Oracles; or, letting a Surprising Future derail your Story and Confound the Players

At last the ragged wanderers found themselves at the sacred grove.  There they sought an audience with the Oracle of the Broken Stone, to ask the one question no one could answer...

Oracles are a great way to add mystery and wonder to your game, for several reasons:

• You find out what the players really care about discovering.  Give them just one chance to ask a question of a powerful oracle, and they'll use it for whatever mystery they care about most.
• You get to say yes to the players.  So much of the GM's job is about placing obstacles in their way: enemies to fight, goals that are out of reach.  When the oracle speaks, they're giving the players something they actually want: knowledge and the promise of adventure.
• You get to look like you planned everything, without having to plan everything.  The oracle tells the future in a cryptic way, then when you make it happen it looks like that was your plan all along!

 

Finding the Oracle

Never let the party stumble across an oracle by accident.  Before they ever meet the oracle, they've heard tales of their wisdom, how someone paid a great price to gain an audience, how a mighty king spent seven years choosing the right question to ask the oracle across the sea.

When they finally reach the oracle, make them ceremonially separated from ordinary life:

• The oracle stays in darkness.
• Their face is always covered.
• Do not address the oracle directly.
• You must bathe first and dress in simple clothes.
• They're at the top of an enormous tree.
• No metal can be in their presence, nor the color red.
• You must kneel before them, never looking in their direction.
• Heavy incense fills the air.
• First you must eat meat roasted on a sacred fire and drink a bitter drink.
• The oracle will touch your face and pour water on your head.

The Question

The oracle will now hear their question.  This is not a time for sneakiness on your part, like they're making a wish -- the oracle isn't a genie trying to twist the meaning.  After all, the party has suffered long travels and paid a price to be here, this is their chance to ask a meaningful question.

Whatever you do, don't suggest a question.  Let the players ask whatever they want, even if it derails your plot.

You could even let them ask more than one question, but there's a limit:

• You may ask three questions, but only one of you may speak to present them.
• You may each ask a question, but the oracle will not say which answer goes with which question.
• You may ask one question now, and another after a year has gone by.

Do not give the answer in this game session.

Maybe the oracle says to come back when the moon is full, or that they have to go get the skull of a panther as payment.  Maybe you just tell the players that you need time to think.  They've asked a question, now you need time to give a good answer.

 

The Answer

To craft a good response, start with a straightforward answer:

• Where's the lost gold?  At the bottom of the old mine you heard about in Salvinia.
  
• How can we rescue our grandmother?  Go to the fortress of Standing Cloud and offer a thousand shillings for a ransom.
• Who's behind the plot against the Northern Silver Company?  The Lord Mayor.

Next, add a twist.  I recommend picking just one:

• The answer is straightforward, but something else will happen.
• Finding the gold will start a war.
• Your grandmother is already dying of an ailment she kept hidden.
  
• The Lord Mayor isn't just trying to bring down Northern Silver, he's trying to bring down the whole economy of the region.
• The answer isn't exactly so straightforward.  It's divided, twisted, tainted, misleading.
• The gold is in the mine, but what you think is a mine isn't actually a mine.  It's a tomb of an ancient king, deep in the earth.
• The woman you call "grandmother" isn't actually your grandmother.
• The Lord Mayor is behind the attack on Northern Silver's ship, but he's being blackmailed to do it by a third party.
• The question itself is wrong.  Give something else instead.
  
• There is no lost gold.  The shipment was actually carrying a weather control machine, developed in secret before the Starving Time.
• Your grandmother isn't in any danger, she's just on a long voyage away from home.  The ransom note was a distraction to get you to leave home.
• Northern Silver didn't actually lose any ships, they paid the "pirates" to fake an attack.
• Take your straightforward answer and come up with a second one, then combine them.  If the result doesn't make sense, do not explain it.
• The gold is in a mine.  The gold is in a shipwreck.
• Pay a ransom to Standing Cloud.  Set fire to the House of Eyes.
• The Lord Mayor is behind the attacks.  The pirate king of the Hurricane Isles is to blame.

If the answer doesn't seem useful enough, add a piece of information that sounds valuable, even if you're not sure what it means yet.  The party went through all this trouble to get here, they deserve an answer that will help, when the time is right:

• The gold cannot be retrieved without a way to breathe underwater.
• There is a traitor in the house of Standing Cloud; the one with the stolen eye cannot be trusted.
• The Northern Silver Company has three keys that fit three locks that must never be opened.

 

The Voice of the Oracle

You've got an answer, now let's make it sound like it came from an oracle.

Start by speaking about the power: mention that this is from an oracle, invoke ancient wisdom, describe the vision process, tell how this answer came to be.

• Whispered come words from those in the deep...
• For seven days and seven nights I slept and dreamed the sacred dream...
• Hear now the hallowed word handed down from the spirits of old...

Add repetition and parallelism.  Don't just say it one way, say it twice in related ways.

• Gold is in the earth, wealth deep in the ground.
• Fortune comes to those in her path, good omens follow her footsteps.
• A close friend will betray your company, an ally seeks to turn against you.

If you're not sure how to make it longer, try using shorter, disjointed pieces.

• Deep and dark, glinting gold, old beams above, water below.
• Wings, you bring feathers and wax, a fall from a height, death on the waves.
• I see a tower and a bright beacon, three gray horses, a fire in the hearth at an old inn.

Don't just name it, describe it in a way the players would recognize.

• If they know the Lord Mayor well, don't just say "the Lord Mayor", say "a blue hat on a tall hill, ink-stained hands from signing laws".  This gives the players room to all say "Yeah, that's gotta be the Lord Mayor; we've seen his blue hat and been to his house on the hill."
  

Use poetic forms where you can: alliteration, rhyme, meter.

• "Soon sails a foul ship across a foggy sea" is much more oracular than "The enemy ship will head out soon on a foggy day".

Delivering the Answer

In your next game session, have the oracle deliver their answer.  Read the answer you wrote down, and give a copy to the players to pore over later.  (Or even have the players read the answer out loud for you.)

Then it's time to send them away and back to their ordinary adventuring life.  Talk about how the oracle covers their face again, how the party gets ready to change back into their regular clothes, how they now have to climb back down the tree, etc.  But before they go, there's one more thing...

Give the players one last detail that you don't understand.

• She gives each of you a small bundle wrapped in yellow cloth, saying not to open it until the full moon.  (Don't decide what's in the bundle until they open it.  When they do, don't worry about coming up with a reason why she gave them a rabbit's foot or a clay figurine or a single bullet.)
• The monk says you will not meet again until the rising of the red star.  (Don't worry about what that means.)
• He says to return with the sword from across the sea, once you find it.  (What sword is this?  Figure it out later, or maybe never at all.)

 

Making the Answer True

Now it's your job to make the answer come true, even if it changes your ideas for a story.

If you don't know what the answer means or how to make it happen, give it some time, then ask the players how much of the oracle's answer they've figured out.  Maybe you don't know what "the gold is in the mine; the gold is in a shipwreck" means, but the players probably have some guesses.  Steal their ideas and twist them a little for the story -- they'll feel clever for figuring it out, and you'll look like you planned it in advance.

If the players completely derail the oracle's prediction, make it come true a different way.  Maybe you said the king would do something, then the party killed the king -- a new king will be crowned.  Maybe you said the Flying Star, a famous boat, would sail again, but the party burned it before it could go to sea -- the boat appears one night with a ghostly crew, or have an actual "flying star" show up, or have someone who can remake the boat from the ashes.  Oracles are about fate that cannot be averted; let their words break the rules.

tl;dr

1. Ritual rules for meeting the oracle.
2. Question in one game session; answer in the next.
3. Start with a straightforward answer, give it a twist, add a useful detail.
4. Make the answer poetic.
5. After giving the answer, give a random detail that you don't understand yet.
6. Make the answer come true, no matter what.