SPOILERS FOR DRAGON HEIST

Matu67 asks:

I’m running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (Alexandrian remix), and I’m wondering: How do you improvise sources of information?

For example, a faction knows that character X did Y, but the DM hasn’t written down the reason why the faction knows this. When the players ask the faction, “How did you come across this piece of info?”, what do I say as the DM?

In Dragon Heist, for example, the Cassalanters know that Dalakhar was carrying the Stone of Golorr, and the DM is encouraged to give this information to the PCs if the PCs ally with them. Then the PCs ask, “Hey, Cassalanters, how do you know that?” And then I freeze up.

We can start here by getting down to the most basic ontology of the question:

How do we know things?

In this case, how does a faction in an RPG scenario — like the Cassalanters — know stuff? Where does that information come from?

Well, broadly speaking, they will have agents. (In an espionage campaign like Dragon Heist these might be literal secret agents, but generally we just mean anyone who’s a member of the faction or working with the faction.) For a faction to “know” something, it means that these agents will have either witnessed it directly or they’ll have learned the information from someone who did.

For example, “How do you know the Potenska Apocrypha can be found in the Ebon Library?”

Either someone saw the book in the Ebon Library themselves, or they’ve spoken to a scholar / read a reference to the Apocrypha in another book / cast a commune spell and been informed by the gods that the book is there.

To forge that connection, start with; Who definitely knows about the thing you’re trying to source?

For example, who knows that Dalakhar has the Stone of Golorr? Well, Dalakhar, obviously. But also, since he stole the Stone from Xanathar, members of Xanathar’s gang would know.

Who knows that the Potenska Papers are in the Ebon Library? Well… librarians, right? And probably other scholars who have seen it there? (To this general list, you could potentially also add any specific NPCs who you know have visited the Ebon Library.)

At this point, you have two options for creating the data trail.

First: If it’s possible the agents could have directly witnessed the information, then problem solved. You’re done. (e.g., “When I visited the Ebon Library, I saw the Potenska Papers in their collection.”)

You can flesh this out by providing an explanation for why they were there. (e.g., “When I was at the Ebon Library researching a summoning ritual for Demogorgon, I saw the Potenska Papers in their collection.”) The great thing is that, in an espionage scenario, you can almost always default to “…because they were spying on them” as the explanation. (e.g., “Our spy in Xanathar’s hideout was there because they were spying on Xanathar.”)

Second: If agents couldn’t have directly witnessed the information, then you just need to connect the agents to the people who do.

In some cases, it will be easier – or more fun! – if you imagine this happening in multiple steps. (For example, X talked to Y and the conversation was overheard by Z. Or the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence intercepted communication between a US Senator and the Lytekkas Corporation, which was scooped up from a vulnerable server during a Mossad operation, and we grabbed it from them because we’ve got a worm installed in their Tel Aviv data center.)

But you don’t usually need to over-complicate it. A single step is usually more than enough.

For example, “We have an informant in Xanathar’s gang, and he was sent out as part of a team to find Dalakhar and retrieve the Stone.” Or, “One of our agents intercepted written orders that were sent to Xanatharian agents to be on the look out for Dalakhar and to retrieve the Stone he carried.” Or, “I hired a Sage of Orthoria to research the Potenska Papers, and they found a reference to a copy that was given to the Ebon Library.”

If the players want to dig even deeper – e.g., “Who is this agent?” – an espionage campaign usually gives you the luxury of waving them off. (“Their identity is confidential. I’m sure you can understand that revealing it could potentially put them in danger.”)  On the other hand, there’s often no harm in satisfying their curiosity: If you know who the agent is, great If not, then it’s time to reach for your list of NPC names and spin somebody up.

This may also be a good point to figure out why the players are so insistent about digging into this data trail. (This is a slightly hidden case of making sure you know the intention of an action before resolving the action.) For example, maybe they want to question the Cassalanters’ informant; or maybe they just want to make sure they don’t accidentally kill them when they raid Xanathar’s hideout. Maybe the reason they want access to the original Tel Aviv intercept is because they want to run a data analysis and see if they can identify the location of the IP address the message was originally sent from.

Once you know what they’re actually looking for, it becomes a lot easier to aim your improv.

The way to do this, of course, is to simply ask them!

You might be able to do that in character – for example, the Cassalanters ask them why it’s so important for them to know the identity of their informant. But, as the GM, you can also just ask the players directly what their goal is.

Go to Ask the Alexandrian #1

M. writes:

With everything going on in Israel and Gaza, I’m struggling with my game. I know too many people who have been affected by the war. The idea of running fantasy raids and having monsters kidnap villagers and innocent people being threatened by dragon fire just isn’t fun right now.

I’ve been running my current campaign for over a year, and we’ve been building up political intrigue, abductions by slavers, secret cults, and a simmering civil war… And I just don’t know what to do.

Do you have any advice? Where do I go next? What sorts of adventures could I run?

The trap you’re feeling stuck in is the ubiquitous combat structures that are the default structure and backbone of play for most RPGs. I talk about this in Game Structures, and also the way in which play tends to gravitate towards structure. Combat is what most RPGs give you, so both your adventures and the actions of your players gravitate towards it.

It can be tough to think outside of that box, but your question about what types of adventures you could run instead shows that you’re already heading in that direction. Personally, the first thing I’d look at would be some sort of mystery scenario. Mysteries are flexible and also very conducive to combat-free scenarios. (Or, if combat is featured, it can be structured to not resemble the real world events you don’t want to be reminded of.)

You may be able to pivot the ongoing events of your campaign into a scenario you won’t find problematic, but given the prevailing themes and threads you describe, it’s probably going to be hard to get away from it entirely. So I strongly suspect that you and your group need to take a break.

There are a couple of approaches you can take for this.

First, you might be able to take a break within your current campaign with something like a beach episode. This is a concept from anime/manga, where all the main characters in the series head to the beach together. This usually involves hitting the Pause button on all of the current, ongoing story lines.

You don’t literally need to take your campaign to the beach, of course. (Although you could.) The point is to contrive a reason for your PCs to all hit the Pause button on whatever they’re doing and go do something else for a while, and this will likely be easiest to do if it’s accompanied by a change of venue. They could be:

• Sent somewhere by a patron to deal with a problem.
• Invited to a grand party.
• Sucked through a portal into a demiplane.
• Get sent back through time to explore an historical epoch.

The second option is to literally put your campaign on pause. Take a break for a few sessions and run some one-shots or a short campaign. This might be a good opportunity to experiment with some new games you haven’t played before. Zero-prep games like Lady Blackbird or Technoir would be the first place I’d personally start looking, and it might also be a great time to check out some more “experimental” games that aren’t based in the tropes of pulp fiction at all.

Regardless of which option you choose, I’d frame things up by having an open conversation with your players about where you’re at personally and why you need to take a break from the campaign. Discuss the options you’re comfortable running and get their input on what you should do next.

From a purely practical standpoint, make a point of setting a specific date when you’ll revisit the discussion and see if you, and everyone else, is ready to go back to the main campaign. Aim low for this (e.g., “let’s take a break for the next month” or “we’ll touch base again once we finish up our mini-campaign on Kepler Station”). You don’t want to wait too long, because then the campaign might just fade away. And if it turns out that it’s still too soon, you can always kick the can further down the road when the time comes.

Go to Ask the Alexandrian #12

SPOILERS FOR DRAGON HEIST

A.M. asks:

One of my players is going to be leaving my Dragon Heist remix campaign soon. It’s currently five days before Trollskull Manor’s grand opening and two days before the fireball. We have two more sessions with her, and I have another player lined up to replace her when she leaves, but I’m not sure if it’d be better to pad things out a bit so the new player is part of the group when the fireball goes off; or breeze through and have the fireball with the old player still there.

There are three things I would consider here:

1. Is there any way that I can give the departing player a satisfying send-off?
2. How am I going to hook the new player in?
3. Is there any reason the new player can’t join before the old player leaves? (Which immediately alleviates any sequencing woes that might interfere with the best answers for #1 and #2.)

For the send-off, I’m looking for some kind of conclusion. Some dramatic note that allows this specific player to feel like their experience in the campaign is “complete.” This is, of course, good for the player leaving, but I think it’s also important for the other players, because it provides a sense of closure.

Generally speaking, this is going to boil down to either a major milestone in the campaign or it’s going to be about resolving a personal goal. In either case, though, you want to focus on what you know about the specific player: What stuff do they seem to care most about in the campaign?

MILESTONES

In terms of a milestone, for example, you’re in a somewhat awkward point of the Dragon Heist campaign where one set of objectives has been completed, but the next phase of the campaign hasn’t really kicked off.

If there’s not a natural milestone sitting right there, however, then sometimes you can fast-track a milestone. For example, if you think the nimblewright investigation could get wrapped up in a couple sessions (including the Gralhund raid), then you might fast-track the fireball and have it go off immediately. Discovering the culprits (Gralhunds) and recovering the Stone (albeit not its Eyes) might be a nice, satisfying milestone.

Alternatively, maybe this player seems to be really invested in Trollskull Manor. If so, focusing on the grand opening as their big conclusion might be the milestone you need. This might actually mean slowing down the milestone (so it arrives at the right time), possibly by adding an additional complication in the form of a mini-scenario to put extra weight on it. In the case of Dragon Heist, the campaign conveniently provides the machinations of Frewn, a business competitor, to disrupt the opening of Trollskull Manor: Maybe you’ve already resolved that in your campaign, but if not you can compress that down into the next couple sessions and have Frewn (and his wererats) go in HARD on screwing up the opening. Thwarting Frewn and celebrating a big, glorious opening day might be a great final session for this player.

Random Tip: In my Dragon Heist run, the players actually put together a menu for Trollskull Manor by having each PC name one food. Then one of the players actually made that menu for dinner one night. You could do something similar, creating a real world feast and celebration to mirror the one in your game.)

PERSONAL GOALS

In terms of personal goals, of course, this depends entirely on the specific PC in question. But it largely boils down to identifying the most important personal goal and wrapping it up.

• Are they seeking revenge on their father’s killer? Oh, look! There’s the six-fingered man now!
• Are they trying to raise money to raise their dead wife from the dead? Insert a mini-scenario that gives them access to a magic item that lets them do that. (If you want to run hard, simultaneously frame things up so that they’re faced with a dilemma: Do they raise their dead wife? Or the orphan killed in the fireball?)
• They wanted to become a teacher at the House of Wonder? Renaer arranges for them to get a position.

You may also be able to combine personal goals and milestones. For example, Renaer surprises them with the position at the House of Wonder during the grand-opening of Trollskull. Or it turns out Lord Gralhund was their father’s killer.

If you’re scratching your head over this or uncertain about what you should do, you can always unleash your GMing superpower by turning to the player and asking, “Hey. Is there anything you really want to get done before leaving the campaign?”

HOOKING THE NEW PLAYER

When it comes to hooking the new player, I discuss this in more detail here.

In most cases, even if you screw this up completely, the metagame will paper over the gaping cracks: Everybody knows this is Peter’s new character, so they will just kind of “naturally” accept him as part of the group. But it is, in fact, this kind of “go with the flow” tendency which, for me, makes it even more important to not have it be that simple; to have the new addition to the group make sense in character.

In terms of the existing player’s send-off, this is mostly significant if sequencing is a problem – i.e., the original player needs to leave before the new player can join, but it would be better or easier to bring the new player in before the milestone that would provide a satisfactory conclusion to the original player.

In these cases, I would almost always tip things in favor of the original player. It’s much more important, in my opinion, to make sure they get a proper send-off; they’ll be plenty of time for the new player to have rewarding experiences in your game.

If possible, though, I’d try to overlap the players. It can, in my experience, make the transition feel much more natural. The only reasons to avoid that would be either interpersonal issues (maybe the original player would be angry playing with the new player for some reason) or if the time dedicated to bringing in the new PC would make it difficult to drive the campaign towards the original player’s big send-off.

Go to Ask the Alexandrian #11

JRL writes:

Are lulls in the game — people pulling up phones, dozing off — acceptable in sessions? Or should it be avoided at all costs?

In diagnosing this, I think you have to distinguish between two groups:

• People are in the current scene.
• People who are NOT in the current scene.

One of the best things you can have is a group that’s an enthusiastic audience: Even if they’re not the current focus of attention, these players will be completely engaged because they’re entertained and interested in what’s happening within the totality of the campaign. But even in these groups, there’ll be times when people not in the current scene will be tuning out. And that’s probably fine, as long as their activities aren’t distracting or detracting from the current spotlight.

(It’s one thing if they’re checking their e-mail. It’s another if they’re playing videos or pulling other players into chit-chat about a TV series they’ve been watching.)

If the players with characters in the current scene are completely disconnecting from the session, though, that’s a flashing red light that something is wrong.

(Before we go any further, though: Make sure that “check your phone” is actually tuning out. I’m frequently “on my phone” during our Grendleroot campaign, but it’s because I’m looking up my artificer’s spells.)

If spotlight players are tuning out, there are a few things to consider.

Take a break. In a four-hour session you should be taking at least one break. I recommend two or three. Breaks give everyone a chance to recharge and refocus.

Double check. Is the current scene actually interesting? Or are you grinding through empty time that you should be framing past?

Mechanically prompt the group. Calling for a group Perception check or Insight check or whatever your local gaming system’s equivalent is can be a good way to low-key refocus people.

Prompt the tuned-out player. If it’s a social scene, have the NPC turn to their PC and say something like, “What do you think, Tameric?” You can also just specifically ask the player, “What’s Tameric doing?”

If this tune-out is happening during combat, the root cause is probably that it’s taking too long for the combat round to loop back to the player. Solutions for this include:

Off-turn interactions. Some game systems will be designed to give the PCs the ability to take reactions when it’s not their turn. On the one hand this can increase how long it takes a combat round to resolve, but on the other hand it tends to keep players more engaged with what’s happening because they’ll be looking for opportunities to use their off-turn abilities.

Even in the absence of such mechanics, however, you can often proactively engage a player off-turn. Just targeting them with an attack is often enough to get their attention, but something that requires them to actually roll dice (e.g., a saving throw in D&D) or make a decision is even better.

Speeding up combat. Literally just resolving a combat round faster will also help, getting players back to their turns sooner so they have left time to tune out. There are a variety of techniques you can use here, including pre-rolling dice, rolling fistfuls of dice, and putting players on deck. (Putting players on deck is also great because it pre-engages the player with their turn before you actually get all the way back to their turn.)

Most these techniques, as noted, are about making sure that players in the current scene aren’t checking out. But when the party splits up, you don’t necessarily want to leave players unengaged for too long. There are a couple techniques that can help with this, too:

Cut mid-scene. Don’t wait for Group 1 to wrap up everything they’re doing before switching to Group 2. Instead, cut back and forth between the groups in the middle of scenes. This is described in more detail as one of the advanced techniques in The Art of Pacing, and it’s highly effective.

Cast an NPC. Consider the NPCs or monsters in the scene the player isn’t participating in. Then give one of them to the player to play. In combat you can generally just hand them the bad guy’s stat block. In a social scene, you’ll generally want to stick with simpler support roles (that don’t require a lengthy briefing), but more complex roles are possible if you’ve prepped them using something like the universal NPC roleplaying template. (Either way, I would generally suggest avoiding any NPC whose correct portrayal would rely on the player getting access to spoilers.)

IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU

With all of that being said, remaining engaged with the session is a two-way street. If you have a player for whom this is a habitual problem — it’s this one specific player who is constantly tuning out — then you need to talk with them about it outside of the game session.

If their tune-out isn’t disrupting the game, then you can just touch base and see how they’re doing. Are they actually disinterested in the campaign? Is there something different you could be doing to make the game better for them? In doing so, you may discover that there’s not actually a problem at all. Some players, particularly those with ADHD, will use structured “distractions” to remain mentally engaged with an activity.

If, however, the player is being disruptive — and having no idea what’s going on because they weren’t paying attention counts as disruptive! — then you need to have a frank discussion with them and figure out a solution. That might even include agreeing that this just isn’t the right game for them (although obviously that would not be the first go-to).

Either way, getting on the same page with your players will make things better for everyone in the long run.

On that note, I will say that you may tempted to implement a table rule like “no using cellphones.” That may work, but in my experience you’re far more likely to be treating the symptom than the disease.

Go to Ask the Alexandrian #9

João writes:

I don’t want to railroad my players. But how can I create a classic quest to destroy the Evil Thing™ without railroading?

The principle of “don’t prep plots, prep situations” can also be thought of as prepping toys and then letting the players either (a) figure out how they want to play with them and/or (b) how they’re going to react to you actively playing them.

So if you’re prepping an RPG version of The Lord of the Rings, don’t prep the journey to Mt. Doom. Instead, prep:

• the One Ring
• the villains interested in the Ring (Sauron & Saruman)
• the tools those villains can use against the PCs (Nazgul, crebain, orcs)

And so forth.

Let’s say that we’re in Rivendell and Elrond, et. al. have just explained the history of the Ring, that Sauron is seeking it, and that the only way to destroy it is by throwing it into Mt. Doom.

(You could also design this scenario without proscribing one method for destroying the Ring: It could be  Mt. Doom or the fire of an Elder Dragon or the sunken forges of Beleriand. Or could also take one step further back and not make Sauron’s defeat or destruction dependent on the One Ring. But, for the sake of argument, let’s just focus on the McGuffin Delivery concept.)

So you’re in Rivendell. You have the One Ring. And the know the Ring has to go to Mt. Doom.

Add a map of Middle Earth showing where Rivendell and Mt. Doom are.

Now, let the players decide how they want to get to Mt. Doom.

And… that’s it.

Railroad averted.

ACROSS THE MAP

The players now have a vast array of options open to them: Go through Moria? Over Caradhras? Through the Gap of Rohan? Head straight down the coast and sail to Gondor? Escort Bilbo to the Lonely Mountain, call in old favors owed, and taken army of dwarves south?

This, of course, makes a “here’s a map of the whole world, plot a course for yourself” campaign like this incredibly daunting to prep in advance and basically impossible to do so without wasting a bunch of time prepping stuff that will never be used.

If this is for your home campaign, though, you don’t need to prep everything in advance. You can figure out what your players are planning to do and then prep specifically for that.

They’re heading over the mountains? Prep Caradhras.

They’re heading to the coast? Prep the Corsairs of Umbar.

So what DO you need to prep for the map?

You need a broad patina of the world so that the players have enough context to make their decisions regarding route. The map provides the structure here, and so your prep mostly boils down to being able to answer the question, “What’s here?” when the players point at the map and ask.

You don’t need a lot of detail for this. Just one to three sentences for each broad region.

“What’s here?”

“That’s the Lonely Mountain, a dwarven kingdom ruled by King Dain.”

Just drawing the map will honestly do 90% of the work here. (There’s mountains here, a kingdom called Rohan there, etc.)

DEFAULT TO YES, FLESH OUT THE WORLD

As the players begin making their plans, they’re going to propose routes you never even considered. When this happens, default to yes and flesh out the world.

Player 1: There are mountains here. Should we go around them to the north or south?

Player 2: What about climbing straight over them?

Player 3: What about under the mountains? Are there any dungeons we could go through?

DM: (thinking fast) There are two, actually. A system of caves in the north near Mirkwood, infested with goblins. And an abandoned dwarven city to the south.

The players decide that sounds too dangerous and they decide to head south instead.

But now, of course, we’ve established that the Mines of Moria exist…

PLAYING WITH YOUR TOYS

The other thing you’ve prepped, of course, are those toys we mentioned earlier. With the planning session complete, you can use these tools to flesh out your prep for the players’ intended route. For example, they’re heading towards the Gap of Rohan, so you pull out some crebain spies dispatched by Saruman and plan to have those followed up by Uruk-Hai patrols if the PCs get spotted.

But these toys are also designed for active play. When the players do something unexpected that you weren’t prepared for, the first thing to ask your self is: How can I use my scenario toys to respond to that?

The second thing is to see if you have any generic toys that can be plugged in. (The PCs have gotten spooked by the crebain and are heading to Caradhras now? Well, it’s a good thing you’ve got this Living Mountain write-up from the bestiary.)

And the third thing is to say (when the players fail the extended skill check on Caradhras and are forced to turn aside to Moria), “Reaching the top of the stone steps, you look down upon the Walls of Moria. There the Gate stood once upon a time, the Elven Door at the end of the road from Hollin by which you have come… Okay, well this seems like a good place to wrap things up for this week.”

That should give you plenty of time to prep a legendary dungeon.

(Double check your challenge ratings, though. Otherwise someone might die in there.

Go to Ask the Alexandrian #8