Dungeon Master: Themes

I mentioned a little while ago how themes can play a role in encounter design. However, theme is a rather big general concept that applies to more than just encounters. I obviously won't be able to cover everything, but I hope I can at least give a general idea of what it means to consider themes as well as some quick tips.

Not Too General and Not Too Specific

First, care needs to taken to find a good theme. Something like, “good vs. evil”, is a start but I'd say it's a bit too general to inspire me for a campaign. Something too specific will leave the Dungeon Master with many situations where they can't use their themes or will require many themes (too many themes becomes too hard to remember). When I talk about theme, I'm not talking about some rule that has to be followed at all times by the Dungeon Master. Instead, it is a central idea that helps inspire the Dungeon Master. For example, “the difference between good and evil is in their motivation”, is an example of a theme that tends to inspire. Always been running evil liches? Well, with that theme I can have a good lich that became a lich for noble reasons. The real strength in good themes is that they give you a quick framework to work off of when you improvise.

Campaigns

When I start planning a new campaign, I usually start with the themes. As I expressed before, this generally helps with unpredicted situations where the Dungeon Master needs to make a call, but it still needs to be consistent with the world. However, I find it also helps in other situation such as NPC creation and encounter design, because it gives me a starting point. It's also important that it is meant to help you, so if you think of a really cool encounter but it doesn't fit into your theme, that's fine. The theme is meant to be a tool. I typically aim for 3 good themes. For example, we could have “good and evil are indistinguishable”, “enough money can buy anything”, and “magic can be dangerous and unpredictable”. You will probably end up thinking about the setting and story as you think about the theme. That's actually a very good thing because all of those elements should mesh together.

Combat Encounters

Combat encounters tend to be a little more hit and miss when it comes to themes. However, themes can still inspire combat encounters or solutions to combat encounters. Using the themes from the “Campaigns” section, we can decide that the party could actually hire the mercenaries that are about to attack as bodyguards if they paid enough. We could also decide to have a 3 way fight as all three groups compete for the same prize but for different motivations. Again, themes aren't a rule. They are a tool for the Dungeon Master.

Characters

Characters can fall into the more general themes we discussed. We can also think of a theme or a single quote to help inspire us when talking about a character. I find quotes about a character work well for this. Something like, “ever seen a man get so angry over cold soup that he slammed his fists onto the table and broke the table's leg?” helps inspire and create the character and could even be powerful enough that you can create the character with nothing else to go by (I find having a bunch of these, along with names, ready to go help me come up with characters on the spot). It may not encompass the entire character (is he clever?), but it helps me as a starting point.