I know i have a hard time with surprise twists in the campaign. I was running Princes of the apocalypses mini adventure and i read everything ahead of time but when the time came I didnt know where the PC would go first and i stumbled over my pages. I could use some tips on how people deal with the uncertain actions of players so smoothly.
-Know your world. Make basic maps of any space you home brew. Also, keep in mind the tone of your overall campaign. Is it classic horror, a shining heroic epic, or is it light-hearted (possibly comical)? Everyone, and everything in the player's environment should reflect the tone.
-Keep a small white board handy to draw any symbols or images your players need to see.
-Make a list of NPC names with 2-3 traits about them. Trying to come up with every shopkeep and city guard is difficult on the fly.
-Be willing to adapt. You are never going to guess everything that your players will try. If you have to take a minute to think about a player action changes a current objective, take that minute. On occasion, a player comment on an NPC's motivation or actions has actually lead me down better narrative paths than I had originally wrote or were in the campaign book.
-And, lastly, if you ever get writer's block about how to handle a certain story section, look through the monster manual. Let the monsters or amazing creatures inspire your location's, player hazards, and goals. The lore bits also can give your game world life.
With the caveat that these are informed by my personal approach to DMing, which is increasingly loose, lazy, and improv-heavy (and thus may not be a good fit for everyone):
- Be prepared, but don't prepare every little detail. It's frustrating when you come up with something really cool and then the players decide to do something else entirely. Remember that it's their story as much as it's yours (if not more so, tbh).
- Along with that, try to design encounters that can be put into different scenarios. Maybe your players decide to go directly to the castle instead of exploring the cave first, like you'd planned--is there a way to use the prep you did for the cave with the castle you didn't plan for? Having some go-to, non-specific encounters set up can be really helpful when your players throw you for a loop
- Your prep is there to make your job easier. This means your prep should help you improvise better, rather than being something you slavishly adhere to. Write bullet points, not scripts.
- Your job is to make your players' stories interesting, not to be smarter than them or to "win" against them. Challenge them, put them in a tough spot, make them sweat, never go easy on them, but be fans of them, want them to succeed, help them do *cool stuff.*
- Specific things to have prepped in advance: a list of NPCs (names/a couple traits like KnightingGale suggests; you don't need full backstories and all that), a couple encounters specific to what you'd like to see happen and a couple that can be transposed to different locations or circumstances, a couple of locations
- Pay attention to your players' goals so you can help them accomplish them. You can glean these from listening to them in-character, but it's also okay to ask them outright what they want. Give them the opportunity to do the things they want to do, but don't make it easy. Intertwine their backstories and goals into the overarching campaign. Think of it like a TV show, where there's an A-plot, B-plot, C-plot, etc.
- Finally, remember that the world keeps on turning regardless of what your heroes are or aren't doing. Your Big Bad (probably) isn't just sitting around waiting for the adventurers to come foil their plot. They are actively making plans, doing things to advance their goals. The towns in your world don't only exist when your players are visiting them. The easiest way to make them feel real is to convey a sense of time moving forward with or without your players. One thing that might be really, really helpful for this is borrowing the "fronts" system from Dungeon World. Sly Flourish talks about how to use it in 5e here.
You're going to be nervous your first few times. That's okay, and very much normal. Forgive yourself for any mistakes you make and work with your players to make sure everyone is having fun and you'll do great!
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DM: The Cult of the Crystal Spider (Currently playing Storm King's Thunder) Player: The Knuckles of Arth - Lemire (Tiefling Rogue 5/Fighter 1)
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Looking for some tips for a first campaign. Got any?
My Best advice is to start small plan the first village nearest to them and have them start on a small story
I know i have a hard time with surprise twists in the campaign. I was running Princes of the apocalypses mini adventure and i read everything ahead of time but when the time came I didnt know where the PC would go first and i stumbled over my pages. I could use some tips on how people deal with the uncertain actions of players so smoothly.
Perfect battle music for the boss fight >>> Here
The best pieces of advice I can offer:
-Know your world. Make basic maps of any space you home brew. Also, keep in mind the tone of your overall campaign. Is it classic horror, a shining heroic epic, or is it light-hearted (possibly comical)? Everyone, and everything in the player's environment should reflect the tone.
-Keep a small white board handy to draw any symbols or images your players need to see.
-Make a list of NPC names with 2-3 traits about them. Trying to come up with every shopkeep and city guard is difficult on the fly.
-Be willing to adapt. You are never going to guess everything that your players will try. If you have to take a minute to think about a player action changes a current objective, take that minute. On occasion, a player comment on an NPC's motivation or actions has actually lead me down better narrative paths than I had originally wrote or were in the campaign book.
-And, lastly, if you ever get writer's block about how to handle a certain story section, look through the monster manual. Let the monsters or amazing creatures inspire your location's, player hazards, and goals. The lore bits also can give your game world life.
With the caveat that these are informed by my personal approach to DMing, which is increasingly loose, lazy, and improv-heavy (and thus may not be a good fit for everyone):
- Be prepared, but don't prepare every little detail. It's frustrating when you come up with something really cool and then the players decide to do something else entirely. Remember that it's their story as much as it's yours (if not more so, tbh).
- Along with that, try to design encounters that can be put into different scenarios. Maybe your players decide to go directly to the castle instead of exploring the cave first, like you'd planned--is there a way to use the prep you did for the cave with the castle you didn't plan for? Having some go-to, non-specific encounters set up can be really helpful when your players throw you for a loop
- Your prep is there to make your job easier. This means your prep should help you improvise better, rather than being something you slavishly adhere to. Write bullet points, not scripts.
- Your job is to make your players' stories interesting, not to be smarter than them or to "win" against them. Challenge them, put them in a tough spot, make them sweat, never go easy on them, but be fans of them, want them to succeed, help them do *cool stuff.*
- Specific things to have prepped in advance: a list of NPCs (names/a couple traits like KnightingGale suggests; you don't need full backstories and all that), a couple encounters specific to what you'd like to see happen and a couple that can be transposed to different locations or circumstances, a couple of locations
- Pay attention to your players' goals so you can help them accomplish them. You can glean these from listening to them in-character, but it's also okay to ask them outright what they want. Give them the opportunity to do the things they want to do, but don't make it easy. Intertwine their backstories and goals into the overarching campaign. Think of it like a TV show, where there's an A-plot, B-plot, C-plot, etc.
- Finally, remember that the world keeps on turning regardless of what your heroes are or aren't doing. Your Big Bad (probably) isn't just sitting around waiting for the adventurers to come foil their plot. They are actively making plans, doing things to advance their goals. The towns in your world don't only exist when your players are visiting them. The easiest way to make them feel real is to convey a sense of time moving forward with or without your players. One thing that might be really, really helpful for this is borrowing the "fronts" system from Dungeon World. Sly Flourish talks about how to use it in 5e here.
You're going to be nervous your first few times. That's okay, and very much normal. Forgive yourself for any mistakes you make and work with your players to make sure everyone is having fun and you'll do great!
DM: The Cult of the Crystal Spider (Currently playing Storm King's Thunder)
Player: The Knuckles of Arth - Lemire (Tiefling Rogue 5/Fighter 1)