Picture this:

You are running a Campaign with your friends and everyone seems to be having a good time creating their characters, getting their stats together for the first game session. Then they get all their favorite items together for a game, miniatures, dice, rule books, all the goodies needed to play a great game.

So you begin,

“Alright guys, so you are all in town at a tavern, you each have been drinking in your own right and enjoying the night. What do you do?”

The Bard says, “I want to play a song to see if I can gain some coin and some Women!”

The Wizard says, “I’m going to use my spells to cause fireworks to help with the bard’s entertainment”

The Fighter says, “I’m going to use my beefy arms to win some arm wrestling matches for more coin!”

The Rogue says, “I’m going to look for the wealthiest person here and try to steal their wallet”

You follow up, “Ok guys roll some dice to see how well you performed.” Every one rolls some dice and add their appropriate modifier. They all seem to succeed. “Ok you all are able to get what you want and gain a few coins. A man, dressed in a dark hood rushes into the room banging the door against the wall with a loud THUD! He looks around the room and see’s (dice roll) the Fighter. The man rushes over and hands you (pointing at the fighter) a scroll, says “Keep it safe!” and runs out the door.” What do you do?”

…………..

After reading this example you might think that this is a decent Hook for a campaign, a little mystery as to what is in the scroll, and a little bit of fun for the players, but there are a few things wrong here that could easily be fixed and give a little more depth to the players and hook them in a little better…….

Can you find the issues with what was done? And I don’t mean just in the role play part of the scenario, even the beginning.

Background and Depth are two major ones.

The other is allowing to much of an open ended scenario.

What do I mean? Well I’ll tell you and hopefully get you on your way to pulling in your players.

For anyone who knows me, or reads this blog………(insert cricket noises), knows that I’m an advocate for a good background, and I don’t just mean those random backgrounds found in the 5th edition Players handbook, those are great places to start, but true stories to your adventurers.

Why are they the way they are? Who effected them in such a way as to follow in that kind of lifestyle? Just because someone rolled some dice or paid some points to get their character going on paper doesn’t finish the story, make the players think. What caused them to have those stats in their character’s life? Did they study mounds of books and scrolls to become a wizard? Were they a soldier or part of the military at one time? Did they have to grow up on the streets and steal food to survive? Small questions that help to get your players thinking about their background.

You see when you invest time into creating a more intricate background for your character, then you start to become more invested with that character, you become that character, or at least don’t see them as a wealth of spells and stats.

Next is the adding of depth. Instead of just letting your players meet in a bar or tavern, or not even knowing each other, make sure they have a little history to make them care at least a little for each other, not all players love to be be social and nice with every player. There are plenty of players who love the “Why should I even care” feelings and don’t care to express their character that way unless you reel it in a bit early on. If you have a someone who wants to play a person like this make sure they understand what kind of game you are running because a personality like that will cause trouble for any GM consistently.

So by adding a little depth to your campaign will give you a ton of help in keeping players interested. Try to prepare by creating your NPC’s, remember moving an NPC to a different place is easier than trying to get a player to come to your NPC, I’ll show you what I mean in my final example of the original scene. Make your NPC interesting to the players and leave some hidden word clues to intrigue your players, does he have muddy boots from the rain? Oops, now it’s raining, the scene changes just based upon that small statement. Are his clothes dripping from the heavy rain? Now it’s a storm. Is he leaving a small track of blood? Now we don’t know if he is injured or if he killed someone and the rain is washing the blood on the ground, a proper ability check might be in order. These are good small examples of depth.

And the main thing I want to say about DEPTH, leave the players wanting more. Give them those details and mental notes and don’t always answer all the questions, let the players ponder a bit leave them hanging. The reason Drama TV shows do so well is because a lot of the episodes end on a cliff hanger, which make you think and talk about what might happen next. You need to take this information and use it for DnD. Don’t leave your players with all the information make them ponder and wait to find out who killed that NPC or captured a that player. You’ll find your players will actually bug you to find that answer, and in turn you might even fix the issue of players not making sessions because they will WANT to play.

The last part is Open ended questions. The Questions of “What do you do?” or “Where do you go?” should be few and far between. The thing that many people get confused about games like Dungeons and Dragons is the thought that it is an entirely open ended game. It’s not. It is a contained story within an open world. We as people don’t generally like to come out of our comfort zones and we use games to take us out of the mundane, we want a story, we want cause and effect, we want to make a difference in a world that allows it, we want adventure that our everyday lives won’t give us. So throwing your players into an open sandbox can be entertaining, but as a DM you will set yourself up for an uphill battle. You need players to want to play or you will quickly lose interest because not all personalities are the same, not every party member will want to go looking for a quest or an adventure, some will want to find some quick funds to pick up that item they have been eyeballing in the DM guide. You need to pull your players together and make sure they stay close to each other so that they support each other as well, keep them wanting to play and understand the story that they have become a part of.

So to finish up I’ll redo the original scene and you will see that it has changed, but remember, no one is perfect and you may find things you do, or don’t like or even your players might not enjoy, but hopefully this will help bring it all together for you.

………………

Picture this:

You are running a Campaign with your friends and everyone seems to be having a good time creating their characters, getting their stats together for the first game session. You ask each player, to explain their background a bit so that they get a little more into character and the other players also know what motivates them and can respond. You decide that because non of the background are the same that you need to bring the party together to give them some feeling of friendship or teamwork.

So you begin,

“It has been a long battle, the bodies of the thieves and bandits threatening the Caravan have been taken care of. You are all tired from your fight, the fighter having a smile on his face slides his blade back into it’s black leather home at his side. The rogue is wondering around the bodies looking for any salvageable “goods” he can find from the bandits and puts a few coins in his wallet. The wizard puts his spell book away, it’s leather binding makes a low groan as it stretches back to it’s closed form. The bard pulls out his lute and begins to sing a melody to try to lighten the mood after a hard fought battle, a small glimmer catches his eye as he bends down toward the ground and picks up a ring with a strange symbol on it, the symbol resembles a manticor hovering over a small crown. Before you get a chance to examine the ring you hear a shout from further down the trail.”

The Bard says, “What do I see?”

You follow up, ” A figure approaches the group, wearing a dark hood with a red trim. The bottom dirty and caked with dirt and mud. There is a short sword sheathed at their side with a fiery design made of leather and silver from what you can tell. An amulet dangles from the dark pit that seems to hide the figures face in their hood. As they approach the fighter you can tell from the voice that they seem to be male, but they keep a good enough tilt on their head to keep their appearance hidden. You also notice a small trail of blood following the hooded man, a few drips hit the ground on each step, his arm tucked under his cloak and the other outstretched with a scroll.”

“Before you can even speak a word the man shoves the scroll into the chest of the fighter, “Keep it safe!” and he dashes past the caravan and disappears into the woods.”

The Rogue says, “What is it?”

………….

So as you can tell I made a number of differences and came up with about the same scenario for the group. But now they have more than just the blaring question of what does the scroll contain? But now they want to know, who is the man? Why was he bleeding? What Caravan are you protecting? What does that ring mean that the Bard found? Where are we?

The answer to those questions are now so burned into their heads, they don’t even care about how they met each other, or how they feel about each other. They will discover that on their own as they adventure as a group trying to find the answers to those questions.

Alright guys, feel free to use this scenario if you want, I don’t mind at all, or bend it to your needs, or even better, make up something! Either way, enjoy your time and prepare ideas like this, no matter where the players are, this NPC could end up anywhere at any time, they could have been in a dungeon, a tavern, a town, even on a boat. But we want to give that Hook to the players to drag them into your story, yeah there will be plenty of time for other things, but now you have them hooked.

Thanks guys and if you liked this article make sure to follow me on the usual social media channels and if you have anything you want me to cover or talk about be sure to throw me a contact up top.

Thanks again guys!