EPISODE 15:
BND015 – Down In the Mines
The DM guide estimates that characters will advance after approximately 8 encounters per level. It does mention that this would count completion of a quest as an encounter, skills challenges of course as encounters and traps as encounters. This sounds fair, it sounds do-able and in practice it will probably turn out to be correct. But my problem is that I immediately begin mapping out encounter after encounter moving the characters on their way towards next leveldom. At least this is how I started out.
The story develops as the players attach themselves to whatever attracts them the most, and as that gets more defined some of the circumstances become inevitabilities. There are pieces of information that need to be revealed in order for the story to progress, and how they are revealed is the essence of the game. So far it has been mostly me deciding how these plot points are to be revealed. I finally started bringing in a few of the elements that 2 of my players had provided for me as background to their characters. I’m making a concerted effort to develop those details into plot driving instances within the game. (Unfortunately it won’t be for another couple of episodes.) Right now, we are headed into a mine, which I felt compelled to develop in order to 1) expose certain elements of the story and 2) get the PC’s more xp so they can advance. If you are an experienced DM then you may be saying to yourself “dude, you’re making this way too complicated.” And I am. Or I was. Lucky for me, I’ve got a podcast where I can listen to how the game goes, share it with others and get some feedback on ways to improve my DM skillz.
So, if you’ve listened to all the episodes up to this point, you will know that they are attempting to rescue some children that they believe to have been kidnapped for some unknown reason. They are dealing with quite a few people and the plot extends beyond just the kidnapping. Apparently, some of the “bad guys” are infected with some sort of parasite that may or may not have mind controlling powers. My DM conundrum at this point was in how do I reveal more plot points to keep the story moving and hopefully keep the pc’s interest.
I know that there will be times when the pcs will need a gentle nudge in the proper direction and I am unafraid to provide that nudge. But there were a couple of sessions- the previous one, this one and the following (probably going to encompass at least 5 maybe 6 episodes) where I felt a bit dirty afterward. I felt like I was the DM that made the PCs do what I wanted them to do in order to keep the story going. There was very little in it that had to do with what the PCs had chosen to create for themselves. It got to a point that I knew what was happening and I didn’t want to force them into anything so even though I had an encounter all planned out and they were right on the cusp of busting it wide open I had to let it go (*see Keep Calm and Be Prepared). I found a spot later on where I could use the map (that I had lovingly put a couple of hours into creating on Roll20), and the fight was enjoyed by all.
Brave New Dungeon 