“I jump on the table and dive tackle at the approaching Grunt!” Syron said excitedly while waiting for the event master to tell him what to roll. The man in question did not require any rolls. Instead, he looked to the heavily perspiring boy sitting next to him and gestured at the flickering illusion in front of them. It showed a heavily armored knight standing in a tavern while an ugly scrawny man with a knife was frozen in motion, about to run by. The knight bent his knees and then slowly extended them, eerily levitating on top of the table before the grunt started sliding across the floor, still frozen. The knight didn’t so much ‘tackle’ the grunt as they tipped over awkwardly and fell into the grunt, both images flickering out for a solid ten seconds before reappearing as a pile.

Hrm… what to do, what to do… knowing that this is less about me ‘playing’ the game and more about me watching potential event masters and illusionists work together makes me uncomfortable. I hate it when people interrupt campaigns with rule lawyering or complaints about… well, whatever. At the same time, if they are supposed to be representing my vision… well, it falls flat. There are many different rolls that could have been made, but the event master very casually passed it off like it wasn’t important. Like they were ‘testing’ the illusionist assistant instead of being ‘tested’ themselves. Roll for jumping on the table, or for balancing on the table, or for jumping off the table, or for durability of the pedestal style tavern table, or… hell, grappling? Something that makes a person feel like their character build matters. I chose the heavy armor avatar and then also chose to jump on a weak looking table. I can accept if the table breaks and I prat fall into a heap in front of the armed grunt because of my own stupid decisions.

As for the illusions… yeah, they’re rough. But I wasn’t expecting much better in that regard. I practiced constantly for months to get to where I am, and I have modern movies to draw inspiration from. The illusionist is just a kid around fifteen or sixteen? Come to think of it, I’m actually really impressed with their powers, all things considered.

“As you can tell, you tackle the Grunt to the ground. They take… uh… three damage.” The event master explained while doing a roll at his desk a few feet away.

And here’s another complaint. Why do I know how much damage they took? If I attacked them, it would be different. I would say something like “I attack for six damage!” and they respond with “Okay!” and then secretly add in whatever modifiers later. The game I visualized has only the players seeming to have stats. Obviously everything else does too, but that isn’t something for a player to know because that isn’t something for their avatars to know either. With this being more hands off than the table top games from my previous life, we can have a clearly separated player versus event master dynamic. There is no need for metagaming to be widely accepted and frustratingly allowed. If we use our own guidelines compared to what is released for our ‘home edition’ event master guide, mob stats can be completely confidential.

Syron just started jotting down notes in the small notebook Rue provided each of the participants in this ‘interview’. He was paying attention to what was happening around him, but he had gotten a general idea of the talent level of the other players. Each player was taking turns as the event master’s assistant and Syron was the only one that hadn’t gone yet. They were all about the same in ability. Promising, but not there yet. Given how long they’ve had to practice, Syron was becoming more and more impressed with their skills the more he thought about it.

“I move next to the Knight and attempt to stab the Grunt in the throat.” The older man sitting next to Syron said. His small, agile avatar with a single dagger slid strangely across the flooring of the tavern.

They actually kinda look like pewter minis. The more I look at it, the more I like how janky it appears. It’s pretty nostalgic.

The event master made another roll and declared the grunt dead before looking at the still struggling illusionist boy. The kid scrunched his face up with effort and made the grunt flash red a few times before disappearing. The knight was floating over top of where the grunt’s body used to be, still laying down like they were in a jumbled pile.

Well, it certainly makes it easier on the brain to remove entities, but so long as the illusion is determining how we interpret the playfield, you have to keep relevant images ‘alive’. With the body vanished on the playfield, does that mean we can’t trip over them? Are we still able to loot the body? I would assume so, but by having the players focus on the illusions, it becomes easier to forget such things. If you spoil us, you have to always spoil us. Otherwise, players get frustrated at inconsistencies. If you don’t want to go through the effort of maintaining the grunt’s image, just turn them into a loot bag or something that is affixed to the floor. That way we all remember it is there, and if someone gets close to interact with it, the body can rematerialize.

“The grunt bleeds out on the floor, his throat opened wide by the Assassin’s blade.” The event master said, his eyes watching the outcome in the illusion.

It was an attempt to make it sound more interesting than ‘you kill them’, so at least points there. It was a little lazy, but only because every description so far has been a concise result as opposed to a legitimate ‘description’. You don’t want to inundate a game with constant explanations of sensory overload, but you also want a little bit of story telling in your story telling game.

Nearby, Rue had been frowning at the game since the beginning. Syron wasn’t sure precisely what was bothering him, but it was probably that he had to sit and watch someone else ‘play’ a tavern-brawl-turned-bloodbath instead of joining in himself. Syron knew that would bother him, so why not someone else too?

“I punch the jerk again. Do I roll?” A woman asked the event master.

“No. I think we’ve seen enough.” Rue said from the side. The room went quiet as he stood from his chair in the corner of the room and walked up to the table. He was muttering to himself, but Syron couldn’t quite hear what he was saying. Rue shook his head and looked at the group again.

“You. Syrious. You’re the only illusionist that has not had a chance to show your skills this interview. Though I was thoroughly impressed by your show earlier, the image style is completely different from what the creator of this game was using. Care to show us how the fist fight between the handsy Drunk and the Sniper finishes?” Rue gestured to the still disguised Syron.

Well, to be fair, I was showing things using exaggerated shadows on dark orange backgrounds like they were looking at Hellenic style terracotta pottery. Now… should I use my usual, or change it up a bit? Ah, I know just what to do.

“Of course. Here goes nothing!” Syron said as a new image started forming in the air above the playfield. Using a rectangular box with clearly defined black borders, the image started with depicting the female illusionist in black leathers and a huge crossbow on her back. Syron had considered using hyper realism as his inspiration, he instead went more cartoonish. Though, her face was obviously the woman controlling the Sniper. The drunk, on the other hand. Was clearly Rue. He was even wearing the same outfit. In one of his hands, a wooden mug was sloshing about with a frothy liquid. In his other, he was attempting to sexually harass the Sniper. He had rosy cheeks, crossed eyes, and a lewd grin. Syron loved it. Rue, on the other hand, seemed less impressed. The remaining members of the group looked anywhere but directly at the image in fear that Rue would be angered by them if they looked at him to compare likeness.

The Sniper grabbed the drunk’s wrist and twisted it slightly as she pushed his hand away. The drunk stumbled and spilled his drink down the front of his shirt.

“Impertinent cur and scalawag!” The drunk yelled in a high pitched, nasal tone that sounded nothing like the actual Rue. When he charged at the Sniper, she stood from her seat with a half spin and gracefully throat punched him. As the drunk fell to his knees gasping for air, the Sniper kneeled down in front of him and said clearly in the illusionist’s own voice “Allow me to offer my apologies. It seems you owe me a favor.”

She then finished the drunk off with a basic right straight to his forehead. The Sniper then turned to Rue and winked theatrically before vanishing alongside every other image present. The boy that was still focusing on the tavern and Knight was shocked by his own images suddenly disappearing, but didn’t bother trying to bring them back.

“So… how’d I do?” ‘Syrious’ asked with a grin. Rue looked ready to assault him.

“Forrester… you…” Rue just grit his teeth.

“Ah… there my partner goes, always getting angry at me! Regardless of that, nice to meet you all! My name is Syron Forrester. I hope you don’t mind, but I seem to have accidentally snuck in here.” Syron said as his face transformed before their eyes.

* * * * *

“Forrester, you #@$% @#%@ ^%#$%@ #$^# (omitted)!” Rue yelled loud enough that Syron forcefully lowered the volume of his voice. The other illusionists and the event master from the interview had already left, but Syron figured Rue to be the type to scream and cuss in front of anyone anyway.

At least he’s not claiming I’m impertinent anymore. Syron thought with a smile.

“Yeah yeah… I get it. I’m a poopy fatherless donkey lover, among other more inventive things. Back on topic… what did you think of the interviewees?” Syron steered the conversation as best he could. Rue took the chance to glare a bit more while he took some deep breaths. Apparently, and this came as a huge surprise to Syron, Rue did not appreciate being reminded of punches to the throat. Once he collected himself, he looked like he flipped a switch in his brain and turned into a different person completely focused on the task at hand.

“The guy we had here for the event master position is actually from the castle. He already knew the rules from playing a few practice games with me before the competition. He’s not interested in any career changes at present, but I’m not familiar enough with the rules to lead the game myself.”

“You could have asked me to do it. I would argue I’m more familiar with the rules than anyone. With the way you’re speaking though, it sounds like you think the Event Master is separate from the Illusionist? Why separate the roles?”

“Because only freaks like you seem to be able to do that! The illusionists today were struggling just to keep their images going. If they had to concentrate on leading a game or campaign, it would all fall apart. Honestly, I expected more from them. I don’t have much experience dealing with illusionists other than the one that trained me when I was younger, but the images they portrayed today were just trash.”

“Nah, they were great. A little bit of practice and polish, and they’ll be just as good as mine. I’ve only been practicing for around half a year after all. Illusionists that have doing this for longer will surpass me in no time. At any rate, it’s not such a bad idea to have them be separate people. I do admit that sometimes it can be hard to maintain concentration. However, I still think it is a good idea for the event master position to be filled by an illusionist. That way, even if they are not forming the images on the playfield, they can still pass along secret messages directly to involved player’s ears. They can also have separate scenes play out above the playfield that is independent of the avatars below. Beyond that, they can modify the playfield to fit the narrative better without explaining their vision out loud to their assistant first.”

“I suppose I can understand what you mean about the secret messages and scenes. Especially the scenes, as that seemed to be your focus during the competition I can easily imagine it. But what are you saying about modifying someone else’s existing image? Don’t be ridiculous. People can’t just change someone else’s magic like that.”

Syron didn’t say anything, though he was pretty sure Rue was wrong. When Syron interacted with the boy’s tavern and Knight earlier, he could clearly feel the boy’s magic in it like he was tracing it back to the source. That didn’t stop him from overwriting it to have all the images vanish at once. He was pretty sure he didn’t just clobber the image with overwhelming magic… though, that was certainly a possibility.