Dungeon Master: Creating Random Dungeons

Exploring dungeons is a long time staple of tabletop role-playing. Naturally, it's been a staple of D&D for decades as well. However, coming up with dungeons is a bit of an art. There are so many elements to consider in designing a good one. On top of that, sometimes things go off the rails. What do you do if your players jump into catacombs before you had expected? The first thing that comes to mind is to just make things up as we go along. However, due to the complexity of the situation, this is easier said than done. It is for this reason I hope to give my advice on the matter.

Word of Caution

What we are talking about here isn't an easy thing. The difficulty also increases the larger a dungeon that we create. Typically if you are in this situation, it's because things went off the rails. I'd say that 9/10 times, having the dungeon prepared a head of time leads to better results unless the Dungeon Master in question really knows what they are doing.

A Bit of Cheating

I'd be very hesitant making up every element of a dungeon on the fly. However, we don't have to. There are a myriad of techniques at our disposal to make things easier. This means that a large portion of the work will be done on the spot but many elements will be taken ahead of time. Sometimes a bit of cheating like this is required. One of the most effective cheats I've found is the use of dungeon tiles or 3D printed terrain. Being able to grab pieces and put them together on the fly like makes it far easier than coming up with every bit of the area. Sometimes restrictions are a good thing for creativity, and I'd argue that when doing things in a crunch like we are in this situation, they are beneficial.

I'd also recommend some pre-made room designs for common uses. Bedrooms, hallways, halls, and chapels are some very commonly used elements that can easily be reused or combined. As you go through more campaigns and gain more experience as a Dungeon Master, you also naturally build a backlog of these things. Previous maps can be a great source for old parts that can be changed for new uses. This can be done both by changing the structural features (adding columns, increasing the room size, adding balconies) or by rearranging the furnishing inside.

Paralysis

If I start making things up on the spot with no foundation I find myself in a kind of paralysis. Depending on how inspired I am, it can last a few moments or minutes. However, I don't want to be stuck for minutes trying to think of things when running a campaign. To make matters worse, this kind of paralysis can return later in the session when I've exhausted my previous inspiration. The thing that works best for me in these situations it to ensure I have a place to draw from. It can be a goal to work towards, a concept for an area, a fragment of a story I want to tell, or a bunch of other things.

Themes and Ideas

I mentioned how I like a starting point to work from. I've also written before about how I value themes for campaigns, and locations/dungeons are no different. When coming up with a dungeon on the spot, this is typically the hardest part for me. I want a good theme or idea to work from. Otherwise I'll get into trouble later. This is why I make myself a list just in case. That way I have a list of ideas I feel are strong enough to make things up on the spot. I typically aim for 3-5 of these on reserve at a time and sometimes I'll think of a new list as an exercise. As an example, here was my list from my last session:

• A dungeon where all of the traps have decayed into basically being useless and all of the real dangerous are coincidences caused by decay.
• A dungeon made by the followers of an insane god/demon. Probably includes many dead ends and insane things like a table attached to the ceiling.
• A dungeon heavily looted previously, but not completely. The best loot is still waiting to be discovered, though in the best hidden places.
• A castle that was the sight of a massive battle, resulting in the deaths of everyone when the wizard of the castle decided to take everyone with them. When entering parts of the battle are relived.
• An ancient dungeon expanded upon and expanded upon again over a thousand years of use.

Points of Interest

I tend to feel that every dungeon needs to have at least one point of interest. It'll be that one element that is remembered later. It could be related to a character. It could be related to an incredibly inventive trap. It could be related to the location, or what the whole dungeon implies. I also found that entire rooms work the best. This way the whole point of interest can be easily encapsulated for drop in use. I aim for between 1-3, depending on the size of the dungeon. It's an easy way to add that special element to a dungeon when being put on the spot. It also gives flexibility. If you have a moment of inspiration for a point of interest that is even better than your fall back list, you've won. If you need to use your fallback list, you are still adding something special to the dungeon. It also gives you a minimum level to fall back on for the dungeon, just in case the inspiration doesn't hit. The rest of it can be more easily thought up on the spot, though of course it will still be challenging.

Random Generation Tools

There are different tools we can use to generate dungeons randomly. From the classic use of tables to generate them (see the end of the Dungeon Master's Guide), to online software, to randomly picking up tiles, there are many ways to get the basic outline of a dungeon. In general I would recommend doing this ahead of time and tweaking things in order to refine it into a better product. When doing it off the cuff, we don't have that luxury. In this case, I find looking at the situation and choosing based on what I think best fits is my first choice. After that, that's when I go to the random options in order to not waste time and hopefully get me to the next stage where I'll have my inspiration. Even so, I'll overrule or adjust things as I see fit to fit my theme or concept from above. This is why I find having a theme or concept is so important for me. It gives me a good place to modify and create from instead of just making everything up. The upside for me is less paralysis and that it seems more consistent.

Dungeon Master: Intrigue Tips

There are many different campaigns you can run. One that my players in particular like are games of intrigue. Inner politics of wizards, gods, kings, and anything else that can amass power are all good candidates for this kind of game. They are also some of the hardest kinds of games to run. Things need to fit together well, and plots need to be put into motion. In the hopes of helping someone out there and consolidating my thoughts, I'll be writing about this very topic today. I'd love to hear differing opinions on the topic as well.

Make Sense

Plots and intrigue games should make sense. The reasoning behind actions, where they lead, and how everything fits together need to make sense. How else can we expect the players unravel them? Above all, don't jettison it in the hopes of shocking your players. If players can predict what is happening next, it doesn't necessarily mean that the campaign is predictable and cliche filled. It could just be that your player was clever and that the events make sense. Don't throw it all away in the hopes of trying to fool or catch your players. I've seen this way too often. It also partially depends on the degree. Seeing part of the plot ahead of time will be far less detrimental than having every twist and turn predicted after the first session. If you do decide to change things from the original vision, it should still make sense in context. A twist that doesn't fit and came out of nowhere doesn't typically go over well in my experience.

Don't Be Afraid

I've seen intrigue games grind to a halt because the Dungeon Master was too worried about railroading. Intrigue centred games will naturally need characters that have their own goals. This naturally tends to lead to more fixed narratives. However, so what? It's my experience that a more restricted story is what people are often after when they want to play an intrigue game. They don't need to be able to go anywhere they want or have all their plans come to pass. They want to be foiled, betrayed, make powerful allies, uncover secrets and much more. There is, like all things, a balance to be found but I've found that it's better to not be afraid and try to give your players what they want, though not exactly what they want. What my players don't want when they join an intrigue campaign is for nothing to happen. They also probably don't want to just explore the local ruins. If it's a narrative and character centred story of politics and betrayal, great. Just don't forget to keep an ear out to make sure you are hitting the right notes. Also don't make a campaign where your players don't need to be there.

Have An Aim

Why is the intrigue happening? Saying you are running an intrigue campaign isn't really saying much. You need a reason, characters, events happening, and reasons for people to create plots. Just throwing your players into a room and expecting things to go well probably isn't a good idea. You need to have a goal for the intrigue to take place, and for your players to interact with others. Trying to raise allies to stop a big bad is one such classic example. It gives a reason to proceed, an ultimate goal, and helps with developing the rest of the campaign. The big bad could look for other supporters as well. Or perhaps the players will need to try to organize a secret overthrow. This is inspired by a session from a few years ago that I remember quite vividly. There was no goal and nothing really happened outside of conversation that went nowhere. I feel the intrigue needs to be there but the players should be influencing it.

Don't Force It

If you don't have an idea for an intrigue campaign, there's nothing wrong with trying something else. Intrigue can and does often naturally happen over the course of a campaign. It is also a means towards a goal that players can seek out to solve their problems. The same way some players may be prone to trying to kill everything in their path (which is often well suited to a dungeon delve), others may try to plot their way through everything. The reason I say not to force it is rather simple: if you do, you risk running an aimless game or one with an aim that doesn't really progress. Intrigue sorts of games rely heavily on the premise, goals, NPC characters, and interesting plot twists. You also run the risk of disappointing your players if you promise an intrigue campaign and fail to deliver. If you are selling your players on it, be ready to deliver. Of course, intrigue games can also have combat, or exploring the local tomb to return something of value. However, when we run this kind of campaign intrigue is an element we are prioritizing above the combat and exploration. Your players expect will probably expect more than being paid, and sent on their way. Perhaps they will be framed. Perhaps someone will try to steal what they got from the tomb before they deliver it. Regardless, it's a question of what me emphasize.

Dungeon Master: Intuitive Rules

Being a Dungeon Master can be hard. There are so many rules to remember and use throughout our sessions. On top of that we come up with our own creatures that often follow their own rules. Keeping all of this in your brain at once can be difficult, especially for the new Dungeon Master. For this reason I often find Dungeon Masters doing whatever they can do in order to avoid having to remember. Part of this is what I call “Intuitive Dungeon Mastering”. Well, I actually shamelessly reused the term from someone I know, but let's not sweat the details. The idea here is that things should just make sense to the Dungeon Master. It's a simple idea but like so many simple ideas it can be easier said than done. And so, here is my advice when implementing the concept. As usual, it's a bit biased towards D&D 5th edition, but still applies in other rule systems.

Keep Rules Down

If you are trying to remember a whole role system, superfluous rules are the enemy. Commonly used rules are best remembered and if you can reuse them, it makes things doubly easy. They probably make sense to you already, and it's less to remember. Of course, while we often can reuse rules for our own evil ends (stealing spells, applying clever use of contests, etc.), it isn't always possible. The more alien the ability or situation the less likely it is that there is a rule that will apply. It's worth noting here though that the presence of spells makes recycling rules far more potent than otherwise possible. If we are designing a new rule, I think it should be because the situation is very alien or we want to add complexity. Complexity isn't always bad, such as when you are trying to model giant armies clashing or the new powers of your godly players. However, not everything should add complexity. Some things are natural extensions of what already exists, or we can use what already exists easily to do what we want.

Criteria for New Rules

Okay, well, we failed step one. We can't re-purpose an existing rule and apply it into a new situation. That, or it doesn't actually work in this case. Don't panic. Everything is fine. We can make a new one! Yeah. Only problem is that making rules is a bit of an art. There are awards for game design, and I don't have one of them. We want the rule to be easy to remember, to make sense in context, and to not forget it during play. Not forgetting a rule tends to be easier if you made up the rule since you have an intuitive understanding of the thought process behind it. However, given a bit of time it can be forgotten if it doesn't make sense. For those reasons I find it helpful to keep those considerations in mind when making new rules.

Make One Up On The Spot

Rules made up in the heat of the moment can be surprisingly versatile. Since they are done in the moment, they often make sense for the context that they were born from. You use your understanding of the rules to make something that probably makes sense to you in the moment. That is, of course, if you didn't have a complete mind blank. That's why you can't rely on coming up with a rule in the moment. If you get caught and need one, roll with something. My experience is that anything that keeps things moving is better than consulting rules for half an hour. If you realize there's a problem, amend it going forward based on your reflection after the session. Still, what I often want to do is capture that simplicity and intuitiveness. A rule thought up on the spot may not be final. It was fine to keep things going but you can further refine or simplify it afterwards after reflection on it. Rules in the moment can fit perfectly into a situation and be simple. However, they can also be half-baked.

Just For You

If you are running a session, chances are high that many of the rules you'll be using are meant for you and you alone. And you know what? That's fine. It makes things easier in a way. All you need is for the rule to make sense to you. Don't worry about making it fit into the rule system or how someone would understand them when you are in the heat of playing a game. If it makes sense to you, and you can easily remember it, what else do you need?

Rules are an abstraction. Your players typically won't know what determines your decisions in many cases. That's part of the fun too: not knowing how things will go. They are a tool to get you to take input from your players, add some input from yourself and return it back to your players. That, or give your players something that they will then begin to shape. What mechanism decides these things often isn't important. Whatever helps the Dungeon Master do their job is fine.There is a caveat though. To make a decision players need some level of understanding of what is going on. They may not know the rule, but they will need to know roughly how crazy a certain action is. If anything can happen at any time for any reason, how can we expect them to know what options are available?

So Give Up Making General Rules?

No, I didn't say that. I find that there are some situations that more often lead to intuitive rulings or rules. Sometimes there's nothing to be intuitive about because it never happened before. What is a problem is coming up with a rule that doesn't work for you because it is too complex, or too easy to mix up with another existing rule. It's a careful a balance between not reinventing the wheel every time, and knowing when a new rule is necessary.

If you are playing D&D, thinking about DCs is a good starting point I think. It might not even use a stat from the players, such as a death saving throw. However, they give you a quick way to determine difficulty for a task and a mechanism for resolution. They are the central resolution mechanic and you probably don't want to try to subvert it when it makes sense to apply it. The results of doing so can to be complicated. Piggy backing off of this rule feature also typically means that its easier to remember the rule. It's also amazing how much the existing spells can give you. Often they might need a bit of retooling but again, they make for an amazing starting point. Knowing how hard it is to do something is often one of the big questions in many situations.

Rulings

Part of what I'm saying here also related to creating rules through rulings. If you decide that a certain rule applies in a situation where it may not be obvious, your ruling is establishing an intuitive rule. You can decide that if a flying creature was killed in the air, fell down 20 feet, and hit someone on the ground, they both will take the equivalent falling damage. That would be a great example of an intuitive rule. However, since it was moving before it got hit, you might put an extra 1D6 of damage. It had extra speed, so why shouldn't there be more damage? Such an argument is intuitive, and makes sense in context. Neither is wrong, but it's the kind of thing I'm talking about here. Depending on who your players are, they might always expect that damage now, or they may just be happy it happened once and not rely on it later. Many times these kinds of rulings lead to rules.

Dungeon Master: Let's Improvise

Planning is a big part of being a Dungeon Master. However, sooner or later our best laid plans will be left behind. Our planned scenario could have gone by faster than we anticipated, it could have been that players did something completely unexpected, or a bunch of other reasons. However, when it does happen the Dungeon Master will be need to improvise. Such a thing, particularly if you aren't used to it, can be challenging. It is for that reason I hope to give some advice. If you have your own, I'd love to hear it too.

Constraints Can Be Good

The first I want to say is that some constraints can be a good thing, particularly if you don't have much time to think of something. Some of the techniques I'll be mentioning do just that. They help narrow things down, which is one of the major issues when improving. When you can do anything, how do you decide what to do? If you are going into a campaign, there will be some implied constraints you'll end up putting on yourself. Your fight against a necromancer will probably features undead and necromancers. If you need to come up with an encounter, it'll probably involve one of the two. Of course, this situation is a bit awkward since almost anything can be undead, but still it narrows things down a bit.

Making Characters on the Spot

From my experience one of the most common things that happens is that you will need to make up a new character on the spot. The players are meant to walk into a bar and talk to a person. Of course, they decide to talk to someone else first on their way in. In these kinds of cases, you have a few options. You could just make things up on the spot and in a lot of cases, this will work out just fine. However, I find that I typically hit a wall when this happens enough times in a session. The most common issues here tend to be things like difficulty finding a name, a different enough personality or deciding on mannerisms. You could also plan out everyone in the bar ahead of time. That'll work, but I find that it tends to be more trouble than its worth. My preferred method is to have a cheat sheet of a few names, personalities, and mannerisms ready to go. That way, I can just grab a bunch quickly if I need to and continue. There is more power in this than you would expect at first since you can easily modify elements, or combines them together. There are long lists of names that you can use but for practicality I find it easier to have a smaller list ready to go as well. This list will need to be remade every now and then but this tends to take a couple minutes at most and I take care of this while planning the session.

There is another, more restrictive approach that works fairly well sparingly. There will be a couple of run-ins that you might want to have with certain characters. Typically, they are warnings not to go somewhere. However, they can be hard to fit in. Having the character and parts of their dialogue ready to go and throw in at a good time can be very effective. Since the players went to the barkeeper to ask a question, maybe he'll be the one to warn them about being out past dark. This is additionally made more powerful since you don't have to use the whole character. You can take elements (parts of dialogue is most common in my case) and give it to the barkeeper character you already wrote. You can bring out your other character later if needed, or if they avoided the barkeeper entirely. Everyone in town knows things are bad at night after all.

Think Like The Character

If you are new, you'll be understandably worried about doing things off the cuff. However, it's important to try to keep your character in mind and just go with it. Unfortunately, this is one of those things that comes with practice. However, it is also one of those things where Dungeon Masters have it harder than players do. Having to think up a character on the spot and play them is not uncommon for a Dungeon Master, and it's rather challenging at first. This isn't an excuse for lack of planning, but the attempt at improvisation is worth more than none at all, and it will be needed. Again, in this case it's about some restrictions imposed on us by the character we are playing. Part of the improvisation process is coming up with these restrictions. What do they know? What do they say? How do they speak? You'll be feeling for those questions and be making decisions right there. Like with names, you can have some cheats prepared a head of time. Still, I would recommend being some what comfortable with this situation because player actions can force you into this situation anyway. Just try to put your self in the character's situation and roll with it.

Dungeon Tiles

I tend to use dungeon tiles quite often. They can also be useful to help narrow down the general shape of an encounter location on the fly. You might have a couple of ready made locations (be it tile configuration or existing map) ready to go. You can also lay out a quick outline while describing some of the important elements. This is a bit of a skill that needs to be practiced as well but I found there are a few commonly used stall techniques. They aren't really stall techniques, since the Dungeon Master needs to specify these things anyway, but they do make it more seamless. After all, they don't need to sit there and wait. Thinking of any sounds, smells or obvious visual elements as they enter the room and giving them a quick mention eats up a few seconds. It tends to be one or maybe two, depending on how important the encounter is. An important element to think about is light (otherwise the human character will be confused about what they can see), hiding places, and sounds. You shouldn't make room interactions too long either. The magic is to be able to set up the encounter quickly while describing the location so your players don't ever need to wait. It's not easy to do and of course you'll miss now and then, but it's the ideal I try to aim for. Hit close and you are still fine. Dungeon Masters are often self-conscious of this situation, but players are often none-the-wiser and are just enjoying the game.

Rules

Another thing to keep in mind is that the rules are kind of malleable. Generally speaking, players prefer to play the game than rule lawyer in my experience. This means you can come up with your own when needed. You don't remember what the health of a skeleton is? Think of a number and use it. I say that with a caveat since it may set some expectations. Why was the zombie dragon we fought at level one so much easier? They are best handled when you have some justification as well (zombie dragon was clearly worn, couldn't even move as quickly, was clearly damaged, and made clicking sounds when trying to move). This will depend a bit on your group but I find it's more advantageous to keep things moving. At the end, think of standards, review the rules and make some notes for next time, or whatever else you need to do. It can be easy to forget a precise rule when you are new, when you are playing a complicated system with many supplements, or when you took a break. It will also happen eventually. Just keep going, try not to do it again, and when it happens don't let it grind the game to a halt. You have a rough idea, so you'll be reasonably close.

Write Stuff Down

If you had plans and things went according to them, you can get away with just reading over your planning notes in many cases. When improvising, this is not the case. Write stuff down. Maybe not at the exact moment since it's not always possible, but at least that day. It will save yourself a lot of issues down the line. Characters get filled in through interaction as well so you may need to make notes about your player characters that can be used later.

Reasonability

How reasonable things are is important to have in the back of your mind. This goes for both things you create off the cuff and for requests your players make. You want to let your players make creative actions. However, unless it's a very special kind of game you probably won't allow your ranger, without any arcana skill, to write a chalk circle allowing the party to teleport away. This goes both for how reasonable a player action is and how reasonable your response is. Again, there is no perfect answer for this as it depends on the group, but you should have a rough feel for it.

Questions

When improvising, it's easy to forget something. Even when you are not, there could be questions you forgot to consider. It's a big room and we have torches. How far can the humans in the party see? Expect questions. This isn't a bad thing, since it is a collaborative story telling. It also shouldn't make you too nervous. However, when such a question is asked it is best to address it clearly and quickly. If you are asked if they can see a creature on the tile, you could answer “yes”. You could also quickly point out which they can see and which they can't to avoid further questions. “How long will it take to get to that other city over there?” This is one of those that will need to be written down. It's also worth considering if the player character would know or if they would need to ask a potentially unreliable towns-person (well, he never has traveled that far in his life). Since players often ask questions, it should be no surprise that some level of improvisation is often needed like in the previously mentioned situations. However, I find new Dungeon Masters find these sorts of things easier to improvise than characters.

Dungeon Master: What and Who Characters Are

When playing games, the story and mechanics have an interesting relationship. They are linked and the way we interact with the mechanics are part of the story we experience. It is one thing to imagine your character as an awesome fighter, it's another to see them take on 4 skeletons without much trouble. The trouble is that sometimes we can get lost in the mechanics, the what, and forget to go back to the who. I know I'm guilty of this as well. Having been there, I hope my thoughts on the manner will help someone out there.

What vs. Who

For the purposes of this post/article thing, the what part of a character is what the sheet says. What is the character? What class are they? What's their background (mechanically)? What do they carry? The who is a bit more of a nuanced topic. However, a big part of it is “why”? Why do they choose to fight the way they do? Why did they turn out the way they did? There are also more nuanced questions of “what would the character do?” and “what would it take for them to do something?” The answers to these questions help tell us who the character is. If you ever feel that a tug towards an action that doesn't make sense from an optimization standpoint just because it's what your character would do, you probably found it.

Player Side

Player Creation

Get into a class based RPG system and you'll find yourself needing to choose a class. There are two main ways you can go about doing things here. You can have a character in mind and try to pick the mechanical choices that will make that character a reality. Of course you might not be able to have everything you wanted at level 1, but you can plan ahead for that. You could also take a look at the classes that are there, pick one that looks fun to play, and build a character around that. Both are fine options, and in fact picking the class first can help you get out of your comfort zone, but it does sometimes lead to the situation where we forget to tie it back to who the character is. After getting the class, we still need to go back to the start and thinking about who the character is. Some people can do this during the session and just roll with things as they happen. For the right people, that can work amazingly well, but sooner or later we'll need to consider who our character is.

How Events Influence Character

Over the course of a campaign, characters find themselves in a wide assortment of situations. They will gain and they will lose. All of these situations are potentials for character change and growth. Of course, every combat encounter shouldn't result in massive changes of character (unless you are playing a character with 50 souls in one body), but there will be some that can have an effect on your character going forward. Even if they don't have a long term effect, they can provide interesting ideas to explore in the short term.

Too often, especially with newer players, characters will end the campaign exactly as they started but with much more wealth. Coming with this, they'll approach every situation the same way. When you find yourself in a new situation and keep your character in mind, you may be surprised what you might learn about them. Or how the character seems to come to life and has a will of its own. Those moments of inspiration are magic and honestly one of my favourite parts playing tabletop role-playing games. You can't think of every situation for your character going into a campaign (and even if you could, it would ruin some of the fun), so those kinds of situations are important to building who your player is.

Magic Items

Magic items are an often missed chance for players to consider who their characters are. They are a way to do the previously impossible and a source of great power. How do they handle that? How far will they go for it? Is what they have enough? Especially in games that deal with themes of power, these questions can lead to many interesting role-playing opportunities. This is without even going into sentient magic items. Having someone to interact with so close and at the ready is an interesting situation. A classic situation is to have a magic item you vehemently disagree with and force to do what you think is right. However, even if you see eye-to-pommel with your magic item most of the time, there could be edge-cases where that is no longer true.

Dungeon Master

Our Characters

We are in a bit of a different position than players when it comes to characters. A player typically has one character that they know inside out. They go for depth. As a Dungeon Master we have to go both for depth and breadth. When playing villains we want to know very well who they are. However, with some characters it isn't needed. We can't fully flesh out every character either. We also don't get as much time to test our characters in-game and let them naturally evolve. As a result, I'd argue improvisation is far more important for us. Many of are characters tend to be just a couple sentences with an alignment and a stat block.

Being able to go from a mechanics to a character on the fly is difficult to say the least. For that reason I suggest some level of cheating. I've mentioned before how I like to have lists of names ready to go, as do tons of other Dungeon Masters I've had to the pleasure of playing with, but there are other things we can do as well. Instead of thinking about single characters in large groups of bad guys meant to be thrown away in an encounter, we can think about who the group are. Are they uniform? Do they share some kind of similarity? Why? Those questions tend to be a good start to be ready for improvisation. If we think about the larger story at large, we'll typically need to answer most of these anyway. Even in the case of wandering monsters, we'd need to know why they are there. The goal here is to reduce how much we need to make up on the spot. Now instead of thinking about the whole group, the campaign as a whole (why are they here?) and then the individual, we only need to think of the individual. We even have some names ready to go.

The first step tends to be the hardest because there is the most to consider. After that, we get into the stage where interacting with our players helps fill in the details for our characters. Our characters, again, tend not to be as complete as those of our players. There will be many gaps that need to be filled in to make them a complete character. However, this discovery over the course of the game is important to good improvisation in my opinion. I also find this stage easier since there is less to consider at once. It would be similar to what we would do if we were player playing our character. Remember though, players will get to know characters over time. They won't know everything about them at once. Often we both get to know the characters we create as we play.

Player Characters

We as Dungeon Masters have an idea of what who our players are and who they are playing. It's important to be careful here. We want our ideas of the characters to be at the very least reasonably close to what our players intended. Seeing a wizard, we can have our own ideas that come into play. However, just remembering that we might take our own expectations for player characters tends to be enough to avoid the major pitfalls. We need to know who they are in order to come up with good role-play opportunities, but we have some leeway as well. If we are slightly off, it's just a different role-play opportunity and won't be noticed. The bigger issue is when we get major things about the characters wrong (wrong faction deciding to talk to a certain player) or presuppose character traits. There are ways out of these situations (oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else) but even so, I find keeping these in mind is helpful. I want to provide interesting situations for our players to express and develop their characters. I don't want to shatter their immersion by treating a player character in a way that makes no sense given the way they see their character. This situation happens most often when a player runs into an “old friend” played by us.

Dungeon Master: Ships and Ship Combat

Campaigns based around travel and ships can be a great experience. From pirates to epic quests against horrors from the depths of the ocean, there are many ways to get good experiences out of such a setup. However, given that I've been involved in 2 campaigns with this setup, there was one major issue I noticed: locations for battles were often the same. After all, you are on a ship. If you get attacked you will be fighting on a ship. How can we make new and interesting locations then? Well, that's what I hope to explore here now. If you have your suggestions, I would love to hear them.

One Ship

One of the big issues that can occur is a stale combat environment. If the players have only one ship for the entire length of the campaign and the enemies always come to them, a lot of combat will occur on the same deck plan. The solution seems incredibly simple and obvious: don't always attack the players and have them attack others too. Pirates don't only get attacked, they also attack. If your game doesn't have your players as pirates, it may not be as easy. They'll have an item and it will be the bad guys attacking them as they try to escape on their ship. Having this occur a few times is fine. However, I've been witness to situations where it happened again, and again, and yet again.

Get Them Off the Ship

Don't want to have fight after fight on the same ship deck? Well, the easy way around this issue is to make sure to give players motivations and reasons to leave the ship. By doing so the scenery for fights changes. The problem here is that it can result in the ship emphasis being nothing more than window dressing or a method of travel to the real adventure. This point is not exactly clear since the special concerns that accompany ship use such as their ability to reach places nothing else short of flying can, maintenance, enhanced transportation capability and more make them have their own advantages. Window dressing can also be very important.

Damage and Effects

There are many things that can happen to a ship to change it for a combat encounter. Damage can leave debris that blocks off areas of the deck, forces areas to be difficult terrain, open up holes that allow creatures to fall to lower decks, and fire that prevents passage as well as causes damage. Two ships can ram each other and be bound into one. Some bigger ships can also have multiple decks, resulting in new opportunities for fights. Ships can also be sinking, or be shaken by rough seas.

Different Ships

Players don't always have to be stuck with one ship. They can trade up as the campaign moves on to get better and better ships. This is a bit of a double edged sword though. Players can get attached to one ship or prefer to get attached to one ship. In this way it becomes almost a character or important place for the campaign.

Emplacements and Ordnance

Cannons, ballistae, catapults (can throw alchemist's fire, acid, necklaces of fireball, and many other things), flamethrowers and many more options become open when on a ship. The size and strength of a ship allows you to carry weapons that would be far too big otherwise. Crates of alchemist's fire can burst into flames as a result of a well placed fireball spell and threaten to sink a ship. There's a lot to play with when you can lug literal tons of stuff.

Dungeon Master: One-shots in the Past

The typical flow of a campaign goes in one direction. Events and plots are afoot and players are thrown into the mess. Over the course of play, they get their bearings, learn the world's rules, and journey forward towards the conclusion. This works extremely well in practice, but sometimes we want to allow players to contribute to the past as well. One-shots are one mechanism to do so and can often work amazingly well. They can allow you to mix things up, play some new characters, engage players in different scenarios while also writing part of the same story. Ever thought, “hey, this would be cool to play through”? Sometimes you want to follow through with it. It could also allow you to build up or explore new areas and items that otherwise would not be possible. They also have unique challenges and that is why I want to go over this topic today.

Strategic Choice

Which things we decide to handle in this way is a strategic choice. You don't want to break every 5 minutes to play through a flashback. These should be big, meaningful events in the story. They could also have smaller side effects. One example from one of the games I was a part of had a player hide a magic item in a particular place. 100 odd years later, the main party discovered that same item in the same spot. The important part here was that it was a cool side effect. However, the purpose of the flashback wasn't to put the item there. Instead it was to stop the big bad guy which resulted in their underling taking over and being even worse (turns out they are responsible for the big bad coming to power over his more moderate master). This also got over the big problem with making players play through a tragedy. Since they knew going into the one-shot that things wouldn't end well (or how else is there more of a game?), they were prepared to lose these characters.

Restrictions

That last thing I said should have popped out at you. How is there more of a game if the players end up killing the villain in the past? We end up in all of the same problems as if we suddenly had time travel in our game, but without the get-out-of-jail-free cards of needing to preserve history or time not allowing the change. The massive risk with doing this is that it can end up being rail-roady. And, really, there isn't much of a way to avoid this completely. There are some things that must happen in the past. However, we want to still leave freedom for the players to figure out solutions to the problems they find themselves. The best way around this issue is to make sure to cast a wide net. Your players need to kill the big bad and they know that an underling will take over and be even worse. However, they might not know which one is which. They may never run across them. How they take care of the big bad is all up to them. However, they also know in the back of their minds that the end of the one-shot is not the end of the story. Unfortunately, this is part of the trade-off we make if we go down this path.

Overshadowing the Main Story

You don't want to overshadow your main story. Otherwise, why are we playing this one? We should be playing that one instead. There are, again, no clear cut answers here. However, remembering that this kind of thing is a stepping stone of the larger adventure can help a lot. It's less advice and more a state of mind I find helpful when thinking about these. They also often tend to be shorter, clear to the point, and less epic. A short term victory but long term failure is often helpful in this regard.

If things are equal, the main story has a way of outgrowing the one-shot because of the emphasis and time spent on it. We know we went back to go forward. We are now back, and keep going forward. This makes the one-shot just part of the overall main story. It's possible to break this, but typically the events done in the one-shot won't be as impressive as the future. If you think to yourself that the one-shot sounds better, something needs to be re-examined. One-shots have the clarity and focus aspect going for them, however, in the overall structure of the campaign they shouldn't be more impressive, more difficult, or the bigger solution to the problem.

Building a Campaign Setting Through One-Shots

One-shots allow exploration of areas and elements of the story. The story began with the theft of a magic item by a shady cult? The players could play the shady cult and kill these characters later as part of the story. Plan on going somewhere? You can explore the area first with a one shot. The events of the campaign involve massive earth shaking events? You can introduce the campaign through one of these events (kind of like the adventurer's league). A lot of this will depend on how comfortable your players are and if they event want this kind of experience. Some people want to be connected to their characters for the whole campaign. I sometimes feel the same way.

How Often?

Again, I'd go with the rule of 3. I would be very hesitant in doing more than 3 one-shots like this over the course of the campaign. I'm sure you could have a great campaign that was more fragmented in this fashion, however, it's beyond the scope of what I'm talking about here. That way it still keeps the campaign focused but also provides a highlight for an important event in the past, or an introduction. Having the trigger for all of the events shown to the players in this way can be very beneficial and entertaining for the right campaign. I've found introductions in particular are very good candidates for a one-shot, particularly if the events of a campaign don't have that discovery component where they try to figure out what's going on. However, you could also throw your players into the thick of things and have them unravel the plot. Both are good choices.