How Being a DM Changed My Approach to Story Structure

From my earliest attempts at writing I always knew just how important an outline really was. This was something I never valued as a student, then tried at great lengths to convey to my students, but had very limited success with. Like them, the younger version of me firmly believed that I could wing it and it would be just fine. In fairness, this was because it usually was just fine. For instance, I don’t really outline these blog posts. More often than not, I collect some prompts, pick one I’m vibing with that day, and then sit down and write. This is what’s called “flow of consciousness writing,” which is great for conversational or laid back writing, but not that great when trying to convey a particular storyline with arcs, established characters, and a plot that means something to you. You really don’t want to go about that all willy-nilly. 

One of the things I always valued about good TTRPG modules (basically the books that outline an adventure, the people the characters can meet, and the general actions and consequences they can take and face) is how they are very clear in their structuring of the story, keeping things vague enough to allow for player agency, while keeping them structured enough to allow for a clear path. I specify good modules here, because I have dealt with my fair share of exceptionally bad ones as well. Horde of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat, the two original adventure books to come out for fifth edition D&D  were notoriously badly written, hard to run, and difficult to understand. They were later combined into one book called Tyranny of Dragons which was supposed to improve upon the many issues with flow, function, and readability of these books, though since I owned the originals I wasn’t paying for them a second time just to not run them again. And as fifth edition wrapped up into… whatever they’re calling this new edition despite it “not being a new edition” (sure Hasbro /s), the books didn’t get much better. I loved the Dragonlance books from Middle School up, and was so excited for the module that ran the players through the War of the Lance, but I found myself making just as many edits, additions, and rewrites to that book as I did the first, and its only been out a couple years!

But when they’re good, they are good! I found myself making few edits, if any, to Curse of Strahd, utilizing many short adventures from their collection books, and even using some of their more notable installments to teach myself how to write these kinds of modules. Even fan written or third party modules, like the I.S.T.AR. Facility from Acquisitions Inc., which was a player favorite, that I’ve run or been a part of have been great influences on my own writing style. I learned very quickly that when players don’t have a clear path (or paths) forward, the story will stall, get off track, or a campaign will stagnate and fall apart. As it's 2026 and the game is still going after starting in 2019, I feel that my plan worked out particularly well, especially since we have a game tonight that we’re all excited about! Arch 4 is well underway, so we may be done with the entire campaign by the time book 4 gets published… wow… 

Anyway, let's get into the process! Some of the things I mention in here may have been mentioned in the past, but I want to be sure you get a full view of exactly how I operate:

The Four Arc Style

Dungeons and Dragons, which is the main system that I used for this adventure, though seasoned players may recognize a few others that made their way into my game, has a tier system for their adventures. I’ve seen it broken down as the following: local heroes (levels 1-5), heroes of a nation (levels 6-10), continental heroes (levels 11-15), and global heroes (levels 16-20). Most people who play this game will make it to national level, and maybe start to cut into continental, but few if any will get to global. That was actually one of the biggest complaints of one of my players. Smithers at one point played a character named Fredrick who made it all the way to level 17. Since then, he’d never gotten to taste that level of power again, and he’d multiclassed (rogue/ranger) so never got to really experience those high level abilities. He often says that he doesn’t understand the point of 20th level abilities when no one ever gets to use them, and I agree! I wanted to make sure that my players got the chance to utilize these abilities at some point, so I wanted to design my campaign to push them all the way to the highest level. These street level misfits are going to change the world… for better or worse. 

In order to do this, I built my campaign around four archs the players would eventually work through. They would go through the progression of local heroes to the more global/cosmic level (you’ll see why the use of the word “cosmic” later) and I would use their leveling as a means to pace them through the archs. Currently in the books, they’re working their way through arch one, which they chose to focus their attention on the Circle of the Wastes druids that you’ll learn more about as the story progresses. 

Originally, there were six potential villain groups the players could have focused on: The Circle of the Wastes, The Brotherhood of Thorns, and DIARD being ones that have already been introduced in the books, however there were three others, the Irish Mob they battled in Lost and Bound being one of them, but I'm going to keep the other two under my hat for now. Each of these six organizations were presented to the party and they were told they could focus on the three they found most threatening and the story would shift to allow for them to pursue the plotlines that they felt most connected to. The other three just… faded into the background. 

As for that forth arc… well… that one was my choice, and I had planted seeds for it throughout the entire campaign. I’m sure that those of you reading along will be able to figure out exactly where its going, and I hope you look forward to it as much as I was… Tonight they get to delve deeper into it, as they’re not even halfway through arc four…

Time Skips

So, I realized pretty quickly that the characters kept plugging away at problems without much time for rest in between. A problem would come, they’d address it, I’d give them a cliffhanger of another problem, and they’d go right off and take care of that. The pacing felt really off, even if they took a few days to rest and plan. Leaning into that four arc structure, I was able to come up with a solution: the antagonist groups needed time to get their plans into action as well, so when one fell, the others plotted. This gave the players time to explore their individual characters, interact with NPCs that may not have much to do with the plot currently at hand, and explore this new world they found themselves in. 

To do this, between each arc, we had a collection of one shots. The players would tell me what they wanted to do, I’d whip up a one shot (a game that should be playable in one night, but usually took two or so to complete), and then we’d get the chance to highlight one of them as well as explore their relationships with others. This also gave me a chance to build on other characters they wanted to know more about but didn’t get the opportunity to learn in game. It is a ways off, but I took these one shots and turned them into short stories to allow for you all to experience these events yourselves. As each arc ends, you can look forward to a collection of short stories that give you some better insight into characters you want to know more about. This also allowed me to lead into the next arc without forcing it at the beginning of a new book, or leave you hanging for years at the end of the last. 

DNPCs

This is a touchy subject for a lot of players. A DNPC (or a Dungeon Master’s Non-Player Character) is often seen as an additional PC (Player Character) that the Dungeon Master runs. At best, its a deus ex machina character to allow the party to succeed where they normally shouldn’t, and at worst it’s a DM’s self insert to allow them the feeling of great power in a world of their own making, taking the spotlight away from the players and makes them an audience to the DM’s power fantasy. Neither option is all that great. So, you may be wondering, why include them at all?

There are a few reasons: 

1. It helps to have a voice in the party to help guide them without force feeding it. 

Sometimes the party gets stuck, and rather than having the DM give them the answer or an overt hint from on high, having an NPC there to ask a question or make a comment that can redirect the players back on track is helpful. So long as they’re not just feeding the party information, I’ve found its fine, and even welcomed. By giving them an NPC in their party that has skills they don’t, they find that more options are open to them should they run their head into a wall. 

2. Another voice for dialogue and conflict

Some NPCs are universally beloved, some are universally hated, some are completely forgettable. Creating ones that have a greater connection to one PC than another, or even gets in the way of one of the PC’s desires, creates plot potential in the group. Book two is already showing signs of that with Damian. He was meant to be a quest giving NPC at first, but eventually got in so well with the group that he would join them on missions at their own request. It helped that his brother, Simon, was the perfect “man in the chair.” Though I didn’t tell them until later that Simon was actually supposed to be a villain originally and just got reworked into an ally. 

3. I would rotate them at the player’s request.

Not one of my DNPC’s was ever a permanent fixture. Sometimes I’d bring them in for a mission, sometimes my players would request the ability to recruit one of them as a method of attaining help when they were down a person for a bit and wanted a little extra firepower. There were even a few times when I handed the character sheet over to one of the players and asked if they wouldn’t mind running them in combat so I could focus on being the baddies and they could take the opportunity to really see what this character was capable of. There were always two rules I followed when bringing one of these characters in: first, they had to always be at least one level lower than the party. No over leveling or letting them become the main characters. The players were always meant to be the stars of the show. Second, after establishing that NPCs could come along for this purpose, players had the right to request them not come, or request the ones they wanted. There were limitations (such as certain ones may be in the middle of something else in the world and were unavailable, or that they could only ever have one at a time, etc) but my players always respected these rules and in turn, I respected their own characters’ autonomy. 

On a fun little side note, tonight they’re actually getting an entirely new DNPC coming along with them on this mission. She’d appeared in the story before, though you as readers haven’t met her yet, and it's going to be fun to see her out in the wild. 

I know this was a longer one today, I guess I was just bitten with the blog bug. Hopefully you enjoyed this peek behind the curtain, and if you have a particular side character or NPC you want to see a short story about when the time comes, let me know! If they’re not already included, maybe I’ll write a whole new story and post it here when the time comes.