That Guy with the dice's thoughts on DMing subjects

Hi everyone, I wanted to thank everyone for giving me the opportunity to do this, and I wanted everyone
to know I printed out my script for this little lesson/workshop so everyone can keep the things I'm going
to talk about at hand while they come up with their own campaigns. However, I have a couple
disclaimers.

First, I'm not going to talk about encounter design, creating fun and challenging combat encounters or
anything that has to do with game mechanics, and the reason why is because there are plenty of people
online who do a much better job at giving advice about that then I ever will. This may surprise you, but I
actually don't consider myself as great a DM as some people do because, as I've said before, I'm REALLY
REALLY BAD at that part of the job. I'm here to specifically talk about those harder to define things that
turn someone from a decent GM into the kind whos friends constantly ask him to run games because his
campaigns are really fun. The parts of the job that seem to get glossed over in favor of either wanting to
write and tell a story or wanting to design and run a game. Neither of those things, in my opinion, are
anywhere NEAR as important as what I'm about to talk about if you want to be the kind of GM people
really like, and worrying to much about either of those things as opposed to what I'm about to tell you
will actually make the job a lot less fun for you too.

Second, There are many moments during this where I may repeat myself for emphasis. If I do, consider it
just that important to remember.

Third, I want to cover my ass a little bit. The first four things I'm going to talk about are about common
mistakes that I think hamstring games. The overarching law of excellent DMing and the three great laws
of player-first design. However, I want to make it clear that every mistake on this list is INCREDIBLY
COMMON, especially with newer GMs, and even the best GMs end up utilizing some of the things on
this list that I'm pretty adamant about trying not to do, for the sake of the game. GMing is an art, not a
science, and it's art that can be pretty difficult. Believe me, I know, I'm not calling anyone out. Sometimes
you may find yourself in a situation where giving people a little nudge can help keep the game moving,
or when you have to be a killjoy and kind of lay down the law, and these mistakes are very common ways
to do that. The simple reason why is breaking these rules is the easiest way to keep things moving. I'm
not standing up here saying I never do these things, and that you can never do them. I'm here to present
ways that, while not as easy as these mistakes, make your game way more engaging for both yourself
and the players, and, with the right amount of player help and a bit of foresight, can actually be way
more easy than trying to maintain an iron grip on the game.

Just assume that any rule I bring up is something that you should not plan to do in your game. It's very
likely that You WILL END UP DOING SO EVENTUALLY, but they shouldn't be things you plan to do, they
should be last resorts for a story that needs a hard push in the right direction, and shouldn't be done
very often. If you have consistantly need to do one or more every session, you need to reassess what
isn't working, especially if it happens at the cost of player enjoyment.

Got it? Good.

I'm going to contextualize the unique challenges of DMing in a very simple way. A lot of DM guides like to
compare the job to that of a director or an author, but I think that's actually the worst way to think about
being a DM. I want you to imagine directing a movie, or writing a book where you have literally no say
over how the main characters act. Instead, you have to turn to someone and ask them what the
character is going to do in this situation. Telling a true story sounds nearly impossible under that
condition, right? It's not, but it requires you to accept that you're not as in charge as a lot of guides like
to make you sound. Your role is closer to that of the narrator of the story, and if you think of yourself in
such a way, the conditions of the job become clearer. Most of the time, the DM is reacting to what the
players do just as much as the players react to the info the DM gives them.

With that note, I need to tell you the one truly hard truth about being a DM. We're a creative bunch, we
like being creative and being a DM requires a lot of creativity. However, it comes with a hard pill to
swallow, your creativty can and often will be completely lost on the players, especially in regards to
things you create for own satisfaction instead of theirs, and you really just need to accept that. Forcing
things your players don't respond to into the game for the sake of your own vision of what your story,
world or characters is something that is very rarely worth it. That's not me saying don't create NPCs you
really like, or world details that have nothing to do with your players or go on over their heads; very few
player characters will ever understand the politics of their world every second of every day. On the
contrary, such things ensure that you are creatively fulfilled and you have a huge amount of options to
utilize when you inevitably have to improvise.

You just need to understand that Every decision you make needs to ensure that your players are engaged
first, and everything else second. Your amazingly detailed world with tons of history behind it, your
beautiful story about the power of friendship and the consequences of loss, your carefully constructed
plot full of twists and turns, and ESPECIALLY those NPCs you worked so hard on making interesting? All of
those things vastly less important than just ensuring your story is engaging to the players, and the easiest
way to keep a story interesting is to have all those things take a backseat to the players and their actions.
As I said, you can and should still DO all those things, but if you want them to matter, you'll have to
compromise by keeping characters you have no control over in the spotlight at all times and finding ways
to get them interested in such things. You'll have to learn to deal with, and even embrace, the chaos
having no control over your protagonists can create, and you'll have to accept that your NPCs, even if
they are really interesting, aren't allowed in the spotlight unless they are a villain because that takes fun
away from your players.

Sounds hard right? The thing no guide will tell you, though, is it's really not as hard as it sounds. The big
trick is the overarching law to being a good DM, and if you can get this one trick down, you're already a
cut above most DMs.

The overarching law: KEEP THINGS INTERACTIVE. Keeping this one rule in mind makes the game
experience much more interesting for all of the players, even when you're describing the world, and can
go a long way to alliviating all the mistakes that you will inevitably make. I make mistakes all the time,
but I think this is the big thing that makes sure people keep asking me to run games. This is the kind of
thing I do when I point to a player and ask about a detail in the world or have a small skit where every
player gets to be a different character for a bit. Finding interesting ways to engage your players turn what
would ordinarily be an exposition heavy DM monologue into an interactive bit of worldbuilding. You
need to remember that you are not writing a story so much as guiding one. This is not YOUR Story, this is
the entire groups story, and you should keep the player characters AND The players at the center of it.
Everything else, NPCs, planned story points, worldbuilding, anything else you can think is, should be
second to players and player characters in that order.

This may sound a bit odd, as it's putting your world and even whole NPCs in the hands of players who
may not follow your image of what your world or your NPCs should be. However, I firmly believe that
holding onto control of such things is REALLY OVERRATED. Not only is trying to control everything more
trouble than it's worth, since total control of an RPG is already impossible, but it's vastly less fun then
occasionally giving the players free reign over how your world behaves or how your story advances They
may come up with interesting ideas or scenarios that you didn't consider but sound more fun than what
you intially had planned. Don't be protective of what YOU want to do, figure out what EVERYONE wants
to do. If your players are interested in something, it's the way to go nine times out of ten, and you should
always think of your players before anything else when it comes to the campaign you want to run.

I like to call this "player first" storytelling, and as far as I'm concerned, Player First storytelling has
three great rules that ensure your players have as much fun as possible. Again, covering my ass, all of
these rules may occasionally be broken for some reason or another, but as long as you plan to follow
them at all times, you're should be okay for the rare situation you have to break them.

The Three great rules of player first storytelling

1. Your players and their creations are the main characters of the game and should be treated as such.
They don't have to be (and usually shouldn't be) unique, but they should be special.

Player characters belong on the top of whatever the overacting power structure in your game
world is, even though they are currently on the low end of that power level. D&D makes it a point to
mention that the PC class "fighter" is already a much more elite warrior than your average soldier, even
at first level. If this isn't the case in whatever world you are building, you need to change some things
about that world to make this more acceptable within it or seriously consider the kind of tone you want
in your game. Unless a player specifically says something like "I want to play an average joe" put them as
potential peers with the a-listers of your world's power structure.

If they are students at a magical academy, they should be beginners who can excel if they put
the work into learning magic, particularly in whatever they are specialized in. If they are superhumans in
the X-men universe, they should be Alpha or Omega class learning to use their incredible powers (to use
x-men terminology) and older metahumans should comment on them being unusually powerful. If they
are an adventuring group, they should be an exceptional one that becomes famous during their travels.
Unless you're running a game set in a world specifically designed to be more realistic and depressing,
there is no excuse for breaking this rule unless a player specifically wants to. Such worlds, for the record,
include things like Game of Thrones, Call of Cthulhu and Legend of the Five Rings.
 This rule also has an inverse that is just as important. NPCs are NOT the main characters of the
game and should NEVER be treated as such. As a general rule, no NPC should ever appear to be as
important to the main stories of the campaign as the main characters, except for those placed in a
deliberately antagonistic position, since they are the ones who put the story in motion more often than
not. In a school setting, the PCs fellow students should be peers, but not superiors, especially not if they
put genuine effort into being the best. If they encounter a fellow superhuman who isn't a mentor or a
powerful villain, they should be able to beat this person in a fair fight one on one. If they encounter
another adventuring party, it should be of equivalent power. The way I like to phrase it is "An NPC should
never be the Harry, Ron or Hermione of your setting." If there is an NPC who has some very unique
ability that the PCs (and most people in your setting) don't have, make sure he has weaknesses and flaws
to counterbalance this that are severe enough that he doesn't outshine them. Ever.

I really want to emphasize just how important this one part of the rule is because I've seen this
so many times from so many different DMs, even ones who have run quite a few games, and it really is
one of the biggest enjoyment killers players can experience. This is one of the most common mistakes in
worldbuilding or creating an encounter, it's one of the easiest to avoid, and it's one of the most
unacceptable. If an NPC outshines a player character, especially if the world seems tilted to favor this
person in a mechanically unfair way, then the player characters inevitably end up having negative
feelings towards that character. Unless you actually WANT to have the player characters to hate that
NPC, do not create NPCs who can effortlessly outshine the player characters, and especially do not put
player characters in situations where the solution is that the NPC needs to save their ass.

Again, though, I'm sure you guys can think of situations where I may have pulled something like
this to get the story on track, because it's an easy way to do so. Just to give you an idea of how common
this issue is, even the mainstream video game industry really, REALLY struggles with it. In a lot of video
games, the main character of the story is an observer while NPCs do all of the most important work,
because it's way easier to plan the actions of programmed NPCs than that of another thinking being. I
can think of numerous game stories right off the top of my head that, if you were to write a synopsis of
them, could recount the actions of every character in the story except the player without really losing
anything. I understand why this happens in roleplaying games to, and it can be hard for some GMs to
avoid doing since NPCs are the easiest thing to control in game and the easiest thing to base a story
around, but it's important enough to reiterate; No NPC will ever be more important to a PC than their
own character, and no NPC should ever be allowed to be more of a story focus than the PCs. An NPC that
the players help create in their backstory will mean more to them than any NPC that you create on your
own without a lot of luck, and it's best to just kind of accept that unless something happens to make that
NPC a player favorite. Always always ALWAYS keep your players in the spotlight of your story, and always
make sure the story needs THEM to resolve the adventure. They shouldn't ever have to ask an NPC to
resolve a situation for them, because even if it makes sense in context, it creates a profound anticlimax.
Specifically pointing this towards Will and Skyler, this was one of the biggest reasons I was really
unsatisfied with how I handled in defense of innocence. The best bit of DMing advice I ever got from a
book was "The players would rather defeat a young dragon by themselves then a great wyrm with help."

2. Failure without a fair chance is utterly unacceptable unless the players are given fair warning
and the situation is extreme enough to warrant it, such as a moment where the players have to run from
a dragon or die horribly. Even it that situation, they should have some kind of tipoff. Example tipoffs
would be "The whole building ignites and the players aren't fireproof" or "The PCs run across a random
prisoner who gets eaten by the monster they need to run from." It is particularly unacceptable when
used to build up NPCs who aren't villains, for reasons I just spent quite a bit of time harping on.

There is a phrase that is used often in roleplaying games, one used with the same kind of vitriol
usually used to call someone a "motherfucker". That phrase is "Killer DM." These DMs make it a point to
create difficult situations to try and kill as many characters as possible, usually by contriving impossible
deathtraps or ambushes. The reason why I bring this up is if you're designing any situation in which the
player characters are guarenteed to fail, then you are using the same logic as a killer DM, and just
because you're not killing them with it doesnt mean it's any more acceptable. Such behavior from the
DM is the most drastic example of behavior that sacrifices player enjoyment for DM creativity, but it
often shows shows up in subtler ways, with better intentions.

As an example of a subtler form of Killer DMing, Another very common thing to do, and I really
mean that, I have lost track of how many times I have seen this, is that early on in campaigns,
particularly those set in settings with mentor characters, like hogwarts or a military academy, a common
plot point is to have the players go up against something they can't beat. DM's often set up intentional
failure to prepare their players for the possibility of failure, or to impart a lesson in teamwork or creative
thinking, but it's the wrong way to handle this kind of situation. This point extends to player favorite
NPCs as well; if your plot relies on a particular character loosing someone or something they care about,
they should definitely get a FAIR chance to save that something or someone, whether it be a side job
they happen to care a lot about, or a love interest, or a family member. Outside of the fact that no DM
should ever define their story to a degree where success OR failure is an inevitability (more on that later)
this method of doing it is not acceptable because failure needs to be organic in order to have meaning,
and there aren't a whole lot of ways to fake that meaning. Players can detect when dice rolls don't have
a real outcome on the situation really well, it's not hard.

Take the excellent recent film Avengers: Infinity War (Spoiler Alert). There were two fantastic
examples of two characters, Star Lord and Thor, failing in extremely drastic ways in that movie, but they
happened because the characters made poor, reckless, or irresponsible choices. The entirety of existence
suffered because of those failures, and what makes it impactful is that these failures would have been
entirely avoidable if those characters had made different choices. You should have gone for the head...

Taking a contrasting recent moment from the same film as an example of what NOT to do in a
roleplaying game, there's a moment early on where hulk has Thanos up against the wall, but despite the
hulk's strength being established as enough to stop a giant flying sky whale mid-dive by punching it so
hard its spine telescopes, apparently he can't do any damage to him because thanos is just that badass.
Thanos is unfazed by the hit, reacts with a lack of interest, and instantly pancakes hulk. That's the kind of
situation you should really try to avoid even WITH villains in a roleplaying game setting, and should
NEVER EVER use for an NPC encounter, because it removes a player's agency from the situation in favor
of building someone else up. In particular, it does so by invalidating something the character was really
really god at, IE smashing. If the PCs are in a fight with someone, especially if it's a training fight, they
must have a decently fair chance of actually beating their opponent. Nobody likes getting squashed
unfairly, and even if that's the point of the encounter, or exists to teach a lesson, it's not fun for the
players and a DM should try and find a more organic way of getting that information across.

On a similar note, there is a common tendency to invalidate someone's capabilities in order to

create challenging encounters especially in a high power game. IE, if someone learns fireball, the DM will
throw fire-resistant foes at them. If someone has absurd strength, a DM intimidated by that may
constantly use enfeeblement spells and effects to level the playing field. I generally don't consider such
moments to be acceptable except on very rare occasions. You shouldn't have to take away a player
characters tricks to have tricks of your own. Try and create interesting encounters around such
capabilities, don't invalidate them.

The appealing thing about roleplaying games, and the difficult thing about running them, is that
the choices are functionally infinite, limited only by what makes sense in the game, and all of them have
the potential to matter somehow. However, if no matter what the characters do they are destined to fail,
then there are really no choices that matter in the situation, which isn't enjoyable. The inverse is kinda
true here, as well; Just as the forgone conclusion of failure isn't enjoyable, a forgone conclusion of
success isn't rewarding. However, I don't consider the latter a commandment because if the players have
been having a run of bad luck, it may be nice to throw them a bone to keep morale up and keep the
story moving. After all, they are the main characters, It's generally a good idea to let the PCs flex their
muscles if stupid thugs decide to pick a fight with people they obviously aren't qualified against, or to let
the brilliant rogue steal something with relative ease if it's not THAT important to how the adventure
turns out. You want to be on your players side to some degree, and you should definitely err in favor of
the players at least a little bit when it comes to running the game. Believe me when I say it's better for
your characters to succeed too much than fail too much. Which will lead me nicely to my third rule.

3. Character choices should be respected, even if they are making what the DM considers the
wrong ones.

I used to call this the "no means no" rule because this involves the DM pushing his players to
accept things, whether through NPCs or out-of-character chatter, to do something when the character
AND the player really didn't want to do so, but I stopped after realizing that it's just common to run into
situations where the player insists on doing something, as opposed to not doing something. It can be a
simple as responding to a situation that would start a fight with "are you sure?" or giving a warning the
character would not possibly have in game when they are walking towards a trap. So I started calling this
the "Yes I'm sure" rule, because that can apply to either situation.

If you force a player to do something, you should give them some kind of reward in game to do
so, and the reward should be fairly significant. If a player is pressured by a teacher to help a classmate do
better in class, for instance, they should be offered a lot of extra credit. If a mayor wants to players to do
something on her behalf that they may not have a lot of personal investment in, there should be
substantial social and economic rewards for them doing so. However, if players in these situations say
"No", or more importantly and more likely, don't appear interested and don't want to do that, you
should respect their wishes and find something else for them to do without making them feel bad about
it.

As I mentioned only a moment go, the most appealing thing about roleplaying games is that
choices are functionally infinite, but it's impossible for the DM to plan for infinite choices. For this
reason, a lot of DMs tend to try to funnel players towards a particular situation inorganically. Sometimes
this can work, like if the players have been arrested or have economic incentive to do so, but it's worth
not overusing that old addage of the carrot and the stick. Out of all of these rules, this one is easily the
hardest to follow. I break it, you'll break it, everybody breaks it. It's especially easy to break when you
put it in context with the first two rules... how can I tell any kind of story at all if I have literally no control
over the main characters of the story, and can't even choose the defined points when the characters
succeed and fail? The story needs to have SOME kind of structure, right?

As a specific mention for this particular group, I know at least two people here are actually using
school settings, which have a built in chain of command and NPCs who can actually tell the PCs what to
do. This gives you a little more leway with this rule, but it's best not to rely on teacher authority to push
the stories where you want it to go, and in fact, it's best to assume that your players won't really give a
shit. Remember, basically every Harry Potter book involved harry doing things he wasn't supposed to do.

That Guy with the Dice's rules for planning an adventure.

This list comes with a big fat disclaimer that it is not written primarily with dungeons in mind. In
roleplaying parlance, a dungeon is a controlled area with easily defineable rooms where it's much easier
to control the pace of the game, because all you need to do is map out the dungeon and figure out what
happens where, and from there it's much easier to control the pace of the game. This document is for
the harder parts of DMing, dealing with trickier subjects like engaging worldbuilding, downtime and
building stories that work in a way that works for RPGs, and it's geared specficially towards groups who
would rather have engaging RPG experiences, rather than just play games.

1. Plan what needs to happen, not how it happens. I'm sure you all have begun to realize this by now,
especially if you've run any game in the past, but no well crafted, well paced story ever survives
encounter with the players. If you internalize one lesson, make it this, because a lot of my other advice
points are on ways to make this less of a problem. The way I build encounters is I have a few different
ideas on how an encounter might move the story forward, a whole bunch of ideas on WHERE the
encounter might happen, and how it may happen in respective locations, but I never assume one of
them will happen. I just write what I consider the most likely scenarios.

Just to put it in perspective, I had four different ideas on how our D&D party would be put into Melora's
employ. Someone would meet with Henrick about payment or, in Skyler's case, the black powder recipe
Adri knew Henrick had, and he'd ask them to accompany him to a deal, which went south. If someone
tracked down black astrid, she would tell them what she saw which would hopefully convince the party
to get involved. If grim and Vaara focused on finding her pouch, Grim would have found one of the
hobgoblins trading with Henrick had actually stole it. If nothing else, Mishann was just going to stumble
into the trade while wandering alone, or the guards could arrest you after a period of time had passed.
As you all know, none of those things happened and we ended up in the charm-off, which was obviously
going to be more fun than anything I came up with because it had player interest, so that is what I ended
up going with.

A good trick is to figure out what will happen if the players don't get involved, just in case they don't end
up finding their way to the event in question, which is always a possiblity. It's generally not a good idea
to punish them too hard if they don't, as well. Don't punish them for something neither they or their
characters knew needed to happen.

2. How to scale difficulty in a fair way relative to your setting. I really only have two rules here; If
something would require a threshold that's so high that your player characters have no chance of
succeeding at it, you should probably take another look at that scenario and rebalance it or take it out
alltogether. However, there are some settings which go for a darker and more realistic feel where the
world doesn't always play fair. In such a setting, it's sometimes okay to scale difficulty up to a rediculous
level, you just need to understand you're likely doing it at the expense of your players enjoyment of the
game.

To make sure something is "fair" and to figure out what player characters can do, you need to keep their
mechanical capablities in mind. Figuring out what a PC's most middling score would be on a die roll is
very helpful in determining this level of fairness. For example, Adri has very high pickpocket and lockpick
skills, giving her a bonus of +12 on those two skills. The average number of a d20 is 10, so her middle of
the road die roll is going to be 22. This is listed on the typical difficulty classes table of D&D 5th edition as
being somewhere between hard and very hard difficulty, so we can assume Adri is skilled enough that
unless she fucks up disastrously, she should be able to steal from Joe or Jane Pedestrian without too
much effort and easily pick most locks that weren't specifically designed to keep somebody out.

Also, again, don't shy away from situations where your characters can easily deal with these challenges
using their expertise. A big part of player characters having these crazy skills is letting them use them in
ways that feel awesome. A character with high capabilities should have plenty of opportunties to show
them off, for two reasons. One, if you give them those opportunities, it makes the actually challenging
moments matter way more. Two, if you don't GIVE players these opportunties, they will make them
themselves, and that may end up being a lot harder to deal with.

3. Handling Large Scale Plot Points: Large scale story structure needs to be fairly nebulous, and it's often
best to not design very much of it at all to start. You can plan themes, large scale places to visit, big
events you want to happen and villains, but that's about all you can safely assume won't change right at
the start. However, I do highly encourage themeing of both campaigns and adventure paths, because if
you keep the theme of something in mind, it can help you figure out the best way to handle tone.

4. Exposition is not your friend, particularly when it's only pointed at a single PC. If you have an NPC or a
villain sitting there explaining something in a way where you are doing a lot of talking, see if you can find
a way to make it more interactive and involve more of the party. As you guys have probably noticed, I've
been trying to find some fun ways to do that in a way that still allows you to have those info dump
scenes. That's because exposition and long monologues fly in the face of the number one most
important rule of being a DM. In my opinion, except at the beginning of a session or story, the absolutele
longest amount of time a DM should talk without engaging any player is five minutes, and even then I
would consider that really pushing it.

5. Your order of importance in designing your world during an adventure without the imput of your
players should be this. World Detail. Villains. Story. NPCs.

6. World detail is the best tool you have in creating a world that feels interactive.

7. Players are the best tool you have in creating a world that matters.

8. NPCs are the worst tool for creating a world, especially if at any point they steal the spotlight away
from players. Yes, I'm basically a broken record at this point, but as I've said, this kind of thing happens a
lot, and is likely to happen in yoru game at some point, but it's still the kind of thing you don't want to
conciously plan and want to avoid if you can. The backstories of NPCs, as interesting as they can be when
you write them, are things you should assume your players will not be interested in until your players
actually show genuine interest in them. For that reason, it's best to find ways to find ways to tell the
backstories of your NPCs in ways that are interactive and organic.

9. NPCs can, however, be a fantastic tool for getting players invested in the world, particularly those that
PLAYERS... not necessarily their characters, players specifically... have proven they have an attachment
too. I've mentioned player-favorite NPCs a couple times now, so I'm going to talk about them in a little
more detail because when they happen, they are a blessing you should use to the fullest. These are the
NPCs that players give a shit about, that they worry about when they go off to dangerous situations and
try to learn more about even without prompting. These NPCs are the ones who should really matter to
you, because they are the ones who matter to your players. If your players have proven to like certain
NPCs, those are the ones you should focus on. If you have an NPC that YOU really like, but just isn't
landing with your PCs, it's probably best to just bite the bullet and shove them to the side in favor of
someone who actually is landing with the players. This can occasionally happen in really weird ways... I
actually didn't really expect Ophelia the Tiefling Alchemist to land the way she did, but I definitely plan
on capitalizing on that.

The biggest advice I can give on having a DM's favorite land the way you want them to is more or less
exactly the same as the three great rules of player-first storytelling; Don't have them steal the spotlight
from the players, don't have them beat the players without effort, and make sure that their involvement
in the story evolves naturally from interests the PCs already had. Even following those rules though,
there's still a part of it that really comes down to luck, so it's best not to make most NPCs too plot
essential except when it comes to guiding the PCs down the path you want them to go.

10. None of the above NPC rules apply to villains, and even the restriction against automatic failure gets
somewhat loosened here (in the case of the Run-or-die scenario). This is why Villains are very likely to be
the most important NPCs you make and where most of your NPC focused effort should go. They're the
only characters who you can guarentee will matter to your players without luck, and since villains are so
often the characters who set events in motion, they at least allow you to control the parts of the story
that the villain could concievably control. However, your villains should still be created with their
opposition to the player characters in mind before anything else. A feud between a villain and an NPC is
only really interesting if the players were already directly involved in it and the NPC joins later for some
reason or another, and even then it's best if the villain is more interested in the PCs than the NPC in
question. This is the relationship between Harry (and by extension harry's friends), Dumbledore and
Voldemort, for example. Dumbledore knew Voldemort way before harry did, and they absolutely were
enemies, but Voldemort always had his eyes squarely focused on the main character of the story.

For this reason, don't be afraid of villains who's main target has more to do with the world itself than any
specific character, especially in the case of stories that are designed around the party as a whole, rather
than any specific member of it. While it may seem slightly less interesting, it can still create a decent
story, and if enough character background is woven through it, your players may still end up being
involved to a degree you might not expect. One of the best things you can do to make your story a whole
story is to make a high quality villain with a face and identity beyond being a badass, because your villain
is the one part of your story you get to completely control.

The rest of my advice on villains is pretty generic villain advice, so here's a list.

1. Define what motivates them in both big and small ways, remembering that even the worst dictators
and criminals do things for reasons they consider important, and check their motivations ANY TIME YOU
EVER HAVE THEM DO ANYTHING to make sure it lines up with their actions.

2. Make sure their actions don't feel forced, if they want to talk about their motivations, make sure it's in
an organic conversation, or make a character moment out of it. For example, make it so a villain is trying
to rally someone to their cause, or tries to convert one of the PCs to their way of thinking.

3. Nobody sees themselves as the villain in somebody elses story. I think our current political climate
demonstrates that to a much more profound and sad degree then any explanation I could ever give.

4. The best villains tend to be somewhat sympathetic. A good trick to making a sympathetic villain is to
give them a fatal flaw that makes their evil less a part of cold, calculated decisions or the white hot wrath
of insanity and more the result of some critical misunderstanding of the situation or an aspect of their
life that has spiralled out of control. For minor villains, this isn't usually required, but the main villain
should probably be at least SOMEWHAT relatable.

5. Consider if the PCs and the Villain will conflict with or compliment each other in interesting ways.
Again, not so important for a monster of the week, but definitely important for main villains.

6. Actions, not words, will define character, especially in an interactive environment.

7. The kind of villain who embodies the pure essence of a concept, villains like the Joker, Sauron or most
lovecraftian horrors, are probably easier to use in roleplaying games, but if you can I would go for
something more complex. As I keep saying, this is the ONE part of your narrative that you get near-total
control over, so I wouldn't hamstring yourself by making your villain simple. It's best if you put the same
amount of effort into making your main villains as you would into making your PC. Just don't get so
attached to them you start wanting them to win instead of your players.

8. This is a problem that is fairly unique to roleplaying games, but tempting as it may be, make sure your
main villain doesn't have their fingers in every story your characters encounter. Spoilers, the black wolves
and the actions of Zargath Human-Bane have very little to do with the main story of the campaign, but
they are thematically relevant.

Lastly, and most importantly for you aspiring storytellers out their, I'm going to tell you the three secrets
to retaining control of a roleplaying game narrative right from the beginning. Everything I've just told you
not only wont get in your way, but can be used to strengthen a narrative if you just keep these two things
in mind.

For the first adventure or two of your campaign, strongly consider doing something very generic as far as
plot goes. The first plot of the D&D game you guys ran into was literally "go to a dungeon, fight
monsters, bring back macguffin" which is only slightly less rare than "so you all meet in a tavern." You
can find ways to be creative about it, and you may even get an opportunity to kickstart the main plot
before you planned to, both me and will have run into this situation. You should definitely take
advantage of this, but only do so in small ways. My standard phrase for this idea is "Assume the forces of
darkness need time to mobilize." Create this generic opening story without too much behind it, and
Make sure there is plenty of planned downtime during it, as a way to learn all you can about the main
characters, because this knowledge makes predicting what the players will do so much easier.

And that, dear friends, is how you maintain control over your story without overriding the player's free
will. It's the grand trick to maintaining control of your narrative, and why any player who ever hands me
one of those utterly insane questionairres will get a big fat thank you hug from me.

If I've gotten one lesson across, I hope that it's player interest is key. However, If you can learn what
players and their characters may be interested in, their behavior can become a lot easier to predict, such
a Grim's respect for the Dead, Otto's freediving, Adri's flirty criminal behavior and Mishann's rage and
tendency to go wandering. Similarly, it's a very bad idea for you or an NPC to try and force a player into
doing something they don't want to do. It's okay occasionally, but it isn't something that should be relied
upon.

If you guys have ever wondered why I had out whole packets of seemingly trivial information to my DM,
this is more or less why. While I do genuinely believe in just letting characters have small, fun, completely
irrelevant moments like going to see a movie together, or getting to perform for their friends at a concert
or wrestling match, a characters hobbies, preferred foods and habits can be used in the same way that a
characters friends, family and history can. Even something as trivial as going to the movies can provide
that "AH-HA!" Moment of realization, a moment of inspiration for a character who has abandoned the
party, or a place where an antagonist can corner them and turn a situation into a fight. The party having
a favorite restaurant can be a great place to set similar scenes, both in smaller irrelevant-but-fun ways or
ways that end up having deeper narrative importance.
It goes beyond that though. If your players have given you the right information, EVERY SINGLE RULE I'VE
BROUGHT UP CAN BE CIRCUMVENTED IN A WAY THAT DOESN'T BREAK THEM, With the exception of the
first two, the grand rule of interactivity and the principle of players being the most important element of
your story, which this concept serves to strengthen instead of circumvent.

For example, The simple question of "what kind of food does a character like" may drive a single, critical
decision of where that character may go next, which you can then take advantage of in your planning. A
character who enjoys collecting sports memorabilia can, if there is no ticking clock hanging above their
head, be more or less counted on to go to a shop that sells such things. If you set up such situations, you
can virtually guarentee that at least that character, and sometimes the whole party with them, will visit
that location, without feeling like you overwrote that characters free will.

In a similar way, if you want to guarantee player failure, make such failure based on a character's flaws,
not on having them go up against something they can't possibly beat. This ensures that their failure has
way more meaning than artificial failure, and most players will accept this in exchange for whatever the
games reward for good roleplay is, inspiration, hero points, extra XP, whatever. .

Just to prove what I said about almost every rule, I'm going to briefly list off how to circumvent those
restrictions

1. Knowing information about the PCs makes it a lot easier to narrow down where you can put "What
needs to happen.

2. Similar to what I just said about how a heroes flaws can make failure a near certainty, a heroes
strengths can be used to drive them towards the plot. Designing the next story-bit to obtainable with
something the characters are good at, IE adri needs to break into a house to get it, is a good way to
ensure they can and will follow that lead.

3. Knowing what is long-term important to a character is easily the best way to design long-term plots
for them, and for the campaign as a whole. It can be even better if you tie the characters personal
desires and trials to the main plot of your campaign, either directly or indirectly.

4. Utilizing a characters interests can give you ways to tell them about your NPCs or your world in ways
that don't require tons of exposition or monologuing, in a way that's much more interactive than having
a conversation with an NPC.

5. Players and their characters will latch onto world details that interest them more than any other.

7. There is no part of the character's backstory that you should not make it a point to use in some way or
another, It more or less guarentees the character AND the player will care.

8. If, during an action relating to something a character is interested in, they find some small detail
related to an NPC that makes them curious about that person, it helps build the world way more than
having an NPC tell them about said detail.
9. You will have a much better chance of making a character care about an NPC if they have things in
common with the character.

Lastly, when it comes to those important moments where you want more control over the story and how
it progresses, consider finding a way to set them in a dungeon. No matter what kind of game you're
running, it's possible to create an enclosed area that is easily mappable where you get more control over
the flow of both story and gameplay. In a science fiction game, you can set them in a drifting enemy
spaceship, a moon-wide hostile alien base or an abandoned mining facility. In hogwarts, the chamber of
secrets and third floor corridor during the events of sorcerers stone are good examples of dungeons at
the school, while Gringotts is basically the perfect example of a dungeon outside of it. In a contemporary
setting like scion, sewers, warehouses and abandoned structures tend to be good bases for a
controllable structure. In a superhero setting, a secret underwater supervillain base or something like
the hall of justice are good examples. While in a dungeon, you can safely plot events from the point of
entrance to the final chamber because you'll know both where the players will enter and where they
should ultimately end up, and you can use things like key-finding, puzzles and other tricks to ensure that
for the most part the players encounter things in the order YOU want them too. You have a much better
idea of how a situation can unfold, so it's easier to maintain more control over the pacing of the story.
Most climatic villain encounters should be in dungeons, if possible.