Do Whatever - Information (Promptober 2025 #15)

Sunset in Cyberspace

Much of a tabletop role-playing game involves the gaining, transfer, uncovering, and restriction of information. Players always need more information about a scene, or where people move during combat, or what a spell does, or what effect keeps them stuck in one place, or where the next piece of the MacGuffin hides. GMs typically hide information until the characters find a way to unlock it, or make up interesting new bits of information on the fly to deepen the players' experiences.

In many ways, information provides the lifeblood of society. If a town can't communicate with its neighbors in a reasonable amount of time, they stand alone against any faster threat that arrives. And if the PCs can't communicate with each other, they each must act independently and waste effort in redundant actions.

Let's stick with the GM/Player dynamic for now.

How can GMs transfer information about the game to players more effectively?

This question encompasses so many different ideas, it could end up as a dissertation topic. In my mind, the basis of any response heavily depends on the capacities and preferences of the people involved, at least for the throughput side of the issue. Some people get more out of physical maps and minis so they can estimate distance and make plans using visual input. Other people prefer the looser interpretation of physical proximity inherent to Theatre of the Mind play, describing their actions and embellishments rather than moving a miniature on a map. Check in with your group often and ask what they want to see more of to increase their enjoyment.

As a GM on the design side of information transfer, putting crucial information behind game mechanics that can fail can cause frustration for everyone involved. Always allow several different ways to get information into your players' hands. Don't be afraid to prompt players to share what they know, as they spend less time in their characters' heads than the characters do. Maybe they forgot they knew something intrinsic to the situation at hand, or maybe they just aren't putting the pieces together in a way that makes sense. In these cases, I usually have a friendly NPC talk with the party to give them different ideas or ways to approach a problem.

Having a single correct answer to a situation turns the game into "guess what the GM wants you to do", which rarely proves fun. Giving piles of information and letting the players spin their own wild explanations opens the possibility of them actually being right. There's no rule saying you can't change the results of the situation to something they came up with. If you do, your players feel clever, and you save development time by simply fleshing out their ideas. It's a win-win, and can make for a great game experience.

I'll leave it here for now. In a future post I want to expand more on this, and also tackle societal methods for information transfer in-game, like how messages can move across a vast fantasy empire efficiently. There's so much more to think about here, and I'm still noodling my way through.

NOTE: I'm reading Nonzero: The Logic Of Human Destiny by Robert Wright right now. One of is premises involves information transfer as a building block of society. Sharing experiences and learning without having every member of the tribe go through their own learning experience is critical to modern humanity's evolution. More efficient communication technology proved critical as human tribes turned into states and then into empires. So why not apply some of those thoughts and ideas to the gaming table as well?

Part of the Promtober project for 2025.