They will almost always come up with ways to surprise us.

This is just a bit of Game Master advice for all of the new folx out there. You might have a grandiose plot on your mind or some massive pre-written fantasy campaign book in front of you. Just be prepared to chuck the whole thing over your shoulder and wing it when the players do something completely unexpected.

Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this article are strictly my opinion. If you disagree or have a different opinion, that’s okay. I’m not an expert on everything. I’m not always right. I’m just writing from my experience as I know it. Your mileage may vary.

I appreciate the cleverness and vast intelligence displayed by my players. As a GM it can cause headaches when they’re so freaking clever. I’ve had some pretty radical plots get pulled off by my players with no prompting from me.
I’m not suggesting every game should be a railroad.

Every game should be fun. The players should minimally be able to suspend disbelief and have the illusion of choice. Their choices do matter and we’re not here as GMs to just tell our story with their characters. However, GMs have to play everything the players interact with from the stable boy at the inn all the way up to the mighty ancient dragon they intended to slay.

I kinda hope people cut their GM a little slack if possible. If you tell the GM at the end of last session, “We’re going to go west after this in search of the cave,” maybe don’t randomly go three days north where the GM has no idea of what’s up there. We’re trying to make the game fun for the players, not perseverate for hours over what we should and shouldn’t prep.

Please do what works best for you as a Game Master and your group. What works for me at my table may not work for yours and vice versa. The main focus is to have fun. There is no right or wrong way to roleplay.

Your character did what now?!?

You see a lot of videos where people have rules hacks for Dungeons & Dragons. Some of those wacky plans are no joke. What’s more exciting is when the player doesn’t tell you they’ve constructed some elaborate build which there’s no immediate counter for it. I’m used to seeing some pretty heavy combat Player Characters with 200+ points of damage per round without any magic items. Boss fight? That was short.

Combat aside, I’ve backed off on heavy political intrigue gaming for a while. My players lose track of who’s who in all of the talking heads in negotiations. Even my die hard note takers kinda zone out when NPCs start talking their politics. I just say there were negotiations off screen and the Baron would like you to do A, B, or C. Sometimes my players choose some other letter entirely.

Somebody seems to have read the map wrong…

Player 1: Hey, remember that hole in the ground we found a few sessions ago? The one that we thought was a dungeon?
Player 2: Oh yeah. I wrote that down. We never did explore that.
Player 3: (To me, the GM.) We ride three days east to where we saw that hole in the ground.
Me: (Eye twitching, vein bulging in my forehead.) Uhh, okay. You pack up your horses and begin to ride east. Somebody roll me a d12.
Players: (Collective groan.) Random encounter time.

Sometimes random encounters can be a life saver for the GM.

When the players do something completely different than what you, the GM, were expecting, it never hurts to have a random encounter table or at least a more generic encounter that you can throw at them on the fly. Remember, all you have to do is make it to your next prep.

In the example above there were three different nations, two ninja clans (including one of the PC’s families) and demons involved. The PC’s were supposed to take part in the negotiations on behalf of their ailing warlord friend and the one PC’s family. Instead they decided to go back to the dungeon that they bypassed several sessions ago. There was supposed to be some sick loot in that dungeon that they ignored. Of course, by the time they turned around those items might have seemed less significant compared to their character’s abilities.

I had that hole in the ground planned out, but not printed or remotely finished because they bypassed it. A lot of us GMs have limited prep time, and we need to make the most of it. I had a few notes on what was going to be in the dungeon for loot and some of the things guarding it, sure. Was it fully fleshed out yet? Nope. Why spend time on a dungeon they’re never going to visit?

I think it’s best for every DM/GM to have random encounter tables or even just a bullet point list of encounters that can be tossed in pretty much anywhere. If characters have any kind of backstory, that might be a time to drop a family member into the works or suddenly have that gang leader show up looking for the money the group swindled him out of. Maybe it’s just a random lost orc who needs a new home or something.

I’m thinking of making some books with just such encounters whether they be combat, environment based, or social/roleplaying encounters. More on that in the days ahead. I was inspired by the old Book of Lairs series for AD&D 1E. They were encounters built in such a way to keep players interested for an hour or two, but not always fill an entire evening. Likewise the Decks of Encounters for AD&D 2E did much the same with even shorter encounters. Why hasn’t this been done for much of any game since? (As far as I can tell.)

No quantum ogres.

What’s a quantum ogre? When the creature encounter designed for Room 1 suddenly appears in Room 2 because that’s where the group chose to go. They were supposed to fight the ogre, so even if there was a Room 3 available, there’s an ogre. If the characters left the dungeon instead and climbed the mountain, yup, there’s that ogre again.

Instead, let there be natural consequences or rewards if they bypass something or miss a subtle hint. There’s really no right or wrong way to go in any situation, that’s why we play through them. If they avoid the room with the ogre and it was supposed to give them information instead of fighting them, guess they’ll never know, or the group will find it some other way.

When all else fails, go to the bathroom or simply tell the players you need a 15-20 minute break to prepare yourself because you thought they were going to do “A” instead of “B.” It’s a reasonable enough request. It’s not their fault or yours some prepackaged module has no contention plan for the group tunneling through the walls.

Players are going to test you at times.

I love players. I’m not trying to suggest any type of adversarial relationship. But, as creative and clever people, players will definitely make us step back and make us think about things. “GMs are players too” seems to be the new prevailing thoughtform in the egregore of online TTRPG fans. I guess we’ll embrace it.

Maybe the world’s political climate changes because the group bailed on negotiations and ninjas from a rival clan killed everyone in the room. Oops. Did I go there? Oh yes I did

The players’ actions can have just as many ramifications when they don’t do something as when they do. I’ve seen Star Wars campaigns where the group of PCs somehow killed Vader before blowing the Death Star up. It completely changed the galaxy forever and the GM got to completely rewrite Star Wars lore for the campaign. Everything has motivations and ramifications.


I hope your week is going well wherever you are.

Thank you for being here today with me. I appreciate you. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy.