Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Jumping back into the world of Charlie Brown. No eldritch horrors last time, but I'm not letting my guard down on that account.

I think there's a lot to be learned in playing an RPG of a story that not much really happens in. As a story-telling exercise it's interesting to see how narrative can be generated from anywhere and everywhere. Anywhere that there are characters and those characters want things, story will naturally emerge. This is particularly useful in more traditional RPG campaigns. All your DnD parties should have regular bottle episodes. This is when we find out what your characters are really like, not when they're on the job crunching goblins, but when they're at the tavern and no dark stranger comes in out of the night searching for brave volunteers. You know what, let's do a list.

5 reasons your DnD campaign should have bottle episodes:

1. You can't truly get to know your characters if you're only ever playing as them in danger. Knowing someone better is most of the journey to caring about them. And RPG's have so much potential to be meaningful, but only if you care about your characters.

2. It allows you to create a fuller world. There are so many aspects of your world that are not important to your adventures. Doing episodes without an adventure gives you time to explore the nooks and crannies of your towns and fields, and see them not as game maps but as real places populated with people and problems that don't care about your latest adventure.

3. Low stakes create high stakes. If every episode is life-threatening or world-ending, the endless high stakes will become monotonous and quickly feel like they are routine. Creating valleys of lower stakes makes the moments when the stakes are highest actually feel special.

4. It allows you to dig deeper. Adventure stories tend to have very linear motives to them. We need to find a treasure or rescue a prisoner or destroy an evil-doer. In these types of stories, motives tend to be impersonal. We are finding treasure, because who wouldn't? Treasure's great. We're saving the world because who wouldn't? That's where we keep all our stuff. Bottle episodes allow you to tell more personal stories, where you actually have to decide what your character would do, and not every character would do the same thing.

5. You can't do fake out bottle episodes where the stakes get suddenly high when you least expect it, without real bottle episodes. Eschew traditional structures where everyone knows what comes next. Surprise your players at every turn. And you can't surprise them with an adventure when every episode is an adventure.