How to add story to my irregular games?

[Retreater]

I'd say we lean heavily to location based adventures: dungeons, underdark, hex crawls. It's just that these tend to being more combat oriented and not as story driven. Maybe that's ok? I just miss depth on the other end of the spectrum.

 

[iserith]

I'd say we lean heavily to location based adventures: dungeons, underdark, hex crawls. It's just that these tend to being more combat oriented and not as story driven. Maybe that's ok? I just miss depth on the other end of the spectrum.

What is your definition of "story-driven?" Can you provide examples?

 

[Quickleaf]

While posting in another thread on this board, I made the realization that my games lean heavily towards combat and away from exploration and story. While this isn't a problem per se, I'd like to add a little from the other styles into the game. I don't pay attention to the character's motivations, backstories, or names. We go from one combat to another.

One of the reasons is that we play every other week, and sometimes players miss those sessions, meaning that they're away from the game for a month at a time. Even though I've been taking notes of the campaign action and send it electronically, few players read it or care. Between their turns, most of the players spend their time looking on their phones or telling jokes.

I am running four different games that are biweekly or monthly.

So what is your advice to make the sessions more meaningful and engaging to the players? Adding more tactical options in combat only strengthens the combat side of the game.

Yeah, my current group is a bit similar, running 1-2 sessions per month, often 1 or 2 players cannot make it, and I'm running Tomb of Annihilation which really is pretty story-light. Here's what I've done...

1. Prepping to improv. I assembled a table of all the player characters' roleplaying features. When I don't have time to prep something specific to a player or I prepped for one player's presence and they're absent, I simply roll a bit on this table and incorporate that impromptu into the session.

[SBLOCK=Roleplaying Features (d20)]
Drake (NG human bard)
1 Personality: happier in a dusty old tomb than in the centers of civilization
2 Ideal: dignity – the dead and their belongings deserve to be treated with respect
3 Bond: friendly rivalry with Artus Cimber (via “anonymous” published papers early in Drake's career)
4 Flaw: unable to sleep except in complete darkness
E’kama (N human ranger)
5 Personality: quiet and serious, with a dark sense of humor
6 Ideal: always follow what he feels to be true, regardless of external pressure, danger, or etiquette
7 Bond: avenge his family and rid Chult of the taint of undeath, no matter what, and bring it back to early glory
8 Flaw: erratic behavior – almost suicidal
Koko (LN grung druid)
9 Personality: wise leader who sees no value in money
10 Ideal: Law of the Jungle (survival of the fittest/strongest/most cunning and adaptable)
11 Bond: save mate Blurble from Death Curse & save tribe from King Groak
12 Flaw: thirst for knowledge
Scomett-Nilc (N lizardfolk ranger/warlock)
13 Personality: I avoid waste, and find value in almost everything except money
14 Ideal: it is best to avoid meddling in the affairs of others unless something is to be gained
15 Bond: I must put the needs of my tribe above my own
16 Flaw: I have not been exposed to the vices of the populated world, and may enjoy them more than I should
Yargle (LN goblin paladin)
17 Personality: proud, respectful, defend the weak, bring people together
18 Ideal: redemption – there's a spark of good in everyone
19 Bond: holy quest to end Death Curse and reunite the goblin tribes like his ancestor Great Queen M’bobo
20 Flaw: gross, smelly, and overly trusting[/SBLOCK]

2. PC Story Beats. Next, I looked over each PC and jotted notes down. These notes evolve with the PCs. For example, for the 6th-level lizardfolk rogue/warlock PC, I noted the following:

• ex-shaman of Zopchik tribe – emerging conflict with demon-worshipping Akabkan tribe
• found statue in Valley of Dread, then lost divine visions – who was statue of? why'd he lose visions?
• “raven queen” pact = Kecuala, the female half of Semuanya making up Essylliss (World Serpent) – when PCs encounter archaeopteryx or other small dinos, foreshadow Kecuala
• deinonychus pet (Mau’o) – lizardfolk use dinos for battle (going against Ubtao's decree?)

When the party explored a ruined human sacred city, I had the lizardfolk PC uncover inscriptions indicating that dinosaurs were used for labor and transportation, for ferrying boats upriver, but never for warfare. This stood in contrast to the lizardfolk who'd come to the city's defense long ago riding war-trained dinosaurs. These bits foreshadow an emerging storyline about a rival lizardfolk tribe waging war upon the surrounding lands.

3. Think of Multiple PCs When Prepping Encounters. Recently, I prepared a village of intelligent evil giant stork monsters called "eblis", which the PCs visited under the auspices of trading. Several of the PCs in my group are into gross foods/drink (the lizardfolk & goblin especially, and the grung is a lover of "pipeweed" and other drugs), so I had the eblis throw a highly detailed feast... full of toxic foods. Not wanting to offend their hosts, the PC had to partake of something, and judiciously decided what they tried. These 3 players were totally into it, not the least because the grung PC was immune to poison and the goblin paladin PC was immune to disease. It wasn't deep role-playing by any measure, but it was a lot of fun for them. Even if one or two of them couldn't make it, there was enough built-in redundancy for some players to enjoy the toxic feast of the eblis. Meanwhile, there were two more general hooks that I pulled on for the remaining players: The PCs needing a place to trade (and on the lookout for magic items), and being wary after receiving a warning about the eblis from another NPC (and thus trying to gauge their host's intentions).

That's the basic process. Start interweaving the PCs' various roleplaying traits, story beats, backstories, and objectives. Start slow and let the connections emerge naturally and change as the PCs change.

 

[aco175]

As long as everyone, including you, is having fun- you are doing things fine and keep doing what you are doing.

I tend to have a lot of combats in one of my groups. I tend to make modules for one night of play and set it up for some intro where there is some role-play followed by some exploration before the actual dungeon. I tend to set up 3-4 encounters, with 2-3 of them being combat and one having more exploration involved. Sometimes there is a puzzle or such, but more than half the night is combat.

I try to make the story just fast enough to stay in front of the PCs. Some of the players just show up and go along while others want to be more involved. There is a cleric of Chauntea in the group so there is some church things and problems disturbing farmers to draw him in. The thief has a guild background with cartography do there is a noble family that hired him to explore their ancient home which happens to be a base of evil that needs to be cleared out. I try to give a few NPCs that are recurring and tie in with the PCs to give the world better flavor as well.

If you are running published adventures you can try and tailor them to the PCs by changing some of the places and people.