Good day!
This is the second instalment of my how-to series on how to run a Dungeons And Dragons Game, aimed at beginner Dungeon Masters. In this article we are going to talk about the styles which you can adopt when running your Dungeons And Dragons game; their positives, potential negatives and how you can develop a style all your own.
What Is A Dungeon Master Style?
When undertaking the enormous and worthwhile commitment to run a Dungeons And Dragons game, you will likely be overwhelmed by the vast amount of information you are confronted with – at this point you need to make a choice (and for most people, this choice happens wholly unconsciously) as to what kind of adventure you are going to run. As this kind of play evolves, it will turn into your DM style.
Why should you care, and why does it matter?
Over the years, and especially when I just started out running games, I didn’t ever think that a DM style really mattered; I went from session to session, just feeling out the players and hoping for the best. I read very few official or pre-published works and just basically made it up moment by moment.
You could count this as a style in itself – but one day, I sat down with my party of players and actually asked them what they like or dislike about the way I ran games and found out that they were keenly aware of my inability to prepare, or the fact that I never really made any long term plans for them or for the world which they roamed in.
So, I felt like I could get so much more out of my play experience and give so much more to their play experience if I started changing the way I ran my games. So I started reading, researching and experimenting in my games; which led to noticeable changes in the stakes the players felt from session to session. Here’s a short run down of what I learned during those experiments, using some examples of styles I have tried or experienced over the years:
On-Rails vs Amusement Park vs Open World.
I use these terms to describe how much freedom you choose to give your players, or how much agency you give them to change the story you have outlined for them in front of you.
On-Rails
If your campaign is on-rails, then you’ll aim to have your players go from Point A to Point B with little to no interruptions or deviations from them. You might discourage your players from investigating outside of tight parameters that you set them. You might ask them less questions about what they want to do, or let them have less time to roleplay their decisions. What will happen is that your players will almost certainly see all of the things you decide you want them to see, and go through meticulously all the content you have prepared; but inevitably, they will feel like they are in a train, passing by the countryside that you have painted – experiencing the things that you carefully curate to them, and feeling very much like outsiders looking in on your vision.
This style isn’t necessarily a bad thing. One-shot sessions definitely tend to be run this way, lest you run over time, or deviate from the pre-written adventure so much that it is hard to get back on track. For long-term campaigns however, this style really doesn’t suit some parties of adventurers, who want to exhibit their creativity too.
Amusement Park
Your players enter through a gaudy and inviting archway, the long and winding pathways of the park go off in different directions. They might wander around and take a look at the attractions, some people out front of the rides might shout over to them, imploring them to come and have a go, but off in the background they can see the main attractions looming. Some of them might be shrouded in dark fog, but their silhouettes impose their will on the party.
Running an amusement park is generally a happy medium ground. You’ll do a fair bit of work crafting glorious set-pieces, or plucking them for elsewhere and slotting them into the grand expanse that should swim around the players. Maybe things pop out from time to time, and choices present themselves like those in a classical RPG. Maybe you pull some things from your character’s back story and craft set pieces around that; and your players will feel included and like they have that hard-fought agency they crave.
But they won’t be able to tinker with your rides. There isn’t a spanner in sight, and every NPC carefully points at the attractions and says “go there next, or there; both good choices. But mind the fence”. Those crazy plans and mad off-the-cuff ideas that the players pull out of the air at the drop of a hat won’t seem so possible, and no brothels will burn down on a whim.
Open World
The players find themselves meeting at a crossroad. It begins to rain after a morning of sunny spells. As they eye each other expectantly, a wagon is rolling down the road; riderless. You simply ask – “what do you do?”
This style can really suit some groups. It gives a massive amount of freedom to the players to shape the backdrop which you describe to them. You will be asking them hundreds of questions and expecting them to carry a lot of the weight of uncovering information and piecing it together.
Set-pieces play a large part of this style of play, but rather than obstacles in the road, they hove into view like icebergs; almost unexpected, and you will watch your players eyes grow into saucers as the decision to spend three weeks doing politics in the Kingdom of Greylan didn’t adequately prepare them for the giant attacks they heard about as a rumour in session one.
Open world campaigns when done right are a joy to play and run. Your players know that at any point, they can take a rash decision that will completely derail the campaign and send them off on a long journey of their own choosing. Inexperienced players will see this as an opportunity to do as they please without fear of reprisal, and an inexperienced Dungeon Master might let that be the case. This would be a mistake. DnD is a game of stakes; the highers the stakes and the greater the player agency, the more careful your players will need to be in making decisions.
That is the real secret to putting the power into the player’s hands – making them afraid to use it.
If you couldn’t tell, this is the playstyle I use in my campaigns. It involves a lot of work, a lot of setting small little plot lines up for later use, and understanding that not everything I write will be used (though with this style, you can just reuse it later on, or next year even).
You need to be prepared to enforce decisions and consequences for your players, otherwise this style tends to just devolve into chaos – which can be fun at times, and tiresome at others.
In conclusion
There are lots of ways that you can run your games, and you need to find the right way to run for your group and the session you’re thinking of playing. You’ll almost certainly find a middle ground between the styles I’ve outlined above. Communication with your players is the key, and gently enforcing the way you wish to play will help the sessions stay consistent. As I always say, if your players leave the session with a smile on their face, then you’ve done your job right.
Good gaming, thanks for reading.