My Campaign is called eater of worlds. Its based off a monster escaping a planar prison. I have monsters and weapons all figured out just need some plot devices. now here is the plot line right now, (sorry for sounding too straightforward.)
criminal chase from tavern after police tell to chase spontaneously.
Introduction to my NPC character Renin the Royal captain's guard of Tharngard.
go to escort to deliver gold from criminal.
Escort guards get killed by goblins.
Renin Teleport Players to Tharngard through giant hammer shaped obelisk as part of plan after killing goblins.
Gets to Tharngard.
Moon Worm attacks.
Tharngard destroyed but underworld survives.
Quest to three temples to go to planar world that Moon Worm lives in.
(There are minions of Moon Worm).
Players Renin and some others who were recruited at Tharngard attack and go through portals and hopefully kill the Moon Worm
Honestly? I think you are planning really far ahead. If you plan what your party is going to do each step of the way, you are going to have a bad time. I would focus on the campaign maybe only 3 sessions ahead, and even then, mostly on NPCs, locales, and fights you think might happen. Your players might throw you for a loop, for example, what if they ditch your NPC Renin? What if they never go where you want them to, so they never learn anything about this moon worm? etc etc
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DM: Adventures in Phandalin [Khessa], The Dread of Strahd[Darya], Dragons of Stormwreck Isle [Rook], Baldur's Gate Mysteries [4-Player] Player: Oona in MO's Icewind Dale Ru's Current Status
Sorry - but the DM does not know how the story will unfold. You just can't plan like that.
What do you do if the players do not give chase? What happens if Renin annoys your party and they decide to kill him?
Either your players will go a path you didn't expect, or plan for - or you'll end up forcing your players down the path you've already decided on - which usually leads to an unhappy group of players who ( rightfully so ) think that nothing they do matters.
What you can do is sketch out a few steps ahead, and figure out how your story will branch - a story flowchart if you will.
Situation: The local guard are chasing a criminal. They call on the PCs for help:
If the players give chase - go on to describe this situation,
If the players do not give chase - go on to describe that situation.
Maybe you can't come up with a good scenario for #2, so then you need to go back and rethink the scene: what is the scene for? How else can you accomplish that purpose? How can you get the players interested in the scene? What is the party trying to do? What are their opponents ( or environment ) trying to do? How do you resolve who wins that struggle? How do you tell when someone "wins" the situation"?
And also be able to improvise when the players do something you did not plan for in your story flowchart. That will happen.
You can have some events that are pre-planned ( storms, eclipses, fires, etc. ) things that will happen regardless of what anyone does - but other than that, you'll likely be writing the possible branching story lines a few steps ahead of the party.
You can also figure out who the "bad guys" are - who are they, what do they want, what resources do they have at hand, what are their limits. Then you can figure out a few steps ahead what they'll try to do next. Will they succeed? That depends on what the party does.
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I tend to work out what might happen in the area they're in or going to and plan a few encounters I can drop in anywhere around that. Hmmm, what's my ranger's favoured terrain and enemy, etc.?
Strong hooks help as well. I have a plot that I was prepared for PCs to ignore, but the hooks were strong enough that they've taken it hook line and sinker. Meanwhile, I'm responding to some of their wishes as well so once this adventure arc is finished we'll probably resolve one of the PC issues. In the background is my own plotting and intrigue that will reinsert itself into the story at an appropriate time.
Consider what involved the PCs. Make them risk something by their actions, whatever it is, or make it personal through their backgrounds.
For example:
Want them to give chase? They realize a purse is gone and a guard shouting about a thief concerns them. If they don’t chase, they risk losing the gold.
Want them to met Renin? If they chased (and caught) the thief, guard request them to write a statement. As the thief was wanted, there is a reward (if caught). If they don’t chase, Renin shows up with other guards just to take their statement.
I disagree with what others have said. You can plan ahead in great detail. However, plotting out a campaign is very different from plotting out a traditional narrative. For example, you mention that the escort guards get killed by goblins. What if they don't get killed by goblins? What if the PCs stop the goblins? What happens then?
Plotting out a campaign is a bit like plotting out a choose-your-own-adventure story. You have to think about contingencies. If the players go left, this happens. If they go right, that happens.
If it helps, this is a simple plot point campaign someone put together. It gives you an idea of what a game should look like.
If you can plot out every contingency possible, at every step, all the way to the end of the campaign - you are a predictive genius.
There is a difference between planning story flowcharts a few steps ahead - which I believe is possible ( although players can still push this off the rails ) - and pre-writing your entire campaign, which is what it looks like the OP was trying to do, and which I don't think is possible.
I can guarantee that players can come up with contingencies that you haven't thought of. If you doubt it, let me lend you my gaming group :p ( Part 4F, setting up a Bed & Breakfast in Fort Zelzagun ).
If you decide to disallow any choices except the ones you have pre-plotted - and this is how the "choose your own adventures" books do it - you run the risk of pissing off your players, who want to do things other than what you have decreed they can do, ahead of time.
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I have both DMd and played campaigns that are planned ahead. However, planned in this case means that the is a meta plot, a few big bad ones and a lot of clues that indicates where to go. Huge open areas in between have allowed freedom. Plus, in each case the DM have made sure that the PCs are through their background somehow invested in the plot.
That being said, there is a difference between major plot NPCs and places versus setting up each small step as by the initial poster. That’s not the flow chart your showing either (if I read it correctly), it’s much broader in scope.
So plot it out, by all means, but be open to as much a network of nodes as a quite linear flow chart. And go for the big steps in the story, not the small ones.
I believe a good DM is the one that has a guideline of the main events of their campaign/adventure, tries to come up with a reasonable amount of possible alternative paths, and most important of all is capable of improvising with what the players throw at him and still reconnect the game to the main story.
Is it easy? Not. At All. Does it imply being a genius and thinking beforehand of any and every possible choice the players might take? Thanks god no, that's why it's improvising on the players choices.
Saying it is impossible to plan a campaign is pretty preposterous, imho, as in that case we would have no published adventures, some of which are veritable gems of writing and planning.
The OP proposed what his ideal development of the adventure would be. Between one point and the next an awful lot of things might happen, I didn't really read it as "this is surely what is going to happen", more like "this is what I hope/think/will try for it to happen in order to move the story forward".
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Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
I'm not saying it's impossible to create a structure for a campaign. What I'm saying is a) You cannot be tospecific about that structure because you come back to that "surprise player action"/"restricted player action" dilemma, and b) You have to be able to handle players running right off the edge of that structure.
IMHO, published adventures - or classic dungeons - are an excellent example of a middle ground structure/not structure. A dungeon is a collection of rooms and hallways. You have a pretty good idea that the party will go to them all - but that's not totally guaranteed. What they'll do there, the order that they go to them in ( somewhat restricted by what hallways exist ) - that's all up in the air until you actually play. If I map out "Players will go to room A find the secret door, then Room B where they'll kill 2 out of the 3 goblins but take the 3rd prisoner, then Room C where they'll convince the Ogre chief to stop raiding the village by ransoming the captured minion in Room B", then I've likely wasted my effort, or I'm about to tell my ( unhappy ) players exactly what they're doing.
But I also have to be ready for my players to decide to leave the dungeon, and go open a food truck specializing in Orc Fusion Cuisine in Waterdeep.
The OP posted stages like "Escort guards get killed by goblins", and "Renin Teleport Players to Tharngard through giant hammer shaped obelisk as part of plan after killing goblins" - not "Goblins attack the caravan". Read that list, and while I can be completely wrong on this, it sounds like the OP is envisioning the outcomes of each stage - Goblins will attack, the guards will be killed, but Renin and the party will kill the Goblins - which I still maintain is impossible to pre-plan while maintaining "player agency".
When I implied you needed to be "a predictive genius" - I stand by that for any plan that extends out to the end of the campaign. Looking at DoveArrow's flowchart it seems ( to me ) to contain 5-7 sessions worth of plot contingencies. I don't think you can plan that far ahead. Had it contained the branching possibilities off of the current session, out maybe 2-3 levels deep, then I would have thought "that's some pretty solid pre-planning for the likely developments in the next session, I wonder if the players will manage to come up with ideas/actions not planned for?".
There's a difference between a "plot sketch" - which is planning out the flow of events which would occur if the players ran off to Waterdeep to open that food truck (which I think is a very useful tool to refer to when sketching out the flowchart for what might happen in the next session, and which I think BigKahuna describes nicely) - and pre-planning the exact flow of events that will occur in play, for the entire campaign - which is still the impression I get from the OP.
I suspect that we're "debating" points that are not really all that different from one another.
I think we are all agreeing that some form of narrative contingency mapping/flow-charting/planning is a useful tool. I think we merely may ( or may not ) have differing opinions on how detailed that planning can be, how far into the future one can map, and how invested in the outcomes of those contingencies the DM can be, before it starts to unravel - either in terms of accuracy or impacts on player agency.
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I have given this advice to many DM's, some people disagree with it and that's fine, I'm not going to spend too much time defending it here, but my advice is here.
...
This is pretty much my ideal as well. Well put!
The only thing I might add, is that while I agree you can't "plan solutions" in the sense of presupposing how the players will get out of a conflict/scene, I will absolutely "plan solutions" by planting resources/information which the players might leverage as a solution. But whether they do or not, that's up to them.
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Hmm ... I don't disagree with any of your approach. I think that a "perfect DM" could improvise 100% of their material on the spot, based on the internal logic of their setting, and write down what they came up with for future consistency - and that be the extent of their "planning".
And I think that this happens - planning or not - about 50% of the time in my sessions: " Oh ... you're going to go find where one of the dead caravan guards is buried and case Speak with the Dead to get information about the ambush ... OK ... ".
And I agree that "clues and resources" have to flow organically from the story line: "does it make sense that this clue exists".
However, I still think that flow-charting and planning possibilities can be useful even if it's not required, for the sole reason that if I have time to think about clues, NPCs, and resources ahead of time, I can make them more interesting and nuanced, than if I improvise something on-the-spot.
Maybe my improvisation skills need work :)
It's my opinion that the DM should never have an idea of what the story "should be", and that "derailing" isn't a thing since there shouldn't be "rails" to begin with, but that if the DM has a idea of what the story might be, they can plan out a little more depth - just be aware that the planning can go out the window if the players bypass it, and make peace with that :)
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I think that depends on your players though. While I don't plan the crap out of my games as much as I used to, I have a current IRL group that WANTS to play in a story. They don't like the feeling of being in a sandbox, so they are in a baby sandbox right now with some rails when it seems like they are not sure what they CAN do. They are newbies though, so I expect that to fade when they get more comfortable with things.
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DM: Adventures in Phandalin [Khessa], The Dread of Strahd[Darya], Dragons of Stormwreck Isle [Rook], Baldur's Gate Mysteries [4-Player] Player: Oona in MO's Icewind Dale Ru's Current Status
If you can plot out every contingency possible, at every step, all the way to the end of the campaign - you are a predictive genius.
There is a difference between planning story flowcharts a few steps ahead - which I believe is possible ( although players can still push this off the rails ) - and pre-writing your entire campaign, which is what it looks like the OP was trying to do, and which I don't think is possible.
I can guarantee that players can come up with contingencies that you haven't thought of. If you doubt it, let me lend you my gaming group :p ( Part 4F,setting up a Bed & Breakfast in Fort Zelzagun ).
If you decide to disallow any choices except the ones you have pre-plotted - and this is how the "choose your own adventures" books do it - you run the risk of pissing off your players, who want to do things other than what you have decreed they can do, ahead of time.
I never said you can plot out everything. Players are going to open bed and breakfasts, that's just part of the game. That said, saying that you can't plot out a campaign is discounting every adventure written by Wizards of the Coast for 5e. It's discounting the Age of Worms campaign written by Paizo. You can predict with some certainty that if a cult or an ancient god plots to take over the world, the characters are going to try and stop it. Yes, they might do something along the way that puts them on the wrong side of the law or they might execute a plan that allows them to skip over 23 of the 24 dungeon levels you've painstakingly built. However, unless you're a really terrible DM, they're not going to give up on stopping world annihilation in order to open a fruit stand.
The OP's notes are for a general campaign arc. There's nothing wrong with that. What he needs help with is trying to figure out how to tell the story without making the characters feel railroaded. For example, there's a criminal chase at the beginning. That's fine. The only question I have is how do you ensure that the characters give chase? Have they been hired to apprehend said criminal? Does someone just cry out, "Stop! Thief!" If it's the former, there's much more motivation for the characters to apprehend the criminal. If it's the latter, there's a chance that they may not engage or, depending on their character backgrounds, that they might even try aiding the thief. Motivation here is the key. If the characters aren't motivated somehow, they're not likely to move to plot point 2, where they're introduced to Renin.
Here are some thoughts about how I might plot this out. Let's say that the the characters see the criminal running from Renin. If the PCs engage and manage to stop the thief, Renin thanks them for their help. If they don't engage immediately, Renin stops out of breath nearby. If the PCs ask him what happened, he explains that the criminal stole the gold from... wherever. Maybe it was tithes from the local temple. If the players don't engage at all, Renin berates them for failing to stop the thief and tells them that the thief just stole the money from the local temple. Whatever the scenario, Renin offers them a 500 gp reward if they apprehend the thief.
You see how that works? I looked at three different possible responses that the characters might have to the situation and plotted out how Renin reacts in each instance. In the end, though, the result is the same. The characters get 500 gp if they apprehend the thief. That's one scenario, but you can do the same thing for each successive scenario. That, in a nutshell, is how you plan a plot point campaign.
are going to open bed and breakfasts, that's just part of the game. That said, saying that you can't plot out a campaign is discounting every adventure written by Wizards of the Coast for 5e....
I would refer you to the post I made in response to Lek above, where we batted some of this back and forth.
As I said in that post: I think we agree on the point that some form of narrative contingency mapping/flow-charting/planning is a useful tool. I think we merely may have differing opinions on how detailed that planning can be, how far into the future one can map, and how invested in the outcomes of those contingencies the DM can be, before it starts to unravel - either in terms of accuracy or impacts on player agency.
I would also refer you to my comments there about how pre-published modules are an excellent example of flowcharting without dictating action or predicting outcomes. But again - it comes about through restriction of player agency ( hallways ). Whether or not that's good or bad, is a matter of taste.
And we seem to disagree on the OPs list is a "plot sketch" ( the list of likely outcomes if the players stay at home and run their B&B ), or a "plot plan" ( the story that my players are going to live - and it's all planned out for them ). Entries like: "Escort guards get killed by goblins", and "Renin Teleport Players to Tharngard through giant hammer shaped obelisk as part of plan after killing goblins" seem to imply a reliance on encounter outcomes ( the guards will be killed, Renon & Party will kill the Goblins ). Again - this is my interpretation; I might be wrong.
I think you can map/flowchart a "ways" into the future - possibly 2-3 "moves" in the "game" - and that doing so allows you to plan clues/NPCs/Resources with more depth and nuance than you could with pure improvisation ( or at least I can do better that way then with pure impov - maybe you have better improv skills :> ). Heck, You can flowchart out to the end of your campaign if you want - but it is my belief that the further out you plan, the higher the odds of your campaign being "derailed" are, and the only way to avoid that is to restrict player agency.
Personally, I prefer to leave agency in the hands of the players, and I prefer not to do tons of fruitless work and/or get frustrated that "the players are ruining my story plan!".
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And we seem to disagree on the OPs list is a "plot sketch" ( the list of likely outcomes if the players stay at home and run their B&B ), or a "plot plan" ( the story that my players are going to live - and it's all planned out for them ). Entries like: "Escort guards get killed by goblins", and "Renin Teleport Players to Tharngard through giant hammer shaped obelisk as part of plan after killing goblins" seem to imply a reliance on encounter outcomes ( the guards willbe killed, Renon & Party will kill the Goblins ). Again - this is my interpretation; I might be wrong.
I don't think we disagree on the problems with the OP's plot sketch/plan. The sketch/plan that he's put together reads more like one for a novel than it does for a roleplaying game. That's a common mistake that new GMs make. Even I made that mistake. I remember a villain I created who had what I thought was a Hide skill that was impossible to detect. I thought this character was going to waltz in and steal the macguffin right off the players without them seeing. My whole campaign hinged on it. Well guess what? Players rolling 20's on their skill checks defeat the best laid plans of newbie GMs.
I'm trying to suggest ways that the OP can take the sketch he's put together and account for player choice. It sounds to me like where we disagree is how far out a GM can extend that. Personally, I think you can extend it pretty far. In fact, I have extended it to the end of multiple campaigns. Do the players throw curve balls at me over the course of my campaigns? Yeah. However, I find that the more I've prepared, the more capable I am of responding to those curve balls.
Games that I've played in where the GM doesn't prepare well in advance tend to become episodic. That's fine. I don't want to knock it. I've played in some excellent, episodic campaigns. However, if you want a grander campaign arc, I find you have to think very carefully about how the players advance from one plot point to the next. Otherwise, the players will ruin your story plan.
Fair enough :) It would be boring if we all agreed on everything, and never tried new perspectives on things :)
And yes - I have made the error of being too invested in outcomes more times than I care to admit, myself :)
Personally, I like "small scale" planning, because I get to be as surprised by plot developments as my players, and it allows me to adapt the story arcs to player actions quickly. Heck, it allows me to plagiarize my players' ideas when they come up with interpretations I hadn't considered, but now can incorporate into the "next few steps" that I plan. Planning for all major contingencies sounds like an lot of work, and narratively boring to me; again, my personal tastes.
I also remain skeptical how practical/accurate it is - but I have a relatively new gaming group - it's probably easier with players which are a "known quantity". Still ... I'm unconvinced, and l would miss being surprised, and the flexibility that "small scale planning" allows me.
I agree that smaller scale planning is "episodic", but I don't think this excludes larger "grander" campaign arcs, either. In fact, in my opinion, episodic conclusions of shorter story arcs, which turn out to be stages in a larger arc, allow me to "have my cake and eat it too". The players get to bring a short arc to a successful conclusion, get all the satisfaction of rescuing the beautiful monster from the ravening maiden and finding the lost McGuffin of Irrelevance, but discover that the conclusion on this "short arc" is only a stage on the larger "grand arc".
And when you take more than one of those episodic threads running in parallel at the same time, beginning and ending at different times, and all feeding into that "grand" arc, things can get really complex, and interestingly dynamic! :)
But I don't pre-plan the "grand arc" either :) I do have idea of what the larger conflict is about, who are the "main players", what their goals are, what their next plans were, how those plans will change based on what the players just did ( if at all ), and I plot the larger arc out a few steps as well. It's quite often that the moves that are to be executed on the "grand arc" spawn off a handful of "episodes" for the player characters as well.
To me, a campaign is the simulation of the lives of extraordinary people we wish would could be, in amazing epic situations that we can never personally experience. And life - even a fictional one - isn't planned; it's messy chaotic, and dynamic :)
But, like I keep saying - if what you do works for you and your players, who the heck am I to tell you different :)
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My Campaign is called eater of worlds. Its based off a monster escaping a planar prison. I have monsters and weapons all figured out just need some plot devices. now here is the plot line right now, (sorry for sounding too straightforward.)
So Got any Ideas?
Honestly? I think you are planning really far ahead. If you plan what your party is going to do each step of the way, you are going to have a bad time. I would focus on the campaign maybe only 3 sessions ahead, and even then, mostly on NPCs, locales, and fights you think might happen. Your players might throw you for a loop, for example, what if they ditch your NPC Renin? What if they never go where you want them to, so they never learn anything about this moon worm? etc etc
DM: Adventures in Phandalin [Khessa], The Dread of Strahd [Darya], Dragons of Stormwreck Isle [Rook], Baldur's Gate Mysteries [4-Player]
Player: Oona in MO's Icewind Dale
Ru's Current Status
Sorry - but the DM does not know how the story will unfold. You just can't plan like that.
What do you do if the players do not give chase? What happens if Renin annoys your party and they decide to kill him?
Either your players will go a path you didn't expect, or plan for - or you'll end up forcing your players down the path you've already decided on - which usually leads to an unhappy group of players who ( rightfully so ) think that nothing they do matters.
What you can do is sketch out a few steps ahead, and figure out how your story will branch - a story flowchart if you will.
Maybe you can't come up with a good scenario for #2, so then you need to go back and rethink the scene: what is the scene for? How else can you accomplish that purpose? How can you get the players interested in the scene? What is the party trying to do? What are their opponents ( or environment ) trying to do? How do you resolve who wins that struggle? How do you tell when someone "wins" the situation"?
And also be able to improvise when the players do something you did not plan for in your story flowchart. That will happen.
You can have some events that are pre-planned ( storms, eclipses, fires, etc. ) things that will happen regardless of what anyone does - but other than that, you'll likely be writing the possible branching story lines a few steps ahead of the party.
You can also figure out who the "bad guys" are - who are they, what do they want, what resources do they have at hand, what are their limits. Then you can figure out a few steps ahead what they'll try to do next. Will they succeed? That depends on what the party does.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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I tend to work out what might happen in the area they're in or going to and plan a few encounters I can drop in anywhere around that. Hmmm, what's my ranger's favoured terrain and enemy, etc.?
Strong hooks help as well. I have a plot that I was prepared for PCs to ignore, but the hooks were strong enough that they've taken it hook line and sinker. Meanwhile, I'm responding to some of their wishes as well so once this adventure arc is finished we'll probably resolve one of the PC issues. In the background is my own plotting and intrigue that will reinsert itself into the story at an appropriate time.
Consider what involved the PCs. Make them risk something by their actions, whatever it is, or make it personal through their backgrounds.
For example:
Want them to give chase? They realize a purse is gone and a guard shouting about a thief concerns them. If they don’t chase, they risk losing the gold.
Want them to met Renin? If they chased (and caught) the thief, guard request them to write a statement. As the thief was wanted, there is a reward (if caught). If they don’t chase, Renin shows up with other guards just to take their statement.
I disagree with what others have said. You can plan ahead in great detail. However, plotting out a campaign is very different from plotting out a traditional narrative. For example, you mention that the escort guards get killed by goblins. What if they don't get killed by goblins? What if the PCs stop the goblins? What happens then?
Plotting out a campaign is a bit like plotting out a choose-your-own-adventure story. You have to think about contingencies. If the players go left, this happens. If they go right, that happens.
If it helps, this is a simple plot point campaign someone put together. It gives you an idea of what a game should look like.
If you can plot out every contingency possible, at every step, all the way to the end of the campaign - you are a predictive genius.
There is a difference between planning story flowcharts a few steps ahead - which I believe is possible ( although players can still push this off the rails ) - and pre-writing your entire campaign, which is what it looks like the OP was trying to do, and which I don't think is possible.
I can guarantee that players can come up with contingencies that you haven't thought of. If you doubt it, let me lend you my gaming group :p ( Part 4F, setting up a Bed & Breakfast in Fort Zelzagun ).
If you decide to disallow any choices except the ones you have pre-plotted - and this is how the "choose your own adventures" books do it - you run the risk of pissing off your players, who want to do things other than what you have decreed they can do, ahead of time.
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.
I have both DMd and played campaigns that are planned ahead. However, planned in this case means that the is a meta plot, a few big bad ones and a lot of clues that indicates where to go. Huge open areas in between have allowed freedom. Plus, in each case the DM have made sure that the PCs are through their background somehow invested in the plot.
That being said, there is a difference between major plot NPCs and places versus setting up each small step as by the initial poster. That’s not the flow chart your showing either (if I read it correctly), it’s much broader in scope.
So plot it out, by all means, but be open to as much a network of nodes as a quite linear flow chart. And go for the big steps in the story, not the small ones.
I believe a good DM is the one that has a guideline of the main events of their campaign/adventure, tries to come up with a reasonable amount of possible alternative paths, and most important of all is capable of improvising with what the players throw at him and still reconnect the game to the main story.
Is it easy? Not. At All.
Does it imply being a genius and thinking beforehand of any and every possible choice the players might take? Thanks god no, that's why it's improvising on the players choices.
Saying it is impossible to plan a campaign is pretty preposterous, imho, as in that case we would have no published adventures, some of which are veritable gems of writing and planning.
The OP proposed what his ideal development of the adventure would be. Between one point and the next an awful lot of things might happen, I didn't really read it as "this is surely what is going to happen", more like "this is what I hope/think/will try for it to happen in order to move the story forward".
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Lek:
I'm not saying it's impossible to create a structure for a campaign. What I'm saying is a) You cannot be to specific about that structure because you come back to that "surprise player action"/"restricted player action" dilemma, and b) You have to be able to handle players running right off the edge of that structure.
IMHO, published adventures - or classic dungeons - are an excellent example of a middle ground structure/not structure. A dungeon is a collection of rooms and hallways. You have a pretty good idea that the party will go to them all - but that's not totally guaranteed. What they'll do there, the order that they go to them in ( somewhat restricted by what hallways exist ) - that's all up in the air until you actually play. If I map out "Players will go to room A find the secret door, then Room B where they'll kill 2 out of the 3 goblins but take the 3rd prisoner, then Room C where they'll convince the Ogre chief to stop raiding the village by ransoming the captured minion in Room B", then I've likely wasted my effort, or I'm about to tell my ( unhappy ) players exactly what they're doing.
But I also have to be ready for my players to decide to leave the dungeon, and go open a food truck specializing in Orc Fusion Cuisine in Waterdeep.
The OP posted stages like "Escort guards get killed by goblins", and "Renin Teleport Players to Tharngard through giant hammer shaped obelisk as part of plan after killing goblins" - not "Goblins attack the caravan". Read that list, and while I can be completely wrong on this, it sounds like the OP is envisioning the outcomes of each stage - Goblins will attack, the guards will be killed, but Renin and the party will kill the Goblins - which I still maintain is impossible to pre-plan while maintaining "player agency".
When I implied you needed to be "a predictive genius" - I stand by that for any plan that extends out to the end of the campaign. Looking at DoveArrow's flowchart it seems ( to me ) to contain 5-7 sessions worth of plot contingencies. I don't think you can plan that far ahead. Had it contained the branching possibilities off of the current session, out maybe 2-3 levels deep, then I would have thought "that's some pretty solid pre-planning for the likely developments in the next session, I wonder if the players will manage to come up with ideas/actions not planned for?".
There's a difference between a "plot sketch" - which is planning out the flow of events which would occur if the players ran off to Waterdeep to open that food truck (which I think is a very useful tool to refer to when sketching out the flowchart for what might happen in the next session, and which I think BigKahuna describes nicely) - and pre-planning the exact flow of events that will occur in play, for the entire campaign - which is still the impression I get from the OP.
I suspect that we're "debating" points that are not really all that different from one another.
I think we are all agreeing that some form of narrative contingency mapping/flow-charting/planning is a useful tool. I think we merely may ( or may not ) have differing opinions on how detailed that planning can be, how far into the future one can map, and how invested in the outcomes of those contingencies the DM can be, before it starts to unravel - either in terms of accuracy or impacts on player agency.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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This is pretty much my ideal as well. Well put!
The only thing I might add, is that while I agree you can't "plan solutions" in the sense of presupposing how the players will get out of a conflict/scene, I will absolutely "plan solutions" by planting resources/information which the players might leverage as a solution. But whether they do or not, that's up to them.
That's why plot flowcharts branch :)
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.
Hmm ... I don't disagree with any of your approach. I think that a "perfect DM" could improvise 100% of their material on the spot, based on the internal logic of their setting, and write down what they came up with for future consistency - and that be the extent of their "planning".
And I think that this happens - planning or not - about 50% of the time in my sessions: " Oh ... you're going to go find where one of the dead caravan guards is buried and case Speak with the Dead to get information about the ambush ... OK ... ".
And I agree that "clues and resources" have to flow organically from the story line: "does it make sense that this clue exists".
However, I still think that flow-charting and planning possibilities can be useful even if it's not required, for the sole reason that if I have time to think about clues, NPCs, and resources ahead of time, I can make them more interesting and nuanced, than if I improvise something on-the-spot.
Maybe my improvisation skills need work :)
It's my opinion that the DM should never have an idea of what the story "should be", and that "derailing" isn't a thing since there shouldn't be "rails" to begin with, but that if the DM has a idea of what the story might be, they can plan out a little more depth - just be aware that the planning can go out the window if the players bypass it, and make peace with that :)
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.
I think that depends on your players though. While I don't plan the crap out of my games as much as I used to, I have a current IRL group that WANTS to play in a story. They don't like the feeling of being in a sandbox, so they are in a baby sandbox right now with some rails when it seems like they are not sure what they CAN do. They are newbies though, so I expect that to fade when they get more comfortable with things.
DM: Adventures in Phandalin [Khessa], The Dread of Strahd [Darya], Dragons of Stormwreck Isle [Rook], Baldur's Gate Mysteries [4-Player]
Player: Oona in MO's Icewind Dale
Ru's Current Status
I never said you can plot out everything. Players are going to open bed and breakfasts, that's just part of the game. That said, saying that you can't plot out a campaign is discounting every adventure written by Wizards of the Coast for 5e. It's discounting the Age of Worms campaign written by Paizo. You can predict with some certainty that if a cult or an ancient god plots to take over the world, the characters are going to try and stop it. Yes, they might do something along the way that puts them on the wrong side of the law or they might execute a plan that allows them to skip over 23 of the 24 dungeon levels you've painstakingly built. However, unless you're a really terrible DM, they're not going to give up on stopping world annihilation in order to open a fruit stand.
The OP's notes are for a general campaign arc. There's nothing wrong with that. What he needs help with is trying to figure out how to tell the story without making the characters feel railroaded. For example, there's a criminal chase at the beginning. That's fine. The only question I have is how do you ensure that the characters give chase? Have they been hired to apprehend said criminal? Does someone just cry out, "Stop! Thief!" If it's the former, there's much more motivation for the characters to apprehend the criminal. If it's the latter, there's a chance that they may not engage or, depending on their character backgrounds, that they might even try aiding the thief. Motivation here is the key. If the characters aren't motivated somehow, they're not likely to move to plot point 2, where they're introduced to Renin.
Here are some thoughts about how I might plot this out. Let's say that the the characters see the criminal running from Renin. If the PCs engage and manage to stop the thief, Renin thanks them for their help. If they don't engage immediately, Renin stops out of breath nearby. If the PCs ask him what happened, he explains that the criminal stole the gold from... wherever. Maybe it was tithes from the local temple. If the players don't engage at all, Renin berates them for failing to stop the thief and tells them that the thief just stole the money from the local temple. Whatever the scenario, Renin offers them a 500 gp reward if they apprehend the thief.
You see how that works? I looked at three different possible responses that the characters might have to the situation and plotted out how Renin reacts in each instance. In the end, though, the result is the same. The characters get 500 gp if they apprehend the thief. That's one scenario, but you can do the same thing for each successive scenario. That, in a nutshell, is how you plan a plot point campaign.
I would refer you to the post I made in response to Lek above, where we batted some of this back and forth.
As I said in that post: I think we agree on the point that some form of narrative contingency mapping/flow-charting/planning is a useful tool. I think we merely may have differing opinions on how detailed that planning can be, how far into the future one can map, and how invested in the outcomes of those contingencies the DM can be, before it starts to unravel - either in terms of accuracy or impacts on player agency.
I would also refer you to my comments there about how pre-published modules are an excellent example of flowcharting without dictating action or predicting outcomes. But again - it comes about through restriction of player agency ( hallways ). Whether or not that's good or bad, is a matter of taste.
And we seem to disagree on the OPs list is a "plot sketch" ( the list of likely outcomes if the players stay at home and run their B&B ), or a "plot plan" ( the story that my players are going to live - and it's all planned out for them ). Entries like: "Escort guards get killed by goblins", and "Renin Teleport Players to Tharngard through giant hammer shaped obelisk as part of plan after killing goblins" seem to imply a reliance on encounter outcomes ( the guards will be killed, Renon & Party will kill the Goblins ). Again - this is my interpretation; I might be wrong.
I think you can map/flowchart a "ways" into the future - possibly 2-3 "moves" in the "game" - and that doing so allows you to plan clues/NPCs/Resources with more depth and nuance than you could with pure improvisation ( or at least I can do better that way then with pure impov - maybe you have better improv skills :> ). Heck, You can flowchart out to the end of your campaign if you want - but it is my belief that the further out you plan, the higher the odds of your campaign being "derailed" are, and the only way to avoid that is to restrict player agency.
Personally, I prefer to leave agency in the hands of the players, and I prefer not to do tons of fruitless work and/or get frustrated that "the players are ruining my story plan!".
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.
I don't think we disagree on the problems with the OP's plot sketch/plan. The sketch/plan that he's put together reads more like one for a novel than it does for a roleplaying game. That's a common mistake that new GMs make. Even I made that mistake. I remember a villain I created who had what I thought was a Hide skill that was impossible to detect. I thought this character was going to waltz in and steal the macguffin right off the players without them seeing. My whole campaign hinged on it. Well guess what? Players rolling 20's on their skill checks defeat the best laid plans of newbie GMs.
I'm trying to suggest ways that the OP can take the sketch he's put together and account for player choice. It sounds to me like where we disagree is how far out a GM can extend that. Personally, I think you can extend it pretty far. In fact, I have extended it to the end of multiple campaigns. Do the players throw curve balls at me over the course of my campaigns? Yeah. However, I find that the more I've prepared, the more capable I am of responding to those curve balls.
Games that I've played in where the GM doesn't prepare well in advance tend to become episodic. That's fine. I don't want to knock it. I've played in some excellent, episodic campaigns. However, if you want a grander campaign arc, I find you have to think very carefully about how the players advance from one plot point to the next. Otherwise, the players will ruin your story plan.
Fair enough :) It would be boring if we all agreed on everything, and never tried new perspectives on things :)
And yes - I have made the error of being too invested in outcomes more times than I care to admit, myself :)
Personally, I like "small scale" planning, because I get to be as surprised by plot developments as my players, and it allows me to adapt the story arcs to player actions quickly. Heck, it allows me to plagiarize my players' ideas when they come up with interpretations I hadn't considered, but now can incorporate into the "next few steps" that I plan. Planning for all major contingencies sounds like an lot of work, and narratively boring to me; again, my personal tastes.
I also remain skeptical how practical/accurate it is - but I have a relatively new gaming group - it's probably easier with players which are a "known quantity". Still ... I'm unconvinced, and l would miss being surprised, and the flexibility that "small scale planning" allows me.
I agree that smaller scale planning is "episodic", but I don't think this excludes larger "grander" campaign arcs, either. In fact, in my opinion, episodic conclusions of shorter story arcs, which turn out to be stages in a larger arc, allow me to "have my cake and eat it too". The players get to bring a short arc to a successful conclusion, get all the satisfaction of rescuing the beautiful monster from the ravening maiden and finding the lost McGuffin of Irrelevance, but discover that the conclusion on this "short arc" is only a stage on the larger "grand arc".
And when you take more than one of those episodic threads running in parallel at the same time, beginning and ending at different times, and all feeding into that "grand" arc, things can get really complex, and interestingly dynamic! :)
But I don't pre-plan the "grand arc" either :) I do have idea of what the larger conflict is about, who are the "main players", what their goals are, what their next plans were, how those plans will change based on what the players just did ( if at all ), and I plot the larger arc out a few steps as well. It's quite often that the moves that are to be executed on the "grand arc" spawn off a handful of "episodes" for the player characters as well.
To me, a campaign is the simulation of the lives of extraordinary people we wish would could be, in amazing epic situations that we can never personally experience. And life - even a fictional one - isn't planned; it's messy chaotic, and dynamic :)
But, like I keep saying - if what you do works for you and your players, who the heck am I to tell you different :)
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.