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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ogrehatescomputers" data-source="post: 5298263" data-attributes="member: 94367">I do a lot of the same things you do. I have my note book with my lists of badies and treasures and such. and i write down and "general outline" nothing super serious. Have those KEY story elements you want to happen, happen. Your the DM so you can guide or intice your players to "story scene" fairly easilly.  Don't over think it. Not every room in every tower or dungeon or abandon castle has to have a story element. And when i've done that in the past my players have gotten worn down by it quickly. Don't worry yourself with pre set maps either. If the players do the map but skip room X where a story element were to take place, simply move the room into their path. In that same fashion, if they are out in the city or town or whatever and the arent going where you need them to go, send the story to them. have a messanger waiting to tell them somthing.  When it comes to writing out giant sections of of plot, i don't. I write out things that have to happen no matter what. for a lot of the everyday stuff i wing it. i've also written a letter on the computer. printed it out and left it for them find in a dungeon as there next clue.  If your worried about writing out everystep of a dungeon crawl, what i do sometimes is take different sections of different dungeons from premade games. printed them out on the comp. and run with those as my dungeon. for my story lines i try to keep it interesting and fun, but open so the players can have some influence on it. and if they do something like, kill someone they should have let live, i'll makea concequence for that later. i think of my story lines like the alphabet. the players are going to get to b then c then d no matter what. but if the do something bad in b then maybe c takes longer or is costly to them.  I love story telling and love it even more when the group plays in character. It is one of the best things of DnD. Perhaps it would be better if you wrote your story out like, A then D. and how they get from a to d is up to them. but no matter what have those story lines ready to happen at A and D no matter what.  Anothre thing I do to reward my players for listening and particpating in more than just fights is, i ask everyone to email me a game summary and the best one gets som extra xp. it makes everyone have a more vested interest in the story. it's also made one of my players a entire level higher then the rest of the group.  I hope my rambling somewhat helped. Good luck. Your players are lucky to have a DM dedicated to the story as much as your are.</blockquote>

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