Dungeon Master: Magic Weapon Flavour

Unfortunately, even swords channelling the power of the plane of elemental fire can get dull. It starts off by being a cool new item, and dealing significantly more damage. A few more sessions later, it can become nothing more than a stick that hits +2 harder, or more likely 1D6. Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are many different methods, from complex magic items that simply can’t be forgotten due to their combat options and out of combat personality, to little extra touches. I hope to cover the second option today.

Make It Cool In Use

My players like to have the scene set. It doesn’t matter that it takes longer to run a session. They enjoy the story telling, and part of that for them is the little details of the scene. It’s not enough to roll a critical and see they killed the bandit, they want me to describe it. Or describe it themselves. Amazing magic items greatly change these scenes. The reaction from a vampire to a sun blade is far different than being beaten by a non-magic mace.

Elemental Damage Is Fun

Elemental damage is one of the most common, and also one of the easiest to add flavour to. Flame based weapons can leave scorch marks on armour, and even walls and furniture on misses. +3 weapons can make loud crunch noises and crack armour. Even if the armour holds from a near miss, it might still crack or shave pieces off where before it was piercing through. I’ve even seen a player who would stick their cold damage dagger into their drink to cool it down. And of course, in rainy weather your flaming weapon may create steam.

Electric and force damage is often trickier, but still possible to work with. Your player might get a minor and harmless static shock when trying to look over the body that they shocked. Maybe even make smoke rise from them Star Wars style. Near by items could get shifted and fall for force damage.

Critical hits that result in one hit KOs can be a lot of fun too. You might freeze kobolds solid, or shatter parts of them. Perhaps their water skin is frozen solid from the hit too. Even if their target is still standing, you can freeze some terrain like a shallow nearby puddle, or maybe for a moment the rain turns to hail. Or maybe have the enemy shiver from a near miss. Have fun with it if it’s your thing.

Don’t Overdue It

Like all things, moderation is the key. However, one or two details per combat encounter can really help make players excited about their magic items. Part of that involves having a good memory. If they have a sun blade, don’t forget that they lit up a good portion of the cave and can see who was attacking them in the dark. Even players can forget some of the less obvious combat effects of items, and those “oh yeah, cool” moments go a long way over the course of a campaign.

However, it’s really still about their characters so a couple details to show that their magic sword is still cool is often appreciated. If they are the ones bringing it up, and trying to use their item in a cool way, of course let them. But I’d suggest not making the items the focus more often than a couple of times per combat encounter, and be careful going too far. Turning on your sun blade won’t blind everyone within range, but describing the now revealed bandits covering their eyes for a moment before attacking isn’t too much.

It’s a tool at your disposal and I think it is best used when combined with techniques to make more interesting magic items, and situations that give chances for your characters and magic items to shine.

Dungeon Master: Riddles

Riddles are a classic element of adventures and fantasy works. From cryptic clues left by an old wizard in one of their books for no-one other than themselves, to elaborate death traps created by malicious gods, it comes up sooner or later. However, tabletop gaming is different than a fantasy movie or book. The game needs to keep moving. Your players can’t spend a week straight on a riddle like a character can. So to prevent a game from stalling, there are a few techniques I’ve seen used, and I hope to share them today.

Roll For Success

Sometimes you can just let a character roll for a solution. They meet the DC, they get the result. I’m generally not a fan of this solution because it makes the riddle just another roll. That said, it’s a trick to keep in your back pocket if everything else fails.

Research Mechanics

Often time is important for a quest. One thing you can do is allow players to trade in-game time for hints. If you present it to the party, and they can’t figure it out, they can spend time researching the book, or looking over the area, and as a result they get a hint that makes the answer easier to figure out.

Find An Alternate Solution

There are often alternate solutions to a problem. Can’t figure out the puzzle on a tomb door? A scroll of fireball could do the trick. One moment that stands out from my games is where the party, including myself since I was a player, decided the best course of action was to buy 500 gold worth of alchemists fire, and burn their way through. It worked though we had to wait an extra couple hours for the smoke to clear.

These solutions are often non-ideal and come with a cost. The alchemist's fire cost money. It also cost us time since we had to go back to the city, and back to the tomb. They might petition their deity for help, or talk to a nearby corpse using good old necromancy (speak with dead is a good way to get another riddle). These are slightly different since they will end up using the ideal solution in the end. However, they are taking some extra steps because they couldn’t figure it out themselves. Hiring a local wizard for consultation is another variant of this.

Failure Is Not The End

They got the combination on the chest wrong? It explodes, sending pieces of wood throughout the room. I lost 12 hit points, and the potion inside was destroyed, but now it’s open! A failure to a riddle doesn’t need to block the progress of the party. That said, there should be a cost. In this style, failure will open a new path for the players, but it’s less than ideal.

One particularly interesting example I saw was that another group of adventurers got into the tomb and solved the riddle. They are still there, and they’re not friendly. And one of them fell to their death with some of the loot, making it unreachable.

Layered Solutions

Any of the above can be combined. You can allow a roll (DC 16 arcana check to realize it’s an arcane lock spell, but they need to realize its magical), alternate solutions (using detect magic would reveal magic is a foot, dispel magic would remove the obstacle, they could still break down the door even with the DC 10 addition from arcane lock), or they can do it as expected and solve the riddle in the wizard’s book they found on his body. Now, I wouldn’t use this as a puzzle outside of low level without some changes, but it’s already sounding better than having them stuck.

Be Flexible

I’ve played and ran many a session where the players come up with a more interesting solution to a riddle than the Dungeon Master (or author of the published adventure). And you know what I did? I made it the solution. It worked based on everything that was provided, and it was even better. Why not reward cleverness? That said, you have to be a little careful not to have every riddle end up this way. Some of your riddles should be solvable.

Be Careful

Sometimes even seemingly easy riddles can be hard for people that aren’t in your frame of mind. There’s nothing wrong with having a few easy ones too. Makes players feel smart, and the game go at a good pace. Besides, didn’t they earn it by retrieving that wizard’s journal from those bandits? Generally, the more leaps of logic that need to be done, the less likely that it’ll be solved. That said, it’s very hard writing good riddles and puzzles. It also depends on your group.

Don’t Be Afraid To Reuse

We’ve had years of tabletop RPGs and video games, and more books than can be read in a life time. Don’t be afraid to reuse a cool riddle you find, especially from more obscure sources. Also, remember what’s considered obscure depends on your players. Also, don’t be afraid of putting a slight twist on the puzzle. Instead of answering the riddle of the sphinx, maybe they need to arrange 3 idols in three areas. One has a sunrise design, one has a sunset design, and one has a high noon design. Same problem, slightly different delivery.

Dungeon Master: Voicing Characters

If you sit down to run a session of D&D you’ll have to take the role of different characters. You could have an empty dungeon that players are just thrown into, but even in that sort of situation it’s common they’ll run across a talkative ghost or fellow tomb robber. You might have a temptation to voice act all of the characters the players run across. However, this comes with difficulties and that’s what I hope to go over today.

You’re A Story Teller First

The first responsibility of the Dungeon Master is to be a story teller. The nature of collaborative story telling is that the players also have a story telling role, particularly deciding the actions of their characters, but the Dungeon Master is the head story teller and controls what comes their way. In this role voice acting is not necessary. I’ve played with plenty of Dungeon Masters who did not voice act any of their characters. They did change their manner of speaking, added certain words or constructs to give each character a personality, but they did little in regards to changing the tone of their voice. People were engaged enough with the story that their imagination filled in the blanks.

The Problem Of Long Gaming Sessions

Remember that Voice Actors take breaks and need to be careful not to strain their voices. You often don’t have that luxury when running a gaming session. Lasting 5 hours when voicing many different characters is a trail of endurance. If you’re unsure that you can last that period of time, don’t risk it. It’s better that you keep your voice for the other things you need to do that week, and also are in good shape for the next session.

Too Many Characters

If you have a campaign that lasts years, your players will run across many different characters. Bandits, villagers, mages, a magic talking skull where the soul of a mage who died 600 years ago is trapped, and many more! Most voice actors can’t voice every character in a TV series.

Pick Your Battles/Characters

So what’s the answer? First, I’d say it’s not worth voice acting a random villager in the street. Give them regional slang if you must, but giving them a unique voice isn’t worth it. It’s also unlikely your players will be able to easily tell all of your characters apart by voice alone unless the cast is kept short.

You don’t always know which characters will become long term fixtures in a campaign. A shopkeeper you meant as a one-off may become the player’s favourite place to sell their unneeded loot. This means that sometimes you’ll need to voice act characters after they’ve already spoken and made their introduction.

I’d suggest to pick a small number of characters who are important to your campaign, and voice act those. The main villain is a great choice, but not always doable. It’s rather hard to imitate the voice of a very deep voiced villain if your voice just doesn’t go that low. Keep this number low. For most I’d say don’t go past 3 characters.

Using Technology (Recording Ahead)

I once played in a one-shot where the Dungeon Master was a good voice actor. However, he also couldn’t voice all of the characters. So what did he do? He asked his friends to record lines for some of the other characters. When the character was introduced, he’d play the recording. It was 1-2 lines that established the character of their voice. After that, it was back to him speaking their lines with modified mannerisms.

This techniques works well and can help you if you’re on your own and get a bit of stage fright. However, the overhead of recording lines multiple times to get your ideal take can be too much and not feasible if you run sessions ever week and every two weeks. If you’re planning a one-shot, it’s far more reasonable if you have the prep time. In fact, I’d like to see more published adventures use this approach. I’d love to have a bunch of files I could play to introduce characters to my players.

Mannerisms and Lines Over Voice Acting

The title says it all here, and I’ve been mentioning this repeatedly but let’s get this stated explicitly. It also works as my closing statement. Focus on the story, what’s going to be said, and the mannerisms. If you do that, even without voice acting, people’s imagination will take over and your voice will fall away as they get immersed in the story. I’ve heard quite a few great story tellers in my time. Some did voices. Others didn’t, and I could still get lost in the stories they told.

My Views on Dungeons & Dragons Alignment

Alignment is one of those topics I wrestle with every now and then. The number of arguments I've seen over this topic leaves me astounded. It's easy to have slightly different view points on what alignments mean and often little differences make massive differences for people. There are also some weird situations that make these sorts of things hard to think about. I hope to list some of the big ones my groups came across and what I think on the matter.

Unknowingly Evil?

The first thing that comes to mind is whether your alignment is based around what you intent or what you achieve. If you got an evil demon pretending to be good to tag along with the party, they aren't going to get much of a chance to do much evil. However, does this make them good? They are doing good things, right? The general census among my players is no. Alignment pertains to your intent. If due to your 6 intelligence or pure bad luck you end up unintentionally unleashing evil upon the world, that doesn't make you chaotic evil. Willingly doing so because it sounded fun would. Probably.

Grades

Only having 9 different options makes alignments as originally described rather limiting. Typically I haven't seen them used this way. Some level of shading was always acknowledged in the groups I played with. You could be lawful neutral with a good bent. This will be obviously different from a character who is lawful good but hovering close to neutral. In our terminology having a bent was the same as hovering a bit closer to another alignment. Playing with the grades and shading between the hard divisions helps lead to more varied characters. It's also something that naturally happens if you go in the reverse direction and don’t think about alignment when making your character. Deciding what kind of character you want to play and then working backwards for their alignment is perfectly valid. Of course, it kind of makes you wonder why you need to even bother with alignment, but I find that it's a good exercise because it forces you to think deeper about your character. Since I've given some examples, I've found that lawful neutral with an evil bent can also be fun to play and be a part of. The player I know who did this last described it as someone who is lawful neutral but has grown bitter and a tad selfish through circumstance and bad fortune. Typically a good question to ask is “why is my character not this other alignment”?

What's It For?

A good thing to think about with any mechanic is why does it exist. Alignment is similar in this regard. Could we play just fine without worrying about alignment and coming up with characters on our own? Sure. I've seen it work. However, alignment gives us a starting point and helps us examine the motivation of our character. To assign an alignment to your character you need to think about your character. As a result even if I don't agree with your interpretation, it may have helped you think about your character's motivations and how they think. It is also something you can reference later to you help you play your character. It can be surprisingly helpful after a month or so break. 

I find it is a very useful thing for a Dungeon Master. Of course it isn't as specific as we sometimes might like but we Dungeon Masters play many different characters over the course of a session. This little short form is extremely useful to get the gist of who your character is. You probably won't have time to define every henchman in the dungeon. However, you can give them an alignment and work within it as the game goes. Being able to reference something and having a starting point to work from makes it easier for me to improvise on the fly. I find that again, this is one of the hardest parts of improvising for me: trimming all the possible options I have for a character down to something useable quickly. And alignment is one tool in our arsenal for this sort of thing. In this regard it is especially useful for running adventures envisioned by someone else. An alignment, goal, and couple of mannerism and you’re well on your way to having a character in less than 20 words.

Dungeon Master: Chase Scenes

If you have a campaign involving any kind of hunt, chase scenes are almost sure to follow. It could be investigating vampire attacks, trying to track down a werewolf in the forest, or chasing after a thief that broke into a noble's house. Regardless, chase scenes can be one of the harder situations to handle in a satisfying way. And for this reason, I hope to provide some of my input on how to run it well.

Rolls

It'll be a series of athletics checks most likely. The Dungeon Master's Guide also has rules for handling a chase. However, in general I recommend looking at the situation high level and letting reason prevail. If you start a parkour chase across the roof tops of building in a city, acrobatics starts to make a lot of sense instead of athletics. If the scene takes place at night, the person running doesn't need to outrun their pursuers, they just need to be able to break line of sight and slink away. Maybe in this case they can try to use a stealth roll to see if they can escape if they are far enough away, or use the broken sight to expand their lead.

Tiredness

Constitution generally should play a role in a chase scene. Also, if the creature is undead, they won't tire. A common rule I've seen employed is that after a total number of checks equal to their con modifier, subsequent rolls have disadvantage. Alternatively, it can be used as a time limit. Whoever gets tired drops out of the chase.

Time Limit

You do not want your chase scene to drag. Rolling over and over and not getting anywhere doesn't help anyone, and generally isn't fun. I find that a chase shouldn't last longer than roughly 5 rolls. The good thing is that if we use the con modifier to tell us how many rolls people can make before getting tired, we have a natural ending point if one group has more endurance. The trouble comes from ties, and generally, I elect to end things in favour of the person running if a tie is reached. You can also make the two sides who tied to a roll for sudden death. Winner takes all. Whether you want to use a stat for this or just luck (since the chase until now used stats) is up to you.

Other Factors

Embrace other factors. Maybe one group tries to jump across a wide creek to escape their pursuers. Maybe the pursuers try to shoot arrows at the legs of the people who are escaping, while they shoot back to slow down their pursuers if on horseback. Maybe the people running away knock over objects as they go, forcing their pursuers to acrobatically jump over it. Embrace the chaos and spontaneous ideas. And of course, things won't always be the same. If they are running indoors through a kitchen, it'll be easier to knock stuff on the ground than if they are running through a crowded street. A pursuer on a horse may need to make animal handling checks while going through the forest.

Different Speeds

Even with different speeds, rolls should be made. One common thing I've seen is to give advantage to the characters who have a higher speed than who they are chasing/who they are running away from. To apply, it should be a reasonably large difference. I normally wouldn't apply if it was only a 5ft difference in these sequences. I mean, they catch them in that case unless they were able to create another obstacle or distraction. However, if the pursuers are on a horse, things become different.

Dungeon Master: Winter Weather

A long time ago I wrote an article about weather and the kinds of effects it can have during a game. I now want to swing around and go over it more specifically. This time I'll be looking particularly at winter weather. If you go to the mountains you'll run into it, and chances are high that your current campaign has a few months of the year with snow.

What The Rules Say

The Dungeon Master's Guide says that in extreme cold you must make a save or gain exhaustion. In practice this is a simple rule that does a good job of penalizing characters for not properly being able to keep warm in reasonable weather, as well as force the players to recuperate to go back to normal. However, what if this cold is different? What if it's an ice plane far colder than what normal weather would provide? For that, you'll need some good old house rules.

So Cold It Hurts

A common approach to cold weather is to inflict damage on characters. A d6 seems to be the most common in these cases, and I find it's the most common dice to go to for minor damage in general. Maybe it's how common d6s are. More interestingly, the last campaign I played in that featured cold damage always had 1d6 of damage done. What changed as things got ever colder was how often the roll was made. Just bitterly cold, but still significantly colder than what the Dungeon Master's Guide says? Well, that'll be 1d6 of cold damage per hour. You got teleported to a plane of ice? Well, that will be 1d6 of cold damage per 5 minutes. You opened a hole to an even colder plane of ice? That might be the same as taking an ice breath to the face. You could of course do flat damage, and I seem to recall one situation from that campaign where we took a flat 1 cold damage.

Nice thing about this approach is that it can add a bit of a survival aspect, and helps to chip away at some of the health points of the characters, as well as their hit dice. Of course, this usually means less combat in favour of fighting the environment. It can also be rather niche, since that world was basically in a magically induced ice age.

Slowing You Down

Massive dumps of snow make it difficult to travel. Seems reasonable, right? However, it's often forgotten in the excitement of a game. I'd say we should pay attention to it though, especially for time critical tasks. Having these kinds of situations can force the party to more carefully consider their options. After all, if they are being chased it adds an extra factor. Perhaps the ranger has an idea to cause an avalanche behind them and slow down their goblin pursers? There are also possible complications from trying to make horses run through deep snow.

Food and Water

There's snow around so access to water is very easy. Unlike a desert or a forest, this makes it far easier to meet this need. However, food can be a different issue. In this way the last campaign I played this is exactly what happened. Water was easy, which was nice since it built levels of fatigue faster. Of course we had to melt it first. However, we often had to bring our food with us due to the higher DC for finding food, and we were without a ranger.

Weather Conditions

The other interesting thing about cold weather is that changes in either directions can cause issues or complications. A warm up while trying to cross a frozen river or lake can result in disaster. Likewise it can result in flooding making things further more difficult, especially if overflowing wizards take out bridges. And then having the weather go colder can cause issues as the above effects take over. Then you have the potential for blizzards causing massive snow build ups that could hide dangerous drops, and massively hurt visibility. This is one aspect you can have a lot of fun with.

Dungeon Master: Breather Sessions

A session often has life or death decisions, and deadly combat. The dreaded total party kill is a legendary part of tabletop role-playing, and the subject of many a post game story. However, not every session or arc needs to be live-or-die, and not every victory is survival. Often after an intense session the players have expanded resources, and may have lingering fears from certain failures they encountered. One solution to this problem, and often a fun thing in general, is to have breather sessions. And it is this topic that I will be covering today.

What Is a Breather Session?

The idea behind this kind of session is that it diverges from the regular flow and does something different. Instead of fighting the forces of the undead, maybe the party gets to attend a victory party as guests of honour for their efforts in the battle. And as they are there an assassination plot is sprung. The idea is that the normal stakes are gone, and the chances of everyone dying are low. However, consequences are still present. Perhaps one of their supporters gets assassinated, making the next section harder. Perhaps someone gets killed in the crossfire. Or perhaps their success gets them even more support. Real results should still occur, and I personally find it's best if they tie back to the main focus. However the idea is that we are taking a small break or detour.

Why Change?

The sequences and sessions that make up a campaign can be very different. There are many instruments, rules, and creatures that we as Dungeon Masters can use to make interesting session and provide interesting situations for your players to influence. However, after really intense twists and amazing triumphs, it can be a good change of pace to ramp down. Take a small breather, and do something in a smaller scope. For the players, it gives them fun where they don't have to worry about their characters dying as much, while still influencing the campaign and having fun. It’s also a good opportunity to shake things up. A little levity now and then can go a long way in a serious horror inspired campaign.

All Campaigns?

I don't remember a big campaign where such a thing didn't come up in some way. Even if you don't consciously think about it, there will be shifts from intense sessions where massive, earth shattering things happen to calmer build up for the next. What makes breather sessions different is that instead of building to the next thing, we might go somewhere else for the session and do something a bit more relaxing. Instead of investigating part 2, we may go to our victory party where complications occur. Of course, there will be some effect on the main quest. Whether it's through gaining resources, or keeping important characters alive, it still feeds back.

Generally, if the campaign is very long I find such a thing to be incredibly useful. It's not always needed, but it's a very useful tool to keep in your bag of tricks. It's also a useful tool if you have players who want to keep playing when someone can't make it. However, for smaller campaigns such a thing is unneeded and disrupts flow. You want that constant buildup in a three-shot, or possibly even in a 9 session mini-campaign. 

Dungeon Master: Threat Level

Managing expectations is one of the major responsibilities for a Dungeon Master. An area where this is incredibly important is when dealing with combat. Player need to know what they are getting into. To make things more difficult, things often change. The high risk combat situation from last session's dungeon delve changes into light risk combat and mostly role-play this session. Handling this change is an art, and in hopes of helping others as well as myself, I'll explore my thoughts on this subject.

Setting the Basis

When a game starts, there are some big overarching things that need to be set. A big one is the deadliness to expect. And again, I'm not talking about if the players have a chance for their characters to die. Some groups don't like running. They want the encounters balanced so that they have a good chance of vanquishing their enemies. Others are fine when a victory in an encounter means getting away alive. However, if they know from the get go that they may need to run, that idea sticks. They won't always run, but they'll know it's a valuable tool in their arsenal. If you instead build the idea that they can win any encounter with proper planning, they may stay and fight even when it doesn't make sense. Adult dragon at level 5? Well, our Dungeon Master wouldn't use something we can't kill. The towns folk telling us that we aren't strong enough is just to build tension.

You can also do this with words from the very beginning during your session 0. It's the safest way. More experienced players will know roughly what it means to face a wight or vampire spawn at level 1, however existing players won't necessarily know they should run.

Re-Establishing the Situation

I find it's a good idea to have a couple of hints from the beginning for players to know what to expect. There are many techniques that can be used for this. If we are talking about a dungeon, the general expectation is that it will get harder the deeper they go in. If the first room is a tough encounter, the players will be weary. Bodies are also a good signal of things to come. If there is a fresh body torn in half, bonus points if it's someone they met earlier so they roughly know their strength, it tells players to be on their guards. Footprints, movement reports from scouts in the area, patrols being decimated, and other battle scenes also help set up player expectations of what they are wading into. It's also a great opportunity to help develop the story as well. If the party they previously helped is found in a zombie state, they'll be concerned and also start thinking of the possible reasons. Necromancer? Wight?

Be Weary Of Tweaking Creatures

Some vampires are stronger than others. It makes sense that some individuals will be exceptions to the rule. However, we also need to be careful when making alternate versions of a creature to put against our players. The first encounter with a creature will set their expectations for the ones that follow. Again, this is especially true for new players but also to a degree for ones that are experienced. Even if the Monster Manual gives a general range, that doesn't mean vampires in your world will work the same way. Vampires might be beastly in appearance instead of humanoid. Or this one might have access to items. Or have a permanent injury inflicted by the arch mage the players met. In these cases it's a good idea to mention that the creature is an exception, preferably in world. Have one of their wizard contacts mention how it must have been a weak variant, or they'd have been torn to shreds. Or how they got lucky and managed to find the vampire while it was resting during the day. Some rule systems have multiple variants of the same creature so players know what to expect, or at least should be aware of this practice out of the gate.

Resources

There is a tug and pull between wanting to continue for the day and resting to regain limited resources. If there is no pressure, the answer is simple. However, having some knowledge about what's going on goes a long way in allowing players to make decisions. If things are quiet, you can expect more use of utility spells and being right on the heels of the criminal. If they are fighting a vampire spawn who knows they are present and they are lower level, they'll probably be more cautious. Of course, they can retreat if they run into a vampire spawn while out of resources. If they missed the clues, it may be their only choice. The act of making the decision can often be a source of the fun, as can piecing together the clues.You also want to have some pressure so the players don't rest every 10 minutes of play. Maybe that vampire spawn will get away if they don't chase it now.

Dungeon Master: Nudges

Sometimes things get lost in the bustle of a session. The plot went off track. The puzzle you designed isn't going over as well as you intended. Or perhaps a player wants to look around for magic items they can spend their hard earned coin on. Regardless of which of these situations you find yourself in, one of the tools at a Dungeon Master's disposal is giving a slight nudge or hint. However, you also don't want to yank your players back on course. And it's for that reason that I hope to go over the topic today.

When Is It Needed?

Let's start with one of the big questions. And like many topics, I find there are general rules of wisdom but no hard and fast rules. If your players are lost, they'll want some direction and hints. This can happen for a large number of reasons, but challenging puzzles probably are the most common one.

Player Buy In

You don't want to too heavily railroad your players. What might be railroading for one group of players may be a cool twist for another, so the distinction between what isn't railroading and what is isn't clear. However, they typically want some kind of consistent plot and events that unfold so there is some level of buy in required. If your players run somewhere else at the first sign of combat or events unfolding, you can't really have much of a game. You need your players to buy in, and when they do there will be some level of nudging. Some mystery is unfolding in the slums of the city? Well, as we find clues they will lead to conclusions, which will lead the party to the culprit eventually.

Reflecting What They Want

When nudging players, it is far smoother when it is in the direction players want. If a player is looking for a magic item, they'll expect hints and nudges towards that goal. Of course, they are looking for them after all. They will be actively looking, or spending their downtime to locate a magic item. They don't know where it is, so they are begging for a hint and a nudge towards their goal. If you aren't sure, then remember what we are talking about here is a nudge. The players choose whether to follow or to turn elsewhere.

How Is It Done?

The ideal nudge is one that is virtually invisible. We often do this without really noticing it. Clues pointing to other possibilities and outcomes are probably the most common technique. Journals containing cryptic entries, for example. Conversations while players are hidden is another. The more difficult situations to handle in my opinion are when a puzzle doesn't land, or your players get lost. You don't want to solve the riddle for them. Instead, I find that it works best to let players look for ways around it. Perhaps the puzzle isn't necessary and they can just brute force their way through using a pick axe at the cost of time? I've also seen situations where the party goes and hires an expert to come back and solve the riddle for them. In one other case, they hid in the shadows and let the group of baddies after the same artifact solve it for them.

Sometimes though, they will need a hint and often times it makes sense that the character will have more knowledge than the players. If someone is looking for clues in the room to find any other switches, perhaps they notice that dust isn't disturbed in some areas compared to others. The key here is to give something that is minor, fits with what their character would know, and doesn't blow open the puzzle. I'd also be careful about situations where players must solve a puzzle to proceed, and recommend that time be spent on alternate approaches or hints in case it doesn't land as expected. Of course, alternatives work best when they have their own pros and cons.

Dungeon Master: Session Postmortems

There are many issues that can occur during the course of a campaign. Many have simple solutions, many others have complex issues, but regardless you still need to be aware of a problem to address it. A newly formed group will also tend to have more issues than a veteran one, where players haven't had time to work out their issues and get into the flow of things. What I've seen used, and used myself in these cases, is the idea of a postmortem. At the end of some milestone, you have your players look back over what happened and give their opinions.

Being On The Same Page

One of the big things in tabletop gaming is being on the same page. Players need to know what actions they can take and reasonably know what their odds of success is within limits. Dungeon Masters need to know what tools they have at their disposal and what players are willing to tolerate. All of this starts with an understanding between players and Dungeon Master that their concerns will be addressed. Communication break downs and differences of expectation are what postmortems give you the opportunity to address by having a structured system built in where players know they can be heard. You also don't want this kind of stuff to quietly simmer if your players have a problem.

How Often

It depends on your group and their experiences. Doing one per arc is very manageable and makes sure that player concerns are heard. However, earlier in a campaign you might seriously wish to consider doing one per session. This is especially true if you didn't know your players before the campaign started. The more distance there is between you, the more of a necessity there is. Eventually you can get to a point where you don't need them anymore, but I'd still recommend calling for one if concerns are brought up. The big thing to address in this case is if there's a difference of opinion. If fixing the problem for one will cause a problem for another, you'll need a clever compromise or to pick a side and have your players understand.

Taking Too Much Time

The issue that can often happen here is that the postmortems run too long. And especially at the start, this will happen. However, as Dungeon Master you can move on to other topics and then circle back around to the issues that result in a lot of discussions. If necessary, you can have that discussion outside of the session and take it into your favourite chat program or email. Having a structure that people are aware of is also extremely helpful in these cases. Have people mention what they liked (that way you know what is well received and maybe can be used again), what they didn't like (potential problems that need to be solved), and any other comments they might have. I find this setup works well as it touches on the aspects we are really after: what are the likes and dislikes of our players. It may also be an execution thing in some cases, and having that feedback is important.

Dungeon Master: Unexpected Magic Items

Players often have items in mind for their characters. And why shouldn't they? It really should come as no surprise that the sword and board fighter in a vampire centred campaign dreams of having a sun blade. However, often times the most memorable and loved items are the ones they never expected to have. The trouble is that many items can end up getting sold off, so how do we make items that players want to keep that they never wanted?

Selling Off Items is Fine

Having the party sell off excess magic items is fine. It makes sense, particularly in a high magic setting, that not all of the items they get from their enemies would find a use in the party. It also gives you a nice way out in case you miss. The worst case scenario is have a quest to sell it off and another small shortfall of money.

Why Bother?

Sometimes players like surprises. Finding a really useful magic item they never considered is one of those times. There are a lot of cool magic items already in D&D so I've typically found that new players are often impressed by some of the classics. Veteran players have already seen those items so you need something else to get their sense of wonder going. There are also holes in the list of magic items that you don't always realize until running a campaign. You may want specific items to resist and kill illithid in your campaign, and it makes sense that a group whose goal is to hunt illithids will be trying to develop countermeasures.

Look At Things They Miss

There are a few things that I find my players often don't notice when thinking about useful items. One of which has to do with sight. If you are a human, being able to see at night can be a massive advantage if combat often happens at night. It may also be useful to be able to reveal undead with a magic lantern. Alternatively, building on the existing abilities of a class in ways the player didn't expect often goes over well. I remember one campaign where the fighter got a battleaxe that allowed them to use a modified version of the blink spell. Seeing them dark around the battlefield hitting people was something special and it became one of that player's favourite items. 

Non Combat Uses

Players often think about items that give them an edge in combat. Combat is a tense moment where an extra +1 could have made a difference. However, there is more to magic items than that. This is especially true if you have new players that don't have experience with items like bags of holding. Such an item changes inventory management and makes things more convenient for players. However, it also changes the game. The players are no longer concerned about being attacked while they lead a cart of equipment through dangerous terrain. They no longer have to protect the horse pulling the cart, or devote players to push the cart if it died during an attack. 

Some items have minor effects or only good for role-play. In one campaign I ran a ring was given to the party. It was a plane band, but it had the continual flame spell cast upon it. It diminished the need for lanterns, left the hand open for use since it could be worn, and when the party wizard learned the spell they made similar items for the rest of the party. Characters could easily stash it away and pull it out later when they needed light, which was very useful since they were often traveling at night. Role-play are similar but are even more minor in effect. Clothes that don't dirty or a candle that never runs out are handy, but they don't drastically change the game. The ring I mentioned earlier was used similarly to how a never ending candle could be used: to read at night. However, it was a favourite item since it saved on minor costs and was commonly used by the character since they would read or write often. They were a wizard after all.

Dungeon Master: Unique Magic Items

There are many reasons to put unique magic items in the hands of your players. They range from rewarding players for accomplishing great deeds, to necessity in a campaign featuring sparse use of magic items. However, regardless of the reason, the end goal is the same: to create special items that your players will remember for years to come and are uniquely their own. Though I am far from a master of this art, I hope to share some of my experience in my pursuit and in the process hope to help someone out there. And of course get inspiration for a few new items, but that doesn't sound as noble.

Special Touch

One little well thought out thing that pulls everything together can work wonders. Of course, we can also go bigger and add a massive benefit. However, I generally feel a collection of abilities that work cohesively are the most effective. Of course, it isn't a general rule and I'm sure you can find cases where two unrelated abilities make sense by expanding the magic item's utility. It can also help expand the item's story.

Common Magic Item Creation Types

Combination of Magic Items

Often in a campaign where magic items are rare, you'll end up with a magic item that is really an amalgamation of multiple magic items together. A flame tongue might also reflect a spell back to the caster if the save is good enough and also give advantage against spells. This is a reasonable thing to do, but it can be a bit uninspired. However, if the combination is chosen intelligently it can lead to amazing items. A common one I've seen is a mash between 2 different staffs to give the user access to more spells. Cool, and allows for more choices for the wizard using it, but I would argue this is an example of an uninspired item. To fix this add a special touch. A flame tongue mashed with staff of fire is a bit more inspired though it has the same origins.

Magic Item Reskin

My player likes the ability of the arrow catching shield, but doesn't like the shield part. I could give them gloves of arrow snaring, but I could also make a greatsword with the perks of the arrow catching shield, but not too much of it to make the new item just better than the gloves (bigger damage die and same AC increase, oh yeah). This is a very common technique. Like the flame tongue ability but are a bow character? You now have a bow with similar abilities. Maybe the Dungeon Master will lower the damage a little, but it will still mostly be a reskinned flame tongue. Like combining items, this can be uninspired and the reskin not different enough to make it really unique or memorable. Again, try to add a little special touch to make it a bit more unique. Examples I've seen done is to give the bow charges and let it used burning hands and fireball (similar to a flame tongue mixed with a staff of fire), immunity to fire damage and the ability to regain 1d6 health when taking fire damage, and the ability to teleport to sources of fire within 30 feet.

Look At Spells

We have a wealth of spells included with each version of D&D. Even 5^th edition, being a relative baby compared to its older brothers, has a fairly wide selection of spells for us to choose from. These spells can be combined or tweaked in interesting ways to create cool magical items. For example, in one of my games I had a flame tongue. However, it wasn't just a flame tongue. It was a +3 flame tongue with the ability to use blink once per day without an action cost and to use a bonus action to teleport 10 feet. Jumping into a group of enemies and jumping all over the place using this magic item was something special. I do find, however, that the magic items best received aren't just mirroring a spell. The spell is somehow changed to better reflect its new purpose. With this item, it was the intent of the Dungeon Master to let me use both the teleport and the blink ability at the same time, so it needed to be tweaked.

Break A Rule

We have a wide range of rules. However, I would say that a good amount of magic items at their core are about bending, modifying or breaking a rule to the player's advantage. You roll a d20 + strength + proficiency to see if you hit? Well, my +2 sword modifies it in my favour further. Fall damage is 1d6 per 10 feet? Well, maybe my magic item lets me ignore this rule. Opportunity attacks are also a good candidate. Once we identify what rule we want to break or bend, we also need to identify how. We could just let a player fall as far as they want and not take damage. We could also give them a casting of feather fall once per day.

What Do We Want To Do?

Another way to go about this is to come up with a concept for something cool you want to do. One thing a player might say is, “I want to be able to touch people and do fire damage as well as catch swords”. Well, if we want to give them what they want, we can make gloves that make a punch or touch do 1d4 + strength modifier fire damage instead of the normal one. Also, if they are hit with a melee or ranged weapon attack they can use their reaction to reduce the damage by 1d10 + dex modifier if they have a free hand. This is similar to an existing item (gloves of missile snaring), but also has its own new touch that allows it to do what our player wanted. In this interpretation, the enemy can pry or slide the sword out of your hand afterwards. You could also let the player grab the weapon if the damage is reduced to 0 damage, but this will make it significantly strong. I typically recommend looking at existing items to see if we can modify them to do what we want. This is both for balance, as it makes it easier for new Dungeon Masters to make balanced items, and it is a surprisingly effective way to get the creative juices flowing. Of course, we can still horribly break items in this way but I think often the risks are lower. It also can narrow things down since we don't have to wrestle with how we are going to do the sword catching part of the item. Steal the arrow catching part from an existing item and also apply it to melee weapons. A player may want to bring an existing item from some other medium to life instead of having a concept. This is fine, but I also typically tell my player to do something slightly different to make it their own.

Add Drawbacks

Not all magic items need drawbacks, but they can make an item more interesting. It also lets you impose a cost for suing an incredibly powerful item. Extreme care is needed here. Be too punishing, and you've created a magic item that might as well not exist: it will never be used in your campaign. Common methods are to allow health to be traded for damage output, though the damage output often needs to be higher in order to justify the costs. For some reason I've seen hit point cost resulting in 2 hit points of damage to the enemy done most often. They can also be role-play related draw backs. If the local church recognize a soul stealer sword, they may have some unkind words with you. Again, exercise care here. Often having charge limits on an item is enough to prevent overuse but in some cases, such as items with infinite uses, a different cost may be required.

All Of The Above

When we make an item, it could purely be one of the above sections. More often though, I find it's a mix of multiple ways. For example a player may want to do something, and there is already a spell that's close to what they want that we could add to an item. We may add an extra perk for them because it makes sense in context, and add something that breaks a rule. The point of the above wasn't to give exact answers on how to make a magic item, but instead some of the most common ways I've seen to make magic items. There is always room for other techniques and strikes of inspiration. 

Dungeon Master: Magic Items as Stories

Magic items are capable of a great many things. They can give players and villains alike a needed boost in strength. They can be the source of entire adventures, or trinkets that the players don't think twice about. However, they tend to get stories associated with them over the course of adventures. Even otherwise seemingly useless items may gain life for their utility, or be remembered fondly for the one time they proved to be useful. At this point they become more than just a magic item, they become a story. And it is this topic I hope to explore today.

More Than A +1 Longsword

An easy first step is to avoid giving +1 weapons. Make the item something special by adding a couple of details. Even something small like a few notched on the cross guard can lead to an interesting story when someone they run into finds it familiar. Now, I'd usually recommend something bigger but subtly can be surprisingly effective too.

In terms of function, I've found going big is most memorable. Something that changes the game. The real potential for story telling with these items isn't that it's just a sword like my old one but does more damage. It's that it opened up new options previously beyond the player's reach. The new options that open up allow for new stories to be told. However, you can do both aspects or one or the other. The great part about an item, even if it's just a +1 longsword in combat, is that it might open up role-play opportunities not otherwise possible. A +1 longsword in a world with almost no +1 longswords becomes something more. It will be coveted.

Let's Find Them!

There is always the classic story of trying to find an item. A whole campaign could revolve around finding an item. Whether that's because it's valuable to the players or the NPC that hired them is irrelevant: the item has value and they'll look for it. It takes care though, and players who are willing to go after such a goal.

However, I think that you can't rely on the item itself in this case to drive the whole campaign and story. Instead it's a catalyst for the players and forces who want it to perform actions. As such, the location where the item is and the path to getting to it is the real core of the story. Where and how an item is found, even one that wasn't sought, tells quite a lot about that item and can hint to a larger story. This may sound obvious but I've seen all too often that an item becomes all that is important in a campaign instead of a setup.

Purpose

An item needs to be made by someone for some reason, and if the players aren't going to pawn it off at the nearest stand they'll need a purpose for it too. The purpose may not be foreseen, since it's up to the players to find creative methods to use items. However, if the players realize they are about to face a dangerous situation it isn't uncommon for them to look for ways to change the odds more in their favour. And a common method is through magic items. Scrolls, magic rings, world shattering devices, a sun blade in a vampire centred campaign, take your pick. What's great about these situations is that since the players are actively seeking these items out, it means they already have a purpose. Of course, the trouble with this method is that if the players always break to look for magic items and resources, a good portion of the tension will fly out the window. They can't always run into a situation perfectly prepared.

When it's on the other side of the DM screen I find that the items should help further the goal of the NPC in some way. If the NPC or villain is also chasing after the same item, they need to have a reason. Money is an easy one, but something more personal can often lead to better results. Potions to prevent aging, or the severed limb of a now crippled death knight who wants to regain his power. Those sorts of things.

History

Magic items can become part of the identity of a character. I think we can all remember a character we had that had a certain item that was closely associated with the character in question. Even if it's a published item like a sun blade, the moment it was used cleverly to kill 3 vampire spawn goes down in campaign history and leaves an impact. What it requires to become more in this case is a special moment and use for it. After all, a sun blade wouldn't have been nearly as fondly remembered in a campaign with no vampires, though it would still prove to be more useful than a regular old short sword. This also means that if a player character dies, their old magic items have a history attached to them. I've seen this occur both in cases where players reacquired items their old characters used to have (the campaign was set a thousand years after their previous ones), or where a new player joining a group received the items from their recently dead friend. The responsibility to do justice to their fallen comrade that the player role-played was something hard to describe. The reactions the players had to regaining their old items that now had a long storied history in the world was also hard to describe. The item became a character in the campaign itself, and it was like seeing an old friend NPC come back.

On top of that, some magic items can help tell the story of a character. It's not that uncommon to see a player character who is a disgraced noble or hero. Besides their magic sword, and memories of grander days, they have virtually nothing. You can also have the item grow in power over the course of the campaign as the player becomes more powerful and gains more control over their magic item. In this case, their starting weapon is closely linked to their personal story and has a history all their own. It's also a history you can let the player come up with. Whether it's the magic sword of their fallen friend that they will take to finish their work or whatever else, such a history is a great opportunity for telling stories and role-playing.

Dungeon Master: When to End a Session

Part of plotting a session is trying to figure out when you will call it a day. Eventually time runs out and we need to take a break. However, we also want the sessions to be fun and interesting. This is why it is so hard and so much of a skill. Balancing interesting things, and allowing players the chances to do what they wish within a defined time is tough. It's made even tougher by the nature of role-playing games: things often don't go as planned. Hopefully my thoughts on the matter will be useful and as always, I'm happy to hear other opinions.

Too Short Better Than Too Long

I am of the opinion that running too short is better than running too long in most cases. There are some exceptions that immediately come to mind, but the good thing about running short is that it means you still got through what you had planned. This usually means that there isn't much of a risk of a dead session where nothing happened. Some sessions will naturally be more interesting than others, but something happening is better than nothing. Of course, things could have gone off track but full of interesting events. My group also tends to have strictly timed sessions because of other commitments so I have this opinion by necessity.

What happens if we get through everything we planned? We could of course keep going and in many cases, I'd say this is the correct choice. We have the time so let's use it and continue in the story. The risk we run into is pacing and structure issues. Jumping into a half completed segments, combat encounters especially, can be rough. If we know that we only have 20 minutes left, it may be a good idea to break early instead of expecting everyone to jump right back into a half finished encounter. We could also end up ending on a low note after a tough and engaging combat encounter. In practice, I'm not really worried about this option. I find players often appreciate some breathing time after and to reflect on what happened. Still though, it should progress even if slowly. Some extra time at the end is also perfect if you plan to do a session postmortem.

When Is it Better To Run Longer?

There is also the option of running the session a bit longer sometimes. It will depend on who you have. It could be the only thing they have left for the day so whether they leave at 11pm or 11:20 doesn't matter as long as it ends reasonably close. In these cases, the right choice might be to just do the encounter and end on the high note. We'll run long but we can afford it. It is also sometimes a good idea to let your players know the session will run longer if you know ahead of time. This is especially true for the end of a campaign. If you normally have sessions that run 2-3 hours, it might be a good idea to run a longer 4 hour session and finish everything in one chunk. That way everything is fresh and rolls together well.

Why Are Breaks Bad?

It's been my experience that sessions tend to be scheduled weekly or by-weekly for groups. A week or two are perfect amounts of time to forget things and even with experienced groups, it can take a little bit of time to file the rust off and continue. I find it's somewhere in the 10-15 minute range. For this reason, starting a session in a half-completed combat encounter doesn't generally work the best. If you are using digital tools, it's less of a concern because the map will be untouched. Physical maps and miniatures need to be put away unless you don't need that table for 2 weeks. Sometimes it's unavoidable. I found my players prefer ending a bit early and starting the combat encounter next time. Some combat encounters can be very large and ornate, and in those it's more reasonable to find a logical spot to stop and commence. If the fight takes place in a tower where floors are breaking, stopping just as they fell to the final floor is better a less defined and memorable situation. And obviously the longer the time span between sessions, the worse it is.

Play Until Done

I've played in sessions where the target was about 2 hours, but everyone would stay until it was done. As a result things would often run long (3 hours, and once 4 hours) but each session felt like a complete experience. This worked great for this group, but not everyone has that kind of flexibility and out-of-game factors overrule the game in these cases. But man, is it satisfying to spend a most of a day playing a tabletop game.

Dungeon Master: What A Roll Says

Chance is an important part of a tabletop game and the dice is our tool for introducing it. That little object can determine success or failure for our actions. However, one thing I've wrestled with for as long as I've been gaming is what the roll actually says. In some cases it is rather straight forward. You swung your sword and you hit. In others, such as rolling to determine if someone is lying, things get weirder. As a player, you can even ignore your roll in this case. And it is with the intent to explore this idea that I write today.

Same Idea

Regardless, I find things work best when the meaning of a roll and its result is understood by all at the table. It makes things work far smoother. That way a player knows what the roll failure means and can role-play accordingly. Restarting a scene is something I feel should not happen during play. It takes away one of the great strengths of tabletop gaming: the commitment to choices and progression of story. It is also a major thing that marks it to be different than most video games, though some try to do this as well (though some fiddling with your appdata folders is still possible).

The Roll

So I roll my dice to see if the character was lying. Whether I succeed or fail, we are in a bit of an odd situation. If I failed, and they are in fact lying, do I think they are telling the truth? If they are telling the truth, do I think they are lying? This also adds an extra issue: if I do this consistently, the meta-game becomes obvious. If I failed I get the opposite result. If I rolled a 1 I know what is going on by process of elimination. I can obfuscate it and sometimes tell the truth and sometimes lie. I can also say they don't know when they fail and give the players an answer when they succeed. I'd say this last one is the most common and the simplest to implement. In general, it would be my suggestion for those things that involve recollection or mind related checks. Of course, introducing some exceptions into the mix can make for fun gameplay moments.

Ignoring Them

I don't mean ignoring them like when you don't bother to roll because a player role-played their character well and brought up an excellent point that doesn't need a charisma check. What I mean is that even if a player thinks a character isn't lying, they may still choose not to believe them. This is where things get a bit rough. Is a lie of omission a lie? Technically it is, and I'd argue that a roll should help you figure out that something is being hidden from you based on things you notice from the person who told the lie. However, even if that checks out, a player may still choose to ignore the result and not believe the character. This character broke their word thrice already. Why would I believe them again? Even if they don't lie, they are setting something up. There is a trick somewhere. These moments are great since it's the character the player created overpowering what the player knows or think they know. The roll gave them something, be it knowledge or a new position after climbing a wall. What they choose to do with what they gained is their business.

Did We Succeed?

Your character is trying to convince someone of something. Maybe they are lying, maybe they aren't. Still, how do you know if you succeeded? In this situation, it's hard to tell until the results come back to you. If a bad guy saw through your lie because they are better at reading your actions, or because they know something that directly contradicts what you said, you won't know until they spring their trap. Sometimes you will by a change in disposition. However, sometimes the result of the roll won't be known until farther along, because they'll use the chance to trap you. Again, it's fine and niche in application, but still important. Just make sure to note it for later use. It's easy to forget that your bad guy noticed if you don't.

Dungeon Master: Maintaining Player Interest

I recently wrote a little bit about hooking players. However, that's just phase one. Once we have them hooked, we need to keep them. This is far more subtle, and still requires serious attention. It involves delivering things that were promised, but often not in ways originally expected. Part of it is also getting your players to think of the future, and look forward to their options. And of course, there is much more to it as well. So let's jump into it.

Giving Players What They Want

Part of a campaign is giving players what they want. Now, this could mean a lot of things and be delivered in different ways. It could also change from player to player. Some players will want elaborate, complex, and challenging combat encounters. Others will want situations they can talk their way out, or rally allies to their cause. Others still will want to unravel a mystery, or navigate the complex political relationships between kingdoms, alliances and empires. Keep hitting these notes that your players love, and they'll be looking forward to more. Seems simple right? Well, not necessarily.

What If They Don't Know?

There is more than that. It's great if your players know themselves well enough to be able to tell you what they want. However, they may miss things. Likewise there will be constraints. You can't have massive battles every session at the same time as deep political intrigue, and a hunt for a lost magical item without it getting jumbled occasionally. So the player who likes political intrigue may need to wait a session or two to have their favourite part come back.

These situations are tough. Finding out what your players like when they don't can be a game of trial and error. However, don't be too worried. Well executed searches that are in the right ballpark go over fine. There just might be other things your players enjoy more that you'll find as you search. You may need to balance everyone's wants as well, and a player might not get their favourite thing but still get enough to enjoy coming back every time. Sometimes players want something new. What is that? Well, they'll know when they find it. It's not exactly helpful advice but it does remind us that looking for novel things isn't a bad thing.

You can also hit something else. There may be a root cause to why your player likes what they like. You may also learn that your player likes the other aspects of the game too, even if they didn't previously say it. This could happen for a wide variety of reasons from their previous game experience, to something just working in ways they didn't foresee. You might have also hit the real root cause of why they like what they do. A player who loves combat encounters may end up really enjoying a political intrigue campaign because they have many options to try to bring people over to their side instead of their enemy. This situation of weighing options, each with their advantages and drawbacks, and making decisions could be the real reason they like combat encounters. You can target this, of course, but more often I find you'll stumble upon these kinds of revelations. Just keep an eye and try not to miss when they fall into your lap.

Paying Off Promises

There are promises that are made when starting a campaign and bringing in players. If you said there would be combat encounters, they expect some combat. Chances are your players were looking forward to them. Some may have been pushed over the edge and decided to join the campaign because of them. Likewise, as you build things during the campaign, players expect them to lead somewhere. Anywhere. You can't guarantee players will like twists and turns as much as their own ideas, but they tend to be far more interested when they know that they are building towards things, and that there will be a reveal.

Also, when thinking about this topic, be careful about going too specific. That there will be kobolds is probably far too specific to be the kind of promise I am talking about here. What makes this difficult is that the promise that the campaign will involve hunting vampires may not be too specific. Some players may really have decided to join the campaign to get the experience of hunting vampires. They loved the idea of living a version of their favourite fiction. However, often times the promise will be higher level. Figuring out what promises you made, and making them accurately in the first place is difficult. However, carefully keeping this in mind is important. Sometimes you can break them but you need to give something in return that is as valuable. What? I don't know. It will depend on your group and it's part of what makes running campaigns hard. However, exercise caution since it's very easy to fail when subverting a promise for something better. You also don't want to do it too often, otherwise promises become meaningless.

Sometimes People's Opinions Change

It's easy to get the idea that things are fine and keep doing it. And often times, this works well for a group. However, it's also important to note that sometimes people's opinions change. The players who were super into dungeon crawling may want a break for a few sessions. If you notice this, or are informed, incorporate it into your campaign. Don't take it personally either. You could make the best spaghetti in the world, but sometimes people want something else. It can happen to the Dungeon Master too, or just makes sense as the campaign evolves. Your intrigue campaign about gathering forces to stop an undead army may in fact end with a combat encounter. After all, doesn't it make sense for a massive battle to occur after so much buildup? It's not necessary, but more often than not your players will want such an awesome combat encounter after so much buildup.

Dungeon Master: Traveling Between Locations

Sooner or later, players need to cross some area to get to somewhere else. Whether it's moving from one city to another, or even one dimension to another, it's a process and there are many ways to handle it. Do we just skim past it and go to the action after? Do we give side content (some levity and variety could be welcome)? If we do, is it a distraction or does it give them resources they need later? Do we do meaningful stuff that somehow ties back into everything? There are many ways to handle such a situation and what makes things even harder is that it can be very situationally dependent. For these reasons I wish to explore the topic a little.

It's Not Easy

Traveling between locations is difficult in tabletop role-playing games. You want to make it interesting as a Dungeon Master, but it's easy to get mired in side details that people don't enjoy. At the same time, you'll find yourself needing to do something involving it if you have a ranger. Otherwise they'll feel a bit ripped off. Part of this is choosing the right granularity. If there's only one choice to be made for a 3 week journey, you might not want to do a day-by-day (asking everyone on every day what they wish to do) unless it feels like something can happen in between. You might want to give your players a day-by-day break down after they set their path and made decisions, especially if they know where they are and where to go. Or, they might want to know every time something in the journey changes and make a decision. There's a swamp in the way. Go around or go through it? Lose time in one, lose resources because of combat and struggles in the other. If you go this route, I'd recommend at least knowing generally what the location is like. A map makes things far easier. Still I find opinions can greatly vary from player to player.

Did the new Dungeon Masters reading this get scared? Well, don't be. It doesn't instantly mean that all your players will hate your game if you get it wrong. Just be aware of the possible issues that might arise and be prepared to change your approach if your group likes things differently. Experienced Dungeon Masters also run into this when playing with new groups or players. They just know how to handle it due to their experience.

Choosing Granularity

If you have a map in a pre-made adventure, you know roughly what the party will run across when setting a course and can describe it in ways that best suits your group. If you are making a map, that's where it gets difficult. You typically at least want to describe the general layout of the land, and possibly weather. If there is a change of location, such as rolling hills to desert, you'll also want to describe that. However, the big thing is to keep in mind when decisions will be made and these decisions often result in a time vs risk trade off.

Story or Simulation?

Part of this comes down to if you want a more simulationist or story driven experience. For some, role-play the travel can be the highlight of an adventure. Keeping an eye on food, trying to avoid detection, facing the elements, and still trying to arrive on time to their destination. On the other hand, the environment can be something to just skip past. Maybe nothing happened. A bear attack doesn't happen every time someone goes into a forest. Likewise, the trip can be unimportant. So make your choice.

Pressure

When traveling between to locations, I find that there should be some sort of pressure. Whether it's a competing group trying to reach a legendary ruin first, weather getting progressively worse, or the threat of supplies running out, there needs to be a catalyst for tough decisions. It also means that the travel paces in D&D 5^th edition start to have meaning where usually they don't. Without this kind of thing, a fast travel pace will very rarely be chosen. Why are your players traveling anyway if they don't have a reason to?

Being Chased

A common and rather effective method for getting players from one place to another is through a chase. Such a setup ideally forces difficult choices to be made and provides a sense of tension. However, we also need to put some complications in. Otherwise it'll just involve the party running away as fast as possible. There also needs to be some solution to the problem at hand. We can't have an unwinnable situation behind the players, forcing them to run forward at full speed right into an ambush they can't win. And at the same time, if the situation they are supposed to run from is unwinnable, the players should know. Looking back, a hilarious number of situations that were meant to be chases ended up as slaughters because players picked fights they thought they could win and failed.

Risk vs Reward

There is an idea of risk and reward when talking about going between two locations. Why wouldn't I explore every place I run across between here and my destination? Well, often times it's the risk of losing time towards our goal. Perhaps having that town indebted to me would be helpful in the long run, but I'll also lose time and give my enemy a head start on the important magic item stored in the vault of the city 4 days away. If I only have so many rations and no ranger, I might not be able to enter every ruin I come across either. Instead, I need to selectively pick them, mark them down, and maybe revisit them later.

This idea also comes back into getting lost. What does it matter if the party gets lost if there is no risk or penalty for doing so? Oh, it takes me longer to get to my destination? So what? The exception to this is when inadvertently finding locations. In this case, getting lost found me a new cool location, new resources and/or allies. However, without risk and reward the party may often just go at a normal pace because they don't want to deal with getting lost. Or they might go at a slow pace because they want to sneak. This decision depends on your party, of course, but the party will typically have one approach they use for everything. This can be fine in general, but there will be cases where you want that added pressure.

Approaches

If decisions are being made there should be some outcomes at some point. Approaching a camp in the woods might allow multiple approaches. If we sneak, we might be able to get a sneak attack or poison their water. If we go fast, maybe we can get their before their hunting party gets back and use divide and conquer. Maybe we know they have hunting parties looking for us. If decisions are being made while traveling, they journey will probably be glossed over with a quick description. That's fine as it lets the party get to what they consider the good stuff. However, keeping in mind what choices the party has over their travels is a good starting place to make it more interesting.