The sewers are flooding, what do you do? | Natallia Valadzko

Tabletop role-playing games have been regaining popularity in the last decade as the game design industry, be it video games or tabletop, has been growing and diversifying to keep up with the times. When you think of a tabletop role-playing game (TRPG), you may imagine a game of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) in a basement in the 1980s. However, this nostalgia might have been the spark that ushered Dungeons & Dragons back into the spotlight. What’s more, it was brought back rebranded. In 2014, the 5th edition of D&D was released, and in 2015, a gameplay show Critical Role made a debut, all of which contributes to what some call “a Dungeons & Dragons renaissance”.

Let’s mention here that there are dozens of decent game systems that can cater to large audiences and propel good storytelling in a myriad of settings and genres: from science fiction, cyberpunk, and high fantasy to a present-day slice of life. Different game systems like D&D, FATE, Warhammer, Call of Cthulhu, and indie one-page TRPGs offer different experiences, and one of the main reasons is the difference in game mechanics that function as a skeleton or a vehicle for storytelling. I suppose it is safe to say that the success of a game lies in the perfect balance and interconnectedness of game mechanics, storytelling, and the engagement that comes from the players embodied in real life.

I would like to take a closer look at Dimension 20 as a case study to see how game mechanics can enhance storytelling and by maintaining a certain connection with the real world make the stakes feel real. Dimension 20 (D20) is a tabletop RPG comedy show that uses D&D system to tell stories set in a magical version of New York, the fantastical land of Solace, or the realm of Calorum — a realm made of six food-themed lands. It goes against the stereotype of D&D being a male-dominated dungeon crawls and hours of mindless combat. Instead, the game adapts the traditional system to explore various settings, genre conventions, narrative tones and freely explore the themes of gender, sexuality, class relations, violence, found family, gentrification, or a police state, to name just a few.

Dungeons & Dragons employs a d20 system, named after the 20-sided die which is central to the core mechanics of many actions in the game, alongside the 12-, 8-, 6-, and 4-sided dice. Rolling dice is a way to determine how well or how poorly you perform in combat or in various skill checks. While a player has the freedom to choose their character’s strengths and weaknesses during the character creation phase, dice introduce the element of chance and act as an allround equalizer. Let’s say you want to squeeze through a narrow opening – you have to make an athletics roll. And if your dice roll is low, most likely it would mean that you failed. Narratively it would translate into you eating too much in the morning, suddenly seeing a spider, or wherever the imagination of a player might take them. Rolling a 20 or a 1 on the die signifies an automatic success or failure, wondrous performance or a miserable flop. To illustrate, rolling a natural (without modifiers) 20 in combat would double your damage, while rolling a natural 1 might land the dagger aimed at your opponent into your own foot. The narrative, dice, and reallife level of consequences find their place in one of the key episodes of a D20’s campaign, where even with all the skills and modifiers, a character was unknowingly walking into a sure death trap. However, they roll a natural 20, and it was truly the only – quite incomprehensible – way they miraculously survived. Such are the consequences of the collaboration with “math rocks”.

Combat in D&D is a special part of the game, as all the characters enter in an initiative order that allows them to act only in their turn each round. Over-relying on the expectations from combat-heavy games or stereotypical depictions of D&D from the previous century, one might see only the “kill or be killed” approach. However, it can be much more elegant, nuanced, and enjoyable: combat resolution may be hiding or running away. We should bear in mind that “fighting” does not inherently make a narrative better: there is always dialogue, trickery or good old running away. Often following game or narrative conventions might put us in a box and turn our characters into mere cardboard cutouts without any depth.

There are incredible non-violent uses of the combat mode possible in D&D, and D20 makes the best out of the infinite amount of creativity put into campaign or battle map development. What can constitute combat? It might be a time-sensitive situation where a character’s strength lies not in the amount of damage they deal but in their skills, game economy, time management, and blessing of the dice rolls. Think about pulling off a heist in a limited amount of time while having to react to obstacles arising in real time, or clearing a number of magical subway cars filled with puzzles and beasts while trying to get to the conductor’s booth to stop the train from going off the rails.

To elaborate, a battle map does not have to be a flat surface with neatly arranged enemies. Dimension 20 delivers model battle sets, whose difficult terrain and obstacles may turn into opportunities in the hands of skilled storytellers. You can try saving an NPC from the Rat King in the sewers of NYC with different ground levels, while water is slowly filling in. You have to move around to make it to the higher ground in time – otherwise, you are in danger of drowning or being killed by sewer alligators. Also, you may find yourself at a party in a three-story house with a swimming pool and a terrace when you are suddenly ambushed by a wizard and their henchmen. Inside this multidimensional terrain, the party is spread out among “villains” and “civilians”. One must take advantage of the space and different movement options: dashing to safety, flying, or teleportation. Yet, it also creates infinite opportunities for the players to use the surroundings to their advantage.

An appealing link between a TRPG and life is that you can use game mechanics to depict a character’s change and mirror their growth. One beautiful example of this is changing a character’s class or subclass mid-campaign. In D&D, during character creation, you choose a class of a Wizard, a Monk, a Paladin, a Rogue, etc. which defines your abilities later. Yet who said you cannot change it as the in-game world influences you in profound ways? Dimension 20 shows how a sword Fighter with a pirate dad after reflecting on masculinity and violence becomes instead a spell-casting Bard with the motto “I dance now”. In addition, unlike combat-oriented games, where one tries to strategically exploit the game mechanics to stack damage, role-playing games rely heavily on interpersonal interaction. The consequences of such interactions are of huge importance. A nonplayer character (NPC) you befriend may become your greatest ally – on the other hand, getting carried away with fighting games’ conventions and going on a killing spree may land you in a tight spot later on. When choosing violence, you’d better be prepared to face the consequences. Nobody is invincible. Not even a Level 17 Barbarian with an enchanted battle axe.

A truly astounding use of game mechanics that allows one not to lose the connection with a complex reality of life is the panic attack mechanic and the addiction recovery system implemented in Dimension 20’s campaigns. Mental health is real and tangible even in fictional universes, and so it finds its representation in how characters react to triggers or find ways to cope with a debilitating panic attack. If we use mechanics to resolve interpersonal violence, why wouldn’t we have one dealing with addiction and recovery? D20 took time and energy to give the situation gravitas while also depicting it as a struggle. In short, a character in recovery starts with a Sobriety Die that will represent the amount of stress their sobriety is currently under, whether from within or without. As the Sobriety Die size grows (from d4 to d20), so does their progress in recovery. The desired tone is that we should not depict relapse as a “choice”, narrative or otherwise. The characters are trying their best but sometimes they fail. In a world where the struggle is generally handled by rolling dice, it may be more responsible and accurate to portray a character’s relationship with addiction and recovery in the same way.

Stories often mimic life, but when it comes to TRPG stories, there is one crucial difference – random chance just doesn't exist in other types of fiction. The storyteller might be omniscient and in complete control. In a story, the hero just seems to be in danger, but the storyteller knows they are going to make it till the end. Dimension 20 is a comedic show, and all of the seasons are mostly “player-death-free”. And yet, its fifth season, A Crown of Candy, set in a food-inspired realm, was hailed a “consequences season”, as there are no easy solutions, resurrections or miraculous deus ex machina. Chancellor Lapin Cadbury was receiving his power from Sugar-Plum Fairy in exchange for favours, and he was following her second set of instructions when in an act of sacrifice he met his dramatic demise. His last words, "But I never gave her the third wish" translate into “I am not done yet, I still have a role to play in the story” – but the dice take the character away.

We are often exposed to fictional narratives where the hero defeats the BBEG – the big bad evil guy – and goes against all the odds; or to games where you can always go back to the save point and start again, and again, and again. It might feel unnatural to sense a character slip through the narrative cracks and out of your control, but the dice are ruthless. You are forced to realize you are not fine just because you are the main character; whoever is in trouble is, indeed, in trouble. Perhaps a really good D&D game hides in the interplay of gaming, narratives, and real-life elements that engage, make you care and, above all, make it fun.

Natallia Valadzko