players to GMs, but it does not indicate a shortage.

But let's suppose it's D&D 5e in particular with a DM shortage and that every other game has just the right number of GMs (yeah right).

Poor DM Support

When is the last time Wizards of the Coast (WotC) released a supplement book for DMs only? That's my first observation. Not a book for monsters, magic items, settings, or adventures, but tools and instructions to teach GMing and to make GMing easier. For that kind of advice and instruction, people go to the internet. Isn't it weird that amateurs on the internet are the ones capitalizing on this, not the industry professionals? You've got The Angry GM who writes a hell of a blog, advice books by independent authors, and not to mention dozens of YouTube channels with a cumulative thousand hours of advice about prepping and running the game. Where is the official DM support? Are you thinking about WotCs' Sage Advice stuff? Pfft.

Where is Dragon magazine and Dungeon magazine or a successor magazine?

Where is the Dungeon Masters Guide 2 and 3? The ones that break down the internal math that the D&D 5e designers use and teach it to you? It's not there. It's these internet DMs who figured out and taught that 5e's design aims for easy rolls to have a 60% success rate, and hard rolls to have a 40% success rate. The should have come from the designers.

How about DM guidance for problem players? I don't mean the kind of players who are sometimes blatantly rude or disrespectful, I mean the ones who make broken characters who spoil the tension and challenge in every scene, or goofy characters who spoil the tone? Where are the hot tips for world building, making after-session notes, or fast prep? How do I read an adventure and break it down into manageable chunks for my notes and prep? Where are the combat hacks? What if no one understands or agrees on a rule? Conventional wisdom says make a ruling and move on. Are we assuming everyone knows how?

How about basic instructions on how to use the books? Something like:

• Players Handbook (PHB) is for rules reference
• Dungeon Masters Guide (DMG) is for instructions on the rules

The PHB lists the rules and defines them, but the DMG explains how to think about them, how to use them, and when not to. You need both. If you're missing the DMG, the rules of the game feels like instructions on how to play, and you get a really rigid, stiff game that eschews DMing skills and DM authority.

To some people, if the official books don't say something, it might not be the legitimate way to play or understand the game. How I described the Players Book and the DMs book above is fair, but it's not explicit in the books; Therefore, some people will never acknowledge this delineation or benefit from it.

GMs Need Authority and Instruction

Maybe the DMG 2 should give the DM more authority so that players aren't walking over them and their games like a door mat? That section should be called Put the Master in Dungeon Master. Did I say section? Maybe it should be a chapter. Players want to pick a spell but it's too powerful? Tell them "not in my game". Players think they should be able to play whatever fantasy race in the book? "Sorry, that doesn't suit my setting". Broken character build? "I'm lowering your ability scores and HP to balance your character". How about a rule that tells players that if they expect the GM to treat their characters seriously, then players should treat the setting and NPCs seriously? And to have respect for game's tone.

Putting the master in Dungeon Master isn't about arbitrary and capricious rulings by a tyrannical DM. It's about clarity, boundaries, and tone protection. It's about being able to establish the kind of game that you can handle running.

DMs, what do you do when the players don't understand what a rule means and they want to fight over it? How about an explicit No Rules Lawyering rule or No Exploiting Weaknesses in the Rules rule? How about a section on game fouls and what to do about them? What does it mean to be That Guy and what do we do about him when he shows up? How about a section on telling players "no" or "not at my table" or "get out"?

How about a section that advises GMs about pacing themselves to avoid burnout or how to prep your players so that their expectations align with your campaign setting? GURPS has a one-page, fillable campaign form that establishes what kind of game you're running. Why not D&D? Where's the official session zero checklist?

The current DM book might cover some things, how about another book to cover them in more depth? How about a section that teaches adventure structure and setting creation? About improv? About creating and portraying NPCs? How about dungeon and wilderness procedure which is actually seriously lacking in D&D 5e. Break this down for me and show me how it works.

DM instruction is a deep well of content, and they put out one dedicated DM book for the 2014 edition and one dedicated DM book for the 2024 edition. They are sorely lagging behind. It's incredible to me.

How about advice or instruction on different playstyles or modes of play? Like the West Marches style of play which accommodates an open table. We need an essay about not building broken characters or exploiting weaknesses in the rules because accommodating these specific things contribute to the workload for a GM.

How do you handle adversarial players, competitive players, and interpersonal conflict? How do you manage schedules and communication? When do you kick people out? How do you handle spotlight hogs, joke characters in a serious campaign, or rules lawyers derailing a session? How do GMs teach players the written and unwritten rules? The best that the 2014 book did was tell you in a very corporate way to be respectful. With respect, that's not advice, that's corporate CYA. It lets the corporation wash their hands of any colorful scenarios that might emerge by letting them stand on a ground of "we encourage respect". And let's face it, 9 out of 10 adults don't need to be taught about respect.

GMing 5e Isn't Fun

Ultimately, if you want to get people to do something, incentivize them. IF there is a lack of DMs, that means the incentive isn't there. The only incentive you should need is fun. The problem with DMing for 5e is it's very effortful to do, and it's not proportionately rewarding.

5e Attracts Tourists

This is not intended to be an insult. 5e is not a niche game for niche people, it's a massive game that's intended to have as much broad appeal as possible. That means tourists can access it. Tourist means people without discerning taste, genre literacy, foundational knowledge, or realistic expectations. It's a cultural outsider of the hobby with low or casual interest. The is a not commentary about their worth. Not everyone who plays 5e is a tourist, and if you're reading this for fun or if you find this enriching, that's not you. Probably. 5e is generic. It has everything about the fantasy genre without any consideration for identity. Its identity is everything and anything all at once. It asks little of you. It gives tropes and it gives you room to insert your own. That's how you get Big Bird from Sesame Street as a Paladin or a Ninja or a Power Ranger. Or Joe Rogan as a Druid. That's why its generic.

Therefore, it could be that the problem is not the system itself, rather it's the people who are attracted to the system. When you run GURPS or ICRPG, you're running a game that doesn't have as broad reach. GURPS is a game that requires a lot more system understanding and it requires the users to have their own genre conventions because the game offers you hundreds of tiny pieces and asks you to make sense of them. You are expected to make them into something. That requires will, effort, and creativity. It takes time to learn all these pieces and it appeals to people who appreciate an intrinsic reward. People who do this make something special for a small, intimate group of people. That's a sign that the participants are not casuals, noobs, plebs, or tourists. ICRPG has massive appeal but it's too indie and needs to be discovered. It's not your first game, it's a game you graduate to when you're ready move on or when you've outgrown D&D 5e. Like GURPS, it requires creativity. ICRPG also asks you to give up your shiny things. There's less player tools and less safety nets. ICRPG asks you bring your heart, wits, and guts. Tourists are less likely to find it and more likely to bounce off.

Tourists aren't bad, but they need the most onboarding and the most initiation into the hobby culture. They bring their own influences from other hobbies or interests and expect them to mesh. It often clashes instead. No one knows what to expect, and they anticipate too much. No one is prepared for what happens when you mix different friend groups together and find out what they're like when they get a to embody a powerful, evil character and have a beer. That's the kind of situation that 5e creates. These could be people who have only played Dark Souls and seen Marvel movies, or they could be people who love watching Critical Role for the jokes, characters, and story, but who don't really care about the game itself. No one is on the same page. It leads to disappointment.

If you're reading this and you don't think that's a problem, either you're really good at this or you have some really good friends. Or maybe you're really easy going. For others, this is hard to manage.

Managing Expectations

D&D 5e is kitchen-sink fantasy. It's very broad and very generic. Because of this, expectations are a son of a gun to manage. Because D&D can be so many different kinds of games and fantasies, you never really know what you're going to get. Imagine I ask you out to a movie and you ask "what's playing?" I list the movies and ask you, "what are you in the mood for?" We narrow the choices down to one specific, coherent experience based on our tastes and mood. A D&D 5e group is like five people who can't decide on which movie to watch, so they overlap five projectors playing different movies onto one screen. 

I've come up with some interesting metaphors to describe D&D 5e before, but I'm really proud of that one.

D&D needs to be something specific. It really does. Why? Because you're not interested everything. You have specific tastes. One of my biggest complaints with 5e is that managing expectations is a massive problem. It's a massively understated problem. Unfulfilled expectations are massively disappointing. I will write ten more essays on this subject specifically before I die. Watch.

No one wants to wake up one morning and realize they've committed to a game and a group they have nothing in common with.

The Likely Cause of a (Supposed) DM Shortage?

It's DM burnout. DM's report exhaustion, prep burden, rules or systems burden, conflicts of expectations, conflicts with personalities, lack of authority, lack of tools, or lack of system clarity.

One of the problems is the asymmetry inherent to the game; one person does all the work, the other four do none.

Every player should take a turn being a DM and they should run their own campaign. This teaches them appreciation for the role. It will enrich them and by extension everyone. Here's a hot take: if you've never run your own campaign, the feedback that you can provide to your DM or fellow players will never be as valued as someone who has. Note that I didn't say valuable, I said valued. If you haven't done it yourself, you don't actually know what it's like and so your opinion hasn't been informed by experience.

DMing is a rite of passage. Every player should be expected to take a turn and DM. No exceptions. Players are consumers. GMs are producers. Being a producer makes you a better consumer. As a thought experiment, I want you to imagine two gaming groups. Both groups are seasoned at TTRPGs. In group one, you have one forever DM and players who have never DMed. In group two, everyone has DMed a campaign. Which group do you want to be a part of? You would rather be in group two because everyone has been a leader, teacher, and a creator. This means some maturation.

Yes, I am suggesting is that players who haven't crossed the DMing threshold are contributing to DM burnout. For anyone keeping score, this is not WotC's fault.

Here's What This All Means

D&D 5e is not for beginner DMs and that's why there could be a shortage. D&D 5e is a mess. It's one hundred games in one. Every game has a hundred variations. There are too many different kinds of players with different tastes, and D&D 5e is trying to appeal to all of them at once. Finding the iteration of D&D 5e that works for you takes trial and error. Now imagine one core rule book set that tries to make that work for groups of five, hundreds and hundreds of times. Now combine that with the task of learning leadership / managerial skills you might not have, and the struggles of having your creative labor scrutinized by people who might not appreciate it on a weekly basis.

Your mission double-oh Joe, average Joe, regular Joe, is to make it work.

Good expletive luck!

Actual Data?!

We have data that shows that the average D&D campaign lasts 6 sessions:

https://www.myarchivist.ai/ai-dungeon-master/how-long-do-dnd-campaigns-last.
What can we infer from this data? I think that the most generous interpretation is that TTRPGs are hard. If you get into D&D or any TTRPG, temper your expectations.

Here's Why This Matters

If there is a DM shortage, it's important to confirm it and then it's important to identify the causes. Naming the monster is the first step to slaying it. We want more DMs. We want this hobby to grow. DMs grow the hobby, not players. We need to take care of the DMs.

Here's What Should Change

If I were in charge of WotC, here's what I would do. I would release D&D 5e Basic. Once upon a time, there was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons which was crunchy and full of tables and all kinds of crap. Then there was the Dungeons & Dragons Basic. I'm bringing it back because less is more.

D&D Basic was the essence of D&D. It was the good stuff without all the mess, the bloat, and the complications.

D&D 5e Basic would not be a starter set. It would be its own product line. It would be fully supported, and published side-by-side with D&D 5e. D&D 5e Basic will have fewer and simpler classes, fewer and simpler fantasy races, fewer spells, fewer magic items, fewer, simpler rules. I'm cutting the crap and I'm giving you what is recognizably D&D 5e, but I'm curating it. I'm giving you to the essence of it. The best of it. It's going to have a more refined tone and genre. It's going to have a narrower scope. It's going to have a setting that's grounded, so you understand what works and what doesn't. I'm restricting alignment to enforce group cohesion. Combat is going to be simpler and faster. Exploration is going to be clear. Social Interaction is going to clear. It's going to logically led to only a few styles of play.

When you look at D&D 5e Basic, you're going to be filled with a sense of wonder, but you're going to know what kind of game this is and you're going to know what kind of game it isn't. And so will the players.

It's going to easy to learn, to run, and to play. It's going to be fun to prep and run.

Conclusion

I want to reiterate my introduction. The DM shortage is anecdotal. We need more data. I think GMing for 5e is a son of a gun, and WotC continues to support players, but not GMs. All of these things contribute to GMing for 5e feeling like hard work rather than a fun, creative pursuit. GMing 5e was the most frustrating and least fulfilling experience in TTRPGs I've had. Make no mistake, the frustration comes from 5e in particular. Other games were smoother.

For more commentary on Managing Expectations, see these posts here:

Managing Expectations in TTRPGs - GM Expectations Framework

Managing Expectations in TTRPGs - Discussing What We Do and Don't Like

Related DM tool: D&D 5e Runs on DM Judgment: A Guide to Adjudication

Game Design Sins - Character-Skill over Player-Skill

Skill Challenges - A Rant

D&D 4e had this concept called the Skill Challenge. What's a Skill Challenge? OK, so imagine you are playing D&D. You and your fellow players are fleeing from a monster. You're probably thinking "chase scenes are tricky. How is the GM going to handle this?" Then, your GM speaks. *Imitates Kermit the Frog voice* "OK guys. We're doing a Skill Challenge."

He explains that you have to look at the skill list on your character sheet and you have to choose a skill, any skill, and think of a way to use it in the context that's being presented to you.

Player, looking and sounding confident: "OK cool. I use stealth to hide."

GM: "Roll."

Player: "I got a natural 30 or whatever. Yay! We did it!"

Then the GM describes how you use your stealth skill to hide successfully, then says "but you still have to pass two more skill rolls."

Player, looking and sounding confused: "Eh, what? But I passed the skill roll. You narrated that we hid. I don't understand."

GM: "It's called a Skill Challenge, that means you have to get X successes, and you have to avoid getting X failures."

Player: *Makes angry face*. "What?"

So, the first problem is that it's arbitrary. It's a mini game / sub-system with arbitrary point scoring in D&D! How bizarre, right? Here comes the second problem.

Player: "OK, so I just do stealth again."

GM: "Nope. You can only use one skill per skill challenge."

Player: "What! Why?! That makes no sense!"

GM: *Sticks finger in belly button and sniffs it*. "You pleb. You don't understand anything."

Other Player: "OK, I roll stealth then."

GM: "No, sorry, let me clarify: a skill can only be used once per skill challenge."

Other Player: *Makes angry face*. "What sense does that make? What else do we do to run away in a chase scene?"

That's the second problem. Arbitrary limitations. I'm sure there's a design reason for why skills can't be repeated, but I think it conflicts with the logic of a narrative. Why wouldn't I just hide, then run and hide again? Like, I don't know what the skill challenge is trying to describe within the logic of the fiction. You can't hide twice? Have you ever played hide and go seek before? I'm genuinely confused and frustrated.

Player: "OK, so what do we do?"

GM: "Try History."

Player: *Cocks pistol*. "What! How do I use history to escape during a chase!"

GM: "That's for you to come up with. You're the adventurer."

Player thinks: "I use history to remember if there are better hiding places. Then we hide there."

GM: *Shrugs*. "OK, roll."

And so that's the third part about this system that doesn't make any sense to me. You have to make very creative applications of game mechanics. Some of these you probably have to stretch. And uh, I can imagine that if you did your nineteenth skill challenge, all these stretched interpretations of skills would be familiar, and you wouldn't really struggle to work them out. You've justified nonsense enough already that you could just do it again. You would just describe how you use a skill, roll, and count points. It's very, very contrived.

I've never seen the designers who designed this mode of play comment about it. I think they were sitting around one day thinking up a reason to make skills be used more. This is it. This is what they came up with, and it makes me think that maybe skills aren't important anyway.

It turns a narrative scene into a series of pass/fail die rolls. It forces player creativity through a hoop or a strainer instead of letting players work out a solution naturally, which would be describing a plan and then the GM adjudicates. Therefore, this is a contrived mode of play. You've taken the very simple game-play loop and you've turned it into this weird thing.

Finally, that number of successes vs failures is arbitrary. Harder skill challenges mean you have to succeed 9 times and avoid 3 failures. Ugh. That means the possibly of 11 of these at once?

So, in summary: it's character-skill over player-skill, it's contrived, and it's arbitrary. It takes away the normal gameplay loop and imposes this new thing that's very not D&D.

I want the GM to present a problem. Then I want to come up with my solution. I don't want to be forced to come up with an arbitrary number of solutions and then outsource the results to the dice. Rolling the dice means there's a chance to fail. Rolling dice and failing isn't fun. I think if I come up with a good plan that works within the logic of the setting and the fiction, the consequences should be based on the merit of the plan, or whether or not it's just a functional solution.

I could sit here and roll a die ten times, adding a bonus from a random skill ten times, and ask a table to justify each use of the skill for me. I could do that in like 2 minutes. You've taken a game about creativity and roleplaying, and you've gamified it into a random outcome generator that gets loosely justified proactively. That's weird guys. It's not playing. That is not play. That isn't play.

It sucks and I forbid it.

For something opposite of a skill challenge, I wrote a soft-skills system supplement for Open 2d6. It's more player-skill over character-skill.

Related: Player Skill vs Character Skill - Managing Expectations is a post about the difference between two different kinds of playstyles.