When creating a campaign, there are many things that must cross the Dungeon Master’s mind. Between all the world-building and characters, there is a lot behind the smoke and mirrors of the DM’s screen. All that said, one thing that can give us all a feeling of dread is creating a story.
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How do you make a good story in something chaotic and full of improvisation such asDungeons & Dragons? Well, there are a few things that may help you with that.
5Embrace The Chaos
When we create our NPCs, worlds, and plots, we start to envision how these events can unfold, and how awesome it would be if things went a certain way. And then, your players want to do something that will completely wreck that possibility, such as infiltrating during the night, poisoning the villain, or not even caring about the whole issue, to begin with. It happens, and that’s okay.
DMs are not the sole storytellers. The DM and their players combined make the story. If one of your players has an idea that will ruin the secret plot twist you were going for, let them at the very least try and roll the dice. Things will not go 100 percent according to plan, and enforcing it will annoy your players. Let them try things the way they want. If they succeed, you have a great story for your campaign. If they fail, the consequences can make things more intense too, which also adds a lot to your story. Hear them out, think about whether their plans are doable, and how they’d be doable, and let the dice have their fun as you have yours.
4Don’t Rush With Information
World-building is one of the most entertaining parts about being a DM, despite all the hard work that comes with it. Understandably, you want to show what you’ve created to your players. Still, the key here is not what you’ve written, but how you’ll pass the information.
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Exposition dumps are not attractive to most people. Start with small and personal problems, and let these things scale slowly. First, they help someone who simply seems to be in trouble. Then, the players find out this person ran away from home. Then you show them that this person’s home is the palace. That shows they have royal blood. But they don’t seem to be recognized or shown in images of the family. Now the lineage becomes interesting to the players.
All of that can happen at a somewhat slow pace, taking multiple sessions, even. Share a little and see what they’ll bite. If a particular part of your world is dragging your players' attention, you can even make it more relevant than you first intended when creating the campaign, thus focusing on what they’re interested in.
3Listen To Your Players
Feedback is always good, both in what players think of your previous sessions and what they expect in the future. But listening to them isn’t just directly asking their opinion. During sessions, your players will naturally show what they’re finding interesting. Essentially, what is driving them to keep going around your world? And what story bits are they finding fun? Once you get your answer, focus on these parts and make them more important.
Also, players love to theorize about what is going on right in front of you. And let’s face it, sometimes their theories are better than what we had in mind in the first place. Why not “borrow” the idea then? They’ll even think they’ve deciphered your story since their theories “proved” to be correct. There’s a reason smoke and mirrors are important for DMs.
2Think Of Probable Outcomes
When writing stories, it’s usually common to think about their themes, and how they’ll be resolved. That means you must have at least some notion of how the story will end. But that’s how it works when writing a book, where you have control of every character and situation. You don’t have that here though.
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Be aware of what may happen, but only when the encounter develops will you truly know what will happen. What will happen if your villain succeeds, for instance? That’s a possibility. Or, should they fail, what will they do then? What if an NPC or a player dies earlier than you expected? Or the most likely scenario, what if your players try something you didn’t think of? Analyze your NPCs since they’ll do what you want them to do. Then think about how your players usually solve their problems. Forcing a specific ending isn’t nearly as fun, even if it’s a happy ending. Let your players get there, instead of giving it to them.
1Think Of Your Villain
Villains. From the BBEG, to their minions, or even minor enemies you’ll find along the way. Drama comes from having obstacles between the character and their goals, making the story more interesting than simply having players wandering around and getting what they want.
There are many ways to design and write your baddie.Their motivation, how to obtain it, and how the players fit in all this. Connection is also a powerful way to make things more appealing. You can have a villain who personally knows one of the players' characters, or they are on a similar path as one of the heroes, but took a bad turn. Say a PC wants to save the Dwarves against the Orcs, and the villain wants to do the same. But the villain wants to completely exterminate the Orcs. Now you have a nice moral conundrum for your player to solve.
A villain force your players to react if they’re being too passive to the story, or have them take the initiative and fight against whoever you’ve created to oppose them. Either way, the story progresses, and regardless if it ends happily or tragically, it’ll help you create a good story for your adventurers.
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