Emulating Allegory, or The Struggles of.

29 Apr, 2026

Introduction

Hang on... Two blog posts... Two months on the trot... As a newly fledged English teacher, there are a few rites of passage I must go through. Rather than joining a book club and becoming a wineaholic (it's like an alcoholic, but more aesthetically acceptable), I joined an essay club! This means more yapping into the void about my TTRPG shenanigans.

In October just gone, I, with some online friends, attempted the Gygax 75 Challenge. Attempted here is the key verb; starting one's teacher training and maintaining hobbies - especially those requiring brain power - is far from a walk in the park. In previous iterations, I have generated dungeons using random encounter tables or donjon tools. What I found they lacked were substance. Even further, they lacked environmental storytelling. In this essay, I will be exploring the anecdotal difficulties with simulating extended metaphors through play.

The Gygax 75 Challenge

So, for the uninitiated, what is the Gygax 75 Challenge? It is a worldbuilding challenge in five parts staggered over five weeks. By the end of the challenge, you should be left with a fully fledged TTRPG setting! I used Ray Otus's zine - which provides scaffolded, achievable chunks of worldbuilding tasks - and a notebook. One of my biggest aims was to handwrite as much of my Challenge as possible, drawn maps included. The chapters for the Challenge were as followed:

1. The Concept
2. The Surrounding Area
3. The Dungeon
4. Town Features
5. The Larger World

Now, I knocked the concept out of the park (I made a Pinterest board and everything), but as soon as I got out of the theoretical, it crumbled into ash. The concept, it seemed, did not translate well into play; that, or I could not translate it into play.

The Concept

Here's one I made earlier:

The Pitch

• At the very southern tip of the wild country Íserníg under the lord Draccred is the sprawling trading hub of Bracena.
• The prosperous Inner City and bustling Sprawl both harbour numerous factions, taverns, and people to interact with.
• When miners head below the town into familiar tunnels, they are horrified to find the steaming corpse of a gargantuan dragon sunken in front of a grand, bronze door that hadn’t been there before.
• Will you be amongst the first to delve into the dungeon this dragon once called home? Will you find whatever left the dragon for dead within the tunnels under Bracena?

Sources of Inspiration

• Howl’s Moving Castle -> Specifically the aesthetic vibe of the Castle itself, especially the maximalism of Howl’s bedroom
• Princess Mononoke -> Themes of stewardship and and environmentalism I want to weave into the diegetic storytelling present within the setting
• Wan Shi Tong’s library (ATLA) -> A large inspiration for the dungeon in regards to its aesthetic feel
• Brittonic and Anglo Saxon England -> For the vibes of the town settlement, including place and people names

Interested yet? What do you reckon my biggest issue was?

My Biggest Issue

Did you guess: 'Themes of stewardship and and environmentalism I want to weave into the diegetic storytelling present within the setting'? Gold star if you did!

When I tried to build an allegory about stewardship and environmentalism into a pre-written TTRPG setting, I ran headfirst into a problem I reckon many game designers struggle with: allegory is delicate, but games - especially pre-written settings - are loud, procedural machines. What works beautifully in literature or film often becomes clumsy or didactic when translated into a world meant for open-ended play.

I found myself wrestling with two conflicting imperatives. On one hand, I wanted the themes to feel organic, emerging from the logic of the world rather than being imposed onto it. On the other, I needed players to actually encounter and interact with those themes, or else the allegory would sit inert. The tension between subtlety and usability became exhausting. If the allegory was too subtle, it dissolved into the background noise of quests and NPCs. If I tried to underline it, the world began to feel preachy, artificial, or worse: like a thinly veiled lecture disguised as fantasy.

Another difficulty was the collaborative nature of TTRPGs. Allegory thrives on control; an author can choreograph the reveal, the parallels, the symbolic echoes. But a TTRPG’s narrative is co-created moment-to-moment by players whose priorities, interests, and interpretations aren’t mine to dictate. I realised I couldn’t guarantee that stewardship or environmentalism would even register as themes unless I pushed them so blatantly that they’d become uncomfortably on-the-nose. There is no guarantee players will walk toward the metaphor you’ve built; they might walk straight past it, or (in classic TTRPG fashion) set it on fire.

Allegory demands coherence. The world’s logic must embody the point you're trying to make. For the most part, the TTRPG worlds I have spent the most time in have been sandboxes, and they often don't include sweeping themes. Environmental allegory, in particular, hinges on a sense of consequence, but consequence can be hard to enforce when player choice is paramount, leading to any imposed outcome feeling punitive.

A Possible Solution?

Struggling to create a decent dungeon? No clue what is about to pounce on your party from the wilderness? Well, let me introduce you to the trusty random encounter table!

Forgive the clunky segue, but in writing this essay, I have been weighing the merits of random encounter tables in assisting in tackling my issue. At first glance, random tables appear antithetical to deliberate thematic storytelling; they’re unpredictable, chaotic, and often used simply to add danger, flavour, or pacing. However, what they can do is facilitate allegorical play. Instead of force meaning into a linear plot, falling into the sin of railroading, you can perhaps craft tables to create a symbolic ecosystem. Over time, the repetition of symbolic motifs may build a subconscious narrative cohesion.

Random encounters also allow the GM to scale the intensity of allegory naturally. Early in a campaign, encounters might be subtle, whispers of the theme. As the plot advances, the table can shift to include more overt or surreal expressions of the motif. Because the GM selects which table to roll on, or modifies the results behind the scenes, they maintain thematic control without sacrificing spontaneity.

Even more powerful is the way players interpret patterns. Human brains naturally look for meaning, and when players notice thematic echoes, they begin to connect dots. Questions may arise not from GM exposition but from emergent gameplay, making the allegory feel organic rather than imposed. Random encounters, therefore, weave allegory into the world’s very fabric so that, even when the party ignores plot hooks, improvises wildly, or heads in an unexpected direction, your themes still resonate. Instead of forcing meaning, you scatter it everywhere, allowing players to discover, interpret, and ultimately embody the allegory themselves.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the project was slipped out of my hands. I couldn’t maintain the diegesis and guide players gently toward the allegorical reading I hoped they’d discover. I could feel the scaffolding of the allegory more than I could feel the world itself. Once I could see the scaffolding, I couldn’t unsee it.

Letting the project go sucked. Admittedly, I am incredibly scrutinising when it comes to my own creative endeavours, so letting it go was even harder. Themes are definitely not impossible to express in games, but they perhaps require a different approach than prose allegory. Something I can admit is that, really, I hadn’t failed so much as discovered the limits of the technique I was trying to use.

And in naming those limits, I’ve begun to understand what I’ll try differently next time.