The 5e Dungeon Master as Pennywise

My previous post argued that the rule system of 5e D&D seems to encourage certain dramatic principles in its gameplay. I referred to these as idealist poetics, where outcomes in the game-world are determined by the characters in accordance with their personality traits. Here I will look at how this can play out in 5e campaigns.

I’m going to focus on a very character centric, high fantasy, approach to running campaigns. Of course, this won’t correspond to everyone’s experience of 5e. But as discussed in my previous post, the high power level of characters in 5e seems designed to encourage this style of play, where the fate of the kingdom hinges on their actions.



The World as a Mirror

I previously talked about idealist poetics, in terms of powerful individuals with the agency to shape the world. A more covert version of this I am going to call authorial idealism, where the game world is constructed into a reflection of the character’s personality traits. Unlike the former version, this is not a result of the characters actively affecting the world “in game”. Instead the dungeon master (DM) is adapting the world to the characters behind the scenes.

There are good examples of authorial idealism at work in the classic US TV dramas of the nineties and noughties. The length of these seasons, some 25 episodes with the looming threat of cancellation, has similarity with the form of an RPG campaign. This format brought with open-ended story telling techniques, yet typically still aimed for highly character focused experiences.

I’m going to use the example of the medical drama House. A typical episode will focus on an aspect of Dr. House’s character. Often then, a patient miraculously turns up who reflects this exact character trait in their symptoms. House is rude and uncompromising, and we get a patient who acts this way because part of their brain is switched off. Here, the program’s writers have shaped the world into a metaphor for House’s personality.

A variation on this technique is where a patient or situation serves the purpose of provoking or testing a flaw in House’s character. House is arrogant and stubborn, then miraculously, an obsessive cop turns up who launches a vendetta to antagonise just these traits. The absurdity of how long House will go without apologising, to the detriment of himself and his friends, shows just the depths of his arrogance. Such scenarios give us a specific illustration of an otherwise abstract quality of House’s character. The world here again serves as a mirror, through which we gain a better understanding of House.



What is easy to forget as an audience member is the skill of the show’s writers in constructing such scenarios. House is supposedly set in a contemporary hospital, not a fantasy world. In a real hospital, the patients admitted are not conveniently screened to suit the staff’s personalities. The objectivity of the setting is sacrificed for the purposes of drama, and something similar can happen in RPGs.

Authorial Idealism in RPGs

For an example of how the above can work in 5e campaigns, I’m going to use the “Dice, Camera, Action!” actual play video series on Youtube. The DM here is Chris Perkins, who also happens to be Senior Story Designer at 5e publishers Wizards of the Coast. Here the players seemed to particularly enjoy emotional, character engagement - to which Chris Perkins suitably responded.

Compared to the depth and complexity of House’s character, in high fantasy we tend to get something simpler. Professor Dungeon Master explains this in terms of Jung’s personality archetypes. The most common archetype 5e is probably the hero - the noble champion, defender, rescuer. In “Dice, Camera, Action!” we find a suitably earnest, lawful good paladin, devoted to the lord of light. The player gets to demonstrate these qualities of their character in specific terms, via adventure hooks such as the NPC in need of rescue. In Chris Perkin’s Ravenloft campaign, this is the villager Ireena who is being stalked by the vampire lord Strahd.

As Ravenloft is a horror campaign, the character’s fears are often the main trait around which the world is constructed. For the aforementioned paladin, this happens after unfortunate dice rolls in a werewolf encounter lead them to contract lycanthrope. After they begin suffering memory blackouts, an episode then features a scenario where it seems the paladin has killed a baby whilst transformed.

The above is constructed in such a way to demonstrate the paladin’s horror at this outcome and heighten the emotional intensity. What was an abstract quality of the paladin, the lawful good alignment on their character sheet, has been made concrete through their reaction to having possibly committed an evil act. We also have an illustration of the character’s fears, of being alienated from their patron god and cast from the light.

A fitting analogy for the above technique seems to be the creature Pennywise from Stephen King’s IT novel. Pennywise has the magical power to create not just frightening scenarios, but ones built around the character’s personal fears. Stephen King may have meant this as an analogy for the horror writer, but it also reflects what can happen in highly character centric RPGs. The DM shapes the game-world to the characters in a similar way to Pennywise, except their universe is the only game in town. There is no game-world “reality” for the players to contrast with the illusion.

Another way the world can serve as a mirror in RPGs is where a campaign is constructed around a character’s backstory. This frequently happens in dramas too. In the X-files, how often does Mulder’s abducted sister turn up in the story arc, as central to the alien’s conspiracy. In Dice, Camera, Action, it turns out Van Helsing had previously killed one of the character’s parents while they were a child. Van Helsing conveniently then becomes a central figure in the current campaign. The game-world has been shaped to both raise the emotional stakes and help us learn about the character through their past.

The Difference Between 5e D&D and the OSR

In Professor Dungeon Master’s guide to running high fantasy campaigns, the DM and players are encouraged to work collaboratively to construct a “heroes’ journey”. The idea is for elements of the character’s background and their personality archetype to be weaved into the campaign story arc. This way of running campaigns, where the DM is sensitive to the character’s evolution and adjusts the story accordingly seems to be a well regarded one. There is a payoff though in terms of the game-world, which can begin to feel little more than an amorphous illusion.

As the Questing Beast Youtube channel often highlights, one of the main concerns of OSR gaming is exploration of the game world. Players are driven by curiosity over what lies in the next hex tile or around the dungeon corner. For this to work, the game world needs to have an objective independence, and not shift response to the characters.

I think the difference between the two approaches can be summed up as follows. In a high fantasy campaign, the game world is often relegated to a tool, through which we learn about the characters. An OSR campaign is the reverse, the characters are a tool through which we learn about the gameworld. It is not necessarily a matter of one approach being right or wrong, but what we are seeking from a role playing experience.