Chaos to Cohesion

One of the biggest issues Game Masters run into is the fact that the player “just won’t follow the plot!” That kind of mentality can be exceptionally dangerous to the health and longevity of a game, as well as a friend group. With this game going on for almost seven years at this point, and currently ten completed novels awaiting publication, some of you may think that I have mastered how to plan a game and wrangle my players. You may think that I know the secret that can be passed on to you for use at your table. And as a matter of fact… I do know the secret to both preparing for anything and wrangling your players. 

You don’t. 

I’ve learned something about myself over the past few years, and if you’re a DM, GM, Storyteller, Keeper, or any other title of the sort most of the time you’re involved in a game too, this is probably true for you as well: I need to be in control. 

This is my story, my book, my game… So I need to control it. 

Except it's not my story, not my game. All TTRPGs are collaborative storytelling experiences. Like the Bugs Bunny meme states, it's ours. 

It’s also not my book. Sure, I’m the one writing it, but as stated by myself and so many before me, I’m just writing up the incident report. Really, it’s their story. Once it’s out there in the world, I don’t have full control over it. Fan fictions will create offshoots and relationships that I, as the author, don’t utilize as canon, but are part of your joy of the story. Who am I to tell you no to your fun?

So, is that the big secret, Bryan? You ask yourself, frustrated by my response. Is that how you run your games, with no control whatsoever?

No, that isn’t the secret any more than “you don’t” is. You don’t control your players, you don’t control the game. You’re a referee, a guide, and you need to first let go of control before you can put these next few steps into action. Once you can honestly say to yourself “It’s just a game, and I don’t have control,” you can start to address the real secret to running a game that flows as if you have those reins in your hands and they actually do something. 

Trust

This is the biggest, most important part of my games, not just Displaced, but all the games I’m a DM for or a player for. One thing I said a lot when we started was “Trust your DM” when I started doing something my players didn’t like. They tabled their objections and waited for me to finish describing a scene and realized that I was either setting something up for them or introducing something bigger than they anticipated, and suddenly the frustration or concerns they were having were alleviated and they were back in the story, ready to roll with it. I don’t need to say that as much anymore. The reason is, they trust me to not be out to screw them over or take away their agency. 

Conversely, I trust them. I trust that they’ll play within the parameters we set at the beginning. They knew coming in that this was going to be a book, so their actions reflect that as players. They focus more on “Would [insert character name here] do that?” than “lol do it for the meme!” I can also trust that if there’s a legitimate problem with something I did, that they will come talk to me in the way that best reflects their need. Private message, an aside conversation, or even just a quick clarification at the table. They know that I will listen, take their concern seriously, and that if it doesn’t seem like I am, it's probably out of a misunderstanding that will require a deeper conversation later. 

I’m not a perfect DM. Hell, despite what some of my players think, I don’t believe myself to be a great DM. I’m a passionate DM, and sometimes that passion can whisk me away, but I trust my players to ride those winds with me, or anchor me down if I start going off the rails. We collaborate and listen to one another because we want the story we’re weaving together to be a good one, we want the experience we have together to be a great one, and we want the books created by their actions to be successful. We all trust one another and are working towards the same goal. 

That’s the big one up front, because if you don’t have trust, you don’t have anything. 

Divergent Ideas

“No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” -- Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

This idea is more bluntly stated by the more modern personality: 

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” -- Mike Tyson

Inevitably, it boils down to the same thing: Whatever you plan, know that it isn’t going to go that way. If you try to force it, or to railroad it, you’re either going to bore your players, make them feel like they have no agency in your game, or turn them into powergamers who focus on trying to beat you rather than trying to tell a story with you. 

I’ve been in one of those groups. Not to say it was a bad game, the DM was classically trained on the original red box and played D&D a lot differently than I learned. He was old school, death should be an ever present threat, not everything in the world is on your level, that kind of mentality. And there is a place for that kind of game in our world. The problem became that players cared less and less about their characters because they didn’t feel a need to become attached, and they were always planning on how to make a character with more survivability. I may get into this game more in a future piece, but suffice to say, the DM had a story, and we were going to walk that road and die trying. 

I took a very different approach to building the Displaced universe. When I sat down at the table I had the opening scene. I built St. Augustine’s to be someplace that was filled with mystery and intrigue in case they explored it, and also several means of escape should they want to take that path. Honestly, I overprepared it. And spoilers, like any overprepared dungeon made by an overeager DM, they were eventually going to get back to it. 

What I did  right, however, was I didn’t pick their villains for the game. I planned the arcs to follow a very specific structure, if an exceptionally general path. It wasn’t going to be based on XP and power levels, but by milestones and level brackets. From first to fifth, they were going to be more hometown heroes (though ‘heroes’ may be a strong word…), then from 6-10 they would expand out of Boston and into the world at large a bit more. After they hit 11, they were going to be facing more of a global threat, and finally, in the final arc, whatever level they were at they were going to be facing something on a more cosmic scale. I knew what that cosmic threat would be, though it's going to be quite a few years before you do, but what about the other three?

For that, I let them choose who they were going to face during each arc. I didn’t send out a poll or discuss it at the table. Instead, I took the time to flesh out six different villainous factions, getting a basic layout of what their goals were, how they operated, and who they hurt. Only three would become their antagonists of the campaign, but I let them decide based off of leads they followed, people they helped, and where they chose to focus their energy. 

In the end, they pursued four, doing a mission for one of the factions that didn’t end up becoming anything in the story long term, as they didn’t continue to push that storyline, and then decided who the biggest threat at the time was. They zeroed in on that target, and the three unchosen wasted away in my documents folder while the remaining two waited in the wings, building their strength, and escalating their storylines. 

And my players knew… the draugr were training. 

By giving them these options, it looked like I did a lot of work, when in reality I created six one-pagers for different factions, and let my players fill in the blanks. I gave them options, and in return, my work load lessened. Don’t be afraid to go in feeling underprepared. You’d be amazed how often a little goes a long way. Which brings us to…

Roll With It

If you haven’t heard of “Yes, and…” and “No, but…” you need to. Go take an improv class, or watch a few videos on it, because it is your greatest tool. I’ve walked into sessions with a mountain of papers and only gotten through a paragraph, and I’ve walked into sessions with nothing but a caffeine hangover and dread, only to walk out with my players praising me for one of the best sessions they’ve ever had. 

Why?

Because I rolled with it. Rolled with them. They’re the heroes, they’re the protagonists, and if they want to do something… let them. 

Start a bar fight? Sure. 

Explore the forest where nothing was planned? Go for it. 

Seduce the dragon? We all know how that’s going to end. 

The problem I see with a lot of Game Masters is, since it wasn’t in the plan, it doesn’t go anywhere. We need them back on track, so we make what they want to do go nowhere until they get back to what we want them to do. And this is a terrible way to DM. See those player requests above? Let's ‘roll with them’ and see where we get. 

“I want to start a bar fight!” 

Okay, how do you do that? Who are you choosing to antagonize? What are you saying to them? Ready for a brawl? Throw a few low level thugs at them and let them feel powerful! Then bring the city guard in and let them feel the consequence. That mission they were avoiding? Now it’s their penance for their crime, or a request from their new friend who was being harassed by those thugs… or hell, even a request from the thugs themselves for “being a good fight!”

Don’t want them to fight? Well, here’s where ‘no, but’ comes in. The guy they’re trying to pick a fight with? He just lost his wife and responds with “Go ahead, beat the tar out of me. I don’t care.” The wind will come out of their sails real quick, if they’re decent people, and either they’ll leave the bar alone, or they’ll talk to the poor NPC. And lo, you have a sympathetic quest giver that motivates them to follow your original preparations. 

“I want to explore that forest you have nothing planned in!” 

Okay, we can roll with that too. There are plenty of random generation tables online, you can ask an AI model to give you an idea (which I don’t suggest as those damn things are killing us faster than anyone would have ever believed), or… now follow me on this one… ask a simple question: 

“What are you hoping to find?”

Either the player won’t know, which can become a roleplay moment with the party where they talk about the potential dangers of the woods, or the player has an idea like… a fort! Treasure! Something to hunt! And now you have a direction to go with them. They want to hunt something? They can spy a deer! And if you’re feeling spicy… they don’t spy the thing that was originally hunting said deer. A fort? You don’t want to build a whole dungeon… but what about a tree fort built by children from the town. Kids were going missing, and now they’re rallying to protect themselves. 

“I want to seduce the dragon!” 

Con Save. 10d10 Damage. The dragon is a top. Moving on. 

But in reality, there are so many options beyond ‘rocks fall, everyone dies’ to get your players to follow your prep path without railroading them. And if they really don’t want to follow that path, that is why you have divergent options lined up. It doesn’t take a lot of prep, it just takes a bit of practice, patience, and, of course: trust.