Description Over Exposition
Hello esteemed followers, readers, adventurers, storytellers, and villains alike! Welcome back to Kobold Stew. Today we are back with the Inspirations mini-series. With that, since the last Inspirations post was made in July, a quick refresher for everyone I think is in order.
The goal of the Inspirations mini-series of blog posts is to look at other forms of media such as movies, books, TV shows, video games, etc. to serve as a point of reference or well... an inspiration for your DnD games. We try to borrow what we like from them and bring them to our table tops.
This post's topic, if you missed the title, is about Dark Souls. When I say 'Dark Souls,' I am kind of referring to the series as a whole and including the spiritual predecessor and successor games Demon Souls and Bloodborne, but for all intents and purposes, I will refer to Dark Souls in this post to keep things running smoothly.
Recently, whenever I have a little free, video gaming time, I have been finally getting around to my New Game+ play-through of Dark Souls III along with experiencing the DLC for the first time around, and to be quite frank with you, I love this series. I love Dark Souls. It has played a huge
influence on the way I run my games, my characters, my art, and most other parts of my hobby involved with fantasy, but I will spare you my love letter to Dark Souls.
When I bring up Dark Souls in terms of Dungeons and Dragons and tabletop role-playing games, I wouldn't blame you if you thought we were going to be talking about making combat and encounters brutally difficult in your games. The series is, after all, probably most well known for its unforgiving and brutal difficulty. Although difficult encounters and brutal combat have a place in DnD games, we are not going to be talking about difficulty in games. We could talk about all kinds of things that make Dark Souls great from its monster and environment design to the weapons (weapon arts and trick weapons anybody?) and the armor all the way to its tone and soundtrack, but not today.
Instead, we will be discussing the way Dark Souls frames its story, and the way it is presented to the players. We will take a bit to explain what and how the series does to tell its epic story and take a look at the advantages of this style of storytelling. Then we will cap it all off with a quick 'How to' for implementing this style of storytelling. So with that, grab your Estus flask or Siegbrue, take a swig, and strap yourself in as we roll right into this.
Presenting the Story: Description over Exposition
Dark Souls has a different way to telling its story than most conventional video games. In most other games, the story is presented to the player through the use of cutscenes or long, drawn out dialogues, but Dark Souls isn't like most games. The intro cinematic is about three or five minutes, and besides some lines of dialogue from NPCs, that is about the most overt storytelling the player gets from the game. You're thrust into this world as a beef jerky looking dude ready to get killed over and over and over and over again.
And even then... the introduction to the first Dark Souls does not offer a whole ton of exposition. You can watch it yourself if you like...
For those of you who don't like watching vids because an article or blog post told you, here you go:
"In the Age of Ancients the world was unformed, shrouded by fog. A land of gray crags, Archtrees and Everlasting Dragons. But then there was Fire and with fire came disparity. Heat and cold, life and death, and of course, light and dark. Then from the dark, They came, and found the Souls of Lords within the flame. Nito, the First of the Dead, The Witch of Izalith and her Daughters of Chaos, Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight, and his faithful knights. And the Furtive Pygmy, so easily forgotten.
With the strength of Lords, they challenged the Dragons. Gwyn's mighty bolts peeled apart their stone scales. The Witches weaved great firestorms. Nito unleashed a miasma of death and disease. And Seath the Scaleless betrayed his own, and the Dragons were no more.
Thus began the Age of Fire. But soon the flames will fade and only Dark will remain. Even now there are only embers, and man sees not light, but only endless nights. And amongst the living are seen, carriers of the accursed Darksign.
Yes, indeed. The Darksign brands the Undead. And in this land, the Undead are corralled and led to the north, where they are locked away, to await the end of the world... This is your fate.
Only, in the ancient legends it is stated, that one day an undead shall be chosen to leave the undead asylum, in pilgrimage, to the land of ancient lords, Lordran."
And each game in the series, Bloodborne included, have introductions in the same vein. Cryptic and some basic stuff. It looks like a lot, but for a telling a WHOLE story and building a world, it really is not a whole lot. So how does a series like Dark Souls tell such a widely praised story? How can such a deep lore be told? Well... Dark Souls uses the trick of hiding a lot of lore in its item descriptions and environments.
Dark Souls uses so many item descriptions to build on the lore that the foundation the introduction has laid that many people began to interpret the story and the lore to the world of Dark Souls by looking at them. So much, that people have built their brand of content around deciphering the lore and telling the story of the series. Vaatividya, Hawkshaw, and many others. You can jump into any forum for the series and find at least one lore board.
It was this deep lore that brought me back to the game after I had given up in frustration after trying it TWICE. Outside of the game, even if you've never played the game, the deeper story of it is so well put together that you can enjoy it without playing the game.
So in short, the game uses item descriptions, short conversations, and the environment to help craft its story and lore. I personally call this "description over exposition." I think it can be a very useful tool for storytelling, especially in the table top medium. What are the advantages to this style of storytelling?
The Advantages of "Description of Exposition"
At the surface, it might seem dull and obtuse to not lay the story out for your audience. I know, for me, it took my friends showing me those aforementioned YouTube channels and explaining there was a deeper story to make me want to dive in. Although this style of storytelling isn't the be all, end all of story telling it comes with some advantages. They are:
1. It allows players to craft their own version of the story
2. Players can experience the story at their own leisure/pace
3. The pacing of the story isn't interrupted.
4. It creates a 'desire' to discover and uncover more
It allows players to craft their own version of the story
Jump into one of those Dark Souls lore forums or the comment sections on one of those lore videos. There will be comments on comments about someone's own interpretation of the lore. Huh? Counter-intuitive one might think, but it's pretty creative and cool. As a living human-being, all of our experiences are different. We all think differently and like different kinds of stories. By leaving some of the story open to interpretation, it allows people to fill it in to fit the story they want it to tell or their experiences. It lets them relate to it better, I think.
Players can experience the story at their own leisure/pace
Sometimes when you jump into a game, you don't want to be flooded with exposition. Some people, some days just want to get in there, fight some stuff, wreck face, claim victory, and collect loot. There ain't nothing wrong with it. Others like to experience the deep and branching story. By providing the story in the item descriptions, Dark Souls has the advantage that those who want to get into the game and build an asswhooper and go and... well... whoop ass, they can! The story won't be slowing them down, but those who want to conduct a literary analysis of the games themes and characters, they can do that too! With this style of story telling, you can experience the story at a pace you enjoy and you can enjoy the game in a way that fits you.
The pacing of the story is not interrupted
This is similar to the last point, but it is worth mentioning. You ever play a game, and get into the flow of it, and then you are just halted by a moment of pure expository story dumping? We've all been there. You just start mashing buttons to get by, or if you're at the tabletop, you just hope to get to the next part. What happens when you put the story within descriptions? You don't interrupt the pacing of your story, but rather weave it into your game as your players adventure forth.
It creates a 'desire' to discover and uncover more
When the story is presented straight to a player, they are not left with a desire to go learn more about it necessarily. Without a little mystery or leg work will not cause as much of a desire to learn more if players are just handed all the answers. You know that feeling of satisfaction when you put a mini together and paint it yourself? It is kind of like that.
Leaving players a little mystery and making them uncover the story themselves will leave them wanting to delve just one level deeper, read one more stray diary, or roll more history checks if they can uncover more lore and story by doing so.
As I said, this style of story telling isn't everyone's cup of Estus. This is okay. The way Dark Souls tells its story isn't the only way. You don't have to utilize its story telling style to a tee. Rather, you can take little bits and pieces and add it to your story telling arsenal!
Bringing it to the Table Top
How can you bring some of the elements I just described to your table top? How can you add to that sweet story-telling arsenal? Don't worry, Dr. Puddins is in, and he has go the answers for you.
The first way you can provide some of that sweet, ambiguous story telling is to dial it back with your NPCs. That's right... your NPCs don't know more about the world, lore, or quest than the players do. Sure they may offer small insights, but they don't have to be the main source of the party's information. Along with this, they can be unreliable. This not only prevents long expository monologues from an NPC that your players might not be keen to sit through, it also puts the discovery of lore and information in the hands of the PCs.
One of my favorite ways to present lore is to write down a journal, book excerpt, or an item description on a piece of paper, and then to present that to a player when they acquire it or decipher the item. It's great because I am not halting the game to give information or lore, AND it gives the players something to add to their notes. They can reference it later if they need to, and they don't have to read it right away. It also keeps them immersed in the game when they aren't 'on deck.' I'm also a huge fan of handouts. This also makes some of this intelligence checks like history, religion, or arcana extra fun when an item has a little story to it!
Along with this, let some of your environments tell the story. Let a crumbling statue depict a long, forgotten god. Let the painting tell of a great struggle between men and dragons. Show the once great capital now crumbling and overrun with mad creatures.
An example of using description to tell a story:
The party discovers in the Melain bishop's armory a special sword. The party's wizard is able to discern the sword comes with the description "Woedican Flame Blade - 'these blades are often found amongst the chieftains and warlords of the Woed tribes. The are sometimes bequeathed to those who have done the Woed people a great favor.'"
Pretty standard, until I tell you that the party has been at odds with the Woed tribes and tells them that the bishop might not be who he seems. You don't have to do major story telling through your items and can even do some rather mundane world building, but it is world building that you are using to add to the game, which is always good in my eyes!
A little hint, harkoning back to people making theories and telling their own stories... sometimes your players give you really good ideas for where the plot goes by guessing stuff. Sometimes... let their guesses be 'right' if yah know what I mean... aka steal their idea and play it off like it's your own. They'll get that "I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG" and you don't have to agonize over story details.
Again, I do not think it is the only way to story tell, but if you use it to supplement your story telling, it can add some fun depth to things! I say, give it a shot, and perhaps let me know how it went for you. It takes a little practice, but in no time you will get the hang of it!
If you can't get enough Dark Souls meets DnD, here's a link to reddit user 'Braggadouchio''s little supplement for of some Dark Souls stuff for 5E.
Until next time,
Happy gaming,
Mr. Puddins.