Gain +1 to World Building By Making Every Encounter Count – Roleplaying Tips

Guten morgen.

A quick update for Wizards of Adventure: the recording of Saturday’s Q&A call is now available.

Some of the things we discussed on the call:

• NPC creation tools
• Getting sci-fi science right
• Running sci-fi travelling merchant campaigns
• Tips on running The Demonplague with Shadowdark
• Building a campaign from a novel or a film
• Encounter mapping

Wizards of Adventure: Watch, listen, and download the recording here.

Or become a Wizard of Adventure today and also get access to exclusive tools, GM techniques, and GM courses to level up your campaign.

Get more details here.

Gain +1 to World Building By Making Every Encounter Count

I used to treat some encounters as filler. Big mistake. Instead, what if every encounter, even a random roadside event, could deepen your world, spotlight your players, and advance your plot?

One way to make encounters significant is via plot points. Add a revelation, clue, or key plot detail to an encounter, and the encounter becomes notable because it contributed to the story.

My plots are simple. Plans of my Villains meets Consequences of Character Actions.

Villains have goals. Characters get in the way. Fireworks (and fireballs) explode.

For example, Hadrack in my Basilica campaign wants to become Pope. He’s apparently evil. Holing up in an ancient Gothic temple and making friends with the demon trapped there doesn’t make him evil…merely opportunistic, yes?

To become Pope, he’s decide to become head of his order within the religion. His order wears blood red garb and are like inquisitors. They also handle the finances. Once High Priest of the Red, he will subjugate the High Priests of the other two orders via knowledge gleaned from the demon in the temple.

The player characters work for the Baron. Assigned to serve the village of Fairehill as guardians and builders, they have already encountered Arch Cleric Hadrack and have acquired a distaste for the priest.

And recently, the party acquired the Crystal Shard, an elven artefact of great power that Hadrack’s been scouring the realm for. If he gets his hands on it, his bid for Pope-hood gains terrifying leverage. He’s already dispatched dogmen and other agents to find it.

Further, the group’s recently agreed to go on a Fedex quest to deliver a note from Brohn and Aurora, leaders of Fairehill, to Hadrack.

Where’s my popcorn?

So back to encounters. When an encounter starts, I describe the current situation to the players. They digest, ask questions, and then we begin encounter play.

Johnn: With scroll from Brohn safely tucked away in Bartram’s belt, you take the road to Gristle, the small thorp just outside of the old temple ruins Hadrack now calls home.

However, before arriving, about mid-morning, a noise in the forest from up ahead makes you pause.

The noise sounded like beasts roaring, as if fighting, but to Spencer’s theological ears, it sounded like a chant!

A simple enough encounter with a dogman Shaman leading several dogmen through a battle blessing ritual. They await the PCs, forewarned by Hadrack and now ready to beat a warning, or worse, into the meddling heroes.

My point is, while a simple encounter, I’ll make the most of it. While I assume it will play out as combat, the party might try parley. Or they could try to trick the dogmen into thinking Hadrack’s the bad guy here. Or maybe they’ll go full stealth and attempt to sneak by.

If the party engages, I’ll make the most of that decision. What lore could I drop into the encounter from my rumours table? How could I add a detail that connects a PC to this encounter? How might I involve one of Thuridan’s skills because he didn’t get any spotlight time last encounter?

If the players decide to bypass the strange noises, or back away after scouting things out, I’ll game out the consequences of that choice.

First, the dogmen would wait about three hours and then get impatient. The pack leader will send one soldier in either direction along the trail. The leader failed to post scouts during the ritual. So when the scouts quickly return with news of the party’s scent, the leader will panic and pursue.

This now gives me a chase scenario, where the PCs have a three hour head start. The party moves at 75′ a round, the dogmen 120′. For three hours the party travels, their foes catch up two. After five hours, the two groups could clash.

So now I’ve got a new encounter on my hands. A chase encounter. And I repeat the process. How can I lean into this event and make it special for gameplay?

For starters, I need to spruce the chase up. If the party doesn’t know it has pursuers, there’s no drama and nothing for players to respond to. Therefore, I’ll have the dogmen howl. While on chases, they howl.

Perfect. New sound and puzzle to identify. Party’s been signaled. And hot potato gets tossed back the players. What do you do?

Because the group left a thread unattended, that decision morphed and became a complication. Maybe the party eludes the dogmen again and make it to Gristle. So be it.

Or maybe this chase encounter results in engagement. And I’m back to setting up, or Staging in my lingo, an engaging situation: what lore could I drop in, how could I add a personal detail, how might I involve a specific character sheet, and so on.

Next session, treat every encounter like it’s a climactic scene. Let none be filler, And make each grant you a +1 bonus to your world building and plot momentum.

Cheers,
Johnn
roleplayingtips.com
https://discord.gg/6MxTRAqQ76
Have more fun at every game!

P.S. When you are ready, here are +4 vorpal ways I can help you with your campaign:

+1 Get My Campaign Logger App Free to Make Prep & GMing Easier
For GMs of any system looking to run deep, detailed, and immersive games, Campaign Logger lets you take session notes at the speed of thought in your unique GMing style while improving your preparation experience so you can focus on the parts of the game you enjoy the most.
Get your free Campaign Logger account here.

+2 Level-Up Your GMing With My Books

• Tiny Prep: Learn the perfect way to deliver epic sessions without the epic prep time.
• The Simple AI Guide to Adventure Building: Turn ChatGPT into your GM’s familiar, a smart assistant with an infinite well of ideas.
• NPC Mastery Bundle: A huge collection of tips, techniques, and aids that will inject life and detail into your NPCs

+3 Get the Demonplague (with 62 5-Star Ratings so far)
A complete level 1-20 campaign D&D 5E adventure path that offers intense roleplay, sandbox and hexcrawl play, cunning combats, and fiendish monsters.
Click here to see more details and to order.

+4 Get More GM Loot
Visit the Roleplaying Tips DriveThruRPG store, or browse books and courses to level up your GMing at the RoleplayingTips.com store.