Old bridge in Sweden, photography by FreeImages.com / Owe Sleman

Back in Campaign Mastery’s special 750th post, I included some correspondence between myself and Tracey Snow which I reformatted into an interview format. Part of that “interview” went like this:

Do you have a glossary for terms that you use in your articles? Your recent article where you try to define an adventure talks a lot about that specific term but in various articles, you have used many different terms to discuss varying ‘sizes’ of storyline. I’m trying to get a handle on what each term means to you. I find it a little difficult to tell which ones you use a synonyms for each other and which are unique (I can attach my effort to define them if it will help).

My reply was,

A Glossary? Not really; my terminology evolves as my understanding of best practice evolves. That was what actually led to the article on trying to define an adventure! If you were to send me your attempt at definition, I will turn it into an article on the subject of clarifying the terms, if that would be of benefit to you and others :)

The reason I don’t have one is for the same reason that I have poor game-table record-keeping: I’m too busy doing it to stop and take notes! The only difference is that the “it” in question is writing an article instead of running an adventure!

The heart of today’s post is the draft glossary provided by Tracey, with some annotations and some additional entries. But first, I wanted to expand a little on the reasons for the use of so many synonyms. While the primary reason remains the one stated above, I’ve realized since that there is more to the story.

Synonyms and Confusion

Have you ever had someone explain something to you and you simply didn’t follow what they were trying to say? I’m sure it’s happened to all of us at some point; I’ve certainly been on both ends of that type of conversation. When that happens, there are three courses of action to choose from: (1), you can go over the exact same line of discussion again, perhaps more slowly, in the hopes that this gives the person who isn’t understanding you a chance to catch up; (2) you can try different analogies and different ways of phrasing things in the hopes that this will provide a flash of insight; or (3) you can simply give up.

When you’re writing something non-fiction, like these articles, (1) takes care of itself simply by the person reading the article going over it again; there’s nothing that you can do, they either understand what you were trying to say, or they don’t. (3) means that they simply stop reading, and once again you have absolutely no input into the process; as a writer, you’ve already done the best that you can to present your thoughts in an orderly and structured way that makes them accessible. But choice (2) is a more interesting story.

There’s nothing you can do to change the text you’ve already published other than appending a clarifying note, or discussing the subject further in response to specific feedback. But, the next time the subject comes up, instead of repeating yourself using the same exact terminology that you did last time, and which readers may or may not have understood, you can employ variants on the descriptions and labels that you use for various processes and topics that are more relevant to the subject at hand in the hope that the difference in context will open an avenue of understanding, both to what you are writing about in the current article, and in the past article.

This happens all the time, too – I’m sure we’ve all read something and not understood it, but later gone back to it and it’s absolutely crystal clear. It might be the first chapter of a novel, or a textbook, or something that you’ve read on the internet. It might be ten minutes or it might be ten years in between – but you get it the second time and you didn’t, the first. The difference lies in the changed context of what you have read in between the two attempts.

I was about ten when I read, in a second-hand textbook on algebra, an explanation of differentiation as a mathematical relationship between a function and it’s rate of change, and made an immediate and intuitive leap to the concepts of integration and second differentials. I understood it completely. When I got to actually studying the subject in high school, my maths teacher was alternately astonished at how much I already understood and exasperated at the difficulty of the questions that I would hit him with from time to time. It wasn’t until I was studying for my HSC – the Australian equivalent of SATs – that I read what my actual textbook had to say on the subject; in class I had been able to skip right over that and move on to actually using the math. It might as well have been in Greek; it used number theory and sets and trends and limits as the starting points and made zero sense to me except by working backwards from my understanding of the subject. If I had been trying to learn the concept from that second textbook, I might still be trying to understand it today – and failing. That was how I came to the revelation that context changes how you explain things, and something that might be opaque when explained one way could be totally and immediately clear when explained in another.

If there’s an important subject, I’ll tend to have a lot to say on the subject, which usually manifests in a number of references to that subject in the course of different articles. Each time, I’ll try to explain it in a way that makes the primary subject clearer, even if that means employing a different terminology for the same concept; the context is different.

Once you understand the idea being referred to, you can look back at something that talked about that idea but that you didn’t understand at the time, and go “oh, right – that’s another way of describing X, and I see what the author was getting at now.”

But there’s a downside: if you haven’t yet grasped “X”, you can end up even more confused than when you started. This is not a poor reflection on your intelligence, or your level of experience; it simply means that you haven’t understood one of the key concepts yet. That’s more likely to be the fault of the writer, who may have done his level best to explain something but failed, than it is to be a failure on your part (there are exceptions for things like legalese)!

In addition, a lot of the terminology derives from different media outside of gaming, and they sometimes use the same term for different things. The scale of the narrative also changes some meanings, as you will see when you look at the definitions below.

So that’s how you end up needing a Glossary. Which brings me to Tracey’s contribution to Campaign Mastery…

Sources

The definitions have been derived from the following articles and annotated or corrected as necessary:

• What is An Adventure?
• Adventure Structure: My Standard Formatting
• Been There, Done That, Doing It Again – The Sequel Campaign Part Two of Two: Sprouts and Saplings
• New Beginnings: Phase 2: Baggage Dump
• Back To Basics Part 1: Adventure Structures
• Back To Basics: Campaign Structures
• Scenario Sequencing: Structuring Campaign Flow

Glossary Of Terms

Campaign

A “Campaign” is made up of Adventures that may or may not have a larger linking narrative and may or may not impose definitive contextual gaps in between (i.e. has a common attribute of continuity, which may be “serial” or “episodic” or something in-between).

An overarching narrative comprising the sum of many adventures, which normally have one or more PCs in common, also usually connected by commonality of game system. May or may not have one or more themes that influence many of the constituent adventures.

Adventure

Adventures are a single story or episode within the larger narrative of the Campaign, linked thematically, tonally, stylistically, and conceptually into a single sub-narrative. An adventure may also contain elements (usually referred to as “linked sub-plots” or simply as “subplots”) that violate those qualities but form part of a dispersed wider narrative. One Adventure may link to another in various ways, but each can be considered isolated and self-contained within the context of the Campaign. If the Campaign is a book, an Adventure is Chapter; if a Campaign is a book series, each Adventure is a separate volume.

Adventures are sometimes referred to as “Scenarios” but this is an outmoded expression, deriving from the equivalence “Synopsis = Adventure Outline” or “Adventure Idea”. Early articles will use this term more often than later ones, and for the last 14 months or so I have been deliberately depreciating this usage as obsolete terminology. “scenario” in the lower case might still be used from time to time in the sense of a plot idea suggested hypothetically or speculatively, but this usage is also avoided as much as possible to limit confusion.

A single adventure lasts an average of 2.5-3.5 play sessions. Two makes an adventure seem short, five or more makes it seem long, subjectively.

Part

A Part is a ‘hunk’ or ‘chunk’ of an adventure defined by a shift in focus or tone.

Can be further divided into Acts (see below), or an Act may be subdivided into multiple Parts.

When a Part is divided into Acts, the term Part is used in the filmic sense eg “The Deathly Hallows Part One” and represents the insertion of a new layer of structural relationship not usually present or necessary. In such usage, the term is normally capitalized. Such Parts are often subtitled to further differentiate between them.

When an Act is divided into parts, the term is sometimes not capitalized except when used within a title. Some books divide the content into parts, for example. Subtitles for such parts are not unheard-of but are much more infrequent. This usage generally indicates a subdivision for convenience within the act and shifts in tone are often less radical.

Continuity is usually much stronger between parts than it is between Parts, and it is unusual for significant shifts in time to occur, whereas Parts are more flexible.

Sometimes used purely for stylistic effect as an indicator of thematic or subjective continuity from one smaller adventure to another.

Act

Where there is no major change in tone, but the adventure is deliberately planned to span more than one game session, I will divide it into Acts instead.

Adventures can be divided into Acts in which different dramatic considerations are in play, within the service of the Adventure as a story or plotline.

Acts are comprised of Events and Scenes, each of which may be broken down further into elementary constituents of PC actions/interactions, GM Narration, Dialogue, etc.

Encounter / Event / Scene

Elementary constituents of an adventure or part thereof, such as PC actions/interactions, GM Narration, Dialogue, etc.

As a general rule of thumb, an Event requires a PC action in response, an encounter permits PC-NPC interaction but may be resolved with a PC action response, and a scene contains location and narrative contexts and may also include passages of narrative as well as one or more Encounters or Events.

Campaign Theme

An element or transition of style or content that will recur throughout the campaign. It can usually be summed up in a relatively pithy and very brief statement.

Think of themes as tag-lines that sum up all or a significant part of the campaign – or are intended to. As game play proceeds, the interaction between plot and player, between PC and environment, will generate new themes, some of which may supplant the themes the GM initially had in mind.

Background Element

An essential concept or idea that has been used to construct the campaign background. It can include anything from an interpretation of a race, or a class, or the political structure of the game, or questions about what is considered moral, or the most fundamental in-game answer to questions of (natural) philosophy such as “What is magic?” or “What are the Gods?”.

Treatment

Roughly synonymous with Adventure, more accurately, “Draft adventure”.

A “treatment” represents an adventure in a planning form, and may be relatively unstructured. A “treatment” is generally an intermediate stage between a single adventure idea (i.e. a single-sentence summary of an idea) and a more formalized structure that is ready to be written as a playable adventure. A “treatment” of the original movie Star Wars might be, “Luke discovers that he is the son of a Jedi and that a beautiful princess needs rescuing. Engaging a notorious smuggler as an ally, he and the last Jedi rescue the Princess and discover that they have been unknowingly transporting the schematics to a terrible new planet-killing weapon with them, which are intended to permit the Rebel Alliance to identify a vulnerability in its design. Armed with the results, Luke and his fellow pilots attempt to destroy the Space Station / Weapon while fighting off the evil Darth Vader, slayer of the Jedi order, murderer of Luke’s father, and captor of the rescued Princess.” This treatment expands the basic idea “Luke Skywalker and allies oppose the Empire and it’s evil representative Darth Vader” to the point where it can be divided into Acts, Parts, and Scenes, i.e. Structured.

Phase

Sometimes synonymous with an Act.

More usually, however, this is a general term for campaign-level shifts in tonality or style.

Plot

All plots are narratives describing the transition from A to B, regardless of the length.

The main job of a GM is to make the process of transition as interesting as possible.

Plot Arc

An organizational principle that ties together occurrences of a wider plotline together across multiple occurrences within different adventures in a systematic way.

Narrative superstructures that connect a bunch of related plots together into a single super-plot.

Number of Episodes of subplot before that plot arc is resolved:

• Small: Subplot played out within 2-4 Adventures
• Standard: Subplot for 6-10 Adventures, culminating in 0-2 Adventures where they are featured.
• Major: Subplot lasting 10-20 Adventures. May provide the focus for at least 3 full Adventures, not all of which will necessarily occur at the end of the plot arc.

Each plot arc represents one journey of transition or development for a character; some are designed to bring the character full circle, having no direct lasting impact, while others are designed with the cooperation of the player to make some lasting change to the circumstances, psychology, or personality of the character at the heart of the plotline. Most of the plot arcs described in Campaign Mastery are of the latter type (unless I explicitly state otherwise in an article), and I’m not going to specify which ones aren’t in case my players are reading.

Note that some Plot Arcs may target important NPCs instead of PCs. For example, a Plot Arc in which an NPC is first established as a villain and then over a period of time becomes first a reluctant ally and then a fully-reformed individual.

Plot Loop

Synonymous with Plot Arc. I tend not to use this term even though Johnn likes it, because I find it counter-intuitive.

Scenario

Refer “Adventure” above.

Episode

A synonym for an adventure or (more rarely) for a single game-session of play. Used primarily when analogies are drawn between Television series and Campaigns.

Nested Campaign Structure Hierarchies

Simple:

• Campaign
  • Phases
    • Adventures
      • Scenes = Narrative and at least 1 encounter or event

Adventure divided into Acts:

• Campaign
  • Phases
    • Adventures
      • Acts
        • Scenes = Narrative and at least 1 encounter or event

Adventure divided into Parts:

• Campaign
  • Phases
    • Adventures
      • Parts
        • Scenes = Narrative and at least 1 encounter or event

Acts divided into Parts:

• Campaign
  • Phases
    • Adventures
      • Acts
        • Parts
          • Scenes = Narrative and at least 1 encounter or event

Parts divided into Acts:

• Campaign
  • Phases
    • Adventures
      • Parts
        • Acts
          • Scenes = Narrative and at least 1 encounter or event

Phases are generally used only as a GM-planning device. Similarly, parts and acts are rarely announced to players; these are structural reminders to the GM used primarily in planning the adventure. From the player perspective, the structure is simply:

• Campaign
  • Adventures = Narrative plus events plus encounters

In general, the bigger and more complex your planned campaign, the more structural layers and tools you need to use in order to manage your planning effectively. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using the player-view structure (subdividing adventures into Acts, Parts, and/or Scenes as necessary) and letting phase relationships evolve of their own accord. You concede a bit of control over the bigger picture but greatly simplify the sophistication of planning that is required.

Adventure Trees

These adopt a less linear approach, and more closely resemble a flowchart. Some adventures are separated by decision forks, which may be treated either as part of the preceding adventure of the next adventure. These represent decisions available to the players as to what the PCs short-to-medium-term activities will be, from which the GM determines what adventure will occur. The major difference between the two forms of the structure is that one gives the GM planning time, while the other does not appear to do so, though planning (at a simpler level) is still possible.

If presented with a choice between three options (a, b, and c), if the players choose a, events from b and c proceed without PC input and may appear as subplots, or the GM may hold them in stasis until the PCs get around to them. In general, it is often beneficial to have them proceed, evolving into B1 and C1 (representing the way the situation has evolved without PC intervention). The diagram to the right illustrates the basic concept.

This is also sometimes described as a “responsive” campaign structure. While theoretically ideal, it is not always practical, because it does not guarantee that the players will choose ANY of the options, which generally forces the GM into random encounters without direction or narrative momentum.

Wrap-up

I hope this discussion, and the glossary above, helps any readers out there struggling with the concepts of campaign structure. I would also point readers at

• One word at a time: How I (usually) write a Blog Post;
• Amazon Nazis On The Moon: Campaign Planning Revisited;
• Leaving Things Out: Negative Space in RPGs (specifically, the sections on Negative Space in Adventures and Negative Space in Campaign Planning);
• Swell And Lull – Emotional Pacing in RPGs Part 1;
• Swell And Lull – Emotional Pacing in RPGs Part 2;
• Domino Theory: The Perils and Practicalities;
• Growing Plot Seeds Into Mighty Oaks;
• The series, Further thoughts on Pacing, which is a sequel to the articles on Emotional Pacing;
• And, most recently, Ask The GMs: Iceberg Plotlines: Massive Plot Arcs in RPGs

for more information on campaign structures.

While some of these may seem to be more about the content of adventures and scenes than the structure, it has to be remembered that the only reason a structure exists is to deliver that content in a way that is fun, dramatic, realistic, entertaining, and comprehensible, so they are relevant to the discussion.

Once again, huge thanks to Tracey for her efforts in compiling the original version of the glossary, and for being brave enough to permit it to be offered publicly. She said she wouldn’t feel right accepting co-author credit for this article because the words were mine – but the structure and organization of them were hers (until I put my two cents’ worth in). And if there’s one lesson to take away from today’s article, it’s this: Structure and Organization are important. Cheers, Tracey!

On a completely different subject, last year in Yrisa’s Nightmare and other goodies, I gushed about how good Neodygame‘s Magnetic Scenography looked. Well, their kickstarter is up and running, so if you like the look of them (and if any of you have any money left after the massive wave of support for 7th Sea, 2nd Edition), stop by and take a look. At the moment they have a long way to go and could do with a little love from supporters.