For the past few sessions, they have had the mindset of, "We can do whatever we want." They have been ignoring the hints that I give them to follow the story, even the obvious ones, and having PC conflicts: last session they tried to get a PC arrested because he was trying to stop the rest of the group from going off on their own adventure.
I don't know how to prepare for or run sessions when they do this. I'm not bad with improv when they do unexpected things, but not so much when they go the complete opposite route that I planned.
It sounds like your players are more into the open-world aspect of it, probably for the novelty of how it's sort of impossible to replicate in video games and things. With that, trying to force a Skyrim-type main story might go about as well as it did for actual Skyrim.
My advice for you for running a more sandbox game is to simply populate the world with adventures, give yourself certain signposts where one can be kicked off, tie them into what motivates your players, and see if they take the bait.
Since you need to have more material for this type of play and might not want to rely totally on homebrew material, books like Tales from the Yawning Portal can really come in handy. Also there's a ton of free little adventures you can find on DMsguild that you can use to populate the world.
If your heart is set on playing your storyline and not overhauling your whole game, I'd simply be honest with your players about it. Something like "hey guys, I know we're having fun rounding up all the chickens in the land, but I'm gonna level with you, I'm still new at this and am not as comfortable with all this improv I'm having to do. Could we play along with this plot hook I prepared and see how it goes?"
Sounds like you should talk with your players about expectations of they game. If you want to do a game with a narrative and they want to run around doing whatever they want, that clearly doesn't mix. They might be willing to participate in the story that you've prepared for them if you let them know that you have something.
Next time start with a Session 0 (Google "Session 0 Dnd" lots of good resources/explanations out there) if you didn't already. A soft Rail Road is fine as long as your players are made aware from the start that it exists. Gently remind them that you are not a "Personal Fantasy Generator" and that the DM is a player too.
If you don't find inter-party conflict fun or interesting, tell them that. You are a human being with finite time. If you baked a cake to share with your friends and they refused to try it that would be rude right? Your story is that cake. Use that Session 0 to make sure you all like the same cake and you'll have an easier time to share it with them.
Yeah, I started this campaign after I knew of the greatness of a session 0, but I will definitely have one for the next campaigns I run.
Feel free to have an "Intervention" session too. It's better to have a session where yall realign your expectations together and talk things out than to just hope it gets better. It won't and you'll burn out. The hardest part of DnD is the awkward social stuff outside the actual game. It's hard to tell people you're not having fun with what you're doing, both you and your players deserve that conversation though. Just try and grin and bare your way through the awkwardness :)
Agreeing with Whiskeyjack, but there's really nothing awkward with an honest, "folks, I don't know where we're going with this." I mean if they're all about inter party conflicts, they don't really need a DM refereeing their intramural wrestling match.
That said, you do have an idea as to what they want to do in the game from what you've observed. It sounds like rather than a story planned out for them, it's probably better to think of you, the DM, showing up with a "hand" of cards you can play. For example, let's say when things get weird, they do in fact chase and round up chickens. Turns out those chickens all belong to a farming interest, and that interest has noticed losses in the market your players are cavorting in. Enter: The Colonel. Guy with a goatee and pretentious white outfit. When the chicken interests stock is being diverted, he fixes the problem by any means necessary. Maybe he outright attempts to take out your party and thus lessoned learned about turning a living world into a playground. Or maybe he see some talent and decides to buy them off and make them his chicken interest's competitor's problem and sends them to disrupt the chicken farming in the next village. Sounds silly? A lot of the "old West" U.S. gunfighter lore grew out range wars which were basically disagreements over cattle rights. They gave up on chicken? Ditch the Colonel card and play someone asking them for help, to get them on track.
For some of the squabbling part of your intervention session could be setting out why the characters are a group (and thus work as a group) in the first place, thus trust and no backstabbing or framing for arrest. Some may need the assistance of other's skill to accomplish a goal. Other, likely chicken thieves, need to stick with the group because they've burned a lot of bridges in life and the world isn't safe enough to go it alone, etc.
Yeah, I started this campaign after I knew of the greatness of a session 0, but I will definitely have one for the next campaigns I run.
Feel free to have an "Intervention" session too. It's better to have a session where yall realign your expectations together and talk things out than to just hope it gets better. It won't and you'll burn out. The hardest part of DnD is the awkward social stuff outside the actual game. It's hard to tell people you're not having fun with what you're doing, both you and your players deserve that conversation though. Just try and grin and bare your way through the awkwardness :)
Yeah, I started this campaign after I knew of the greatness of a session 0, but I will definitely have one for the next campaigns I run.
Feel free to have an "Intervention" session too. It's better to have a session where yall realign your expectations together and talk things out than to just hope it gets better. It won't and you'll burn out. The hardest part of DnD is the awkward social stuff outside the actual game. It's hard to tell people you're not having fun with what you're doing, both you and your players deserve that conversation though. Just try and grin and bare your way through the awkwardness :)
100% agree with the Intervention session. If you have the kind of group where you can periodically have that kind of conversation, it really can facilitate a much more enjoyable game for everyone - because you keep fine tuning the game to match peoples' sense of fun, even if what they find fun alters over time - including the GM.
Just be aware that not everyone will have input or feedback for you. Some Players are "audience members", and as long as they get to watch cool stuff happen, they're happy to show up, roll their dice when it's their turn to do something, and other than that, they're happy being spectators. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that approach ( although I think many/most GMs would love it if everyone in the game was active and engaged ), just don't try and wring meaningful feedback out of someone if they don't have any - but keep the door open for them to be able to provide some if they actually come up with some.
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Thank you all for your replies! They are all AMAZING and I will definitely take them into consideration. When I posted this I had no idea I would get this much help, thanks :D
+1 to everyone who is saying it's never to late to do a session 0. Do it as soon as possible. Tell the players you just found out about it, and you think you need to have one.
Then you need to explain to them, that although you are there for them as a DM and you want to help them have fun, as a new DM, you do not yet have the chops to run a completely open-ended world where anything goes. Maybe next campaign, you will be ready for that, but right now, could they please try to at least somewhat follow the story you put in front of them?
If they say no, we refuse to be understanding and try to follow the story you made up, then say "great, who wants to DM instead of me?"
I don't mean to make a threat -- I mean that if you as a DM can't have an enjoyable experience, eventually no one else will. And in my view it is incumbent upon the players to try and NOT make the DM hate life.
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Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
If you have an adventure in A town and the party goes to B town. Then move the adventure to A town.
This can be a useful GM technique, if used sparingly - IMHO. If overused, the Quantum Ogre can start to remove Player Agency.
Now, a lot of people really overstress this danger. Neither "restricting Player Agency", or occasional bouts of Railroading, are objective unalloyed evils to be avoided at all costs :p They're story management techniques that have their occasional valid use ( again, IMHO ).
Just be mindful of why and how often you're doing this, as a GM.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
If you have an adventure in A town and the party goes to B town. Then move the adventure to A town.
This can be a useful GM technique, if used sparingly - IMHO. If overused, the Quantum Ogre can start to remove Player Agency.
Now, a lot of people really overstress this danger. Neither "restricting Player Agency", or occasional bouts of Railroading, are objective unalloyed evils to be avoided at all costs :p They're story management techniques that have their occasional valid use ( again, IMHO ).
Just be mindful of why and how often you're doing this, as a GM.
Agreed :) ... however, it is important to remember that the players have NO idea that the quantum ogre was originally in town A but is now in town B.
I find it very important to keep two tracks of the adventure in mind ... my version as the DM and the players version based on the information they have received.
The players have NO idea what could have been or might be ... they only know what IS and whatever information they have been given. All a DM needs to do is keep whatever happens consistent with the information the players know.
If a dungeon/encounter/NPC can work as well in location A as in location B and the players choose to go to location B and haven't been given information leading them to expect something in location A or B then if it works for your story the dungeon/encounter/NPC can be in whichever of A,B,C etc the party chooses and the party will never know that it could have been elsewhere unless you tell them or telegraph it. All the DM has to do is take credit for a brilliant plot twist coming together.
On the other hand, this does NOT work if the players have enough information to form expectations. In that case, the DM may need to make adjustments to fit the new context so that whatever is prepared fits the new context.
----
One suggestion or tip ... throw in the occasional random and meaningless event or observation and make note of them. For example ...
- the moon is covered by a dark shadow that passes after a few moments
- there is a shooting star crossing the sky from east to west
- you see a large winged shape flying near the horizon in the far distance
- you come across traces of an ancient road but lose track of it if you try to follow it
- the building creaks oddly as you pass it
- you thought the trees flickered oddly as you looked at them
The DM doesn't need to have anything planned for any of these when they happen but it really help immersion when six session later you introduce a crashed meteorite or something similar and the players realize that they saw it crashing six sessions ago but didn't know what it meant. At the time, the DM didn't either but these little observations which the players can't figure out at the time can provide backstory hooks later that tie the plot line together better and may provide some foreshadowing which can be very cool.
Another thing you could do is have anchored events and adventures which take place no matter where the characters go, with certain differences between each possible place.
If you have an adventure in A town and the party goes to B town. Then move the adventure to A town.
This can be a useful GM technique, if used sparingly - IMHO. If overused, the Quantum Ogre can start to remove Player Agency.
Now, a lot of people really overstress this danger. Neither "restricting Player Agency", or occasional bouts of Railroading, are objective unalloyed evils to be avoided at all costs :p They're story management techniques that have their occasional valid use ( again, IMHO ).
Just be mindful of why and how often you're doing this, as a GM.
Agreed :) ... however, it is important to remember that the players have NO idea that the quantum ogre was originally in town A but is now in town B.
I find it very important to keep two tracks of the adventure in mind ... my version as the DM and the players version based on the information they have received.
The players have NO idea what could have been or might be ... they only know what IS and whatever information they have been given. All a DM needs to do is keep whatever happens consistent with the information the players know.
If a dungeon/encounter/NPC can work as well in location A as in location B and the players choose to go to location B and haven't been given information leading them to expect something in location A or B then if it works for your story the dungeon/encounter/NPC can be in whichever of A,B,C etc the party chooses and the party will never know that it could have been elsewhere unless you tell them or telegraph it. All the DM has to do is take credit for a brilliant plot twist coming together.
On the other hand, this does NOT work if the players have enough information to form expectations. In that case, the DM may need to make adjustments to fit the new context so that whatever is prepared fits the new context.
----
One suggestion or tip ... throw in the occasional random and meaningless event or observation and make note of them. For example ...
- the moon is covered by a dark shadow that passes after a few moments
- there is a shooting star crossing the sky from east to west
- you see a large winged shape flying near the horizon in the far distance
- you come across traces of an ancient road but lose track of it if you try to follow it
- the building creaks oddly as you pass it
- you thought the trees flickered oddly as you looked at them
The DM doesn't need to have anything planned for any of these when they happen but it really help immersion when six session later you introduce a crashed meteorite or something similar and the players realize that they saw it crashing six sessions ago but didn't know what it meant. At the time, the DM didn't either but these little observations which the players can't figure out at the time can provide backstory hooks later that tie the plot line together better and may provide some foreshadowing which can be very cool.
If you have an adventure in A town and the party goes to B town. Then move the adventure to A town.
This can be a useful GM technique, if used sparingly - IMHO. If overused, the Quantum Ogre can start to remove Player Agency.
Now, a lot of people really overstress this danger. Neither "restricting Player Agency", or occasional bouts of Railroading, are objective unalloyed evils to be avoided at all costs :p They're story management techniques that have their occasional valid use ( again, IMHO ).
Just be mindful of why and how often you're doing this, as a GM.
Well of course, but not every GM can have every possibility mapped out. If you prepped something and the party jumps in a different direction it can be either, cancel the session, come up with something on the fly (which not everybody is good at) or run what you had but change the name.
Just make sure you detail both towns for the next time.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
If you prepped something and the party jumps in a different direction it can be either, cancel the session, come up with something on the fly (which not everybody is good at) or run what you had but change the name.
I've been very clear with my players -- they can go anywhere they want and (try to) do anything they want, but if they decide to go somewhere I don't have prepped, we're ending the session and it may be more than till the next regularly scheduled session before I am ready to go again.
Realistically, I think if I said, "I don't have this city mapped and detailed yet so you'll have to wait," they'd find stuff to RP about rather than end the session early.
This is why I very much like the style of "design" that I have adopted over the years - which I fullyrecognize not everyone will like, or be comfortable with.
Don't design story lines, or "plot beats"
Design Conflicts, Factions, and NPCs - with their own goals, resources, knowledge base, beliefs, and personalities.
As GM, for each faction and NPC in the conflict, role play "what will X do next", one step at a time, in real time, based on X's character, and the actions of the other actors in the conflict ( including, but not limited to, the Party ). I admit that when given more than one plausible reaction, I'll lean toward the most dramatically interesting option, so long as it doesn't stress story credibility.
If given a little more time, I will:
Extrapolate out likely actions, and interactions, between the actors a few iterations.
Note the conflicts, encounters, and locations which show up repeatedly in each "timeline".
Put some polish and design work into those high-probability encounters and locations - since polished and well designed Adventure elements will be better than improvised ones.
As for locations, I think it's a rabbit hole of wasted design effort to requirethat a location be "mapped and detailed" before you use it. Realistically, all you need for a locations is:
The overall appearance and character of a location ( large sprawling coastal port city, pseudo Mediterranean architecture, clean and orderly )
The overall tone and atmosphere of a place, conveyed by set scenes ( show, don't tell: the loud haggling with the merchants; neat white plastered dwellings with brightly painted wooden trim; colorfully dressed children running and playing in the streets, etc. ).
1-5 truly distinctive elements of a location ( the great Spice Market; the Temple Hill with the 1,001 great Temples; the Palazzo Bianco of the reigning Duke; etc. ).
A pocket of a few - half dozen at most - locations that the Party is likely to want to visit within that location ( in the case of a city; an Inn; a Temple; an Equipment shop; local political dignitaries, and where they hang out, local underworld figures and where they hang out; 3-4 locations specific to the Adventure thread(s) in play at the moment; etc. ). Remember, this isn't a simulation, this is a dramatic presentation of an interactive Narrative; you only ever really need to have the immediate environs around the Party/Character rendered in full detail. Everything else only exists insofar as it influences, or aids with continuity and consistency in the appearance/tone/details of, the locations which the Party is interacting.
It also helps to have a backlog of semi-stock locations and NPCs that you can quickly pull out, tweak a bit, and toss in the ring. Plus, you can make great use of random generators and random tables if you're not feeling super creative at that moment - your real creativity becomes melding those random results into a coherent and believable whole.
This isn't a style for everyone. Many people really don't like flying this much by the seat of the pants.
However - I'd point out that this style does allow you to smoothly adapt when you Players "don't follow the storyline", or "go somewhere I don't have prepped". Both storylines, and locations, are being created one step ahead of the Players' actions. It doesn't matter if you thought the Party would go to A and they go to B: you can figure out what the Adventure antagonists are going to do next, regardless. It doesn't matter if the Party goes to a location that you hadn't mapped out, you build it on the fly, based - perhaps - on the minimal notes of design and setting "facts" that have already been established in the course of the Campaign.
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I'm a relatively new DM and so are my players.
For the past few sessions, they have had the mindset of, "We can do whatever we want." They have been ignoring the hints that I give them to follow the story, even the obvious ones, and having PC conflicts: last session they tried to get a PC arrested because he was trying to stop the rest of the group from going off on their own adventure.
I don't know how to prepare for or run sessions when they do this. I'm not bad with improv when they do unexpected things, but not so much when they go the complete opposite route that I planned.
It sounds like your players are more into the open-world aspect of it, probably for the novelty of how it's sort of impossible to replicate in video games and things. With that, trying to force a Skyrim-type main story might go about as well as it did for actual Skyrim.
My advice for you for running a more sandbox game is to simply populate the world with adventures, give yourself certain signposts where one can be kicked off, tie them into what motivates your players, and see if they take the bait.
Since you need to have more material for this type of play and might not want to rely totally on homebrew material, books like Tales from the Yawning Portal can really come in handy. Also there's a ton of free little adventures you can find on DMsguild that you can use to populate the world.
If your heart is set on playing your storyline and not overhauling your whole game, I'd simply be honest with your players about it. Something like "hey guys, I know we're having fun rounding up all the chickens in the land, but I'm gonna level with you, I'm still new at this and am not as comfortable with all this improv I'm having to do. Could we play along with this plot hook I prepared and see how it goes?"
Sounds like you should talk with your players about expectations of they game. If you want to do a game with a narrative and they want to run around doing whatever they want, that clearly doesn't mix. They might be willing to participate in the story that you've prepared for them if you let them know that you have something.
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Thanks for the quick replies! They were very helpful :)
Next time start with a Session 0 (Google "Session 0 Dnd" lots of good resources/explanations out there) if you didn't already. A soft Rail Road is fine as long as your players are made aware from the start that it exists. Gently remind them that you are not a "Personal Fantasy Generator" and that the DM is a player too.
If you don't find inter-party conflict fun or interesting, tell them that. You are a human being with finite time. If you baked a cake to share with your friends and they refused to try it that would be rude right? Your story is that cake. Use that Session 0 to make sure you all like the same cake and you'll have an easier time to share it with them.
Yeah, I started this campaign after I knew of the greatness of a session 0, but I will definitely have one for the next campaigns I run.
Feel free to have an "Intervention" session too. It's better to have a session where yall realign your expectations together and talk things out than to just hope it gets better. It won't and you'll burn out. The hardest part of DnD is the awkward social stuff outside the actual game. It's hard to tell people you're not having fun with what you're doing, both you and your players deserve that conversation though. Just try and grin and bare your way through the awkwardness :)
Agreeing with Whiskeyjack, but there's really nothing awkward with an honest, "folks, I don't know where we're going with this." I mean if they're all about inter party conflicts, they don't really need a DM refereeing their intramural wrestling match.
That said, you do have an idea as to what they want to do in the game from what you've observed. It sounds like rather than a story planned out for them, it's probably better to think of you, the DM, showing up with a "hand" of cards you can play. For example, let's say when things get weird, they do in fact chase and round up chickens. Turns out those chickens all belong to a farming interest, and that interest has noticed losses in the market your players are cavorting in. Enter: The Colonel. Guy with a goatee and pretentious white outfit. When the chicken interests stock is being diverted, he fixes the problem by any means necessary. Maybe he outright attempts to take out your party and thus lessoned learned about turning a living world into a playground. Or maybe he see some talent and decides to buy them off and make them his chicken interest's competitor's problem and sends them to disrupt the chicken farming in the next village. Sounds silly? A lot of the "old West" U.S. gunfighter lore grew out range wars which were basically disagreements over cattle rights. They gave up on chicken? Ditch the Colonel card and play someone asking them for help, to get them on track.
For some of the squabbling part of your intervention session could be setting out why the characters are a group (and thus work as a group) in the first place, thus trust and no backstabbing or framing for arrest. Some may need the assistance of other's skill to accomplish a goal. Other, likely chicken thieves, need to stick with the group because they've burned a lot of bridges in life and the world isn't safe enough to go it alone, etc.
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100% agree with the Intervention session. If you have the kind of group where you can periodically have that kind of conversation, it really can facilitate a much more enjoyable game for everyone - because you keep fine tuning the game to match peoples' sense of fun, even if what they find fun alters over time - including the GM.
Just be aware that not everyone will have input or feedback for you. Some Players are "audience members", and as long as they get to watch cool stuff happen, they're happy to show up, roll their dice when it's their turn to do something, and other than that, they're happy being spectators. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that approach ( although I think many/most GMs would love it if everyone in the game was active and engaged ), just don't try and wring meaningful feedback out of someone if they don't have any - but keep the door open for them to be able to provide some if they actually come up with some.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Thank you all for your replies! They are all AMAZING and I will definitely take them into consideration. When I posted this I had no idea I would get this much help, thanks :D
If you have an adventure in A town and the party goes to B town. Then move the adventure to B town.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
+1 to everyone who is saying it's never to late to do a session 0. Do it as soon as possible. Tell the players you just found out about it, and you think you need to have one.
Then you need to explain to them, that although you are there for them as a DM and you want to help them have fun, as a new DM, you do not yet have the chops to run a completely open-ended world where anything goes. Maybe next campaign, you will be ready for that, but right now, could they please try to at least somewhat follow the story you put in front of them?
If they say no, we refuse to be understanding and try to follow the story you made up, then say "great, who wants to DM instead of me?"
I don't mean to make a threat -- I mean that if you as a DM can't have an enjoyable experience, eventually no one else will. And in my view it is incumbent upon the players to try and NOT make the DM hate life.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
This can be a useful GM technique, if used sparingly - IMHO. If overused, the Quantum Ogre can start to remove Player Agency.
Now, a lot of people really overstress this danger. Neither "restricting Player Agency", or occasional bouts of Railroading, are objective unalloyed evils to be avoided at all costs :p They're story management techniques that have their occasional valid use ( again, IMHO ).
Just be mindful of why and how often you're doing this, as a GM.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Agreed :) ... however, it is important to remember that the players have NO idea that the quantum ogre was originally in town A but is now in town B.
I find it very important to keep two tracks of the adventure in mind ... my version as the DM and the players version based on the information they have received.
The players have NO idea what could have been or might be ... they only know what IS and whatever information they have been given. All a DM needs to do is keep whatever happens consistent with the information the players know.
If a dungeon/encounter/NPC can work as well in location A as in location B and the players choose to go to location B and haven't been given information leading them to expect something in location A or B then if it works for your story the dungeon/encounter/NPC can be in whichever of A,B,C etc the party chooses and the party will never know that it could have been elsewhere unless you tell them or telegraph it. All the DM has to do is take credit for a brilliant plot twist coming together.
On the other hand, this does NOT work if the players have enough information to form expectations. In that case, the DM may need to make adjustments to fit the new context so that whatever is prepared fits the new context.
----
One suggestion or tip ... throw in the occasional random and meaningless event or observation and make note of them. For example ...
- the moon is covered by a dark shadow that passes after a few moments
- there is a shooting star crossing the sky from east to west
- you see a large winged shape flying near the horizon in the far distance
- you come across traces of an ancient road but lose track of it if you try to follow it
- the building creaks oddly as you pass it
- you thought the trees flickered oddly as you looked at them
The DM doesn't need to have anything planned for any of these when they happen but it really help immersion when six session later you introduce a crashed meteorite or something similar and the players realize that they saw it crashing six sessions ago but didn't know what it meant. At the time, the DM didn't either but these little observations which the players can't figure out at the time can provide backstory hooks later that tie the plot line together better and may provide some foreshadowing which can be very cool.
-
Another thing you could do is have anchored events and adventures which take place no matter where the characters go, with certain differences between each possible place.
I like the idea with foreshadowing :)
Well of course, but not every GM can have every possibility mapped out. If you prepped something and the party jumps in a different direction it can be either, cancel the session, come up with something on the fly (which not everybody is good at) or run what you had but change the name.
Just make sure you detail both towns for the next time.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I've been very clear with my players -- they can go anywhere they want and (try to) do anything they want, but if they decide to go somewhere I don't have prepped, we're ending the session and it may be more than till the next regularly scheduled session before I am ready to go again.
Realistically, I think if I said, "I don't have this city mapped and detailed yet so you'll have to wait," they'd find stuff to RP about rather than end the session early.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
This is why I very much like the style of "design" that I have adopted over the years - which I fully recognize not everyone will like, or be comfortable with.
If given a little more time, I will:
As for locations, I think it's a rabbit hole of wasted design effort to require that a location be "mapped and detailed" before you use it. Realistically, all you need for a locations is:
It also helps to have a backlog of semi-stock locations and NPCs that you can quickly pull out, tweak a bit, and toss in the ring. Plus, you can make great use of random generators and random tables if you're not feeling super creative at that moment - your real creativity becomes melding those random results into a coherent and believable whole.
This isn't a style for everyone. Many people really don't like flying this much by the seat of the pants.
However - I'd point out that this style does allow you to smoothly adapt when you Players "don't follow the storyline", or "go somewhere I don't have prepped". Both storylines, and locations, are being created one step ahead of the Players' actions. It doesn't matter if you thought the Party would go to A and they go to B: you can figure out what the Adventure antagonists are going to do next, regardless. It doesn't matter if the Party goes to a location that you hadn't mapped out, you build it on the fly, based - perhaps - on the minimal notes of design and setting "facts" that have already been established in the course of the Campaign.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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