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Message: <blockquote data-quote="77IM" data-source="post: 7873926" data-attributes="member: 12377">I run some relatively high-event games. Here are some tricks that I use.1. Don't "save" your good ideas. I used to come up with really great ideas, like a vampire medusa or a Tharzdu'un-worshiping shadow dragon or giving all the PCs hippogriffs, and think, "Oh I'll save this for a special occasion!" Don't do that. Instead, find ways to work them into your game. Because the more you use your cool ideas, the better the game is, and the easier it will be to come up with more cool ideas in the future. It's a lot easier to have aerial combat against a vengeful blue dragon during a thunderstorm if you've given all the PCs hippogriffs.2. Exaggerate NPCs. Your players don't need to be Chaotic Neutral; you can have NPCs for that! When I say "exaggerate," I mean, whatever the NPC's thing is, dial it up to 11. Mysterious wizard? Always sneaking around; gives the PCs really weird quests with not much explanation. Dumb local thug? Does NOT know when to back down; might not even know how. Cowardly kobold? Obsequious to the point of absurdity. My favorite NPC of this type is the villain who wants to interfere with the PCs but for some reason can't just kill them (maybe because murder just isn't their thing). That dude can do all kinds of wacky stuff. The point of this is to present NPCs who do things that are crazy -- but NOT unpredictable. When the beholder cleric betrays his invited guests (including the PCs) by putting them into an elaborate deathtrap, the players are simultaneously thinking, "Yup, saw that one coming," and "Holy crap, how do we get out of the force-cube before it fills with intellect devourers and water and quippers and electrically-charged harpoons and toxic flammable gas?" (Another one of my good ideas that I did not save.)3. Lay pipe. I learned this term from Robin D. Laws's blog; apparently it comes from screenwriting. But it means: Add details that might come into play later. Have the PCs cross paths with a sailing ship crewed by friendly monster-hunters; later they may rescue the PCs from a giant monster, conflict with the party over rights to the monster, or just never show up ever again. Include an ugly clay statue of a frog-god in some treasure; much later, it turns out to have a magic item hidden inside of it. Let it be known that the black market is controlled by a fomorian wizard who loves watching blood sports; that'll surely come in handy later in the campaign. Laying pipe is very similar to "don't save your good ideas;" it's more like, "toss out a bunch of mediocre ideas in the background, and then if you think of a way to make them interesting later, it will be more memorable." Here's a great article with more info and some other good ideas: <a href="https://geekandsundry.com/5-screenwriting-terms-that-will-make-you-a-better-game-master/" target="_blank">5 Screenwriting Terms That Will Make You A Better Game Master | Geek and Sundry</a>4. Give the PCs enough rope to hang themselves with. Offer the players a difficult choice or situation, and then encourage shenanigans as third option. I once had a group of PCs collect money for the sale of a boat to two different buyers at the same time; to solve the dilemma, they turned over the boat to one of the buyers, then stole it back to turn it over to the second buyer. My current group was given a quest to retrieve a magically sealed safe -- but they were given this quest by three different people! They've come up with a solution based on a literal interpretation of the quest instructions (one patron will get the safe, a second will get the contents of the safe, and a third will get the gold-piece value of the safe). This is going to "work" but will piss off two of the three patrons, who, of course, are exaggerated NPCs. Another time, a PC was searching for a robe of the archmagi, and discovered it was being worn by his most hated enemy! This was followed by four sessions of increasingly elaborate scheming as the characters took out the enemy's henchmen and lieutenants one-by-one, replacing them with duplicates and/or framing them for treachery. Eventually they took out the big bad and earned the robe. No part of the plan went quite as expected but it still mostly worked and the players had a great time going on the offensive for once. The purpose of "give the PCs enough rope to hang themselves with" is not to screw over the players -- it's actually secretly getting the players to help you come up with the next challenge. Often they'll come up with plans that are way crazier than anything you could have planned.5. Put a twist on EVERYTHING. The game 13th Age gives each player character "one unique thing" about them. Do this with every single thing in your game. It's not just a dungeon full of ghouls; it's ghouls who think they are still soldiers doing their duty, and they just need to requisition some of your spare limbs for provisions, for the good of the kingdom. The paladin who protects the small community of good-aligned creatures in the area... is a young red dragon. (It can happen.) The brainwashed cultist you are supposed to rescue is actually the cult leader. The pirate queen is a devious liar, but she absolutely keeps her promises, no matter what. A kingdom that is a chaotic evil plutocracy has strict rules against slavery, but murder and assassination are totally allowed.Exotic encounter locales are a special type of twist that are one of the easiest to use to create a memorable event. Don't schedule a fight for a 50x50 ft. room when you could have it on a series of stone columns, 50 ft. tall and 20 ft. wide and 5-10 ft. apart, above a raging river. A derelict ship that's being slowly crushed by a colossal octopus is fairly memorable. Have you ever used a literally bottomless pit in a game? I have, and it's awesome.The "twist" might involve a dramatic reveal (like with the cultist, above) but often it's something you can just tell to the players up-front. Some of these twists will fall flat and not lead to any memorable game play, but a few will lead to memorable situations. In a sense, the twists are a handy way to combine these other suggestions.6. DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU'VE CREATED.  Basically, the maintaining the status quo is boring, and giving the players a ton of agency is interesting. That cool NPC who you thought would be a recurring enemy? Let the PCs kill them in the first encounter. Let your players kill the king. Let them foment civil war. Let them take over the dungeon and use it as a base of operations. That cool magic item that you gave to that cool NPC that the party unceremoniously ganked? Let the PCs have that item, run roughshod with it, abuse the heck out of it, and dig their own graves with it. The reason to destroy the setting is really just to prevent yourself from trying too hard to preserve your creations. That can often stymie the players and become boring. Instead, let them tear it all down.(I learned this from playing Apocalypse World which has a principle of "view your NPCs through cross-hairs." If you like high-event games, the best way to level-up your DMing is to play a campaign of AW. Follow the rules with enthusiasm and an open mind. AW is designed for maximum events, and most of the concepts translate very well into D&D.)7. DON'T make the game fun; make it INTERESTING. Sid Meier famously said that "a game is a series of interesting decisions." A few years ago I had a breakthrough when I realized that trying to make the game "fun" is a fool's errand. "Fun" means so many different things and is so hard to predict or pin down; many of the most popular ways to have "fun" really don't work at all in an RPG. Instead, I always try to make the game interesting. I'm always trying to put the most interesting scenario before the players, which for me is waaayyyyyyyyy easier than trying to figure out what might be "fun." If a scenario truly is interesting, then the players will not be bored (by definition), and they'll bring the fun. The'll fun the naughty word out of that scenario. They want to fun it all up; that's what they're here for; and my players are really, really good at it.</blockquote>

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