D&D 5E Help with giving my players choices that matter

[delphonso]

So before I get into my real question and discussion I'll give some background. I'll bold the actual question for those who don't care to read.

I started playing 5E as a DM with the mission statement of being a better DM. I have always been too controlling as a GM. I railroad my players and they end up being passengers on this story I'm telling instead of being active participants in it. That's not really what I want, so I started this campaign and have done my best to avoid this. I have given as much freedom to my players as I can, and just put in a few rigid points to keep the story going in one direction. Twice, they've gone up against mysteries which were completely controlled by me, but they discovered and searched for solutions on their own. I got really good feedback on these from the players, so I feel like I'm making progress.

My usual gaming group is pretty small. It's three close friends of mine and myself as GM. The party is an interesting mix: a really well-built Monk, a devoted Paladin, and a Sorcerer (who is more of a face for the party). We played once a week for about 5 months until I took a vacation. When we returned there were some scheduling and technical issues for a while. I decided to suspend that campaign and take a break as GM. We moved on to FFG: Edge of the Empire and added another player. The Paladin is now GMing.

The adventure we left off on was a natural stopping point, and I had planned to take a break after they finished it. They never finished the adventure, and I'm a bit thankful for that since it gives me time to iron out the conclusion of that adventure. I wanted it to end with a big narrative choice. The party has been helping out a lesser noble and building up their castle. They've been following a mystery which seems to be connected to the capital of the country. This country is a theocracy, but a different deity than what the Paladin follows.
The current adventure has them getting rid of a monster problem in the capital. I was going to offer them the chance to be knights under the king of the country as a reward. Their favorite NPC wants to be a knight, and they invited that NPC to join them on this adventure as well. To make the choice more difficult, I was going to say they'd have to devote themselves to the god of the Theocracy - something the Paladin would definitely not do.

At the end of the day, I know this isn't a choice. The party definitely will refuse. The Paladin would be against it completely and the other players are more suspicious of the country than supportive of it. I worry that I'm falling back into my habits of controlling the party too much.

I really want to hand out tough decisions for my party, but I don't know what motivations to play off of. If I know what they're going to pick, it doesn't feel like much of a choice. Does anyone have any advice for planning story-propelling decisions? What aspects of my characters should I be looking at to confront them with?

 

[DEFCON 1]

My advice is that you don't need to hand out "tough" decisions... you only need to hand out decisions. The group themselves will make the decision "tough".

In your actual example... you don't need to force a conversion on the party in order for them to accept the position of knight of the theocratic realm in order to make the choice difficult (and in fact, as you said, doesn't end up making it a choice at all.) I don't think there's any need to be that blatant about it. Just the fact that a theocracy for a god that the paladin doesn't follow is offering them knighthood is all the "tough" decision they need.

Your party probably knows what being a knight for the crown entails. They know that they'd become a face and representative for the crown and they know the kind of stuff they would have to do as that face. Even without "converting", they'd become de facto representatives of that god of the theocracy in the eyes of many people (mainly the commoners). THAT'S the tough decision. Can the paladin be the face of a theocracy whose god he himself doesn't represent? Do the benefits of being a knight outweigh the questioning of his worship? Will the others in the party tell him to just suck it up because they want to be knights, even though the god doesn't match? I suspect that's going to be much more of a conversation and argument within the group than any "hard" question you might put before them by forcing unnecessary additional choices.

Long story short... a party will turn ANY decision they have to make into a "tough" one... arguing both sides for hours trying to figure out a solution. You don't have any need to goose it by throwing in big events or big choices in addition to it.

 

[Nagol]

D&D isn't the best system to use when aiming for decision points based around aspects of characters. It can be done, but the system doesn't offer easy handholds for the players to label aspects they find interesting for easy DM identification.

My best advice for D&D is to design situations as opposed to adventures. Construct a situation where the players can resolve it in a variety of ways with a variety of winners/losers and potentially a variety of rewards the PCs can claim. It often works best if there are 'layers' to a situation.

In the current situation, for example, the players are confronting a monster problem in the capital. If they locate and clear out the monsters, PCs deemed particularly worthy (worshippers of appropriate deities who acted in a manner acceptable to the theocracy) may be offered entry into a holy knight order. Others who acted well may get offered entry into a laity order, and others who acted more questionably may only receive their share of any monetary reward.

While investigating the monster issue, however, the party has the chance to befriend/save/negotiate the withdrawal of the creatures rather than killing them. Acting in this manner will negate the offers above, but will present some other form of reward to the PCs (alliance, treasure map, secret knowledge, whatever). Or the party may be able to discover that part of the theocracy is responsible for the introduction of the monsters into the capital and has to figure out what to do with that information -- anything from turn them in, confront them themselves, attempt to blackmail them, or ally with them.

 

[Rhenny]

I agree with DEFCON 1.

I've found that the key to making a more dynamic world, where choices matter and players don't feel railroaded, is to avoid binary choices as much as possible, and seed the adventure with a bunch of possible hooks/leads. When it is appropriate, show them the impact of their choices by using NPCs to give information, or by describing action that they are not necessarily involved in at the time. Also remember, not every choice needs to be epic. For all things in D&D, variety is the spice of life (combat, social, exploration, decision making, etc.) - if every choice becomes life or death, it exhausts the players.

 

[schnee]

Look up a video by Matt Colville on YouTube, specifically the one where he talks about the West Marches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGAC-gBoX9k

It has some stuff that doesn't apply to you (i.e. running a large group with rotating DMs), but it has a lot of stuff about the problems you're facing also.

The TLDR summary: make a map. Throw some 'hooks' on it in the form of legends of treasure, weird happenings, political rumblings, and the like. Encourage the party to do some rumor mongering locally that gives them additional hooks nearby. Give them a wide variety of types of things to do. Impending danger, invasion, dragon horde, looming faction war in the city, whatever.

Let the characters choose to pursue the ones they find interesting, and then build from there. It's easy to then grab pre-made stuff and flavor it to fit, or roll your own, since it'll be towards a goal the party has chosen to follow.

Since they'll be hooked on a goal, you won't have to worry about them wandering off and being distracted. You can plan a certain chunk of the adventure based on that, and just design it up to 'breakpoints' that lead to other significant choices.

In other words, plan the idea that the adventures will be branching, and those choices will not force you to lose any work, because you didn't build the content for every choice first.

You'll stop railroading them, they will make legitimate choices, and you'll stop feeling so responsible for thinking way into the future.

That help?

 

[iserith]

I suggest trying your hand at building and running characters through dynamic adventure locations such as dungeons and don't worry about plot-based adventures. The story is what the players do in these adventure locations rather than some plot you've concocted beforehand. At the highest level of resolution, players having their characters explore these locations are the sorts of "story-propelling decisions" you're looking for. Do this for a while and you'll start to see how you can expand that out to sandbox settings and multiple storylines.

 

[ExploderWizard]

So before I get into my real question and discussion I'll give some background. I'll bold the actual question for those who don't care to read.

I started playing 5E as a DM with the mission statement of being a better DM. I have always been too controlling as a GM. I railroad my players and they end up being passengers on this story I'm telling instead of being active participants in it. That's not really what I want, so I started this campaign and have done my best to avoid this. I have given as much freedom to my players as I can, and just put in a few rigid points to keep the story going in one direction. Twice, they've gone up against mysteries which were completely controlled by me, but they discovered and searched for solutions on their own. I got really good feedback on these from the players, so I feel like I'm making progress.

My usual gaming group is pretty small. It's three close friends of mine and myself as GM. The party is an interesting mix: a really well-built Monk, a devoted Paladin, and a Sorcerer (who is more of a face for the party). We played once a week for about 5 months until I took a vacation. When we returned there were some scheduling and technical issues for a while. I decided to suspend that campaign and take a break as GM. We moved on to FFG: Edge of the Empire and added another player. The Paladin is now GMing.

The adventure we left off on was a natural stopping point, and I had planned to take a break after they finished it. They never finished the adventure, and I'm a bit thankful for that since it gives me time to iron out the conclusion of that adventure. I wanted it to end with a big narrative choice. The party has been helping out a lesser noble and building up their castle. They've been following a mystery which seems to be connected to the capital of the country. This country is a theocracy, but a different deity than what the Paladin follows.
The current adventure has them getting rid of a monster problem in the capital. I was going to offer them the chance to be knights under the king of the country as a reward. Their favorite NPC wants to be a knight, and they invited that NPC to join them on this adventure as well. To make the choice more difficult, I was going to say they'd have to devote themselves to the god of the Theocracy - something the Paladin would definitely not do.

At the end of the day, I know this isn't a choice. The party definitely will refuse. The Paladin would be against it completely and the other players are more suspicious of the country than supportive of it. I worry that I'm falling back into my habits of controlling the party too much.

I really want to hand out tough decisions for my party, but I don't know what motivations to play off of. If I know what they're going to pick, it doesn't feel like much of a choice. Does anyone have any advice for planning story-propelling decisions? What aspects of my characters should I be looking at to confront them with?

Kudos to you for recognizing that are too controlling and for your desire to improve. IMHO a lot of railroading/controlling GMs run their games this way because they take too much responsibility for the game upon themselves. It is a mistake to feel like you are the only one responsible for providing entertainment and a story for the group. You said that you had trouble coming up with a satisfying conclusion to the adventure. Why do you feel that you have to do that?

As the DM, you provide the setting and the framework of the adventure but the players are the ones who flesh it out and give it shape as the adventure progresses. Your role as the DM is to provide the players with information in order to to let THEM guide the adventure. The DM should know roughly what is going to happen should the PCs fail to do anything. If the players are participating as intended then that plan should never come about. Instead, you will be reacting to all the fun stuff players are doing to drive the game forward.

As far as tough choices go, you will see them arise naturally if you are providing the party with adversaries worthy of their attention. Being the DM requires more time and effort put into the game than a player already. Don't compound that responsibility by assuming that you need to provide all the fun as well. The DMs job is to provide problems to resolve. Let the players worry about resolutions. The ultimate resolution of the adventure should be an unknown to both the players and the DM because that resolution will be determined by the players as they work through it. After all, if the players are playing towards a resolution that is already known, what is the purpose of playing?

 

[delphonso]

Thank you all very much for your comments and advice. I've got a bit more to think about. I'm moving countries soon, so we won't be switching back to D&D for quite some time, but when we do I think I have a better idea of what to work with.

In my free time, I've been designed a tabletop RPG game on my own. One of the biggest hassles for me right now is making the setting and how much detail I should put into it. I recently played some Shadowrun 5e, and reading that player's handbook nearly killed me. It was deeply fascinating, but so dense in information and detail that I was a bit paralyzed by the amount of rules and how things were supposed to work.

Your party probably knows what being a knight for the crown entails. They know that they'd become a face and representative for the crown and they know the kind of stuff they would have to do as that face. Even without "converting", they'd become de facto representatives of that god of the theocracy in the eyes of many people (mainly the commoners).

This is some excellent advice and I really appreciate it. I often treat my players like idiots and spoon-feed them scenarios. I really should expect them to think things through more. As a player I wouldn't want to be treated that way.

My best advice for D&D is to design situations as opposed to adventures. Construct a situation where the players can resolve it in a variety of ways with a variety of winners/losers and potentially a variety of rewards the PCs can claim. It often works best if there are 'layers' to a situation.

Yeah, D&D isn't the perfect system for this, but my party enjoys role-playing and I want to improve my ability to improvise. We chose D&D 5E before we chose who the GM would be. One of the reasons we switched to FFG: Star Wars was that it is much better set up for this sort of role-playing.

I've been doing my best to keep things open and have even let players tell me what reward they want (which I would adjust to not be game breaking or empower if I think it's too weak). As far as narrative rewards or story rewards such as treasure maps or information, I haven't done much of this and the players haven't mentioned it either. I'll definitely give it a shot. The party has been very willing to give "evil" things a second chance.

I've found that the key to making a more dynamic world, where choices matter and players don't feel railroaded, is to avoid binary choices as much as possible, and seed the adventure with a bunch of possible hooks/leads.

Yes, excellent. My party often wants to follow all the lines they can. I remember in one adventure, they followed every line I had set for them and basically accomplished 5 quests in one day... They showed up to the neighboring town with a cart full of prisoners (some bandits, a group of goblins, and a dishonest merchant) and handed them over to the local authorities.

When I made a mystery where all the lines crossed each other or were opposed, they got incredibly frustrated. Ultimately, I think they liked that adventure but during it they were pulling their hair out.

Let the characters choose to pursue the ones they find interesting, and then build from there. It's easy to then grab pre-made stuff and flavor it to fit, or roll your own, since it'll be towards a goal the party has chosen to follow.

I'll check out this video when I get a chance. In the campaign we were handling, I had a rough idea of a map in my head, but I chose not to put it to paper, since I find myself too attached to my own world when I do that. One of the things I tried to do was let the party take some narrative control. I think it was from 13th Age, but I would let the party montage their travel. For example:

DM: "Player A, as you travel to Fleafletch, you encounter some disturbance on the road. What is it?"
Player A: "Uhhh... We find a couple travelling merchants trying to get a fallen tree off the road"
Dm: "Excellent, Player B, how do you help these guys, or do you just choose to watch?"
Player B: "I'm suspicious of an ambush, so I stay on guard while the others act."
Player C: "I cast some spells to burn up the tree."
Player A: "As he's working on that, I start on the other end chopping away with my axe."
DM: "Great, you've turned the tree to ash and splinters. The merchants thank you with a gift. Player B, what do C and A get?"
Player B: "They want to keep their wares for the next town, so they give A and C a sack of gold each. Maybe 50 for each player?"
DM: "Sure, let's make that 75 for both of you."

It's really not much but gives the players a little more control than I usually would give out. It also keeps everyone engaged in a situation that their character might not be engaged in. Other times I let them flesh out villages and towns by letting them describe what they see as they walk through town.

The story is what the players do in these adventure locations rather than some plot you've concocted beforehand.

I really like this. In the more successful adventures I've had with them, I only had an idea for the beginning and the end, and let the middle grow naturally. It has worked well, except in situations where the players didn't have much drive. I think this was my own fault for not having an interesting enough beginning for the players and their characters.

Kudos to you for recognizing that are too controlling and for your desire to improve. IMHO a lot of railroading/controlling GMs run their games this way because they take too much responsibility for the game upon themselves. It is a mistake to feel like you are the only one responsible for providing entertainment and a story for the group. You said that you had trouble coming up with a satisfying conclusion to the adventure. Why do you feel that you have to do that?

As the DM, you provide the setting and the framework of the adventure but the players are the ones who flesh it out and give it shape as the adventure progresses. Your role as the DM is to provide the players with information in order to to let THEM guide the adventure. The DM should know roughly what is going to happen should the PCs fail to do anything. If the players are participating as intended then that plan should never come about. Instead, you will be reacting to all the fun stuff players are doing to drive the game forward.

And I think this is the most important thing for me to keep in mind. You're right - I take a lot of responsibility for the campaign as a whole, rather than just the setting. Maybe it's just my personality as a control freak. I think it has been hard for me to improve as a DM since I haven't had a lot of experiences of good DMing. My friends are rather imaginative people, and usually have stories they want to share. As players we enjoy observing more than interacting. I guess that's fine at the end of the day if we all feel satisfied, but I know it could be challenging for a different type of player to join.

Again, thank you all so much. If you want any more detail, let me know. I think I'll take a long look at where the adventure started and how it got to where it is now, what the players most enjoyed and what needs to be avoided from now on.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Self-improvement is always a worthy goal, and continual improvement is part of attempting to be the best DM/GM you can be. And getting feedback and then subsequently acting upon it can really help with that.

For strong story-altering decisions, I think the PCs need to be invested in the outcome and parties, and have multiple influencing factors. Sure, it sounds like they won’t choose to become knights. But what if there’s an orc horde coming their way, and the king is really going to need aid in saving the city? Or perhaps you use the old “corrupt counselor” trope, but the king won’t listen without evidence, and becoming a knight would be the perfect opportunity for that. Or to go even more complicated, maybe there’s more than one faction competing for the heroes.

But no matter what complications and possibilities you devise, always allow the PCs to choose something else. Even if it’s just “On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.” If they just want to walk away from it all, they certainly can. But then look at how their actions affect how things will play out. What is the impact on the world?

I started playing 5E as a DM with the mission statement of being a better DM.[/B]

 

[thethain]

When you are building your campaign. You should leave a lot of it open ended. Have actors who are working on actions, and maybe figure out one or two ways the players "Could" prevent the things. (Just make sure its possible). After that you should really let the players run their course. The easiest way for them to have meaningful impactful decisions is that multiple bad actors can complete their objectives at relatively the same time. If evil Prince is set to usurp the throne at the same time evil necromancer is set to enslave a village, the players have to make a decision. Do they sacrifice the town to prevent a civil war? Or maybe the players split up and each mini group has to attempt what was intended for a full group to accomplish. At higher levels this is more difficult as teleporting means you can deal with both scenarios if they are even a day apart from each other. Although if you have strict timelines this also intrinsically give the players a strong motivation to not "Stop for long rest" every time they feel a bit tuckered. An overly cautious party might enable both schemes to complete.