Lore vs Writing
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- čas přidán 2. 12. 2017
- You may enjoy writing Lore, and that is well and good. But until you find a way to put your world's details in front of your players dramatically, you haven't yet started the real work of Dungeon Mastering.
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I just realized that this is probably the video that affected me most. I now write all my lore as stories and it has completely changed how I engage with my world.
Yes! I'm a writer and you could say there are Deities that guide certain aspects, but if you write some great conflict between the Deities that has influenced the history of the world as a story that certain NPCs know or don't know, it brings the world to life a bit more.
It takes long to settle in, but I think I am now gradually starting to really understand it.
Working by myself, I don't have to type out whole stories, but much of great worldbuilding isn't facts but narratives.
I believe a lot of the problems aspiring writers and dungeon masters have is that they use lore and world building as a way to avoid actually telling a story. Yes, the lore and world building may contain stories, but there's an actual responsibility in telling A story. Because telling a story is always a little bit like stepping into an underworld where things are not as neat and safely packaged as they may appear in a folder full of notes and lore.
Telling a story is dangerous. People are afraid of danger. World building is a way to control the narrative instead of finding out what happens next. This, I believe, is also why some dm's feel slighted when players don't engage with the lore. They (we), probably even completely sub consciously, want to control the narrative, even all the way into how players should respond.
This is all very human.
I take enormous joy in the irony of Evil-Matt saying that he, a professional writer, DMs like an actor while Matt, a professional actor, DMs like a writer.
I find it doubly amusing that I agree with him.
Someone hasn't read "The lusty argonian maid"
"Create dramatic ways to show off setting details.
Create NPCs that embody them, reference them.
Throw those npcs into conflict with the player. That will make it memorable. "
_shrek closes book_ As if that's ever gonna happen!
Incredible
Never confuse interesting with fun.
-Mark Rosewater
To my utter shock and confoundment, about half of my players actually really like and even hunger for boring lore stuff.
I'm that way too
I've noticed that some people are more interested in writing big-time dramatic stories without much regard for the internal logistics of the world, while others are more interested in crafting a detailed fictional world but not so much in actually telling some sort of story with it. The video seems to mostly talk about the latter, but I think the former is a problem as well (one I tend to suffer from).
Mine like that too. I sometimes write short storys about the past which my players could find in the adventure. Then I hand it out to them an let one read it loud. It always has some information which helps them sooner or later and I have time for a snack.
"In one swell foop"
Last time I was this early Elf was a class.
Oh
I watched this a day before my group got the the first big city in my new campaign (Driftwood). I kept these concepts in mind, showing the lore of the area through conflict (between a cult investegator and guard).
By the end of the session, my players were seeking out information on lore and history for these races. This has NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE IN MY HISTORY OF GAMING!
All your videos are great. This one is freaking gold.
I think this video is a bit more unfocused than some of the other streams we've done. Possibly a result of me recovering from surgery.
Matt - your stuff pretty much always rocks....keep it coming. Thanks!
I need you to know that this information inspired an epiphany for my DMing. I thank you!
Was hoping that the surgery talk would come first, seems like it won't be covered thus far...
Safe to say it went well?
zio420 🔫
It's fine, man. Good discussion about an important topic.
Thank God I found this video. I'm home brewing a campaign for my friends and I've been really caught up in the back story. Need to refocus my efforts on creating engaging adventures for them.
When Théoden does his 'where was Gondor' speech. All I can think is... 'You never asked'
Kharn The Betrayer I agree but Gondor wouldn't have answered most likely
Eh? What?
Thanks I’m I’ll get up 💩 ppp op pł umjikoo
Pride and resentment are evil twins.
Gondor was fighting orcs in Osgiliath.
I recently had a situation where a player was talking to a bartender they'd befriended, and asked about what had happened with some members of an organization they were a member of back in his homeland as he was from another country. Half the organization was wiped out while exploring "one of ol' Karnus' dungeons." Immediately he was curious about Karnus, what his dungeons were, etc. which was a big important lore detail for the next arc of the campaign. I've found personally that giving your players a connection to the lore can sometimes also work.
The part where you mentioned the LotR scene, I looked it up as a refresher, and it turns out that it's two scenes, the simbelmynë was mentioned in a conversation between Theodin and Gandalf, where he mourns about how no parents should ever have to bury their child, while the "where was Gondor" dialogue was said during the preparation of the defense of Helms deep, he did turn to Aragorn to say it, but in the context of Aragorn saying that Gondor will come to the aid of Rohan. But that's besides the point, The simbelmynë "lore" was used in a much less expositive way that it didn't feel as forced as say: that part where Rose exposites about the race animals in the casino planet in Star Wars the Last Jedi.
Dude, you inspire me to keep improving my own writing, storytelling, and D/GM skills every time I open one of your videos, so thank you! Wonderful work, and I appreciate all you do for this equally wonderful (and weird) community. Stay curious, my friend, and thank you once again for teaching us what you have learned!
I'm really sad that Evolve was a flop and that it was not that great of a game. The writing and all the stuff about the universe you created, Matt, was so interesting and had so much potential to be so good. But the gameplay was so lackluster, and it just didn't do you and the rest of the writing team the justice you guys deserved.
I loved the initial release, but i think it should have been marketed like a niche game and not AAA.
I wanted to know if the team dies, or where the monsters came from.
@@loganhagen5754 there is some lore that wasn’t implemented in game, including some of the hunters deaths and where the monsters come from. You can find some info on it on the Evolve Wiki. Theres also a drive folder with most if not all of the lore matt and other writers wrote in the time of evolves development on the trs forums.
Big shoutout to Takran from the trs forums and discord for compiling all this stuff. I wont post the drive link here but its all archived on the Turtle Rock Studios discord. Feel free to ask Takran for those links if you or anyone is interested.
@@vlad.827 thanks! I'll check it out!
I find what my players like the most, beyond combat or world building or anything, is that sense of progression in their character, gaining levels, improving, getting new items...
So to compromise my desire (to world build) and their desire (to progress), I altered XP to be goal orientated, as from the Stars Without Number system. It turned a player I mistakenly thought of as a power gamer into a Roleplayer when his Psychic wanted to explore and discover ancient artifacts in the Universe.
Want the players to engage with your world? Provide rewards for it.
Oliver Harrison I can't echo this enough. I'm a relatively new DM, but I have slowly been giving my players 1 "soul item" that doesn't require attunement and that levels alongside them. All my players are so excited about their items it's really helped immerse into my world.
“...eating nothing but candy...” and the explanation that followed is the best contextualization of writing advice I’ve ever heard.
24:35
I started watching Matt's videos after a Running the Game popped up in my recommended videos. I had just kind of got sucked down a rabbit hole of great DM advice and discussions. Finding out later that he was the lead writer for Evolve blew my mind. Evolve's death was an enormous tragedy, but I still love it and play it a little bit from time to time solo because I loved so much about the game.
Thank you for the gift of Abe, who has gone on to influence a more than a handful of NPCs I've used in my games. I've also played a Barbarian named Hyde, played with an awful accent, and absolutely mangled cockney rhyming slang.
RE: The Mutagen Wars
Pretty much what Princess Leia’s Clone Wars reference was meant to be in A New Hope. A throwaway reference meant to establish Obi Wan as a badass.
Trying to overly explain them in the prequels was one part of the clusterfuggle they became. #JarJarTheSenator
Answering questions kills them. Don't tell me everything, don't justify everything. Give me a hole, let me throw a rock down it, and show me what happens. Don't tell me everything that's in the hole, don't tell me the hole's history, show me the hole and show me what happens when I throw a rock in it. Give me a stick, give me things to poke, and don't give a literal exposition fairy hovering over my shoulder.
I once had a set piece in a freeform rp where a girl was fighting what was essentially an evil version of herself, surrounded by a phantasmal snake monster that was whispering her doubts and insecurities to her. A long time later, I decided what that was all about, because I had no explanation for it at the time - it was just a cool set piece. Explaining it made it worse, it took away the mystique that made it interesting in the first place.
Hey, listen!
"I'm just here to roll dice and push lead." That's awesome, tucking that away for a future game session. :)
I loved Evolve. Watching its decline and eventual termination was sad for me. The gameplay was fun and unique. The most devastating part about hearing it was getting shut down though, was knowing I wouldn't get to learn any more about the universe and its characters.
Evolve was the first game I played where I really felt attached to the story and its heroes, and since then all have paled in comparison. Coincidentally it was also a game that had the least amount of narrative built into it, and that left me starved for more. I loved your short story blogs, I loved the clever banter between characters in game, and I loved that you took the time to do Q&A's with the community regarding the story. I enjoyed the gameplay in Evolve more than most games I've ever played, but when they would release new characters to play, the most exciting part for me was always getting to hear the new dropship dialogue sequences and getting more parts of the story revealed.
It's mere coincidence that I find you here on CZcams years later, while learning about DnD, but I'm glad I did. Thank you for all that you do.
So basically, Mat is describing his technique for creating Chekhov's Guns. These are elements that promise a dramatic inclusion. If there's a gun in the room, it's a promise that this gun can be dramatically compelled. In the case of theatre, it's a promise that it will be compelled.
When you're world building, it's easy to come up with a whole lot of things that cannot be employed. It's too easy for the DM to say "well you can't", as opposed to "of course you can, that's why I put it there".
If you go shopping for a crossbow, and you're told that crossbow bolts are illegal, that's lore. If you go into a person's house and find a crossbow sitting in the corner, the fact that bolts are illegal becomes dramatic. If a crossbow never came up, the law about bolts is pointless.
Colville is describing his technique of coming up with plot elements that he can foreshadow, while making ambient elements plot elements through improvisation, by contextualizing how those elements will be couched in his planned dramatic exchanges.
As a player, my favorite thing is to make elements that are present dramatically relevant. Maybe we're looking into the contents of a barrel. A fight breaks out, so I kick the barrel over. It's not optimal, but it's dramatic.
As a long time GM, I am a big fan of Chekhov's Gun and, indeed, my players have learned to pay close attention to what I describe and how I describe it.
You know ... I've been watching these videos a lot lately, but I've never felt the need to comment until now, watching a video from over two years ago. But...
"Don't show it to me, because there's nothing that's going to live up to my imagination," is the best summary I've ever heard of my feelings about Star Wars.
I just gotta say, so far halfway through the video and this video has helped me make sense of so much. To me it feels like you put into words what I knew subconsciously, but didn't understand fully
Matt I watched this video exactly when I needed it. It makes so much sense now! Thank you so much
really enjoy seeing all this content! can't wait to support the upcoming projects in the works!
This video was a swell foop.
When I come up with names for important NPCs, I try it in a Matt Colville Declaration (TM) voice. That's the proper voice for an introduction anyway.
Matt, you are truly an inspiration to DM’s everywhere. And I’d love to sit down and talk shop. Even play a DnD session if I were to be so lucky!
Keep on doing what you’re doing man.
Sincerely, a random DM in Vegas.
I love your hair! Sorry, I just love it.
I have never played D & D and someone has asked me to be Dungeon Master
So I have been watching you, hoping I can do this...Thank you for your videos.
Did you ever do it?
I too would like to know if you ever got to DM.
Thank for the edit. I really appreciate the effort!!
I come back to this video often. I think it may be one of your most important
I haven't watched your videos in a little while but goddamn this is amazing stuff, Matt.
Matthew Roland Rutherford Colville sure would sell more books.
Which, incidentally, When I went on a book-buying spree last week, I couldn't find yours at Indigo. Was disappointed I couldn't pick up the series so far.
Oh, and FYI, I *DO* know what the Kessel Run is because of Star Wars Galaxies, the now-defunct MMO. I always admired the way they turned Lucas's ignorance of what a parsec was into a half-assed explanation of how gravity affects spacetime. Oh he did the Kessel Run by going closer to the black hole than anybody else so _risky._ That's some grade-A bullshit, right there.
I just wanted to thank you; it’s because of you that I got the confidence to ask my gaming group if I could run a d&d campaign for the first time. I am an aspiring video game writer and I am hopping that writing and running d&d story’s will help me refine my writing skills and story telling. I have been playing d&d for 8 years and I have never ran a game before and I am scared and excited. I found your running the game series a couple days ago and I went back to the first episode and I am now all caught up to episode 50 and I can’t wait till the next one.
Matt,
I wanted to at least leave you a compliment after watching your Last Jedi review, and didn't know of a better way to do it than to post on your most recent video with comments enabled. Just wanted to say that I appreciate your thoughtfulness when reviewing movies and other entertainment media. You dissect the deeper message written between the lines of the script, and with your commentary of the Last Jedi specifically, you helped me realize my own internal conflict about the themes (or lack thereof?) throughout the newest Star Wars movies. Whether I agree with all of your critiques or not, you got me thinking again about narrative and storytelling, and in a way, breathed a little life and thoughtfulness into what is now turning into a very stale series - so rather than just being bummed out about a new Star Wars movie that I want to try to forget, my experience is now an opportunity to ponder some greater beliefs about storytelling and movies. So sincerely, I thank you for that!
This was a great video. Lots of great insight. Information is interesting as long as it is communicated in the DRAMA!
I think this is probably the most important of Matt's videos for me, at least in term of the effect it had on me, and the stuff I create.
Coming back to this video reminds me so much of the creation of my current setting. Thank you sir.
Thank you for putting this up - I needed to hear that players won't care about lore unless it's presented dramatically and in a way that hooks their characters. I feel galvanized to do better DMing from this point forward.
This is an important point. And explains how a lot writers operate. Story first, background lore second. As the audience is more interested in the former than the latter.
So just make shit up as you go and iron out the inconsistencies later.
Insightful tips and sound game design philosophy aside, I subscribe to your channel due heavily to your ability to convey your information concisely. There is no ambiguity when you explain things and I value that more than perhaps anything else. Anyone can have good ideas for running a DnD game - too few can pack such a dense amount of information so cleanly into a video. Thanks, Matt.
Hi Matt! Ive wanted to play DnD for a while, but two weeks ago I actually got a group of my friends to decide on a date and time to do it. So, I’ve spent the last two weeks binge watching your videos, and the session is tomorrow. I thought I was going to be the DM, but my friend (Who I also showed your video too) really wanted to, so he is gonna be DM for the first few times we play. Even so, I just want to say thank you for all the help you’ve been to me learning how the game works, and I hope I can use your DM skills in practice soon!
Matt I love watching your videos you have great content. Your work is some of the best advice for new gamemasters running games.I hope you feel better bud.
Dark Souls comes to my mind with this video about lore vs drama. It's a game full of lore, it's own mythology, NPCs with stories, every scenario has a reason to be and it's populated with fitting characters and monsters, etc. But it doesn't even tell you about it. The game just gets you in the middle of the struggle and the fighting, and you're there clueless knowing that all that world is alive and everything probably has some meaning... but you have to dig the lore out yourself.
Great video Matt. I've been watching all your Running the Game videos and they are great. Thanks for making them.
I love how the Souls games do thing.
Lore vs Writing...This reminds me of an excellent Rush song: "Show Me Don't Tell Me ".
even though the vid is a bit jumpy between live stream and youtube video. You do really do give a real good explanation of how writing is more important than the lore when you start writing the story.
Love this! This helps so much. Hope you feel better man.
Many times I have a vague idea that something is a challenge and Matt comes along and nicely clarifies the problem and gives some good advice on how to deal with it. Now I don't feel so bad that my players aren't that interested in the world I can introduce it in dramatic bits and pieces as it relates to their characters. Very helpful .
I just ran my first game for my friends and we all had so much fun. It wouldn't have happened without your help. Thank you.
Matt thanks for this video. It helped me out with getting the world in front of my players!
the bit about detail was what made me love your books so much. Describing the smithy that the dwarf works at. A bit on the sign and origin (sneak in lore about signs showing that magic is sold here), a sentence or two on the atmosphere inside the smith and I feel like I'm inside it standing beside Heden.
You're a great writer, you should really do it professionally or something (lol)
100% agree about Forgotten Realms. The realm part seemed to have been forgotten.
Also, players love treasure. Have a character tell them about a magic item or lost treasure and explain ITS back story, which of course requires some lore. Heck, you can start the characters in a tavern listening to stories of old men trying to one-up each other; that should grab them with an adventure hook.
I know this is a little older, but I am really glad to hear this kind of stuff. I just started working on a campaign setting, and I've never really enjoyed lore. I am a pretty detail oriented guy in a lot of ways, I am a statistician, but when it comes to fiction I have never really cared for super detailed histories of fictional regions, or pantheons of gods, or magical systems, etc. to me whenever fiction got deep into that stuff, I felt like it detracted from what I wanted to get to (I almost never read fantasy for that reason, it just doesn't appeal to me). but you inspired me to actually be able to put some heart and feeling into worldbuilding. I can't say I WANT to do it, but your discussion made me understand why I should at least put some work into it.
I needed to hear this. Thanks Matt.
First time actually watching a stream live. (I have watched the recordings on here before.) Enjoyed it, thought it went well.
great video man. on the topic of cliffhangers; you basically said it but i wanted to re-iterate. i'll cut a session short if it means leaving off on a high note! the players are your teammates, but they're also the audience. big lesson learned from short-form improv comedy - the whole scene will feel better if you end it on a big laugh compared to ending it where it "should naturally end." sometimes taking the effort to "fully resolve" the story means the actual performance fizzles out. i just make sure that if something dope happened and i think it'll take another hour or so to get to another moment like that, jus call it for the night and leave everyone excited.
that being said, i play with my family and our sessions usually don't last more than 3 hours! maybe my style is more short form lmao. but i think cliffhangers and create them in the moment is super interesting, would love to see a video on it in the future!
Focusing on the *experience* instead of the *lore* when DMing is important and is one of my major problems with some "ready to play" adventures. For example, I'm doing a lot of writing for D&D 5E CoS artifacts. In my opinion, they can and SHOULD add a lot more depth and player experience to the game, so that the players can realize what they have in their hands and what they can do with it by *playing* instead of simply reading a one-paragraph description in the book. So, I decided to write what my players can ascertain by investigating each of them, establishing that figuring out certain things unlocks some side-quest and events and adding hints about such objects through the game with specific NPCs (not all necessarily accurate). Doing so is being quite time consuming so far, but when I look at it now it is starting to look like something I would be glad to experience as a player, so I should be on the right path. Thank you for the video! I am glad to hear that we happen to share some opinions on this.
DM of 30 years here. Current campain on its 5th and final year right now.
I tend to rum my games much more like Mercer (Obviusly not at the same skill level) than like you.
However, I think you are very talanted and your channel is one of my favorites.
I LOVE your work on Vox Machina: Origins
The only way I would have liked to see the Kessel Run in the Solo movie was a throwaway line that tells us Han just made it up on the spot in A New Hope.
I wish I could do writing as a job now. You make it seem so fun!
Matt.... thank you for your help 😂
My friends have played in the past a weird version of dnd (alcohol may have been involved) and i wanted to do it properly! All of your videos have given me great ideas to use and how to engage my friends in the game; and im hoping to play our first proper game shortly after Christmas......
And just for you buddy.... im going to have a Gnome Bard called Colville help them out sometime 😜
Something that took me a long time to learn is.. once you put out something to others it is no longer yours it is everyone's and control over it is no longer in your hands. I like the idea that somone enjoys stuff for reasons that the original creator(s) didn't expect.
you talked about doing another world making video. If you were wondering I found that very helpful. I have been having trouble coming up with the "why" for my places being there and I think that was a good way to show how to do that.
I really appreciate your insight, thank you!
Get well man
Merry Christmas Matt I hope you have been doing good
Hey Matt, hope you're recovering well, no idea what from as I'm only 1/3 through Running The Game. But just wanted to say you just inspired another to start DM'ing +1 to you. I ran your example with some of my own twists and now looks like I'll also be running Phandelver for my 10yo son and his friends. So that's two groups I'll be running for!
"Matt Red Rover Colville"
Tolkien's world worked because there was a huge detailed backstory and Lore that was casually mentioned occasionally and alluded to but never in much detail ... but was internally consistent because they were complete and mapped out, you didn't need to know the details or even pay attention to it to appreciate that there was a deep world behind the scenes, most of the main characters do not know more than a little of it so neither does the reader ...
That grin and wink after saying “don’t tell me what to do?” Was like Sheldon’s bazinga and followed by his breathy laugh
A) Brilliant advice . Loved this.
B) you do the Silmarillion a disservice, I think. There is a lot more there than lore. The tale of Turin Turambar? Amazing. Fingolfin’s trumpets blowing as he sets foot on Middle-Earth as the moon rises for the first time? Unforgettable. Sure “Of Beleriand and it’s Realms” lacks any action but The Oath of Feanor and the Battle of Unnumbered Tears are not to be missed. The Silmarillion is brilliant one it’s one and makes The Lord of the Rings better.
Really good advice on how to present world lore. DM's don't tell players lore, NPC's do and only when there's a reason. I've heard too many DM's have NPC's drone on about the history of a castle when all the PC's wanted to know was who lived in it. Thanks Matt! Roll high on that surgery healing.
I watched both the stream and this. Was very good for me and gave me a lot of inspiration and direction. Thanks, Matt!
Dungeons and Dragons movie due in 2021....set in the forgotten realms.
You disabled comments on the stars vid so I am commenting here!
In order for your lore to have *meaning* it has to *matter.* Great advice. Can personally say that I found that out myself after criticizing my own work for years. It always worked best when it flowed in and out of the narrative.
This and the video where matt explains "economic power struggling against military power" increased the speed of my prep a hundred fold. I've never been a lore person, but i like to have believable explanations locked and loaded, so I'd spend hours mapping out "x happened so y happened so z happened" just to be sure I was internally consistent.
As soon as I stopped thinking of the background information as cause and effect (history, for lack of a better term) and began to actively structure the world in terms of factional conflict where the individual factions had clear goals and a clear motivations, answering questions stopped being a matter of doing something I hated (prepping a historical timeline) and became a matter of applying simple desires to in-game narrative which itself is simply the jacket where the mechanics are hiding.
If I do genuinely become excited about a particular bit of narrative, using the 3 clue rule (thank you, the alexandrian) and then chasing them up a tree (thanks matt) means my nonsense becomes easy to remember- not "memorable", that's ego talking- and relevant to the PCs.
I really needed this, I need to toss out the Lore and extra BS and focus on the writing and the proper meat and potates (intentionally misspelled) to give my players a more intimate and fun narrative. Thank you Sir Bees Knees Colville. I am aspiring Writer/Stage Manager and I need to be told no and make this better because it sucks more often.
Haha that Star Wars point at 22:40 was pretty spot on. Prequels are now loved and in the future the sequel trilogy will be loved by kids who grew up with it.
I ran a 3 year sandbox. 4 to 9 hrs a week. Tons of fun
I've found in my experience that many DMs I've played with absolutely *love* lore and I think it's great when they immerse themselves in creating content for their settings, whether or not I ever hear about it. Now on the other hand, when I DM, I prefer to go more the route of knowing enough detail to get the game going. When I create information/lore on the fly, I make sure to note it during the game so I can return to it later on to flesh it out. I've never been good at writing pages and pages of lore for a game world/setting. I write a couple of pages of bullet points at most when starting the campaign.
From both points of view - player and DM, I like my lore extensive.
It is like method acting for me...
the easiest way to present a thing is to know a lot about it...
you can perfectly well go and improvise something... it's just that I can't...
also as DM I would make quite a bit of lore... but that doesn't mean I would bother players with it if they didn't care...
I tried working on a collaborative project where they wanted to write a background for all the playable races. Fair enough. Every writer took their assigned race and started with creating a linear timeline of historical events that was entirely divorced from the storylines of all the other groups. I sat down, decided what I wanted these people to be like and act like and look like, and started to flesh out some quirks and eccentricities they'd have when played. I focused on what the player would be doing in-game, and then decided a few little short stories of my group's members interacting with the other groups would do better to communicate and impress how they behave than writing a fake history book. Everyone else has lost themselves in the soup of writing paragraphs of fluff that will never appear in the game itself, but might, maybe, end up on some wiki. Lord bless 'em.
Did my own collabris thing, did it all through hexographer too ... Love love loved it
Hi Matthew! I'm new to the channel, but I've binged Running the Game for the past few days because I just happened to find the channel while researching ways to be a better DM so I can engage the players more when I'm running, and I'm certain your series has helped immensely. I'm extremely excited to jump back in and try out some of the things I've learned from watching your videos. I was wondering if you had ever considered doing a video, or if you just had some advice, on running a game in which the player characters are the villains of the story. My group has expressed interest in a game like this and I told them that since I hadn't DM'd the past few short campaigns, that I would see what I could come up with and give it a shot. Love your channel, keep up the awesome work!
!writing: talk.turtlerockstudios.com/t/one-vals-story/24707
!lore: talk.turtlerockstudios.com/t/the-basilisk-rebellion-the-mutagen-wars-and-slim/72647
My advice for how to make the players interested in your setting and lore (if you care about that rather than just letting them have fun in that elaborate world you wrote) is to involve your players and PCs in the worldbuilding. If you've got cool places or organizations already, approach your players about the possibility of giving their PCs a backstory connection, and there's a good chance they'll go along with it because players love to feel special and important. The trick to doing that is to read over PC's backstories before they're set in the player's minds,while you can still suggest a little substitution or two. If you don't have lore built, your players (or at least, some of them) will always feed you ideas just waiting to be expanded upon. Take the far-off kingdom from the backstory of that one guy and figure out what it's actually like, for instance.
I was honestly lucky to have started GMing without any experience with world-building, because when I started my game I didn't really build more of the world than the cave that the canned "gathering the party" adventure, at least not before the first session. As a result, my world's lore was built by a combination of improv and collaborative world-building based on the backstories of my PCs and the places that those backstories required. The result was that there was a ton of great starting points and hooks where even though I did 90% of the world-building even of the things related to their backstories, it still felt like their baby and I could involve them in the backstory and have them feel so engaged that they would get the rest of the group hyped up as well.
Thank you Matt. I just ran another session of Phandelver yesterday with my regular group and it didn't feel like the drama and tension was there. The characters were slogging through easy monsters and I wasn't finding much enjoyment in it. I couldn't quite figure out what why it felt so forced and empty. I tried to chalk it up to sometimes there are moments when you just have to slog through the content. However, after watching this video I'm now aware that I lost track of the major conflict and wasn't building the tension of the story. Now I know what to work on.
Thank you so much for your videos. You've inspired me to be a better DM. I wish you good health in your recovery.
I've run Phandelver and it wasn't designed all that well. The dramatic tension of the module gets sidetracked for a lot of unrelated side quests before coming back to the actual plot. I think this was a byproduct of them trying to include enough content to raise characters 5 levels. Old modules never tried to do that, but it seems that is the new "adventure path" business model for WotC.
To give some background, his was my group's first time trying 5e and my first group where I'm DMing 5e. I asked my players to choose a character from the starting set (2 fighters, a rogue, a cleric and a wizard). If you run the starter set with its premade characters, I believe Phandelver has been put together very well. Each premade character is given their own unique goals.
The noble fighter wishes to establish Phandalin as a thriving town. The folk hero fighter wishes to drive out the dragon that took nest in the ruins of his hometown. The cleric wishes to put a stop to the ruffians that are running Phandalin. The rogue wishes to kill the leader of the red brands as revenge for leaving him or her to die. The wizard wishes to restore a shrine to the god of knowledge at Cragmaw Castle.
I think the starter set gives a great example of how to incorporate your character's backstory into your game, and all the side stuff is supposed to support that. However, I believe that it requires a DM to fill in the gaps that they see as the game progress and in my original comment I was saying it was on me to fill those gaps.
The dramatic tension I should have picked up on was the folk hero was finally returning to his home to save what little of it he could. I could have built the tension to show that his home town had been infested by twig blights and zombies and it was up to him and his friends to clear the infestation and drive off the dragon to hopefully make this town a thriving settlement again. A few well placed words would have changed the tension dramatically. Instead I missed the opportunity and it all felt forced to me.
Those character backgrounds do indeed tie into the adventure more robustly. The adventure hook of being hired by the Rockseekers is what I was referring to when I said the adventure gets sidetracked. I don't want to spoil the adventure for anyone who hasn't played and reads this, but the middle portion of the content has nothing to do with the Rockseekers. Pursuing those side quests instead of the main story line (without those specific backgrounds) doesn't make much sense until you realize that you have to level up to be able to survive the mine encounters. As the DM you can always alter and add things that improve a module, but part of the responsibility also falls on the players to know their backgrounds and engage with the content. You can only do so much.
Tim Bennett I agree. Thank you for the kind discussion.
Mat, do you think you could make a whole episode where you recommend adventures and modules you like? There are quite a few episodes where you talk about certain types of play and mention modules, but could you do some sort of episode thats just listing modules for DMs with a quick summary and how you like it? I understand it would be a lot of work although I feel like it would be a great boon to new DMs and DMs who have run out of ideas.
21:55 what an absolute rockstar omg i love this man
this also made me think about how all of early D&D was created & developed thruout the latter half of the cold war. i'm doing a campaign in greyhawk and i'm going to try and look at it from a more historical perspective.
I completely agree that you need to take the information and present it dramatically to the players, if it's to have any meaning and enhance your D&D game. I also think, however, that writing lore is a healthy exercise for the DM in that it informs the decisions you make about what is going on in the world, and how it works. I personally enjoy coming up with all the noodle bits, but I also do so with the mindset that players will only interact with 10% of it at most. I realize that I don't need to do it, but it absolutely enhances the games I run because I know the world better and the players get a better experience because of those exercises.
Hey! I have been binge watching your channel all day. I am relatively new to the D&D/DMing seen and have stolen so many great ideas from you. I am starting my first ever campaign with a few of my friends and have a few question. When you start off with a new campaign and have created a good amount of content for the first few sessions, how do you make it not so railroady? Also how much prep work do you do before each session or for the campaign in general before you really get a feel for your players?
Oh man, Hero? I have that exact book on my shelf. I need to stop procrastinating and read that already.
Dude you were behind story of Evolve? neat stuff man
Every time he mentions Evolve in his videos I feel like I'm at a funeral
Hi man, not sure if you will see this comment but i just wanted to say that i've stumbled on your videos randomly for some reason. (I have never even played D&D) but the videos are so interesting and cool that i would love to try d&d one day. I have subbed now :D You clearly know a lot and are very experienced, even by watching your videos i feel like i'm playing a game. Keep doing what you are doing :D
THANK YOU!!!! I'm getting ready to create a new world for my next campaign. Done this many times for many years (been playing D&D for 35+ years). Fallen into many of these traps and been frustrated. Watching your videos I'm learning more about myself and my players and even at 50 years old, I want to improve and make better worlds, adventures and memories for my players and for me. I love the saying "If you had fun. I had fun." -- totally my mantra. Thank you.