The Mechanics of Storytelling: Writing for TTRPGs w/ Greg Wunderling

Storytelling and world-building in TTRPGs, video-games, and books (especially fantasy and science) have a lot in common... but also enough difference to be a completely different experience for writers and readers/players alike. Join me in this episode as I chat with game master and writer Gregory Wunderling about key differences between both mediums.

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Website: https://www.gregorywunderlin.com/

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to Books Undone. I'm your host, Livia J. Elliot, and today

(00:15):
we have a meta guest talk. Instead of covering a particular book, we are going a bit beyond
to discuss storytelling in games, tabletops or video games versus storytelling in books.
Let me introduce you to my guest today, dungeon master and author, Gregory Wunderling. Greg,
thank you so much for being here.

(00:36):
Hi everybody, I'm Gregory Wunderling, as explained. I'm an author, a TTRPG game designer and
professional dungeon master, which sounds really cool, but it's not that glamorous.
So before we start, let me do the usual disclaimers. Since we are a bit meta today, we may mention
other games. TTRPG is RPGs and video games, but we will try to keep those spoiler light

(00:59):
or spoiler free as much as possible. Also, we will also be a spoiler light regarding
Greg's books. We may mention them, but we will try not to spoil anything. After that,
please know that what you will hear is our subjective experience and opinion of writing
both for games and books. Your experience as a writer, reader or player may be different

(01:23):
and that's fine. I know that you have written expansions, classes for D&D 5e like The Witch,
and you are also working on a D&D variant that we will touch in later. But when it comes
to plot development, for example, as in a campaign, what is the biggest difference you
have found between writing for games and books? I love this question because every time someone

(01:49):
asks it to me, I think my answer changes just ever so slightly because I actually get more
time to consider it. I never sit at my keyboard and I'm like, hmm, what is the difference
between these two? I actually have time to actually think about it and consider it for
a minute, which is really cool. The question, what's the difference between the different
elements? Well, obviously, in a game versus a novel, games have choices, novels do not.

(02:15):
Hard stop. But they are not that different. You just have to account for shenanigans in
games, right? Well, if it's an open game. In some games, you don't have to account for
it at all. You just go, well, these are your choices and they are all going to get you
to this one point no matter how cool they think they are. Mass effect. But you end up
having to adjust the plot. If you're trying to do it well, you adjust the plot in a game

(02:39):
to a character's decisions and let them create their own ending in that regard. I can definitely
speak for TTRPGs over video games in that you should always leave some kind of plot
development to your players rather than someone running or even writing a module. Because
the game isn't nearly as much fun when you actually get to input the overall story and

(03:01):
it doesn't care. You spend all your time playing these games and you're like, oh, man, I got
to make all these cool decisions. Then you get to the end and suddenly you're like, oh,
that didn't matter at all. That's cool. Whereas with a novel or any media where you don't
have any actual input, TV, movies, especially novels, you're there to be told a story. You're
sitting there, you're an audience, you're there to experience it and immerse yourself

(03:24):
in it. But you're just along for a ride that's already been decided for you. That major difference
is why the mediums are so separate and why games are so freaking popular, honestly. How
cool is that?
Yeah, that has happened as well to me when I'm writing interactive fiction. As a writer,
I no longer have 100% control and I have to give part of that control to the reader or

(03:46):
to the player. Also, it's at the same time the point of games. The way that the players
or the readers, whatever, can actually have some say into the story, to affect it and
change it and perhaps leave it somewhere that is not 100% what you were expecting.
Especially because you have to account for some kind of player agency. If you take it

(04:10):
away entirely, then you're not really making a game. You're making an interactive novel
at some point. There's exceptions. There are puzzle games where there is no real point
of... Your choices don't matter. You're solving a problem and you're getting to the end. It's
a collaborative effort. Even in that regard, puzzles and games differ. It's a puzzle. You're
just trying to get to the end of it. Whereas games, especially modern games, because I

(04:33):
think most every popular game is going to have some form of choice, whether it's God
of War where you're still being told this one linear cohesive story, but you still have
input on where you go in quests. You get to do what side content you want to do. Occasionally,
you get to be with a certain character and which you use to go on a certain path. There's
some kind of... It's like chipping in. You're putting yourself into that perspective. TTRBGs,

(04:58):
on the other hand, is all that. Half of TTRBGs is someone telling a story, but the other
half is the players and they're controlling the narrative. They're actually in charge.
Because as a dungeon master or a game master, we should really call it because Dungeon Master
is just for D&D, you set the situation up and they can choose not to interact with it.
You could be like, oh no, the princess has been casted. She can take care of herself.

(05:20):
She's a renowned warrior. I'm going to go over here and be a pirate. Then your game
master is like, oh shit, I didn't plan for that. You have a completely different experience
as opposed to anything, but that's the fun of the narrative. That's the whole point.
That's why you engage with the different medias is for those different experiences.
Since you mentioned God of War and Mass Effect before, I think one of the key differences

(05:42):
between D&D or role playing in general compared to role playing in video games is how organic
one can be compared to the other. When you are doing it live, probably to some extent,
you can afford more deviations. When you are doing or playing on a video game, in those
cases you are limited by what has been coded, which can be done elegantly in a way that

(06:07):
makes the player feel that they are actually choosing, that their agency is real and that
their actions are actually meaningful. But at the end of the day, they are just traversing
paths that have been previewed or foreseen by the developers or the writers. While perhaps
in TTRPGs, when you are doing it live, the story is also alive, changing while they are

(06:30):
playing.
Yeah, you know, it's funny about that. Let's take Baldur's Gate 3, which is probably the
best game of choices ever made. Probably sans a few very early experimental games, like
a mod or something, but whatever. Because everyone knows that's in error, right? If
you look at Baldur's Gate 3, the only actual chaotic choice in that game is if you die,

(06:52):
because the game never knows when that's going to happen. It always knows it can happen,
but it doesn't know it's going to happen. Whereas it always knows one of the endings
is going to occur when you get there. So you make certain decisions, and once you trigger
enough of the code, it goes, oh, yes, you have got this ending. Congratulations. You're
either a good person, you're a dick, or just kind of meh. But my favorite thing about that
is looking at deaths in that game. Because there are certain, and they are brilliant

(07:15):
in the fact that they actually plotted a couple of death endpoints. Or you can end the game
early by detonating something, which, spoiler. But looking at that, it's a really kind of
a cool path that is the really only agency choice you kind of have beyond selecting one
of the preselected paths is when you die. Because technically, death isn't ending, right?

(07:37):
Like you failed. That's the end of it. You're done. Like your characters are dead, but you
reload your game, or you get to restart, or whatever. But that is kind of like the only
thing in a video game that matches that TTRPG element, because it's completely random. Like
you can't predict that's going to happen. To a very lesser extent, you can say at one
point you will die. But yeah, take that and apply it to the entire TTRPG element, which

(08:01):
is why people love it so much. Because you can take, say, like Wizards of the Coast,
they're probably their most popular module is Curse of Strahd, where you're basically
fighting a Dracula adjacent vampire who is like your enemy and whatever. So you're playing
that and it has a very specific path that you follow. Eventually you fight Strahd and
there's some murder involved. Congratulations, you did it. But you can, at several points,

(08:22):
Strahd will show up and attempt to harass you, right? And let's just say that a player
gets lucky or they are smart and they kill him at the very beginning. And you're like,
oh, damn. Like that shouldn't happen. It really, if you're, you know, it won't happen, but
it can. And that's the fun thing. And how much fun is it to just end a campaign halfway
through because you just aced like a combat? Like that's the cool part of those narratives.

(08:43):
That's really fun.
The organic change and evolution of those campaigns is what makes them so amusing and
entertaining, right? But how do you deal with that on a live campaign as a game master?
Run a campaign. I've usually written it out, right? So I don't really off the cuff campaigns
much anymore. You have to, at a certain point, you have to have a little bit of improvisation

(09:07):
when you're running any, any TTRBGs because players are unpredictable. Cause they're people,
right? People are chaotic animals. But you, I always have everything mapped out. So the
way I treat it is I treat every single game that I run as an open, open map, right? Open
world. You can do whatever you want, but then I put incentives in some areas and then I
remove incentives from others. So if I introduce you into a desert campaign and there's just

(09:30):
all these locations on the map and you're like, wow, I want to go all the way over here.
Because then what I'll do is I'll say, Hey, like, you know that there's X event happening
in this place and you don't know that there's anything going on in these other places. And
if you ignore this event, it's not like it's going to just be there forever. It doesn't
wait for you. You know, things are going to happen. So if you choose to not go to that
event, you could end up going to this really cool place that you see and nothing's happening

(09:53):
there or you can't get in because you don't, you haven't done the things that allow you
to get into that. It's actually a campaign that I'm running right now that I'm mostly
done with where that's the exact situation. There's this really cool tower and it's got
a really cool name and you're like, Oh, that place is so awesome. And you're like, yeah,
but it's a month of desert travel away. And by the time you, if you go there before you're
supposed to, then you'll get there and there'll be a wall and you can't get by it. So like,

(10:16):
yeah, it's open world, but things aren't always happening in places you want to go. So it's
a good way to give the players the agency to do what they want, but also kind of like
put them down the path. So they actually experience the story that you're trying to tell them
or at least events you're trying to show them.
So that way you are still pretend they have a choice, but then lure them. So somewhere

(10:36):
else, I did that in one of my stories, like you can, the player can choose. And in that
particular case, going to a room is a bit contradictory to what the character is doing.
So you can choose it, but then the character will work a bit and say like, no, wait, what
am I doing this? Right. And then offer you again, another choice to make it more reasonable

(10:58):
or fit it within the story. In that case is different because in a game, in a video game,
they can only choose what you offer them. Right. But in a campaign, I'm imagining they
can choose anything.
Yeah. At the end of the day, you can just not do it and go be pirates. I mean, that's
the standard response. If you're not interested in what's happening. What I really, what I

(11:19):
like to do and my more expansive kind of stuff, especially one that I only running for a while
is I'll set up multiple paths that will actually take you to different places and open up different
events that still lead to a similar ending, but not the same. So that means that, okay,
you're on the world map, you're in your base or whatever, and you can go to X, Y, Z, whatever

(11:41):
place. And if you go to event Z, you actually aren't going to be able to go to X and Y because
they'll be done by the time you're done with Z, but Z opens up a whole other pathway in
a region that you would have gotten otherwise. So you actually do end up creating real choice,
right? Characters feel like they're like, oh damn, like if I were to replay this campaign
with the same DM, I could do a different choice at the beginning and I would have a completely

(12:04):
different game at that point. So that's preparing for every eventuality is a really good tactic
and it makes the game a lot more fun. It's significantly more work though, because you
have to do a crazy amount to get all that ready to go. But it's, it's what it would
bring people in. It's why those games just stuck around for so long. Cause there's nothing
that really beats that gamer feeling of having made a decision, seeing the consequences of

(12:29):
those actions and feeling like you've actually accomplished something. When I beat a video
game and like, oh cool, I did it. I got to the end. That's fun. But at the, you know,
you just played through whatever story that's been concocted for you. You didn't end up
actually end up creating it, which is that cool kind of sub point.
Yeah. And also because it's not just about the plot, right? It's not about only the players
having some say on the plot, but they also have or end up creating the characters, especially

(12:56):
during TTRPGs while in a video game, in some cases you do, you can create a character,
like for example, the Dragon Age series, but it's still framed within what you have, right?
You have the classes, but you still have a backstory and you should speak which one.
And in other cases, like Mass Effect, as you mentioned, you already have the entire thing

(13:17):
created for you, right? You can create a plate as Paragon or Renegade, but you are still
following the rules, right? It's limiting what that character is and how they can react
while in TTRPGs, the player can have a lot more influence in the characters that they
are playing.
Yeah. It's you bring up Dragon Age, like when you play Dragon Age, the first game, I think

(13:40):
is the best one just because of the amount of choices they give you. But at the end of
the day, yeah, right? It's definitely the best. Sorry, anyone who disagrees, but you're
wrong. But you're always either, you're the Grey Warden, in Dragon Age 2, you're Hawk,
and in Dragon Age 3, you're the Inquisitor. You are always that character, no matter what
you choose or what you look like or what your character does. And you always have one set

(14:02):
goal. How you get there might differ, but you're always going for that one goal. And
that's, in that regard, that, oh man, that's so similar to book narratives, right? Yeah,
you don't get to choose the characters, but they're all like on the path. They're all
who they are, and they all get to the ending. Whereas that's where the TTRPG always comes
alive. Where you can be whatever, man, I'm going to be Sam's Sist, the Bread Wizard,

(14:27):
and I'm going to cook the best bread in the kingdom and use that to slay the evil vampire.
How? I don't know, but it's eventually going to work. Who knows? So it doesn't, you have
complete control over everything that you do. Yeah, you still have to pay attention to the
system and whatever, but there are some games where they don't have that. So you can always
use your preferred brand of game, GURPS, shall we, which has a skill for everything. You

(14:52):
can make your Bread Wizard a true, true reality. At the end of the day, it's not, it's not
a one, it's better than the other, right? I think that the both systems or both of these
things that we are considering are useful to tell different stories. For example, and
I'm not sure if you played it, but Hellblade is an RPG, a video game in which you don't

(15:15):
create a character, you just follow Senua, which is the main character, and she's suffering
from psychosis. So everything she sees in the game and what you see there is meant to
show you how she sees the world, right? To make the player experience the world as Senua
sees it and the effects of her psychosis. So in that case, I don't see the lack of a

(15:38):
character creation as negative. It's just a different type of storytelling. In the other
case, when the players are perhaps creating their own characters, that can lead to a completely
different exploration to something that is more personal to the player, but perhaps more
within what they are comfortable doing or following or playing at all.

(16:00):
Well, I mean, first off to say, anyone who engages with any media, like no media is better
than the other, right? It's all about preference and opinion.
Yeah, and what that particular medium allows you to do as well.
Yeah, it's just what's your preference? Do you like watching TV shows? Do you prefer
movies? Do you go for books? Do you go for games? What kind of game do you like? Yeah,
so on and so forth. It's all opinion as far as that goes. And if you don't understand

(16:21):
that, then you need to go outside and touch some grass or something. That's kind of an
assumed part, right? You know that it's just a differing experience. I think with character
creation, it's funny too, because I'm actually currently playing God of War 2, and I usually
don't prefer games where the hero is designing created for me, most of the time because they
tend to be very specific archetypes, or they make really weird decisions or writers get

(16:45):
on like a weird tangent. And it's like, what are you doing? Like what is happening? Or
if I want to have a pre-designed story with a single hero, I go go read a book. That's
kind of my preference, right? But like I said, so I'm playing God of War
2, and the characters are all very interesting. They're all very well done. And I can follow
the story, but the stories can be so much more personal to that character, right? And

(17:07):
you get a lot deeper of an impact when they choose the character for you and design the
game around that, right? Because God of War 2 is like, oh, you're Kratos. It follows Kratos
a very specific story. You get access to his history. You know what's going on. You get
his very in-depth emotional responses, some great voice acting, so on and so forth. And
it really draws you into that part of the story, and it feels like a mythic epic. Now,
if I had created my own character in this, it would not have the same impact, and the

(17:32):
emotional scenes wouldn't play as well because I don't have all of that background.
Now, I would feel, I think personally for me, I'd feel more satisfied with my decisions
in the story because I feel like they'd be coming from my own creation, but it's not
that kind of game. If I want that kind of game, I'm going to play Pillars of Eternity
2, which is all about what your decisions are, is what your character ends up being

(17:54):
and what they do. You can actually be a pirate. You can be a private to your sailor. You can
actually help the natives or crush the natives, whatever, sorry. You can do all these different
things in that game, and it's very personal to the player rather than personal to the
story. So that's like a good little differentiation there between that.
Yeah, it's engagement, right? Like the interactivity and the influence they have in the story changes

(18:18):
the engagement. As you said, it makes it more personal. It's not a random character. It's
your own character, right? It's the one that you created that you put up. Exactly.
It's you. It's what your avatar looks like. That's why I love those games. I'm a writer,
duh. So I like to create characters within that narrative. I never play myself as a character.
I think that's whatever. So I'll make my own character and then play them in that game.

(18:43):
And like, oh, cool. I get to be part of the writing process of this. That's fun for me,
right? I think that's a really good time.
Yeah, definitely. And talking about characters, something that I think it's a bit different
between games in general, video games or TTRPGs and books are the secondary characters. If
you are a writer and you want the reader to know about a particular secondary character,

(19:07):
you will make room for it, right? You will make room for it on the story. You will, I
don't know, plan a scene and that scene will have that information on the background on
that secondary character, which at the end of the day helps readers see the secondary
characters or even the others as more rounded up because you are forced to read through

(19:29):
their stories. However, in a game, you may have an ambitious story for a secondary character
and the player or reader, whatever you want to call them, they may decide not to talk
to that character at all, right? And that changes the information they have and the
perception they have about the characters. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So to put that

(19:50):
in perspective or just to reinforce that, I'm going to bring up Pillars of Eternity
2 again because Obsidian is an amazing design company and they should be more popular.
But anyway, when you look at that, they have all these secondary characters who are companions
and they have these in-depth backstories and plots and quests and you can just be like,
I don't like them. And they just spend the entire time. You can either just miss them
and not recruit them or they just will be on your boat showing the entire time. So you

(20:12):
can miss all of that content just because you're like, I don't care. Where as actual,
so like writing a book, so my book, The Soul of Chaos, plug, I did it. When you look at
that, I have a couple of secondary characters that I force perspectives on. And if you don't
get their perspectives, it changes the story, right? Like you have to read their chapters

(20:33):
otherwise you're missing a lot of stuff that's going to make sense. I mean, the first one
of the first chapters I do, it's like it's about a good third of the way through the
book where you end up getting this character whose name is Luce, even though it's spelled
like luck and that's just a fool everyone reading it. You get his perspective and he
is probably the singular most important character in the entire series, but you get very limited

(20:53):
points of his perspective and that's very intentional. But without him, without that
chapter of like forcing you to see it from what he's going through, his parts in the
future make no sense at all.
Yeah. And it's not only the character depth that is influencing it, it's also the plot
because those characters, as you said, may give you, I remember, I think I remember the

(21:13):
chapter from your book in particular, I'm trying hard not to spoil it. Without that
information it's like there is so many other things that don't make sense that it completely
changes the plot. In a book, it's less complex for the reader because they don't have to
make a choice. But if we go back to the concept of the interactivity, when you are playing,

(21:35):
if you miss that bit of information, what are you going to do? It may lead you into
a wrong path or some place where there is not enough events to happen.
Yeah, you need contingencies. That's the fun thing. So that's an especially important
to RPGs, right? That's huge with how I design modules and adventures and how I run them.
I will always have a billion secondary characters and I am always expecting players to either

(22:00):
ignore them, kill them or never encounter them in the first place. So what ends up happening
is I have to create this onslaught of contingency plans of what would happen. So what I end
up actually doing in that case is I go, okay, so you can actually find secret regions or
get different endings depending on the characters you interact to. So it kind of gives you like

(22:21):
if you do actually seek out the secondary character, interact with them and do the thing
that they want you to do or a quest or something related to them, you get rewarded for it.
So my players, specifically when I run games, they know to interact with the world around
them because if they don't, they're going to miss some cool stuff. And it's not like
it's going to, they're going to get a worse ending or they just will get different content

(22:43):
that might not be as, oh God, I'm trying to think of the word because again, it's not,
it's never less. I never give you an unsatisfying ending, but it's not as epic. The campaign
I'm running right now slash almost done writing, it's called Embers of Wrath and essentially
takes place in this huge desert environment. And there is very, very important part when
you're in the city, which is one of the main focal points. And if you speak to a certain

(23:05):
NPC who is an information broker and you get a quest of his, you do that quest and you
find like a secret area off of that quest, it opens up an entire section of the desert
that you don't get access to otherwise. And it's a very specific and you have to do things
in a very interesting way. And it leads to a much more epic engagement with the final
ending because you have access to resources you wouldn't normally have. So it's kind

(23:29):
of like rewarding you to explore the world and engage with the world you're at. And
it's all based off of a secondary character. So yeah, like it's a fun little, I guess kind
of an Easter egg version of forcing interaction as far as that goes. But again, contingencies
like what happens if they don't find that character? Well, they just get this plot instead
of this plot.
You might be think of Mass Effect again. In the first game, there is this small, I don't

(23:50):
know, super secondary quest in which you can go scan a bunch of useless mobs that are there
in the Citadel. And it turns out that if you do, you get a recording and that recording
will give you information that it's actually quite revealing after you play the second
game. It will give you a lot of information about the ending on the first game and things

(24:15):
that may happen on the second. And it's the secondary almost lost quest that is that nobody
does, right? But if you do, you get this understanding of the world and the functions and the players
in the air that otherwise you won't get as you said, simply because the player in that
case engaged with the world and not only with a particular character.

(24:38):
It almost does to a point, right? Because you're, you're forced to going to interact
with these characters or all this deterritor or whatever you want to call them, the side
characters, but you are trying to get them to interact with the world in a different
way, right? Either you're trying to see a different angle or you're trying to get them
to understand this part of the world or all these different things or perspectives or
whatever. So it's kind of the same thing. It just doesn't have the agency in it. You

(25:01):
know, it's that you're being, you're sitting there and you're being told a story. I mean,
how many stories have been created of spinoffs from secondary characters, right? Or characters
that people loved. You're like, oh man, there's a story there and you've explored that. So
I think it's, it's similar, very far removed as far as that goes, because again, the, the
actual person engaging with the media doesn't have to make a choice there, but still it's,

(25:24):
it's the same in its, in its intention, if not its execution.
Yeah. Now that you mentioned, I think it goes a bit beyond that as well. For example, not
long ago I read the fifth head of Cerberus by Jean Wolfe and that's a story that makes
you work for it. In some way you have to read it. Once you read it, you will have one plot,

(25:46):
but if you actually want to find more or comprehend everything that Wolfe put out, put up in that
story, you need to think of it, right? You need to start like going and looking for the
clues and try to solve the mystery and what happened. And there is quite a lot of mystery
there. The book itself, it doesn't give you the answer in that regard, right? It just

(26:06):
completes the plots that are there at face value. But again, you have an engagement of
a reader towards the book and towards the story that is because, simply because you
have to sit down and think of it, but it's not doing it quote unquote in character. So
it's not the character that you created that is doing that. It shows you, the reader, and

(26:27):
it's different. And in the same way we can extend it to any other story or world building
that has prompted a player or reader to think and try to find out the mysteries. Like for
example, the King Killer Chronicles, they have like so much information and clues, so
here and there. You can try to tie the dots and try to see what information is there and

(26:49):
predict what will happen. And that engagement happens, but it may happen after you are reading.
And it doesn't change the story. It just changes how you interact with it in a different way
compared to a player making a choice when they are playing the story and actually altering
the story as a consequence of that choice, of that investigation.

(27:13):
Oh yeah, absolutely. And unfortunately, I think in a lot of books and the way that people
engage with them these days and with the sheer amount of access that we have possible to
us, we can just sort through content without caring because we have so much available.
Is that we've lost as a whole, not everyone obviously, but as a large group of people,

(27:35):
we've lost the degree of media literacy that lets us dig deeper into plots, into books
especially or really deconstruct narratives. We just kind of go, oh, well, this is the
story that's being told, so that's the face value. My favorite meme is the really angry
kid asking his teacher or teacher trying to say, well, what did you, with this character,
oh, is it like Shakespeare or something? What does Shakespeare mean by the table is red

(27:58):
and the student is like, it just means it's red. And he goes back in time and finds Shakespeare
and he's like, it just means it's red. And that's such a naive perspective of media,
right? Because sometimes it's not just because the table is red. There is usually some kind
of deeper meaning when you're reading these books. Especially as authors, we do try to
do things like very deeper foreshadowing or we try to give you more information than we're

(28:22):
straight up telling you just because the characters are interacting with something doesn't mean
we haven't given you more than we think we have. And I think there's a lack of ability
to see that. And I don't know whether it's because some people don't pay attention when
they're reading, they just kind of skim as they go, or they don't have to because they
just have more to engage with as far as that goes, or if it's just a different attention

(28:45):
span. But I think there is a certain lack of that proficiency and really digging down
deep, which is actually why I really like your show, where you do take the time to deconstruct
and look into things and really spend. No, I love it. I really do. It's something that
has a deep analysis to it. And you get to really sit with the material and think about
and engage with it beyond just when you're initially interacting with it. I think that's

(29:09):
such an important thing that I think we've lost to a point. A show comes out, we binge
it and we're done with it. And then we move on. And then we move on to the next movie
or the next show or game. We do that with everything. But rarely, I think, do we take
the time to really sit and go, man, what did I learn from that? Was there more to this?
Like, did I miss it? Maybe I'm going to look at this again. It's something that we're lacking

(29:30):
that I think just adds to the experience so much. You don't need to consume everything.
You need to take the time consuming what you are already interacting with.
Completely. And I wanted to bring up your book. This time I'm going to do it. Because
you mixed, you have the regular chapters with the characters. And then you have these small
chapters in between that are short epistolary fragments or things like that, that explain

(29:55):
the world and the world building. They don't explain it. They are more like anecdotes or
things that will reveal a bit more of the world building, the magic system, secondary
characters, past events and so on. I found it very nice because it hints you at what
to look at, you know, at what to pay attention. And the same time you are getting this, oh,

(30:16):
there is so much more here. It's learning a way that is very enticing for the reader,
very compelling. And I wouldn't dare saying it is guided, but it hints enough to at least
spark curiosity. And I think that was very well done. So my question regarding that was,
was that inspired by anything or any of your experiences as a game master?

(30:42):
You know, kind of a little bit. Yeah. Because there's, I really hate massive lore drops.
I can't stand them. They drive me crazy when I'm reading a book or I'm playing a game and
suddenly I have to spend 20 minutes reading about one particular lore thing. Like, okay,
cool. But like, tell me the story and I'll get the lore. You know, like I'll figure it
out. Context is great. But yeah, so what it was inspired by was me just not liking lore

(31:03):
drops. And I'll be reading through a chapter. I didn't write the pre-chapter bumps until
after I'd written a chapter. And then I would go through it and be like, okay, what needs
a little bit more explanation here? Like, what is the focus of this chapter or something
that doesn't make any sense? Oh, okay, that. And I'll go into the beginning and I'll write
a little piece about it. One of my favorites is at the beginning of a certain chapter,

(31:27):
you have a note from Arcalis, who's the one of the main female POV. And she's writing
a note to her, the castle steward saying she needs more wine. And she's listing off the
wines that she wants because they mentioned a very specific brand of wine in that chap.
And it might not make any sense, but now that you've read that little note that she left
about ordering X amount of cases or whatever, you're like, oh, I have context. And it gives

(31:48):
you a little bit about the world. You know that there's this place called Veldinand that
has some really good cider. What does that mean? Nothing. You don't know anything about
that country at all until they don't, it doesn't even come in until much later in the series
where you even like understand what they are. But you do know that they have some really
great cider that Arcalis really loves and that it introduces it. It's not from left

(32:09):
field and it's like something that you're like, oh, this world is bigger than just what
I'm looking at here. Like these things exist. These are people here. And that whole thing
just kind of influences the rest of the story. Because later when I go, oh, this place, you're
like, oh, I remember that. They have the cool cider, or at least I hope that's what you
remember. And then it kind of expands. Yeah. And I think that once, when we talked before,

(32:30):
you had given me a very good name for it. Like we're building by context that while
you are reading, instead of having the info dumps, you just have situations that make
the reader or player be more familiar with the world.
Yeah. Yeah. If you pay attention to just about anything, you can really draw meaning from

(32:50):
context, right? Like if someone is speaking in a certain way and it's an initial greeting
and they use a term you've never heard before, pay attention. You're like, oh, I know that's
a greeting because that's what we're doing right now. And then from that, you can learn
that term without ever having to look it up or ask about it. You've just used the context
to identify it, right? And that's something I love to apply to, to design, to writing,

(33:12):
to storytelling, to narrative, everything. Everything that you can do, you can apply
context. I try to call it context narrative. But as far as that goes, yeah. So I use that
a lot and I'm a little, it's a little unfortunate because that's probably the biggest complaint
I probably get about the soul of chaos is that people end up getting lost, right? Is
that they're like, oh, I don't really understand what's happening. I don't know what happened
here. So I either gave up or I like, man, I didn't have the greatest experience with

(33:34):
it. But that's because I use that constantly. And you really, you really have to pay attention
when you're reading. You can't be distracted. Otherwise you'll miss the context of what's
currently going on. And that'll miss a world building a moment. And that might come back
to haunt you later. When you go, this doesn't make any sense. It's like, it does. It just
was earlier and you might've missed it. Sorry about it, but also not really that sorry.
It's a form of storytelling I really enjoy because it gets rid of the need to stop the

(34:00):
plot, the immersion, or to have an unnatural and unorganic conversations with human characters.
How many times does a character who should know something about what's a very basic thing
in the world, they stop and they turn to another character and go, huh, what's this? And they're
like, well, let me tell you about it. And you spend five minutes going on about something
that's like, okay, we all know this. It's common knowledge in this universe. So it sounds

(34:23):
really weird that you're going into it. And that avoids that, right? So when you have
that context, you're like, we can skip over that. The plot just moves. These characters
are very real. Hopefully the reader can jump onto it by understanding the situation.
Yeah. And that is something that may work on a video game, for example, or in a TTRPG.
I remember I called, I played an MMORPG once that if you found weird pieces of metal out

(34:48):
of there, you could bring it into a blacksmith and the blacksmith's NPC will tell you specific
details about that metal, a bit of the history and what it was used for. But it was very
repetitious, you know, because then you had to do the same with the herbalist and with
a bunch of others, right? But in that case, what took out a bit of the boredom was the

(35:10):
interactivity in a book. When you have that over and over and over, it feels wrong.
Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things, yeah, it's all good. All good. And one of the things
you can actually do with that, and especially in games, games are the best version of it,
because your character, whatever you're doing, if they know something, they can just do it.
And then you can explain it to the player in like a little bump or like a pause and

(35:33):
a little tutorial menu and goes, this is what you're doing. But your character already understands
it, right? So they're never going to explain it. They don't have to. They like they already
know how to swing their axe. They're never going to need to be explained how to swing
their axe. You just press A and the axe gets swung and the combo gets done or whatever
you're doing. So in that regard, you can do this, you can skip over the explanation because
we don't need it because we're humans. And we have the ability to reason. Like, well,

(35:57):
we'll figure it out. You don't need to tell us everything. We'll get there as long as
it's not super convoluted or intentionally obscure, then we will get there. Even if it's
not immediate, it's going to happen. It's also about adaptability of the person playing
or engaging with that, right? Like if they get enough of that, enough of that play style,
enough of the context, enough of the explanation, they're going to just kind of adapt to it

(36:20):
and be like, oh, I know I just need to wait in order to get the information that I'm looking
for. I don't really have to worry about finding it right in the moment. You know, I'll get
it eventually. And you can kind of train them in that regard if you do it well enough, I
suppose. Yeah. And you have so many games that actually reward you for finding bits
of the world building, for finding lore bits because you are so enthralled by getting the

(36:43):
actual letters or whatever the quest forces you to do. You actually have a reason to try
to find the world building, right? And those details while in a book, you just depend on
whatever the writer did. So both mediums have a thorough dependency on world building, especially
because we are comparing each book on fantasy and sci-fi or generally speculative fiction,

(37:05):
which requires more world building. However, it's done differently in one part, in one
side on the games. You can always make it interactive. You can always make it a quest
to have a reward or something else that compels the player to actually find the information.
Yeah, incentive, right? Because when you're reading the Soul of Chaos, and yeah, you get
those little like the chapter, the bumps you're reading about the lore or whatever, you can

(37:29):
just skip them because the only the reward quote unquote you get is understanding something
later in the chapter, or maybe you like the lore and you like to engage with that. They're
not, you know, all the same or equal as far as information that gives you. But if the
Soul of Chaos were a game, in that case, then they would be like every time you found one
of those little bits, they'd be a book or a letter or like an information exchange and
you'd get experience every time you looked at it. You'd be like, oh, I want to look for

(37:51):
those because I'll get my XP. Now that might not encourage you to actually read it because
you're just looking for a mechanical game. But you know, that is that again, it's very
similar in its regard. They're not entirely separate. They still give you some kind of
incentive where they explain something, but just the way that they're executed ends up
being just a little bit variable to the different media.

(38:12):
Completely. And once you said that you made me think of The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.
On that first book, you have a bunch of epigraph or something like that, a small quote or writing
at the start of every chapter. And it's written by somebody who you don't know. And they really
don't make sense. If you are reading them, reading it for the first time, it just doesn't

(38:36):
make sense. It seems anecdotical. But as soon as the story progresses, I'm trying hard not
to spoil here, you find out that one particular character is doing something. And on the final
revelation about what that character is doing, it ties up to all of those little notes being
notes of that experiment. So if you reread and go back and pay more attention to what

(39:00):
they were saying, you find out a lot about the world just by rereading those two lines
that you have in every chapter.
Okay. So if you're looking at those and you're reading them, you're like, oh, what's going
on here? And they're telling you a story, but they're telling you a story without context,
which is a really cool method of the reveal, right? It's like the mystery within that.

(39:21):
He's giving you a story within a story, but it's kind of separated on meta level because
it's a different genre. You're not in the fantasy genre with that story. You're actually
reading a mystery. And at the end, it gives you the huge reveal of like, oh, shit, this
matters. And then it starts linking and putting everything together. I think that's a really
cool way to do that. Personally, I'm a fan of that kind of storytelling. Now, it's funny
because if you look at the chapter bugs, again, in the soul of chaos, they do that, but on

(39:47):
a different scale because they can actually continue into books that are not out yet.
And you end up getting, if you follow them all the way along into these different books,
you're like, oh, damn, like this actually matters way more than I gave it credit for.
And it's this fun little reveal that you get, but one book can only be so long.
However, I think that this brings up another point in or another difference between books

(40:12):
and games, which are mechanics, the rules that determine how the player engage with
the game itself and what they can do within that game. At least when I, I originally wrote
only regular books and then I started writing interactive fiction and I realized how much
understanding the mechanics also changes what you can do with regular storytelling because

(40:36):
it gives you that perspective of always trying to foresee how the player or reader in my
case will interact with the game or the story. And then when I translate that to books, it
gives me a different perspective. Since I mentioned the mechanics, I know that you are
doing an entire variant of the D and D and probably mechanics are at the core of it as

(40:57):
well. What can you tell us about that?
Like, Oh, let's do this. Well, I do want to comment on the mechanics though. Mechanics
are, and this is something that I think the current incarnation of duds and dragons misses
immensely is the ability to tell a story and link a narrative to mechanics. Mechanics should
always inform narrative and narrative should always inform mechanics. They should be married.

(41:18):
They don't need to be separate in games and they shouldn't be. In fact, in games, video
games, especially you have this term called ludonarrative dissonance, which is when your
mechanics contradict the narrative, right? So they tell you, you should be able to do
something but there's no mechanic for it, which is very common in games that are not,
they don't have the best narrative team or writers behind them. I'm not going to name
anyone because I'm not that much of an asshole. But yeah, so, so yes, mechanics are incredibly

(41:40):
important in that game as this level to them. And I'll talk about my variant in a second
here. I think one of the best examples of that is survival or builder games, right?
Like, let's take a look at Manor Lords because that's popular right now where the entire
game is based off of the mechanics, the story and everything around it is only possible
because the mechanics exist and you form that story based on how you utilize the game itself.

(42:04):
So you actually end up creating the story by just playing the game, which is really
cool. So one of the things that I, so the game, the narrative, oh my God, the D&D variant,
which is, it's technically a fifth edition variant because we can't say D&D because then
you'll get sued. So that variant is, it's based off the fifth edition SRD, which is
that initial, the free rules essentially that anyone can use without getting sued. And it's

(42:26):
right now called LoRa, L-O-R-E, and it's an acronym for something. I'm not going to tell
you what, because reasons. That one, it kind of takes what you have of that fifth edition
rule set and it just expands it so much and really digs into it and pulls that narrative
out of those mechanics and kind of designs an interactive environment that's more set

(42:46):
to that style of play. Right now I have a lot, like the basic game is done. The only
thing I'm doing right now is just designing content because content's fun. And it's something
that fifth edition lacks a little bit is, is breadth of options. There's a ton of indie
and third party content that fills that void, but you know, the official system doesn't
have as much. And one of the things that I'm trying to do is solve that problem. So for

(43:07):
example, in fifth edition, if you play a druid and you're playing a wizard, the only difference
is how, what spells they have available and kind of how their powers manifest. Right?
So druids are basically wizards, but they can turn into beasts. There's some others,
other more nuanced differences, but that's essentially the core of the difference between
a druid and a wizard. And there's no mechanics that say otherwise. Whereas in this game,

(43:30):
so I'm making in lore, you have arcane magic and then you have primordial magic, which
is very similar to pathfinder, but very different in this regard. And if you're a primordial
spellcaster, you don't have access to spells that are arcane spellcasters. You have certain
powers that are based off of an element and there are currently nine different elements
and they each have 20 or so different powers and they actually evolve differently than

(43:54):
spells do. So they actually scale with you as you level. And they're much more focused
and they're not as versatile, but you end up getting this completely different play
experience if you play a druid versus a wizard, because you have an entirely different way
that you interact with the game. And then to bring that back to the mechanics and forming
narrative, those mechanics of the element that you choose or rather the elements that

(44:15):
you choose, the powers that you then have access to fulfills your character. So you
can be a traditional druid and say in this game, choose the animal element and the wood
element, which gives you power over nature and the ability to potentially change to an
animal. You're a traditional druid, but you're nothing like a wizard at all. You are completely
separate from them. Whereas if you play a wizard, you have access to your very traditional

(44:36):
spell list, your spell schools and all that kind of stuff. So they are in the same game,
in the same system, but they completely miss each other. And that ends up creating this
really cool narrative experience where you can have people in the same world, but they
are from completely different walks of life. And not only do you get to play a different
game in the same environment, but your characters have a reason to, to develop along a narrative.

(44:58):
And beyond the characters and the settings, are you also creating the world and what they
can do within the world beyond the character creation?
Yeah. So, so when you, when you create a TTRPG system, you essentially, at least the way
that I prefer to do it is that I create a setting neutral system is what it is. So it
doesn't matter what setting it's in. You can, you can put it in any system in any setting

(45:22):
rather, and then use that system to play in that game. So one of the things that I'm finding
is I'm designing this is that like, oh, you could play a warhammer game using these mechanics
and it would actually fit that based on which mechanics you choose to use. So yes and no
kind of to answer the question in more depth, because when you do create a game mechanics
like this, they will always tell you what you can do in the world, right? Because you

(45:44):
can't, if you're playing a TTRPG with a set of rules, those are the rules and that's how
you play the game. And that will dictate what is possible within the setting, but you can
be smart about it. And if you create an elegant enough system, you can pick and choose which
system, which you use, and that can actually inform your setting even more. So one of the
things I'm trying to do is every single mechanic has an optional or essential tag. And the

(46:07):
optional tags are basically, you can play this game without this entire mechanic and
it will not change the essential balance and it will change what your setting looks like.
So for instance, if you don't want to have magic in your game, then well, don't use the
casting system and that's it, you're done. You now have a low fantasy setting that you
can play and you can still use the system for it. And it doesn't completely like jack

(46:29):
your play style.
First, wow. Second, that is so much richer. Basically, it gives you so much control and
the ability to basically play whatever you want in completely different settings. The
games can be very different one from the other.
Yeah, right now I'm in the design phase. I'm going, okay, so I know how I would play this

(46:52):
as a fantasy game. Now, how would I play this as a Warhammer 40K game, which is space Gothic
weirdness, right? Which has a very specific style to it and has technology, but also swords
and all this kind of stuff. And I'm going, okay, can I play both games? Can I play a
traditional Forgotten Realms game? Can I play a traditional 40K game? And looking at that

(47:13):
and being like, okay, now how do I design this to do that? And what I'm able to say,
fortunately, is that yes, you can right now because luck, I think I just walked into a
design system that facilitates that. Yeah, it's really cool to be able to facilitate
those different settings using the same system and creating this kind of robust way to handle
it. Now, the problem is the amount of content you need to satisfy that, which is immense.

(47:37):
And one person creating that much content is maddening, but a lot of fun at the end
of the day.
And I honestly can't wait to actually see it or try it. I love games quite a lot, so
I honestly, I can't wait for that.
Yeah, absolutely. Once it's ready, I mean, it's basically all I post about on social
media these days. Once it's ready, I will be for sure looking for playtesters. So there's

(47:58):
a plug there to kind of like, and I intend to give out the entire rough draft for playtesting.
So I'm not going to do that thing where you can play it up to level 10. Like, no, I need
to know if it works. So you'll be able to like create everything using everything and
see if there's any kind of glaring stuff like that. But I'm really excited to show it. It's
very D&D, but also it's vastly its own system. It does a lot of really cool things that the

(48:23):
edition does not allow you to do. Because I'm a big fan of older systems like 3.5 and
Pathfinder 1E. A little bit less so AD&D, but I also have a healthy respect for those
design systems and all that. But yeah, it just gives you access to so much more. And
it actually ends up providing mechanics that help creativity. Rather than, some people
think that the more mechanics you have, the more stifled you are to do whatever you want.

(48:46):
But in some cases, and I think this is actually more common, but the more mechanics you have
access to, the more creative you can be. Because there's already something facilitating how
you do a thing. If your game master needs to stop in the middle of the game and create
a mechanic or try and figure out how something works, it can slow things down. And they can
also make a really bad decision. Because being a good game master does not make you a good

(49:08):
game designer. They're very different skills. So if you can go, wait a second, hold on,
there's a mechanic for this. Go into a book, look it up, and then alter it based on your
situation. That just actually helps you kind of create in your own style.
Yeah. And you can create a million different situations that are perfectly tuned in for
that specific game, right? That will then, in turn, I guess, allow for more organic development

(49:34):
for a greater player agency at the end of the day.
Yeah. Like in lore, all you have to do to do anything is you have your ability checks,
which is when you roll dice and something happens. But each type of ability check has
what's called a maneuver. And there is a maneuver for everything. Grabbing somebody, attacking
someone, disarming them, grappling, aiming at a very specific object, aiming at a body

(49:56):
part. So everything has a maneuver in a way that that maneuver is affected. And then if
you come across something that doesn't have a maneuver for it, all you have to do is take
the tags that exist, which are very specific, apply them to an action, and then all of a
sudden you can do it in the game. And the game facilitates that for you.
And so, for example, there is a specific skill in this game called reflex, and reflex is

(50:19):
entirely dictating your reflexes. Surprise. So if somebody, one of the things that fifth
edition is lacking, if someone falls off a cliff, there is no response to grabbing them,
right? You have a reaction, but reactions are very specific in how they do and what
they are and what they can be used for. So there's nothing that says other than the DM
going, yeah, you can use your reaction to try and grab them. But that's not technically

(50:41):
in the system. So what this system does is it goes, yeah, you have the skill reflexes
trained. You can legitimately try to, if someone falls off the rope that they're climbing,
you can roll that skill to grab them. And it's a very specific reaction in the system
that you can, and that exists for you. So whatever situation you come across, it tries
to have something already in play for that. And then again, if there isn't something there,

(51:05):
it's very easy to make your own maneuver and then deal with it that way.
As I said before, I honestly can't wait to play it and test it. So I have another question
for you. Since we touched both books and games and how different it is to write for each
of them, have you found something that you can do or love to do in campaigns, but you

(51:26):
can't do that in regular books?
In a TTRBG specifically, you can put someone or a group of people more specifically in
moral compromises. I love me some moral compromises. So I very specifically, I talked about Embers
of Wrath before, and there is a moment in that campaign where you are faced with a very
interesting decision. And it's mostly you get one of a certain thing and there is a

(51:51):
literal goddess standing in front of you that is preventing you from getting more of that
certain thing. So you can't really get it and she's offering you one of X. You can't
trick her or you can't do any because she's just this very powerful entity that's like,
hey, you get the thing. Every time I've run that, it has created a situation where a party
of people between four to seven people will sit there and argue with each other for an

(52:15):
hour. They'll just sit there and they'll go, but oh, but this and they'll be like, no,
but this and then they'll get into fights. You know, it could actually lead to real interconflict
among these group of people who've been playing this game and like vibing for so long. That's
something you can't do with a book in the moment. Now you can have people have different
arguments over explanations or things that the book tells you, but it's very specific

(52:37):
to TTRPGs. These conflicting motivations that allow people to explore their characters as
story in a way of social conflict, which is just cool.
I think that those parts also allow for a lot of introspection for the players. I have
played Mass Effect, the first trilogy for like so much, I think 300 hours or more on

(53:01):
each game. And I always play it as Paragon. However, there are two choices. I have to
choose Renegade. It's like in those specific cases, not going to spoil, but whatever happened
is more than my moral compass can support. I just have to go Renegade on those. And

(53:21):
I think it's a fun way to find out more about myself, why I always end up choosing that.
But it also, when you are playing with other people, or when it is a TTRPG and you have
a group there, it also allows for a lot of character development, right? Because those
discussions that you mentioned, they had to be done in character, right? And that allows

(53:47):
the player as well to find out more about the character they created.
Absolutely, yeah. And you do end up discovering more about yourself and you go, oh, wow, I'm
way less greedy than I thought I was, or wow, I'm way greedier than I thought I was, as
far as certain things go, or are concerned, or wow, I'm way more willing to compromise
than I thought. Because you are always playing a character, that's for sure. And you should

(54:08):
always approach a game, especially a TTRPG, as a character rather than you, because it
will be so much more fun and you won't mind as much when you lose, when you roll low or
something. It's just a lot better way to play. But you still always impart a piece of yourself
onto every character. You can't not. It's still you at the end of the day. And that's
how you end up wanting to play, even if you're playing someone vastly different from who

(54:32):
you are. So it does allow you to open up these aspects of your personality.
As you said, at the end of the day, the person's biases end up filtering a bit towards the
character.
Absolutely. Even when I'm playing an evil character, there's still a little bit how
I see evil, right? Rather than just a generic evil, because I can only play from my own
perspective, even if it's a different character. I still have to play a form of my own understanding.

(54:58):
It's time to call it a day. Writing and storytelling are such complex yet flexible endeavors. And
I honestly love chatting a bit more about the different mediums. So if you are listening
to this, let me know if you like more meta talks like this, because I'm definitely keen
on doing them. Feel free to like and subscribe and leave a comment. I always try to answer.

(55:21):
So that said, Greg, thank you so much for joining me today. This was such a fascinating
discussion.
Yeah, I hope it was. So yeah, everybody, thanks for listening to me ramble about random crap.
Again, my name is Gregory Wonderland. I am an author, TTRPG designer, and a professional
dungeon master. If you are interested in doing or participating in any of my content, you

(55:44):
can always find it on my website at just my name, Gregory Wonderland at.com. It'll take
you right to it, which has access to my one release novel, which is the big debut novel
The Soul of Chaos about a whole bunch of dark fantasy things. You can find all of my short
stories and fiction there as well, which is a whole bunch of stuff. And it's all free

(56:04):
as far as that goes. If you want a few weird side stories, I have a fair bit of TTRPG content
specifically for Dungeons and Dragons, fifth edition, which you can find on that same website,
several classes for fifth edition, and of course, completely redone character creation
and crafting and minions, a whole lot of ways to make your game a lot more fun. You can
find the book on Amazon Barnes and Noble. And of course, you can find that TTRPG content

(56:28):
on the DMs Guild, which is full of good stuff. And then lastly, lore is hopefully maybe possibly
coming out sometime this year. I am working on it furiously. So keep an eye on it. If
you would like updates for that, you can always check me out on Twitter, which is where I
spam people @gwritespretty or just type in my name author. It might show up among the

(56:50):
other amazing authors. But yeah, you could definitely find and follow me there, at which
point you can always haunt my discord and get development updates as I go.
Perfect. Thank you so much for sharing. And if you are listening, you will find all the
links that Greg mentioned in the description of this episode. Also, if you want more bookish
discussions, bite size, deep dives, and speedy prose analyses, subscribe to my newsletter.

(57:15):
The link will be in the description. Thanks for listening and happy reading.