3 Ways a Home Base in D&D Will Improve Your Campaign

By RJ on 20 October 2020.

Tuesday night. The characters of the Caught in Galen campaign are all gathered at what they’ve dubbed “home base”, a structure on the western end of their community named the Faded Ember Inn. After almost every adventure, the characters return to this cozy inn to recuperate and discuss the calamity that seemed to be befalling Galen. Concurrently, they confer with many of the colorful characters they’ve met throughout their quests and convinced to come stay at the inn: Rea, an aasimar acolyte of Bahamut and love interest of Ignis; Unread Book, a tabaxi turned mad by the beholder-like expurgat Ixigana; Blast, a brief enemy and current ally forging iron defenders for the party; and those are but a few!

At this point, the inn is nearly at full capacity and has been the site of at least one major combat. After a quick discussion, the characters prepare to depart. Alas! The inn’s owner gasps and points out the window. Barreling through the sky is a great airship, heading directly toward the Faded Ember Inn. The symbol of the Eldritch Knights: a suit of animated armor with a blade in one hand a fireball in the other, illuminates as a flash of lightning arcs in front of the flying vessel. More visitors to home base.

Fantastic.

The player characters are usually adventuring across the land in their pursuit of riches, power, and glory. They hunt green dragons in tepid bogs, delve into the ruins of frost giant warmongers, and save the world from the machinations of maniacal archmages.

In many of these situations, they might not have roots anywhere. The player characters simply squat in whatever town or settlement they are near: the joyous tavern near the river, the wizard’s tower overlooking the endless plains, the underground hideout kept secret by yuan-ti rogues.

They might already be deeply invested in the world and the campaign but there is an easy way to draw them in further. Sometimes, you might need to hint at it, others, they might jump at the opportunity without any nudging.

If you want to help your players and their characters care more about your Dungeons & Dragons game, prompt them to or help them construct a home base.

Art by Anna Stokes.

This act will invest them into your campaign and world, provide a plethora of plot hooks and quest ideas, and give everyone the chance to try out a new type of gameplay.

Improving Investment

When a place is your own, you care more for it. Compare an apartment to a house. With an apartment, you know someone else owns it. You call others to fix issues, are unable to make it your own, and are confined to a few rooms and a patio. With a house, you know its yours. You put time and effort into it, fixing what you can yourself and decorating it as you see fit.

The same goes for home bases in D&D.

If the player characters are hopping from camp to camp, to places they do not own, their care for each will be shallow and simple. Sure, they might enjoy verbally sparring with the sharp-witted kenku innkeep along the Eastern Way, or laugh hysterically at the cult of whispering trees that surround a druidic citadel in the Allgloom Forest, but their connections to those places are brief. You will be lucky if they last more than a session.

Once they own their own place, their care will rapidly ascend.

The player characters will ensure their home base looks interesting and resembles their adventures. They might decorate it with the rewards of their prior quests. They will also want to know who lives there besides them. They could invite a humble cleric or a reputable merchant to make it their own and start to build a following there. After adventures, they will have a place to travel back to. There, they might relax, recover, and recount their fantastic accomplishments and solemn missteps.

For these reasons and a few more to come, the players and there characters will become more invested in your campaign and world once they have a place of their own.
Here are a few ways you could encourage the characters to establish a home base.

• The characters discover an abandoned keep in the middle of an ancient forest. With a bit of renovation, it could become a formidable citadel.
• A wealthy patron offers the characters a plot of land and a blank writ of credit in exchange for the completion of a dangerous quest. They will be able to do what they want with the land, but it's set atop a hill and would make an excellent location for a massive tower.
• Remind the characters that they're accumulating a lot of wealth...too much to carry around on adventures. Unless they want to open a bank account or hide the treasure somewhere "safe", they are going to need to set roots somewhere.

Art credit Wizards of the Coast (Hoard of the Dragon Queen).

Improving Story

A home base in D&D provides plenty of opportunity for Dungeon Masters to wrap the plot further around the player characters. In addition, it gives the player characters ample opportunity to pursue downtime activities unrelated to the main plot.

Let’s take a look at both concepts.

Improving Main Plots

My player characters currently station themselves at an establishment called the Faded Ember Inn. Many of their allies live in or around the building and almost everyone knows they’re staying there — including their enemies. Over the course of the campaign, this has given me a plethora of chances to entangle the inn with the main plot. I’ve achieved this in many ways.

The entire family of a noble house paid the tavern a visit, renting it out for the day and treating it as their own summit spot between them and the party. This meeting flung the Faded Ember Inn into the spotlight and highlighted the party’s relationship with this powerful faction.

A deadly thieves’ guild for hire working alongside the party’s primary foes attacked the inn. The encounter was quick and brutal, involving minotaurs attempting to steal away close friends and vicious halflings posing as jolly patrons.

Four high elves, heads tattooed with bulbous brains, drew the party into the street. Using their mind magics, they thickened the plot and revealed secrets about one of the player characters that might interfere directly with the troubles they were facing day-by-day.

Each of those encounters built on top of the main plot. They all used the party’s home base as a catalyst.

Improving Side Stories

Let’s continue to use the Faded Ember Inn as the example here.

One of the PCs works at the inn. He has forged bonds with the others who work there: the inn’s owner (Immi), her daughter (Nala), and a tabaxi cook (Unread Book). When the PC retreats to the inn to rest, he interacts with each of these characters. The owner, a fire genasi like the PC, has taken on a motherly role; the owner’s daughter has a crush on him; the tabaxi cook is his best friend. Since the campaign’s start, these relationships have grown and changed — all the characters have also had some hand in the primary plot. Immi provides safety and comfort for the entire group after an arduous battle. Nala adds a bit of bubbly positivity to the somber atmosphere of the story. Unread Book pops in to muddy the already mysterious plot.

Alongside improvements to the main story, this home base has provided room for the personal story of this character to grow. Without it, it’s unlikely this type of development would take place. Instead, the vast majority of time would be spent building on the main plot.

Improving Gameplay

Narratively, a home base provides numerous chances to build on a campaign. Concurrently, it allows players and Dungeon Masters to test and master new gameplay systems.

Here are a few gameplay systems you can play around with if your PCs hold a home base.

• Strongholds and Followers by MCDM. This supplement creates a foundation for you and your players to build the greatest stronghold in the land, whether its a druid grove or a barbarian camp. It’s a super in-depth system with lots of room for customization, roleplay opportunities, and mechanical addition to gameplay.
• Downtime activities. Many of these rules are outlined in the fifth edition Dungeon Master’s Guide and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. Activities include running a shop, creating magic items, and constructing a following.

Both of these options provide depth to your game and, while being primarily mechanical additions, will definitely provide a framework for more narrative gameplay.

Art credit Wizards of the Coast (Volo's Guide to Monsters).

Skyreach Castle

Wizards of the Coast included an example of an awesome home base in the first hardcover module (Hoard of the Dragon Queen) for fifth edition D&D: Skyreach Castle. Discovered by the PCs near the end of the book, the flying castle could serve as a great first home base in D&D, as long as it survives the adventure.

When trying to hook your players on a home base, take inspiration from Skyreach Castle. It's a truly fantastic location and that's what we want our home bases to be.

• It's the former stronghold of giants; that's rad.
• It's the location of the adventure's climax, which should instantly fill it with fond and dark memories.
• It's a flying castle!
• It has an interesting navigation system.
• It has a storied history.
• It's wanted by other factions.
• It has plenty of room for construction, storage of treasure, and housing for patrons and allies of the party.

Art credit Wizards of the Coast (Hoard of the Dragon Queen).

Lessons Learned

Encouraging your players to create a home base or iterating on the one they’ve already constructed is a stellar way to improve your D&D campaign. Remember what we discussed.

• Home bases compound on your players’ investment in the game and world.
• Plots that surround home bases can be personal and world-shaking.
• A variety of gameplay systems revolve around home bases and downtime activities. If the player characters own one, this gives everyone the chance to play around relatively untouched or brand new systems in D&D.

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How to Begin a D&D Campaign

By RJ on 17 April 2020

The world is created, the characters are made, and the starting location is set, but how do you begin a Dungeons & Dragons campaign? There are many lines to check off on your list. Is the starting point created? Are all the session zeros finished? Is the initial plot formulated? Is the opening scene ready to go? 

As I prepare for the start of my next D&D campaign, Caught in Galen, I’m going to help you or anyone else out there itching to begin a campaign correctly complete their pre-campaign checklist.

The D&D Campaign’s Starting Point

Where will the campaign begin? This is a key question you should know before your players begin to make their characters that I dedicated an entire article to awhile back. Will the party explore the titanic ruins of a dragon empire on a jungle continent? Will they delve into the depths of the Subterrane in chase of a rogue celestial? Will they begin caught in a giant city of an inherently magical population? 

Know this before anything else. You can decide it yourself, or you can pitch a few campaign ideas to your fellow players. Sometimes giving them the opportunity to help create the adventure they’ll be playing in can be exciting and cause them to become invested far more in the setting and story. For Caught in Galen, I pitched seven campaign ideas in this document. Everyone voted and the winner was clear. 

Now, we will not be just playing the campaign I wanted, but the campaign the majority of the players rooted for.

After the setting is decided, it’s time to get to work. I recommend writing out at least a page on your world, detailing its fundamental ideas and concepts, in addition to two or three pages about the snapshot of that world: the campaign’s starting point. This region guide will help players build their character concepts and connect them to the world, giving them inspiration for interesting individuals. 

In the guide I wrote for Caught in Galen, I included everything I thought was important for starting the campaign and building the characters. The opening three paragraphs detail the snapshot setting, the city of Galen, the most important current event, and what the characters might be thinking right now. 

Afterward, it details what’s happened in the city in the past month with a brief timeline, then outlines twelve iconic individuals the characters might be connected to. They all relate to the background tension in some way. The guide closes with a variant the players can give their characters related to the campaign idea and a brief description of the starting region, a small community in the metropolis. 

With all of this in place, the players are ready to build their characters, and I am ready for their session zeros.

The All-Important Session Zeros

The next line on the list concerns the campaign’s session zeros. Over two years ago, I wrote an article all about holding a successful session zero. I still stand by the ideas I shared in this article, with a small additions and shake-ups. In essence, a session zero prepares you and your group for what you want in the D&D campaign. Before holding this session zero, I do a few things. 

First, I talk to each player privately about their character and help them build him or her. I ask them loaded questions, meant to spur their imagination and connect them to the world and beginning narrative. During this Q&A session, they get a chance to build the world, too. All the basic questions I asked for the Caught in Galen campaign can be found in this document.

Next, I hold individual “actual play” session zeros with each player and their character. This allows them to get a feel for their character, my DM style, and the setting itself. Once these two individual sessions are done, I get everyone together and we talk about the campaign as a whole. 

We discuss the setting again. We build a few parts of it together, an NPC or three, an enemy or two. Then, we talk about what we want and don’t want in the campaign. Is this campaign rated G or Mature? Is slavery a sour topic? Is romance okay? Can combat be described as gory and disgusting or comical and lighthearted? Establishing all of these concepts up front is important for the longevity of the campaign. If the players create parts of the world, ensure their characters are a part of it, and they know aspects of D&D they despise won’t be present, your group is sure to last. 

As you complete everything related to session zero, it’s time to begin thinking about the basic plot that will mark the campaign’s beginning.

The Basic, Initial Plot

Before the campaign begins but after all of the session zeros are over, you should have a good idea of your party’s backgrounds and desires. Use them as a skeleton for the campaign’s initial plot and opening scene. 

Find a common thread that binds all the characters together and discover a way to spur them all to action. Do they all want to protect the town from the goblin invasion for one reason or another? The town guard needs volunteers to patrol the wilds! Are they all eager to invest themselves into a prominent family? The family calls for aid in an important investigation! 

The possibilities are endless, and they’ll be different for every group.

The Integral Opening Scene

Everything is prepared. The starting point is built out, the session zeros are finished, and the initial plot is sketched out. The only part of the list left is kicking off the campaign with an integral opening scene. This is when all the characters will come together, for one reason or another, to form a party. Hopefully, this party will brave the wilds of your world, shift to other planes of existence, and venture the vast multiverse. 

The moment of their inception will likely be sung in the songs of bards whose great grandparents aren’t yet born. How should you begin their adventure? It’s your choice; it’s a heavy burden. Should the campaign begin in medias res, with the party already together, battling a group of kobolds riding giant lizards? With this approach, you can flashback as the battle ends and discover how they ended up in the combat. Or, if you want to be classical, you could start the campaign in a dimly lit tavern or in a jail cell without any gear. 

There are many options, and you need to think about which one you want to pick. Tailor it for your group, and don’t go in without thinking. This is the beginning of your epic tale; you want to make it as great as you possibly can. 

Here are a few ideas.

1. The characters begin in a wagon, imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit.
2. The characters begin on a ship in the middle of a storm, en route to the adventure location.
3. The characters begin in a shady tavern, a hooded figure in the corning eyeing one of them.
4. The characters begin all guarding the same caravan, looking out for bullywug attackers.
5. The characters begin in the estate of a powerful family, each seeking the family’s blessings.
6. The characters begin in the midst of battle, fighting a dire bear in a wooded area.
7. The characters begin in the Astral Plane, unsure of where they are or why they’re there.
8. The characters begin on an airship, hours before it crashes onto an island thanks to sabotage.

For Caught in Galen, I’m still fighting myself over which way to begin it.

Related Articles

• How to Destroy a D&D Party
• The Five Goals of a D&D Campaign's First Session
• How to Start a Successful Campaign
• Your D&D Campaign's Starting Point

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Engaging Your Players

By RJ on 26 March 2018.

It’s Friday night. My group is finishing their extermination of a Sanguine Paw hideout located beneath a popular baker’s shop. The Sanguine Paw, a cult of lycanthropes and fanatics of lycanthropy, are the main villains of the campaign thus far, and they are working with a local goblin tribe. The party is interrogating a goblin named Boarhead (formerly a wereboar) who’s been working as an ambassador to the Sanguine Paw. He’s refusing to speak all but one party member: Dani Dregon, a halfling arcane trickster and polymorphed dragon portrayed by Natalie.

At the moment, Natalie is the only girl in the group, and she’s been quiet. By introducing Boarhead, I decided to try and change that.

As the interrogation progresses, Boarhead clings to Dani, trusting in her both due to her small stature and gentle nature. Boarhead whispers answers into her ear, and eventually agrees to guide the party through the rest of the hideout... and to the lair of the Sanguine Paw’s main ally in the region: A hill giant lycanthrope.

Let’s fast forward a year. Boarhead is still alive and under Dani’s proverbial wings. The goblin has become a stout ally of the entire group and a close friend of Dani’s. In addition, he’s the main reason Natalie is attached to the campaign. As I said before, I knew Natalie wasn’t as invested in the campaign as the rest of the players, but she was not going to state that clearly. Therefore, I introduced Boarhead, a character I knew and specifically designed for her to become attached to.

Players aren’t always engaged, and most of the time, they won’t actively try to remedy this. This could be for a myriad of reasons: They’re shy and aren’t confident in what they have to say, or they don’t want to take the spotlight from other players, or perhaps they’re bored with the game and aren’t interested in the current story.

Before I continue, let it be known that some folks who play Dungeons and Dragons enjoy observing their friends get into absurd situations while sitting quietly in their chair and taking their turn in combat. In my experience, however, this is not the majority of players. If a player is quiet or disinterested or becomes this way as the campaign continues, it needs to be fixed, lest it affects the fun of not only them but the fun of everyone at the table.

That’s bad. Our goal when playing D&D, of course, is to tell an exciting story, fight monsters, and roll dice. Thus, the unengaged and disinterested player must be engaged.

However, this is not an easy or simple task. Some D&D players need their shells cracked. They need to be prodded to engage. This is the job of the dungeon master.

Today, I’m going to talk about how you, the dungeon master, can engage your players when they’re showing little interest in your campaign, or even prevent the phenomena entirely.

Let’s begin.

Suddenly, Something Happens!

When you surprise an unengaged player with a sudden twist in the campaign, preferably with something created especially for them, it can quickly bring them into the fold and excite them about the future. Most of the time that D&D players seem disinterested with the current story, it’s because their character doesn’t have a stake in it or doesn’t necessarily care about it.

Change that!

Introduce a new character into the current plot that the unengaged PC cares about, as I did with Boarhead, a lost goblin cured of a foul disease.

Have something interesting and mysterious happen to that PC. As the party sleeps, describe an epic dream that the PC has, wherein they witness something profound that foreshadows the upcoming plot points. 

Or, if the player’s mood is especially negative, approach the player and ask them what’s going on. Maybe they’re going through something in real life, and their sour demeanor has nothing to do with the campaign. If that’s not the issue, ask what they’d like to see from the campaign. This is something I often do before a campaign begins. I ask my players question such as, “What’s a monster you’d like to see?” or, “What’s your characters long and short-term goals?”

If none of these attempts to engage a player from your end fail to succeed, and you’d still like to try and engage them, keep reading. Place the sword in their hands.

Loaded Questions and Character Connectedness

Inserting sudden story beats aimed at a specific player character may not always be the best idea, especially if they love to assist in the worldbuilding and storytelling process. Instead, ask them to create something related to the world around their character.

• What lies on the other side of the wooden door with the rusty, squeaking hinges?
• Who holds Blackrazor, the legendary weapon your party’s fighter is searching for?
• Where does Imlerith, a vicious white dragon, hide in the Icemaw Mountains?

Asking them loaded questions about the campaign or current adventure can immediately pique their interest in the adventure. When they become a clear member of the campaign building team, their interest in the world will explode. 

Doing this before the campaign begins is a way to avoid player disinterestedness completely. Ensuring each player in your group has a chance to connect their character to the world they’ll be playing in is the source of fantastic stories. 

For example, I worked with each member of my home group to connect their characters to the campaign’s story. Let’s go back to Dani. Dani is a prismatic dragon stripped of all her draconic powers and polymorphed into a halfling. She’s on the search for her two stolen children. Throughout the campaign, she slowly learns that the party’s patron kidnapped her wyrmlings and traded them to the antagonist. Natalie, the player of Dani, helped create the patron as well as the unique prismatic dragons of my world. As a result of her baby plot becoming a bigger part of the story and her involvement with a goblin ally, she’s become incredibly invested in the campaign, and my campaign’s story has been elevated to a new level because of her creativity.

In short: Asking players to create pieces of the world or campaign and heavily connecting their characters to the campaign’s story will ensure they are engaged in the game.

And Your Opinion Is?

This last piece of advice is useful for quickly engaging players in the game. 

While you’re portraying a nonplayer character, turn and ask the quiet PC a question. Perhaps the NPC wants their input on the situation or needs something only that character can do. The goal here is to get the player talking as their character. Once a conversation starts to heat up, you’ll quickly see the player’s eyes light up.

This tactic is not always as effective as the strategies described above, but it might work on folks who are having a bad day and need some nudging to get back into the fray of D&D.

In Summary

As the dungeon master, one of your primary tasks is to engage your players. Dungeons and Dragons is a collaborative storytelling game where everyone fights monsters and delves into dungeons, after all, so everyone at the table should be involved! Remember the tactics I discussed to engage or re-engage players at the table:

1. Suddenly, something happens to their character that piques their interest and/or increases their character’s stake in the story.
2. Ask your players to create pieces of the world or adventure on the spot or connect their characters to the story before or during the campaign to ensure they are engaged in the game.
3. If a player seems unusually quiet or down, have a nonplayer character turn to their character and start or bring them into a conversation.

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Evolving Encounters

By RJ on 19 March 2018.

Friday night. My group confidently strides into the sizzling, green portal leading to Ozus, the third layer of the Ten Hells in my world. Awaiting them is their patron-turned-enemy, a master of ooze and warlock of Juiblex, Magus Sint. As they arrive on Ozus, the portal shuts behind them, and they’re able to view the immense landscape around them: Sint’s fortress is built onto the side of a massive emerald embedded into the ground and set beside a river of glowing ooze. The river ends in a turbulent cascade of slime that feeds the ocean of bubbling ooze below.

The party, unfortunately for them, teleported onto a bridge built on this river. The bridge leads to the reinforced gates of Sint’s stronghold. Above the entrance rests a magic mouth, in front of the door, a hulking devil with metal plates bolted directly onto its flesh and maggots crawling in the cracks between the body armor. 

Despite Sint’s threats lobbed through the magic mouth, the party engages the devil, an orthon named Legionnaire Gonarzus. Before they reach him, Gonarzus slams his lance of ever-shifting black ooze onto the bridge, and it begins to sink into the ooze, and other ‘islands’ rise above the river’s surface.

The encounter evolves.

As various party members leap from platform to platform while battling the constantly teleporting Legionnaire Gonarzus, the river of ooze begins to shift the platforms downstream. They’re now heading toward the enormous falls that plummet into a bubbling ocean of emerald-green ooze below. The encounter evolves.

Similar to all great stories, encounters in Dungeons and Dragons have a beginning, middle, and end. The battle begins or the conversation coalesces, but what happens after that? You might say it’s obvious: They continue. The party succeeds or their enemies overcome them. The conversation goes awry or both sides gain something valuable. The rogue discovers the lever’s location, or the door stays shut.

Yes, that’s what happens. But most encounters encompass a mini journey. They have beginnings, middles, and ends that should be fleshed out.

Perhaps your group is facing off against a nalfeshnee, the pig-faced demon antagonist of the campaign: You need that encounter to ramp up the drama, difficulty, and potential for disaster constantly! Or maybe your group is parlaying with a potential ally that can turn the tide of the campaign in their favor. You need everyone to understand what's going on and what the stakes are!

In both of those situations, you need to give your group great encounters that change dramatically but organically as they progress. You need encounters that evolve. And for that, you’ll need to know how to build and run evolving encounters. 

Last week, we discussed how to build better battles. This week, we’re talking about how to build and run encounters that evolve over time. Specifically, we’ll be discussing HOW to run encounters, as I believe that’s one of the most powerful weapons in a dungeon master’s arsenal. First, though, let’s discuss encounters in D&D.

Dynamic, Not Static

You might necessarily realize this, but every single D&D encounter evolves naturally. Enemies are injured in combat, PCs add new information to a conversation in social interactions, and new aspects of the environment are discovered in exploration. But the evolution doesn’t end there.

As dungeon masters, whether we know it or not, we strive to add drama, tension, and excitement when designing encounters. Thus, we naturally build encounters to evolve!

In combat encounters, we add new elements to the battle, seek to challenge the PCs, and set them in fantastical locations. In social interactions, we react to the PCs words and actions as dynamic NPCs, add in juicy bits of valuable information, and mold flamboyant personalities to portray. In exploration locales, we purposely put interesting locations and objects to discover into the area and litter the region with monsters or NPCs.

Whether we know it or not, we are always creating evolving encounters in D&D! Therefore, since we already build encounters that evolve, all we need to know is how to run them correctly.

Of course, that’s the difficult part.

Running Encounters

Encounters aren’t static. They’re dynamic situations that can completely change on a whim. Most people have a grasp on this. However, to run them well, understanding a few more concepts is key.

Three fundamental tips I’ve learned over the years are pacing, foreshadowing, and recapping. They’re not discussed as much as other encounter tips such as balancing and strategizing in the many circles of D&D, but they’re just as important when running encounters.

Let’s begin.

1. Pace encounters according to your group's interest.

Encounters can turn into a slog if they’re too slow or too fast. You must run them at a pace your players enjoy. 

Do they love interacting with an NPC for a few minutes, or a few seconds? If the former, disperse important information throughout the conversation. If the latter, frontload the key points and allow them to continue the conversation if they’d like. These two conversations will evolve at completely different rates and are completely different encounters. 

Learning how to pace your encounters will immediately improve the table’s enjoyment of them and has the plus of letting you know how you should prepare specific encounters.

2: Foreshadow upcoming twists.

Giving hints to what’s coming is a fantastic way to build tension and give your players something to think about when they’re not acting. It also makes players feel great when they see a twist coming.

For example, in the first round of combat encounter with the orthon, Legionnaire Gonzarzus, I described the maggots crawling all over his body as follows: “The fidgeting maggots stick to the hulking devil like they’re one with the creature as if they were extensions of his being.” Some of the players thought nothing of it, but one of them latched onto that, believing the maggots were connected somehow to the encounter, that they could be interacted with as a bonus option. Sadly, the party didn’t agree, and the maggots were mostly ignored until Gonarzus was finally hit and the maggots rapidly crawled to the wound. I never directly said they healed it, I simply described the insects immediately moving to the wound, and then the table turned to the player who called this surprise and apologized.

As an aside, foreshadowing doesn’t have to occur during the encounter. Set up twists and turns in an upcoming combat, social interaction, or delve hours or sessions in advance! Hint at the powers of the while the group speaks with them or show the party an NPCs social characteristics and ideals during a combat encounter. 

You’ll be surprised how quickly they start speculating and latching onto different bits and pieces of your foreshadowing once you start doing it. The whole act is highly entertaining and can even give you original and exotic ideas you’d never think of.

3: Briefly recap what’s happened.

While an encounters ongoing, try to concisely state what’s happened in the past few moments every so often. Usually, I have a set time to do this depending on the type of encounter.

1. Combat: At the beginning of every round.
2. Conversation: At the end of the conversation. Usually, I have the other players give recaps if necessary, and only interject if they get something majorly messed up (and I think it’s my fault).
3. Exploration: Every 2-3 minutes of exploration.

This is easily demonstrated using a direct example. Using the Legionnaire Gonarzus encounter, I’d recap the opening round as follows:

Finished with your insolence, the orthon slammed his lance onto the bridge, causing it to sink and other platforms to rise above the slime. As you all maneuvered to solid ground and launched a barrage of missiles at Gonarzus, he teleported directly on top of Aku! Aku, what do you do?

Then the next round begins.

This is a surprisingly simple yet effective tactic to ensure everyone at the table understands what’s going on. Try using brief recaps, and I think you’ll find everyone at the table has a much better grasp of the situation.

In Summary

As you’ve probably realized, encounters in Dungeons and Dragons are almost always evolving. The dynamic nature of the game, the limitless options the PCs have at their disposal, and the creativity of the DM is the reason for this. It’s why D&D is the best game in the world.

Running encounters is a fine art, and arguably the most valuable skill you can have as a DM. To do this, remember:

1. All encounters evolve! They’re dynamic, not static, and can be influenced by everyone at the table.
2. Pacing encounters can drastically raise the overall enjoyment of everyone at the table.
3. Foreshadowing surprises before and during an encounter give players both a sense of satisfaction when they see the twist coming, and something to think about when they’re not acting during an encounter.
4. Brief but frequent recaps can help everyone cement the encounter’s image in their minds, as well as reinforce the fundamentals of the encounter. Remember, though, that when to recap depends on the type of encounter.

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Divine Intervention

By RJ on 16 February 2018.

Friday night. Tonight is the finale of my first, true campaign. Over the course of the epic, thirty-one session adventure, my group saved an entire island from the rampage of a dragon-worshiping orc horde, reforged a legendary pair of phylactery-crushing gauntlets, and convinced the original antagonist of the campaign to become their devout ally. Tonight, their airship flies to a climactic battle between the armies of the lich trio, deemed the Dread Admirals, and the rebels of their conquered archipelago. However, after discussing the possibility of going after the phylacteries of the Dread Admirals as the battle rages, the party changes course. They turn their airship toward the lair of the Dread Admirals, a cove-fortress named Agsur Golad. The Dread Admirals, they decide, are going to die tonight. Their phylacteries are going to be destroyed, or the entirety of the archipelago of Altarin, the group’s home, will lose the war and submit to liches’ rule.

However, as the dungeon master, I know this is a fatal move, a campaign-ending decision. My group is unable to fight liches, their undead minions, and a surprise zombie dragon at their current level. I know that they are going to die on the doorstep of the liches’ domain, thus ending the campaign and the adventuring careers of their level sixteen characters.

Therefore, instead of letting them die, however heroic it would be, forcing them off their current path or adjusting the stats of the enemies, I make an on-the-spot decision to intervene.

Throughout the campaign, the group performed a plethora of heroic acts, saved a myriad of goodly folk, and vanquished a considerable amount of evil from the world. In particular, they had served a priest of Lagaria, the goddess of life and health. Thus, I decide that the goddess intervenes in their mortal affairs, an incredibly rare act in my world. She blesses the heroes, commends them for their bravery, and wishes them luck on what she believes will be their final adventure, before granting them immense power.

Each member of the party feels their proficiency grow. The barbarian’s muscles bulge with divine might. The druid’s mind opens up to a vast amount of lost nature magic. The ranger’s prowess with bow and blade becomes even greater. The sorcerer’s untapped potential finally unlocks. With Lagaria’s divine blessing, they become level twenty adventurers, ready to face the Dread Admirals.

As a preface: This type of dungeon mastering style might not be for you, and that’s perfectly fine! Everyone has their own style of play. No one style is perfect, no one style is the objective best.

Some DMs would’ve let the party try to infiltrate the lich trio’s stronghold at their current level and die. However, I didn't want that to happen. The campaign was near its conclusion, and I didn’t want to railroad them away from Agsur Golad or let them die attempting to reach the liches’ phylacteries. If the group was killed there, they wouldn’t have wanted to continue.

Therefore, I interfered. I gave them a chance. You can disagree with my decision, you can say that I was breaking the rules of D&D, and I certainly was! However, I was there and witnessed the joy of my players when the goddess came to them. They were ecstatic and surprised because I’ve never done that before.

That moment was the first occurrence of the infamous deus ex machina in the entire campaign, the first time the proverbial D&D god threw the players a bone. There’s the first lesson: Don’t overuse any of the advice I’m about to relay to you; it must be used sparingly to be effective!

Today we’re discussing how and when you should interfere with the narrative, either by assisting your players narratively or messing with the dice.

Let us begin.

Assistance from the Divine

When my group decided to turn their airship toward the Dread Admiral’s fortress, where they knew the liches’ phylacteries were hidden, I knew I had to make an incredibly important, split-second choice.

Do I somehow force them to the giant battle I had planned, in the skies above a toppling wizard’s spire built from the depths of the ocean?

Do I extend the campaign by attacking their airship with the minions of the Dread Admirals?

Or do I allow their plan to work? The last thing the Dread Admirals are expecting is an infiltration into their fortress. They’ve strangled the life from the region and knew the party was on their way to Azudon’s Reach. What the villains didn’t know is that the party were aware of the locations of the Dread Admirals’ phylacteries, and they had the means to destroy them.

My rule is to always allow the group’s plans to have a chance of success, but I usually don’t directly interfere with either side (success or failure). Yet, in this case, I knew they would fail horribly, and this failure would end the campaign on a negative note. 

I’m a proponent of having fun at the table. Thus, I knew I had to do something if I was going to allow this plan to have a chance of working.

That’s where divine intervention plays a part.

I only use divine intervention when the fate of the campaign and the players fun is at stake, and I never use it to give the players an assured victory or success. That would take away all of the suspense and the drama of the adventure. So far in my DMing career, I’ve only had to do it twice, and both times it was necessary.

I’m advising that you do the same. If the fate of your campaign and your player’s fun is at stake, I’d interfere with some grand deus ex machina. Again, do this sparingly, if at all.

This advice works on a group-by-group basis. Some groups will hate this type of play, despite how you integrate the intervention into the story, knowing the DM is directly helping them. Others will adore the assistance. If you think you have to pull this move, try and read what type of group you’re playing with.

Now, onto an even more controversial topic.

Twisting Fate

Moving away from today’s primary piece of advice, let’s discuss the ever-present and ever-debatable dice-fudging debacle. Should you foil fate’s plans and change the number on the die being rolled, ever?

My answer? Sometimes. Vague, I know. Allow me to explain.

Fate and its plans are enormous aspects of D&D. Taking them away removes a pillar of the roleplaying game. But, if you do so tactfully, it can help the player’s experience more than hinder it. In fact, as the dungeon master, you can utilize the dice to make your campaign far more dramatic and entertaining. Again, this must be used sparingly, if at all, and it depends on your group!

I live and die by a simple rule: The player’s enjoyment is greater than the campaign’s story, which is greater than the game’s rules.

I find rather than explaining this, examples work far better.

What if a terrifying red dragon is breathing fiery hell upon the PCs, a few of them are low on hit points, and you roll near max damage? You know this amount of damage will cause ¾ of your group to go unconscious. What do you do? This completely depends on your DMing style. Do you think the story will benefit by the party losing this battle? Do you have a contingency plan? Will all the PCs die here, and is everyone okay with that? What if you want the battle to continue, to give your party another chance? Then simply fudge the dice.

What if your group is finally facing the big bad evil antagonist of your campaign, and you can’t roll above a three? Do you let fate decide the battle completely, or do you fudge the dice a little to make the fight interesting? Again, it depends on your DMing style...and your ability to trick your players.

Fudging the dice is okay in some situations, but you must not let your players know that you’re twisting fate behind the screen. You need to understand the type of people you’re playing with. Will they be upset if they discover you’re doing this for the betterment of the campaign, or will they understand your reasoning?

Fudging the dice can make the campaign more exciting and dramatic, but it must be used sparingly.

In Summary

Today’s topic was quite controversial, and I’m sure I’ll receive some amount of criticism for advising dungeon masters to directly intervene in the world and fudge dice, but I stand by my words. Remember:

1. Intervening is sometimes necessary to save a campaign from a bad decision or two. Don’t be afraid to help your players out if one of their mistakes risks sucking the fun out of the campaign.
2. Fudging the dice is okay, but you need to do so subtly.
3. Both of these divine interventions must be used sparingly, else you risk interfering with one of D&D’s core concepts: The integration of fate.

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Dungeons, Dragons, and Death

By RJ on 11 February 2018.

Friday night. The Iskryn group is exploring a tainted sanctuary of Bjornar, the god of stars, location, and urson (bearfolk). Thousands of years ago, Bjornar’s sanctuary was invaded by a force of demons and gnolls, the spawn of Yeenoghu. In a last-ditch effort, the leader of the divine structure, Andromedus, teleported the entire building to the Astral Plane, and created a divine barrier that prevented scrying, and disallowed those within to leave. The demons trapped within quickly slaughtered the remaining celestial and urson defenders and looted the artifact which they came to the sanctuary for, but they were unable to break Andromedus’s barrier or locate the celestial.

Back to Friday night: The party clash with the demons, led by Neegvym, Faithful of Yeenoghu. The battle is brutal and bloody, yet every demon is slain. Their bodies, though, are unable to return to the Abyss, so they simply lay motionless on the cold, stone floor. The victory comes at a cost: Rob Tully, the party’s ranger, and religious advocate died during the battle when Neegvym raked him with his enormous claws. However, his story did not end there.

After his death on the material plane, Rob’s soul materializes in Limbo, unable to find its way to the realm of his deity, Lykos, due to Andromedus’ barrier. In Limbo, he is forced to team up with Neegvym to survive the soup of chaos and impossibilities that is Limbo. Eventually, Rob takes a chance and exacts vengeance on Neegvym, cutting off one of the nalfeshnee’s wings mid-flight, causing the demon to tumble into the chaos of Limbo. Back on the material plane, Rob’s party succeeds; they cleanse the temple and lift the divine barrier, allowing Rob’s soul to journey to Lakotas, his deity’s realm. In Lakotas, Rob reunites with his family and makes peace, but learns of foul happenings on the material plane that entrance Rob’s player back into the campaign…

I recently had a PC die in my campaign, as described above.

When Rob died, his death scene was dramatic. The ranger passed within the sanctuary of one of his god’s sons, fighting his sworn enemies. Yet, his story didn’t end there. In a one-on-one session afterward, we played out his character’s messy journey to the afterlife and allowed him an opportunity to exact vengeance on the demon who slew him, which he was barely able to do. The oneshot ended with Rob reuniting with his family in his god’s realm, and learning that the villain of the campaign, the Woodsmaster, had managed to return to the material plane while the party cleansed the sanctuary. The extra session let his character be heroic one last time, gave the player closure, but also reinvigorated his interest in the campaign.

Today, we’re talking a tad about player character death in Dungeons and Dragons.

Player characters die in D&D. The event can be epic or sad, traumatic or dramatic, but in D&D, a PC’s death should always be memorable.

In addition, death should be a real possibility in D&D, especially during intense encounters. Without the threat of it, encounters with the incredible become far less interesting and exhilarating. This fact doesn’t only apply to combat encounters. Are the PCs dealing with a cutthroat gang of thieves, who could slit their throats at the smallest slight to their organization? What if they’re on trial for murder and robbery in the court of the king?

Moments during which the characters could perish are integral to D&D and should be present in almost every session of a campaign or adventure.

However, that doesn’t mean death should be mundane and expected. Deaths should be dramatic and carry the weight they deserve. Plus, after the character dies, their story doesn’t end in most D&D worlds. Instead, it continues in the afterlife, a soup of diverse planes and interconnected realms.

Alright, let’s dig into the dirt, and start with how a death should be handled.

A Beautiful Death

A player character’s death scene must be handled correctly. 

Players pour their ideas and emotions into their characters. Most of the time, it’s the only piece they brought to the table, and when it’s taken away, that can be saddening and upsetting. I posit, however, that the experience does not have to be this way. A death can be heroic and dramatic, even epic. In addition, as I stated before, it must be memorable.

I’m going to say something controversial here: When a character’s death is certain, let the player do what they want with their character’s death. If needed, assist them, but allow them to make the death memorable to themselves and to the other players.

Do they want to go out in a blaze of glory, perhaps getting one last attack on the big bad evil guy who is assaulting their fellow party members? Allow that to happen!

What if they’d like to get a chance to speak with the rest of their companions, and maybe even give some wise pieces of advice procured by the DM. Don’t object.

How about they protect a gateway or barrier while their party escapes, sacrificing their life to give the party a much-needed head start on the enemies? Sounds great!

If you don’t already, give your player as much agency as possible during the final moments of their characters involvement in the greater game. Let them make the scene memorable, and, if they need assistance, help them.

Handling the Dead

So, here we are: A PC is dead. You’ve handled their death scene well, but what happens after?

Foremostly, what occurs after a PC dies in D&D is completely reliant upon your world and style of play. Some believe the souls of the dead go to an extraplanar realm related to their deity or alignment, others posit they all end up in the same, dreadful place, and few think that their souls simply vanish, and the dead remain dead...forever. In addition, some DMs don’t care about this aspect of the game, and briefly brush over it.

I don’t agree with that.

Describing a PC’s journey to the afterlife gives a sense of closure to both the players and, in a sense, the dungeon master. Plus, it gives another layer of depth to your D&D world.

Quickly, we’ll go over each afterlife possibility, starting with souls going to a realm related to their beliefs during life.

When a creature dies, their soul leaves their body and goes on a journey to their particular extraplanar realm. This journey can be arduous and consuming, or it can be quick and painless. Depending on the type of DM you are, and the type of people you’re playing with, this can take seconds or minutes to explain, or can be played out over a single one-on-one session with the dead PC.

A single plane of existence for the dead is the second most common way to deal with the dead in D&D. Travelers to this realm are usually ushered along by an envoy, a reaper-like character. When the character is officially dead, perhaps the avatar of death in your world can make an appearance, or you can describe the character’s descent into the afterlife, following a path of thousands of other souls, or swimming down a river of ghosts.

The rarest, simplest, and most uninteresting way to handle the dead in D&D is asserting that they’re dead. When someone dies, they’re gone forever. They go nowhere, they can’t be communicated with, and their chance of resurrection is next to nothing. This goes against most D&D settings, but I’ve seen it used a few times. While it is uninteresting, I suppose it adds a sense of danger to your world that isn’t otherwise present.

Thinking about what happens when a PC dies in your world before it happens is important, and I encourage everyone to map it out. Remember, it need not be complex; simply stating that the character's soul leaves the material plane, passes over the elemental realms, soars through the outer planes, and into the realms of the gods suffices.

In Summary

Today, we learned:

1. Characters die in Dungeons and Dragons, and their deaths should carry weight. Give your players a chance to describe how their character draws their final breath after being raked by a nalfeshnees enormous claw, or what their final words are to their companions who survived the encounter. Don’t just say, “You draw your final breath. You’re dead.” That’s boring and doesn’t leave the player or their friends satisfied.
2. Death is not the end of a character’s journey in the fantastical multiverse of D&D. The souls of characters can go on an ultimate journey, through the various planes of existence, or end up in the single realm of the dead, or they just die, never to be seen or heard from again.

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Submerged in Immersion

By RJ on 26 January 2018.

Friday night. Everyone’s gathered around our large, oak tabletop, prepared to play D&D. Last week, the party fell victim to a surprise mindflayer attack inside a dinky Olfen’s Port tavern, the Red Ribbon. However, instead of feasting upon their surely delicious brains, the mindflayers took them captive. Today’s session begins as the PCs are forcibly marched deep into the Underdark, toward the mindflayer’s sanctum. Every character is blindfolded, bound, and bewildered, terrified of what awaits them below. Before I begin my well-established opening narration, I reach inside a bag precariously poised beside my chair.

From within the bag, I pull out six washed pillowcases. “Darkness is all you see. You feel the sting of cold stone, hear the writhing of tentacles, but see only darkness.” I whisper as I stand and pass out a pillowcase to each player. “Welcome to the Underdark, adventurers. Here, you’ll need to rely on more than your eyes…Put on your blindfolds.” My players all have different reactions: Some gasp, others laugh nervously, but all are entranced by my words, immersed in the moment.

Immersing players in your game world is a difficult feat. Sometimes, mere words and descriptions suffice. Other times, physically submerging your players in immersion is what it takes. To achieve this, you need to think abstractly, or out of the box.

Today, we’re going to discuss how to immerse your players using aspects other than words and your voice.

These immersive techniques are attemptable by every dungeon master across the vast multiverse, and I expect you to try all of them after reading. Let’s begin!

Commence Movement!

A tactic I’ve oft experimented with is shifting my position and personifying an NPC’s movement.
Standing up from your grand throne (or plastic chair), leaving the safety of your screen, and carousing around the table is a fantastic way to put the players on edge, or add a bit of drama to the room. As you weave your way from seat to seat, I guarantee each of your players’ respective heartbeats will quicken the closer you move toward them.

Try doing this while portraying a menacing NPC, such as an intimidating captain of the guard, or a mindflayer arcanist.

As the captain, stand upright, walk at a slow, calculated pace, and speak clearly. As the mindflayer, slowly, strangely slither around the table, contorting your face in unimaginable ways.

Odds are, if you try and enjoy this, your players will as well. Now, if you make it silly, sure, your players may not be more immersed and interested, but at worst, they’re laughing and having a jolly time.

I first attempted this while my players were physically blindfolded while their characters were being held captive by mindflayers. The combination of them being blind, and me slowly moving around the room, switching between my normal voice and the raspy voice of their mindflayer captors drastically altered the mood. They were caught in the moment, and that’s exactly what I wanted.

Please try this, and don’t be afraid!

As I said before, at worst, you’ll look comical for a few moments, it’ll be over, and you’ll never attempt it again. At best, you have an interesting new technique to immerse your players in moments of roleplay and your world.

A Pleasant or Unpleasant Earful

Over the past year, music has accompanied my D&D sessions. I’ve discovered that using soundtracks can both enhance and hinder the atmosphere around the table. When it comes to music and D&D, everything breaks down into two aspects: Appropriateness and control.

Let’s start with appropriateness.

During my party’s forced march into the Underdark, playing an upbeat piece of music filled with fiddles, bagpipes, and lyrics would be extremely jarring. In fact, it would take away any semblance of immersion my players were experiencing. Forget the blindfolds and alien voice, forget anything else you’re doing to immerse your players; with inappropriate music, any immersion they were experiencing will instantly shatter. However, utilizing music with a slow pace, foreboding drums, and chilling, near inaudible background singers heightens the mood the players are already experiencing: Fear.

Before you use music, you must ensure that it is appropriate for the encounter it will be a part of. Else, you risk not submerging your players in immersion but reminding them that this is a game.

Next, let’s talk control. This goes hand in hand with the previous point.

The party has finally reached the end of the march. Now, they’re being loaded onto large rafts by the mindflayers. They need to continue down a dark, underground river that runs straight through a busy Underdark crossing. While they’re slowly drifting down the river, passing by the crossing, darts begin to fly from the darkness. Once they hit the mindflayers, they go unconscious. However, the assailants, drow, aren’t only aiming for the mindflayers, they’re going for the party as well! The party convinces the single still conscious illithid to free them from their constraints, causing a battle between the party and the drow to break out.

Venom-tipped darts continue to fly from the darkness.

The boat rocks as armored drow leap onto it, mounted on giant, black-skinned lizards.

A drow body hits the water after being knocked off the boat by the party’s ranger and is instantly grabbed by a huge tentacle. The battle continues.

But, in the background, foreboding, slow music continues to play. Oops! I forgot to switch the music, a rookie mistake.

If you’re going to use music, you must learn how to manage it as well. I advise one of these two approaches:

1. Organize all your music beforehand using YouTube playlists, Spotify, or iTunes and know what you’ll be using during the session. This gives you ultimate control over what is played.
2. Assign one of your players to be the music manager. It’s their job to change the track from travel to combat, from city to tavern. However, using this approach doesn’t give you complete creative freedom.

Of course, you could mix the two above suggestions, taking over the role of music manager during planned out scenes.

As a bonus tip, try making sound effects. I know this may sound a tad silly, but mimicking the sounds of common noises can be awesome. Did one of the characters just fail a stealth check while opening a trapdoor? Make the fear-inducing “Eeeeeeee” sound, as the trap-door hinge squeaks. Is a ferocious lion charging one of the characters, prepared to tear them apart? Roar.

Using both music and sound effects can greatly accentuate your player’s immersion, or they can completely shatter it. To avoid this from happening, ensure your music choice is accurate, you have a way to control your tracks, and practice making lion roars.

Props Galore

The third and final technique to immerse players in your D&D world that we’ll be discussing today is the use of props.

Over my few years of proper dungeon mastering, I’ve learned how to properly use props during my campaigns. Generally, the goal is to allow your players to physically touch, feel, read, or move an object that their characters are interacting with. Props make up a wide array of items, such as:

• Journals. Take a piece of paper, look up how to make it appear to be parchment (coffee, an oven, and some crackling), and then write some interesting stuff on it. Perhaps it’s the lost journal of a mad halfling wizard, written in draconic, or maybe it’s something akin to the book the fellowship finds in Moria.
• Maps. You don’t need to be a cartographer, draw a map for your game! Whether it’s a quick sketch of the general region or a fully colored layout of the continent, a map on the table is a must. I always have a map on the table for players to look at, with a tiny mini representing where they are.
• Miscellaneous. There’s plenty of room to be creative here; use pillowcases to blind your players. Bring out your old guitar while portraying a washed-up half-orc bard. Present your players with an interesting looking ring as a magic item. The possibilities are endless!
• Puzzles. Either make your own puzzles of arcane runes or renovate bought puzzles to fit your game world.

This technique takes a bit more work on the part of the dungeon master, but the player’s reaction when you take out whatever prop you’re using makes the extra preparation worth it. 

Players, Join In!

Though I merely discussed dungeon masters applying these techniques to their games, players can easily use each of them as well.

Dear players, I encourage you to stand up and act out your character's actions.

I encourage you to suggest soundtracks to play during your adventures and campaigns.

I encourage you to build props for your character. One of my players, Anthony, created a personalized spellbook for his elf wizard, Mithdartis, and it’s absolutely fantastic!

If you attempt to immerse yourself in the game world, you’ll make your dungeon master’s job far easier, and they’ll definitely appreciate the help.

In Summary

There are a plethora of different tips and techniques on how to submerge your players in immersion. Today, we looked at three, plus an extra tip:

1. Get up and move around. Embody the NPCs you portray.
2. Use music and sound effects but learn how to utilize them correctly. They need to fit the mood, and you must be able to control them easily.
3. Make props and allow your players to touch and shift them around.
4. Players can follow try any of these techniques as well.

If you utilize any of these techniques, I assure you that your players will be more immersed in your D&D games, and therefore more drawn into your world.

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