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Theater of the Mind Exploration Advice

I am looking for ways to improve my exploration gameplay in a Theater of the Mind type game where there is no map and no need for detailed environmental descriptions, if that makes sense; I don't want to have to keep track of corridors and turns, and that sort of thing.

Ideally I would like a system or ruleset that allows me to randomly generate interesting exploration gameplay without relying on having to map out everything. Preferably system agnostic so I can use it in various games.

Here's an example of the sort of thing I'm looking for, but would like to see alternatives that are a bit more in depth, or have more options:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11ZsTOh40-sMvukWXMtDOP5hli_DdYm2HtmMXL5ooa00/mobilebasic

7 comments

  • I run theatre of the mind, often somewhat improvised. Exploration is hard, particularly if you want there to appear to be any logic involved.

    I use a very broad rule for myself, excepting dungeons. Any location should have three branching exploration options at most three levels deep. That means you can fully explore a location in at most 9 rooms. A branch should proceed thematically, and I will often wing it. Not every room needs and encounter, but every room should be interesting. Rely on senses other than sight to add flavour.

    Example: a mad wizard's cottage in the woods. Description: "you enter the foyer, and there is a door to either side, and stairs leading up to a mezzanine. You can smell something dank from the left door and you can see some bookshelves at the back of the mezzanine. The right door appears unremarkable."

    It's entirely trivial now for the players to decide where they want to explore. Three branches. The unremarkable door can be a bedroom or storage closet or something. The stinky door can be a kitchen that was left untidy and became mouldy, with a backroom that leads to an overgrown greenhouse now home to a shambling mound. The mezzanine can be a library with a workshop behind yet another door, and a hidden door behind a bookshelf going to a room that only contains a standing mirror.

    Fuck, this sounds interesting. Wizard has been gone for a while, where? Maybe through the mirror? What was he working on? Etc.

    In a four hour session, we'll be lucky to get through two or three such locations, depending on whether combat is involved. Over time, I assemble larger threads from almost entirely improvised beginnings, so I can make callbacks.

  • I almost never use battlemaps and when I do, it's more a way to provide some decorum and structure informations rather than as a tool for battle. I don't really get how so many people online are obsessed by the idea of battlemap. Looks like kids this days have it too easy and didn't started playing at the time where RPG magazine was publishing 3 scenario a month, with sometimes one for a game they play, and had to do without map in general.

    A few idea pointers,

    • I played Ryutama only once, but remember their concept of battle egg which just tell whether you're in contact, second-line, ranged distance or away using a few circle. Nobody care about your exact distance, but just use some adjective to describe your position.
    • As usual, PBTA and forged in the dark, can use consequences to generate danger, like you open a chest but choose one : Someone has seen you/ A trap trips/ Move to a worse position
    • Even in traditional game, you can describe the dungeon with a few adjectives, and by thinking what it's for and answer the players question when they ask-it rather than in advance: Can we enter by the sewage ? Well there is a garnison in this castle, it's near a river, people need to piss and shit, so most-likely there is a pipe going directly to the river, let's say yes. However people are not stupid so there is some metal bar to block the access, the player can try to break them works as well as doing a map and thinking about the 5 possible way to enter while the player will use only one.

    • Battlemaps are good if you're going for a swashbuckling or strongly tactical feel. I like to say 'your players can't swing from the chandelier if they don't know there's a chandelier.'

      Battlemaps are great for a certain aesthetic (in the the game design sense of the word) because they allow you to add things for players to improv with without explicitly enumerating a static set of options. If you draw the inside of a tavern, when the tavern brawl breaks out they may do something that surprises you; "Can I throw the bottles at him/flip over the table/dive behind the houseplant/throw him out the window/etc" Whereas theatre of the mind requires your player to either intuit that there would be a bottle on the table that they could throw, or you to explicitly say "and there's a bottle on the table in front of you." And if you tell them there's something in front of them, they will laser focus on it and never even think to flip the table/dive behind the houseplant/etc.

      Theatre of the mind is good for games that put the emphasis elsewhere. If the focus of your game is on entrigue, or courtly drama, or in a setting that's highly improvised, that's when theatre of the mind shines.

7 comments