Themes Should Be Like Gravity

Planets image by Jack Xavier from Pixabay
I’ve written over 1,800 answers on Quora and for every one, I’ve read 40 or 50 answers (probably more) written by other people in response to a question by someone else again.
A surprisingly small amount of what I’ve read has been directly RPG-related.
That’s because most of the content that gets offered derives from my past upvotes and the classifications that Quora links them with.
I started off answering questions about music, pop culture, politics, science, technology, and maths, as well as RPGs, but a lot more people write on those other topics than write about RPGs, so they naturally came to dominate my feed. And on top of that, I’m less familiar with D&D 5e than I am with 3.x, so I tend to rule myself out of pontificating on 5e subjects, further shrinking what is already a niche subject.
And, on top of that, my best content will always show up here at Campaign Mastery; sometimes I can do an abbreviated version as an answer, sometime not. This accelerates that existing trend.
So, when a really good question comes along in my feed that is RPG-related and has a number of answers already, I don’t expect to be able to add much – at least, I hope that I am not able to do so, because that means that the existing answers are good enough that I can pick up some takeaway tips.
Last week, the question “How do I incorporate a theme into my TTRPG campaign despite the fact that players will be unpredictable? I play D&D 5E if that helps” came to my attention.
There were five answers which ranged from the ‘excellent’ on up. None of them were a waste of my reading time, and you can read them too, just by clicking on the ling above..
One of those answers was by a Quora user who I’d not encountered before, Erin Schram, and it was so inspirational that an article immediately came to mind – not to repeat what he had written, but to add to it, and all the other answers.
Themes should be like Gravity
As anyone who’s been reading my works for a while knows, I love a good analogy because they can reveal perspectives and permit analyses that otherwise could be missed. A good analogy abstracts the subject matter and presents it as an overview that tells truths that would otherwise be like hacking through jungle with a machete to unearth.
The inspiration in this case was just such an analogy, or perhaps, a general principle, so central to the question as to bear repeating at least twice to drum it in – so I have.
Explaining Themes
Erin’s answer points out that Theme can mean a number of different things. He then rejects those that merely define a style for a campaign or game system, and offers up “the word theme means recurring elements in the narrative that tighten the story. That way we could have a side quest that still feels on theme despite not directly involving the main plotline. The theme can also justify amusing plot twists.”
This is correct, but doesn’t go far enough. Themes should be more than narrative elements; they should also impact character design, relationships, plot, environments and locations. A theme is a conceptual element that defines a campaign; it is the difference between two campaigns run within the same style / sub-genre / rules system, the thing that sets them apart from each other in a coherent and cohesive way.
That last point is important; you don’t need to have a theme to separate two campaigns. Two different GMs can begin from the same starting point with the same campaign elements and setting and the two campaigns will be completely different. The same GM can even run two different campaigns with the same foundation elements and they will be different, though those differences will probably be relatively small.
The benefit of having themes is not that they make the difference, it’s that they codify the difference, permitting consistency and forging additional coherence by linking multiple adventures through the thematic content. This not only makes it easier to create distinctiveness in a campaign, it gives you a head-start on applying your creativity in general.
Exploring The Analogy
Gravity is a force that affects other bodies at a distance. In fact, Gravity affects anything and everything, even light, at a distance! It brings macroscopic structure to the universe by balancing or overcoming other forces such as electrostatic charge.
In a similar way, a theme should influence and inspire, but will rarely control content. A good theme is both as ubiquitous as gravity but also as capable of being overcome.
If you think of your campaign as it is at any given instant as a ball floating through a universe of possibilities, theme is a companion object exerting a gravitational attraction upon the campaign. Rather than running headlong into the companion object, a more interesting picture is almost inevitable.
Either:
- …the campaign will be dominant (greater gravitational force) and the theme will simply float around the edges of the campaign, coloring content from time to time like a lunar tide; while the campaign may be tugged this way and then that by the theme, which wants to travel in a different direction, these influences will cause only a minor perturbation in the course of the campaign. Or,
- …the theme will be dominant (greater gravitational force) and the campaign will float around the theme, returning to it regularly and exploring it from multiple angles and interpretations; the course of the campaign may deviate temporarily from the influence of the theme, but such deviations are only temporary. Or,
- …the pair will be relatively equal in force, and both will orbit around a mutual center of gravity. The directions of travel of both will ultimately be a compromise between both.
Except that the pseudo-gravity of the theme can do things that ordinary gravity can’t – they can wax and wane at command, for example, or change the influence that they are imparting to the campaign simply by reinterpreting the theme or its consequences. What’s more, themes can evolve in the course of a campaign; they often come in matched pairs, like Liberty and Responsibility, Individualism vs Collective Unity.
When this happens, neither is the true theme; the real theme being explored is the conflict between the two philosophies and the consequences of extremism in either direction.
I was reading something else just recently that drove this point home; another Quora answer about why Elric of Melnibone had not achieved adaptions and the fame of other fantasy works like Game Of Thrones and The Lord Of The Rings. The response suggested that the Law-vs-Chaos conflict that forms one axis of the typical D&D alignment space has been adjudged a mistake in recent times and is now being downplayed by the game in favor of the much simpler Good Vs Evil, or the morally more neutral Us vs Them.
While it might be true that this conflict is now being de-emphasized, the assertion only drove home the point that for most of its 40-plus years of history, my superhero campaign has explored this conflict and how it complicates simple answers of morality and gives rise to individual choice in determining answers to moral questions.
For example, one implication of Order is having well-developed plans, while the equivalent Chaos implication is being flexible and able to adapt to circumstances that change unexpectedly. Another set of implications are Government and Anarchy. And then there is Purpose vs Acceptance, and the list just goes on and on. On top of that, while it is true that Order vs Chaos impacts on and complicates Good vs Evil, it is equally true that Good and Evil impact and complicate Order and Chaos. A perfectly valid theme within this space would be an exploration of Doctrine vs Command Authority, for example.
Like Gravity, a theme can exert an influence over events without necessarily manifesting as a fall from a great height. Gravity continues to exert an influence even aboard a jet plane at 45,000 feet, after all.
The influence can manifest itself in different ways depending on what aspect of the campaign is being considered.
Plots
A theme creates conflict between groups or individuals, which create objectives and motivations. Or it can simply color these aspects of an existing conflict. A theme can lie at the heart of an individual adventure, or it can simply color and shape that adventure by providing context for some of the adventure content.
More commonly, a single adventure will have a specific theme of its own, perhaps deriving from a broader campaign theme, perhaps compounding or colliding with such a theme. I’ll cover that subject a little later.
Central Characters
Each of the central characters – including the PCs – should have, or should develop in the course of the campaign, a position with respect to the theme. This position, and its consequences for the character’s choices, can easily form the heart of adventures focusing on that central character; but most of the time, it will influence character choices, not control them. A theme can cause an enemy to manifest an unexpected virtue, or cause an ally to betray some cause in which he has hitherto believed in.
Even if the theme does nothing more than define (in whole or in part) a character’s background and the choices that have led that character to whatever position they currently hold within the campaign, that is a valid manifestation of the theme.
It is also possible for a central character – PC or NPC – to have their own individual theme, that influences behavior in the course of an adventure at any opportunity. This is part of their character that they carry around like a blanket or pair of gloves. Sometimes this manifests as a personal character arc – a character seeking redemption for some past misdeed, for example, or seeking to expiate a debt.
Locations/Environments
Except when shaped by sentient beings, it can sometimes be difficult to relate these to a theme, except in the most abstract form, or by using the theme as a metaphor for the location or environment. Only on rare occasions will a direct interpretation be possible.
That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t check for the possibility!
Often overlooked, in particular, is the application of a theme to the way characters can be expected to react to a location or environment. This can be invoked simply by using intentionally-loaded emotive terms to describe the location, possibly supplemented with observed behavior of incidental characters.
A place of deep shadows, seemingly designed with the intent of permitting characters to furtively migrate from one to another, in which everyone always feels curious and calculating eyes upon them, will naturally trigger a response in behavior on the part of any PC entering such a location. It should influence (but not control) the nature of any encounters, especially unplanned incidental ones.
Once again, any given location or environment can have a theme that manifests only there. These become touchstones around which descriptions, encounters, and events are framed.
‘Tranquility’ is an easy one that’s often used for bucolic rural settings, for example. It gets more interesting when applied to a city park that is surrounded by violence, anger, and intolerance. But even without that, the intrusion of a force of violence into such a location creates an impression that colors the responses of those witnessing it.
Minor Encounters
Minor encounters rarely have their own theme, they simply aren’t important enough. Which means that when you assign them one, the encounters immediately become more interesting and memorable.
A consequence of doing so is that the players can no longer tell whether or not a casual encounter is a minor one or not. This forces them to pay closer attention, just in case – and even if it seems like it’s not significant, after the fact, my players know that I’m perfectly capable of dropping that same character into a future adventure in a more significant role.
A theme is far more dominant with a minor character. It will often be reflected in vocalizations, personalities, and clothing, for example.
Because these personal themes exert a stronger influence over such characters, they are less impacted by broader themes that may be in play. That can sometimes make them islands of stability or fonts of chaos in comparison to the events that surround them.
On final tip before I move on: GMs can often undervalue and under-utilize such minor encounters. To combat this, I try to think of such minor encounters as a conduit, building block, or tool that can be used by the PCs to solve whatever the problem is that currently confronts them. They are a resource in other words – one that may not be necessary, or that may play a pivotal role in advancing the campaign narrative.
Multiple themes
Nor is it necessary for a campaign to have only one theme. After all, you already have a plethora of more localized themes, as the preceding sections make clear. But this immediately creates complications for the GM – good ones, perhaps, but complications nevertheless.
Those problems come in the form of interception points, where two themes intersect. This sort of thing happens all the time, of course – if a campaign element has its own dedicated theme and the campaign has a theme, those two themes will intersect every time that particular character appears.
Opportunities
Churchill once said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” The way themes can interact, or be triggered, or shaped, by each other presents opportunities that can be exploited; this is often a design criteria in the selection of themes both overarching and specific, because they create a specific mode of intersection between the two that makes resulting events a self-evident logical progression. Not only do you get more plausibility, but you get parts of the plot that literally write themselves – a character or group, defined by their localized theme, react to the overarching theme in exactly the right way to create interesting stories / characters / locations / events.
Progression within themes
In most campaigns, there is also a progression in relative impact from campaign-level themes. Some will be present at full strength from the very beginning, others will be minor contributors to situations but grow to dominate the campaign by its very end. This naturally creates a campaign-level plot arc, the overall story of the campaign.
Complex Thematic Structures
More complex arrangements are also possible; if, for example, there is any chance that the campaign might be extended to continue beyond this primary story arc, you should build the seeds of “what comes next” into the campaign either from the beginning or from the midpoint of the first campaign, the point at which you can discern its ultimate shape in reality and not in plotting theory (the two are rarely the same).
Another example: it is possible to craft a theme that only applies at specific times or under specific circumstances, which therefore uses local themes and game developments as triggering circumstances, as tumbling dominoes, or as plot twist generators.
Themes as Prophecy
It’s even plausible to take the basic campaign elements as a set of descriptions of the initial state of the campaign and interpret every development that occurs through a matrix of interlocking themes in order to simulate, in broad strokes, the entire campaign. This is generally a waste of time, however, because the accumulated impacts of free will on the part of the players and their characters will cause the reality and the simulation to drift apart exactly at the point where a good simulation would be most useful.
That provides one final tip: plan for the campaign you want to run and revise those plans, over and over again, each time the players choose a different path. There should always be consequences that result from PC actions, anyway; at least the intersections between themes give some indication of what consequences the GM should play up and which ones he should seek to minimize.
No Self-contained Answers
Like most such techniques, themes cannot be the be-all and end-all of campaign construction. They are more akin to seeds that sprout through the campaign, flowering at times and wilting on others; they are tools to assist in the creation of adventure and plot elements, and sources of inspiration; but no tool can do it all.
Learning the limits of what can be done with themes is not easy; experience is the best teacher. Experiments and trial and error, perhaps conducted on a small scale, and then expanded, are the best approach.
As a primer to get you on your way, remember this: every personality trait, every characterization of an environment or location, every single-sentence plot summary that describes what you have planned before actual play – these can all be considered themes, or manifestations of themes, however temporary or limited in scope. So you are probably performing these experiments already, without even knowing it!
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