I decided that for the new season of Team X, I wanted to provide a behind-the-screen look for people who either are looking to run a RPG game or already do, and just want to compare notes. For the purposes of these posts, I will use the term DM or Dungeon Master, as D&D is what I’m most familiar with, but what I’m sharing can be used in any GM (Game Master) situation. Also, as a warning to the players of Team X: DO NOT READ FARTHER OR YOU GET TO MEET YEENOGHU.

The Season 3 premiere, which I retroactively named “Arrival Part 1”, saw the party arrive at a blasted landscape at the base of the Maerthwatch, a mountain range on the northern border of the Chondalwood. The visual was inspired by pictures of the Tungaska Event in Siberia.

Now, a quick couple of notes about the overall game itself before moving on:

• Early on, I gave the team access to something that we’ve called the “Shadow Gate Network”, basically a series of Stargates around the Chondalwood and Faerun that occur where ancient ley lines intersect. I did this to give them a little more room to explore, and also to allow them to travel more without dealing with weeks or months of travel. They haven’t abused this network so far, so I haven’t had to place limits on it.

• I set the game in the Chondalwood because

  • It’s far away from the Sword Coast, and thus would allow us to play a game without worrying about what was happening in other AcqInc games (we are an official franchise recognized by Jerry Holkins, if not by WotC)

  • There isn’t a lot written about that geographic area, giving us the ability to essentially write our own lore

The goal of this season is to finally reveal the BBEG that’s been the impetus behind many of the other villains’ actions, the one pulling the strings. I won’t reveal who or what that is here just yet, but we are definitely on our way.

I had, in all honesty, intended for the BBEG to be revealed much earlier in Season 1, but alas, best laid plans and all that. The plot got seriously sidetracked in our first year for reasons that aren’t important, but the result was that BBEG remained entirely hidden.

I tried again in Season 2, but this time the plot evolved more organically and took some different routes, albeit closer ones to where I had planned.

Now, I could have rammed the plot down my player’s throats, but that’s not the game I wanted to run, and not the game they wanted to play. It’s a common joke that players never stick to plot no matter how many carrots and sticks the DM uses.

While true, this is also important: what is the game you and your players want? If you had a very plot-driven game in mind, and your players just wanted to explore the world, then there is a disconnect. The same can be said if they are looking for you to guide them more firmly towards plot but are giving them an entirely free hand.

There have been times in the past when I’ve “forced” plot on the party, but still given them a lot of leeway to explore the space and solve problems their own way.

In this episode, I had only a few simple notes (as I usually due) for “event triggers”; this is something I typically do. It looks like, “If they look here, then A happens, otherwise B.” I have a vague idea in my mind as to more details, but for the most part I don’t get deeper with that in my notes. They typically get thrown out anyway when players find creative ways to approach the situations I’ve presented with them.

What’s been the most helpful in improvising in situations like this is simply knowing the history of a place, person, or object, and having that history inform how they would behave in the current circumstances. If you understand character motivation (do they want power? chaos? are they just hungry? lonely?) it becomes easier to allow the story to breath and grow organically.

As the players explored the landscape in front of them, they used their unique abilities to suss out what had happened to cause this event, which was awesome, as it allowed me to finally plant the seed that there was a powerful being or item summoned into the world several decades ago.

Now, they could have just said, “Screw it, we’ll figure that out later,” and continued on the rescue mission that was their original purpose for traveling there. I had notes to constantly add bigger and bigger hints that something awful and terrible had happened, to the point that they wouldn’t be able to ignore it any longer. Fortunately, they didn’t take that path and made that part of the job easy.

As they explored the landscape, based on their rolls, I was able to parse out information in a way that gave them a piece of the puzzle without outright saying “BBEG was summoned here”. Now, based strictly on the rules in the PHB and DMG, they probably shouldn’t have found much of anything, but as we know, these are only guidelines, and the rules shouldn’t get in the way of fun and good storytelling.

While none of them rolled well enough to completely unlock the puzzle, or looked for the specific things that would have told them more of the story, I decided that between all of them they could suss out the long and short of it, and used my narrative to allow them to know enough about the past events of this place. If I hadn’t done this, it could have been several more episodes before this information was gleaned, which would have slowed things down even further. Now, they have a good inkling that there is a BBEG out there, and will be on the lookout for more clues.

One thing that they did do that I did not foresee was to engage in combat with the stone giant guards I had placed there. I seriously thought that they would attempt to hide from the boulders being hurled at them, but alas, Drenmai’s devotion to her familiar, Razi, and Thunuk and Eno’s loyalty to their friend got the better of them and off they charged.

I feel that I’ve gotten better at running combat over the last couple of years, and for the first time I felt really comfortable running it. This came as a surprise, as it was also completely improvised on my end. One trick I learned was from watching Matt Mercer run the Critical Role game in how he asks for initiative, asking for who got what in blocks (21-25, 16-20, 11-15, etc). It definitely speeds up the process.

A result of this combat was that Thunuk was reduced to 0 hitpoints when he took a second boulder to the torso, this time a Crit. Now, I will admit that in the past, I’ve fudged rolls (GASP!) and rolled nat 20s behind the screen, but didn’t call that out. I didn’t want to kill the party off, and didn’t want to end their fun or their story. In this case, however, the timing was perfect: it was right at the end of our game time, and I already had a plan for what would happen next. It put a nice little bow on the end of that session.

A word about killing characters: I’ve told my players that, unless they want to retire the character, I won’t kill their characters off. This is D&D, and there are many doorways to take upon being reduced to 0 hitpoints. This is another important discussion to have with your players: they need to trust you. Make sure that they are OK with what can happen, especially when they have been playing a character for some time.

Anyway, that’s the first entry into Behind The Screen. If you have any questions from a DM perspective, please feel free to reach out to me via email, Twitter, or Instagram, and I’ll be glad to help any way I can.

S03 E02 “Arrival Part 2” will stream live on Sunday, February 2, 2020 at 4 pm EST/ 1 pm PCT on the EatDrinkRoll Twitch channel, and will be available on YouTube and Podcast on Tuesday, February 4.