Have you ever heard someone talk about a past gaming session and say “that was an awesome monologue the DM gave about his character in dnd”?

Um, neither have I.

I have already written an article about spicing up the initial session. Today I’m talking about the rest of the sessions.

As a player there are several things I don’t really remember very well, or that I remember as bad things.

* Monologues
* Pointless Puzzles
* Minions
* Room Descriptions
* Other player’s characters (most of them anyway).
* Names of useless NPC’s
* Things my character didn’t do.

Today I’m dealing with that time during the session where you want to share your new creative writing attempt with the party.  You’ve spent weeks (months? years? decades?) developing your cool campaign. You eschew all pre-made material. You have a child born of your thought and you finally have a chance to deliver it.

And all those stupid players can think about is phat lootz.

One of the hard parts about being a DM is that most of what you do nobody will ever see, hear, or care about. So try not to get frustrated when nobody wants to hear you tell a story.

The players aren’t there to hear a story. They are there to DO things. To act and be acted upon. The memorable moments come when they get to kill a particularly nasty foe or make a daring escape. When the party is being stalked through a dark forest and they manage to lure the enemy out and finally crush it, that is memorable. Hearing the DM’s history of that haunted forest and how it was once controlled by an irrelevant long dead noble who now has nothing to do with the campaign is not usually as much fun.

As a player I really don’t care, not unless it really does have to do with the campaign. If that noble is now a lich controlling a cabal of evil druids then yes, I want to know. However, I think I would rather find out in a meaningful way. A scrap of a history book rescued from a fire and handed to me as a nifty handout, or a bit of poem recited once.

If the players want more, they will ask for it. If they don’t ask, they probably don’t feel it is relevant, and that should be a pretty big hint about how you as a DM are doing. If they aren’t interested in what you think they should be interested in, then may it isn’t interesting after all.

Try shifting gears a bit. Don’t be afraid to sit quietly and let them decide where they want to go and drop the relevant hints along the way.

Above all, enjoy yourself!

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Here’s the dilemma, the party missed a key piece of treasure.  They to in a hurry and didn’t search the bad guys, or just rushed from one room to the next.  You can substitute “clue” here for treasure.  But any item or object that you think they will need later on.

 

• A powerful magic item they will need for a tough fight coming up.
• Any magic item that will throw off their treasure levels and make them weaker.
• The artifact that is the object of their quest.
• The message that has the secret pass-phrase to get past the magic mouth on level 4.

 You have a coupe of options here.

 

1. Ignore it.
2. Move it.
3. Replace it.

 Ignore it

In some situations this is the best option.  If the object can be safely removed from the campaign without impacting what happens later on then just ignore it.  Many times DM’s who have created complex puzzles struggle with this idea.  If all they missed as the blue gem to place on the blue pedestal in the final puzzle room, then get rid of the blue pedestal.  Problem solved.  They still have the pink gem and the yellow gem and the green gem, they will still be able to fulfill your puzzle.

 

Move it.

This is the most common, and probably the easiest.  Just give the treasure to the next monster.  “But it was a unique artifact specific to that boss,” you say.  “So what,” I reply.  The players don’t know that it was a unique artifact specific to that boss until you tell them.  So don’t tell them.

 

In situations where you are trying to balance treasure or get them ready for the big fight there is no rule that says you can’t just give it to them.  Ok, so the players didn’t search under the bed or they failed their perception check, that doesn’t mean you should Party Wipe them in the next room because the dice hate them.  Just say, “Ragnish, while you are resting you notice glimmer of gold from under the bed.”  They’ll investigate.

 

What if they’ve already moved on?  It is never too late.  If the combat begins and you realize they are going to get slaughtered without it, just say, “Ragnish, you notice a super-powerful glowing sword over to your left, it seems like a good idea to pick it up.”  Of course you can be more or less creative that this, but the idea is pretty straight forward.  If they need it, give it to them.  Otherwise you’re being more than a little unfair.  Your being a jerk and a bully.

 

Replace it

So you don’t think they should have super-item A because the missed it.  Well, you can always give them an equivalent GP value (just add extra GP) after the next fight.  When they loot the bodies just add it to the list of what they find.  Nobody will know the difference and you can balance the power levels of the game.

 

Hey, have fun with your game!

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