Yesterday, I ran a playtest for Bulldogs! that went quite well, from my perspective. The group seemed to have fun (I certainly did), and I got an idea about what works and what needs work within the system.

One thing that struck me, though, was how effective my preparations were. In general, I think I prepared fairly well; I knew the system, and I had in idea of where things were going. There were areas where I think I over-prepared, and others where I feel I didn’t prepare enough.

The chief area where I was over-prepared was simply in the length of the adventure. We played for a good three and a half hours, and got through about half of the adventure. In a more traditional, longer-term play setting that might be fine, but in a one-shot playtest, it’s really better if you can get through the entire adventure in one sitting. I decided partway through that I was going to cut some of the fights out of the adventure because it simply didn’t need it, but we still weren’t able to finish (I had to get home and feed the dogs, after all). I think the reason that I prepared so much was simply because I’ve never run a FATE system game before, and I had no idea how long it would take to resolve a single conflict. Practice, I think, will solve this problem.

Bulldogs!, like any FATE game, is fairly easy to improvise with; it gives you a lot of tools with which to adjudicate player actions on the fly, and doesn’t require nearly as much preparation as, say, D&D does. In fact, the adventure that I prepped (the one that was too long) was only two pages long. I also had a set of cards with character stats and notes on them, though that stuff could have easily been included in the adventure document, and would likely only have increased its length by half a page or so.

It was pretty easy to run the adventure from this document, but I could definitely see areas where I could have prepared more. For example, simply putting stress boxes for the enemies on the document would have saved me a lot of time that I spent hand-drawing them before encounters. I also think that some of the fights that I planned were a little too hard for the party. This is partly due to inexperience, I think, and partly also due to the fact that it’s difficult to gauge how difficult an opponent should be for a particular set of PCs.

Despite these hitches, I do think that everyone had a lot of fun. I really enjoyed running the game (and I had a good, creative set of players), and I’d definitely run it again.

There is a new session report up.

Overall, the game went really well. I tried a few things that I’ve mentioned on this blog. The first encounter included a variant of wild magic rules; unfortunately, I forgot to utilize them as often as they should have been, but when I did it was interesting. During that encounter, one I got a chance to make use of two house rules that I’ve posted on the site.

First, when Chance was dominated, he made use of grit. It worked pretty well. The dominated condition still affected him somewhat, and he deliberated over the choice for a little while before deciding to do it; he was only going to be dominated for a turn, after all, and damage equal to your healing surge value is a lot in the middle of a fight. I think that, if it had been a save ends effect, the decision might have been easier, but still not a foregone conclusion.

Then, when Kraygin was dropped to negatives, he made a last-ditch effort. This one I’m still not entirely sold on. I think it might have been more dramatically interesting if he had dropped in the middle of the fight rather than being effectively staggered, running over to the rest of the party, and getting some healing. I think that, if you’re going to get that extra turn to save your bacon, the urge to heal yourself (or even for others to heal you) is pretty strong. I might balance this by making any healing you get during a last-ditch effort temporary hit points instead of real ones, but I’m not entirely sure.

Finally, I ran a combat that was partially a series of skill challenges, used for pacing. This worked really well, prodding me to change the dragons’ tactics as the fight progressed, making for a more dynamic and interesting encounter. I don’t think I’ll use this technique a lot, but certainly it has some merit when you’re doing a solo encounter that might not otherwise be all that interesting.

There are a couple if encounters I’m planning on running in my next session (which occurs a little more than a week from now). One involves a tough monster with special weaknesses, which I’ve already talked about in the past. Interestingly enough, there’s also an encounter with an environmental kill effect. I’ll probably talk more about both after the session, and give some specific examples of how I implemented these mechanics and how they worked out. Neither, however, is what I want to talk about right now.

There’s an encounter in the upcoming session that is, technically, a fight but is also, technically, a series of skill challenges. What I’ve done is I’ve built an encounter using actual monsters and terrain and everything, but I’ve used the framework of skill challenges to create a fight that takes place over a series of phases. The skill challenges are a pacing mechanic for the fight, and the fight creates tension within the skill challenges.

Now, if you think this sounds like a cool idea (and I’d totally agree with you if you did), I feel I should point out some things about using this technique.

First, you probably don’t want to use this in every fight. Most fights have a way of pacing themselves just fine, as they involve a number of monsters and a variety of different terrain effects, and a dynamic that changes as the PCs slowly (or quickly, as the case may be) gain the upper hand. I think that a mechanic like this works best in an encounter with fewer creatures and less automatic change throughout, such as a solo encounter or–as is the case with my encounter–an encounter with a pair of elites.

Second, it’s probably best to use multiple, low-complexity skill challenges rather than one big one. You could conceivably build a complexity five skill challenge that simulates multiple distinct phases, granting access to different skills or new ways to use the same skills as the challenge progresses. I think, though, that using a bunch of complexity one, two, and even three skill challenges gives much clearer delineations between encounter phases, besides which it’s just plain easier to do.

Now, one key difference between using a single skill challenge and using more than one is that failure is more gradual. In a complexity five skill challenge, you’re still going to fail when you hit that third failure. If you’ve got five complexity one skill challenges, you need fifteen total failures to totally botch the job. This does not, however, mean that your encounter is a pushover. What it does mean is that you can award partial credit easily. What it also means is that you can do what I did: give earlier challenges consequences that carry over into later challenges. If the PCs fail the first skill challenge, all is not lost; the next one, will, however, be a little bit harder. Similarly, if they succeed on that first one, you can give them a little edge in the next one.

But it doesn’t stop there. Because you’re running these skill challenges alongside a combat, succeeding in that first skill challenge might carry benefits in the fight (as would failure, with drawbacks). The combat, too, could carry over into the skill challenges. Granting the PCs successes when they bloody a monster, or even when they just hit it, in some cases, is an idea I’ve toyed with. Similarly, if a PC gets bloodied or dropped to zero, that could cause the party to incur a failure in the current challenge.

Now, I want to be completely upfront about this: this is likely going to be a very complex encounter for me to run. In my case, I’ve got five distinct phases to the combat, each represented by a skill challenge (the complexities of which vary). In addition, I’ve got to fairly robust elites to worry about, not to mention some other fiddly rules that I won’t get into (no major spoilers here; sorry). If I can pull it off, though, I think it’ll be a cool and memorable encounter. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Gabriel over at Penny Arcade just posted about how he’s made any skill check that his players attempt during combat a minor action. Previously they had mostly been standard actions, and as such had seen little use. After making the switch, he saw a lot more skills being used, and therefore much more interesting and dynamic combat. I heartily commend him for doing so, particularly because it is very similar to what I do in my game. Allow me to expand.

Knowledge checks are any check made to determine something that the character may already know. Do I know what a beholder is? Do I recognize the runes on the floor? Am I aware of the history of this place? These kinds of checks require minimal effort during combat, because the character either already knows the answer, or doesn’t. As such, they’re free actions.

Information gathering checks are basically one step up from knowledge checks, and don’t actually always involve a check. Insight and Perception are the common ones here, but cases can be made for skills like Religion, Arcana, or History, too. Can I try to decipher the magic circle, to determine its purpose? Arcana check. Can I try to suss out my opponent, and see if I can spot a weakness? Insight, or possibly an appropriate knowledge skill, like Nature for a natural beast. These are almost always minor actions, costing the player very little, and possibly giving the player critical information or an edge over the opponent. I like to encourage the use of these kinds of checks, as they spice up combat, drive the story forward, and so forth.

Action checks are checks that you make to actually do something. The type of action varies, from minor to standard, depending on what the player is trying to do. Swing on a chandelier? Acrobatics check, move action. Want to try to say a litany to weaken the demon? Religion check, standard action. My rule of thumb is this: if it’s alternate movement, it’s a move action. If it’s an attack on another creature, it’s standard, unless the effect you’re going for is fairly small (such as a -1 or -2 penalty). If it creates a terrain effect, such as difficult terrain or damaging terrain, it could be any type of action, depending on its scope and power. Difficult terrain over one square would be a minor action, while a blast 3 of difficult terrain would probably be a move action and a blast 5 would be a standard action.

A special note on unusual attacks: I try to reward these whenever they occur, and encourage their use. If someone is going to forgo using one of his powers to try something he’s not sure of, I’m damn sure going to make sure that, if he pulls it off, he’s glad he did. By way of example, in a previous session, my players were fighting off some snaketongue cultists on the roof of the lightning rail, and two of them were archers riding atop wyverns. At one point, the fighter (who has a thing for collecting the teeth of his enemies), wanted to try and rip one of the wyverns’ teeth out while it was still alive, since last one that had died had fallen behind the train (thus making its teeth inaccessible). He was unsure, though, and had almost decided to use one of his at-wills instead, because it was the safe and certain thing to do. I told him: “Do it. I’ll make it worth your while.”

So he did. I handled it as a standard action, Strength attack against the wyvern’s Fortitude. I allowed the hit to deal his normal amount of damage (1d10+Str), and told him that the wyvern was dazed until the end of his next turn from the pain, and that it would be marked by him for the rest of the encounter, and that no mark would be able to supersede his mark. Because he gambled on an uncertain attack, I made sure that a successful attack with an improvised (but very cool and thematically appropriate) technique was better than the at-will he would have used instead, probably more on par with an encounter power. And you know what? It was a great moment.

Also, a note on terrain powers. It’s great to include terrain powers in your encounter, but if your players don’t know they’re there, they’re not going to use them. Initially, you’re probably going to have to hit them over the head with your terrain powers, to some extent. What I do is I print up cards for the terrain powers that I’m including, and I include them in the monsters’ stat blocks where it makes sense. That way, the players see the monsters using them, so they start looking for terrain powers to use against the monsters. Once they discover them, I give them the cards so they know exactly what the power will do. I find that players are more likely to use the environment when it’s more of a known quantity.

I’ve heard about people encouraging the use of terrain powers by making them all minor actions, even the attacks. That works for some people, and that’s great; it just doesn’t sit well with me, for some reason. Instead, I make sure that the terrain powers that are standard actions are potent enough that they’re worth using, and I make sure the players know that. What I’ve found, and what you may find if you do the same thing, is that players start coming up with their own terrain powers and alternate actions. And really, that’s the goal.

Here are your blog carnival rules:

1. Your post must be on topic.

2. The first person in the list of bloggers who are participating who replies to each post will be responsible for writing the next piece. (Don’t reply if you are not ready to write it with in the next 24 hours.)

3. You must add a link to all of the previous authors carnival posts at the end of your post.

4. No name calling.

The question seems to be: do you include encounters in your game that are designed to be more powerful than the PCs can handle.

The answer is: it’s funny you should mention that.

To any of my players reading this post: stop it. Unless you want some spoilers.

In an upcoming session, I have some encounters planned that are, in fact, designed to be too difficult for the players to take head-on. That is, even if the PCs succeed in what they’re supposed to be succeeding at, the bad guys aren’t going to get beaten, and it’ll probably feel a bit like a loss. Specific story spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned, guys.

My players have an airship. Soon, they’re going to be flying that airship into a land that is rough, unforgiving, and very much a frontier territory. There’s lots of nasty monsters in this area, and they’re going to get a first-hand look at this. First, the airship is going to get attacked by a mated pair of young blue dragons, intent on taking the airship and all valuables from the PCs. My PCs are level 8, and while these dragons are only level 6, there’s two of them, and they’re both solos. It’s a hard encounter, made harder by the fact that the dragons are going to be trying to throw people off the ship and, eventually, damage the ship out of spite when they decide that the PCs are more trouble than they’re worth. I’m pretty sure that the PCs won’t kill even one of these dragons, and at best they’re going to fend them off before the airship is completely torn to pieces.

Once they crash land, they’ll get a little bit of a breather before an enraged dire bullette attacks the group. As I’ve said, these are level 8 PCs, and this bullette is level 15, way above their pay grade. It’s got an AC around 35, which is pretty high for players of that level. This is not a fight they’re supposed to win. Instead, they’re supposed to draw the bullette’s attention away from the wreck and their less powerful allies so that their allies can escape, get to town, get medical attention, and get supplies to come back and fix the ship. Once they have the bullette’s attention, they’re going to have to lead it away from the ship and lose it.

So, yes, I guess I do have fights that cannot be won through combat alone. But that doesn’t mean I’m setting my players up for failure. I have a secret, you see: these fights, while they have real monsters with real statistics making real attacks and with real hit points and defenses, aren’t really fights. Both of these ‘combats’ are structured as skill challenges, and neither has the goal of the enemy’s defeat. In the fight against the dragons, the goal is simply to drive them away and survive their attacks. With the bullette, they have to get its attention, then lose its attention.

This is an idea I’ve started experimenting with: fights that aren’t really fights. I think that this is probably a really good way to handle fights that are too difficult for the PCs. It gives the PCs something to do besides whiffing against defenses that are too high and taking massive amounts of damage. It gives the PCs a definite goal. Best of all, even though the PCs may not feel like they’re ‘winning’ the fights, they’ll likely still feel a sense of accomplishment at the end, even if they just barely got away by the skin of their teeth.

So, how do you handle fights like this? Do you even include them?

Other posts in this blog carnival:
never fear! sandbox vs. safety rails.
Phelanar’s Den
The Daily Encounter
Dkarr
Adam Dray
Sarah Darkmagic

There’s a new session report up.

This session was, in my opinion, a whole lot of fun. The encounters really clicked, and forced the players to really work together and use all of their resources.

The first encounter was actually meant to be two encounters but, as it turned out, the players split the party and were forced to play through two encounters simultaneously. The trap was great, and the beholder gauth complimented it extremely well. The puzzle in the other room was also good, though I had to allow the players to make some Insight checks to realize that they already had a clue for solving it (the cryptic piece of leather). The fact that the piece of leather and the only person in the party who spoke Goblin was trapped in a different room made things more interesting. I did allow the players to make Insight checks on their turns to get to look at the translation of the runes and the leather clue for five seconds apiece, which helped.

In the end, I decided to end the encounter once the puzzle was solved rather than playing it out to its conclusion. If I had played it out, the puzzle would not have deactivated the trap or gotten rid of any of the monsters, the encounter would have lasted for an hour or two more (it had already been about an hour and a half), and I don’t think it would have been as satisfying for the players. I saw an opportunity to allow them to feel like they’d really accomplished something, so I went with the Rule of Cool and let it happen.

The fight with the Tyrant was really hard for them, and was pretty brutal, which is just as a solo encounter should be, in my opinion. A beholder is something to be feared, and I think my players were pretty worried toward the end. Kryagin had gotten reduced below 0 twice, Chance had been downed once, and Sredni had been downed once (by Kragyin, actually, under the command of the Tyrant and with a damage bonus that Sredni, himself, had granted to Kraygin. Seriously. You can’t make this shit up.), and the party was pretty low on healing. I think they were glad that they had been storing up healing potions for so long. At 7th level, healing potions become sort of a last resort because you don’t get as much bang for your healing surge as most other healing powers will give you. However, when you’ve blown your second wind, your warlord and paladin and multiclass bard are all out of healing abilities, and you’re close to 0, you can’t afford to be that picky and you start drinking those potions and getting the hit points that you can out of them.

I ended this encounter early, too, because the players had already done 300 points of damage to the Tyrant and I saw the writing on the wall. However, I’m a little dissatisfied with the way I ended it. My reasoning was that the beholder would retreat because staying would mean certain death even if the PCs were killed (it was taking ongoing 20 damage at this point, that it couldn’t save against, because of the dimensional seal), and because self preservation is important to intelligent creatures like beholders. Also, I like recurring villains. However, I think the Tyrant’s retreat at a time when the players were not certain in their victory seemed a little artificial, a little bit like a deus ex machina. In retrospect, I wish I had simply had the beholder die the next time it took damage. It would have been a less obvious early end to the encounter and probably would have been more satisfying to the players.

I do, however, think that the players are going to have to get used to villains that don’t fight to the death, and who flee to fight another day.

For those who are interested, I will be posting the stats for the Tyrant and some guidelines for the encounter within the next couple of days.

I played the final session of D&D Encounters (season one) last night. Overall, I think it was a good encounter, and I’ll probably be stealing some elements from it for future use.

The thing that this encounter really served to highlight was how important a factor terrain can be in a fight when the monsters and the environment are built to go together. The environment was a cave with a rushing, icy river running down the middle of it. There were two main ways across the river: jumping across (which would be difficult for those not trained in Athletics), and navigating a slippery bridge that required an Acrobatics check if you wanted to move more than two squares on your turn. Most of the monsters were on the far side of the river (and there were a few that seemed placed specifically to block the party from the BBEG), which meant that the river was always going to be a factor that you had to consider.

What made it even more interesting was that more than one of the creatures had abilities that capitalized on the environment in some way or another. In fact, all of them did. The choker and the spider could both crawl around on the ceiling, dropping on unsuspecting PCs and avoiding the river entirely. The archers were placed well, far away and with multiple obstacles between them and the PCs, forcing the PCs to endure their attacks for a while before they could close the gap. The BBEG had multiple abilities that pushed and pulled, and he used them to knock us all into the water as frequently as he possibly could.

What this really reminded me of is that, when you create an interesting environment, you want to select your monsters carefully to make sure they fight well in that environment. Similarly, if you have a bunch of monsters with similar abilities, the right environmental effect can make those abilities a lot more effective in combat. Pushes and pulls on their own are more a nuisance than a threat, but as soon as damaging terrain enters the equation–particularly if said damaging terrain is difficult to navigate around in the first place–those pushes and pulls become a true threat.

I feel that creating encounters such that your monsters and your environment harmonize without being too difficult or annoying is a subtle art, and one I have yet to master. I think I occasionally pull off some good combinations, but I think I have a lot to learn about how best to implement this kind of combat.

I just read a post on Mike’s D&D Blog in which Mike asks for advice on how to remember all of the NPCs in the game that he’s playing in. I think it’s admirable that he’s seeking advice on how to be a better player, and as a DM, I know it can be irksome when my players can’t keep the NPCs straight. This is why I, whenever possible, try to use a technique that Paul Tevis refers to as “Conservation of NPCs”.

The idea is simple. Whenever you’re in need of an NPC to fill a particular role in your adventure or campaign, look at the roster of NPCs that you’ve already introduced. If someone in that roster can potentially fill this new role without breaking verisimilitude, do it. See, if you give your players more opportunities to interact with an NPC, they’re going to develop stronger feelings toward that NPC. If it’s an ally, they’ll grow more attached. If it’s a villain, they’ll start to hate him more. If you introduce a new NPC every time you need an NPC for a particular role, most of your NPCs are going to be throw-aways, and the players won’t care that much about them.

There are some definite benefits to doing things this way. First of all, with fewer important NPCs running around, it’s going to be a lot easier for your players to keep track of them and remember who’s who. Second, if your players get attached to a particular merchant or guard or airship captain, they’re going to respond more quickly and more intensely when he or she is put in danger. Similarly, recurring villains are much more satisfying to defeat than one-shot villains are, and as such the players are much more likely to go to great lengths to bring them down.

I’m using very few house rules in my current game (I don’t consider custom monsters to be house rules), and I thought I’d share them. I’ve talked about a few of them already, but I’ll give you some updates.

Renown Points
I’ve already explained my rationale for using Renown Points, and I like the way it worked in the last session. I monkeyed with some of the values and achievements so that rarer achievements are worth more, and so that they work a little more as intended. Here’s my new score card.

Ally Cards
I shamelessly stole this idea from someone else. I’m modifying it a little to suit my tastes. Here’s how they work in my game.

Actions
Allies do not have their own actions; each ally is attached to one of the players and is under his/her control. Whenever a PC takes a move action, that player’s attached ally can also do so. The PC can spend a minor action to activate one of the ally’s encounter or daily abilities. Allies do not make opportunity attacks or take any other actions on their own. Some allies have passive abilities; these do not require an action to take effect. When an ally uses an encounter or daily ability, no roll is required; however, an ally cannot deal damage automatically. Instead, any ally power that deals damage must do so as a result of a PC’s roll, effectively granting bonus damage to a PC’s attack.

Damage and Healing
Allies do not have hit points; instead, they have hit boxes. When an ally takes damage from any source, mark off a hit box. Like minions, allies do not take damage from a miss, but can take automatic damage from an aura or other effect. When all hit boxes are marked off, the ally is unconscious. If an unconscious ally takes damage, that ally dies. Allies do not make death saving throws while they are unconscious; they are automatically stable.

Whenever an ally benefits from a healing ability that allows that ally to spend a healing surge or heal as if a healing surge had been spent, that ally erases one marked off hit box. Allies do not, however, have healing surges. During a short rest, an ally can erase all marked off hit boxes.

Resistances and vulnerabilities do not apply to allies.

Sample Ally Cards

Healbots
One of my players plays a warlord, and is the only leader in the party. The paladin and warlock can both do some healing, but not much, and both have access to healing on a daily basis rather than an encounter basis. The warlord is often unavailable, and until recently I simply had another player run his character. That, however, slowed things down and was, in general, complicated and not as effective as it could be. I also tried creating a monster version of the warlord, Sredni, so that he’d be easier to run. This, too, left a bad taste in my mouth.

Then, I came across this post, which I’m going to shamelessly steal from (again). I’m modifying the healbot rules a little to give Sredni a little bit more autonomy, and so that the players still benefit from his passive abilities (warlords have awesome passive abilities). I’m also going to continue to have a player run him, but now there will be significantly less for that player to have to keep track of. I give you Sredni Vashtar, healbot:

I’d like to preface this post by saying that I’m talking specifically about guidelines and advice for planning an adventure in 4e D&D, but some–or possibly even all–of this article could apply to other games that require an element of planning.

I like games where you can improvise and do things off-the-cuff; it makes for an interesting and dynamic world that responds to the decisions that the players make and allows them to have a real stake in how things turn out in the end. D&D can be that kind of game, but it’ll always require some element of planning in order to really run smoothly. Sure, you could make everything up as you go along, and for the most part that’ll work just fine–until you start running a combat encounter. Once this happens, things will grind to a halt as you find all the monsters you need in your various books or on the Compendium, sort out your battle map or tiles, find all your minis (or use appropriate stand-ins), figure out where everything goes, come up with interesting terrain, and so on, and so forth.

The simple truth is that a little planning can go a long way, and it’s entirely possible to plan in such a way that you can leave yourself a lot of room to react to what the players do, and allow them to see the impact they’re having on the world.

Re-Skin your Encounters
In D&D, it’s pretty easy to separate mechanics from flavor when you’re dealing with things like terrain effects, traps, and monsters. Swapping out types of damage and changing the way you describe things can be enough to make an encounter full of orcs and trolls feel like an encounter full of aberrations from the Far Realm.

This won’t necessarily be possible with all of your encounters. You definitely want your big set-piece encounters to feel distinct and to be exciting, and for the most part these encounters aren’t really going to be the kinds of encounters your players will easily avoid anyway. If the fate of the world hinges on a fight with the mad necromancer Falagoth and his undead minions, it’s a fair bet that your players will wind up in that encounter one way or another.

A lot of the minor encounters can be constructed in such a way that they can be re-purposed easily. Using monsters that have easily re-skinnable abilities helps this, as does having a stable of terrain effects that you can easily drop into an encounter. You might even consider organizing your Dungeon Tiles with note cards containing potential effects on the game, for easier use during play. A nice side-benefit of this technique is that, when your players manage to avoid an encounter completely (and they will, at some point), the encounter isn’t wasted; you can re-skin it and use it later, with little or no modification.

Create Generic Maps
You may have a number of encounters planned, but you don’t want to specify their exact order or location. Say, for example, your adventure revolves around fighting a murderous thieves’ guild in a city. You know that most of your encounters will be in indoor and urban environments, so it might be worth it to create five or six different maps for different locations around the city. Then, when your PCs get into a fight, you can choose an appropriate map and combine it with a group of enemies to create an encounter.

Create Encounter Pieces
It’s no secret that some monsters go well with each other. A challenging encounter often capitalizes on these synergies, allowing the monsters to work as a team as well as the players do. Something you can do to allow you to adjust your encounters on the fly is create a roster of encounter ‘pieces’–effectively, groups of two or three monsters that go well together, either mechanically or thematically–and keep them in a binder. Don’t worry about making an exhaustive list; focus only on the level range and types of creatures that your party is going to be fighting in the immediate future. Then, when an encounter ensues, you can grab a few encounter pieces and put them together to create an encounter that makes sense based on what’s happened so far. Combining this with generic maps can allow you to construct an entire encounter, including terrain, traps, and so forth, with only a few minutes of table time required.

Don’t Over-Plan
This is probably the single most important piece of advice that I’m going to give here. It’s tempting to want to plan out your entire adventure storyline from start to finish before the players even start playing through it. This is fine, but you should use broad strokes to define your story elements, and refrain from planning out specifics–encounters, skill challenges, even important NPCs–until you anticipate needing them. I know that, in my group, we can usually get through about two combat encounters and some roleplaying/investigation/skill challenge stuff in a single session. So, when planning for game day, that’s what I prepped for. I didn’t bother prepping anything beyond that, because that can wait. Instead, I really focused on making the stuff that’s going to happen in the next session interesting.

What this allows is, should the PCs do something that has implications down the line, I can integrate the consequences of their decisions into the adventure. Because I plan one session at a time, everything I plan is informed by what’s happened so far. This means that the players actually do have a significant impact on what happens in the story, and I try to make that plain to them.

Save Important Decisions for the End
The end of a session, that is. If you’re going to have a big decision for the players to make, and that decision is going to have significant ramifications in the rest of the adventure, it helps to put that decision near the end of a session. That way, you have a lot more time to think about and respond to their choice, and the consequences are likely to make more sense and feel more authentic.

The main alternative to this is to prep for multiple outcomes of the decision, so that you have something planned either way. This is a valid way to do things, and might be necessary sometimes. This is where a lot of the stuff that came earlier in this post can help you; if you can plan just enough so that you can react to multiple decisions quickly, then you’re more likely to keep your players engaged and coming back for more.