Labour of Love

Moving on, let us consider "potential outcomes," which were also referenced here, when first talking about research.

When anticipating the games needs, we are actively considering the situations, challenges and mechanics that are likely to arise in an upcoming session, just as we said in the last post. These are based on the narrative arc that has been building over time, as well as tendencies we've noticed among the players. We are, in effect, while running the game, "researching" the players' behaviour and proclivities just as though we were Jane Goodall observing a tribe of apes. Most of the time, the inter-party discussions will tell us plainly what their plans are, but there are other things we may also observe from the questions players ask or those things they are plainly interested in.

For example, imagine the players are discussing how to handle the upcoming encounter with a bandit leader, debating on how they're going to sneak into his camp and dispatch him without the other bandits knowing. While focused on this immediate challenge, their conversation starts to meander. One player remarks on how glad she's going to be when the bandit is gone, and they can get back to a dungeon of some kind, which meets with approval from others. Meanwhile, another speaks about the so-called gratitude of the local lord for whom they're working, when he disappointed them the last time. This discontent is reflected in the comments of the other players, who then get back to the matter at hand.

Here, we've been given two things to play with. First, that the players would more likely prefer that this adventure right now be a dungeon, rather than having to wait for the next adventure, and the other, that the lord isn't much liked, though the party is beholden to him.

Our "anticipation" of the party's needs at this point is pretty much a question of our being able to read the writing on the wall. First, obviously, THIS adventure right now needs a dungeon... so, in the blink of an eye, we transform the bandit leader's tent into a dungeon entrance, which surprises the party and gives them what they want, without having to wait. This can be easily slid into our present arc, as the "dungeon" doesn't need to be more than a few rooms, which will nevertheless please the players until they can hie themelves off to a bigger dungeon later.

Second, let's get rid of the local lord. When the players get back, they find the lord is dead, either stabbed or he choked to death on a chicken bone. The lord's replacement turns out to be much more generous and grateful, which brings the party an unexpected boon when what they expected were scraps. Small, easy adjustments to the campaign world are easy to do, fundamentally do not change the narrative arc in play, while practically acting as wish fulfillment for the party. Of course, it works only because the players think this was our plan all along, and did not happen because of some off-handed remark that, probably, they won't remember making.

Adjustments like these are practical, subtle and effective in making the game feel more tailored to the players without breaking immersion or derailing their agency. Very often, small adjustments like these feel natural, while enhancing engagement in a world that unexpectedly "goes right" for the party from time to time. At the same time, we avoid making the mistake of artificially hand-holding the players, which makes them feel as if they're not really playing, but instead having everything handed to them.

Apart from such obvious flags, however, what about those less overt clues we may gather from the players interests, which have nothing to do with ongoing game play? This takes more effort on our part. What players casually talk about --their personal preferences, certain interests they have in game subjects, questions about the setting's background, an affection they show for a non-player character they've met, even questions about how magic actually functions in our game world or how it is that gaining experience levels "fits" with the physical, non-meta nature of the character's perspective.

Say a player expresses curiosity about how magic works in the world and we explain it. Of course, this requires we need an explanation, but let's take this as a given, for the present. It may not seem so, but this is an opportunity for us to further engage the player in the setting without that engagement being part of the narrative arc. The question demonstrates that the player cares about such things... and because this is so, we take some of our own time, away from the game session, and think, "How else might magic work in our game, outside the mechanics we expressed?" Maybe we start thinking about different schools of thought within the setting, where certain scholars or mages theorise alternative sources or methods for generating magic—something not covered in the rulebooks but which could exist in our world’s background.

This may take some skull sweat, but it improves our own thinking about such things and sets us up to infuse a different vibe into the game's world. For example, we could imagine a theory where magic isn’t the creation of forces through intellect (if this is how magic works in our setting) and that it might ALSO be tapping into a purely external force. Once we have this idea, we could think about how to introduce it naturally into the events of the narrative; suppose the player, this same player who earlier asked about magic, meets an NPC who embodies this alternative theory; perhaps, he or she is a reclusive scholar or mage from some isolated obscure school of thaumaturgy, who engages the player's character in a meaningful conversation about the nature of magic.

This NPC doesn’t challenge the game’s mechanics but offers a new perspective, discussing their research or beliefs with the curious player, maybe even proposing that magic works differently in certain parts of the world. The discussion could inspire the player to seek more knowledge or pursue a side quest to explore these ideas further. By doing this, we’ve taken the player’s curiosity, turned it into a thought-out aspect of the game... and fed it back into the narrative in a way that both enhances their experience and respects the integrity of the game’s system.

It was, in fact, the player who "invented" the idea, by asking the question, that sparked our imagination, that led to the alternative, that was then supplied to the player who may, or may not, find this engaging. The chances are good, if we judged the player correctedly when the subject was first brought up... that he or she really did care about how magic worked, and wasn't just asking flippantly.

This requires certain attitudes and perspectives from the dungeon master. We must be proactive enough to recognise that when a player asks a question, its not "just a question"... it's evidence that the mind of the player is being engaged with our campaign. Further, it demands that we don't embrace "one answer" to anything we say to a player regarding our campaign. We always assume, instead, that there are "exceptions to the rule," regarding how the world works and what things might exist in it. Finally, we must have a mindset that wants to pursue these exceptions outside the game, because we ourselves are fascinated by our own game's structure, function and behaviour. Without these factors in ourselves, there's really no way we can take advantage of these opportunities.

It's a sore spot with some DMs who suppose that preparing for the game is something we do, and that once we're "done," we move onto the next thing. In reality, the stronger approach is just to accept that no part of the world is ever really done. By adopting an open-mind towards every part of the game, especially those that interest the players, we shift and adapt and grow ourselves, so that the game we are running ten years from now bears little similarity to the one our present-day players engage with. This is a good thing. D&D is not staid or fixed; it is a living, breathing, evolving organism, which will either die if we do not feed it, or it will grab and carry us along in its clutches, while we cheerfully let it take us to wherever it wants.

Of course, this means the task is never ending... and that to some degree, we're always scrambling to ready ourselves for the next session. For this reason, and no other, a DM must fall "in love"... or else it is just work, work, work all the time.