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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Garthanos" data-source="post: 7066980" data-attributes="member: 82504">Sage<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531151312/http://community.wizards.com/wrecan/blog/2012/03/06/sage,_the_second_pilaster" target="_blank">'SAGE, THE SECOND PILASTER</a><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531151312/http://community.wizards.com/wrecan/go/gallery/item/136942229" target="_blank"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531151312im_/http://images.community.wizards.com/community.wizards.com/user/wrecan/wrecan_blog/bb7025cc3c51ef0b3e166eccccc6226a.jpg?v=54366" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>This is the third in my "Three Pilasters" series of articles.  In this article, I plan on talk about the second Pilaster of D&D: 'Sage.  <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531151312/http://community.wizards.com/wrecan/go/gallery/item/137111523" target="_blank"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531151312im_/http://images.community.wizards.com/community.wizards.com/user/wrecan/wrecan_blog/ba7f44a5738ed3489be7a0f72c913862.jpg?v=30336" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>While 'ludes describe the things that happen when an adventuring companion is unaccompanied -- the space between the pillars -- 'sage is the stuff that makes the pillars possible: information.D&D, like all role-playing games, is a game of the imagination.  And since imagination has no form, not physicality, it is essentially a game of information.  So how the game doles out information is crucial to its success.This is has been an area that has been handled haphazardly, at best.  I've divided information into the following categories: backstory, message, sage, and presage.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531151312/http://community.wizards.com/wrecan/go/gallery/item/137111529" target="_blank"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531151312im_/http://images.community.wizards.com/community.wizards.com/user/wrecan/wrecan_blog/5208391d9ee55fabc286de239315b82d.jpg?v=39360" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>MESSAGEThe message is the information the DM needs to impart the party before an adventure begins.  It is sometimes called the "hook" or the "back story" or sometimes simply "exposition".  There are a variety of ways for a DM to impart this information.  Often is it tied to a character's prelude.  Sometimes it just comes out of the blue, with a stranger hiring the PCs to do something.  Moduels and published adventures use this technique most often because hiring a mercenary is the easiest way to get a group into the story without having to know too much about the specific individuals within the group.Message is important because the DM has to figure out what is the least amount that the party needs so they can find and successfully complete the adventure.  For instance, if the world is going to end in 24 hours, but the party does not know it and has no opportunity to learn it, they may rest, never realizing they will never wake up.  Also, if the party doesn't know that the bad guy is walking across the continent, they might rush unnecessarily exhausting themselves to the point that it becomes impossible for them to defeat the bad guy.  They key is determining what it the least amount of information needed to find and complete the adventure.Not all of the message needs to be received from one source or one time.  The party might get some information at the beginning of the advventure (dinosaurs are attacking!) and then later learn more necessary information (the dinosaurs are coming from that cave!) and then later learn even more (the dinosaurs are being summoned by the drow!).  The DM should have guidance on determining what information is crucial and how best to ensure the party learns what they need.There have never been a lot of mechanics for messages.  In AD&D, many adventures had rumor charts where players could roll to get story hooks (sometimes false!).  3rd edition would make lists of story hooks in various supplements, which DMs could use for inspirations.  4e gave lots of DM advice, but little in mechanics.  Personally, that's my preference.  D&D is about story and I prefer the opening of the story to be dtermined exclusively by the DM, without interference by the dice.  But Next needs to decide how it wants to lure a party into adventure, and whether the dice should play a part.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531151312/http://community.wizards.com/wrecan/go/gallery/item/137111525" target="_blank"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531151312im_/http://images.community.wizards.com/community.wizards.com/user/wrecan/wrecan_blog/7c4033c5de6991b1ca7ed49b5f0386a3.jpg?v=17464" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>SAGEThe second category of 'sage is sage.  Sage constitutes the information that the characters can learn during the course of the adventure, which is helpful, but not strictly needed.  There are several ways a party might get sage.The first is good 'ol fashioned footwork.  In 3e and 4e, this is called "Streetwise check".  Before the Streetwise check, you were expected to go and interview every NPC you could find.A second way is through the "Knowledge Check" in which the dice tell you what your character knows.  Pre-3e, many DMs avoided knowledge checks (even in the form of Intelligence checks), prefering to let the characters use the players' knowledge.  One of my first characters was a multiclassed ranger, chosen, in part, to justify the fact that I would often blurt out facts that I gleaned from having memorized the Monster Manuals.  Nowadays it would be called metagaming.A third way is through divinations.  Lots of spells would give players access to information that is otherwise hidden.  In fact, an entire strategy -- scry and die -- was developed in Thrid Edition to capitalize on the value of divinations, and suddenly bad guys had to be world-class abjurers in order to keep the player characters' divinations from obviating the DM's carefully crafted stories.A final way is through actual sages.  If the PCs don't have the proper spells or abilities, they'll usually have the money to buy them.  In 3rd and 4th edition, you might buy divinatory scrolls.  AD&D actually had rules for sages that PCs could hire,a and what they would know.Next needs to figure out how to balance the players' desire for sage and the DMs' need not to allow PCs from obviating the entire avdenture by being armed with foreknowledge.  If players don't get enough sage, they feel like they are being railroaded.  If players get too much, it limits the types of stories a DM can tell.<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531151312/http://community.wizards.com/wrecan/go/gallery/item/137111527" target="_blank"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531151312im_/http://images.community.wizards.com/community.wizards.com/user/wrecan/wrecan_blog/53d443eb13435cfecc4a55bdef2a378d.jpg?v=43516" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>PRESAGEThe final category of 'sage is presage.  Presage represents the foreknowledge of things to come, the hints and seeds of future adventures that one finds littered throughout the current adventure, even if the players do not recognize them as such.  The key to presaging is that the players are not generally looking for it.  So there is less concern about divinations ruining a plotline because the players shouldn't know they should be casting them.  Instead, presaging becomes entirely a DMing tool.  Some presaging comes in the form of a recurring villain.  A DM descided to bring back an escaped (or resurrected) villain.  Some presaging comes in the form of innocuous details that become relevant only in retrospect (often called refrigerator moments).  Some presaging hits you over the head... often in the form of story elements that will define an entire campaign arc.  These might be in the form of omens.  These might simply be backstory that is not immediately relevant, like knowing that an asteroid is hurtling toward the planet.  There are no rules that a DM could invoke to control presaging.  In fact, not all campaigns will even use presaging.  Some DMs prefer DMing on thefly, without knowling where the next adventure will be.  Many sandbox settings actively eschew presaging.  But either way, presaging is a DMing tool that deserves some consideration in a DM Guide, for those DMs who want it.WHAT'S NEXTIn the next and final article, I will discuss the last of the three pilasters: 'Port!</blockquote>

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