The second pillar of my tabletop role playing games
Interaction
Introduction
When I first started reading the Dungeon Masters Guide by Wizards of the Coast in 2018, I pressed a finger on the glossy pages around the three pillars.
"Pillars, eh? This seems important."
I structured my gameplay around these pillars, aiming to achieve the perfect balance between the three - exploration, social interaction and combat.
With a little time and seasoning, I developed my own understanding of these pillars and added a fourth for round out what I considered role playing.
In fact, the entire game, from the moment we start to the finish is role playing, the agreed upon space in which we collaborate to assign value to our imagination.
Because, no I'm not really carrying around 10 torches in my backpack. From the moment our story continues, it is all role play.
So, to help me and my players understand the point of the role play, I divided them up into categories or pillars to help the game have that wonderful feeling of purpose. They are exploration, interaction, combat and drama. I hope you may see my logic, methods and how each pillar differs from the other to serve the game's overall purpose.
Artwork © 2015 Dean Spencer, used with permission. All rights reserved.
Interaction
Introduce problems, so the players may find the solution.
Interaction is the part of the game when the game master creates a problem within a scenario and clues the players on how to solve it. Most often this is done through puzzles in the game, like traditional conundrums inside the lost tomb of an ancient king. However, an interaction can be any kind of encounter that has a solution to a problem.
In my previous post on Exploration I explained how some encounters are pure improvisation where the game master and players build the world together. Interaction is different in that it honors the game master’s plans. While the players still retain the right on HOW they interact with the problem, there is only 1 solution and that becomes the answer to the puzzle.
Interaction encounters come in many forms, such as solving a riddle in a tomb, discovering the secret of a peasant, learning the language of a goblin, or figuring out the ingredients to a potion. Interactions are everywhere, presenting as problems for the players to solve. When I do interactions, I am not improvising. Instead, I’m laying the clues out for the players to find. It is simple to do this if you remember Lock and Key.
Lock and Key Method
In order for interaction encounters to play out well, I need to provide 2 things in the game - a lock and a key. Intuitively, everyone knows that if you find a key there must be a lock and if you find a lock, there is always a key.
Interactions present to the players either a lock or a key and the fun of the game is then figuring out which goes where and how it all connects. This can be done with anything or anyone in the story.
The characters enter a catacomb. The poet notices the scratches upon the wall and recognizes it as language. Then he notices the words are jumbled into a strange order. The players decides they want to solve it. A few dice rolls later and the party discovers the order of the riddle is to the tune of a popular song. Interesting! The game master has placed either a lock or key to the players.
Later on in the adventure, the game master has placed that popular song playing in the background of the villain’s hideout. With some clever thinking and clutch dice rolls, the characters figure out the song playing in the background powers up the station and the scratches on the wall was someone’s attempt to memorize the sequence.
Unlike exploration, I already have the solution prepared. This lock and key method also works with the players helping an old woman across the street only to have her later show them a secret escape.
The fun part is figuring out which keys go with which locks. These interaction encounters appeal to the mystery of the adventure, and the part of our brain that enjoys satisfying solutions to puzzles.
Exploration helps us broaden what we think of as possible in the game, appealing to our desire for discovery. Interaction helps us solve the problems of the game, appealing to our desire for answers.
I hope you enjoyed this post and look forward to reading about the next pillars - combat and drama!