322) So You Want to be a Dungeon Master? Lesson 2 — How to Plan in order to Balance the Plot with Characters’ Freedom of Choice

DM-ing is a TON OF WORK. Even if you go with a pre-made module, you still have to read and absorb it all, plan out the encounters, make it your own so you’re not sitting there during game-time constantly flipping pages trying to remember what the hell is going on, who some person is, what “Trap Y” is on “Map 5.2”….

PLANNING is the hugest, gargantuan-est, galaxy-size-est, amount of this work. There’s no way around that. But you can plan effectively and use this time well, or you can end up with 700 sheets of paper, 27 character sheets, lists of monsters and treasures and traps, most of which are never used, entire novellas of back-story, and 34 maps, and still not know what happens in Play Session #1.

The single biggest planning challenge is to strike that perfect balance between a coherent plot that makes some amount of sense, and maintaining the open-world spirit such that the Players truly have freedom of choice. After all, if they are truly free, they may not (read: almost certainly will not), follow the plot you planned in advance, and you, the DM, HAVE TO be ready to deal with that.

Obviously, you cannot plan for every possibility, because they are infinite.

This is a conundrum. But take heart! There’s a very simple, even elegant solution. But first, you have to deeply wrap your head around the full implications of what an “open world” really is.

Plot Planning in an Open World

The truth, and beauty, of D&D is that THERE IS NO PLOT. Your characters are not on some prescribed path, like an obstacle course, where they just try to surmount one pre-set challenge after another, and slowly get better at it. D&D is not a video game. It’s not a pre-written script for a TV show. It’s a truly “open world”.

It’s like reality. Characters CAN do whatever their little hearts desire. They can talk to the mayor. Or stab him. Or light his house on fire. Or spread rumours around town that he is a vampire. They can tell the truth when asked questions. Or lie. Or lie outrageously. They can decide to go North, South, East or West. They can decide to pursue the juicy gossip about Nebuchadnezzar’s treasure in the Swamp, or they can decide they’d rather just do some crime, or travel to the next town and look for juicy gossip there. Literally, they can do whatever they want.

And this is ALWAYS true, in every scenario. Imagine you set up some incredible monster encounter for your characters to get through. But you neglected to consider that “fight the monster” is only one of their possible choices. They MIGHT choose to fight….

Or they might run away, or pretend to surrender and then launch a surprise attack, or sneak away and plan an ambush, or go back to town and wash dishes for a month, saving up money to buy 48 vials of flaming oil and set up a gigantic fire-bomb bombardment. They might pool their money and hire a small army of mercenaries. They might go to the nearest Wizard and ask for a killer scroll (and they have to do the Quest the Wizard sends them on, in order to earn the scroll.) Etc.

The point is, the characters might do what you expect. But often they will not. And sometimes they will completely outsmart you, and all your devious DM-plans amount to nothing.

One of the most complex villain encounters I ever created was defeated instantly by the characters simply deciding that instead of fighting, they would run away. Then two of them went invisible and spied on the Bad Guy for a day, to discover where and when he tended to go to the bathroom.

Then they planned for his next big “number 1”, and assassinated him in the shitter.

I was thrilled. And they were immensely proud of themselves. As a DM, whenever your players out-think you, you should reward them, not try to assert your dominance by punishing them with something even Bigger and Nastier that you create on the spot out of the fragility of your wounded ego.

No! Players thinking outside-the-box is exactly what makes D&D awesome, and worth coming back to play again and again (and again, and again, and again…).

If you seek to maintain control and crush their creativity, your campaign will suck, and nobody will want to keep playing with you. So let them do whatever the hell they want! And yes, if they outsmart you, reward them for it! It still means you made an awesome adventure, the proof being how utterly delighted they are with themselves!

The more players feel empowered to be creative, the more fun the game will be, and the collective story you end up telling together will be even more hilarious, dynamic, wacky and amazing than whatever you, with your one person’s imagination, could probably come up with on your own.

“There is no Dungeon Master”

Back this free-choice mentality constantly, weaving it into the very way you, as DM, interact with the players. One of the most common ruts that a campaign runs into, is when Players are constantly asking the DM to pass judgement on what is possible in Reality or to argue about the rules. My catch phrase is “There is no Dungeon Master”.

Sitting around the play table, there is, of course, a Dungeon Master. But in the world the characters inhabit, there is no person with ultimate authority to whom they can ask questions. There’s no rule book they can look up. Monsters don’t have “stats”.

So I refuse to enter those types of conversations. The Dungeon Master’s job is to tell the characters what they see, hear, feel, taste, touch, and smell. It is to describe the world the perceive. And THAT IS ALL. Then based on the information of their own senses, the characters have to decide what to do.

So remember, There Is No Dungeon Master.

“Can I do X?”

But Players will keep imagining that there is, in fact, a Dungeon Master that the characters can ask questions to. One of the most common is “Can I do X?” or “Is it possible to do X?” or “What is the ability check or difficulty level if I try to do X?”

For example:

• Can my character jump across the 20’ chasm with a running start?

• Can I shoot the rope with my bow?

• Can I sneak past the guard?

• If I move closer to the people talking over there in the Inn, will I be able to overhear them?

• Etc. Etc. Etc.

In all cases, my answer is the same. “DO you try to do X?” Because the point is, players have no idea what they CAN do. They just try stuff, like in real life, and see what happens.  It’s not possible for them to engage in hypothetical discussion with some Divine Being who can tell them whether their intended course of action will succeed or fail. All they can do is decide to try, and once the decision is made, roll the dice and see how it all turns out.

So as a DM, I force my Players to play as though this were real life. There’s no hypothetical “Will I succeed?” There’s no rule that guarantees anything. Even when they fight monsters, I change their stats so they can’t simply look up the monster and figure out its strengths and weaknesses. The Monster Manual is a set of suggestions. But in MY world, MY monsters may be quite different than whatever it says in the book.

Your job, as DM, is to be ready for anything. If the Players are making decisions as though it’s the real world, then you have to be ready for WHATEVER they throw at you.

Which is why the question about Planning, is a deeply tricky one. And here’s the solution:

“Nodes”

Instead of “a plot”, think about “nodes”. That is, different plot-points that you can insert in different places. No matter what path your characters take and what choices they make, you can decide on critical “nodes” that simply have to happen sooner or later, in order for the adventure to progress.

Back to the Swamp Treasure example from Part 1 — https://www.claradolderman.com/blog/321-so-you-want-to-be-a-dungeon-master-lesson-1-world-building-and-plot-planning. If looking for this treasure is the plot, then there are some things you can definitely plan in advance.

What happens in the Swamp? What kinds of creatures are in the Swamp? How likely is it that they’ll encounter a given creature? Are there certain areas where encounters are guaranteed?

And the treasure itself, where is it? What clues lead them to it, and how do they find those clues?

Let’s say you decide the treasure is in a cave, which characters access by finding a big old rotten log in the swamp and underneath that log, hidden under soggy swamp grass is a tunnel that leads to the cave.

So, how DO they find the right log? What kind of clues could lead them there?

Are there any traps? What are they? Where? What’s the saving throw, damage, etc.?

How big is the tunnel?  Do they have to crawl, or can they walk? Are there any beasties in the tunnel? Is there a door or trap or anything at the entrance to the cave? What lives in the cave?  What EXACTLY does the cave look like? (Here, a written description, like a sentence or two, is necessary so you’re not making up lame descriptions on the spot.) And where, exactly, in that cave, is The Treasure?

For these questions, you can write, ahead of time, precise descriptions, which you actually read as a narrative when the characters are in the right place. Because you know ahead of time that IF they commit to the Quest of finding the Swamp Treasure, they’re eventually going to end up in that cave, so you can spend some time making THAT part of the adventure — the “cave node” — very precise and detailed.

Now, in order to get to the cave, they have to travel through the Swamp to the big rotting log. Do they just have to randomly walk around the Swamp, or are there paths? Usually, it’s a good idea to have paths, or else you have to rely on some random probability that they just stumble across the right thing, and that’s no fun to play.

So make a map of the Swamp-paths. You can make it a single path (booooooring), or many little paths. Even a maze. If other people have been looking for this treasure, they will have stomped around the Swamp already, so it makes sense for there to be lots of paths. There might be animal trails too, like the kinds of deer paths and such you can find in a forest.

Draw a map.  Map out the paths, the distances, etc.  (Pro Tip:  For wilderness parts, I usually think of distances in terms of TIME, not physical distance, because the characters won’t be able to measure “we just walked 3.2 kilometres”, but they WILL be able to estimate “We just walked until noon.”)

Then decide if there are any noteworthy features on specific parts of your map — pits of quicksand, pools where the Giant Crocodile hangs out, areas that are hunted by the Carnivorous Frogs, gas-bubbles that are filled with toxins.  Etc.

OR, you can do these types of things randomly. Make up a big chart of the different types of scenarios that can happen (quicksand, crocodile, gas-bubble, etc.). Think about how probable it will be for characters to encounter one of these things in a given period of time (maybe you decide once every 4 hours of movement). Then, every 4 hours the characters spend wandering around the Swamp following paths, you roll dice to see what happens.

It’s a good idea to have rare events, less rare events, uncommon events, and common events.  And construct your chart that way.  As a quick example, using probability dice (1-100):

Example: Swamp Encounter Chart

1-30 - nothing happens
31-45 - extra mucky ground - Strength check or be delayed 4 hours (i.e., roll again for an encounter while they’re in this mucky ground, and if there’s an encounter it will take place in Difficult Terrain)
46-60 - poisonous snakes (1-3)
61-70 - gas bubble (specify saving throw, damage, etc.)
71-80 - carnivorous frogs (decide how many, based on what makes sense to challenge your party, and what makes ecological sense for the area. Maybe it’s just 1. Maybe it’s 1-6.  Maybe it’s 2, but if they start croaking in alarm, more frogs come to join them…etc.)
81-85 - giant bees nest (specify numbers)
86-90 - quicksand (specify saving throw and consequences)
91-93 - giant crocodile (figure out how it would intelligently attack them, such as lurking in wait for them to come fill up a water canteen, and then striking. This way you may not engage the encounter at the precise moment you roll the dice, but instead you, the DM, will know there’s a crocodile lurking, ready to pounce whenever they are vulnerable.)
94-95 - will o’ the wisps
96-97 - friendly nymph (Give her a back-story.)
98 - Giant Swamp Monster
99 - Lost Adventurer (Fully make up her character sheet, and contemplate whether she’d trust the party, join the party, betray the party, or in general, how she would react. Obviously a new NPC could become an ally, or a villain, or someone pretending to be an ally but who is just saving their own butt and wants to get out of there.
100 - unicorn (Give her a backstory, motivations, etc. Meeting a unicorn in the wild is a pretty big deal, so make it count! Also, have in mind how she will escape if the

The longer they wander around, the more stuff happens.  Most of it is a challenge; some of it could help them.  And for each item on the list, you WRITE DOWN the exact game mechanics of the encounter:  E.g., Poison Gas Bubble, Save vs. Dex, DC14, fail = 2d6 damage; make = half damage —- or whatever is relevant to the encounter.

Now you have a Swamp Encounters Chart, and your Swamp adventure is getting close to being ready to play!

You can, of course, diversify this and make it more complex.  I made that one up in literally about 3 minutes, so I’m sure you can come up with something more exciting and imaginative.  The point is, write it down, think of the probabilities ahead of time, think of the game-mechanics of the encounter ahead of time, and then, during Game Play, it’s seamless.  You don’t have to pause and figure things out.  It’s right there in front of you.

I would make an Encounter Chart like this for every single major scenario the characters are likely to be in.

- a town chart — random encounters in a town

- gossip chart - random rumours they will hear in a night at the tavern (make some of these true and some of them lies or outlandish rumours or misinformed beliefs held by the ignorant peasants, and some of them half-true, to make it more interesting)

- road chart - random encounters on the road, from nice peasants to pickpockets to nasty bandits

- wilderness wandering monster chart - if they are crossing a terrain, make a chart for stuff that could happen in an average day

***Special Encounters and Plot-necessary things***

In any “phase” of your adventure, there may be critical things you, as the DM, want to happen, because they’re important to the plot, or they’re just really cool.  Like, with rumours, you want, sooner or later, the Players to find out the TRUE rumour so they can decide to follow it.

So you need to figure out, eventually, how to emphasize that, or have them hear it “randomly” multiple times, etc., so that it stands out but it doesn’t feel like you’re pushing them towards it.  Or you need to let them go off on a wild goose chase, but in doing so, eventually they find another piece of information or meet a person who sets them straight, or somehow brings them back to the planned plot.

Or there might be scenarios that aren’t necessary for the plot, strictly speaking, but you just think they’re awesome.  Let’s say it’s really important to you that they encounter the unicorn, or the Giant Swamp Creature, once in their time in the Swamp.  Fine.  So you can just insert that encounter whenever you think it’s a good time for it, regardless of the roll.  ***But still roll, so it looks random.***

Or, such a Special Encounter can be guaranteed by simply locating it right on the map, in an area they HAVE TO go through sooner or later.  Then you’ll just know, HERE (x marks the spot) is where the unicorn or Swamp Monster hangs out.  And you can write out a specific description, like a paragraph or two, of that exact encounter.

Once you have done all this, you have your “Swamp Node,” and a mini-adventure, ready to play.

The same is true for side-adventures.  For example, if bandits are going to steal their stuff and take it to their hideout, draw a map of their hideout, and make a list of all the bandits and their key abilities (Hit Points, Armour Class, weapons, magic, etc.).  We’ll talk about this more when we talk about Combat.

But for sure, DRAW their hideout, like a map or a floor-plan.  Make notes of their guard rotation schedule.  Decide where each person sleeps, where they hang out during the day, how likely they are to be drunk, how often someone leaves to go to town and get supplies,  who the leader is and who takes over if the leader isn’t around or gets killed, and whatever else you think is necessary.  Write all this down.

So now, when the characters get there and start spying on the Hideout, trying to figure out how to attack it, you can be specific.  You know how big it is, how many guards are at the door, how many people are there at any random time, how often they change guards, how many rooms are inside, and who occupies each room.  Etc.  The more detail you have about that specific encounter, the more precisely and satisfyingly the Players can plan their ambush.

You keep doing this for every part you design.  You have a castle?  Great, draw a map.  Figure out how many guards there are at the Gate. Figure out, if an alarm is sounded, how quickly Guards will get to new areas, and how many will come.  Etc.  Once you’ve specified all this, which boils down to a map, a chart or two, key NPC information (e.g., stats on the Guards, stats on the Captain of the Guard, etc), you are ready for your Players to try to infiltrate the castle.

AND HERE IS THE BEAUTY OF “NODES”

Although it takes a lot of work to make a “node” in all its detail, the beauty of it is, if you don’t use it, you can recycle it for the future.  Maybe the Players never encounter the Bandits on their way to the Swamp.  No biggie, now you have an already-created “Bandit scenario” all worked out, and you can insert it somewhere else.  Maybe you initially designed it for Level 2 characters, but they don’t encounter Bandits until Level 4.  No probs — just update your “Node”, make the Bandits a little tougher, or add more of them, or whatever, and in just a few minutes, you’ll have a ready-to-play Bandit Node, for Level 4 characters.

Same for the Castle guards. Same for ANYTHING YOU PLAN. If they don’t encounter it, keep it, and recycle it for later on. That way, node-by-node, your planning doesn’t go to waste. And also, whenever you’re stuck for material, you’ll have a backlog of Nodes that you’ve already created —— Unused rumours; un-met NPCs; Swamp encounters; Wandering monsters; traps — ANYTHING you create at one point in time, for one scenario, can be updated for a different adventure, different characters, at whatever level.  You just need to take the raw work you did in detail, and spend a few minutes tweaking it for the new scenario or the higher-level characters.

This is ESPECIALLY TRUE for “special encounters”. For e.g., if you created a lost adventurer for the Party to find in the Swamp, and they never encounter them, no problem; recycle that person for a future encounter.

Similarly with things like big, bad, rare monster encounters; once you’ve done the work of figuring out a really cool rare monster encounter, the Party very likely WON’T encounter them! (They are rare, after all….)  But you can move them forward into a future scenario.  Similarly with possible cool allies, like the Nymph or Unicorn encounters.  All you need is a tweak of their backstory and an update of the information or help they could provide that’s relevant to the Party.  Easy peasy.

Upgrading complex Nodes for higher-level characters

For complex encounters, like a “Castle Guards” node, these can be flexibly inserted into future adventure scenarios, even if the characters are higher level than when you originally planned it. 

For example, a simple Castle Guards node at Level 1, could be relevant to even 4th level characters who are spying on a castle or a stronghold. After all, guards are guards, and your average castle can’t afford to have a bunch of 5th level Fighters standing around guarding a gate.

But even if your players are 10th or 12th level, and you want to use the castle scenario, it’s easy to tweak it. Most grunt-level soldiers are going to be the same no matter what.  The difference at higher levels is that you’ll have some high-level back-up NPCs (like Assassins, or a Sorcerer, a Fighter Lord, with magic stuff that detects invisible people, glyphs of warding, etc.), who the soldiers can warn, or there might be more guards stationed at a particular check-point, etc.  There might be “Special Forces” inside the castle who come into play when the shit goes down (now you design a “Special Forces node”). But the overall structure of the “Castle Guards” scenario remains the same.

It doesn’t matter how complex you need to get.  Once you have the basics worked out, the maps drawn, etc., tweaking them takes very little time.

So save your Nodes.  And insert them whenever you feel they are relevant.

Now you know how to plan your plot! In short, you don’t. You plan Nodes.

As you build more Nodes, you become better able to handle just about any choice the characters make.

But still, there’s no way around planning. You have to plan for if they succeed, if they fail, if they live, if they die, if they avoid the fight, if they engage in the fight, if they find the clues you laid out AND if they don’t find the clues.

And back to the original question about a truly open world — what if the characters do something COMPLETELY out of your planning? Well, that’s the beauty of the game; you improvise. (Or call a snack break and furiously scribble some notes…)

Either way, the adventure continues!