This Dungeon Master strategy rewired my brain

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[carlfishy]

Most of my players are people I know from work, so I'm giggling a little at the idea of sitting them down and saying "OK, I want each of you to set goals for your characters. Ideally they should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Every couple of months we'll check in to see how you're tracking on your goals and whether they need to be adjusted."

I suspect they would burn me at the stake.

"Helen. I noticed that Xyrelle is only tracking at a 0.5 on her 'avenge my parents' OKR. What can we do to bring this up to a 0.7?"

[ikemoritz]

This is really good advice to long-form campaigns! But for anyone interested in episodic campaigns or one shots, where PCs have less agency over their goals, consider giving your hero One Dramatic Question about their identity. Questions like “Will the hero’s faith in the aristocracy survive once they venture beyond the palace walls?” “Will the hero embrace or reject their complicated family legacy?” “Will the hero let go of their feelings of guilt and open their heart to a found family?” "Will the hero stop being a self-interested hustler and help out the plucky rebels?" are some common, tropey examples.

Using The One Dramatic Question gives you the following benefits:

-It is easy to demonstrate your character's answer to their One Dramatic Question changing over time, creating dynamic character arcs emergently.

-It is an effective roleplay lens, encouraging you to think about how you can "eek out" ways of demonstrating your PC's answer to their One Dramatic Question in various generic scenes without specifically needing to plan a scene about answering your One Dramatic Question.

-It is easy for other players to understand and pick up on. Deep psychological conflicts can be satisfying in books and films, but can be hard to roleplay in a way that other players can clock and meaningfully respond to. However, One Dramatic Question makes the most interesting part of your character extremely obvious and easy for other players to meaningfully interact with.

-Dramatic Questions are... well, dramatic. WILL the hero turn against the monarchy after seeing the plight of the commoner? WILL the hero take up the name of their evil father? WILL the hero break down and embrace their party members after a ferocious battle? WILL the hero sell out the resistance for a massive reward? The answer is *usually* that the PC will choose the heroic option, but the uncertainty as to what circumstances will prompt/inform their dramatic choice, alongside the vague possibility that they might *not* make the heroic choice is compelling drama.

[Togruta]

That is exactly why people always say "D&D doesn't feel like when we were 13-14yo anymore!", and I'm convinced it's not just notalgia but because of big adventure modules setting the standard to reactive gaming for the players.

Several of the games I played in the 90s, the DM invented a reason why we were together, put us in a small town and ask "So what do you guys want to do?". We rolled STR, then DEX, then CON, etc., not even choosing which goes where. Once, I rolled very bad stats! I played a wizard anyway. I died at level 1 (!), and I rolled another dude, but because we had so much fun with my bad wizard for a couple of sessions, they became the Company of the Dead Wizard. This was a very awesome and satisfying game.

[Akrabor]

“Heart: the city beneath” takes a ton of these tips and makes them a part of how players level up. You are asked to select a story archetype together with a character class. This archetype provides story beats. Players take two beats at the end of each session and tell them to the GM who will shape the story to make reaching these goals possible. Reaching a goal gives players a perk with bigger goals leading to stronger perks. It’s fun!

[thomasmoore]

I've tried to do this in so many games, but it's not a magic bullet. It requires players who WANT to give that kind of effort, even when prompted to do so and given all the help and assistance in the world. Far too often have I said to a group "okay, so is anyone doing anything now?" and gotten dead silence in return; it's not the characters who can only react to things, but the players who cannot bring themselves to tell a story of their own. I'd love to run a game like Ginny is describing, but it takes buy-in on the other side of the screen as well, and of the 25 players I regularly run games for, ONE has taken proactive measures to follow story, and he did so ONE TIME. Any advice on how to foster those instincts would be greatly appreciated.

[FrostSpike]

07:45 This isn't a new way of running games! It's an old way of running games!

Before the Dragonlance saga (c. 1984) many/most D&D games were this sort of open-world sandbox type. The DM designed a world, put people, places, and situations in it and then let the player characters loose on it. Of course, back then, there was normally one or more "megadungeons" available for the player characters to explore - especially if playing in a "points of light" sort of setting.

The old format published adventures were "modular", hence the term "adventure module", so that they could be placed into such a setting and used as set pieces for the party - they didn't have that sort of long-term story arc that the more modern long-campaign "adventure path" sort of books have.

It does mean that the DM has to be prepared to generate a lot of things pseudo-randomly and then be able to join some of those things together into a bigger piece for the setting to give the impression of some sort of cohesive, living world behind the scenes.

It also means that the players have to be prepared to participate in this sort of world building and be "self-sufficient" in determining their own goals. This book seems to be trying to wrap a framework around that. It's still a good idea if the DM does provide some story hooks or is just prepared to (randomly) detail aspects of the setting that the party can interact with otherwise they might just sit around in the tavern, go on shopping trips, open up a coffee shop, or whatever. Left entirely to their own devices they may also want to do things that the DM doesn't really enjoy running and, as the DM might want to have fun too, this might not work out for the gaming group.

As in most things, it's a balance. The players should have freedom within a setting, but the setting is (mostly) one that the DM provides as, if they don't like the way things are going, they'll likely disband the game.

[bartvickers]

This is good advice for experienced players and DMs. It's good to remember that new players (and DMs) only have the context of board games when they come to the table. For many if not most of them, "You can do ANYTHING! What are your character's three goals?" will be a baffling, frustrating task.

So intro this concept slowly for new players, and be ready to partner with them to create their first set of goals.

The bigger challenge here, and the challenge with "narrative" games in general, is that narratives have a main character. And an approach like this one (the author may address it) means that at any given time the players aren't aligned on a single goal (plotline) they are pursuing four or five. It's not necessarily less work figuring out how to weave five plotlines together in a way that is satisfying for every player at the table and manageable for the DM.

[marcbennett]

ya know, I always tried to run games this way, and it has saddly been pushed away by the dominantly produced content. I will absolutely be buying this book and thank you for bringing this to so many peoples attention.

[MateuszKarbowiak]

I started doing this recently with my players! I got inspired with Warhammer Fantasy RPG where one step of creating a PC is setting their short-term and long-term "ambitions". They go even further and urge players to come up with ambitions/goals for the whole party, this really tightens up the group and force them to think wy they're travelling together.
And the best part - it all works, I stopped worrying if the stuff I prepare will interest my players because they tell me directly what they want to do session to session. Will be picking up this book, thanks!

[nicholasfay]

I just did my first proactive session zero yesterday and I can already tell this campaign is going to be wild! We all brainstormed the setting, which is going to be greek mythology vs a feywild invasion with Bermuda Triangle-esque isles of mystery, and the character goals they came up with have given me so much to work with.

[jwmmitch]

Back in high school playing my group of friends had a lot of session-zero type gatherings where we would discuss character ideas, campaign ideas, and character goals. So we were accidentally doing some of this! And it's an awesome thing to bring to the forefront of the mind as I'm getting back into playing!

[SuperDude]

I am just starting out as DM (haven't even had our first session yet), and this makes it a lot more fun for me as well. When I first started, I thought "Hey, this will be fun!" and then when I realized what it takes to run a dungeon, I thought "what did I get myself into???". After watching this video, I'm thinking I can actually do it. Thank you!

[calacestar]

Yep, did 90% of all that 😂
But a huge issue is to make sure that the individual goals of the adventurers overlap. If that's not the case, at least one of them will feel like they're just being dragged along. We literally said goodbye to one character yesterday in our 5th session because there was no reason for him to fight alongside our group.

[danielputhawala]

This has a lot in common with what I called for myself "the NPC AI for Dummies" approach to DM prep. In a nutshell given a new location, situation, etc, I sketch out the relevant NPCs/factions there are, but the most important pieces of information are (1) their goal, (2) their fear, and (3) their plan B.

The NPCs goal is what they or their faction want to accomplish. It usually also helps to know why they are motivated. If you know what the NPC wants and why, you'll know how to make them react in a given circumstance.

The fear is what the NPC is trying to avoid. This is often also related to their motivation, but this is the sort of line that they will not let the world cross before they switch to plan B.

The NPCs plan B is what they will do out of separation to accomplish their goal if they panic.

A woman's child has been kidnapped. Goal: they want the kid back as soon as possible, because they love them. Time is of the essence. Their initial strategy is to go to the guards or attempt to enlist the PCs. Her fear is of being ignored or the rescue progressing too slowly. Her plan B is to steal a sword and crossbow from the display set over the bar and go after the kidnappers herself.

Once you have a couple of such NPCs/factions sketched out, and some conflict in their goals and motivations, the session basically writes itself as the players interact with the world trying to accomplish their own goals.

[pharmakos]

I'm returning to RPGs after a long hiatus and bringing some of what I've learned as a fiction writer and professor to the table. One of the things this makes me think of is teaching a college course. That fear, for example, of not having enough material to fill a class (with lecture, for example, or good directive discussion questions). I think what you're talking about here has some real resonance with critical pedagogy, an approach to teaching that involves sharing power and authority (and therefore responsibility) with students. I'm co-building the gameworld with my players in my new campaign and trying to apply what I've learned from a critical approach to teaching and writing workshops. I also hope the insights will flow in the other direction. Thanks for the ideas and the book rec.

[EnAuEllai]

I always used basically a mixed approach. I let the PCs go freely, and mix in what I invent. If an interesting plot comes to mind I make them stumble on it and it gets naturally intertwined with their own interests and goals; maybe it even enhances them or inspire new ones for them. And at the same time, I react to their ideas and build on them.
In all this, the problem is with players who just don't care about role-playing and only want to throw Fireballs and bonk things in the head. You can't get them interested into any kind of goal beyond "there's a magic item to loot".

[rudolphvanrichten]

Thank you for the recommend, bought this book after watching your video and I'm planning on using this for my next campaign. Excellent resource for an aging DM looking to mix it up.

[shybard]

This is how I was introduced to roleyplaying, because this is how we used to run our WOD games (mostly V:TM, but also WW:TA and M:TA). The players drove the plot forward, with NPCs and potential antagonists/villains or possible allies operating in the background and responding when appropriate. It was kind of nice, because it allowed you have to have as much or as little combat as you wanted, because combat was almost always initiated by the PCs. Or, at least, any combat would be in response to what they've decided to do. It allows for games to be highly social, which is what a lot of the players preferred.

[DanielKlein]

At 8:14, when you're talking about factions, I wanna plug a pretty well known indie game: Apocalypse World. The book is generally chock full of good DM advice, but the system that they call "Fronts" particularly does this really well. It not only gives factions (and those can be very abstract; they can be groups of people, sure, or really big and powerful individuals, but they can also be places, sicknesses, ideologies, etc) goals, it gives you a great way of tracking when factions get closer to their goals, what this means for the state of the world (and particular the bits the players care about), and it even gives you a cool and simple way to generate mechanics specific to individual factions. It's good stuff, check it out.

[miguelhernandezgarcia]

Thank you really much Ginny for this video. This is huge advice, I know you are not the author of these ideas, but I didn't know this book existed and this video was really a life changer ^^ I am prepping a one-shot as a new DM and these tips really helped me get confident in my ability to prep it all out, so ty really!