Dungeon Master: Describing Details

Bringing locations, items, and people to life is a big part of tabletop role-playing games. Details are a big part of this and the way we use them can have a big effect. However, there is such a thing as too much detail. As well, there is the question of who gets to create the details. It could be the Dungeon Master, the player, or a collaborative effort. Which details should be focused on? With that in mind, I hope to explore the topic and give some of my thoughts on the subject. I'll use theatre of mind for my examples in order to make the situation obvious. Miniatures add their own power and problems, since it's quite common not to be able to find the perfect miniature for a situation.

Which Details to Focus On?

As with all things, there is a bit of a cost-benefit analysis on the kinds of details we provide. Time we spend describing things is time the players aren't acting. However, we still need to describe something otherwise no game can occur. There are some major approaches I've observed and I hope to give an outline to them.

Chekhov's Gun

You can try to describe the things that are immediately important for the thing you are dealing with. The great thing about this approach is that it is simple and keeps things in the players' court. However, it is a minimalistic approach. Taken to its extreme, you may end up describing a sword as merely its stats and location. If it's exactly the same as a previous item you encountered, however, this may be perfectly fine. It's also common to use this for some environmental features.

“The door creaks open. The room is dimly lit by the sunlight coming from the small window set into the wall opposite to your location. The room is full of barrels, leaving barely any space to enter. 5 feet by 10 feet is reachable but you don't know how big the room is due to all the barrels.”

In this kind of situation, even though I provided details, the barrels aren't described. If I embrace this approach, I get something like the below.

“You can see that the room is full of barrels, leaving barely any space to enter. 5 feet by 10 feet is reachable but you don't know how big the room is due to all the barrels.”

It's a little dull as a description. However, this doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad in every circumstance. If your players hit a metaphorical orc bee's nest (a literally orc bee's nest would also work), quick descriptions like this keep the tension going and also reflect the split second decision making process they might use. It can also be made to work by forcing players to perform actions to notice more details or to ask the Dungeon Master if they are curious.

There are a couple of issues with this approach in general use. If you plan to make a detail important, you either have to mention it (cueing your players) or not mention it until they look for it (which can come off as a bit cheap). It's also not the most immersive and interesting description method.

Couple of Details

I usually pick a couple of senses (sight and sound tend to be the most effective), describe what makes sense using those senses, and single out all/most of the important parts of the area/creature/item/thing and describe them. In the previous example, the important details of the area were the light, the amount of space possible to move, and a rough description of how many barrels were tetrised in there.

The important parts take some experience to identify easily but I find the easiest way is to ask questions. If it's a location, what will your players be doing there? Keeping some of the senses in mind helps you make nice immersive descriptions (at least compared to the previous approach) but also means that a detail isn't immediately important. It could just be a touch of character, forcing your players to do some thinking and extra searching. It may also make sense that your players cannot see an important detail because of some obstruction or features of the location.

Cinematic Entrance

Sometimes, you want something awesome to make an unforgettable entrance. In these cases, the description becomes very important. However, since an entrance is usually done by something sentient, we have to also typically describe actions. This forces more time to be spent since time also now plays a role.

If it's a dragon, you'd typically describe everything in the above section to fill out the appearance, and also need to describe its actions (how does it walk/fly in and does it say anything?). We might sometimes want to trim down some of the description and instead focus on actions. It will probably take more actions later and if you really need to, you can give a couple more details then quickly.

Details Not Covered

You typically only have a few words to get across a description, so you need to use them wisely. This means that in some situations not everything will be said (though visual aids can greatly help to save on words and get more information out more efficiently and interestingly). What happens in this situation? The obvious answer is that in the future, when it makes sense, the other details will be revealed because the Dungeon Master knows. Maybe when the player comes closer. Maybe when the player tries to actively look. Or maybe just after a moment in the room they'll notice something. There is another option, however, though I've seen it used more often for items.

There is a bit of a power dynamic between a Dungeon Master and their players. However, this power dynamic isn't necessarily the same between different groups. Say, for example, that the players beat some undead humanoid and take its magic weapon. Before leaving, they cast Speak with Dead and learned something about it. You could come up with the entire back story for the item. However, you could also give your players the chance to come up with its story as long as it relates somehow to the character they killed. If they ask 5 questions, you might even let your players answer some of them. This still keeps the collaborative storytelling that is the heart of tabletop RPGs but also results in them contributing to stories they otherwise would not have. It also drives a bigger wedge between the player and their character. The simplest examples is to let your player name a magic item they found and then construct a past (they get a name they like and you still have control). The more complex is to temporarily give your players the reigns over your part of the game. This topic is what I'll be covering next.

Dungeon Master: Degrees of Influence

We all know we aren't supposed to railroad players. If we wanted to have full control, we can just write a book. However, written into the game are restrictions for players and some arguably even for Dungeon Masters. The extent of the control the Dungeon Master should have over events as well as the degree of influence players should have is an interesting topic and I hope to share some of my thoughts on it. I won't be able to fit everything I want in here but I feel like I should start somewhere.

Rules Are Restrictions

Games like D&D allow a lot of freedom for players to try things, particularly when compared to things such as video games, but the presence of rules still imposes some restrictions. If we wanted to tell a collective story, we could do good old fashioned collaborative story telling. The issue is that, again, we end up basically writing a book together. Role-playing happens in one direction. We don't want to need to come back and revise an event. We want to keep the story going forward. The result is that we start to develop a resolution mechanic. The player needs to know how it's handled so they can develop their characters within that framework to be what they want. It also adds some structure to what we are doing and makes it less about just making things up as we go along.

Of course, we do make things up as we go along as Dungeon Masters. We still need to come up with a world, characters, and enemies. However, we are also armed with a resolution mechanism that takes some control out of our hands and into the hands of the players. It gives the game some transparency and lets the player understand how things work so that they can act accordingly. It also adds some unpredictability to the outcomes of actions (without it, we'd just be deciding things as the Dungeon Master). By removing some possibilities and shifting likeliness, we have something more interesting. Players work within their restrictions to solve problems and can think of intriguing ways to use their restrictions in interesting ways.

What's Wrong With Restrictions?

Too much restriction is a bad thing as well. Just like being able to do absolutely anything in a game at any time for any reason is boring, it's also boring to be able to do absolutely nothing. Some people are naturally good storytellers and listening to them speak or their audio book is great. I can't remember ever hearing someone complain that their audio book was too railroady. However, tabletop role-playing games are more than that. We come into them with the expectation of interactivity and creating a story together. It's a different experience. We want meaningful choices on both sides of the screen. Even interpreting and running a pre-written adventure is a creative task and requires decisions on the part of the Dungeon Master.

Reason For Railroading?

The main cause for railroading I've seen is that the Dungeon Master wants a particular and specific story event to occur. It's more than just coming across a particular situation. Putting your players into a situation is perfectly fine. The problem is when the solution to that situation is already thought up and you refuse to consider any other, even when they should make sense. Say you want your players to be captured. Fine. It might even make sense. If they just killed someone high ranking, it would make sense someone might be after them. However, if they think of a clever way to escape and roll appropriately, they won't be captured. You can force them onto the railroad and capture them anyway, but in that case it feels cheap. There isn't much of a choice in cases where you want to railroad because even if they think of something, or beat the odds and win a straight up encounter, you'll still go back and try to force them onto the path. Railroading often leads to more railroading.

Players eventually ending up at a particular spot is fine. However, they still need to choose their path to where they are going. The extent and specifics of this is hard to discuss since it depends on a number of things including the players themselves, the stories being told, and the Dungeon Master themselves.

How Much Restriction?

This is a hard thing to talk about. Rules are restrictions and the way we interpret and actually use them are important. Do you let a player succeed based on the pure logic or points of their argument that they role-played, their character's charisma and persuasion score combined with a roll, or a bit of both? Does it depend on the situation? What situations fall under what rules? All of these put restrictions on what player characters can do.

If you are playing a comedic game, your player's arrow might very well be able to hit the moon on a natural 20. In this case, the tone of the game will play a part into the restrictions. Some players also like some degree of restriction. There is nothing wrong with a good dungeon delve. Having your players being part of a guild that chooses from some number of missions and does it is more restrictive than a sandbox world where your players are looking for tombs in the desert. However, the guild scenario still allows your players to choose how they approach the mission they decide on. Some might hate this restriction. Some might like not spending half an hour arguing with each-other over which direction they should look for the tomb next. Regardless, both need to have meaningful choices and your players should be comfortable with it. Of course, the exact definition of meaningful varies from person to person. Sometimes you need to adjust on the fly as well. Don't feel like you need to be locked in.

Dungeon Master: Magic Duration

The duration of a magical effect has a great impact on its usefulness. It also enables different tactics depending on the kind of magic your players have access to. For that reason, as well as to get my own thoughts on the matter down, I'll briefly go over the different duration of magic that can be used. Hopefully someone finds them useful. Since magic items feature so often, I'll be mentioning them quite often.

Time Limit and Single Use

Potions are typically a single use item with a time limited effect. These work great since they introduce some resource management, and they are not long term so any mistakes in giving a too powerful potion is only felt once. However, some players tend to hoard this kind of item for that perfect moment and end up not using it at all. Or, when they do use it, combined they become more powerful than foreseen.

Time Limit and Limited Use

In older editions of Dungeons & Dragons, wands and the like had a certain number of charges. After they were used, the item crumbled to dust. In this case it remains a tactical choice like the single use item, but the item will eventually run out. While having a larger impact on the campaign, it still is less of an impact than a permanent effect (though it potentially allows for more burst use than the next option). This is an optional rule in the current edition (default is the next one).

Time Limit and Limited Use (Recharges)

In the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons, many items have effects that can be used a certain number of times and recharge the uses at a certain rate (usually involving a die roll). The magic effect has a time limit as well (in cases such as detect magic). Since these items recharge, they remain useful throughout a campaign, but because they have a certain number of charges they still need to be managed. This still presents choices for the players. This kind of magic effect system can also be used if making your own role-playing game or campaign and I'd say is a common choice. The D&D 5th edition system has some magic items that are permanently lost under some condition. This partially combines the features of this category and the one before it. I'd say that overall, however, it's closer to this category.

Time Limit and Unlimited Use

Though these kinds of items aren't very common, an item can theoretically have a limit magic effect but an unlimited number of uses. Cantrips are an example of a non-item version of this use (like minor illusion). These kinds of items or effects tend to be weaker so that they don't overshadow the other kinds above. If made stronger, it can overshadow the natural abilities of a class or character (if the party is understaffed, this may be desirable). A staff that allows fireball to be cast as an action with no charges would be one such example (in higher level play this may be weak enough to be fine). At the same time, an item that allows detect magic, dispel magic or counter spell to be cast by anyone could stand in for a wizard if needed. 

No Time Limit and Limited Use

For completion's sake, this is the last type. I would say this is one of the rarer types to use. When I have seen them, it's usually in the form of a potion that permanently raises a stat or a curse that permanently lowers a stat. They can be quite hard to control. They always need to be remembered and accounted for.

Unlimited Effects

A character can be given a magic effect that lasts forever. For example, a character can be resistant to all forms of damage. Such a change would be huge, but can be warranted in some cases (become a god, major blessing from a god before fighting a god, etc.). Regardless, these effects are the most dangerous for a Dungeon Master to give and have the largest effects typically (unless a comic book style depowering occurs later). Typically, they are given to NPC baddies that are fought later in a campaign (the vampire is a classic example as is the invulnerability or resistances of werewolves).

Dungeon Master: Control

There is inherently a power dynamic between the person who runs a game and their players. Different rule systems and even different campaigns can have wide differences in power between the players and the one who runs their game. These differences result in a very different feel and experience. However, they still maintain the heart of tabletop gaming, which is collaborative story telling. Since I find this to be an interesting topic, I'll be trying to put my thoughts into words and hope someone else finds it interesting.

The Default Method

I find that the default Dungeons & Dragons structure is that players control how their character acts within the framework provided by their Dungeon Master. In this kind of setup, the emphasis is immersion and relation with a character. They only control things the character has control over. As well, the gap between the player and the character comes from knowledge. This knowledge might make it tempting for a player to go out of character because it is more beneficial by the rules. These kinds of out-of-character actions cost us the story. However, any knowledge they have out of character can still only be used to influence their character's actions. This generally works well but sometimes a change is welcome and leads to stories that your group otherwise wouldn't get to experience. You could rotate Dungeon Masters, and generally this works well, but I found that the way things go is still different compared to giving players more power.

Giving More Power to Players

We can, however, separate the player and character further by giving more power to the player. By far the most common method from my experience is allowing the player to come up with a backstory for one of their items. It's a bit risky, since the player might come up with something that contradicts the story. Usually it isn't even intentional. Since they don't know all of the Dungeon Master's plans, it just happens. However, when done with responsible players and given a point or two that need to be included, it can create a different experience.

I've seen once or twice where the players might be called upon to create some bad guys they would like to go up against. You aren't completely bound to take their characters exactly as they made them, but it can help in situations when you don't know what to do or what your players want.

Giving the players more power over other characters also helps messes the power dynamic. If you make your player have complete control over their entire kingdom, including possible attempts to overthrow them, they have a far bigger hand in influencing the story. The extent of the control can vary. In the case I'm thinking of, the player told the Dungeon Master what the attempt would generally look like and result in. The specifics were still left up to the Dungeon Master. This helped to keep the vision that a player had of their kingdom but still allowed interesting situations to arise. It also helps that in these kinds of situations, even though a temporary setback is experienced, there may be a long-run benefit. The attempted overthrow was not pleasant in the moment, involved risk and resulting in some lost resources. However, in the long run it resulted in the resources of the entire kingdom coming together more united behind the player. The reward was viewed as worth the risk by the player to come up with a reasonable and well thought out overthrow plan.

Round Robin Dungeon Mastering

Rotating Dungeon Masters throws a wrench into the usual power dynamics of a group. Sure, the absolute power of the Dungeon Master is maintained but the Dungeon Master themselves changes after a certain amount of time. This means each person in the group has a chance to decide on their character's actions and also the world's actions as a whole.The resulting world was shaped by all of the players in different ways on both sides of the screen.

External Rewards

The reward structure in an RPG like this makes a big difference. In something like Dungeons & Dragons, good things happening to their player and bad things not happening are a reward. However, nowadays D&D isn't the only RPG system out there and there are others that reward players for putting their characters into bad situations. In D&D as well, rewarding a player for role-playing well is an old technique. The reason is because it helps tell interesting stories. Stories where players never face setbacks are generally not interesting. By rewarding players for acting in character and resulting in setbacks, the cost-benefit analysis is shifted so otherwise sub-optimal choices might look temping. Balancing this so it isn't too game-y is tough though. You don't want to go too far or players will make their characters trip every 10 feet of movement in order to get the nice benefits.

Competitiveness

Player competitiveness is an issue and I found tends to have worse results the more power the players have over the story. This is because they'll go out of their way to use their power in order to try and make things worse for a different player (it tends to be 2 people against each-other instead of the whole group).

That's not the same thing as having characters that are competitive against each other. If the players are there to have fun and tell a story together, they won't have a problem with sometimes winning and sometimes losing against their rival (in some cases one might have an inferiority complex against the other character and always lose, but this kind of thing should still be agreed between the players or it tends to get nasty).

D&D 5^th Edition and Inspiration

Inspiration is a mechanic that shifts the power away from the players in my mind. Generally, that kind of advantage would be decided by the Dungeon Master based on the situation and the players actions. However, with inspiration, it's the players turn to decide when the advantage happens. It can be a bit awkward if it's used purely mechanically. However, when also combined with giving a player a moment to add to the story (why do they have inspiration in the case they used it?) it's an example of a subtle shift of power. At the end of the day though, the Dungeon Master gets to choose when inspiration is granted (including never) so I don't think it should bother you if you don't like it. It's just another option in your bag of trips if you want to use it. Similarly though, you might let them spend inspiration in other ways to warp the story or to come up with your own mechanic.

Wilderness Tower Map Review

Pros

• Nice looking map of a tower in the wildernes
• Marks denoting the bounds of squares are included
• Properly sized variant for battlemap use is provided
• Smaller version for reference is provided (I often like printing these kinds of things off and noting starting locations for creatures)
• Free!

Cons

• If you already have wilderness tiles, this is more wilderness tiles
• No internals of the tower are provided. If they were, even blank, it would make the set far more reusable. Hopefully that's the case in the adventure that served as the prototype for this map.

Introduction

I've talked about maps before. Dave Zajac's Wilderness Tower Map is another map that can be used in your games. While being quite small, it is properly scaled for use with miniatures. If you are always looking for new tiles and maps to use, it's worth a look.

The Map

The map itself is quite small and simple. It's made up of two pieces that can be printed and connected. However, you can create a rather large chunk of wilderness by printing that page multiple times, rotating the pieces randomly, and connecting them. For a better effect you can include other wilderness tiles of the same size. Trees and other features are included and provide some tactical options as well as using the tower itself for cover. Towers are a classic dungeon setting so you can get some mileage out of it. Compared to some other tower maps I've seen and adventures I've run, the dimensions are a little small. However, it's easy enough to add a giant basement or something else to make it bigger if needed while keeping its outward appearance.

Art

The art is generally nice. It could be a bit more photo-realistic but at the same time it is close enough that it didn't bother me at all. I think I've seen similar quality maps with prices instead of free. It really is quite nice. It's also nice that the smaller map is provided, allowing me to plan how I'll unleash my evil undead hordes upon my players. Other than that, there is no other art. I don't think there really needs to be more.

Conclusion

It's a nice map containing a chunk of wilderness and a tower. The wilderness chunk is easy to reuse. The tower chunk isn't as reusable, but seeing that towers are a common dungeon setting, you can still get some mileage out of it. If you need another wilderness tile or you are new and simply need some tiles to get started, this is a good one to have in the collection. It's not as flexible as some multi-tile systems that let you create whatever you want, but it is still effective for what it is. Being less flexible also means you can just grab it and slam it down when you run into a wilderness combat encounter. Go ahead, grab it. I don't regret doing so and even if you do, it didn't cost you a cent. That's the best kind of advertisement.

Dungeon Master: Overpreparing

Knowing how to prepare for a session is an important skill for Dungeon Master to have. However, I've often heard about the dangers of overpreparing for a session and how it can lead to railroading. Spending too much time preparing is also an inefficient way to spend your time. There is a lot to be said on this topic and I hope sharing my current thoughts on the matter will help someone.

Not Every Path

I assume during this piece that we are not talking about someone who is trying to predict every path an adventure might take and run it like an in person computer role-playing game. It's a lot of work and often gets invalidated anyway because a person might thing of a solution or option you never considered.

Who Am I?

People can be very different and this also has an effect on overpreparing. I've seen people who would just run a game of D&D on the spot because someone asked them to. Of course, in this case it wasn't a pre-published adventure. They had enough games under their belts that they could just run a concept that they've always wanted to run but haven't gotten the chance to yet (it was also theatre of mind with no rulebooks and with new players). Not everyone can do this (in fact I'd be very careful with even trying). New Dungeon Masters who don't have the experience will probably need considerably more time to get to the same level of preparation as an experienced one and may even need to quite commonly reference the rules, further slowing things down. Not all experienced Dungeon Masters will prepare equally, both in terms of time and quantity of things they prepare. Strengths and weaknesses need to be factored in. For these and other reasons, quantifying “overprepared” is not easy. As you get a chance to run games, you learn more about yourself and are able to figure out what you need.

Limited Time

All of our time is limited and some of us have more time than others. At a certain point, preparing more won't improve the session. Before this point there will also be a point where preparing more just isn't worth the investment even if there is an extremely tiny benefit. There are other things to do, maybe even some things that need to be taken care of for future sessions.

Relax

Tabletop role-playing games, regardless of what system you use or who you play with, are supposed to be fun. Don't treat it like a test where you need to cram as much as you can (also, if you are like me this won't work anyway and you are better off getting a good night's sleep). Regardless of how long you spend to prepare, there will be some guy (probably a bard or rogue) who thinks of something else.

What Stage Are We At?

Different parts of a campaign or even an adventure will need more or less time. I tend to take more time at the start of the campaign than many other parts. This is because I want to have a rough idea of what my themes are, what characters are in my world, to have some fallback characters ready in case my players try to talk to a minor character, and to develop the setting the campaign takes place in. Even if you set your campaign in an already established setting, you will need to fit your own story into the world, assuming you aren't running a published adventure. If you are, you will probably also spend a considerable amount of time at the start reading the adventure and making notes.

Running a standalone adventure is also a skill. Different people may allocate their preparation time differently depending on how comfortable they are with certain parts. I tend to take more time with encounters I want to be memorable. That way I know what I'm doing when I jump in. I'll also spend more time on maps I find particularly troublesome or confusing. You also can't rule out needing to make your own hotfix or modification to some portion of the adventure. The longer adventures are closer to a campaign in terms of length but pure creation and interpreting a published adventure are different beasts.

The Root of the Problem

I don't think that preparing for too long needs to lead to railroading. I think the real root of the problem is getting too attached to the plan you made. If you spend a long time preparing a session, you might get attached to your plan and not want to stray. If you did overprepare, there is a chance that you wasted some of your time. That's fine. I've seen quite a few people in my time that had no issue abandoning their plans if things just didn't go that way. Just because you don't use what you've prepared this session doesn't mean you never will. Write it down and file it away somewhere. Even if you don't use it in the exact same form, you can still find some use for it later and as a result it won't go to waste. There will be some prep-work that will be closely tied to the adventure and hard to reuse. Keep this as small as you can but you will always need some. If you go too far, you'll have probably wasted some time if things go off the path (unless you can draw something from the experience, get more ideas, or reuse it cleverly later) but the session can still go well if you just roll with it. It's sometimes just part of the process. 

Of course, this all assumes you'll be running more than one session. You might still have this problem if you are the Dungeon Master for a one off adventure and then plan to return being a player forever after. To this point I say: beware. You may find the role of Dungeon Master will find you again. And when it does, you might find something of use in what you didn't use before. Sometimes your rejected ideas also make for good inspiration for new characters that you want to play. 

What Should I Prepare?

I prepare the following at the very least:

• Rough story line including what will happen, if anything, if players don't take the bait (a couple of alternate outcomes are probably fine, but don't dig down too deep)
• Combat encounters I want to be memorable or are more complicated (these two tend to go hand in hand)
• Look over the big characters and understand them (big ones, not an NPC that will show up for 5 minutes)
• Have some side characters you can throw in just in case (a list with a few names and a printout of a stat block or two from the basic rules, possibly with a couple sentences of notes, is usually enough)
• Have the maps in some sort of easy to reference manner (photocopy, printout, bookmarks, whatever)
• Find some tiles, maps, and miniatures for the session (I tend to use them so I need them ready to go)
• If it's been a while or I'm running multiple systems, a quick skim of the rules

You may need to prepare more or less. Depending on how into miniatures you are, you could spend more time preparing a set piece.  

Dungeon Master: Side Quests

Making and running good sidequests is a bit of an art. They take emphasis off the main story. If the adventure your players are going on is time critical, a side-quest doesn't make much narrative sense in most cases. However, they provide an opportunity to try new things and mix the situation up. The trouble is fitting them effectively into a session. With that in mind, I'll be sharing my thoughts on the matter in the hope that it helps someone out there. 

Do Your Players Even Like Them?

Sidequests are a tool. Some groups might not want any at all. They'd prefer a narrative tight story and want to go towards its end. However, I've also seen situations where people prefer to jump around more often. Each session was mostly self-contained and allowed for a wide variety of different types of quests at the expense of a greater narrative. This is quite similar to the different styles of television series.

A Break

Sometimes players want to take a small break from the main quest and do something new for a little bit. They don't want to abandon the main story but just want something different. Often it is something lighter and more relaxing. I most often see this kind of thing in horror heavy and/or high casualty games. These two often go hand in hand. It can also be a chance for the players to see how far they've come. An adventure that would have killed them earlier is now something they can breeze through in their spare time.

Time Gap

There are some adventures where there may be a more relaxing period. Things take time even in a fictitious world. If your players found an item and it'll take time for learned people to research it, you have options. You could skip past all of the uneventful things and go right to the point the story starts up again. However, you could also use the chance to mix things up with a sidequest. Some players prefer to have an interesting though less important adventure in that time instead of skipping past it by using the downtime rules or hand-waving it away. The rewards for this kind of thing are better than the downtime rules in Dungeons & Dragons 5^th edition as well. Another way is to have a main story that is composed of multiple stories that intersect. In such a case, it's not just a sidequest but an important task related to the story that needs to be dealt with sooner or later. 

Part of the Design

Having multiple quests that on the surface have nothing to do with the main goal could be part of the design of the adventure. A classic example I can think of is needing to raise money for some purpose. In this case, the results of the quest influence the main story but the story of the sidequest doesn't relate beyond the monetary factor. Trying to find items or equipment is similar but material instead of monetary.

If the basis of the campaign isn't a story but instead the adventures of a group within a particular faction that gets different jobs, the campaign is kind of a collection of sidequests already. You might have the equivalent of a season finale or a special, just like a television show might, where there is a larger story that takes more time than your typical story. Multiple ones might be related and become the biggest story of your campaign, but you'll still have other more disconnected adventures.

How Related?

There are degrees to how closely related a sidequest is to the events of the main story. It can be completely or nearly completely disconnected. Helping someone you ran into on the streets is one such example. Sure, maybe the party has some connections with some temple of a good aligned god that helps people who need it, but that's as closely related as things are. Another situation is where the party will need to help a faction that one or more members of the party belong to and are aiding the party in their goal. In such a case helping the faction is also helping themselves, but the connection to the story isn't as clear. It is still present though, since there could be consequences to not helping.