To Break the Ice - GM Log
Hi everyone. I hope you liked episode 3! I personally really enjoyed this part. It was funny to toy with the players who were worried that they would face another encounter with something gargantuan when in fact it ended up being a big boat. Today’s log will be short because I am writing it very last minute before leaving for my vacation. I will, however, start opening the comment section because what’s the use of writing all of this if there isn’t really any dialogue about my thoughts? Feels super pretentious to just leave them there as if they are some sort of authority about D&D and GMing. I do think they are good tips I’ve learned along the way, but you might have yours you want to share too or questions about what I wrote so feel free to comment.
Let’s start with a portrait of our first NPC Captain Alyosha! Is he anywhere like you pictured him?
MECHANICS
BEING VAGUE WITHOUT BEING FRUSTRATING
There are two reasons why players can become frustrated when it comes to a GM’s narration, I think. Either the GM is being too vague, and the players do not understand where they should go, or the GM is doing too much railroading. I’ll focus on vagueness today. This is a big subject and there is no way that I can cover it in a few paragraphs. In general, the best tip I can give if you sense frustration from your players is to stop, reassess, reformulate.
As GMs, there are many secrets we want to keep close to our chest. We do not want to give them away too soon, so we leave crumb trails for the players to follow. Because we have the whole picture in front of us, we see how everything makes sense – the connections that need to be made for the story to progress. From the position of the players, however, they don’t always make the same connections we do. Bits and pieces come into focus very slowly. It can become frustrating, especially if you’ve let your players take for granted certain pieces of information that are wrong. Once information has solidified in the player’s mind, it’s very difficult to change it through role-play only. Unless you intervene as a GM in a very disruptive way, the wrong concept/ conclusion/ information will stay around for a long time.
What I suggest then is to try to be as clear as possible when describing common things. Do not obfuscate for the sake of it. Do not add “mystery” in your description if there isn’t one in what the players are experiencing. As I’ve said before not to have the players roll for every single thing; it’s the same idea here. Do not tire the player with too much detail for no reason. If one of your players asks for you to repeat the description, do not simply repeat what you’ve just said. Reformulate in other words the information you’ve given. That’s what it means, to be clear: to be able to convey the information multiple times in different ways.
Keep vagueness for important narrative moments. It should denote uncertainty. As the GM is the narrator and describes the events from the point of view of the characters, confusing storytelling should only ever come up when the characters are themselves confused. Things that they are not able to comprehend right away can be vague. When it is done properly and not too often (with confusion comes a certain degree of removal of agency which you should always be mindful of), vagueness can be a great storytelling tool. The approach of the icebreaker Asperity was a great moment like that for us. We often talk about it between ourselves. It did not even lead to combat or a dangerous situation, but the mounting tension was very well received by the players and their various ability checks were contributing to both the raising of the tension and the dispelling of it. You will see other moments in the campaign where I am not so adept. I am not above being too vague or even railroading once in a while. This subject will come back for sure. But for now, let’s remember that vagueness is a powerful narrative tool when used sparsely, otherwise one should always try to be as clear as possible. Know your synonyms!
SETTING
GRAND DUCHY OF LAMORDIA
Episode 3 was the big reveal of which domain of dread I chose for the campaign! It’s Lamordia! Honestly, I know for many of you it will not ring a bell, and it’s just as well since I have made many, many changes to it. As for Ravenloft, I will not divulge much here. You will discover at the same time as the characters. Why did I choose Lamordia? Because of its rugged nature and the icy landscape. The frozen sea upon which the four Barovians are trekking, and the icebreakers are part of the cannon atmosphere of the domain.
As I read the six pages dedicated to Lamordia in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft and perused the map, I quickly discovered it was a domain that was a bit confused about its identity. Because many of the people have the Germanic cognate “von” in their name and towns on the map end in -dorf (town) -burg (castle) -heim (home), there is definitive German inspiration to the domain as well as Swiss (which also uses the same cognate and same nomenclature for towns and cities).
When you read about the rough environment, the harsh conditions, and the vast frigid wilderness, however, it does not sound very Swiss or German. Frozen bogs, glacial expanses of nothing, unpredictable blizzards, short chill summer, barren mountains filled with beasts, what comes to mind? If your mind went to Russia, you are like me. I also felt like Germany-inspired settings have been done often but pre-empire Russia a lot less. So, I’ve basically taken the domain of Lamordia and applied a pre-empire Russian genre to it. For those who are into history, when I say pre-empire Russia, I specifically mean the Grand Duchy of Moscovy era and early Tsardom of Russia under the rule of Ivan III (Ivan the Terrible).
Of course, I’m only taking inspiration here and there and this is not by any stretch of the imagination a historical campaign. We are still very much into fantasy. I am taking very liberally from the whole Slavic mythology as far as creatures, rituals, and beliefs go as well as good old Dungeons & Dragons.