Arcadian Sunset: Aestetics

Today I wanted to talk a bit about the kind of feeling I want to evoke in Arcadian Sunset. In short Arcadian Sunset is a game of mystery, horror, comedy and the bizarre.

One of the principles of OSR is to not have a prepared story, but simply offer up a setting a let the players do what they want of it. When doing a mystery the excellent Three Clue Rule tells us to not make any red herrings, as the players without doubt will create their own. In a similar way D&D as Straight Man tells us that we don't have include jokes in our settings to create humor, it will come on its own.

Horror and comedy is to me closely connected. They are both often results of the contrast between the normal and the abnormal. They rely on imagination and surprise. Which is probably why among bad movies, horror movies are the most popular, as when the horror fails, it often turns into comedy. As such I think there is a great plan to include bizarre absurdities, play them seriously, with horror being the A plan, but comedy a just as good plan B.

But as the LotFP Referee Book points out, for the bizarre to feel weird, it must be contrasted with normality. Viewing the dungeon as mythic underworld, OD&D becomes an expedition from the world of normality into the abnormal, and then an escape back to normality. I think this concept is a key. The Gonzo vs. The Weird talks about this distinction as well, with weird tales being mostly about an intrusion of abnormality into the normal world, while gonzo being about normal characters intruding into an abnormal world.

My plan is to do a bit of both. Weird investigation in the normal world, and gonzo exploration in the abnormal world. Or at least provide the option for both, as there is no telling what the players will do, but I hope having two different modes to alternate between will give a nice pacing to the game.

A game design blog I follow, even though it isn't about rpg's, is Making Magic. It of course helps to have an interest in Magic, but just in general Maro speaks a lot about fundamental rules for designing games, and in particular how mechanics interacts with the fiction of the game. One distinction he makes is between top-down design, and bottom-up. In this context, top-down means going from an element of fiction and creating game mechanics for it, while the bottom-up means starting with a game mechanic and finding a justification in fiction later. Role playing games tend to do the former, which makes sense, but I think it is a good idea to have in mind the later as well.

One example of this in rpg's is showcased in the Aesthetics of Ruin, to great effect. The existence of ruins is bottom-up. They are not there because the fiction demanded it, but because they gives us monsters and treasure, and a chaotic system to interact with for the pc's. But even if the presence of ruins is in the game is for the sake game mechanics, that is no excuse to not integrate the ruins in the setting. Top-down and bottom-up is not a one way street, you need to go back and fourth.

Another way to look at this is in the distinction between fantasy and science fiction. To me science fiction is about making one (or more) unreasonable assumption and see what kind of story it would reasonably lead to, while fantasy is about making a story and fill in whatever unreasonable assumptions that is necessary for getting there. But in practice most works tend to include some of both. If you write a sequel to a fantasy story, you will need to see what kind of story the unreasonable assumptions in the first story would lead to.

So when you introduce ruins to your setting, for the pc's to explore, you need to think about what must have happened to create those ruins, and what other things would reasonably follow from those events. And as it is a game, you need to create game mechanics for these things too.

So there you have it. Arcadian Sunset is a game about normal characters intruding in an abnormal landscape in ruins, intermixed with investigations of bizarre beings that might be either horrifying or hilarious.