How Pro DnD DM's Tell Stories

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Learn different D&D strategies the DM's of #criticalrole and #dimension20 as well as the creators of Dungeons and Dragons use to tell stories in their games to give their players the best time possible.
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[@link-182]

It makes me happy to see Damien on here. It was his first time DMing and he absolutely killed it. You would never have guessed it was his first time

[@BonusAction]

He is a natural (20).

[@Arc851]

I know! I saw him in the thumbnail and clicked (mostly) because of him

[@Philusion1]

Trying to get my players to roleplay or narrate their own character actions is like a parent trying to get their kid to tell them “how was school?”

[@scottnolan2833]

Oh God, ain’t that the truth?

[@bashmcbash6804]

Brennan's season arc tactic really draws players in and makes things interesting for the GM to plan. I gave my players individual puzzles to work out when they have downtime during long rests, etc, that lead to individual quests. It was a bit of work initially but has paid off with many hours of exploration that didn't require any more planning. 10/10 agree with Brennan's tactic!

[@andrewlustfield6079]

The problem with Brennan's season arc tactic for each character is what happens if the character dies? In my game, one character got hit in the head by a giant's rock and it snapped his neck. Totally random event. And if characters don't die, how much of a game is it really? Tracy Hickman really elevated the importance of storytelling in D&D. And this is widely known as the Hickman revolution. But he also advocated for those stories to be complete in one or two game sessions, maybe three if you're pushing it. In his excellent book, XDM--X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, he went on to say there's nothing more boring than characters who are grinding through milestones or experience points to reach their next level with little to no chance of dying. It's better to think of your sessions like a Firefly episode. Sure there are over acring through lines, but every episode is it's own complete story. When you have entire campaigns that aren't just character focused but character dependant like Brennan is advocating, you're less likely to let the dice do their part of the storytelling. The dice are critical to the story. The DM doesn't know who things turn out. The players don't know---the dice decide, and everyone reacts to that decision. So my advice would be just the opposite--don't let your campaigns be dependent on any one character. It's better to see the party as an ensemble cast where any one of them could go at any moment. And the campaign easily and fluidly adjusts to new characters being brought in if one or more buys the farm.

[@Drraagh]

@@andrewlustfield6079 For the 'season arc' with a dead character, let's look at Babylon 5 as a perfect example. Commander Sinclair left after season 1, meaning that the whole plan they had been building up over the season was now pointing at things that couldn't happen. There is a writeup about the plan that JMS had for the series if everything had gone as he planned.. It was sometimes necessary to adjust the plotline to accommodate external influences, an example being the "trap door" that was written for every character: in the event of that actor's unexpected departure from the series, the character could be written out with minimal impact on the storyline. Straczynski stated, "As a writer, doing a long-term story, it'd be dangerous and short-sighted for me to construct the story without trap doors for every single character. ... That was one of the big risks going into a long-term storyline which I considered long in advance;..." This device was eventually used to facilitate the departures of Claudia Christian and Andrea Thompson from the series. I like to compare the Campaign Arc to the idea of 'Screen Presence' from PrimeTime Adventures, an RPG about a TV series. The idea of Screen Presence is depending on number of episodes, players get a number of 1's, 2's and 3's to assign to each episode of the show. 1's are minor roles for the episode, 2's are supporting roles, 3 are main character episodes. So, a five episode season starts everyone off at 2, then you get 1 more 2, 2 1's and a 3, meaning you have a 2, 3, 1, 1 to assign over the four remaining episodes. Any shared 3s are two or more players in an important episode being extra special, a cliffhanger, an over-the-top event like sweeps week or end of the Fall or Summer seasons. Player 1 has 2, 1,1, 3, 2 or an intro, fades into the background, epic story and then back to main support cast. Player 2 has 2, 2, 3,1,1, meaning a build up at the start, epic mid-season story and then fades into the background. Player 3 wants 2, 3, 1,2,1. They start big, leading to the first big plot, then they bounce back and forth between background and supporting. Player 2 for example... I see we get to know them, they are the helping character in solving Player 3's problems, then we find they have their own issue. Is it drugs? Alcohol? Gambling Debt? Family having medical problems? Something drives them to do something drastic so they have a reason for their character to have less primary screen time. Maybe next season they have a 3 and 'The family member is in trouble' or 'They now have developed a drinking problem to cope with this stress of family member issues' or whatever. I think the Firefly example is good, and the campaign arc is good, but what I like to do is the Stand Alone Complex style of events from Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Stand Alone Complex contains 14 "Stand Alone" (SA) episodes and 12 "Complex" (C) episodes. Stand Alone episodes take place independently of the main plot and focus on Public Security Section 9's investigation of isolated cases. Complex episodes advance the main plot, which follows Section 9's investigation of the Laughing Man incident: the kidnapping and subsequent release of a Japanese CEO by a sophisticated hacker. A second season titled Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG was aired from January 1, 2004, to January 8, 2005. Unlike the first season, the second season has three designations denoting the type of episode: individual (IN), dividual (DI) and dual (DU). IN episodes tie in with the Individual Eleven storyline; DI episodes are stand-alone episodes that may still be tied into other storylines; and DU episodes tie in with the Cabinet Intelligence Service & Goda story-line (though the two main storylines inter-relate). There are 11 individual, 11 dividual and 4 dual episodes. So, you have your detailed episodes focusing on your main plot events, interspaced between one offs as palate cleansers or to explore a specific angle or element of the world or a character, or if you need a session to figure out what to do with the twist they just threw at you. An example of how to handle throwing in a 'I need a moment' session is in the 4E D&D book 'From Here to There' which presents nine all-new adventures focused on traveling from point A to point B. Sure, your players may be going from one dungeon to another - but why not spice up things in between? From aerial assaults to haunted bridges, From Here to There turns “getting there” into a lot more fun! Covering levels 2 to 13, this compilation has a place in every campaign. Never used the book, but the idea of it has given me some inspiration to carry things in back pocket as ideas for 'I need some time to prep something for your curveball', to use Firefly as an example, I'd probably say Out of Gas could be a perfect example. It's a mostly Bottle Episode on the ship that is dead in space, there's no resolution to any ongoing adventures and they're not picking up any new jobs, so they're just solving this problem while the GM is figuring what happens next.

[@BacchusGames]

@@andrewlustfield6079 I mean, I don't think that death for player characters is really that important or meaningful in a TTRPG without the story wrapping up. Death for NPCs should be prevalent if the tone you're going for is dangerous, but not only do many campaigns not go for that tone, even if it is going for that tone it doesn't mean deaths should just happen. For instance in the RPG the wildsea, the book actually states explicitly that death shouldn't happen unless the DM and player both feel like it's more interesting for the story. At the end of the day, you're making a story with your group, and most stories don't just happen to have prevalent characters keeling over because they got unlucky. I personally have had 2 different campaigns that lasted 2+ years not end with a single player character dead, other than by people wanting to swap characters and giving them an interesting send off. Not to mention Brennan's campaigns are super heavily driven by the dice while he's using this storytelling method. The dice aren't there to tell his story, more to enhance the story the group wants to tell. The dice create suspension, tension, and climax's but at the end of the day the DM is the one who has to take what the dice have said and create a story out of it. You can always be using these dice rolls to help with "failing forward" where failing doesn't prevent story progression but instead forces it. DMs use this all the time because it's a way for the dice to effect and inspire the story rather than being the all ruling controller of the story. I think it's just a difference in perspective though, as someone who views RPGs as a way to play a game will want something inherently different to someone who plays to create a story. People who look at RPGs as more of a game will be more accepting and willing to let characters die as they are tools to be used. On the other hand, if you are a table who is trying to create a story collaboratively, it makes more sense to use the RPG as a way to make the story your group is making more interesting. Sometimes that will be with deaths, but it really doesn't have to be.

[@andrewlustfield6079]

@@BacchusGamesThanks for such a thoughtful reply. I do think there are a few misunderstandings here. 1) Even in games where character death is always possible, players still get attached to their characters in a very serious way. In two years of running this campaign, (playing once a month--we all have adult schedules) I had one player not long ago tell me how much she loves her ranger character--and she's got good cause to. It's a fun character. In the current campaign, I've only had two characters die so far. So, it's not super lethal. But I often roll my dice in front of the players just so they know everything is on the up and up. I'm not pulling punches. 2) And I have found that in games where death is always on the table, that actually enhances role play. How do other characters handle a PC death? That can get deep. Just as an example, years ago, I ran a campaign that had a much higher mortality rate, and just through luck--elves were just cursed in that game. It wasn't just elves, but elves just seemed to get the worst of it. And it got to the point where if an elf joined the party--one of the main line fighters didn't even want to know the elf's name. Every elf he had ever become friends with he had wound up burying. So it was similar to Band of Brothers when new recruits were brought into Easy Company as replacements. The paladin in the party would ask if the elf was sure they wanted to join the party. She actually had a prepared speech, telling them that elves just didn't have a great survival rate with them. Her character's opinion was elves were just too delicate for the types of adventuring they did. Every time they went to a tavern they would raise a glass to those in the party graveyard. That was a very intense group and a very intense game--but the players treated their characters like combat veterans who were used to seeing high intensity violence--like Vorenous and Pullo in HBO's Rome or Sam Elliot's SGt Major Plumley from We Were Soldiers. 3) When it comes to backstory, I tell my players to treat their first three levels as their backstory. The best role play I've ever seen is when the player draws on shared experiences that everyone has played through--not something that has happened in out of scene and out of the game exposition. 4) As far as the dice are concerned, they do tell part of the story and they need to be respected. The DM isn't a storyteller--trust me I also write fiction. There's a massive difference, and writing fiction is much harder and more intensive. A DM is really a conflict engineer--they set the world, put factions in motion, throw out plot threads for parties to follow up on. Players are the protagonists, they decide what gets done and at what pace. They decide how or if they are going to check for traps, how they engage NPCs--whether to parley or attack or if they refuse engagement. Some challenges should be avoided. Anytime the result is unknown--that's when the dice tell their part of the story. I don't know what's going to happen--my players don't know what's going to happen. Lives are on the line and that creates stakes and keeps it interesting. At the end of it, I have to decide how the rest of the world reacts to what happened and the players have to decide how they are going to react--was it a major set back for them--is someone so wounded they need to go back to town? Is someone afflicted by a cursed disease like lycanthropy and they need to go to a temple to have that dealt with? Was the party success so complete and unexpected that the PCs can surge forward with their agenda while my bad guys are scrambling to recover from their losses?

[@analyticsystem4094]

I started dming my first campaign, a few months ago. This campaign is inspired from One Piece so the party has one overarching goal of finding the One Piece (a great treasure). Throughout their journey, I’ve given them small goals and guided them a bit but my party is mostly in control of the story. They usually choose where to go and how to achieve their goal at the time. This works well for my players because they have fun trying to figure out fun ways to achieve their goals.

[@BonusAction]

A One Piece inspired campaign sounds like perfect D&D to me!

[@Pinocchio1502]

this is genuinely really useful for new dms and older dms trying to improve. Btw what is your opinion on one d&d

[@BonusAction]

Honestly, from what we know so far, I think the new revised books are a money grab from wizards... but I also think the changes will make D&D on the whole slightly better. And it's absolutely wizards right to try and improve their products and profit off it at the same time. However I think how they handled the the language and marketing was pretty confusing and dreadful. I also don't have all the facts so don't crucify me for my opinion! Haha.

[@aaronjack7791]

Daaaamn dog you said the smile creeps across my face and you got me one did. Smoooooth

[@023Whiplash]

So awesome that you used Damien for this

[@jbux9128]

Great video! Thanks for continuing to fo all this research. It all starts I think with your exposure to the game. I started with TAZ, then Dimension 20, then Dungeons & Daddies, and finally Critical Role. The improv style of DNDads has been the cornerstone of my DM stye. I find it also depends on the players you have. My main table all love improv and hilarity, so that style fits. Another table isn't RP heavy or comfortable with improv, so the style has to shift.

[@littlebears7515]

The subscribe description made me subscribe haha, great work!

[@alythiadnd]

Off topic but Im tripping out when you say "Subscribe button" at 2:00 the subscribe button flashes a color. I literally had no idea this was a KZbin feature. I'm freaking out lol

[@BonusAction]

I know right, its a relatively new update :P

[@A2forty]

My campaign is literally called too many cooks. The players all have to do something with food and are trying to get there name out. I am very off the cuff dm. Not saying i don't plan but instead i try to make interesting ideas and then see what the players do. I let the players guide the story. Almost everyone says i must do tins of planning, which i don't. One time the players did an action that made me rip up my entire campaign idea on the spot. So during that session i started to lay the groundwork for a new idea and the players decided at the end that they made a mistake and try to reverse course. So instead i ripped up what i had done and put they 20 years into the future (fairies were involved). The minor bad was now destroying towns and running everything. The plan was to send them back in time to stop it before it happens but they went through a bunch of stuff to make them feel the damage. Also when they went back they knew what was going to happen and could get ahead of it

[@bryceayoung]

These videos are all so well done and have amazing content. Just subscribed. Thanks so much for the great productions!

[@nickolasweislogel3308]

This is really great!

[@arnovanboxem2519]

I liked your description of the subsribe button. It worked on me

[@matheus_brunelli]

Dude, I genuinely believe it would be cool if you could eventually mention Cellbit, a Game Master that normally streams games in portuguese but recently made a two-shot campaign in english and it is now the TTRPG streams with the most simultaneous viewers at twitch. Instead of having actors as players, he usually has twitch streamers as players. They don't try to act, but naturally feel what the character is feeling, and they are obviously charismatic as any famous streamer would be. Cellbit's stories are very much full of mystery and even thiller and horror. The production level is amazing, and the stories are great. I really recommend trying to watch "Quarentena", which is the season in english

[@BonusAction]

I am checking him out now, he is so big I can not believe I have never heard of him!

[@socialcommentary]

Another great video! So much inspiration! What campaigns/stories are you running at the moment?

[@BonusAction]

Just started a new campaign based around phandelver and below. I usually use adventure modules then homebrew heavily depending on the PC's! How about you?

[@kelpiekit4002]

I'd say both Brennan Lee Mulligan and Anthony Burch both have an element of distributed GMing. They both welcome worldbuilding in the moment from the players and adjudicate it. They're definitely not the only ones but I have noticed they do it a lot. A great GM I'd like to put forward for your mention is Matt Taylor from TableTopNotch who does a great job of giving variety to the game by unbinding himself from the game. He is an amazing example of the homebrewer GM who shows how to shape the game world with mechanics.

[@Bigidge]

i love dungeons & daddies

[@fullangelverde2]

2:00 WOAH since when that happens!!??

[@francoisdumont4105]

Matthew Immerser... good one

[@Drudenfusz]

Who would have guessed, that I can this time agree with everything in the video. The only small little nitpick would be about the second point about immersing the players, I would say better avoid phrases like "you see" but instead describe the things independent from the characters, so that the players can decide if their character actually notice it or remains oblivious. But more important, some players will be pulled out by second person narrative, since that will confuse them if the character or they are player are meant, and worse by invading the player's space of their character by telling them their perception could lead to some feeing railroaded since that might appear to them as a loss of agency. That is usually my biggest gripe with dScryb, that too many descriptions there make use of second person which for me always ruins the immersion. Hope that is nevertheless enough negativity to spark peopl again to go crazy in their replies to me!

[@CypherDND]

Just signed up to try skillshare. Excited to look at the accent training!

[@Xingmey]

liar

[@CypherDND]

@@Xingmey??? Not a liar lol

[@TheShepherdFilms]

Dude yes!!! Dungeons and daddies love!

[@mslabo102s2]

Subversion always eludes me despite knowing it is good. I always forget to do it and feel I'm stuck into the supposed "normalcy".

[@topherhilberg5076]

My players never ask questions, it's a problem

[@aureliomanalo]

I rolled the likes from 999 to 1k

[@peetamontrose7954]

That, was... interesting adventure to go through. And to imagine I needed someone to annoy me enough by saying this one word so many times over such a short period to finally notice that stupid word... Just this one word, and now I got to probably understand why I am a bad player. Why i get bored so easily, lost interest, and don't fit among others, even thou I love DnD and can talk about it for hours. And why my runned One-shots are a hit, but my so far one campaign... not so much. Cause when I come to the table - I am there to play a game. Not to listen to some stories. Not to tell some stories. Not to listen "what my character did back in the day before we met". Not to listen one character talking to one npc back and forth because "He was created for my story" in a dialog not getting action further - just showing "a story". I already written enough novels for my life, I already read enough books for my life. I am there to create story. Since we apparently love that word so much... I am there to check boundaries of the system. I am there to interact with other players. To influence other characters reactions. To make decisions, my decisions, not just one of the three that a game creators prepared. I am there to have fun with others. And as a DM, I prepare EVERYTHING OTHER THAN A STORY. I create obstacles, encounters, puzzles, riddles, situations, some motivation. And I was wondering "maybe they are shy? Sometimes they say they don't know what to do with their characters, so maybe that's more overall - how could I subtly help them with their creativity?" and I asked once if there is anything they wanted more in my sessions, so they answered "we want more lore", and... you don't know me, but trust me when I say - EVERYTHING in my world, has a reason. If there is a water elemental in the ocean that they encountered? I have an answer for how/why it is there. If there are 8 biggest in the world guilds placed in one city - I have a background how it happened. There is an elf with hawk wings from his back - I have his origin, I have his childhood, and his life achivements, that made him the legend of monster slayers guild. Same goes for any "name-having" npcs of those guilds. A mage guild want's you to fetch some flowers from an island as a quest? I have for what do they need those flowers... If there is a dead mage - I have an answer to how he got killed and why. If in his skill book some of the spells have two to 4 lines of this mage notes - there is a "why" behind it. If there is a mysterious type of mobs, coming to a one-race island, and trying to kill them all I have why/how/what they are, where they come from (and by the way one of the player's character was from that race - nah, it didn't help) So when they asked for more lore I furiously answered "There is, you just need to ask more and start interacting with the word" but now I get it. They are in fact waiting not for lore, but for "a stroy" to be reviled before them.... while I'm waiting for them to take initiative. To interact, to play around with toys I am creating in the sandbox. Because I have in mind what is happening if the characters don't exist, what would happen without them in the picture. But when they do come in the frame I expect them to make their decisions, to change things, do what they want and create just random dots while they are at just having fun. It is supposed to be an evening game after all. And while I am writing those dot's down, when I start to notice some connection between them I am trying to fill the places between dots as satysfying for the players as I can - and then guide them TO THE CONSECUENCES OF THEIR ACTION, not to the "main story" But when they get into a picture, they just wait. Apparently for me to tell them a story. And think about how to portraite their premade stories into the game time, instead of how to create new ones with other player's characters within the game time... Well... now that you put my attention to the real problem between me and my players, I will try to adress that... and we will just need to decide wheater or not I am a good DM for this type of group - cause I never signed to being a writer for a theatre. "Great storytelling happens before the game - preperation" - doesn't it starts to feel like a chore, not a game then? Cause you make that "story" for yourself to tell, aparently outside of the table at a game preperation, and then you... just play the scenario...