Tabletop Weekly

As a DM, my goal is to not only provide fun and entertaining content for my players to experience but to also put my players in the world. If a DM can immerse their players into the world, you raise the stakes for players. They are able to feel even more connected to the landscape they are in and not just feel like they are sitting on someone’s couch with a pen and a piece of paper or a laptop. They are in the world you designed. Situations like a final boss fight or a character’s death can be granted so much more meaning and depth when you immerse players. Today, I will be discussing the tactics I have learned over the years to immerse myself and players into the worlds and campaigns I create.

Ambience

One of the easiest ways to immerse any player into a world is to provide natural ambient sounds for their environment. If your party is spelunking within a cavern, then provide them with the noise that would be in that environment. You can include quiet groans from a distant enemy, a gunshot for dramatic flare during a descriptive scene, the sound of a nearby waterfall within a forested landscape, songs of birds. The smallest details allow players to feel like they are in the world, and thus feel more invested within your campaign.

Music

Music can serve a similar purpose to ambience by providing character to an environment. Music, unlike ambience, has the ability to set tone. You can use whimsical music in a tavern scene to make a situation less ‘dry’ and more lively and fun. You can also suddenly change to tense music once the party starts messing with people they probably shouldn’t have. I always like seeing my players squirm as soon they hear one of the “tenser” tracks. They know something bad could happen if they aren’t careful. Whereas using music that is calming or maybe even whimsical, the players will feel less tense, less pressure. This can be used to build a false sense of security between the players and the environment.

Where to start?

At this point, you probably are wondering what to look for or where to start when finding audio and sound for your future games. Lucky for you, I have already compiled several ambiences and music tracks for you to use as reference when finding immersive audio.

King’s Quest isn’t just a fun tabletop game, it has deep lore surrounding the world it was made for. In the world of Ithalreach, there is lore spanning hundreds of thousands of years. These stories and ideas were created by myself, as well as other volunteering writers. These are some of those stories.

Today, I will be going over the Asarian Empire, a powerful empire, which inhabits the continent of Emberossa. The Asarian Empire is a vast, spanning over four city-states across Emberossa. These city-states are Aegious, Absolious, Theya, and finally the capital city of Asaria. Each of these cities are run by a king, who answers only to the Asarian Emperor and the Asarian Council.

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Many campaigns have taken place within the region of Emberossa, so there have been many interactions between players and the Asarian Empire. Some have been good, some not so much…

One interaction sees a party going to court to defend a character known as Jutro Azolotta, against the Asarian Empire after he was captured and sentenced to life in jail for the terrorism caused by his previous kin against the Asarian Empire. The party argued that Jutro’s actions do not represent his past lineage. The Empire agreed and instead of sentencing his life to jail, his sentence was changed to a death sentence  as an act of mercy and he was hung publicly as an example, the words “Crossing Asaria once is to cross Asaria twice.” engraved into his chest. The saddest part being that he was the last of his family, or at least that is what the Asarian Empire thinks…

Another story shows the generosity of the Asarian Empire. In the present timeline, in another region known as Omnialice, there was a three hundred year-long war between the four major kingdoms of the region that had recently ended. The Asarian Empire has been sending aid to towns and cities that have refugees who have lost their households or land from the war. They also send funding to clinics in Emberossa in towns that are not owned by the Asarian Empire. Towns that qualify for this are usually the native Shou’Tay people, who usually live peacefully with the Asarians, at the cost of being lightly regulated by them. 

This has been my lore dive for the Asarian Empire, I hope you’ve enjoyed it! Next week I plan to talk about Immersive Sound and of course the bloodlines and canonic races within King’s Quest.