1: Introduction to Session Management

As dungeon masters, we're often told that our role is to "guide" the game's narrative, traditionally by describing scenes and presenting challenges. But this word is perpetually left vague, so that we're never quite sure what "guidance" is being provided or what it's meant to achieve. The squidgynous of the word is the point: it leaves open the question in such a manner that no purchaser of the game ever needs to feel they're doing it the "wrong way," while never quite giving an assurance of what the "right way" would look like. The word is meant to soothe, to keep the product approachable, while sidestepping the messier truth of what the DM is actually doing.

Dungeon mastering is teaching.

As the source of game knowledge, the DM shows and explains what is present, what is happening, what objects and structures are accessible, and what visible action is taking place, in a manner that communicates this knowledge in a manner that can be made sense of by the players. Before the DM speaks, the players are wholly ignorant; but after the situation is presented, the players are then asked to "make meaning" from this assemblance of "facts," for that is what they are within the game's structure. If the DM says that there is a tavern here, such-and-such a distance from the players, of such-and-such a size, then this must be accepted as a fact of the game world until something else contravenes it. The players can't, by virtue of play, oppose the presence of the tavern. To act, think and feel in the setting, therefore, the players are engaged to accept what the DM says as a sort of "truth," though one that is always subject to new as-yet-unattained information, that may indicate the apparent truth is a lie.

It is not in the players' interests to assume anything is a lie. The game itself requires they interact with these "facts" as though they are absolutely true. If they are told that a figure is moving out of the darkness, they must assume — for the sake of their survival in the game that this is really happening. Failing to respond within a given time frame permits consequences ranging from humiliation to death. This places the DM in an enormous position of power, since the "figure" may emerge from any light or dark frame at any time, there being no restraint on the DM's freedom to send figures at the party. It is, in fact, this potential that causes many to doubt the practicality of role-playing as an activity.

This control of all player information, coupled with an unlimited ability to impose threats, dictates that some other limitation must exist on the DM. Otherwise, the "game" would merely be the DM throwing monsters at a party until they are all dead.

There is no rule that restrains the DM from sending monsters every round, from creating unwinnable situations, from lying about the world's appearance. The only thing that does restrain the DM is disinterest: at least, in the player's success or fail. The DM's interest must be in something else.

That is presumed to be the coherence, believability, even the beauty, of the game setting itself, for its own sake. In many cases, lesser dungeon masters consign this "structure" to another, a product-maker, which the DM self-agrees to obey, running the "adventure" as the designer intended, doing little more than adding a few details here or there to personalise the experience. But this is not the path of an experienced, self-directed DM.

For such persons, it's not enough to execute the game world, they must "author" it also. This authorship allows them a more thorough potential to bring their personal vision alive, often presenting situations that are too complex to "sell" to a lesser DM. Larger and more complex setting visions, in fact, often strain the author-DM's capacity to fully commit to paper, so that much of the setting resides wholly in the author-DM's mind, perhaps forever, since its codification may not occur before the individual's death.

The facilitation of this private, living artform within the DM's mind is sufficient, entirely, to permit the DM to remain comfortably indifferent to the players' survival. The DM may, in fact, retain a respect for the setting vision that refuses to permit players to survive certain facets of it, unless the players actively prove their worthiness to do so. This is a complex back-and-forth — where the DM imagines a land like Mordor, which would be almost certain death should the players enter, only to concede that when the players act in a way that surprises the DM and exceeds expectations, it seems appropropriate that the players should survive, in the DM's now-adjusted vision, achieved through game play. Game-engagement at this level, where both the DM and the players change through game-play, is considered the most elegant.

The manufacture of this setting/vision/artform (hereafter shortened to "setting"), its presentation to the players, the players interpretation of it, and the players subsequent responses to it, make up the substance of "session management."

From the start of the game, the DM begins the slow, steady revealing of the setting as the players begin as some physical point within it and move forward. Each tiny segment of the setting is conveyed: a street, a field, a line of hills, a valley, a manse, a realm. The players can then associate and familiarise themselves with each piece. Depending on the consistency of the DM's efforts, the players accumulate a feel for where they are, how they fit into the setting, and how to make sense of it.

This is not achieved by fragments of "lore," but by a mental map of the DM's cognition being steadily transferred into the players' cognition. IF the dungeon master cannot concretely envision the setting, either through mind or physical works, then this transference CANNOT take place; and the players never can truly feel that they have "arrived" anywhere. In their minds, the setting remains an incomprehensible slurry — lacking meaning and lacking any reason to commit to game play.

D&D cannot be played like a game of telephone, where what the dungeon master says can be freely misinterpreted by the players, with no expectation that the message will be sent AND received. On the contrary, the DM must be ready to repeat the message as often as necessary until it is received accurately. With the further understanding that the message must be rich and vibrant enough to enlighten, excite and instensively motivate the listener. Otherwise, it is not a message worth sending.

Both of these efforts — accurate, reinforced verification of message reception; and that the message must have a presence that shifts the temperature of the players' internal states... these are session management also.

These two things, coupled with presentation and interpretation, are not isolated, but overlapping, feeding each other constantly. The dungeon master is ALSO reacting, interpreting, adjusting and rethinking assumed events based on the changes the players are making in what their characters say, do or achieve. In this way, the players are "teaching" the DM, because while the whole game world is a fact for the players, the players' choices and achievements are facts the DM must adhere to. And this adherence is, again, session management.

Fully understood, session management is a two-way process of communication in internal mental adjustments and changes occurring in real time to given and received information. It is a live exchange. The highest expression of the game in motion.

A great part of this would appear to be subjective. In a fluid, human context, where meaning is constantly being invented, revised and layered through language, tone and judgment, all the participant's perception of what's being understood, what's resonating, what needs reinforcing and adjusting... these are all necessarily subjective conditions. But "subjective" isn't arbitrary; it doesn't mean undisciplined. It means situationally governed by human inference... an inference that is accumulated not only through the progress of D&D, but from a lifetime of experiences that causes us to subjectively decide what is important, what we wish to invest in, what interests us, and what we won't adapt to because we do not wish to do so.

Value, then, does not lie in the setting having merely a substance; that substance must adhere to the expectation of those players it is conveyed to. The dungeon master and the players must be compatible. If they are, then subjectivity is nominal; even irrelevant, so long as "subjectively" everyone present agrees upon what matters and what ought to matter.

For this reason, the "level" of game can vary without changing the principles of session management. If all the participants are fine with an outsourced author's setting, delivered by the DM, the problem remains the same: that setting still has to be effectively conveyed and understood, still in real time, and still in a manner that excites. Those players who cannot be excited by this sort of game must seek a more complex game elsewhere. But the principles of session management are what they are.

A "better" world may not achieve its aims with all potential players. A "lesser" world need not fail those participants who right now take part. This must be clearly understood.

An effort will be made here, as this series proceeds, to describe a setting that is complex, simply because this requires MORE effort to grasp than a simpler setting. But structure itself is not as important here as the moment-to-moment process of communication, understanding and response, which we must sustain to keep play active. It is this communication that makes role-playing such an interesting activity, and one that challenges our mental acuity rather than our physical skill.

Part 2a: The DM's Mental Toolbox
Part 2b: Setting Player Boundaries

Part 2c: Governing the Game
Part 3: Cognitive Load & Information Filtering

Part 4: Projecting Engagement

Part 5: Managing Cognitive Load

Part 6a: Setting Composition

Part 6b: Known and Unknown Setting Composition