Post by dmsam on Mar 23, 2016 5:44:07 GMT
I am pretty sure every GM runs into this problem at one time or another. You have this great idea of an encounter, and so you spend many hours in developing it. You made it your brain child, and crafted every single detail that can possibly matter in that encounter, down to the mass of the dust particles in the air. You were sure that your players would love this encounter.
Well, they chose to go elsewhere or do something else instead.
You silently seethe behind your DM screen about the injustice your players have just done to you, and your whole weeks’ worth of preparation just went down the drain. Or you cry a little inside about the brain-child that just got aborted. Whatever the case may be, it feels like crap.
Guess what? It doesn’t have to.
What you have done the past week is worth something. Your time is worth something. Don’t throw those notes away. You’ll need them.
Say you made an encounter about a dungeon, except the players chose to go to town instead. Guess what? Save that dungeon for later! All you have to do is dress it up a little differently. These are ASSETS that you can use and sometimes even reuse. The best part is? Your players will love it, as you intended them to.
Say you made 3 different dungeons, 3 different towns, 3 different sets of NPCs, 3 different sets of enemies. Your players decided that the town is more important than your finely crafted dungeon? Fine, indulge them in your finely crafted town instead! The town is filled with a lively set of NPCs, who are in some political turmoil or in the middle of solving a murder mystery. What your players didn’t know is that you already prepared this encounter 3 weeks ago, when they decided to raid a goblin camp instead of going to solve your murder mystery. As if in a stasis, those NPCs are perpetually in a political turmoil, or solving an unsolvable mystery, silently waiting for your players to show up. . .
Your new dungeon will just have to wait till next week, or the week after.
Behind that screen of yours, you can uproot entire cities, transplant dungeons, and rearrange NPC dialogue in secret. The scroll that contained important information about the BBEG that got missed because the players didn’t go somewhere can always show up in the next encounter you design in a different way.
This isn’t railroading. It’s being modular, and it saves discarded brain-children from the certain doom of non-existence. It also saves time. . . a lot of time.
Well, they chose to go elsewhere or do something else instead.
You silently seethe behind your DM screen about the injustice your players have just done to you, and your whole weeks’ worth of preparation just went down the drain. Or you cry a little inside about the brain-child that just got aborted. Whatever the case may be, it feels like crap.
Guess what? It doesn’t have to.
What you have done the past week is worth something. Your time is worth something. Don’t throw those notes away. You’ll need them.
Say you made an encounter about a dungeon, except the players chose to go to town instead. Guess what? Save that dungeon for later! All you have to do is dress it up a little differently. These are ASSETS that you can use and sometimes even reuse. The best part is? Your players will love it, as you intended them to.
Say you made 3 different dungeons, 3 different towns, 3 different sets of NPCs, 3 different sets of enemies. Your players decided that the town is more important than your finely crafted dungeon? Fine, indulge them in your finely crafted town instead! The town is filled with a lively set of NPCs, who are in some political turmoil or in the middle of solving a murder mystery. What your players didn’t know is that you already prepared this encounter 3 weeks ago, when they decided to raid a goblin camp instead of going to solve your murder mystery. As if in a stasis, those NPCs are perpetually in a political turmoil, or solving an unsolvable mystery, silently waiting for your players to show up. . .
Your new dungeon will just have to wait till next week, or the week after.
Behind that screen of yours, you can uproot entire cities, transplant dungeons, and rearrange NPC dialogue in secret. The scroll that contained important information about the BBEG that got missed because the players didn’t go somewhere can always show up in the next encounter you design in a different way.
This isn’t railroading. It’s being modular, and it saves discarded brain-children from the certain doom of non-existence. It also saves time. . . a lot of time.
