if You have any advice for newer players/DMs to help campaigns be more seamless and fluid. Let me know I’m currently The DM of a campaign and I don’t think I’m doing to great.
The biggest, easiest, and most helpful "trick" that any DM can use to make sure they have consistency and cohesion is to keep notes.
With all of the cogs and wheels that are turning, it's impossible to memorize or remember all the details. I have 2 major plots, 6 character arcs, and a couple minor story arcs all going on in my world simultaneously. The players are notorious, in any game anywhere, for doing things that do not line up with the intended path the DM has put in front of them. There are choices, actions, and spontaneous decisions that have to be adjudicated on the fly. There are moments where you, as DM, have to quickly come up with a name for a location, person, or thing because you never had one in the first place. There's so much more as well, without taking notes this stuff gets lost in the shuffle.
So, as you play, keep a notebook, record the session, whatever you need to do to keep track of the important bits that help keep the verisimilitude and "smooth" game play you're looking for. Notes are the best since you can put them on any device you want with services like Google Drive, and pull them up whenever/wherever you are. Recordings are a little more robust since you can get context from it in a way that notes may miss. No matter the format, those notes are invaluable, it'll help tie up loose ends, fill in plot holes, and give ideas for what more you can do with your game as it continues to grow.
---
The next thing to do is to have an outline of what you're going to do with the game as a whole and each individual session. It's not necessary to write out every step in finite detail, simply the major or important beats you want to happen. For example:
Big Bad is trying to build doomsday device step 1: Impersonates historian to gather information from ancient tomes step 2: hires mercs to go out and gather items needed (5 artifacts?) step 3: creates home base in area of concentrated magical ley-lines step 4: starts year long ritual to gather power into home base Step 5: releases doomsday device on world
Now you have all the information you need. You can run some of the steps in the background while the players are off doing other things. You can have some of these steps intersect what your players are doing. You can create multiple sessions where they're directly involved with the plot. Because you have it outlilned you can also have it happen any time and any where since it's not detailed down to the letter. It is open enough to let your players derail and still be able to drop an NPC or band of Mercs in just to point them in the right direction.
Session notes can be more detailed, but leave yourself wiggle room as well:
Open with recap Players leave camp meet NPC on road to destination, learn about BBEG's influence in area Players intercept BBEG's band of Mercs. Win: they get artifact Lose: The area is blighted and the locals are forced to relocate Druid learns of Unicorn herd displaced by Mercs Potential trip to Feywyld? reward from Fey?
Again, you have it loose enough to allow for the events to happen if they go in a direction you don't anticipate. You've tied in the main plot and a character plot. And you have enough information that you can run a 4 hour session and leave room for RP and combat. You can set up stat blocks for the expected encounters, loot for rewards and encounters, and it'll look like you've planned the whole thing, even if you're just plopping down the story beats when it feels best.
Your players will do most of the talking, it's natural since they steer the direction of the game for much of it. You will find that their table talk can give you a lot of ideas to work into the game you'd never thought of. It's also integral to the RP in game, between PCs, and social interactions that come up.
The trick is to learn when to interject the story into the conversation so that you can keep the game moving forward.
When they get caught up trying to come up with a plan, after a few minutes, or when they start talking in circles, have a patrol walk by.
If they're trying to convince an NPC of something and they end up telling a story rather than making a point, have the NPC get bored and tell them to get on with it.
If it's just idle chatter that doesn't have anything to do with the game, it's time to roll a random encounter, have a plot based NPC show up, or fast forward to the next story beat.
Let your characters drive the story. Focus on simpler games like dungeon crawls and such, and get yourself used to responding to character actions on the fly. This will also help build your understanding of your own world.
By this I mean who, what, when, where and why.
What is this room for? Why are the items in there there in the first place? who put them there? Why? When?
If you know these answers before a game, you can answer tougher questions on the fly more easily, because you know and understand the world you are building. The best way to appear omnipotent, is to be omnipotent.
Oh, and make lots of notes!
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if You have any advice for newer players/DMs to help campaigns be more seamless and fluid. Let me know I’m currently The DM of a campaign and I don’t think I’m doing to great.
make sure to throw on random WTH moments to have some fun. also make so magic items so stupid they are funny.
What makes you think that you're not doing too great? Give some context. We might be better able to give advice.
#OPENDND
The biggest, easiest, and most helpful "trick" that any DM can use to make sure they have consistency and cohesion is to keep notes.
With all of the cogs and wheels that are turning, it's impossible to memorize or remember all the details. I have 2 major plots, 6 character arcs, and a couple minor story arcs all going on in my world simultaneously. The players are notorious, in any game anywhere, for doing things that do not line up with the intended path the DM has put in front of them. There are choices, actions, and spontaneous decisions that have to be adjudicated on the fly. There are moments where you, as DM, have to quickly come up with a name for a location, person, or thing because you never had one in the first place. There's so much more as well, without taking notes this stuff gets lost in the shuffle.
So, as you play, keep a notebook, record the session, whatever you need to do to keep track of the important bits that help keep the verisimilitude and "smooth" game play you're looking for. Notes are the best since you can put them on any device you want with services like Google Drive, and pull them up whenever/wherever you are. Recordings are a little more robust since you can get context from it in a way that notes may miss. No matter the format, those notes are invaluable, it'll help tie up loose ends, fill in plot holes, and give ideas for what more you can do with your game as it continues to grow.
---
The next thing to do is to have an outline of what you're going to do with the game as a whole and each individual session. It's not necessary to write out every step in finite detail, simply the major or important beats you want to happen. For example:
Big Bad is trying to build doomsday device
step 1: Impersonates historian to gather information from ancient tomes
step 2: hires mercs to go out and gather items needed (5 artifacts?)
step 3: creates home base in area of concentrated magical ley-lines
step 4: starts year long ritual to gather power into home base
Step 5: releases doomsday device on world
Now you have all the information you need. You can run some of the steps in the background while the players are off doing other things. You can have some of these steps intersect what your players are doing. You can create multiple sessions where they're directly involved with the plot. Because you have it outlilned you can also have it happen any time and any where since it's not detailed down to the letter. It is open enough to let your players derail and still be able to drop an NPC or band of Mercs in just to point them in the right direction.
Session notes can be more detailed, but leave yourself wiggle room as well:
Open with recap
Players leave camp meet NPC on road to destination, learn about BBEG's influence in area
Players intercept BBEG's band of Mercs.
Win: they get artifact
Lose: The area is blighted and the locals are forced to relocate
Druid learns of Unicorn herd displaced by Mercs
Potential trip to Feywyld? reward from Fey?
Again, you have it loose enough to allow for the events to happen if they go in a direction you don't anticipate. You've tied in the main plot and a character plot. And you have enough information that you can run a 4 hour session and leave room for RP and combat. You can set up stat blocks for the expected encounters, loot for rewards and encounters, and it'll look like you've planned the whole thing, even if you're just plopping down the story beats when it feels best.
Well it’s just that I did more listening than explaining and I wasn’t sure if that was normal for being the DM.
Your players will do most of the talking, it's natural since they steer the direction of the game for much of it. You will find that their table talk can give you a lot of ideas to work into the game you'd never thought of. It's also integral to the RP in game, between PCs, and social interactions that come up.
The trick is to learn when to interject the story into the conversation so that you can keep the game moving forward.
When they get caught up trying to come up with a plan, after a few minutes, or when they start talking in circles, have a patrol walk by.
If they're trying to convince an NPC of something and they end up telling a story rather than making a point, have the NPC get bored and tell them to get on with it.
If it's just idle chatter that doesn't have anything to do with the game, it's time to roll a random encounter, have a plot based NPC show up, or fast forward to the next story beat.
Let your characters drive the story. Focus on simpler games like dungeon crawls and such, and get yourself used to responding to character actions on the fly. This will also help build your understanding of your own world.
By this I mean who, what, when, where and why.
What is this room for? Why are the items in there there in the first place? who put them there? Why? When?
If you know these answers before a game, you can answer tougher questions on the fly more easily, because you know and understand the world you are building. The best way to appear omnipotent, is to be omnipotent.
Oh, and make lots of notes!