Show Me in the Module

One beef I’ve had in games is a chonky source book which says ‘changelings do this’, and ‘always describe the traps, don’t just say 1D6 trap-damage’, and then expecting the reader to create the world in adherence to these principles.

“How about you do your job and write this into the adventure modules?”, I find myself thinking. “How about you stop telling me that every chronicle needs a theme and actually put one into the published chronicles, White Wolf?”¹

About a year ago, I started thinking the same thing about BIND. I’ve written a world, but the two introduction modules don’t show much of it; all the guilds and the structure of the baileys is only in the main campaign, which seems like a massive buy-in for someone getting into the game. So I’ve begun the gradual process of writing new modules, and thinking of the easiest ways to introduce the principles I want to have.

And I’ve started to wonder how far I can stretch this principle of ‘show, don’t tell’. How far can I show the world and its history, only through modules? Long rules on ‘how to make magic items’ can feel tedious, but if every module with a magical item follows exactly the right conventions for creating items, then that can feel compelling at the right time - at the end of a campaign, when players start to piece the puzzle together for themselves.

The same definitely applies to my habit of writing with Threads . I find it practically impossible to explain what I’m doing without just showing people.