THE DM’S POV

I’m a professional actor by trade and as I’ve become more experienced as an actor and as a Dungeon Master I’ve begun to see parallels between roleplaying games and theatre performances. The players are the actors and the audience, the dungeon master is the director, writer, and an actor as well.  The campaign module is the script and like a theatre performance where the script isn’t properly realised until it is performed, a module isn’t complete until it is run with the players. The big difference between the two though is that the players need to experience the game without having to think of an additional audience and can get lost in the role without concern.  Whereas an actor always must keep part of their mind on the watching audience and therefore can’t get as lost in the character. I’m also of the belief that the more you put into a game the more you get out.

After two campaigns with the group, I first called the Dungeon Delvers (but whos name has morphed through the Savage Tiders, Savage Runelords and now Savage Crimson Runelords) I wanted to give the players some new things to experience. Firstly, I wanted to do a City Based campaign where the characters were in a known environment and didn’t stray far from their home base (except on rare occasions when they’d feel like fishes out of water).  From my own experience as a player, if you play a character with a home, you gain a sense of ownership.  You have something to lose that you want to defend.  If the characters move around a lot, the “home base” becomes the group.  The sense of ownership is connected to the team.  That’s harder to threaten.  Particularly as the group becomes higher level. I also wanted to give the players a chance to surprise me as we play.  If someone lives in a city, they KNOW it.  They have favourite coffee shops, places to buy cheap food and veg, areas of the city they enjoy visiting.  A DM can only prepare so much, and I wanted there to be opportunities for the players to say, in game, “I think my character would know all about this place because of my history!” or “Oh no!!  That monster has just smashed its way into the Jewellery district?!   Will that gold smiths where I bought my expensive gold chain from, be ok?!”  They players can have a way to affect the place they live in and provide a richer environment.

Secondly, I wanted to give the players as much chance as I could to really prepare their backgrounds.  A good background tied into the campaign story arc is much easier to draw on to find motivation to follow the plot of the campaign.  And as I mentioned above, the more you put into a game the more you get out.

Thirdly, I’ve noticed that with increased level the danger of death is decreased.  Large numbers of hit points, excellent saving throws, world altering powers, colossal damage being dealt to monsters, so they drop in a few rounds.  I wanted to see if it’s possible to maintain the risk that first level generates while not stopping the increase in power that levelling up offers.

These were the big things I wanted to use, that would flavour the whole campaign, but then there were all the other smaller but no less important things which I’d drawn from previous games with the group and from other games I’d played.  House rules and game mechanics I wanted to try which I thought might enhance the campaign.  What follows is a non-exhaustive list of these.

In conversation with one of my players of late they came up with some interesting questions. These are my incomplete responses.

How you a scenario and imbue it with life. You talked of smell and taste in connection with DM-ing. How does that work?

It’s a tool for describing a scene/place.  We have so many senses and it’s all too easy to rely heavily on the visual without mentioning any of the other five.  What does a place smell like?  Is there a taste in the air?  What can you hear?  How does it feel on your skin?  I try to think of that but boil it down to the 4 elements, Earth – What’s the ground feel like underfoot?  Is there vegetation?  What does it smell like?  Air – Tied to smell again but also what can you hear?  Fire – How warm is it? Is there a dry feel to the air?  Water – Most places have a sense of moisture unless it’s a desert and as creatures dependent on water to survive we’re very aware of it.  I try to put myself mentally into the place where a character is standing and then go through these questions trying to put you in situ in your minds.

How do you plan a game?

That’s a complex question.  Layering springs to mind as an answer.  I’ll plan the major events, the adventure plot points, then I’ll often go back and look at any previous encounters and see if there’s something left over from a game gone by which needs resolving or would be interesting to pick up on.  Then I’ll go back to characters back stories and see if there’s something from there which I want to introduce or recap on/pick up on.  With this campaign as well I’m keen to play on the idea of rumours, things you hear from the street, friends, acquaintances.  I’ll look at see what would make good rumours, maybe it’s a reaction to what the players have done or perhaps it’s a foreshadowing of things to come or a hidden plot point that will pay off later.  And then there’s characters actions between games, do they have a consequence or something I need to write up and pass to the player?  And then I think about stats and ….everything else!!

What about NPC's?

Principal NPC’s come from the scenario (the preprinted ones) others from character histories.  Those are usually set and I’ll pick up the clues of their personalities from players or the game.  Sometimes I’ll give them distinctive voices other times try to make them distinctive in some way (I think there’s a vague three line description to each one eg. Sword cut on face, bad tempered, think angry terrier dog.)  then just let them go and see how you all interact with them.

Why do you like Dm-ing?

I sort of fell into Dm-ing, I played for years with my old DM who emigrated to Canada and of all my friends I had the most time to get into it.  And then I began to like creating stories.  It’s rewarding to see people get so much from the games.  It’s very analogous to directing which I also enjoy because of the story crafting aspect.

Do you look to just plan and play the scenario?

I’m not sure what you mean by this one :D

What makes a scenario interesting?

Will it give the players a moral dilemma?  Will it frighten them?  Will it pose an interesting combat situation?  Will it give them a way to develop their characters?  Or does it make an interesting story?  But it’s got to be interesting for the players.  It’s a not a story that they’re reading it’s something they are living, that’s quite a different thing.

How much do you rely on the players to develop a scenario or is it simply story driven?

I rely on the players to tell me what they find interesting and what they would like to see developed.  They may not realise what they’re saying, one may say “I’m thinking of making a deal with a fey.  If I give it a memory it will give me an important item.”  Now they are expecting the deal to happen and then they’ll ask “What have I forgotten?”  I’d reply “You have not forgotten anything?  You memory is perfect .”   But now I can introduce a long lost sister or enemy who appears and says “Remember me?” and the player has no idea who they are.  Do the unexpected, listen to what the players ask for and like a demented genie, twist the wish.

You seem so good at this ability to tell a story and to draw us all in..is this in some way down to your ability to act and perform?

I suspect probably it is, but also I read A LOT of books in my youth which were all fantasy and full of clever stories.  Folk tales particularly inspired me.

Give us an idea of the amount of work you do and your approach to scenario building?

I think I spend a lot of time thinking about stories and jotting ideas down and then as a game approaches I actually string it all together, but it’s not cast in stone.  Leave gaps for the party to interact and go in directions you’re not expecting.  To talk when you think they’ll fight and the reverse.  Ad expect to throw everything you’ve planned out of the window when they derail the plot entirely.  Then IMPROVISE!!!