Newer Dungeon Masters may not know how to create hooks and set up situations in a way that informs players of their options. Meanwhile, new players don’t always recognize plot hooks or setups, and may not know what actions their characters can take in the scene. The DM reads boxed text, intending to set the scene for an interesting encounter, but the player's hesitancy to engage brings the game to a screeching stop.

Let's discuss how to address this by returning to the basics of scene building in Dungeons & Dragons. We’ll go through how to build and present actionable encounters, provide helpful resources found in the Dungeon Master's Guide, and give troubleshooting advice for when things go awry.

• Aspects of actionable encounters
• Direct objectives
• Interactive locations
• Communicating goals before the scene
• Setting the scene
• Troubleshooting

Aspects of Actionable Encounters

Before we dive in, let's define some terms. An encounter is an individual scene. The players enter a new city, looking for a place to sleep for the night. A tavern brawl erupts when a patron gets too rowdy. Swarms of diseased rats infest a cellar. Each of these scenes is an encounter, and we string them together to tell the overarching story.

The setup is the way the DM begins the scene, presenting the players with the encounter’s initial pieces, often by reading introductory boxed text. This text usually gives a sense of the scene’s atmosphere, the location's overall characteristics, and any creatures or objects within it. The setup acts as a framework for the players. When it is actionable, the players have a clear sense of their available choices.

Direct Objectives

The first aspect of an actionable encounter setup is a strong character objective. To develop a strong objective, pay attention to your nouns and verbs! For those of us who need to brush up on our grammar terms, a noun is a person, place, or thing. A verb may convey action. For the characters, couple a specific subject ("Jasper the wererat" or "onyx figurine") with a strong verb ("capture" or "recover").

The Dungeon Master’s Guide includes suggested objectives: Protect an NPC. Retrieve an object. Take out a single target. Note the coupling of actions with specific nouns. Reducing our goal to a single strong phrase snaps the scene into focus, and ensures everyone knows what to do. It doesn’t remove player agency, but it does direct them toward accomplishing a specific goal. An ambiguous subject and verb, however, leads to confusion and inaction.

Consider an objective such as "Investigate the inn." It’s short but not specific. What or who are the characters looking for, exactly? "Retrieve the onyx statue from the wererat at the inn" is more specific and still protects player agency. The characters may choose to talk to the wererat cordially, threaten or bribe them, or may even retrieve the statue stealthily.

As an exercise, choose a noun and then pair it with one of the actions in the table below:

The less experienced your players are, the more specific you may need to be. New players may not know how to even start an objective like “acquire the guild leader’s financial information." Instead, you might narrow it down to "steal the guild leader’s account book from their office." As your players become more experienced, you can open up more possibilities by using less specific language.

Interactive Locations

The stairs bow slightly as you make your way down to the inn’s cellar. The air is musty and smells more like decay the further you descend. As you reach the bottom of the staircase, you come to a dark stone room. There’s a slight movement in the far corner, and you can just barely make out the shape of a rat swarm skittering toward you.

The second aspect of an actionable encounter is an interactive location. Notice that while the descriptive text above conveys the mood, there is nothing interactive— except the rat swarm. Locations should include dynamic features, useful objects, and interactive set pieces. For this, we return to our grammar rules, in essence, creating mini-objectives for a few location features.

The Dungeon Master’s Guide has some helpful tools. We can use the "Monster Motivation" table to give creatures a goal, while the "Dungeon dressings" and "Art Objects" tables are great inspiration for items. When adding objects and room dressings, you can choose objects with combat potential (think: cover, difficult terrain, or traps) or choose items which give characters important information (incriminating ledgers, religious items tied to a cult, etc.). For outside environments, consult the "Wilderness Features" and "Wilderness Hazards" sections. One fantastic and flexible table is the "Trap Triggers" table. It can easily be used to help plan various effects of player actions—it's not just for traps! As you build out location features, keep interactive elements in mind. Ask yourself, "What might the characters do with this?"

DM Tip: Make random combat encounters more interesting by positioning creatures as an obstacle to a different goal. Creatures might be guarding a valuable object, or perhaps the only entrance to a ruin. Their presence may be intentional, or their nearby den may be coincidental.

With this in mind, let's return to the inn’s cellar. A more dynamic version of this location may include:

• Jaspyr the Wererat, seeking sanctuary from their fanatical enemies.
• Piles of stacked crates, providing characters with cover opportunities, either in combat or in a stealthy heist.
• A quivering rat nest at the back corner. The rats swarm and attack if the characters pass halfway through the room.
• Barrels leaking flammable alcohol, perfect for lighting on fire, for damage or as a diversion.
• A distinctive onyx figurine, sparkling slightly as it peaks from an open bag next to the nest.

Communicating Goals Before The Scene

Once we’ve created the objective and the location, we need to prepare the way we will present it. In many situations, the DM communicates an encounter’s objective prior to the setup. The quest-giving NPC trope is a familiar one because it’s easy and effective. The innkeeper offers the characters 50gp to kill the swarms of diseased rats in her cellar. Or the thieves guild offers the party a reward for the capture of the wererat. In these conversations, it’s a simple matter to give the characters the objective.

Similarly, an encounter connected to a larger story may already have an obvious goal. If the characters are hired to protect a caravan, for example, the players have a clear context for a nighttime bandit attack. Or, if the party is engaged in guild intrigue, they know that retrieving the onyx figure will increase their faction renown. 

Sometimes, the connection is less clear. In the context of an unfolding adventure, ensure your players know how navigating this situation moves them a step closer to their larger overall goal. If they seem unsure, don’t be afraid to ask them directly. Talking “above the table” is a simple way to clarify assumptions and answer questions. 

Setting the Scene

The stairs bow slightly as you make your way down to the inn’s cellar. The air is musty and smells more like decay the further you descend. As you reach the bottom of the staircase, you come to a dark stone room. The room is square, 20 feet on a side. A broad stack of large crates looms just beyond the entrance, opposite two barrels—and a sharp, acrid odor wafts from that direction. Beyond the containers, a wererat reads from the light of a small oil lamp, sitting across from a large, quivering nest, nestled in the corner. The light dances across the surface of an onyx figurine peeking from an open bag next to her.

For random encounters and other one-off scenes, the encounter’s objective should be communicated alongside the scene’s setup. It's important to highlight the goal and the obstacle when introducing an encounter—especially if the objective is something other than "kill everything." Clearly communicating relevant information is a skill that takes practice, so don’t feel discouraged if you struggle with it.

Here are a few tips to setting the scene for your encounters:

• Write in advance: Prepare scene descriptions in advance, utilizing boxed text or bullet points.
• Go big to little: If your scene has a specific mood, start by outlining the atmosphere and scenery first. Then, describe the general set pieces (the room, the street, the clearing in the forest, etc.). Finally, end by listing the specific interactive pieces within the scene.
• Purposeful adjectives: When using descriptive adjectives, focus on purpose. It may be less important to say that a tree is towering ominously if its purpose is to provide cover. Instead, describe it as "broad and wider than a person."
• Consider memory constraints: There’s a limit to the amount of information we can take in at once. Decide on the most prevalent information and communicate it. Remember that the players can always ask for clarification or for further details.

Troubleshooting

There will be times when you've done your best to create and communicate an actionable scene setup, but you’re still met with confused silence. Here are some tips to help you keep things running smoothly.

• Three things recap: Focusing on just the actionable details, recap three things the characters see. "One barrel is leaking, the reading wererat doesn’t see you yet, and there’s a nest quivering with small rats."
• Use hand gestures: Some players have trouble figuring out where things are in an imaginary space. Especially if you are using theater of the mind, point broadly to give your players an idea of where things are. The crates are on the right, barrels are on the left, and gesture between them for the wererat.
• Narrow down the options: "You can investigate the sharp odor coming from the barrels, hide behind the crates to get a better view of the wererat, or something else.” The "A, B, or something else" format gives players two immediate choices to focus on, while keeping their agency open.
• Player prompts: Prompt a player with a character-specific interest relevant to the scene. Point out something they notice because of a tool, skill, language proficiency, or their background or class. The character with brewery supplies, for instance, may immediately realize the flammability of the barrel’s liquid.
• Be honest. Don't be afraid to give above-table guidelines when necessary, or straight up ask the players pointed questions.

Prepping for your D&D session

Creating encounters that are engaging for your players is a delicate balance. You want to bring the scene to life with colorful descriptions, but you also need to give the characters something to interact with. That way, the players have options for moving the story forward. If you'd like more tips for running and preparing your game, check out this interview with Lauren Urban:

Alyssa (@alyssavisscher) frequently rambles on Twitter about D&D. She especially enjoys analyzing its overall structure from a newbie perspective, bringing larger concepts to small, bite-sized pieces. She’s a parent of four, neurodivergent, disabled, and is impressively terrible at small talk.