Inconnunom
Explorer
How much flexibility do DM's have for published adventures? Many of the players continuously complain that everything is too easy. (Granted they are a little higher level than they should be.) Just trying to think of solutions.
DM Encounter Flexibility for Published Adventures
- Thread starter Inconnunom
- Start date
skerritthegreen
Explorer
Generally if you need to adjust the numbers of monsters slightly to adjust the challenge that's okay.
Dungeon Mastering the Adventure
As the DM of the session, you have the most important role in facilitating the enjoyment of the game for the players. You help guide the narrative and bring the words on these pages to life. The outcome of a fun game session often creates stories that live well beyond the play at the table. Always follow this golden rule when you DM for a group:
Make decisions and adjudications that enhance the fun of the adventure when possible.
To reinforce this golden rule, keep in mind the following:
• You are empowered to make adjustments to the adventure and make decisions about how the group interacts with the world of this adventure. This is especially important and applicable outside of combat, but feel free to adjust the adventure for groups that are having too easy or too hard of a time.
• Don’t make the adventure too easy or too difficult for a group. Never being challenged makes for a boring game, and being overwhelmed makes for a frustrating game. Gauge the experience of the players (not the characters) with the game, try to feel out (or ask) what they like in a game, and attempt to give each of them the experience they’re after when they play D&D. Give everyone a chance to shine.
• Be mindful of pacing, and keep the game session moving along appropriately. Watch for stalling, since play loses momentum when this happens. At the same time, make sure that the players don’t finish too early; provide them with a full play experience. Try to be aware of running long or short. Adjust the pacing accordingly.
• Read-aloud text is just a suggestion; feel free to modify the text as you see fit, especially when dialogue is present.
• Give the players appropriate hints so they can make informed choices about how to proceed. Players should be given clues and hints when appropriate so they can tackle puzzles, combat, and interactions without getting frustrated over lack of information. This helps to encourage immersion in the adventure and gives players “little victories” for figuring out good choices from clues.
In short, being the DM isn’t about following the adventure’s text word-for-word; it’s about facilitating a fun, challenging game environment for the players. The Dungeon Master’s Guide has more information on the art of running a D&D game.
Dungeon Mastering the Adventure
As the DM of the session, you have the most important role in facilitating the enjoyment of the game for the players. You help guide the narrative and bring the words on these pages to life. The outcome of a fun game session often creates stories that live well beyond the play at the table. Always follow this golden rule when you DM for a group:
Make decisions and adjudications that enhance the fun of the adventure when possible.
To reinforce this golden rule, keep in mind the following:
• You are empowered to make adjustments to the adventure and make decisions about how the group interacts with the world of this adventure. This is especially important and applicable outside of combat, but feel free to adjust the adventure for groups that are having too easy or too hard of a time.
• Don’t make the adventure too easy or too difficult for a group. Never being challenged makes for a boring game, and being overwhelmed makes for a frustrating game. Gauge the experience of the players (not the characters) with the game, try to feel out (or ask) what they like in a game, and attempt to give each of them the experience they’re after when they play D&D. Give everyone a chance to shine.
• Be mindful of pacing, and keep the game session moving along appropriately. Watch for stalling, since play loses momentum when this happens. At the same time, make sure that the players don’t finish too early; provide them with a full play experience. Try to be aware of running long or short. Adjust the pacing accordingly.
• Read-aloud text is just a suggestion; feel free to modify the text as you see fit, especially when dialogue is present.
• Give the players appropriate hints so they can make informed choices about how to proceed. Players should be given clues and hints when appropriate so they can tackle puzzles, combat, and interactions without getting frustrated over lack of information. This helps to encourage immersion in the adventure and gives players “little victories” for figuring out good choices from clues.
In short, being the DM isn’t about following the adventure’s text word-for-word; it’s about facilitating a fun, challenging game environment for the players. The Dungeon Master’s Guide has more information on the art of running a D&D game.
IMO AL gets a bad rap for being 'restrictive'. Yes, there are a few (few!) hard limits, but they actually leave a *lot* of leeway for DMs to adjust the adventure to better match the PCs and players. Especially with Encounters/Hard cover adventures.
Don't give out more magic/gold than allowed for in the adventure, don't kill off important NPCs, if you add creatures to an encounter-make them the same type. That is about it for restrictions really....
Don't give out more magic/gold than allowed for in the adventure, don't kill off important NPCs, if you add creatures to an encounter-make them the same type. That is about it for restrictions really....
warfteiner
First Post
As you proceed through the retail adventures (Out of the Abyss, Princes of the Apocalypse, etc) it's completely feasible that the enemies will be intelligent enough to not only know that the characters are coming for them, but also to adjust their defenses. I'm not endorsing wholesale rewrites, but if the characters are chasing some crazy fire-worshipping cultists and the characters are known to be resistant or immune to fire... those crazy cultists may attempt to call in some favors and recruit allies that use other tactics (ie: swap out a fire mage for a dark priest, or perhaps replace fire traps with acid sprays).
Your mileage *will* vary, but switch it up as-needed and keep your parties challenged and engaged!
Your mileage *will* vary, but switch it up as-needed and keep your parties challenged and engaged!
ccs
41st lv DM
What would it matter if you killed of an important NPC? They'd still be alive & well at any other AL table.
Yeah, if you're running a home game, you do.
Depending on the definition of 'published adventure', though, running adventures on behalf of Adventurers League requires you to give up some of that flexibility. You give up less when running the hardback adventures directly as opposed to running Encounters, and give up quite a bit when running Expeditions (though Expeditions adventures will provide you with advice on how to 'toughen up' or 'pull back' on encounter difficulty which are absolutely legal to use).
--
Pauper
kalani
First Post
This statement is positively false when it comes to running an adventure as part of an Organized Play program such as Adventurers League. You cannot for example do any of the following things in AL:
- Add/Delete Encounters
- Increase XP, Treasure, or Item awards
- Use Milestone XP
- Introduce House Ruled creatures, items, rules, classes, races, etc
- Disallow any legal race/class
- Swap creatures in an Encounter (you can add/remove creatures of the same type, but substituting different creatures is not allowed)
- Add terrain, or other encounter features
- Change NPC motivations or allegiences beyond what is stated in the adventure
ccs
41st lv DM
DMing =/= running adventures in AL.
skerritthegreen
Explorer
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