One of the most fun things about rules is when to break them.

One of the most fun things about rules is when to break them.

Shakespeare wrote plays in iambic pentameter, and had some fun with line breaks and characters talking over each other but still staying in form. The rhythm made the lines easier to remember, and gave the performance a certain flow.

The form would tighten up for monologues and such, ending in couplets, showing it was a stand-apart piece. But then you’d have the low-born comic relief come in, and they would not be in iambic pentameter. They’d bungle around in prose making fart jokes, and you knew it was funny because the rhythm shifted.

I’ve used this pattern-as-communication in a neat way in my Unrecommendables game. Experimentation and fun with the verse on a heist, with the down time running more like a monologue with tighter structure. Then came Carrow.

When the limmers of Carrow get involved, the heist structure falls apart. The downtime structure falls apart. They don’t start in media res, but they have to venture into territory they were not prepared to enter.  Strange things happen. We play through travel and exploration. We play through a baptism in leviathan blood and subsequent hallucinations. It’s weird territory.

The shifting out of the verse of the game’s tools has been a great way to underscore the unbalancing shift in rhythm. Then back into the heist structure and downtime structure, where normalcy feels somewhat restored.

Just a thought on how you can use rhythm and pacing and tools to communicate the world to players, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Bryan Mullins Jack Shear