This post was prompted by a writing prompt in the Worldbuilding community - Worldbuilding Prompt #934 - Mail/Cards
Just for a change, rather than coming up with some fiction (even though that's hugely enjoyable), I thought I'd explore ways that I use mail or letters in my games as adventure hooks.
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio
I'm mostly looking at this from a Dungeons & Dragons perspective, but I think it applies equally well to any other kind of roleplaying game.
Presentation
The way to present letters depends very much on the way you play. When I've had games where all players are sat around the same table, it can be awesome to go to town creating an actual letter.
I tend to use a printer and pick a script type font, but that's mainly because my handwriting is pretty much illegible. But I've got a pack of calligraphic parchment that I print onto so that the letter has real texture and individuality. When I have hand-written something I've tried to use a large, ornate script, and frequently use a gold or silver pen to write with.
As a finishing touch, I'll roll the letter up and seal it with real sealing wax. It's something which is a brilliant way to increase immersion.
When you've got a group playing online through a virtual tabletop like Roll20, the options are more limited. But I still try to put an effort in, using a parchment-like background and creating letters as an image in Paint, then uploading them so the players can get a good idea of the "feel" of it, as in the example below from one of our games;
And yes, the pirate really did write "Hur, hur, hur" in a letter.....
Letters As A Request
Probably the simplest use of a letter is for one of the characters (or the group collectively) to receive one from a contact or family member asking for help or for the party to go on a quest of some kind.
It's a nice change from meeting a stranger in a tavern, and can be used to play into someone's backstory or to call back to previous encounters or events.
Letters As A Mystery
The next level on is for the party to find a letter addressed to a third party in the course of their adventures. You can do so much with this !
If it's from someone in trouble begging for help, will the party jump in and act on it even though they weren't the intended recipients ?
Is it a letter from one merchant to another revealing when an illicit shipment is arriving, and will the players try to grab the goodies or go to the authorities ?
Does it come from a missing adventurer revealing where they are going, and will the party seek to rescue them or just get the loot they were after ?
Is the letter one revealing a conspiracy against the local ruler ? Will the party tell the ruler, or seek to join the conspiracy if the ruler is a tyrant ?
Letters As Cargo
Finally, in a world where there are few regular or reliable postal services and where magical communication is unusual, expensive or indiscreet, it can be interesting to have a key NPC ask the players to hand-deliver a letter for them.
It might be the whole point of a quest, or it might just be an additional "oh, by the way" kind of thing.
What I find fascinating here is to see if the characters can resist the urge to open the letter and read it's contents. If they deliver it unopened, I'll usually give them extra experience points and potentially a boon from the recipient.
But sometimes it's a bit of a trap. Maybe the recipient is expecting the letter, and will be cross if it arrives damaged (or even incinerated by the trap-spell put on it). Or perhaps the letter contains something that compromises the party. Maybe even (to steal from Shakespeare) an instruction for the recipient to arrange the deaths or one or all of the party.
Scripts and Codes
When a letter is intended for eyes other than the party, I'll sometimes encrypt the contents. This very much depends on whether the players themselves enjoy solving puzzles themselves rather than relying on skill checks and dice rolls.
The level of complexity should be calculated to give the players a sense of achievement if they can decode it, so needs a fine balance between being too simple and too difficult. You might need to include some kind of "Rosetta Stone" to help them along the way.
Sometimes a simple letter or numerical substitution cipher is fun. In a more complex case, I gave the players a whole bunch of letters in Norse Runic, knowing that at least two of them would know at least a couple of the runes.
At the extreme end, I made clay tablets with Linear B on, but that was in retrospect a step too far, because they struggled with comprehending that it was a syllabic rather than alphabetic script. I learned from that, that codes are an adjunct to the game and can really slow things down if they're too complex !
Conclusion
So there we are - I've scratched the surface of how letters are used in the games I run. They are great both as adventure hook and lore drops, and can add immensely to the players' immersion into your world.
I'd love to hear how you use letters in your games, and if there are any cool tricks I've missed out !