A Few Recipes for Running the Game

This is for M & R.

Quite a long time ago, within my first few years of DMing, I stopped requiring players to map dungeons as they progressed.  The mapping required a fair bit of game time (even one minute was more than the process was worth), while I found the prospect of refusing to let a party leave a dungeon because they "didn't know the way" a somewhat petty attitude.  Given that my dungeons were fairly monster heavy an that there were bound to be bodies, bloody stains, bits of broken tools, footprints in dust and numerous other fairly obvious clues that would accumulate during the process of getting in, it seemed reasonable to assume the way out would be obvious.  Most of these signs would still be present days, even weeks after the party's entrance, where as most of the time they'd enter, look around and leave within the space of an hour or two.  Thus, I ditched the dungeon mapping, telling my party that, "Oh sure, you're mapping, but let's not waste game time on it.  Just assume you know where you are and that you can get anywhere you've been before, presuming you don't fall down a well and find yourself unable to go back that way.

Problem solved.

Later, when my combat system evolved to where I was creating maps on publisher (I was 16 years a DM before publisher became readily available), these became the "board" for the players to move around on, rather than a physical game map that would be scrubbed clean.  The dungeons were more or less permanent files.  This meant that I was effectively creating the party's map, since they could see plainly on the screen where they were and how many hexes separated one door or room from another.  Thereafter, the whole "mapping" thing turned passe.

With regards to worksheets and checklists, which are discussed in my book, How to Run.  I've spoken about them here.  The idea for these comes from industrial procedures, specifically firefighting.  There, a "worksheet" is a document or form used by officers (like incident commanders or sector officers) to record, track and manage critical information during an incident. That might include listing units on the scene, their assignments, status updates and important time stamps (like entry/exit times for crews in dangerous environments).  I translated this as "what are we going to do" for D&D, not for the players, but for the DM — as in, who are the players going to fight, what treasure is going to be found, what do I want to be sure to describe first when players enter the room, that sort of thing.  Effectively, "what work am I going to do as a DM when the game starts?"

A "checklist" for a firefighter would be the things they needed to know pre-arrival: essentially, stuff done at the firehous, such as verifying that every truck is fully loaded with all the equipment it should include (we won't have time when the bell rings), that sufficient personnel are physically on call in the firehouse... and ultimately, before we start fighting the fire, is the "scene" safe.  Is the power of the burning building turned off, is the traffic controlled, have we identified all the hazards, do we know how many people are in the building.  For D&D, I translated this to the stuff the DM needed to have on hand before the game started: is the map of the dungeon made, is that rule drawn up, do we remember where the players were at the end of the last session.  I attempted, for a time, to manage this by keeping a calendar of the players' activities, so that I could check that list and see what had happened and therefore how to move forward.

For How to Run, this was an attempt to correct a problem I knew that many DMs have, but not one that I have.  After publishing the book, for about two years I struggled to keep my lists up to date, after having never used them before.  Surprise... I couldn't.  It wound up that most of the information I was tracking simply didn't matter, while repeatedly I would fail to write down something that did matter.  With more practice, with more diligence, I'd have eventually established a discipline to manage this better, as it's the sort of thing that requires practice.  I did not do that.  I went back to my old ways of trusting my memory and letting the players correct my errors, as I've always found my parties capable of group thinking a memory that was needed.  I am well aware that many DMs cannot do this, and furthermore, cannot rely on their parties to be honest with them.  I would not have dishonest people as players or as acquaintances.  I don't understand those who tolerate such people.

As such, when preparing a session, apart from actual props I need (and much of the time, because I draw these quickly on computer, at pictionary speeds, I can do this IN game), I prepare by lying down and thinking.  Sometimes I think in the bath, or in a shower, or while I walk.  It's my habit to sketch out whole books in my mind and keep that information, without the need for a memory palace; an upcoming D&D running is child's play.

That leads into player agency.  The level of freedom I espouse goes more or less like this:  You're in a town, you have no specific role to play or service to perform. There are no expositional NPCs telling you things you need to know.  There are no ready prepared dungeons or adventures.  What do you do?

Quite often I've been told by DMs that they just can't make a party understand this.  That the party usually ends up doing nothing, because they can't think of anything, or the DM has to break down and give them something to do, usually as a matter of desperation.

I suppose this is possible.  I can't imagine it, myself.

I have given this a fair bit of thought and have come to the conclusion that the DM is the problem, but not in the sense that the world isn't open enough.  It is, rather, that the world is in a steady state of limbo.  It's not moving.

Suppose I have a group of players and, like the complaint goes, they can't think of a thing to do.  This usually requires certain assumptions that don't apply in my world, because of the way my character background is designed.  In my game, the player doesn't "choose" their past. It is given to them, just as the reader's past is given to the reader: what parents you had, where you were born, your ability to afford school, your personal emotional, intellectual of physical gifts, what have you.  Usually, someone winds up with a mentor who happens to be connected to a manor farm, a ship, a guildhouse, a barracks or some such, so that the players can just walk down to the barracks, talk to Roy, find out what's doing... and as DM I can invent a "job" on the spot for the players.  "We're sending a recruiter out into the boonies to gather up a few farmboy commoners to come in and get trained for the war that's starting up; why don't you go with him?"  Sure, says the party, they go out, then I can have them run across something in the "boonies" as they're out there now and it's semi-wild.  They meet some bandits, they fight a few wolves, they stumble across a path and wonder where it goes, etc.  The party "invents" the adventure: they took themselves to the barracks, they said yes when plain, ordinary work was offered.  The party "invents" the adventure by following the path they find.

But let's say we have none of that.  We just have a party, no consistent background, we've mysteriously decided to let them retcon their own lives, and now they're here at the inn doing nothing but going round robin, "I dunno, whatta you wanna do?" "I dunno, whatta you wanna do?"

While they're doing this, what's the game world doing?  Just sitting there?

Apparently.  Which confuses me.  I assume the DM thinks, "If I give them an adventure, then that's not Alexis's agency, so... what am I do to?"

For heaven's sake, at least let time pass.  "Okay, you do this and three days pass."  The players still fumble around.  "Okay, three weeks go by."  Still the players hang around, confused, like sheep in a field.  "Okay, three months have just gone by.  You and you, adjust your character ages up by a year.  Your birthday just went by."

But granted, okay, maybe that's not enough for some people.  Maybe it's necessary to say, "Gareth dies of old age; the rest of you outlive him. What do you want to do now?  Wait for Brynneth to die?"

I'm joking.  Honest, I'm joking.  There are better ways.

Two days of the party moping around, wouldn't it make sense for a bartender, a cook, a constable, the guy who delivers the beer, ANYONE, to just say, "For the love of kittens, don't just flippin' sit there!  Why the hell don't you get out of town and take a walk.  Your legs work, don't they?"

The wench comes to clean the table.  "I just don't understand these adventurer types," she says, dousing the table and rubbing it clean.  "Laziest damn people I ever saw.  You'd think there were problems in the world waiting to be solved.  You'd think there weren't people getting driven outta their homes.  You'd think an isolated farmhouse never was burned down by orc raiders.  I got no respect for adventurers, and that's the bloody truth.  No respect at all.  Layabouts, that's what they are.  Ain't worth the pot they piss in."

AND SO ON...

Next, a child comes into the bar, looks up at the big tough fighter and says, "My papa says you're a coward.  Are you a coward, mistah?"

In this world that we live in, there's bad things going on all the time.  But we don't gird up with a sword or a pistol and fix them, because we pay taxes for the military and the police to do that for us.  For us, everywhere there's people, it's occupied in some way or other.  A medieval fantasy world isn't that fortunate.  There's always some place where there's no army or constables to pay to keep the peace.  There's always some place where, as the players dicker about "what to do," innocent people are trying to hold onto what they have against all sorts of monsters and wildlife.  What we as DMs need to do is clue the players in about this.  These aren't "rumours."  And they're not something the players should have to ask to know.  They've lived here their whole lives, just like the bartender, the wench and the kid.  They should be able to say to the DM, "where is oppression taking place?"  And the DM ought to be able to answer about five or six places within about ten days walk.  Or the party can just get off their rump and follow the most basic advice:

"First, I'm gonna deliver this case to Marcellus, then basically I'm just gonna walk the earth. You know, like Cain, in Kung Fu, walk from place to place, meet people get in adventures."

It's not rocket science.  If they don't get out and walk, if they don't move, they can't see things, they can't meet people, they can't get into adventures.

The real trick, though, is not this. This is the impetus.  The trick is not come up with something for them to do right now.  The trick is to come up with five things for them to do.

"Yep.   You just follow this road, it'll take you to Perspicacity all right.  There's a point out there, that's usually where the mermen appear; long about the beach there.  You'll know the beach, it's got at overhang a' land above it, upon which the abandoned monastery sits.  Kinda spooky place that, I wouldn't go there, not if you're smart.  Now, when you're on the road, watch out for Brutus.  He's a member of the king's guard, but he goes rogue a lot of the time. Bullies people, so watch out for him. And when you get down to the stone in the road — great big thing, twenty feet across.  Anyway, when you get to it, go left.  You don't want to go right.  Go right and you'll find the road that looks good when you start disappears out from under your feet after a couple miles— and after that, you'll run into a outlaw band that'll chop you up good and proper; about half of them's orcs, too.  Folks say they come down from some village that's up in the mountains, 'bout twenty miles from here.  So yeah, go right when you get to the rock.  Shouldn't have any problem once you get to Perspicacity.  Folks there's good people.  Good luck."

You gotta think about the world that way.  Every problem's got more problems, and those problems have problems, and as you go past those you come to bigger and bigger problems.  Sooner or later the party's got more things to handle than they can take a stick to, while the DM doesn't have to invent "adventures," but rather just "what would logically be there and how many orcs would it include.  That kind of thing.

Anyway, that's how I translate players from pre-fabricated adventures to agency.  I hand out a good helping of there's problems in them thar hills, then I pour a gravy full of "this is more than you can handle" on top, mixed in with "folks'll be so grateful if you live."  See the hills with treasure and watch the levels grow.  That's essentially it.

'Course, if you can't think of a sufficient number of problems for the players to deal with, well... it must be nice to live in a world where no one suffers, nothing ever goes wrong, no one exploits anyone else and power isn't a thing people crave.  I've never been there, so I don't know how to run that as a game world.

Hope that helped, that answered the questions being asked.  I'm always here for more clarity, if you want it.  That goes for everyone else listening.