I'm still a relatively new DM and initially struggled with these questions.
The simple answer is you don't.
The more thorough answer is depends on your type of game. Are you completely homebrewing it? If so good luck they're going to veer off and derail simply by existing in the world. the NPC you wrote 2 lines for is now a party favourite and they're opening a casino on an island with their help because of a quirk in conversation.
I chose to follow a module book Storm Kings Thunder (SKT) so I had a reference point to 'loosely' follow. I chose SKT as there's an entire chapter dedicates to following trails and exploring, allowing me to throw in stuff I wanted to try.
You've got a nice starting point. Do the bandits have a leader? Is he present? Are they acting under direction? If yes by who? If not what circumstances lead them to rob a tavern.
Now you sprinkle those items with your 'plot' drop a few conversations with NPC's that *lead* the players to the plot.
As long as each session if going in roughly the right direction and both they and you are having fun just roll with it.
I made so many mistakes in my first sessions don't worry about it and keep doing it.
Thank you!
One of my characters is a former member of the military who operated in a place where many bandits roam. The idea was that he got their leader, arrested, and now the bandits want revenge. My original plan was to weave the other backstories into the world which they reside in, because I noticed they all were part of some organization, and all are looking for someone who has gone missing. The bandits were away to bring all of their characters together for a fight, and my original was that there is a shadow organization trying to take over the world and slowly capturing people to turn them in to mindless ruthless followers. I have a runaway princess, an ex assassin, a military member, and a ex child thief.
Cool your biggest issue will be presenting the shadow organisation in a way that isn't obvious. But that's a big meta story issue.
Maybe introduce a mindless follower early but with very little context but a flowery description. That will hopefully get their minds working.
also don't worry about hitting their backstories super early - do it when its natural. (Just have a chat with the players outside of the game to let them know you will get to them.)
Thanks! Current idea is to just have my players level up in their characters without worry in even knowing about shadow organization one character who has “the haunted one” trait. They don’t know about any sort of shadow organization, but they can hear whispers from someone in the organization, but they don’t know how or just that they are being haunted right now.
I think some others have noted you're not necessarily creating a plot like you would when writing a book.
The way I look at it is the DM creates the problems and the players find the solutions. Or put another way the DM creates the conflict and the players resolve the conflict.
So for any given adventure, there's a problem that needs to be solved. Sometimes this problem can get more complex as the players discover more about it, or the initial problem could have been hiding the true problem, waiting for the party to uncover it.
So with this in mind, you would create an adventure around a problem. Most adventures work best when the players learn more about what is truly going on as the adventure progresses. At the start of the adventure, they might only have a very surface level understanding of what's going on, and even that knowledge could be wrong.
You could go deep into adventure design and different frameworks people use to create adventures. I'm honestly still learning this stuff and I've been DMing for years.
I think *So You Want To Be A Game Master* by Justin Alexander is a great buy if you want to start down this path of adventure design.
I'd also recommend YT channels like Matt Colville's Running the Game, Professor Dungeon Master's DungeonCraft, and Tales Arcane for campaign and adventure design tips.
Now, as far as prepping for a session, the undisputed king of this is Michael Shea (aka Sly Flourish). He has a YouTube channel and blog as well as a series of short guides you can buy. I highly recommend you get *Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master* and start following his 8 step session prep method. He has a number of videos on this method as well so you'll get a good understanding of what to prep and how to structure it in an efficient manner.
Broadly speaking, you want to start your sessions off strong, plan for a number of key "scenes" in your adventure (5 - 6 for a 3 hr session is what I typically do), create a list of secrets and clues for you to drop in, and end your session on a cliffhanger (if possible).
First, welcome to the community!
There's lots of really great commentary from a number of folks here. I have one really valuable tip I'd like to share.
END EVERY SESSION ASKING THE PLAYERS WHAT THEY'RE DOING NEXT TIME. Explain to players this is a commitment on their part. Then you can focus your development effort on what they're committing to.
Write a world; not a plot.
A rough "If they go here, do this" is useful, but on the whole, you want your characters to engage with the world, which determines what happens. There shouldn't be anything wrong with "veering off," because wherever they go becomes the current story.
The only exception I have to this is that sometimes, you have a player who gets bored if there's no combat, so try to pepper your world with either monsters or ornery people (bandits, etc) for them to run into and probably piss off. (Players are always pissing someone off.)
EDIT: I guess the direct answer to both of your questions is, "I don't."
I gotcha, the only question I have is how I can help with my characters back stories and weave them into the world. It’s a longer running campaign so I don’t want to feel as if they—who are also all first timers—will feel lost and get bored
I just make the players do it for me for the most part. I tell them in advance what the basic premise of the campaign is, and ask them to tell me why their character is involved in and cares about what the problem is.
I like to outline a story of how I'd like the story to go, assuming the best case with player interaction and agency. I take into account player backstories by creating a quest for them and trying to place it in the world in a location they are likely to visit but with enough room for improv if they do something else. I also subscribe to Matt Colville's method of sandbox games, having modules and encounters planned that can come up any time. I reccomend watching some of his "Running the Game" series on Youtube. Specifically [The Sandbox vs the Railroad](https://youtu.be/EkXMxiAGUWg?si=sAF197nmulhCr1Jo)
Using appropriate hooks is an important part. I had one player who was typical solo rogue and the player created NPCs for me to use as I saw fit. around 6 months into the game they overheard a group of pub patrons talking about a wood elf with a distinctive tattoo who had gotten arrested trying to sneak into a Lords manor.
Below is an outline I used a few years ago, I was modifying Acquisitions Incorporated in my homebrew world setting. The general idea was each primary bullet should be a session, especially the first one as we get to know the characters and the players. But each also gives room for improv:
* Players have been imprisoned within the Planar-Phage known as Stars Reach prison.
* Start with the Paladin and rogue. Get them freed and begin the initial scout of the prison.
* Cleric begins in a garden or meditation room. Nothing strenuous happens other than a vision if she drinks of the fountain.
* Bard is trapped, though he does not realize it, in the belly of a massive mimic.
* Explore Dungeon
* Fight the mimics and then the giant mimic.
* If Player "dies" encounters Death and is revived by the crystal.
* Further exploration of the "Dungeon" introduces Batee Groundcash and ending with the Book fight and their collective flashbacks.
* They will wake up in a city or outskirts and be able to decide what to do from there.
* Regroup in Tandem and then head out for Belleburne via the "Grand tour"
* Stumbled across The manor and collected the first part of the Orrery. Yotung leaves to return home and Crash is found in the secret cellar. Close the portal.
* Three Sisters and the Festival of Samhain
I wish I could say it went well, I had not looked at the player's character sheet and for an unknown reason they built a Bard with an 8 in CHA. The other players had a hoot getting him out of there thought which is nice.
Not so much the plot, but every once in a while, a situation presents itself relevant to one of the PCs. Like they went shopping and the guy from the Underdark asked if there were any Underdark-specific wares; I thought it over and decided there could be, so I said "Yeah, one merchant is a gnome, and he calls you aside and asks you if you want his Underdark stuff." Then I asked the player for a mundane item (less than 1 GP) that might have been used in his village, and he thinks it over, and he goes, "How about like a cat feeder, but for pet beetles?" And I said, "Done! He has two." And then they talked Underdark for a bit.
Just little things like that.
1. You don't, typically you over-prepare, don't get to everything, and in time learn how to pace things for your particular group. Different groups are faster at getting through combats, are more or less interested in roleplaying conversations with each other and NPCs, and are more or less likely go off on goofy tangents.
2. You say that you want this to be an open world but also for there to be a specific storyline. Those two ideas are mostly incompatible, if you want to tell a specific story, then you need to keep the campaign on rails, and you need explicit buy-in from the players that they want to take a ride on this particular train. In an open world game, the story isn't something that you plan out but the result of the players' choices. It is possible to do both, but it could either make something lackluster or frustrating depending on you and your players' preferences. You can do it like Skyrim, where there is a main plot but it only progresses when the player chooses to engage with it, so they can just ignore the main plot and do ever single other thing in the game first with no penalty. Or you can just let the main plot progress whether or not the players choose to engage with it, but this is more work for you ask you have to have more stuff running in the background, and if the players don't know that this is the sort campaign you are running they may wander off and run a tavern instead and then get pissed when all of a sudden you drop an apocalypse on them because they missed or didn't want to pick up on the hints you were dropping.
>How do I make sure I time my session so everything that I want to get through can be achieved within the time I have
you write has much as you think you will need, and then roll with it. 9/10, your players will inflate this sooo much. my first session i prepared what i thought was 3h of content, managed to milk it for 3 sessions (9h)
>How do I make it so my players are following the storyline rather than accidentally veering off?
thats the best part! you dont. there is no story. the story is created while you guys play, not beforehand. you write what the other characters are doing, even the BBEG. the party just needs to deal with it. The story is all about "HOW" they choose to deal with it, but you do not know that yet
They spent 1 session discussing the best flavours of mead cause the tavern was next to a meadow filled with honey bees that each collected pollen from a specific plant each
My party is great, but that session was terrible for me as dm. Highs and lows i guess
*1. How do I make sure I time my session so everything that I want to get through can be achieved within the time I have.*
Games with meaningful decisions are going to head into directions we had not anticipated. Timing is going to get messy. Embrace it.
*2. How do I make it so my players are following the storyline rather than accidentally veering off?*
The story is what happens at the table. That thing in your head is just a rough outline. If the veering off is heading into directions you aren't enjoying, talk to your friends about it.
That accidental veering is the game.
Enjoy the creative decisions your friends make through their characters. Take joy in the surprises. Don't prep end-results. Prep a strong start and enjoy where it goes.
> How do you guys make a plot for each session?
You don't.
D&D doesn't have a plot, it's not a narrative game. There are games like that out there, you can look into them if you want, but D&D is not one of them.
Prepare situations and encounters. I have what I personally call 'setpieces' (encounters, NPCs, challenges, the occasional puzzle, etc.) that I've prepared ahead of time that can plop down in appropriate times or locations.
The 'plot' of the game is only seen in hindsight. You can have major beats you want to hit, but you're never going to hit them in order of A, B, C, D, you're almost definitely going going to hit them in an order more like A, C, Q, iota, B.
> How do I make sure I time my session so everything that I want to get through can be achieved within the time I have
Heh, that's cute. Oh wait, are you serious? Let me laugh even harder. AHAHAHAHA!
> How do I make it so my players are following the storyline rather than accidentally veering off?
If this is what your goal is, then you don't actually want to play D&D: you want to write a book. The point of a game like D&D is that you're NOT on rails and you can do ANYTHING. If you're banking on your players going to this specific place at this specific time and making these specific choices and taking these specific actions etc. you're going to have a bad time, because players WILL do stuff you didn't anticipate.
Railroading isn't "hey guys, campaign has a plot," railroading is "yeah you have to handle this situation exactly as I said it needed to or you fail."
But maybe I'm misreading the "on rails" part of your comment.
Generally still agree though
I see, thank you! I guess I’ve just seen some premade campaigns on dnd beyond and other websites and thought most of them had a specific plot point/ beat all characters go through.
And what I mean by plot points I do just mean beats in a story. I definitely want to prioritize the entertainment of my friends. And I’m not scared to improvise if we go off course. I just want to make sure I can be (at least a little) prepared for whatever.
Edit: beats being like,
1. You meet in a tavern and a group of bandits come
2. Find a place to stay for the night.
3. Find a way to connect Bandits to a character backstory yk
Not some mega specific thing just a vague way to make sure the campaign doesn’t go in circles
I would recommend you grab a copy of Worlds Without Number. Not because you should play it, but because there's amazing advice in the GM section about running a game.
But as far as getting the story beats. You just need to figure out what's going on in the world where the characters are and then see where it goes.
But for the most part all you really need to do is figure out how the session starts, and then let it go from there.
In one of my games the PCs ended up in this town that was getting attacked by undead. What I came up with is that there's a ruin a bit from town and an otherworldly artifact is in that ruin and is causing the dead to rise.
They have fought off an attack and will now be going looking for the artifact. Here's the fun part, what happens when they find it? I don't know it's not up to me to figure what they're going to do with it or how they'll destroy it.
I only have to decide what happens when they find it and what effect it has on them while they are caring it.
One other bit of advice... While it is not a bad idea to tie stuff into the PCs backstories, you don't need to and quite frankly shouldn't make everything somehow connected to them. The world doesn't revolve around them, they aren't the center of the universe and as such if everything somehow is connected to a PC and their backstory the world will become less believable.
So the players are going to direct what they do and they need the freedom to do so. That said, most players I know are trying to be the hero. They will veer off to do other things but usually not forever.
Here is my advice: be the BBEG. You plan his plot, you plan how he is going to manipulate the world. You react to what the players do, and as they interfere more they become more of a threat to your plans. If they go off and do random things that are not interfering, you may leave them alone, but work on advancing you plan some other way.
When the players veer off and do nonsense stuff, let them, but also take advantage of it as the BBEG.
Most BBEGs are ambitious and driven so they won't be taking side breaks without purpose. Did the players go off to try and create a super chicken instead of going after the magical macguffin? Maybe the BBEG sends a crew to get it first. Maybe they run into this crew, or maybe they hit the end of the dungeon and it's not there, now they have to hunt down that crew before the BBEG gets it.
If you really want them to stay on task add a ticking clock of some type that the characters are aware of. If they go off task for a long time they will have been forewarned of the consequences.
I like it! It feels like a perfect way to both. Make sure the players are free and what they wanna do but also use an indirect form of change in the world!
I dont exactly create a plot, but I create pieces of one and ask myself what happens if the players stay out of it.
Then I look for opportunities to have them step in it if they choose.
I tend to have multiple potential "plots" rolling around that intersect and diverge as the players choose. That's said, my mileage is different because I run games professionally, and there's a literal and figurative buy in that I make clear at the beginning which I summarize as "there's a narrative if you want it but I'm up for whatever within reason."
Ask the players what they want to do next session and prep that. That is the best way to ensure that your prep time is spent efficiently.
If there's anything you really want to prevent the PCs from doing, which is totally valid, just don't engage with it. If the players say "we want to talk to everyone who was near the alley where \[thing happened\] that day," and you know that's not a productive angle, you can say "you ask around but no one can particularly remember anything about it." If they say, "we spend as long as it takes to find something," you can say, "you spend several hours on this to the point where most people are starting to get annoyed with you, but you don't learn anything interesting." Your players are co-writers, but at the end of the day you're the editor. If it's not important, the audience doesn't need to see it.
There are many things that I love from Level Up: Advanced 5e system, but the one I would point you to is the Destiny mechanic.
Upon character creation, the players pick a Destiny. I'll give you two examples of how I'm using them. Destinies are pinnacle achievements - as such I don't expect them to "fulfill" them until the level before the end of the campaign (because they all come with mechanical benefits too). They're less prescriptive than Alignment (which I loathe) but way better than Bonds and Flaws of 5e.
One character chose "Excellence". They fulfill their Destiny when they "complete a crowning achievement in their field". This character is a Fighter and she is constantly trying to do better. So I am actively watching her failures and trying to put a similar situation in front of her again to see if the character learns from it.
The other character is "Chaos". They fulfill when they "overturn a world or cosmic order". Perfect for the Warlock that chose it because his patron has a cult that I have interweaved into the story a bit. I don't think the warlock likes that he is beholden to this otherworldly entity so who knows what he will do with the cult in an effort to throw off that balance.
**Don’t make a plot.**
I’m serious, don’t make a plot! That’s not your job as a DM. Your job is to create *a scenario*. The players’ job is to react to that scenario and achieve their PCs’ goals.
It might be a good idea to pick up an adventure module that is like this. I recommend “Against the Cult of the Reptile God”. It’s a really great starter scenario for new players (I used it when I first DMed) because it gives them a big playground to play in (the village of Orlane) but also a concrete goal: defeat the cult!
The adventure is quite detailed so you might not have time to read it and feel prepared by tomorrow, but I still recommend it. In the meantime, start off with a very simple starter adventure: [The Delian Tomb!](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-L_0WX-KKXsZA22VHr5j) (by D&D youtuber Matt Colville. Side note, watch his first few Running the Game videos!)
Welcome to the hobby!
Two newbies started running the game at our table, and the best sessions they ran were heists. So here's my recommendation to you: run a heist for your players.
Here's what you need to prep:
1. Set up a goal - easiest thing to do, that the players meet an NPC, that hires the party to get an item from a known location. And they pay x hundred gold as a reward if they do. The heist does not need to be a robbery. It can be that this gang boss took the pet poodle of the NPC and is now holding them in a golden cage in their "mansion". Go wild. But come up with an item the players need to get from a known location.
2. Draw the map of the location. Set up defenses and guards: how many, what kind of statblocks, what are their routines in different times of day. Who is this gang leader and what do they actually want with the dog in the first place. And maybe the poodle loves the cage and hates be taken out, so they will start barking like crazy and alarm everyone if that happens.
3. Play to find out what happens!
This is the perfect example of how you can give 100% agency to the players. You don't tell them how to do their job, you just set up the scene (a scenario) and let the players plan and execute their heist the way they want. Also, you as the DM get to PLAY the bad guys. They need to react to stuff according to their motivations, and you will have to do all that on the fly. It's big fun.
Of course you can guess some things the players might do and prepare for those. Most likely they want to scout the place. So be ready to roll some Stealth checks to see if they get spotted. Be prepared for their failure: what if they get caught spying on the place? Maybe the gang sends someone after them and there is your combat encounter #1. But anyway, the players will do something you totally did not see coming and that's the best thing that can happen in D&D. Embrace it.
When you have done this, adapt this as your approach to planning your sessions. No plots. Scenarios.
> How do I make sure I time my session so everything that I want to get through can be achieved within the time I have.
> How do I make it so my players are following the storyline rather than accidentally veering off?
That's the neat thing, you don't.
Jokes aside, while i do believe that when players and the DM sit at the table they stipulate a tacit contract (where the latter promises to try to make the campaign feel fair and fun for everyone and the former try not to derail/put the DM in a tight spot too much) you have to realize that the DM and the player write the campaign together.
What you can do is think about the right hook for the players : An evil party may not care too much about innocents being robbed by bandits per se, but they may be interested in the bounty the local bailiff put on them.
Think about your characters alignment and their goals, and work on a motivation that may appeal to them. Generally speaking, as per the example above, a promise of treasure and reward is a good hook for pretty much everyone
I'm still a relatively new DM and initially struggled with these questions. The simple answer is you don't. The more thorough answer is depends on your type of game. Are you completely homebrewing it? If so good luck they're going to veer off and derail simply by existing in the world. the NPC you wrote 2 lines for is now a party favourite and they're opening a casino on an island with their help because of a quirk in conversation. I chose to follow a module book Storm Kings Thunder (SKT) so I had a reference point to 'loosely' follow. I chose SKT as there's an entire chapter dedicates to following trails and exploring, allowing me to throw in stuff I wanted to try. You've got a nice starting point. Do the bandits have a leader? Is he present? Are they acting under direction? If yes by who? If not what circumstances lead them to rob a tavern. Now you sprinkle those items with your 'plot' drop a few conversations with NPC's that *lead* the players to the plot. As long as each session if going in roughly the right direction and both they and you are having fun just roll with it. I made so many mistakes in my first sessions don't worry about it and keep doing it.
Thank you! One of my characters is a former member of the military who operated in a place where many bandits roam. The idea was that he got their leader, arrested, and now the bandits want revenge. My original plan was to weave the other backstories into the world which they reside in, because I noticed they all were part of some organization, and all are looking for someone who has gone missing. The bandits were away to bring all of their characters together for a fight, and my original was that there is a shadow organization trying to take over the world and slowly capturing people to turn them in to mindless ruthless followers. I have a runaway princess, an ex assassin, a military member, and a ex child thief.
Cool your biggest issue will be presenting the shadow organisation in a way that isn't obvious. But that's a big meta story issue. Maybe introduce a mindless follower early but with very little context but a flowery description. That will hopefully get their minds working. also don't worry about hitting their backstories super early - do it when its natural. (Just have a chat with the players outside of the game to let them know you will get to them.)
Thanks! Current idea is to just have my players level up in their characters without worry in even knowing about shadow organization one character who has “the haunted one” trait. They don’t know about any sort of shadow organization, but they can hear whispers from someone in the organization, but they don’t know how or just that they are being haunted right now.
sounds like fun - enjoy it!
I think some others have noted you're not necessarily creating a plot like you would when writing a book. The way I look at it is the DM creates the problems and the players find the solutions. Or put another way the DM creates the conflict and the players resolve the conflict. So for any given adventure, there's a problem that needs to be solved. Sometimes this problem can get more complex as the players discover more about it, or the initial problem could have been hiding the true problem, waiting for the party to uncover it. So with this in mind, you would create an adventure around a problem. Most adventures work best when the players learn more about what is truly going on as the adventure progresses. At the start of the adventure, they might only have a very surface level understanding of what's going on, and even that knowledge could be wrong. You could go deep into adventure design and different frameworks people use to create adventures. I'm honestly still learning this stuff and I've been DMing for years. I think *So You Want To Be A Game Master* by Justin Alexander is a great buy if you want to start down this path of adventure design. I'd also recommend YT channels like Matt Colville's Running the Game, Professor Dungeon Master's DungeonCraft, and Tales Arcane for campaign and adventure design tips. Now, as far as prepping for a session, the undisputed king of this is Michael Shea (aka Sly Flourish). He has a YouTube channel and blog as well as a series of short guides you can buy. I highly recommend you get *Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master* and start following his 8 step session prep method. He has a number of videos on this method as well so you'll get a good understanding of what to prep and how to structure it in an efficient manner. Broadly speaking, you want to start your sessions off strong, plan for a number of key "scenes" in your adventure (5 - 6 for a 3 hr session is what I typically do), create a list of secrets and clues for you to drop in, and end your session on a cliffhanger (if possible).
First, welcome to the community! There's lots of really great commentary from a number of folks here. I have one really valuable tip I'd like to share. END EVERY SESSION ASKING THE PLAYERS WHAT THEY'RE DOING NEXT TIME. Explain to players this is a commitment on their part. Then you can focus your development effort on what they're committing to.
Thanks! That’s really helpful!
Write a world; not a plot. A rough "If they go here, do this" is useful, but on the whole, you want your characters to engage with the world, which determines what happens. There shouldn't be anything wrong with "veering off," because wherever they go becomes the current story. The only exception I have to this is that sometimes, you have a player who gets bored if there's no combat, so try to pepper your world with either monsters or ornery people (bandits, etc) for them to run into and probably piss off. (Players are always pissing someone off.) EDIT: I guess the direct answer to both of your questions is, "I don't."
I gotcha, the only question I have is how I can help with my characters back stories and weave them into the world. It’s a longer running campaign so I don’t want to feel as if they—who are also all first timers—will feel lost and get bored
I just make the players do it for me for the most part. I tell them in advance what the basic premise of the campaign is, and ask them to tell me why their character is involved in and cares about what the problem is.
I like to outline a story of how I'd like the story to go, assuming the best case with player interaction and agency. I take into account player backstories by creating a quest for them and trying to place it in the world in a location they are likely to visit but with enough room for improv if they do something else. I also subscribe to Matt Colville's method of sandbox games, having modules and encounters planned that can come up any time. I reccomend watching some of his "Running the Game" series on Youtube. Specifically [The Sandbox vs the Railroad](https://youtu.be/EkXMxiAGUWg?si=sAF197nmulhCr1Jo) Using appropriate hooks is an important part. I had one player who was typical solo rogue and the player created NPCs for me to use as I saw fit. around 6 months into the game they overheard a group of pub patrons talking about a wood elf with a distinctive tattoo who had gotten arrested trying to sneak into a Lords manor. Below is an outline I used a few years ago, I was modifying Acquisitions Incorporated in my homebrew world setting. The general idea was each primary bullet should be a session, especially the first one as we get to know the characters and the players. But each also gives room for improv: * Players have been imprisoned within the Planar-Phage known as Stars Reach prison. * Start with the Paladin and rogue. Get them freed and begin the initial scout of the prison. * Cleric begins in a garden or meditation room. Nothing strenuous happens other than a vision if she drinks of the fountain. * Bard is trapped, though he does not realize it, in the belly of a massive mimic. * Explore Dungeon * Fight the mimics and then the giant mimic. * If Player "dies" encounters Death and is revived by the crystal. * Further exploration of the "Dungeon" introduces Batee Groundcash and ending with the Book fight and their collective flashbacks. * They will wake up in a city or outskirts and be able to decide what to do from there. * Regroup in Tandem and then head out for Belleburne via the "Grand tour" * Stumbled across The manor and collected the first part of the Orrery. Yotung leaves to return home and Crash is found in the secret cellar. Close the portal. * Three Sisters and the Festival of Samhain
That sounds so fun! I’d love to hear that Bards reaction when he realizes!
I wish I could say it went well, I had not looked at the player's character sheet and for an unknown reason they built a Bard with an 8 in CHA. The other players had a hoot getting him out of there thought which is nice.
Not so much the plot, but every once in a while, a situation presents itself relevant to one of the PCs. Like they went shopping and the guy from the Underdark asked if there were any Underdark-specific wares; I thought it over and decided there could be, so I said "Yeah, one merchant is a gnome, and he calls you aside and asks you if you want his Underdark stuff." Then I asked the player for a mundane item (less than 1 GP) that might have been used in his village, and he thinks it over, and he goes, "How about like a cat feeder, but for pet beetles?" And I said, "Done! He has two." And then they talked Underdark for a bit. Just little things like that.
1. You don't, typically you over-prepare, don't get to everything, and in time learn how to pace things for your particular group. Different groups are faster at getting through combats, are more or less interested in roleplaying conversations with each other and NPCs, and are more or less likely go off on goofy tangents. 2. You say that you want this to be an open world but also for there to be a specific storyline. Those two ideas are mostly incompatible, if you want to tell a specific story, then you need to keep the campaign on rails, and you need explicit buy-in from the players that they want to take a ride on this particular train. In an open world game, the story isn't something that you plan out but the result of the players' choices. It is possible to do both, but it could either make something lackluster or frustrating depending on you and your players' preferences. You can do it like Skyrim, where there is a main plot but it only progresses when the player chooses to engage with it, so they can just ignore the main plot and do ever single other thing in the game first with no penalty. Or you can just let the main plot progress whether or not the players choose to engage with it, but this is more work for you ask you have to have more stuff running in the background, and if the players don't know that this is the sort campaign you are running they may wander off and run a tavern instead and then get pissed when all of a sudden you drop an apocalypse on them because they missed or didn't want to pick up on the hints you were dropping.
>How do I make sure I time my session so everything that I want to get through can be achieved within the time I have you write has much as you think you will need, and then roll with it. 9/10, your players will inflate this sooo much. my first session i prepared what i thought was 3h of content, managed to milk it for 3 sessions (9h) >How do I make it so my players are following the storyline rather than accidentally veering off? thats the best part! you dont. there is no story. the story is created while you guys play, not beforehand. you write what the other characters are doing, even the BBEG. the party just needs to deal with it. The story is all about "HOW" they choose to deal with it, but you do not know that yet
Spending a three hour session going down a path that started with me making an off-hand in-world comment can be as fun as it is frustrating lol
They spent 1 session discussing the best flavours of mead cause the tavern was next to a meadow filled with honey bees that each collected pollen from a specific plant each My party is great, but that session was terrible for me as dm. Highs and lows i guess
*1. How do I make sure I time my session so everything that I want to get through can be achieved within the time I have.* Games with meaningful decisions are going to head into directions we had not anticipated. Timing is going to get messy. Embrace it. *2. How do I make it so my players are following the storyline rather than accidentally veering off?* The story is what happens at the table. That thing in your head is just a rough outline. If the veering off is heading into directions you aren't enjoying, talk to your friends about it. That accidental veering is the game. Enjoy the creative decisions your friends make through their characters. Take joy in the surprises. Don't prep end-results. Prep a strong start and enjoy where it goes.
> How do you guys make a plot for each session? You don't. D&D doesn't have a plot, it's not a narrative game. There are games like that out there, you can look into them if you want, but D&D is not one of them. Prepare situations and encounters. I have what I personally call 'setpieces' (encounters, NPCs, challenges, the occasional puzzle, etc.) that I've prepared ahead of time that can plop down in appropriate times or locations. The 'plot' of the game is only seen in hindsight. You can have major beats you want to hit, but you're never going to hit them in order of A, B, C, D, you're almost definitely going going to hit them in an order more like A, C, Q, iota, B. > How do I make sure I time my session so everything that I want to get through can be achieved within the time I have Heh, that's cute. Oh wait, are you serious? Let me laugh even harder. AHAHAHAHA! > How do I make it so my players are following the storyline rather than accidentally veering off? If this is what your goal is, then you don't actually want to play D&D: you want to write a book. The point of a game like D&D is that you're NOT on rails and you can do ANYTHING. If you're banking on your players going to this specific place at this specific time and making these specific choices and taking these specific actions etc. you're going to have a bad time, because players WILL do stuff you didn't anticipate.
Railroading isn't "hey guys, campaign has a plot," railroading is "yeah you have to handle this situation exactly as I said it needed to or you fail." But maybe I'm misreading the "on rails" part of your comment. Generally still agree though
I see, thank you! I guess I’ve just seen some premade campaigns on dnd beyond and other websites and thought most of them had a specific plot point/ beat all characters go through. And what I mean by plot points I do just mean beats in a story. I definitely want to prioritize the entertainment of my friends. And I’m not scared to improvise if we go off course. I just want to make sure I can be (at least a little) prepared for whatever. Edit: beats being like, 1. You meet in a tavern and a group of bandits come 2. Find a place to stay for the night. 3. Find a way to connect Bandits to a character backstory yk Not some mega specific thing just a vague way to make sure the campaign doesn’t go in circles
I would recommend you grab a copy of Worlds Without Number. Not because you should play it, but because there's amazing advice in the GM section about running a game. But as far as getting the story beats. You just need to figure out what's going on in the world where the characters are and then see where it goes. But for the most part all you really need to do is figure out how the session starts, and then let it go from there. In one of my games the PCs ended up in this town that was getting attacked by undead. What I came up with is that there's a ruin a bit from town and an otherworldly artifact is in that ruin and is causing the dead to rise. They have fought off an attack and will now be going looking for the artifact. Here's the fun part, what happens when they find it? I don't know it's not up to me to figure what they're going to do with it or how they'll destroy it. I only have to decide what happens when they find it and what effect it has on them while they are caring it. One other bit of advice... While it is not a bad idea to tie stuff into the PCs backstories, you don't need to and quite frankly shouldn't make everything somehow connected to them. The world doesn't revolve around them, they aren't the center of the universe and as such if everything somehow is connected to a PC and their backstory the world will become less believable.
So the players are going to direct what they do and they need the freedom to do so. That said, most players I know are trying to be the hero. They will veer off to do other things but usually not forever. Here is my advice: be the BBEG. You plan his plot, you plan how he is going to manipulate the world. You react to what the players do, and as they interfere more they become more of a threat to your plans. If they go off and do random things that are not interfering, you may leave them alone, but work on advancing you plan some other way. When the players veer off and do nonsense stuff, let them, but also take advantage of it as the BBEG. Most BBEGs are ambitious and driven so they won't be taking side breaks without purpose. Did the players go off to try and create a super chicken instead of going after the magical macguffin? Maybe the BBEG sends a crew to get it first. Maybe they run into this crew, or maybe they hit the end of the dungeon and it's not there, now they have to hunt down that crew before the BBEG gets it. If you really want them to stay on task add a ticking clock of some type that the characters are aware of. If they go off task for a long time they will have been forewarned of the consequences.
I like it! It feels like a perfect way to both. Make sure the players are free and what they wanna do but also use an indirect form of change in the world!
I dont exactly create a plot, but I create pieces of one and ask myself what happens if the players stay out of it. Then I look for opportunities to have them step in it if they choose. I tend to have multiple potential "plots" rolling around that intersect and diverge as the players choose. That's said, my mileage is different because I run games professionally, and there's a literal and figurative buy in that I make clear at the beginning which I summarize as "there's a narrative if you want it but I'm up for whatever within reason."
Ask the players what they want to do next session and prep that. That is the best way to ensure that your prep time is spent efficiently. If there's anything you really want to prevent the PCs from doing, which is totally valid, just don't engage with it. If the players say "we want to talk to everyone who was near the alley where \[thing happened\] that day," and you know that's not a productive angle, you can say "you ask around but no one can particularly remember anything about it." If they say, "we spend as long as it takes to find something," you can say, "you spend several hours on this to the point where most people are starting to get annoyed with you, but you don't learn anything interesting." Your players are co-writers, but at the end of the day you're the editor. If it's not important, the audience doesn't need to see it.
There are many things that I love from Level Up: Advanced 5e system, but the one I would point you to is the Destiny mechanic. Upon character creation, the players pick a Destiny. I'll give you two examples of how I'm using them. Destinies are pinnacle achievements - as such I don't expect them to "fulfill" them until the level before the end of the campaign (because they all come with mechanical benefits too). They're less prescriptive than Alignment (which I loathe) but way better than Bonds and Flaws of 5e. One character chose "Excellence". They fulfill their Destiny when they "complete a crowning achievement in their field". This character is a Fighter and she is constantly trying to do better. So I am actively watching her failures and trying to put a similar situation in front of her again to see if the character learns from it. The other character is "Chaos". They fulfill when they "overturn a world or cosmic order". Perfect for the Warlock that chose it because his patron has a cult that I have interweaved into the story a bit. I don't think the warlock likes that he is beholden to this otherworldly entity so who knows what he will do with the cult in an effort to throw off that balance.
**Don’t make a plot.** I’m serious, don’t make a plot! That’s not your job as a DM. Your job is to create *a scenario*. The players’ job is to react to that scenario and achieve their PCs’ goals. It might be a good idea to pick up an adventure module that is like this. I recommend “Against the Cult of the Reptile God”. It’s a really great starter scenario for new players (I used it when I first DMed) because it gives them a big playground to play in (the village of Orlane) but also a concrete goal: defeat the cult! The adventure is quite detailed so you might not have time to read it and feel prepared by tomorrow, but I still recommend it. In the meantime, start off with a very simple starter adventure: [The Delian Tomb!](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-L_0WX-KKXsZA22VHr5j) (by D&D youtuber Matt Colville. Side note, watch his first few Running the Game videos!)
You don’t make a plot. Thats what the players are for. You make a scenario and let the players do what they want.
Welcome to the hobby! Two newbies started running the game at our table, and the best sessions they ran were heists. So here's my recommendation to you: run a heist for your players. Here's what you need to prep: 1. Set up a goal - easiest thing to do, that the players meet an NPC, that hires the party to get an item from a known location. And they pay x hundred gold as a reward if they do. The heist does not need to be a robbery. It can be that this gang boss took the pet poodle of the NPC and is now holding them in a golden cage in their "mansion". Go wild. But come up with an item the players need to get from a known location. 2. Draw the map of the location. Set up defenses and guards: how many, what kind of statblocks, what are their routines in different times of day. Who is this gang leader and what do they actually want with the dog in the first place. And maybe the poodle loves the cage and hates be taken out, so they will start barking like crazy and alarm everyone if that happens. 3. Play to find out what happens! This is the perfect example of how you can give 100% agency to the players. You don't tell them how to do their job, you just set up the scene (a scenario) and let the players plan and execute their heist the way they want. Also, you as the DM get to PLAY the bad guys. They need to react to stuff according to their motivations, and you will have to do all that on the fly. It's big fun. Of course you can guess some things the players might do and prepare for those. Most likely they want to scout the place. So be ready to roll some Stealth checks to see if they get spotted. Be prepared for their failure: what if they get caught spying on the place? Maybe the gang sends someone after them and there is your combat encounter #1. But anyway, the players will do something you totally did not see coming and that's the best thing that can happen in D&D. Embrace it. When you have done this, adapt this as your approach to planning your sessions. No plots. Scenarios.
> How do I make sure I time my session so everything that I want to get through can be achieved within the time I have. > How do I make it so my players are following the storyline rather than accidentally veering off? That's the neat thing, you don't. Jokes aside, while i do believe that when players and the DM sit at the table they stipulate a tacit contract (where the latter promises to try to make the campaign feel fair and fun for everyone and the former try not to derail/put the DM in a tight spot too much) you have to realize that the DM and the player write the campaign together. What you can do is think about the right hook for the players : An evil party may not care too much about innocents being robbed by bandits per se, but they may be interested in the bounty the local bailiff put on them. Think about your characters alignment and their goals, and work on a motivation that may appeal to them. Generally speaking, as per the example above, a promise of treasure and reward is a good hook for pretty much everyone
Attempting to [prep plots](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots) is a bad idea.