When the table walks away from your dungeon

Hey y’all,

Welcome to Volume 4, and welcome back to the workshop.

Here’s a thing that has happened to every one of us. You spend your week on a dungeon. You draw the map, you stat the boss, you come up with a cool mechanic, and you write real handwriting on a scrap of paper so it reads like a found letter. Then the table sits down, and the very first thing anybody does is walk up to the innkeeper and start asking about her missing brother.

There is no missing brother. There is no innkeeper, not really. There is a name you never planned and made up when they asked you. So, like any good GM, you stall. You say she looks busy, have her wipe down a mug, and scramble for something. Everybody at the table can feel the air go out of the room, because they know that look, and the look means you’ve got nothing.

Here’s the part that took me years to believe. More prep would not have saved you. You cannot build a person nobody knew they’d care about until she was standing right in front of them. What saves you is one small thing to reach for the second this happens.

The letter · Free, on Substack Subscribe

THE PROMPT: what the person behind the counter actually wants

When the table latches onto somebody you never built, roll a d6 before you answer. Now that person wants something, and a want is all a scene really needs to start moving.

1. They want you gone. They’re too polite to say it, so they answer everything a little too fast.

2. They want to be asked one more question. Nobody ever asks them anything, and it shows.

3. They want to sell you something that was never for sale.

4. They owe somebody money, and you have the bad luck to look like that somebody.

5. They know the thing you actually came to this town for, and it scares them to hear it said out loud.

6. They want to come with you. Tonight. There’s a bag by the door they packed a long time ago.

Roll this table in the Dice Tray →

That’s the whole thing. It sounds simple because it is. You’re not inventing a life on the spot anymore. You’re playing one want, out loud, as the world, and your players will do what players always do, which is build the rest of the person for you while you catch your breath.

THE FIND

If that little roll earns its keep, the deep version of it is Ironsworn by Shawn Tomkin. It’s a full fantasy game, free and complete, and the reason to steal it even if you never play it straight is the oracle: a stack of tables you read like tea leaves when you have no idea what happens next. Ask a question, roll, and let the answer surprise you the same way it surprises the table. It costs nothing, and it will quietly make you a better improviser: Ironsworn on itch

FROM THE WORKSHOP

The little table up top is one roll. Story Seeds is a whole book of them, the thing you flip open the moment the party wanders off your map and you need something true to happen right now: Story Seeds on Etsy

Two things here are free and always will be. The Night’s Ledger is a one-page prep sheet, and the Player Cheat Cards keep the rules in a player’s hand instead of in three different books. Grab them at Night’s Ledger and Player Cheat Cards.

Coming soon, the entire thing living in one place. By volume 5, our full website will be up and running.

Thanks for hanging with me. Please point other people here if you find it valuable. I love how our community is growing. We’ll pick up next week.

-J