Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master

by Michael E Shea

  Second, it helps you see what sorts of things the players remembered. What events or NPCs resonated with them? What details of the story did they forget?

  Third, asking the players for a summary tells everyone that the game has started. This can be especially useful for groups that like to start out a session with a bit of socializing, as the act of describing the previous session together can address some of that need.

  As the players describe the previous session, don’t interrupt them. Let them tell you what they remember. Other players will likely jump in to make corrections and fill in the blanks. As you repeat this process session to session, it’ll help you get a sense of which players remember which parts of the story.

  Fill in Missing Information

  Only after the players are done should you fill in any crucial information required to move the story forward. If they’ve forgotten small details, you can often let those details stay forgotten. If it wasn’t important enough for the players to remember, maybe it just wasn’t important.

  These player-driven summaries help you see what really matters at the table. They can offer suggestions for how you might tweak the game to focus on the aspects that are most memorable to the players—and to steer away from aspects that aren’t resonating with them.

  Checklist for Asking Players to Summarize the Previous Session

  At the beginning of a session, ask the players to summarize the events of the previous game session.

  Listen and pay attention without interruption.

  Take note of what the players remember.

  Let other players jump in to fill in the blanks.

  Only correct vital misunderstandings.

  Use what you hear to focus your game on what the players find most memorable.

  Chapter 20: Three Tricks for Group Storytelling

  “Every game has some level of improvisation.”

  —Stacy Dellorfano, Unframed

  It’s easy to focus too much on the mechanics of an RPG and forget about the story we’re sharing at the table. Players might fixate on the combat details of their character sheets. GMs will focus on the statistics of monsters and the accuracy of encounter balance. When we run our games, they sometimes look less like the cover of a fantasy novel and more like a war simulation as a result.

  Creativity leads to more creativity. So if we want to build off the creativity of the players, we need them to think creatively as well. We want to work together to elevate our games from mechanics-focused simulations into action scenes worthy of any novel or movie.

  Moving players into creative improvisational thinking isn’t easy, though. We’re all familiar with how society pushes people to leave imagination behind once childhood is done. And it’s that imagination that we need to open up once again. So instead of starting big, we start small. We ask specific questions that shift the players away from the mechanics of the game and into more creative imagery.

  Like much of the way of the Lazy Dungeon Master, these techniques serve multiple purposes. Group storytelling isn’t just about getting everyone into a more creative mood. It also makes our games easier to run.

  “Describe Your Killing Blow”

  When a character lands a fatal blow against a monster, ask the player to describe what happens. For certain players, this request will inspire a moment of looking at you, then looking at their character sheet, then looking back to you. But usually, this initial reluctance will be followed by a childish smile and a gory description of the killing blow.

  This is a small, focused question that nearly every player can answer in an interesting way. It’s a far cry from collaborative world building, to be sure. But it can help break players away from thinking about their characters as just a collection of statistics, even if just for that one fatal moment.

  “What’s an Interesting Physical Characteristic of this Monster?”

  The first time a character attacks a monster, ask the player to describe an interesting physical characteristic of the monster before they hit it. (If they describe the monster after the attack, it inevitably just becomes the creature with an arrow sticking out of its eye.)

  This question is a useful exercise in multiple ways. It helps you identify individual monsters for the rest of the encounter—particularly useful if you’re running combat in a narrative theater-of-the-mind style, and you need a way to identify monsters without miniatures. It helps you and the players connect with the monster as a distinct creature, rather than focusing on its mechanical aspects or giving it a label like “Orc 3.” It also makes every monster unique, which makes the world feel more real.

  If you’re using a laminated flip mat, you can write this characteristic on the mat so that everyone can see it. Then use that identifier when tracking the monster’s damage.

  Asking the players to identify a physical characteristic of a monster can inspire a small improv session that even the most introverted gamer can enjoy. These characteristics can then become something important to the story, or they might expose a secret or clue. When the players get creative, you never know where it might lead.

  “What’s an Interesting Characteristic of this Tavern?”

  You can expand the previous question to places as well. Whenever the characters enter a tavern, an inn, or some other location, instead of you describing the entire place, ask the players to join in by describing one interesting or fantastic feature of the location.

  Questions like this can be the first steps in the process of taking the players outside of their characters and into the act of helping create the world. By focusing on small, familiar elements of that world, you don’t have to worry that things will get too far outside the story you all want to tell. But as you grow more comfortable with this process, you might find yourself giving the players more control over shaping larger and more important parts of the game.

  “What Happens Along Your Journey?”

  This next question is a little deeper. Handling travel scenes has long been a challenge for Gamemasters. Describe them too quickly, and they feel so effortless that they don’t matter. But if you run a large number of random encounters to help define the characters’ journeys, travel can start to feel like a grind.

  During organized play games for 13th Age, designer Ash Law came up with the interesting idea of turning travel montages into a small improv session. The following guidelines offer a variation of his approach.

  When the characters begin a long journey, you set the stage, describing what the overall journey will be like, where it will take place, and some interesting but general features of the area. This gives the players something to work with. Then you ask the players to describe an interesting event that occurs while they travel. Ask for events that aren’t about any player’s specific character, but rather about the group as a whole.

  You don’t have to pick out any particular player. That way, no one is singled out when they might not be comfortable jumping in. But it’s always worth asking the quieter players if they’d like to answer before the more outgoing players end up dominating the scene. Players can always pass.

  You can also ask for a player to describe a challenge the group faces, but to not describe how the party overcomes it. Then another player can describe how the characters overcame the challenge. This creates a good back-and-forth improv session between players.

  By the end of this exercise, you and the players will have created a unique story of the journey that none of you could have expected. And at the same time, this process lets the players engage with and add to the creativity that shapes the game world.

  Taking Baby Steps Into Improvisation and Group World Building

  These small and simple questions can help draw players into the world of the campaign, letting them take more control over what’s happening and breaking them out of the confines of their character sheets. The more comfortable everyone becomes with this idea over time, the wider ranging and more detailed your questions can go.

  Checkli
st for Group Storytelling

  Help open up the players’ creative ideas with guided questions.

  Ask players to describe their killing blows against their foes.

  Ask players to describe the interesting physical characteristics of monsters to help you identify them during combat.

  Ask players to describe interesting details of locations they visit.

  Ask players to describe interesting events or conflicts that occur during travel scenes.

  Chapter 21: Improvising NPCs

  “Your character was born the moment the curtain goes up and your character dies as soon as it’s over.”

  —Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing

  During our game preparation, we might come up with a handful of core NPCs for an adventure. But we’ll likely improvise many more NPCs at the table. From a series of Facebook polls, we know that 80 percent of surveyed DMs improvise at least half their NPCs. We also know that nearly 60 percent of surveyed players prefer NPC interaction to either combat or exploration. And we’ve talked previously about how improvisation is seen as one of the top three traits of a good GM.

  All these results shine a light on the importance of being able to improvise NPCs. As such, we need a good set of tools to let us do so quickly, while still keeping our NPCs unique and interesting.

  Many Gamemaster guides offer numerous ways to build NPCs, but these NPC creation processes are often both complex and time consuming. We Lazy Dungeon Masters need something simpler, so we’re going to break down the improvisation of an NPC into two steps: choosing a name, then getting into the mind of the NPC.

  Choose a Name

  A solid NPC has a good name, and coming up with good names is hard without help. The section talking about the Lazy Dungeon Master’s toolkit discusses the process of preparing a good list of curated random names. This list is crucial for coming up with a solid NPC name quickly and easily. Your curated random name list might be your most important improvisational aid.

  Once you’ve selected a name for your NPC, you need to write it down. This sounds obvious, but during a game, it’s easy to mention a name and then forget it ten seconds later. If you’re lucky, one of the players might remember it, but that NPC can otherwise become lost. And as you scramble trying around to remember their name, the world of the game feels less real to the players.

  Names have power. Once they’re written down and tied to an NPC, that NPC becomes a living, breathing being from that moment onward.

  Put Yourself into the Mind of the NPC

  Many RPG books describe selecting and assigning numerous traits to NPCs, including motivations, backgrounds, physical appearance, goals, secrets, and so forth. But as a Lazy Dungeon Master, you can skip all this and instead simply put yourself into the mind of the NPC. This doesn’t mean your NPC won’t have any of those traits. But rather than detail them beforehand, you’ll let them come out organically as you roleplay the NPC.

  When you consider an NPC and their place in the world, you often have enough in your head to know how the player characters are going to react to that character. But while roleplaying the NPC, you might find that your own responses will surprise you. Maybe this town simpleton is a lot smarter than anyone else thought. Maybe the greedy vendor has a revenge plot against the enemy of the characters—a plot you didn’t even know about until it came out during the conversation.

  You might be tempted to fill out a whole NPC before you run your game. But as with many of the aspects of Lazy Dungeon Master preparation, you want to prepare only what you must. Then leave the rest blank, so that you can fill it in when your game unfolds in front of you. You need to trust in your preparations, then sit back to enjoy the wild ride.

  Apply an Existing Stat Block

  If your NPC needs a stat block, you can wrap an existing NPC or monster stat block around a new NPC without worrying about the details. It’s always tempting to build out whole new stat blocks for NPCs during your game preparation. But the players aren’t likely to see or care about the differences, and building stat blocks takes up lots of time for little gain. Reskinning an existing stat block takes almost no time or effort.

  Using Your NPC Preparation Ideas for Improvisation

  If you want to improvise a deeper NPC, you can use some of the same techniques you use to outline your core NPCs. Apply an archetype from popular fiction. Switch the gender of your improvised NPC. Keep an eye out for bad stereotypes. Because the Lazy Dungeon Master’s checklist refines preparation as much as possible, it’s not that difficult to use your NPC preparation steps to improvise an NPC right at the table.

  A Deeper Topic

  Running great NPCs is a deep topic with many facets, and involves tips, tricks, and discussions far beyond those described here. Focusing on how to create and run NPCs as quickly and easily as possible is the goal, but there’s much more that can be learned about this process. The more you digest material on building great NPCs, the better the game you’ll run.

  Checklist for Running NPCs

  Use your curated random name list to choose an appropriate name for the NPC—then write it down.

  Put yourself into the mind of the NPC.

  Don’t worry about building out lots of NPC traits ahead of time.

  Let the traits of the NPC come out as you roleplay them.

  If needed, reskin an existing stat block around an NPC.

  Digest as much material as you can on running great NPCs.

  Chapter 22: Improvising Scenes and Situations

  “Plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible.”

  —Stephen King, On Writing

  As part of our preparation, we develop a loose list of scenes that might take place during a game session. Sometimes those scenes develop as we expect. Other times the game heads off in entirely new directions.

  Imagine a Living World

  The world of the game should act naturally and realistically. NPCs don’t sit around waiting for the characters to show up. It’s not the GM’s job to plan out exactly how a game session will go. Your job is to set the stage, describe it to the players, and let them interact with it.

  The rest of the world around the characters acts the same way. When the characters talk to the local sheriff, the sheriff might not care about them at all. She has her own problems. If she thinks the characters can help, that’s great. But she doesn’t exist only to deal with the characters. She’s there to help protect her town from the constant spate of odd happenings that always seem to occur there.

  Let the World React to the Characters

  As the characters start doing things, the world reacts to them. Their foes begin to take notice. Those foes might test the characters out with some low-challenge threats. Or they might decide to end their meddling before it starts by sending assassins after them. They might begin to fear the characters, sealing themselves behind potent defenses while they frantically work to bring their plots to fruition. The characters take actions, and the world reacts in response.

  Example: The Fortress of Grayspire

  As part of our “Scourge of Volixus” adventure, we have a large location: the Fortress of Grayspire. When we think about the fortress, we want to put ourselves in the mind of the villain and think about what’s going on there.

  Volixus has two dozen hobgoblins and three dozen regular goblins in his service, along with his ogre mercenaries. He might send two patrols with a couple of hobgoblins and six goblins around the area outside the fortress to make sure no one is trying to storm the castle. He might send out raiding parties with two of the ogre mercenaries, four hobgoblins, and ten goblins.

  About a third of his forces are sleeping at any given time, and another third are usually out on patrols or raids. This leaves eight hobgoblins, twelve goblins, and two ogres awake at the castle. Volixus probably assigns a hobgoblin and a couple of regular goblins at each of the four watchtowers at the castle. The remaining hobgoblins, goblins, and ogres are likely in the yard, work
ing on Volixus’s infernal war machine alongside the gnome alchemists and engineers. They might also be conducting exercises, cooking, packing away loot, or meeting with Volixus. From time to time, Volixus might go out on a raid along with his hell hounds.

  Thinking through the setup of the monsters tells you what the situation looks like at Grayspire. The characters can find out much of this by interrogating prisoners or spying on the fortress. Though this all seems detailed, you don’t need to plan it out ahead of time. You can simply keep these ideas in mind, or make them up as the game evolves.

  This arrangement also doesn’t consider the characters or their actions. This is just how Grayspire operates. It’s what makes sense within the context of the story. If Volixus learns that a group of adventurers is trying to infiltrate Grayspire, or if some of his patrols and raiding parties start disappearing, he’ll react to this in whatever way makes sense for him to react. But how the characters deal with it is always up to them. You can guess at some approaches they might take, such as sneaking in through the tunnels beneath the Watchtower of Set and infiltrating Grayspire from inside. But that’s just one idea. The players will come up with many others.

  Checklist for Building Scenes and Situations