Your players just killed the NPC that you spent hours creating and now your story’s been ripped off track! This week, we’ll discuss those times when players go astray with the story line and how to get them back on track, and if that’s even the right course!
Is your story broken on purpose because of boredom, or distractions at the table? Has the campaign been overtaken by murder hobos? Or maybe going astray was a complete accident when your players missed or misinterpreted clues. Whatever the cause, we’ll talk about some tips and tricks and other suggestions to help you deal with the disruption.
Do you have suggestions for topics in future episodes? Make sure to click Contact, we’d love to hear from you!
J: You went to the tavern and see who you’re looking for. He’s a grizzled old man hunched over in the corner and he looks like he is wise beyond his years.
F: Cool. I kill him.
J: Wait, what?
F: I said, I. Kill. Him.
J: But, he’s grizzled and old… He doesn’t even look like he’d be much of a challenge. He looks like he might have some information about your quest…
F: Mmm… nah, I try to chop his head off. Oh, nat 20!
J: In this episode of becoming DM, what happens when all your dreams as a DM are destroyed by a player breaking your storyline?
J: Hi, everyone, this is John.
F: And this is Felicia.
J: And as you heard in the opener today, we are talking about when players break your story. And really, what you have to do in my mind, when you first start thinking about this, is really understand why the player broke your story, why they did this terrible thing to you and all the work that you’ve done to your story. And the first thing that really comes to mind is they’ve actually done this on purpose.
F: Yeah, when I think of intentional sabotage of my campaign, I honestly think the first thing going on is that the players could possibly be bored. And that can source from a number of issues. What why they’re bored with your storyline. You know, one thing is thinking of the difficulty of the campaign that I’m running for them. Is it appropriate to the level of the players that are within my campaign? Is it too hard? Is it not that hard? I’ve actually gotten a couple of pre-made campaigns that say exactly what level they’re at, in comparison to the level of your players. So for things like that, it makes it relatively easy. If you’re doing your own story, though, it’s something to really analyze and see if what I’m doing is too difficult for my players. And if that is why they’re not satisfied with the gaming experience.
J: And even if you’re running a pre-designed campaign, it can be very difficult to kind of dial into that difficulty. If you have more players than it was originally intended for (maybe it was written for three to four players) and you’ve got six at the table, and of those six, two of them have their own familiars that are going to help out, it’s kind of like having eight at the table. And you don’t want to over overkill it by adding so many monsters and everything that they can’t possibly succeed. But at the same time, maybe acknowledge that the way that you had initially intended it (for three to four players) is not going to work because they will walk through your encounters and not even bat an eye.
F: Yeah, I think that’s important. We want to have the gaming experience or campaign match the number and the experience level of the players that are in your game.
J: Yeah, in fact, in the game that you play with me and the group, in the first session, I planned stuff out. And in the first couple of encounters, you guys just blew through them. And it’s like, oh, this is not going to be good if I don’t change. So yeah, definitely something to consider is how difficult it is. And if it’s just too easy, it’s not going to be exciting for anybody.
F: Yeah, that’s true.
J: And so, second on this whole boredom thing is when you have those distractions at the table. And distractions could be anything. It could be Joe sitting there staring at his phone because he’s not pulled in or it could be just a conversation that everybody’s having at the table. And if you have a group that are friends who only get together once a month, and maybe that’s the only time they see each other because of work, kids or whatever else, if you start right away and go right into your adventure, they still haven’t talked to each other yet.
F: I think that’s important. I know when I do my once a month campaigns I have a whole spread of snacks and everything. And I pretty much already know that the first 30 to 45 minutes of every session we start is going to be a little mini social hour. It’s just everyone catching up, having a drink, chit-chatting, chat-chitting. It’s a good way to kind of ease everyone in. And sometimes, when I introduce a new player, it’s also a good way for them to kind of familiarize themselves with the dynamics of everyone. And I think it makes for a much more satisfying gaming experience, when you kind of vet all of that out. I also try to minimize other things. We turn the TV off or we put on some appropriate background music to make it a more maximized gaming experience that I also think helps to focus.
J: Yeah, and the good news is, I think if the problem is distractions, of people having conversations during your game, the good news is they get along. They obviously want to be there and hang out. It’s really just a matter of getting them from conversation mode into playing the game mode.
F: Yes!
J: And having that breaker at the front of where everybody gets to catch up, to see what’s going on with each other before you sit down and get your head into the into the role playing game space, can really help.
F: Yeah, I think it’s definitely important to accommodate that space. And if you’re gonna be doing a particularly long campaign, you can even set an intermission. And it gives people a chance for bathroom breaks, talk for about 15 minutes, something like that. And then you can proceed with the second half of your crazy long campaign.
J: Yeah and the other thing that I thought of is a way to kind of help with that. If you have a group of people that really does enjoy hanging out with each other, enjoy each other’s company, maybe you have every fourth or fifth session, something where you can get together and hang out and do something other than role playing. Because obviously, you like hanging out, having a conversation. So, it may just be a matter of, “We’re going to take a break this month, we’re going to do something else. And we’ll come back to this next month.”
F: Yeah, that’s a great idea.
J: So the last point on boredom, it’s kind of a touchy subject.
F: A source of pride for us as DM.
J: Because when you have this story (especially if you’ve written it all yourself), it can be this point of pride. I’ve created this thing from nothing. But, maybe it’s just kind of a boring story.
F: Yeah, it’s definitely a time of self-reflection, if you will.
J: So, I know that you’ve primarily been doing pre-written adventure campaigns.
F: Yeah.
J: Have you had issues with the pre-written ones? Where maybe the story wasn’t that great?
F: Um, on the ones that I are pre-made? No, I think I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve had just the right amount of players with just the right level of experience. Or if not that, I’ve been able to adjust the story to be appropriate for the number and experience level of the players that I have. So, I haven’t come across too much in this point in time where the story just wasn’t interesting enough to engage my players. I have been on the receiving end, where I was a player, and the story just got to the point where we were all like, “Is there anything that’s going to happen?” Nothing had happened for like, an hour, and we were all just sort of ready to be done with it. But I have not had, as a DM, come across that horrifying tragedy of players being bored with the story that I’m telling, but I’m sure you probably have had that with your experience.
J: I’m sad to say that I have I have encountered that. And largely because I do write my own stories.
F: Brave, brave soul.
J: And so, as a result, there’s sometimes going to be a dud. And luckily, it’s been few and far between enough. But if you pay attention as you’re running the game and you notice that things aren’t going as well as you’d hoped, you may just have to take a step back and change the direction that you’re going with the campaign and just abort.
F: This was a bad choice!
J: Yeah. I mean, so that’s a lot of the reasons for boredom. The next kind of on purpose thing is kind of one of my favorite topics in role playing games. And that’s murder hobos, those people that just want to kill everything in sight. They don’t care about the story, they’re just gonna murder everything that they can.
F: They’re gonna Michael Bays the crap out of our campaign.
J: Yes. So, in the time that you’ve been running games, or even playing games, have you been involved with a group that has just gone full on murder hobo?
F: You know, I haven’t had the exact murder hobo scenario. You remember, we had discussed this before, where I had ran a campaign for a group where half of my group was just ever so slightly inebriated more than the other half.
J: Slightly.
F: Ever so slightly. And so these were the ones that you know, had a little more libations, if you will. They were all just about fighting each other (in a friendly way). But, we had dwarves comparing axes.
J: Seems a little bit like a euphemism.
F: (Laughs) Maybe it was for them! And the cleric and the warlock were going head to head. It was a very interesting scenario in trying to get everyone on the same page, because you had one half of the group that was just ready to rumble. And then you had the other half that was wanting to get on with the story in the actual campaign. And so it was, it was difficult navigating that. But that on its own was a whole separate scenario. Murder hobos is a whole different story and I have been fortunate not to have had that experience as of yet. I’m sure it’s looming somewhere in the near future for me, though,
J: I’ve definitely had it happen on a couple of occasions. Luckily, not a lot. But typically, when it’s happened there, there’s in my mind a few ways to deal with it. And the first one is, in any world that you’re running a game in, there are consequences for killing. So if you have a group of players that are going to run through a town and try to burn it to the ground, well, hopefully the town has some sort of town guard or maybe there’s a military garrison nearby that gets word of it and comes to try to stop it. And even if they succeed with killing everyone in the town, word can get around. So, the next time they come to town, you may board up the doors and not let them in. What are some other consequences?
F: I mean, kind of along the same lines, you could have wanted posters going up. And they can come across more characters and enemies that are trying to take them out because they have some sort of bounty over their head. You can have town folks that are not willing to trade with them or, if they are willing, will only do it at a highly discounted price. I mean, you can keep it as simple as like, “Hey, you’re going to jail.” There’s, I think, a number of ways you can show them that their efforts aren’t just going to go without cost. And for all intents and purposes, in reality, they may not be that good and murdering anyways. I mean, they may try to, but everyone still has to roll. And I highly doubt they’re going to be doing a nat 20 every single time.
J: Right. And so, one of the things you can do is if they murder every NPC that’s part of your story, they could encounter an NPC that’s a little tougher than they expect them to be. There’s nothing that says they can’t be a highly accomplished adventurer that they’re dealing with.
F: It could be Gandalf they come across next, you know!
J: The other kind of way I see of dealing with the murder hobos is just rolling with it, because they’re obviously getting some enjoyment out of out of doing that.
F: Clearly.
J: And this is a collaborative game. And as long as you’re not just miserable running a game where it’s all murder hobo-ing. It may not be a bad idea (at least, for a session or two) top let them run with it.
F: Just get it out of their system.
J: But then it comes down to if you’re not having fun with it. Again, it’s a collaborative game, everybody should be having fun at the table. So, what do you suggest in that situation? How do you deal with that? Where you’ve given them that leash and then they just keep on going down that path?
F: Yeah, I mean, I think it sort of depends. One thing I keep in mind is, is it the entirety of your group that is deciding to murder hobo? Or is it some players are doing it and other players aren’t? I think it’s important to sort of gauge those dynamics, see if you have a split group. And I’ve actually come across this before, not necessarily in the murder hobo-ing sphere. But I have had instances where the group was sort of at an impasse and one half wanted to do one thing and one half wanted to do another. So, in those cases, usually I would designate a group leader. And if it turns out that the group was unable to come to an agreement, then the group leader either decided for the group or they flipped a coin and they went wherever the coin decided. So I think if you have half the group that’s doing murdering and rampaging and the other half that wants to go on with the game, that that might be two potential options. You can just throw it in there like, “Hey, group leader, if this is we have one half doing one thing and one half doing another,” you can kind of delegate that responsibility to a group leader. If not, then if it turns out that they’re kind of ruining it for everyone, I think it is sort of up to the DM, for the greater good, to maybe take that person aside and have a few words with them like, “Hey, I get that you’re having fun and I’m glad. But remember, everyone is here to have a good time and it’s about compromise.” Like you were saying, it’s collaborative and no one’s the bad guy, no one has to be singled out. But I think sometimes some players just get a little carried away and riled up. And it’s just important to let them know that they’re part of that team. Again, the collaborative nature of role-playing games is like that, that it would be important for them to just keep in mind it’s a little give, a little take, and if they can be conscientious of the other players.
J: Yeah. And to that point of contacting the players, it’s always been my practice that if there’s something that you think may cause drama outside of the game, to contact the people outside of the game. Because the last thing you want to do is to have this game where there’s potential drama in the game because of everybody dealing with NPCs and what drama that that brings up. There’s no need to bring up some personal interactions where people’s feelings may get hurt.
F: Oh yeah, I would never do that, like call them out in front of the group. I mean, a lot of times people just don’t know they’re doing it.
J: Right.
F: You know, pull him aside, maybe during that well-timed intermission and just sort of bring it to their attention. That’s a really good one. I think the other thing that I like to do sometimes when I can sense an imbalance is if one half of my group is being just really great sports and they’re being patient, I try to reward them for their behavior. It sounds a little silly, but if I have one group, like my very lively and slightly tipsy group, that is just kind of going all out, if they come across something, I usually try to reward my other players like, “Oh, you’re sober and you’re in the game, and you happen to have just higher perception and you’re doing really well. So, you happen to find these really good rewards or this treasure, here you go.”
J: Moving on with the discussion, we’ve been talking all this time about people that have broken your story on purpose. But we all know, sometimes it’s just an accident, sometimes they don’t know they’re breaking your story and they’re just playing the way they think they should be playing.
F: That’s true.
J: So, two things come to mind when I think of players breaking things on accident. The first one is missed or misinterpreted clues.
F: Yeah, that’s the most common one, I think.
J: So, any thoughts on that any examples, you’ve seen where that’s happened?
F: This is actually probably one circumstance that happens to me quite often. And I think for me, it just happens to happen a lot because I frequently campaign for people that are very new to Dungeons and Dragons. So, there’s that transition period, for growing pains, where they’re still learning the ins and outs of the games and they may not know how to search for clues. As brand new players, I always try to let them know that anytime you go to a new space, a new cave, a new forest, a new room, a new bar, anything, role for perception. You are welcome to explore, you know. It’s encouraged that you should. You know, stomp the foot, wink wink. But, it happens a lot in my case, just because of the lack of experience within the group. They just don’t know that they should be searching for clues or they don’t know that they even can. So, a lot of times, that is the most common occurrence. And I have to be mindful and conscientious that the clues I’m providing are appropriate, again, to the level of experience of my players. If I’m going to create these clues that are locked away in some locker that’s three feet underground, that you’re only going to find by getting it from a map from a guy two towns back, that you only knew to talk to because you happen to have a drink with the bartender at 4am, you know, it’s gonna be a really hard clue for them to find. So, I think just making sure that my clues are not too difficult for the players to actually find is one of those things
J: And then once they find them, you have to be careful to make sure that they’re not too difficult to interpret.
F: Yes!
J: Because the last thing you want to do is they’ve gone through this entire rigmarole to find this clue. And then to get it and be like, “What’s this? What does this mean?” And I think that from a running a game perspective, if you have a published adventure path, that having clues that are too difficult for the players is a lot less likely.
F: Yeah.
J: But if you’re making your own campaign (you’re making your own adventure), it’s very easy to do. You really have to keep your players in mind as you write this stuff. And you also have to be prepared in the event that they don’t interpret it correctly. Be prepared for them to get to it a different way. Because just because they found one clue doesn’t mean that that’s the only clue to figure out the next step in the in the end adventure.
F: That’s true, plan A and plan B.
J: So, I think that’s kind of an important part about those clues.
F: No, it is, definitely. I think the other thing to keep in mind as well is the fact that, if you have them in a space and they’re supposed to be searching for clues, they may know to search for those clues and they may have the best of intentions to find those clues. But if they’re just having a bad day and just rolling for poop, then they may not find the clues because they’re rolling really low. And they’re just not able to and their characters miss those clues. And so you have that potential as well.
J: One of the things I like to do, if I have characters that do a low roll like that, I try not to have them just roll immediately again. Because my theory is that if you’ve rolled and you failed, then you’ve spent some time looking and you didn’t come up with anything. So during that time, maybe an encounter happens, some bad guy stumbles into the room that you’re trying to search or some an owlbear comes into the clearing that you’re looking through. But make there be some sort of break between ‘rolled for perception and failed,’ and ‘rolled for perception and succeeded.’ If they continue to roll poorly after that, you have to figure out something. So, it’s just another way to approach it, because you can’t just keep throwing counters at them. Eventually, they will die and for a failed perception roll, that’s a terrible reason to die.
F: True. Very true. Yeah, I think it’s important to kind of have those, backup plans. If they don’t find this clue here, maybe present it somewhere else. Maybe it takes the form of a scroll on a body that they found, as opposed to digging under a hole and finding it there. You try and present that clue a little further down the line and see if they roll better that time around.
J: Speaking of presenting it in different ways, I think that really takes us nicely into the next accidental reason, which is NPC issues.
F: NPC issues!
J: NPCs can have a host of issues. If you’ve got an NPC that they’re trying to try to sneak up on or capture and they think that they know what he looks like, then they get into a room that’s full of people and walk right by him. And so suddenly, now there’s a there’s an issue because they don’t know who they’re looking for.
F: I think again, that kind of goes back to the newly experienced individuals. Again, they may not know that they have to roll for perception. They may not know that they should be talking to their NPC. You know, it’s not just background noise, it’s not just characters setup as props. They may have an individual in a certain bar that’s going to give them the clue that sets them off on their next adventure. And they walk right by them, because they’re just really excited to get that elven ale.
J: Gotta go for that elven ale every time. The other thing that can kind of happen with NPCs is they unexpectedly die. And that could either be because the player doesn’t know that there’s somebody that they need to deal with and get into a fight with him.
F: That’s true.
J: Or they could be protecting them and it just goes horribly wrong.
F: So terribly wrong!
J: And I think one thing that tends to be a challenge for my newer players is that in the ‘accidentally killing them’ realm, that in their battle with the character, they don’t always realize that they can capture and interrogate the character. They just think, “It’s an enemy, so I better just kill them.” And, they don’t necessarily know that you can actually get information from these NPC bad guys. And my campaign allows for that option. You know, if they interrogate this person and they use intimidation, they’ll find out x, y, and z. But we never get to x y, and z because they’ve probably lobbed their head off with that great axe that they were talking about before. Being able to declare that you’re trying to do non-lethal damage and, “Oh, yeah, I forgot to do that because I cut his head off instead.” Then the last part (and I kind of love this part about the NPC issues) is dialogue gone wrong. And that could be a whole host of things from doing something as simple as not asking the right questions and not going deep enough into it. Or what you told me that Rene did.
F: Yes. So, I had a campaign where the players were supposed to go into this old abandoned house and they were supposed to appeal to this ghost. And this ghost would appear and allow them to have a question answered, any one question. But they had to ask nicely. They had to be very kind, they had to flatter her. That was the whole thing. That was just the one caveat. Say she has nice hair or say she has a lovely ghost dress, I don’t know. But my husband, Rene, took it upon himself to insult her instead and called her an old hag. So, my ghost appropriately got very offended and went ahead and just left and didn’t give them their question. And it would have been a very important question that would have been given to them, a very important piece of their next adventure that would have propelled the plot forward. And instead, you have one disgruntled ghost and one very sorry dwarf. So, that was dialogue certainly gone wrong. He went headfirst into that one.
J: So in that case, what did you do to help the story move forward without giving it to them?
F: Well, in that particular campaign that I was working, it was a pre-written campaign. So fortunately, the campaign kind of anticipated those potential scenarios that you’re not always going to get the clues from one source. The sort of ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ kind of mentality. So fortunately for me (and as a good learning experience as well), in seeing how that kind of unfolded, the same clue or the same opportunity to find out that clue was presented in other side missions or with other NPCs that they would ultimately come across. So, the learning experience, again, is whenever I decide to create my own campaigns, is that if your players don’t discover the clue with the NPC that they’re supposed to, at the time that you had originally designated, Plan B. Perhaps they discover that clue with a different NPC sometime in the near future at a different location in a different way. And it can present itself as an enemy, they’re fighting and find a clue off of or maybe they come across some other NPC that is more willing to give them the clue in favor of them doing some sort of mission for them, something like that.
J: And I mean, the good news is, especially with NPC issues is that you’ve got these NPCs that are your plaything, so to speak. And if something happens to them, you can always move that clue to another NPC.
F: Exactly.
J: I mean, obviously, you don’t want it to be iterative, where you have the exact same clue, the exact same NPC, where the players just feel like, “Oh, I can hack down anybody and it’ll pop up somewhere else.” But especially if they didn’t know the clue was supposed to be with this person, it’s very easy to say, “Oh, well, instead of that guy, it’s going to be this guy over here.”
F: Yeah.
J: But, that’s the nice thing, especially about NPCs, but also about really any of these issues. Just keep in mind that you are the master of the world in which your players are living. And so you can adjust it as needed.
F: Yeah, definitely. I think adaptability is a very integral part of what it means to be a DM, that willingness to be flexible, to adapt to change. Just know that there’s always an opportunity to represent a clue or an important part of your campaign to help your players continue their adventure.
J: Yeah. I think that’s a great place to wrap it up.
F: Yeah.
J: So thanks, everybody for listening. And until next time…
J/F: Stay nerdy friends!
Hi, everyone. It’s John. If you liked the show, it’d be great. If you could go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcast, and like us, it really does help. Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter, or visit becoming DN com for the latest show information. Becoming DM is produced by John Welsh and Felicia Martinez. The show is edited by John Welsh. We’ll be back in two weeks. We look forward to seeing you then.