We often talk about player agency and collaborative storytelling in TTRPGs. However amorphous these ideas are, no game has hammered these elements into my head as hard as The Wildsea. Why is that? What does it do well? Where does it flounder?
What is The Wildsea?
There’s no question that Wildsea’s setting is imaginative and inspirational. If you’re unfamiliar, I highly recommend Quinn’s Quest’s review of the game for an overview. In brief: it’s a post apocalyptic science-fantasy world where plants are simultaneously your biggest threat and your biggest ally.
The game OOOZES with collaboration. I could discuss the rare reality-bending spells called Whispers that absolutely improve collaborative storytelling and player agency. But they are a bit of a nuclear bomb when it comes to portability.
When examining this game, I want to find elements we can take over to any TTRPG. Whether it be OSR, NSR, Traditional, PbtA, FitD, or your own backwards black/white, XSR, zine-printed hot off the presses tarot-card-based indie punk apocalypse space opera game. Wildsea presents some special ideas in the questions it asks you to answer.
Let’s first examine my favorite bloodline, The Tzelicrae.
Spider-colonies wrapped in humanesque skins; thousands of tiny arachnid minds threaded like beads on a string to produce a full, rich sapience.
In total, there’s about four paragraphs of skin-crawling Tzelicrae lore. Primarily discussing three things.
- Tzelicrae are new, but becoming more common.
- Tzelicrae create their skin from sacks, silks, or skin.
- Tzelicrae have a hive-mind amongst their colony.
This lore is juicy and offers plenty of room for expansion. A perfectly suitable TTRPG would have stopped there. Except The Wildsea continues on…
Bloodline Questions
Have you ever had a true disagreement with yourself, a topic on which your colony is split?
The book shifts attention away from the collective Tzelicrae to individual (if you can earnestly call them that) Tzelicrae. The question is so personal. It’s even asked in a way that us as humans who play the game can connect to. What does it mean for a Tzelicrae to be unanimous? What does it mean to be split? Do you express yourself as schizophrenic? Or something more akin to the comically disorganized House of Commons? You decide what any of this means to you.
The Ektus bloodline (bunch of cactus people) have a similar question:
Do you trim your spines for the benefit of those around you, or leave them long to scratch and catch on your fellows?
This question runs tangential real gender and cultural appropriation issues found in the western world. But it does so while asking you what it’s like to be a cactus. What would it even mean to trim your spines? Is it routine maintenance like shaving? Or do Ektus have an equivalent of electrolysis that prevents the spines from growing back?
The questions are framed in such drastic (almost black and white) terms, yet open the world for such impactful storytelling.
When my player’s Ektus Surgeon answered this, they decided the only spines they shave are those on their hands for the soul purpose of operating on any bloodline.
Unsetting Questions
Wildsea uses Unsetting Questions. Being described as a “warm up” activity, these are used before a session to “unset” the stage by giving the world to the players.
The Firefly (GM) would prepare a series of questions about the world and the players would answer. Examples include:
- What fruit do the citizens of Distant Dirge glut themselves on every spring?
- What is a crime or atrocity you’ve heard of being committed by the Hunting Families?
- What is a sad song people sing anyway?
For players that are comfortable adding to a world they are still discovering, this will be an exciting opportunity. For players that like to sit back and enjoy a story, this will be an inconvenient annoyance. Unfortunately, the book never answers why you should use unsetting questions.
Promising Answers
Both Unsetting and Bloodline questions work wonders for collaborative storytelling. However, importance of them can only found by treating them like a magic eye poster. You have to stare at them for very long, and very hard, and you might get a migraine and give up before you see the magic.
This is where the advice in the book comes lacking. Here’s the primary advice on how to utilize Unsetting Questions:
The answers given to an unsetting question are specifically not true. Players should think of them as junction-house stories and half-remembered legends, possibilities, or unsubstantiated rumors.
As a new Firefly, this advice made me feel at ease. “Of course!” I said. I didn’t want those filthy players with their IDEAS messing up my world! Adding rumors or half remembered legends seems like a happy middle ground.
Emphasis on seems.
Issues arise when combined with the additional guidance surrounding these Unsetting Questions. Primarily: everyone is meant to answer the question. The suggestion is to have everyone go in order, or have everyone answer when something comes to mind.
In my experience… This is terrible advice. Take this example…
GM: Alright everyone, tonight's Unsetting Question... What invention or creation has changed the way people live on the Gatling Archipelago?
Tif: ... I don't want to go first, Coral?
Coral: Oh Hmmm... Well they're an archipelago, maybe some type of draw bridge?
Lips: Well, weren't these the people that create mass produced ships? I don't know if a draw bridge would be too useful.
Coral: Oh yeah. Maybe it's something ship related... Like a power tool?
Lips: Yeah that could be cool.
Tif: Or what if it's a new religion? Something about producing new goods from the old. That would mix well together.
Coral: Ooo! Yeah, a religion that changed the society to support this culture that allows for large mass-produced ships. That's fun.
In this engineered example, the unsetting question ends up turning the game into a writer’s room for about 5-10 minutes. The answers usually coalesces into one very fleshed out answer rather than a bunch of small quick ones.
The questions offered as examples are often culture-defining. What terrible crime or atrocity? What creation changed people’s lives? These are the types of questions experienced GMs spend hours toiling over in their dark dungeons. Very few players want those questions unleashed upon them before they’re even in character.
Thus a pattern is born. Big question. Writer’s block. Long discussion. Rumors or not. Repeat.
It’s this pattern that ends up eating play time and rewarding very little payoff that I fear leads to many groups ignoring unsetting questions, dropping them after a while, or feeling obligated to continue doing them without reaping any benefits.
So why don’t Bloodline Questions have the same issues?
Questions vs Questions
Players are vain creatures regardless of what TTRPG you are playing in. Typically they only care about one thing: their own character.
A player whose Tzelicrae character struggles with inner turmoil is handing a loaded Chekov’s Gun in their GM’s hand and pointing the barrel right at the metaphorical head of their character sheet.
It’s collaborative worldbuilding and player agency all wrapped up into one glorious question.
However, Bloodlines are only one of three character options you choose. Your character consists of your Bloodline, Origin, and Post.
Each of these includes at least three questions that are personal and impactful to your character. They’re all rich, thought-provoking, and exciting to consider. This makes the roughness of Unsetting Questions so much more disappointing.
So how do we rework Unsetting Questions to be just as exciting as bloodline, origin, and post questions?
Hack ‘Em
As is the answer to most TTRPGs, homebrew it.
To recap: we want to allow avenues for collaborative worldbuilding that maximize player agency while avoiding wasted table time.
Here’s the qualifications I decided upon.
- The question must build on something the character already knows or is invested in.
- Be specific.
- You convey “truthiness” by how the question is asked.
- The answers matter this session, or are big answers.
- One question per character. No more, ideally no less.
These tenants allow you to craft Unsetting Questions that maximize collaborative worldbuilding to its fullest. Tenant II is integral for this to work. It’s effectively the “shoot your monks” of Unsetting Questions. The trick is to ask your players questions that relate directly to their characters. Inquire about information from their background, misleading rumors they’ve acquired during downtime, or a dilemma they’re currently struggling with. You can be flexible with this, but it MUST relate to their character. Remember: players are vain.
Unsetting Questions as written have a major pitfall: they’re too broad. We want to be specific. Being broad opens the table to more than one player, hence eating time. We don’t want to sit around like Greco-Roman philosophers thinking about the game, we want to play the game. You can flesh out the idea as a GM. The moment will present itself while playing. Trust me. It’s the player’s job to light that initial spark.
I’m going to borrow from OSR ideology. Information should be public. Everything decided in an Unsetting Question should have a grain of truth. But most importantly: they should know how truthful the answers are. Asking a player for a “rumor” has implications about its truthiness. You can play with it, but be clear. This is where player agency comes into play. We’re asking them to make a decision, so we need to value what answer they provide. Hence, the answers must matter this session.
Finally, I highly suggest one question per player. This keeps our questions focused and quick! Remember, we’re trying to get to the game, not sit around thinking about the game. I’m going to ALSO recommend you also do one question per player. The reason for this is ultimately selfish. It helps with your game design.
Without us being aware, GMs often fall into a of pit trap of game design. Perhaps your thief picked the wrong pocket and now your game transitions into an urban adventure. Urban adventures work great for thieves… Not so much for druids or rangers. You need to ask yourself, what do they care about this session? By creating Unsetting Questions for every character, you remind yourself of everyone who’s playing that night. It’s your way of setting the stakes for each character, regardless of who they are or what their skill set is. Especially because tenant IV ensures their answers will matter this session or be very impactful at a later date.
Closing Remarks
Unsetting Questions are really an enigma. I wasn’t sure how to think about them until I happened upon Felix Isaacs (lead designer of The Wildsea) writing up a one shot for Gen Con on the Wild World’s discord and had a chance to chat with him about them.
It really opened up my perspective on how to use them. And most importantly: on how portable they are. If used with care, Unsetting Questions are like a cheat code to player engagement and emergent storytelling. It’s a beautiful thing.
My next blog post will focus on how I’ve used the tenants outlined here to improve my Shadowdark game of all things. Thanks for reading! If you find this post it means you probably found it on Bluesky, Discord, or through a DM somewhere. Let me know your thoughts!