Establishing canonical ambiguity...

[Grinner]

I had an idea for a setting the other day.

In its most basic presentation, it's a modern day kitchen sink in the vein of the Illuminatus! trilogy or Over The Edge. Players should be able to visit Cthulhu's crypt, the submarine city Ry'leh. Alternatively, they could explore the lost continent of Mu during their trans-Atlantic flight's layover. Those of the right mindset could perhaps phase into the fourth dimension, or they could choose to wreak havoc in Flatland.

There is one thing I want to do, and that is what I need help with. Everyone's favorite game designer, Monte Cook, once wrote a book titled "The Skeptic's Guide to Conspiracies", and he did a wonderful job. See, the book is about conspiracies, but Monte avoids pushing any sort of truth. He lays out just facts and common interpretations; he gives little to no opinion.

I want to do something similar. In a world writhing in possible conspiracy, I want players to be able to determine what's true and what's false for themselves. To that end, I want to establish canonical ambiguity. I want things that could be real, but equally well could not. I want the players to decide how far down the rabbithole things go.

What I can't figure out is the best way to go about doing this...Establishing conflicting information could work....or it could just frustrate players. I don't want to sound bland, but I do want just to hint strongly at certain things...Describing facts so that they lead to a certain line of reasoning might work...?

What do you all think? Am I overthinking this? Am I underthinking it? Am I really thinking at all?

[Rhynn]

Information comes from other people (whether directly or indirectly). Sometimes those people turn out to be wrong.* Mostly there's no way to determine if they're right. Every physical or direct observation either leaves no evidence behind (i.e. it could have been a hallucination) or has multiple possible explanations based on what the players have learned so far.

* This part should be established early on and then reinforced repeatedly: make it clear that what NPCs tell the PCs is sometimes, or often, incorrect. But not 100% of the time; try 50% or so. The first thing of significance they're told appears to be borne out by evidence; the next two things don't; and thereafter it's an ambiguous mix.

If this frustrates your players, they're not going to enjoy the concept anyway, so give up and try later with other players.

[HammeredWharf]

The success of such campaigns depends on how much attention your players are paying. If they are paying attention, they shouldn't be confused by NPCs being wrong. On the other hand, if they're mostly focused on killing stuff, they'll rush in the first tentacle monster cave they hear about, act really surprised when it turns out to be an empty cave and spend three hours trying to find the secret door that doesn't even exist.

If your players tend not to pay attention to dialogue, you could "punish" them mildy by using that as a plot hook. They could get in trouble by following the wrong lead and something nasty enough to motivate them but not nasty enough to demotivate them could happen. On the other hand, if they're not interested in a mystery-like campaign, maybe you should reconsider your setting. Some people play RPGs to kill stuff and there's nothing wrong with that.

[Khedrac]

Canonical ambiguity can work very well. The world of Glorantha (RuneQuest etc.) is intentionally rife with it.

Personally I would say "go for it".

[Rhynn]

Canonical ambiguity can work very well. The world of Glorantha (RuneQuest etc.) is intentionally rife with it.

Glorantha is a bit of a special case, because it has a such a strong relationship between subjective metaphysical reality and objective physical reality... and all metaphysical beliefs are simultaneously true, even the ones that contradict each other, but metaphysical reality can also directly manifest in the physical world (e.g. when Orlanth the Storm King is "killed" in Dragon Pass by the fall of the last bastion of resistance, Dragon Pass is actually plunged into permanent winter and each Heortling individually suffers specific effects; but this almost certainly has no effect on the Orlanthi of Ralios, for instance, and no other part of the world is plunged into permanent winter, because the people living in those parts have their own myths about how winter ends).

Might be a good reference, although it does take things to extremes. There's a difference of degree between "you can't know which is true" and "it's all true at the same time."

[veti]

You must know one or more people who believe in conspiracies, and others who don't. Typically, they all seem comparably reasonable and level-headed, but get them on their hobby horse - whatever it is - and one side will point to, basically, everything as being evidence for their favoured conspiracy, and the other will say the opposite. And in most cases, they'll remain perfectly calm and matter-of-fact when discussing it.

So with your PCs. They need to have lots of conversations with lots of NPCs, of differing beliefs. Each NPC points to slightly different sub-sets of the "known facts" (or might even have a slightly different set of "facts", which the other side wouldn't acknowledge at all.) Some of them (on all sides, including the determinedly anti-conspiracy minded) may get quite passionate about their interpretation.

If your setting is so modern that it includes Google, then you don't even need the conversations - you can flat out tell them that a simple Google search brings up all kinds of contradictory information. (For example, try two searches now: one for "9/11 facts", one for "9/11 truth". That should give you all the inspiration you need.)

[Fabletop]

4 Big Questions:

What is your setting about?
how does it do this?
How does your setting encourage/reward this?
How do you make this fun?

(J. Sorenson & J. Wick)

The questions were meant for TRPG game design, but I found them applying to all aspects of campaign design also.

[Grinner]

Information comes from other people (whether directly or indirectly). Sometimes those people turn out to be wrong.* Mostly there's no way to determine if they're right. Every physical or direct observation either leaves no evidence behind (i.e. it could have been a hallucination) or has multiple possible explanations based on what the players have learned so far.


The success of such campaigns depends on how much attention your players are paying. If they are paying attention, they shouldn't be confused by NPCs being wrong. On the other hand, if they're mostly focused on killing stuff, they'll rush in the first tentacle monster cave they hear about, act really surprised when it turns out to be an empty cave and spend three hours trying to find the secret door that doesn't even exist.

After thinking this through, I don't think lying is an option. By lying, I would have to determine what is and what is not truthful, and I really want the players to have a hand in that determination.


Might be a good reference, although it does take things to extremes. There's a difference of degree between "you can't know which is true" and "it's all true at the same time."

It's interesting that you should mention that, as DriveThruRPG has a number of RuneQuest supplements (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse.php?cPath=8230) on sale. It looks like they've phased out a few items, but would you make any recommendations from what remains?


So with your PCs. They need to have lots of conversations with lots of NPCs, of differing beliefs. Each NPC points to slightly different sub-sets of the "known facts" (or might even have a slightly different set of "facts", which the other side wouldn't acknowledge at all.) Some of them (on all sides, including the determinedly anti-conspiracy minded) may get quite passionate about their interpretation.

That's a very clever method. Thanks. :smallsmile:

[Rhynn]

It's interesting that you should mention that, as DriveThruRPG has a number of RuneQuest supplements (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse.php?cPath=8230) on sale. It looks like they've phased out a few items, but would you make any recommendations from what remains?

The problem with Glorantha is that it's deep. Really deep. Really, really deep. And the depth goes way beyond the supplements.

I recommend HeroQuest materials (especially the supplements Storm Tribe and Thunder Rebels), plus the computer game King of Dragon Pass and the novel King of Sartar, plus reading stuff online on RQ enthusiasts' websites (Simon Phipp, Nick Brooke, etc.). Moon Design (http://www.glorantha.com/glorantha/) stuff is a good idea, too; anything by Greg Stafford is original, and the whole "simultaneously true contradictions" thing is all him, basically.

From that DriveThruRPG page, though, I recommend Dragonewts, Dwarfs: Guide to the Mostali. The other two Glorantha products (Pavis Stirs and Dara Happa Rises) are adventures, and IMO Mongoose's* RQ adventures were very poor; their supplements, though, were excellent (the Aldryami/Elf supplement, for instance, was written by a guy who had been writing about Gloranthan elves for years and years in fanzines etc.).

* The Design Mechanism now holds the rights and has put out RQ6, but Mongoose was putting out RQ material for years before TDM got the license. TDM doesn't have Glorantha rights, though, AFAIK; Mongoose did, but only for the Second Age (originally RQ and HeroQuest were in the Third Age). Moon Design is the only company producing Glorantha material now, AFAIK.

[Zaydos]

One thing is give them multiple stories to explain things. Have each source tell a different rumor, and have the best sources be the ones that tell multiple rumors.

That said I'm guessing you'd already have that insight since it's something I picked up reading Monte Cook's Planescape books.