GM Toolbox: The Quantum Kobold
It is a great honor to run a role-playing game for people, and even more so to be trusted to run an entire campaign, taking players and their characters from humble edgy beginnings to far-reaching heights of valor and failure. Preparing a session or campaign for a group can be a massive undertaking. Depending on your system of choice, it can be fraught with a multitude of decisions regarding balancing monsters, traps, and villains. As the game master you want to be prepared for what your players might do when you sit down for a session, and the more games you run the more you realize one thing: The players will ALWAYS surprise you. They will turn left instead of right, they will talk to the random goblin at the bar instead of the quest giver in the corner, they will come up with a massively complicated plan to solve a problem that they have fabricated without your intervention. They will always do something that is unexpected, eventually. As they should be doing, because the truly unique aspect of a tabletop role-playing game is the ability for the characters to make decisions with as much freedom as possible. The concept of the “Quantum Kobold”, or “Quantum Gnoll” (I’ve heard the concept described by many names) is a tool in the box for game masters to focus their prep time while maintaining the feeling of an open and vibrant world.
The “Quantum Kobold” in its simplest form is a choice given to the players: Should they go left to the swamps of Krav-gar-doom, or should they go right to the cliffs of The Vibrant Elven Gardens? Whatever the players may choose there is going to be an encounter with a group of kobolds along the way to their destination. The kobolds occupy two positions at the same time until the party observes them, hence the name “Quantum Kobold”. Instead of preparing two separate encounters for the session the game master only has to prepare and balance one. This reduces the time needed to prepare for a session, it can also open time up for other aspects of preparation that are more valuable than preparing an extra combat encounter that won’t be used.
Using the quantum idea of storytelling is a great tool, though it shouldn’t be the only one. Overusing it can lead to encounters feeling unintentional and a sense in the players that their decisions aren’t impactful.
Using the quantum idea of storytelling is a great tool, though it shouldn’t be the only one. Overusing it can lead to encounters feeling unintentional and a sense in the players that their decisions aren’t impactful. Players want to be able to make choices in the story that have weight to them. If they choose to go through a dangerous forest there should be danger, and if they choose to play it safe and travel with a caravan they should be met with a safer journey. Adjusting encounters on the fly is another tool in the game masters box. You can add extra enemies to make a dangerous encounter or add allies for the party to fight alongside to make an encounter easier. The set dressings of an encounter can also make identical encounters feel vastly different. An encounter in a field of large stones that can hide the small kobolds while they make ranged attacks will feel different from an encounter that takes place along an old rope bridge that could give way any minute. The encounter tied to the “Quantum Kobold” should be a simple encounter that you feel comfortable running, you can then change it based on your player’s decisions during the session.
Being able to utilize the concept of the “Quantum Kobold” is a powerful tool, and the more comfortable you become using it the more flexible you can be with its implementation. I often find myself with a handful of encounters, either combat or social, that I have waiting in the wings for just the right time, either to move the story forward or more often than not, to throw at the party when they’ve surprised me by having the perfect series of accidents to lead to an encounter I’ve already planned.
Have you tried the “Quantum Kobold” method? Let us know how it went in the comments!
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Thanks to our Inn at the End Manager of Hospitality, Alex, for writing this week’s communication. You can find more about Alex and peep some of his FANTASTIC and varied artwork HERE
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