I've been a Dungeon Master for about three years now. Recently (and still), I've been running a post-apocalyptic campaign that stars a deadly plague as the main villain. But throughout the start of the campaign, I keep having problems with different parts of the story (planning out campaigns in encounters). It always feels like I move on from important or exciting parts of the story too quickly, or keep the boring parts going a long while. Just wondering - does anyone have suggestions about how to spice up encounters and get the campaign going at a slower or faster pace when needed?
Ok, just some high-level advice that I think is conceptually one of the harder things for new GM's to grasp because it "feels" like the opposite should be true.
In short, an RPG is going to be about whatever you don't have mechanics for, and anything that has mechanics will be unimportant.
Let's say for example you want to have a campaign that is more like the PC game thief. Meaning its all about stealth, hiding and assassination without being seen or heard. In a campaign like that, what you want to do is remove any mechanic that has to do with stealth or hiding. In such a campaign, stealth and hiding is what you are going to narrate, its where players and GM are going to have the most interaction and conversation, you are going to elaborate narratively on events surrounding their stealthy actions, what they are doing, how they are doing it, what precautions they are taking etc... etc... It needs to be worked out through logic and the tension in the role-playing conversation between the player and the GM. Then you have a game that is focused on stealth, hiding and assassination. Having a stealth skill is how you avoid all that, that's the purpose of that skill, to make stealth stuff something get out of the way so you can do more important stuff.
Does that make sense? Mechanics are abstractions designed to "skip" stuff that isn't relevant to the game, the game being the act of role-playing... aka the conversation.
So if you for example, want to spice up encounters, you want to slow it down at that point. the question you have to answer is what about encounters do you wish to focus on. What aspect is important to you. Figure that out and then simply remove mechanics that are designed to resolve that and make resolving it the player-gm conversation ... aka, make that part the role-playing part.
There is one caveat in modern D&D and that is that combat in D&D is a mini game within a game. Basically when combat starts, you stop playing a role-playing game and you switch over to resolving a tactical combat game. If you feel that is the issue (slow combat), that is much harder to deal with in the context of the 5e system. Tactical combat is kind of one of the main features of the modern D&D, so its kind of hard to gut it.
I've been a Dungeon Master for about three years now. Recently (and still), I've been running a post-apocalyptic campaign that stars a deadly plague as the main villain. But throughout the start of the campaign, I keep having problems with different parts of the story (planning out campaigns in encounters). It always feels like I move on from important or exciting parts of the story too quickly, or keep the boring parts going a long while. Just wondering - does anyone have suggestions about how to spice up encounters and get the campaign going at a slower or faster pace when needed?
Religious frisbee player, writer, goofball, and nerd. Some may say professional for the latter two.
Extended sig here. Send me a PM if you want to chat.
DM: Westeros - A Homebrew D&D Campaign, Liquid Swords - A Historical Wuxia Campaign
Player: Marcus Aquillus Arcade (Quil) - 1st Rogue - Pax Romana
GM powers activate!
Ok, just some high-level advice that I think is conceptually one of the harder things for new GM's to grasp because it "feels" like the opposite should be true.
In short, an RPG is going to be about whatever you don't have mechanics for, and anything that has mechanics will be unimportant.
Let's say for example you want to have a campaign that is more like the PC game thief. Meaning its all about stealth, hiding and assassination without being seen or heard. In a campaign like that, what you want to do is remove any mechanic that has to do with stealth or hiding. In such a campaign, stealth and hiding is what you are going to narrate, its where players and GM are going to have the most interaction and conversation, you are going to elaborate narratively on events surrounding their stealthy actions, what they are doing, how they are doing it, what precautions they are taking etc... etc... It needs to be worked out through logic and the tension in the role-playing conversation between the player and the GM. Then you have a game that is focused on stealth, hiding and assassination. Having a stealth skill is how you avoid all that, that's the purpose of that skill, to make stealth stuff something get out of the way so you can do more important stuff.
Does that make sense? Mechanics are abstractions designed to "skip" stuff that isn't relevant to the game, the game being the act of role-playing... aka the conversation.
So if you for example, want to spice up encounters, you want to slow it down at that point. the question you have to answer is what about encounters do you wish to focus on. What aspect is important to you. Figure that out and then simply remove mechanics that are designed to resolve that and make resolving it the player-gm conversation ... aka, make that part the role-playing part.
There is one caveat in modern D&D and that is that combat in D&D is a mini game within a game. Basically when combat starts, you stop playing a role-playing game and you switch over to resolving a tactical combat game. If you feel that is the issue (slow combat), that is much harder to deal with in the context of the 5e system. Tactical combat is kind of one of the main features of the modern D&D, so its kind of hard to gut it.
Thank you so much! Great advice that makes a lot of sense
Will implement this in my campaigns
Religious frisbee player, writer, goofball, and nerd. Some may say professional for the latter two.
Extended sig here. Send me a PM if you want to chat.
DM: Westeros - A Homebrew D&D Campaign, Liquid Swords - A Historical Wuxia Campaign
Player: Marcus Aquillus Arcade (Quil) - 1st Rogue - Pax Romana