#63: Verbs!

Oct 24, 2021

This week I’m excited to talk about how some advice I thought was rock solid was turned upside down. When I was running D&D, I was a great believer in Matt Colville’s advice about verbs (very good video!). Basically, he says that quests work best when at their heart there is a simple verb - like “kill”, “steal”, “retrieve”, “deliver”, etc. These verbs make it very clear what their objective is. But a verb like “investigate” is tricky. Investigate to do what? What does investigation look like? When is it done?

For years now, I followed this advice and always made sure every quest in my game had a solid, clear verb. And it’s worked very well. (Sidebar: Nowadays I try and not run games where I prep quests. My ideal is when the players generate their own quests and I have to run with their plans.) But recently, I had an experience that turned this advice on its head. It was in a playtest of Declin Oblige, a social intrigue FitD game from Jamila Nedjadi. Our GM revealed the objective of our next quest: “Break the Monarch’s heart.”

Reader, I was blown away. The art is in the phrasing here. The GM could’ve said, “Persuade her that her paramour is untrustworthy” but it wouldn’t have been the same. The framing influenced the entire session for the better.

And now, I’m thinking about verbs again. Colville’s advice was to help make things clearer for players. But what about when players have a lot of experience? You don’t need things to be so clear. In fact, you might start getting tired of old verbs. This relates to design (Monster Care Squad got people excited about the verb “heal”) but it’s also about GMing. To really let fresh games feel fresh, I need to get better at using more interesting, more challenging verbs. Something to get better at!

Yours vocabulistically,

Thomas

II. Listen of the Week

On his Mindscape podcast, Sean Carroll speaks to experts of various kinds. This is a lovely episode where he speaks to philosopher Thi Nguyen about his new book, Games: Agency as Art. Nguyen’s basic premise is that game design is about sculpting player agency - that’s the raw material you’re playing with.
Design Doc is podcast by Hannah Shaffer and Evan Rowland and it is always a genuine, honest look at the process of game publishing and design. I really enjoy the transparency that the two hosts bring to their discussions and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know what that kind of journey is like.

III. Links of the Week

Paizo have recognized their employees’ union! Wonderful news!
Judd Karlman’s Project Ampersand sounds like a lot of fun: “The Icosahedron, or as it is commonly known, d20, is for deciding violent conflicts. Its geometry and fell swings of fate appease the blood-thirsty 20 saints of battle.”
An old review of the seminal game of colonialism, Dog Eat Dog.
For game designers, Yochai Gal has curated a collection of art, layout, and other assets and resources on itch.io

IV. Small Ads

All links in the newsletter are completely based on my own interest. But to help support my work, this section contains sponsored links and advertisements. If you’d like your products to appear here, read the submission form.

The Mending Circle is a game of precisely three witches embarking on a journey as they help someone heal. A wholesome game of rituals, sigils and hope.

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Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. I’m half-man, half-beast, half-journalist, half-game designer.

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