D&D 5E Why I'm introducing the Oracle to my D&D Game (and reducing my own DM Authority)

[BookTenTiger]

As I've mentioned in a few threads, I've fallen head over heels in love with the game Ironsworn. The basic game can be downloaded for free, though its excellent expansions (Delve and Starforged) must be purchased (and should be!).

Ironsworn is designed for very small groups or solo play. To aide in this, the game has a system called The Oracle. It's basically a series of tables you can roll on in order to generate settlements, NPC's, plot twists, enemy actions, etc. This, of course, is already very much in-line with D&D, home of so many famous random tables.

However, The Oracle has another use, and that's to answer questions about the campaign world, consequences, or really anything else. Here's how it works:

Let's say I'm playing a solo game and my character, a hunter, is trying to fight a big ol' wyvern. I know the wyvern's going to be swooping down at me, but I'm not sure if it's going to try to snatch me or my faithful hunting hound. Rather than choosing, I ask the Oracle! I decide it's "likely" that the wyvern would want to grab the unarmed dog rather than this hunter with a spear pointed and its belly. I roll a d100 and get 34. So to my question "Does the wyvern snatch my hunting hound?" the answer is "yes."

Here's another example: I'm currently running an Ironsworn game for three friends. We decided on a quest to save a town from a plague. We asked the Oracle a series of yes or no questions to figure out what's going on with this plague. First we asked "Does the plague cause a physical reaction?" We decided it was "Almost Certain" that the plague cause physical reactions... and rolled below 11! So the answer was "No." Then through a series of further questions, we figured out that this "plague" was actually a magical mental illness that cause paranoia and waking visions. None of us would have come up with that idea originally, and it was so fun to see it develop as we asked more questions and rolled!

Some further examples from the Ironsworn book include:

• "Is there somewhere I can hide?"
• "Do I drop my sword or my shield?"
• "Do I know the way?"

These questions remind me of those frustrating moments in D&D when you're not sure if a character would know something you don't know as a player, or if something exists in the campaign world that you haven't decided on as a DM. I remember playing in a campaign in which we were fighting this huge storm elemental. We asked the DM if we could use a metal rod to attract the elemental's lightning attacks, and the DM said that lightning rods didn't exist in the campaign world. Personally, to me, this didn't make much sense, since the cantrip Shocking Grasp grants advantage for attacks against opponents wearing metal or made of metal armor. It felt like the D&D rules assumed characters knew lightning was attracted to metal. The small debate we had left a sour taste, and only now do I realize that using The Oracle could have easily solved this problem!

Rather than debating at the table whether Faerun has lightning rods, we could have rolled on the Oracle Table! In fact, I'll do it now. Let's say the DM says it's Unlikely that our characters would know of lightning rods. I roll a d100 and get... 23. That's a "No." The dice have spoken, problem solved.

This is why I'm going to introduce The Oracle into my next D&D game. Rather than having to be the authority on every aspect of my campaign world, I'm going to leave questions up to the dice! Here are some situations I look forward to using The Oracle with:

• "Is it safter to travel by sea or by land?"
• "Would my character have met the Baron before?"
• "Does anyone in this band of goblins speak Orcish?"
• "How does this town survive in isolation when the wilderness is too dangerous to farm?"
• "Could I have entered the medusa's lair with my eyes closed?"

Often when I receive questions like this, I go through a little internal debate. "What would be fun for the players? Does this match my vision of the campaign world? Am I being too lenient? To strict?"

The Oracle solves these problems!

For Yes / No questions, either I (or the table) decides on the likeliness of getting a "Yes."

For open-ended questions, we brainstorm two different options and then choose which one is more likely!

And at the end of the day, it's not the DM making these decisions... blame the Oracle!

...

So what do you think? Would you use the Oracle in your D&D campaign? Do you feel like the players would respect the results? Would you be willing to give up some DM Authority and leave some decisions up to the Oracle?

 

[Lanefan]

Here are some situations I look forward to using The Oracle with:

• "Is it safter to travel by sea or by land?"
• "Would my character have met the Baron before?"
• "Does anyone in this band of goblins speak Orcish?"
• "How does this town survive in isolation when the wilderness is too dangerous to farm?"
• "Could I have entered the medusa's lair with my eyes closed?"

...

So what do you think? Would you use the Oracle in your D&D campaign? Do you feel like the players would respect the results? Would you be willing to give up some DM Authority and leave some decisions up to the Oracle?

For questions like the first three above, if I-as-DM don't already know the answer I kind of already use an informal oracle-like system for myself: I just roll for it (or, in the case of the Baron question, have the player roll for it); but the PCs may or may not know until-unless they interact or ask questions.

For example, a non-local PC isn't likely to know if it's safer to travel by sea or land until-unless asking in-character someone familiar with the region; and at that point I'd roll to see a) what the true answer is and then b) whether the local knows it. They won't know if any of the Goblins speak Orcish until-unless they overhear it being spoken or try speaking it to the Goblins and see if any respond.

Getting useful answers for the last two would almost always require actual research by the PCs, in terms of investigation or divination or consulting with someone. The Oracle, as you present it here, would seem to be intended as a means of bypassing this in-character info-gathering process, which isn't something I'd want.

Note this applies to larger groups as well as solo or small group play.

 

[dave2008]

As I've mentioned in a few threads, I've fallen head over heels in love with the game Ironsworn. The basic game can be downloaded for free, though its excellent expansions (Delve and Starforged) must be purchased (and should be!).

Ironsworn is designed for very small groups or solo play. To aide in this, the game has a system called The Oracle. It's basically a series of tables you can roll on in order to generate settlements, NPC's, plot twists, enemy actions, etc. This, of course, is already very much in-line with D&D, home of so many famous random tables.

However, The Oracle has another use, and that's to answer questions about the campaign world, consequences, or really anything else. Here's how it works:

View attachment 275368

Let's say I'm playing a solo game and my character, a hunter, is trying to fight a big ol' wyvern. I know the wyvern's going to be swooping down at me, but I'm not sure if it's going to try to snatch me or my faithful hunting hound. Rather than choosing, I ask the Oracle! I decide it's "likely" that the wyvern would want to grab the unarmed dog rather than this hunter with a spear pointed and its belly. I roll a d100 and get 34. So to my question "Does the wyvern snatch my hunting hound?" the answer is "yes."

Here's another example: I'm currently running an Ironsworn game for three friends. We decided on a quest to save a town from a plague. We asked the Oracle a series of yes or no questions to figure out what's going on with this plague. First we asked "Does the plague cause a physical reaction?" We decided it was "Almost Certain" that the plague cause physical reactions... and rolled below 11! So the answer was "No." Then through a series of further questions, we figured out that this "plague" was actually a magical mental illness that cause paranoia and waking visions. None of us would have come up with that idea originally, and it was so fun to see it develop as we asked more questions and rolled!

Some further examples from the Ironsworn book include:

• "Is there somewhere I can hide?"
• "Do I drop my sword or my shield?"
• "Do I know the way?"

These questions remind me of those frustrating moments in D&D when you're not sure if a character would know something you don't know as a player, or if something exists in the campaign world that you haven't decided on as a DM. I remember playing in a campaign in which we were fighting this huge storm elemental. We asked the DM if we could use a metal rod to attract the elemental's lightning attacks, and the DM said that lightning rods didn't exist in the campaign world. Personally, to me, this didn't make much sense, since the cantrip Shocking Grasp grants advantage for attacks against opponents wearing metal or made of metal armor. It felt like the D&D rules assumed characters knew lightning was attracted to metal. The small debate we had left a sour taste, and only now do I realize that using The Oracle could have easily solved this problem!

Rather than debating at the table whether Faerun has lightning rods, we could have rolled on the Oracle Table! In fact, I'll do it now. Let's say the DM says it's Unlikely that our characters would know of lightning rods. I roll a d100 and get... 23. That's a "No." The dice have spoken, problem solved.

This is why I'm going to introduce The Oracle into my next D&D game. Rather than having to be the authority on every aspect of my campaign world, I'm going to leave questions up to the dice! Here are some situations I look forward to using The Oracle with:

• "Is it safter to travel by sea or by land?"
• "Would my character have met the Baron before?"
• "Does anyone in this band of goblins speak Orcish?"
• "How does this town survive in isolation when the wilderness is too dangerous to farm?"
• "Could I have entered the medusa's lair with my eyes closed?"

Often when I receive questions like this, I go through a little internal debate. "What would be fun for the players? Does this match my vision of the campaign world? Am I being too lenient? To strict?"

The Oracle solves these problems!

For Yes / No questions, either I (or the table) decides on the likeliness of getting a "Yes."

For open-ended questions, we brainstorm two different options and then choose which one is more likely!

And at the end of the day, it's not the DM making these decisions... blame the Oracle!

...

So what do you think? Would you use the Oracle in your D&D campaign? Do you feel like the players would respect the results? Would you be willing to give up some DM Authority and leave some decisions up to the Oracle?

Love it - it think I will absolutely incorporate this into my games!

 

[DMZ2112]

No, worldbuilding is my favorite part of dungeon mastery. It's how I see my role, and how I derive most of my enjoyment from the game: creating a consistent world and seeing how the players bounce off of it. I wouldn't sign it over to random tables any sooner than I'd sign it over to ChatGPT, which by all accounts is a much more robust tool.

I'm not yucking your yum, or at least I hope I'm not. It's fine if that's what you want to do -- every dungeon master has their own strengths, and plays to them -- but I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't tie it into the concept of "authority" like this. Being trusted to build the world in which the game takes place is a privilege, not a right, and exercising that privilege doesn't make anyone a control freak. Dungeon masters deserve to have fun, too.

I think there's some value in pointing out to less experienced dungeon masters that they have a tool like this available to them, for use when they are uncertain about a setting truth, but dividing a d100 roll into binary 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 90% probabilities is not what I would call particularly inspired design.

I'd heard about Ironsworn's Oracle system in passing, and I was hoping it would have more nuance, like a target probability that reflects disagreement between party members on the likelihood of the outcome, or a way to assign different probabilities to multiple proposals on the table rather than reducing everything to an either-or. That would legitimately be interesting to me, in certain circumstances.

Often when I receive questions like this, I go through a little internal debate. "What would be fun for the players? Does this match my vision of the campaign world? Am I being too lenient? To strict?"

The Oracle solves these problems!

It doesn't, though, not really. What it does is give you a procedurally generated answer that at worst takes none of these very valid questions into consideration, and at best passes most of the responsibility of answering them to the players, who by design do not have your referee's frame of reference regarding the setting, campaign, or adventure. If you're running a more collaborative table, that's probably fine, but that is far from the baseline assumption of how D&D operates.

And at the end of the day, it's not the DM making these decisions... blame the Oracle!

I hope you are just being flip, here, but fear of accepting responsibility is never a good reason to do anything.

 

[dave2008]

No, worldbuilding is my favorite part of dungeon mastery. It's how I see my role, and how I derive most of my enjoyment from the game: creating a consistent world and seeing how the players bounce off of it. I wouldn't sign it over to random tables any sooner than I'd sign it over to ChatGPT, which by all accounts is a much more robust tool.

I'm not yucking your yum, or at least I hope I'm not. It's fine if that's what you want to do -- every dungeon master has their own strengths, and plays to them -- but I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't tie it into the concept of "authority" like this. Being trusted to build the world in which the game takes place is a privilege, not a right, and exercising that privilege doesn't make anyone a control freak. Dungeon masters deserve to have fun, too.

I think there's some value in pointing out to less experienced dungeon masters that they have a tool like this available to them, for use when they are uncertain about a setting truth, but dividing a d100 roll into binary 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 90% probabilities is not what I would call particularly inspired design.

I'd heard about Ironsworn's Oracle system in passing, and I was hoping it would have more nuance, like a target probability that reflects disagreement between party members on the likelihood of the outcome, or a way to assign different probabilities to multiple proposals on the table rather than reducing everything to an either-or. That would legitimately be interesting to me, in certain circumstances.


It doesn't, though, not really. What it does is give you a procedurally generated answer that at worst takes none of these very valid questions into consideration, and at best passes most of the responsibility of answering them to the players, who by design do not have your referee's frame of reference regarding the setting, campaign, or adventure. If you're running a more collaborative table, that's probably fine, but that is far from the baseline assumption of how D&D operates.


I hope you are just being flip, here, but fear of accepting responsibility is never a good reason to do anything.

It seems to me you are taking this to personally. It is just a fun little tool. Use it or not, no big deal.

Personally my group (I'm the DM) runs a more cooperative world design, so I think this would be a fun tool to use at certain times. Particularly sense it is complete sandbox and my group can do what ever they want and sometime what they do and where they go simply has not been anticipated - at all!

 

[JAMUMU]

I'm fine with designing/building a lot of the world, but I recognise that player input often improves on my ideas, or at least pushes them forward an iteration. Also, one person creating an entire world is a mammoth task and a little help goes a long way. So I leave lots of blank space and let it filled in as we go, often cooperatively.

However, there's no way I'm going to use your stinky Ironsworn oracle tables, because they made the wyvern kill the dog. The dog, man. Bad vibes all the way down!

/s

 

[BookTenTiger]

I'm fine with designing/building a lot of the world, but I recognise that player input often improves on my ideas, or at least pushes them forward an iteration. Also, one person creating an entire world is a mammoth task and a little help goes a long way. So I leave lots of blank space and let it filled in as we go, often cooperatively.

However, there's no way I'm going to use your stinky Ironsworn oracle tables, because they made the wyvern kill the dog. The dog, man. Bad vibes all the way down!

/s

That happened in my first solo Ironsworn game, I was crushed!!! Persimmon, my orange-furred hunting bound gifted to me by the clan chief, got abducted by the wyvern. Poor Persimmon...

 

[JAMUMU]

That happened in my first solo Ironsworn game, I was crushed!!! Persimmon, my orange-furred hunting bound gifted to me by the clan chief, got abducted by the wyvern. Poor Persimmon...

Does the dog die? is a question that should be added to every game.

 

[overgeeked]

That looks like a boiled down Mythic GM Emulator. There’s a solo actual play YouTuber who uses it extensively. Me, Myself, and Die.

So what do you think?

I think what is lost is rediscovered and lost again in cycles. This is a very old idea. Morale, reaction checks, random encounters, etc. It’s good to use random rolls for things instead on spending game time overthinking them.

Would you use the Oracle in your D&D campaign?

I always have to one degree or another.

Do you feel like the players would respect the results?

Unless I called it out to the players they likely wouldn’t have a clue.

Would you be willing to give up some DM Authority and leave some decisions up to the Oracle?

Again, I already do. I love random charts and rolls. Always use them to reduce my workload. I’d rather spend five minutes designing a random chart to reference at will than spend five minutes thinking about a new answer every time the same question comes up.

There are also non-binary routes to take.

Roll 1d6. 1 no, and. 2 no. 3 no, but. 4 yes, but. 5 yes. 6 yes, and. Adjust the probabilities by using 5E-style dis/advantage. Roll two, keep one.

Roll 2d6. 6- hard referee move. 7-9 soft referee & player moves. 10+ player move. Adjust with +/-2 or dis/advantage.

You can make all kinds of oracles.

 

[DMZ2112]

It seems to me you are taking this to personally. It is just a fun little tool. Use it or not, no big deal.

Agree or disagree with my points to your heart's content, but accusing me of taking the subject matter personally just tells me you can only refute my case by suggesting I'm responding emotionally therefore not making valid judgments.

Which, in turn, I do take personally -- because it's an insult.

Personally my group (I'm the DM) runs a more cooperative world design, so I think this would be a fun tool to use at certain times.

Which is one of the valid points I made in my post.

Particularly sense it is complete sandbox and my group can do what ever they want and sometime what they do and where they go simply has not been anticipated - at all!

Running a sandbox does not absolve you of the responsibility to satisfactorily resolve player action. If you want to farm it out to the whole table or use a random generator, there's nothing wrong with that, but don't lay it at the feet of running in sandbox style. Plenty of dungeon masters run sandboxes just fine via reliable prep and improv.