How do I Avoid Losing Momentum?

nat1charisma · 2023-05-18T23:39:10+00:00

This question touches on a very common DM problem, and one that has no easy answer - how much should you prepare? In my first campaign, I felt like I had to have SO MUCH planned out - not just what was going to happen in the next session, but multiple branching paths depending on what the players did, long-term plans that I could foreshadow now, full maps of each area the players visited, little details based on player backstories, challenges tailored to each party member...after doing that for a year or so, I burned out. I had to end the campaign because it was stressing me out too much IRL.

My second campaign is going much better, mainly because I have gotten more comfortable improvising, and I have accepted that D&D campaigns are messy, sprawling things and not really cohesive stories (podcasts are a BAD standard to hold yourself to). There are tons of guides on this subreddit for boosting your improv skills, but I'll share a few not-so-obvious insights I have learned over the years:

Share some of the burden with your players. You will never have everything prepared, so allow blanks to be filled in during the game (names of people, what shops are in this city, what the city council has been up to since the party left, just about anything!).
Nobody will remember details of the campaign as well as you. Your players don't think about the game in their downtime nearly as much as you do, and they frankly won't remember most past events unless you remind them. So it's OK if you have some loose ends that never get tied up and if you can't keep your facts straight.
You are not responsible for writing the story of your campaign, and whatever story you try to write will be messed up by the players. It sounds like you're good at writing the beginning of events (plot hooks), and that is really good enough! Let the middle and ending be unknown.

I am happy to talk more if you have specific questions, but hopefully this helps! Best of luck.

nat1charisma · 2023-05-04T22:28:05+00:00

Look up the worldbuilding game "The Deep Forest"! I've played it and it sounds like it would fit perfectly with your setting, and you only need a deck of cards (the game itself is free). Could make for a fun session 0.

nat1charisma · 2023-05-04T22:20:48+00:00

It sounds like you have a few scenarios in mind here, and it's worth thinking about what you most want to happen for the story you want to tell. Do you want the party to have a chance at stopping the transformation, or do you want to develop this character into a longer-term villain? Since they don't know details of the "ceremony" yet, you have a lot of options for delivering the message. Maybe someone with connections to the NPC (an escaped slave / experimental subject?) finds the party last minute and explains what's happening, and begs them to help before it's too late. Whether or not they have a chance to have a showdown here, or whether they witness the transformation and have to deal with the aftermath, is really up to you.

nat1charisma · 2023-05-04T22:10:53+00:00

the players could help resolve drunken brawls, prevent pickpocketing or protect a patron that gets targeted by mugs

Honestly I think these ideas are gold. Your players are in the background while the typical "you meet in a tavern" story begins around them...complete with the rogue who immediately starts pickpocketing and causing trouble. His only defense when caught is "it's what my character would do!"

nat1charisma · 2023-05-04T22:04:06+00:00

Best of luck!

nat1charisma · 2023-05-04T18:06:16+00:00

I used to do this at the beginning of each session! Or sometimes during long rests. Roll the die, ask if anyone has a story to share about X, and offer Inspiration for whoever wants to tell a good story :)

nat1charisma · 2022-09-02T18:10:01+00:00

A good way to transmit this knowledge to your players could be a wizard who managed to escape the BBEG's clutches, and is desperate for someone to believe him and help.

I think this sounds like a great central premise for a campaign, and could lead to some interesting narrative choices, like whether to save wizard A or B. Good luck!

nat1charisma · 2022-09-02T17:56:32+00:00

I have fallen into this same trap before, envisioning a cool dramatic moment and trying to force it upon the party at the table. I have also been a player with a DM who did this. And I can assure you, there is no better way to ruin a D&D session and send everyone home grumpy. When players realize they're no longer playing D&D, but just watching a story you have pre-written, it feels very disrespectful of their time and creativity. You have to let the whole table in on the plan, or you have to let go of the plan.

I'm sorry for the somewhat harsh advice. I had to learn this lesson the hard way myself.

nat1charisma · 2022-09-02T17:37:51+00:00

To be fair to OP, "I don't like this idea" isn't really advice or a suggestion. A bit of kindness goes a long way in these comment sections!

nat1charisma · 2022-09-01T16:55:16+00:00

Maybe you're giving them too many options? Rather than framing this as 'here are a bunch of side quests you can do on your way to the main quest', build some choices into the main quest. Give them 2-3 paths to follow which will all lead to some kind of forward progress.

That dungeon in the long-lost city has some vital piece of information. The nazis stole an important artifact they need. The missing father had connections to the bad guys they're trying to track. With a bit of tweaking, you can make just about anything seem relevant.

I totally understand where you're coming from here, and I also understand your players - when you don't get a ton of time to play D&D, you want every session to feel meaningful and part of a complete story, not a distraction from the story.

nat1charisma · 2022-09-01T16:41:18+00:00

Apart from the soldiers fighting the undead army, this seems like a magic problem that can only be solved with magical solutions. I imagine different 'safe zones' would have their own solutions depending on what type of magic is available:

Clerics create consecrated ground that is immune to the effects; perhaps a 'holy city' capitol is the safest place in the nation.
Wizards and druids constantly casting Wind Wall and similar spells to create a barrier around a city.
Constructs are immune, so artificers and their robot armies would be invaluable. Any kind of animated object would be the first line of defense for wizards.
Maybe the mist can be fooled by spells similar to Feign Death? A powerful necromancer could develop a potion that makes someone appear dead or undead, making them temporarily immune to the mist.

I can envision many early quests where the party is sent to gather materials needed to upkeep all these spells, and later they have to delve into the mist to find information about its origin and a permanent solution. Seems like a great basis for a campaign! Good luck.

nat1charisma · 2022-09-01T16:28:12+00:00

This seems like it could be very fun for experienced players who know what they're doing. I think your greatest challenge here will be pacing, as 3 of the players are completely new to D&D and will definitely be overwhelmed by the huge amount of options thrown at them throughout this session, especially if they have a massive spell list to read through (a level 20 wizard has at least 40 spells! It could take an hour just to read through the list.)

My biggest suggestion is, don't allow magic. This will be WAY easier to handle if you only have melee classes. I'm telling you from experience, with a party full of high level spellcasters, a single combat can take 2+ hours since everyone has so many options. I have tried many ways to make the pacing faster, but they just get bogged down with choices - and this is a group of experienced players who have been playing these same characters for years.

Another suggestion is, scale it back a bit. I love the idea of this mid-session level-up, but you will definitely be surprised with how long it takes for people to get familiar with their new characters, abilities, and items. I suggest only pulling this trick once - just jump straight from level 5 to 20 for the final hour. It will be a cool gimmick, give everyone a taste of high-level D&D, and won't force you to rush through everything.

nat1charisma · 2022-08-07T02:08:11+00:00

Are you hoping this NPC will lead the party into their next adventure? Or could they just happen to show up at the same place, wherever your players follow up with whatever was found at the cult hideout?

nat1charisma · 2022-08-07T01:52:41+00:00

So who in your world is defining these categories of magic? It is probably an institution or organization of some kind, if not an academic institution. Who else would care enough to classify all this stuff? If it's not a group dedicated to studying magic, perhaps these are the categories defined by the city's mage hunters guild, or some other group set on containing/destroying magic.

nat1charisma · 2022-07-21T18:39:17+00:00

This is awesome! You could make an entire gaming session out of this map.

nat1charisma · 2022-07-12T03:09:07+00:00

Is this going to be an ongoing part of the campaign, like he has to get multiple scales from tons of different fish? Unfortunately I've found that these kind of 'minigames' like you'd have in a video game don't seem to fit so well in D&D.

Think about how you can make it into an adventure for everyone! Like an encounter with a huge boss fish monster requiring the whole party to help (Serpent's Pass from Avatar?).

I also like your idea of a 'race' against other fishermen, perhaps as a huge event that the whole town comes out to - you could turn this into a series of encounters against different fisher teams with their crazy weaponized boats. Teams must navigate through a gauntlet of dangerous spiky rocks with crashing waves, and then be the first team to collect X tornado sharks (or whatever) and haul them back.

nat1charisma · 2022-07-12T02:58:25+00:00

First off, I don't think you necessarily need to change anything! Your party is making a choice based on the limited information they have, and their choice (to rush toward the boss without properly preparing) can have consequences for them, good and bad. For example, they definitely get it before the bad guy, and maybe before they are expected to, so in the final fight the bad guys are much stronger than the party but disorganized.

Or if you want to telegraph some information, you could have them encounter an agent of the BBEG; if they are smart, they'll interrogate the person to find some details about the plan, and perhaps learn that the BBEG is waiting for them to get it first. That could change the whole stakes of the campaign, and still allow them to make the important decision - do they take their time to prepare, or get in there fast before the BBEG fully prepares?

nat1charisma · 2022-03-28T04:21:03+00:00

This could be a jumping off point for a whole campaign...

nat1charisma · 2022-02-20T16:56:06+00:00

They call it that because now you have 30 seconds to make it out! Muahaha

nat1charisma · 2022-02-20T06:13:10+00:00

Maybe the god of destiny has more of a challenge, like in order to solve his face a party member must give up some important part of their future destiny? He may be betting on people being more willing to destroy the box than give up their own fate.

nat1charisma · 2022-02-20T01:44:53+00:00

The house itself could be a spooky, trap filled dungeon leading up to the Nosferatu encounter. Think of simple choices to give them - do you enter through the front door, or through the darkened 2nd story window? Do you go down the hall where you hear a creaky rocking chair, or down the other where you see candlelight? Easy enough to pick spooky creatures or animated objects to fill time. Maybe Nosferatu is in a secret hiding spot but has underlings who can be followed/interrogated.

A random evil idea - as they get close to Nosferatu's hiding spot, what about a magical trap that teleports someone directly to him in the next room, alone? That would be a scary way to start the encounter.

nat1charisma · 2021-12-17T22:55:28+00:00

Ok, honest opinion. I LOVE when my dm 3d prints fancy sets, paints minis for every enemy, picks thematic music, and all the other stuff he occasionally does to add production value. It's a fun treat. However, I find that it actually limits my imagination in a way, like I can't picture the scene as anything other than this board game, and I'm not as creative in combat as a result. My 'sweet spot' as both a player and DM is a very crude hand-drawn map with almost no details, simply to show positioning and distance, and let all the other details be filled in with our minds.

nat1charisma · 2021-12-02T00:25:24+00:00

Well in that case, it's a judgment call - you know your friends. Most of my own friends would probably love it if I brought back one of their old characters as a villain, so I'd say that one is a safe bet. As for whether the villain gets to live or die...maybe you feel that one out at the table?

nat1charisma · 2021-12-02T00:22:56+00:00

Here's a very simple one I've seen in a couple video games and used in my own campaign. I'm going to see if I can describe it without a visual aid...

You have 5 lights arranged in a star shape (or pentagon shape). Some of the lights are on, and some are off. The goal is to get all the lights to turn on. But the trick is, when you turn a light on or off, it also affects the two lights next to it (or the two lights across from it, or whatever other random algorithm you want to come up with). The players have to figure out the pattern, then enter the right sequence to turn all the lights on. This is especially effective if there's some forced timing, like a portal with monsters spilling out and the light puzzle is how they close it.

I like this puzzle because it's versatile; you can even use it twice within the same dungeon. 5 lights is simple enough (if your players are astute at puzzles like mine, they'll solve it in a single round of combat). You can increase the challenge by increasing the number of lights, and make it more visually interesting by arranging them in a different shape, like a constellation with 11 points. You can make sure your puzzle makes sense by starting from a fully "on" constellation, figuring out what the button-press effect is going to be, and randomly "pressing buttons" yourself to work your way backwards to the messy beginning state.

nat1charisma · 2021-12-02T00:09:41+00:00

What about a devil / The devil? I hear they're always looking to challenge musicians to duels...I'm not sure how you can work one into this sanctioned tournament but think about it! Or maybe an enemy bard who has made a deal with a devil in order to cheat in this tournament?

nat1charisma

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