Introduction of sorts · Game Master's Laboratory

Introduction of sorts

Hello all,

Thanks for developing a community specifically for those of us who are hoping to improve our DM skills. I'm excited to try more of a proactive and collaborative approach with my players. I think if nothing else, it'll make me a better DM.

I'm a pretty narrative focused DM, in that on the GNS scale, I'm more heavily into the Narrativism than the Gamifying and Simulation. I really feel that RPGs are a form of storytelling that has a lot of advantages that other storytelling media don't. That there is a game built into the storytelling medium makes it even better. I know that this isn't for everyone, and everyone wants something different from the games they play. But with that in mind, I've lately started studying a lot about how to make my games better and more memorable for my players.

Coming across the Gamemaster's Handbook for Proactive RP and the Collaborative Campaign guides was great. My favorite parts of writing adventures are the parts that direclty relate to the character arcs that the players are hoping for. While I love writing the plot and worldbuilding as a whole, the satisfying part and the part that the players are the most invested in are the parts of the world and story that directly effect their characters.

On the 6th of next month, I'm going to have a session 0 for an upcoming campaign. I'll be using a lot of the guidelines set forth in the Proactive RP and Collaborative Campaign books, with my own personal twist on it. I find that if you give the players absolute freedom to do anything they want in a game, then they will often do nothing. In my experience, you have to give them a seed of an idea, something to work with first, then they will go further with that than I usually would. Sitting down and asking my group "what kind of story do we want to tell? What kind of game?" would get very few answers. But if I give them a basic milleiu and setting and perhaps some themes, they will go very far with them.

For my upcoming (D&D5e2024) game, I've told them that this will be taking place in a city that is occupied by an invading force. I have the name of the city (Chordfall), some of the basic geography of it (in some mountains surrounded by watchtowers) and why the city is there (sits over a series of mines that have a valuable magical resource called Echo-Iron). That is all I know about the city at this point.

My plan is this: I've already sent out the basic concept of the game and world so they can start thinking of character concepts. Next, we get together with the players to have a Session -1 and Session 0 (likely on the same night). First, we will go through several of the prompts in the collaborative campaign guide, so that we can do some brainstorming of factions and locations and NPCs etc. throughout the city

Then, once this is done, another thing that my group has done in the past is play a game called The Quiet Year. (https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-year) this is a map building game that we have modified a bit to build our worlds together. Knowing some of the basics of the city, we then play a game where everyone goes in a circle and draws a card that lists an event that happened in this world that week. This event leads to that player building more and more of the world up as we go, riffing off of each other and building on each other's ideas. The game also allows everyone at the table to have a really good idea of what has happened in this city over the last year or so. It adds investment to the city, and gives everyone a lot of story ideas for their characters.

Then we build the characters together, trying to build them so that they relate to each other, and all of their goals may work well with each other and aren't going to lead towards conflict between players (not necessarily problems between characters).

Then, one thing that I've done in past campaigns that I really liked was that I run a series of Prelude Adventures. Every character gets their own mini adventure (usually about one half to one full session) that explains where they come from and what their goals are. I assing NPCs to the other players around the table that they get to play as a one shot of sorts. So the character who's backstory is that he's an elitist noble that lost all his family connections and money through gambling debt has a story about just how that happened and all the other players at the table play the gangsters that run the gambling den, and the character's brother who betrays him, and the father who disowns him etc. This not only allows for the player to have a great in depth knowledge of their backstory, it also gets all the other players at the table invested in that character's backstory, and want to help that player along in their character arc because they know where that character comes from and what they want.

Then, after all that, we start the campaign, usually in media res.

If there is any interest, I'll try and update this post to show how it all goes.

I've been reading a lot of books lately on story structure and what makes a good story, narratology and the choices you make as a DM that lead to good fun for the players. I've really enjoyed these Gamemaster handbooks. I've been DMing for the better part of 30 years, and while most DMing guides focus on how to introduce a players into being a DM, this is one of the best guides ever for experienced DMs who are looking to up their game and be better. I appreciate the work you all do.

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