Oracular Practice

The other day I wrote a bit about running my current game - one of the things I discussed very briefly was the introduction of controlled randomness into a storytelling space. In our hobby this is done with the simulational machinery of the game world - the dice form the foundation, and are spun out into tables, matrixes, resolution mechanics, etc. What distinguishes games writing from prose writing? For me it's the way it introduces bounded regions of indeterminacy into a text. An adventure location or module is explicitly nearly entirely indeterminate states, to be 'completed' by the characters as they navigate it. Character creation may have randomised elements - the bounds are set by the writer, who defines a range inside which this 'type' of being is exposed to this or that variety of gear, abilities, circumstances, etc. We are good at pattern recognition - we read the indeterminacy textually, and it tells us something about the world we are all inhabiting together. You can do…