What makes for an Interesting Situation?

This is the second post in the line of my writeups from Reddit transitioning to Mound.

This post is based on this post.

Unlike the first post this one is largeraly copied verbatum. I changed up the final example to be a bit better.

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Hello everybody! In a certain sense this post is a follow-up to the one where I try to define what an Adventure is. A definition I have arrived that uses a term ‘situation’ as the main building block of an Adventure. So I asked myself, what makes a situation interesting?

The Intent

The intent of this post is to try to define and examine the qualities of an ‘Interesting Situation’.

In the larger scope of Adventure-developing this should help us understand what our goal looks like when we develop more practical tools for Adventure-building.

It also could be used as a tool for examining Adventures to see if the situations it’s made of are interesting or not.

I will first provide my definitions and criteria, and then I’ll explain how have I arrived at them. Then, I’ll provide some examples.

I’d like to see the community’s feedback to the definitions and criteria provided, as well as to see the practical advice.

The Limitations

Some notes should be made about the limitations of these definitions:

1. Not everything that is “Good” is “Interesting”. This post’s intent is not to imply that everything that does not follow the definitions is somehow ‘bad’.
2. Not everything that is “Interesting” is “Good”. This post intent is not to imply that following these definitions is a guarantee when it comes to making a successful situation.
3. This looks only at singular situations by themselves, without further context (no “situations that are contained within other situations”). This means that some situations might exist that can only fit all the criteria in the context of a larger situation.
4. Current definition excludes lying to the players. Theoretically it is possible to merely present an Interesting Situation without fictional elements comprising it being actually true. This was excluded, as it made all my attempts of defining it too messy (plus, generally speaking, I believe that it is normally undesirable, as it often leads players to be disappointed, and as such is a more acceptable omission).

The Definitions

A TTRPG situation is a set of fictional elements that can be reasonably isolated from the rest of the fictional reality.

An interesting TTRPG situation is a TTRPG situation that allows players to make Interesting Choices.

To allow players to make Interesting Choices, a TTRPG situation must fulfil the following criteria:

1. Fictional elements represent different values, some of which are at odds with each other
2. Players are informed about the connections between contradictory values and their connection with the fictional elements
3. Players share those contradictory values
4. Players are in the position of power from which they can meaningfully affect the fictional elements of the situation

The Explanations

First, the definition of the TTRPG situation – it comes straight from the previous post of mine, so I won’t linger on it and move on to more interesting bits.

The first bit is defining an interesting Situation through Interesting Choices. Now, while I can’t see how could I meaningfully prove it, I believe that an act of playing a TTRPG is ultimately an act of making choices. It’s not a particularly deep insight, and hopefully this will be found agreeable by the members of this sub. And if we accept that, I think that the idea of interesting situation being such a thing that allows for interesting choices to happen seems like a fairly reasonable take, too.

Now, this, of course, leaves me to define what an “Interesting Choice” is! Which is not easy.

I made a decision early on that my definitions and criteria should be inclusive. Therefore, I have decided to flip the question and instead ask myself “which choices are definitely NOT interesting”, and define an Interesting Choice as an opposite of that.

What I have arrived at was the following:

• Choices that can be trivialised/solved. When one of the options can be determined as objectively better than the others there is no real choice to be made. Ex: a choice between a sword that deals 2 damage and a sword that deals 6 is trivial and not interesting.
• Choices between the unknowns. When you don’t actually know what the options are you can’t actually make an meaningful choice, as it is effectively random. Ex: a choice between a blue sword and a red sword – one deals 2 damage, the other deals 4, but you don’t know which is which.
• Choices between the equivalents. When you choose between equal options you can’t actually make a meaningful choice, as it is effectively random. Ex: choice between a red sword that deals 3 damage and a blue sword that deals 3 damage is not an interesting one.

This is the biggest list I could come up with that included choices that were definitely uninteresting by themselves.

Now, we are to find what’s the opposite of all that. With point 2 this is easy! Inform the Players then.

The other two are tricky. We have to find something that can’t be ‘solved’ yet is also not an equivalent.

If a choice is solvable that means that if we were to use all the relevant criteria to judge an option’s desirability we are to find an option that is a clear best choice. Now, to make a choice that is not that, it’s pretty clear that we must have more than one criteria for judging it merits. As long as there is only one criteria there will always be the best answer, and if there won’t be it’s only because there are equal choices.

Now, having more than one criteria does not guarantee that there isn’t a solution. So some of them must be at odds with each other! As in, maximising both criteria A and criteria B at the same time should be impossible.

Swapping the word ‘criteria’ for a word ‘value’, as I think it’s both more generic and also rolls of the tongue better, and here we are. Interesting situation must represent values that are at odds with each other.

Of course, none of this works is the player just don’t give a damn about one of the values, so this is also an important part of the definition. If Value A exists, but is not accounted in the decision making process, it is irrelevant to the choice.

And thus we are done with an “interesting Choice” part. The last one left if the ‘allows’ part. Players have to be able to actually make the choice they want to, otherwise all of this is for naught. This gives us the criteria number [4].

Now, it is not impossible that I have missed something, say, another kind of an inherently not-interesting choice that my criteria still permits, but I couldn’t find it. Generally speaking, I am very satisfied with those 4 points! I think they are pretty intuitive and fairly broad, yet I’ve also often seen those violated in cases that were clearly supposed to be tough choices. Since writing this I had time to think about situations I created as a GM that did not land well and situations that did not lend for me as a player in the past, I almost always see one of the points violated and can trace the issue to them, too.

An Example

I will now provide a simple example Adventure that follows these criteria. After that, I’ll break each individual criteria and show how this affects our Adventure.

The Adventure, as usual, would consist of a hook and a situation.

The Hook is that players need to get to a certain place soon.

The Situation is that to get they need to pass through the abandoned and dangerous underground city. As the players arrive, they are informed that there are 2 known paths though the city, a long one that passes near a giant ancient statue, and a short one that goes though a waterfall where a terrible kraken lives.

Let’s look at our criteria:

1. There are 2 values in play that are contradictory. Values are ‘character survival’ and ‘getting there soon’. No path satisfies both.
2. Players are informed that this is the case.
3. Players share those values. Time pressure is the Adventure Hook, and caring for safety of their characters can be assumed.
4. Players can in fact make that choice.

Therefore, the situation is an Interesting one.

Now, let’s break it!

Let’s break [1]:

• There is no kraken – players obviously choose the waterfall route
• The paths are of the same length – players obviously choose the statue route
• The waterfall path is the longer one – players obviously choose the statue route

All these put the values out of conflict and make a choice is a solvable one.

Let’s break [2]:

• Players don’t know about one of the route’s existence – they obviously choose their only option
• Players don’t know about the kraken – they obviously choose the waterfall route
• Players don’t know that paths are of different lengths – they obviously choose the statue route
• Players don’t know just how much is the statue route longer – their choice is either a guess or a conservative choice (waterfall route)
• Players don’t know just how threatening the kraken is – their choice is either a guess or a conservative choice (statue route)

Lack of critical information prevents players from even realising they are faced with an interesting choice.

Let’s break [3]:

• Players don’t actually care that much about getting there in sooner – obviously they’ll take the statue route
• Players don’t see kraken as a threat to their characters – obviously they’ll take the waterfall route
• Players believe that GM won’t dare to actually kill a PC – obviously they’ll take the waterfall route

This one is pretty obvious, too. If players don’t actually care in the first place, the conflict of values does not exist, and therefore there is no interesting situation.

Let’s break [4]:

• One of the routes is completely blocked – obviously players choose the other one
• Underground city is filled with many enemies that are way, way above what PCs are capable of handling – therefore they can’t take either of the options

If players straight up can’t actually make a choice in any meaningful way, well, they obviously can’t make a choice. Not much to be said here.

This example is meant to show how a fairly basic yet interesting situation follows the criteria, and how stopping to follow this criteria in virtually any way immediately stops the situation from being an interesting one.

An Important Addendum

As mentioned before, these is one thing missing from this scheme – lying to the players. Strictly speaking, point [1] can be skipped as long as point [2] lies and tells the players that point [1] exists. This works only in the moment, but it puts the players in the exact same position as the real deal.

This might not sound too great for obvious reasons, and I kind of agree, but I also believe that it’s something worthwhile to consider. It is true that as the game progresses the deceit is likely to be revealed, but it’s normal for the situations to change after they’ve been affected by the players actions, so it’s still kind of part for the course.

Conclusive words

Personally, despite the fact that I feel like I’ve made more assumptions in this post than in my previous one, I am surprisingly satisfied with what I came up with! This seems both inclusive, yet pretty robust, and also something I often see unfulfilled, both in Adventures and in actual play, to their detriment.

What do you people say? Perhaps you can break one of my criteria without breaking the example situation? Or maybe I have missed a case of an inherently uninteresting choice? Or maybe you would like to share you tips on what makes situations interesting? Or maybe you want to say that I have finally lost my mind and am wrong about pretty much everything?