Storytelling Tips: Running The Black Ballad

Hello, you glorious gang of goblins! Pat is back… <flips both hat and chair backward and sits down> … alright, let’s chat!

The date fast approaches when The Black Ballad (TBB) will be delivered into your clutches. And that means many of you will soon embark on a truly unique Storytelling and Game Mastering experience. To that end, we’ve compiled a few tips that might help you prepare and run your players through The Black Ballad! So, grab a seat and a notebook while we spill all our Storytelling secrets…

Art by Randolph Williams

Right out of the gate, my first tip to you is to try to keep as much of this campaign a surprise as possible. If you are starting a new campaign up specifically to play TBB then the one directive I would give is: “Create a character and then decide how they die.” For those of you Storytellers keeping this in your back pocket to use in the event of a TPK, tell them nothing. Just imagine the looks on their faces when they realize you’ve had something planned for this occurrence.

My second over-arching tip is: Do Your Homework. Yes, part of Storytelling is being able to improv and adapt on the fly to the chaotic and unpredictable actions of the player characters. And yes, once you have the book, you’re welcome to change the setting to better fit your table. All that being said, everything we put into the world-building aspect of this campaign, we did for a reason. But more importantly than that… you know your players are going to have a lot of questions for you, like, a LOT. Especially if this was a surprise campaign they didn’t expect to play immediately after dying. We have provided all you need to deliver a believable, tactile, and immersive world. The text is your shield, Storytellers. Use it.

I want to take a break from my own bloviating for a moment and share what some of our other Storytellers have to say on the matter. You all might remember me shouting out the delightful John Maxwell and Ben Walker last year after our stints running TBB at “RPG in a Castle.” Well, I reached out to them and asked them to share their thoughts:

The most important thing is to take your time in the chapter about settling in. - John

This is a great tip. John is referring to Chapter 2. (Not to spoil anything but we drop you directly into the proverbial fire in the first Chapter. We wanted to get that adrenaline flowing right out the gate!) Chapter 2 gives the players a chance to learn about and explore this new, unfamiliar setting. Don’t rush it. Let them acclimate. It’ll make it that much more impactful when the all-powerful Plot Hammer slams down.

Building up places and NPCs to greater impact the Players when REDACTED happens. - Ben

This is a great tip from Ben, which pairs nicely with John’s advice. Events are set into motion that have the potential to payoff major roleplay moments for the players, but they first need to care about the world around them.

Make deaths matter. - John

It’s no secret that The Black Ballad is about what happens to the heroic player characters after they have died. However, one thing you might not be aware of is the campaign provides ample opportunity for the Storyteller to kill the player characters again… and again. However, these second and third deaths are not without their consequences. Don’t shy away from the side effects tables provided in the book for the inevitable character death.

Tell the players that they will die and then actually try to kill them. The roleplay that comes from REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED is awesome. - Ben

I swear it’s like these two collaborated on their answers before getting back to me. Yet again, Ben’s tip dovetails perfectly with John’s. Fellow Storytellers, lean in.. closer… closer… closer… TOO CLOSE! But seriously, I cannot stress this enough: The Black Ballad is not the campaign for pulling your GM punches. It is designed to chew up the player characters, spit ‘em out, and chew ‘em up again. When I ran my table at the RPG in a Castle event, I did the very thing Ben suggested at the beginning. I literally opened the first session of the campaign with the sentence:

“Welcome to The Black Ballad… we’re going to have a lot of fun… also I’m going to kill you all.”

Finally, I want to apologize for all the REDACTED bits in this post, but remember the first tip: We want your players to be wholly and truly surprised by the many twists and turns we have planned for them. We hope you are as excited for this as we are. We truly can’t wait for the book to be in your hands.

Cheers, you lovely horde of misfits….

Art by Michael Katchan