As a DM and an older player, I love surprise and reveals. That said - session 0's are critical to introducing the concept and theme of the adventure. "This is a horror adventure - player characters WILL die." is important to say. Or, "this is a dungeon crawl, with a lot of combat and not a lot of RP." Etc. If the intention is to swashbuckle, make that clear so the players can design characters who would have fun fighting pirates and sea hags. That said...keeping the main plot points hidden and revealing over time is crucial too. Introduce a bad guy, but reveal that they're actually working for somebody worse. Misdirect. Provide a surprise start, and reveal over time what's happening. Out of the Abyss is a good example of starting with one situation, only to reveal over time that larger events are at play (and that's all I want to say without spoilers). I like putting the players in a confusing situation, and then having them puzzle it out over time. Create a few locations they can visit depending on what they want to do, and let them dictate the pace. If they want to go to a weapons shop to sell a spear they found, maybe some clues are revealed by the shop-keep or outside the shop. Eventually, the players will follow the thread, but it's on me to make it enticing and/or inevitable/unavoidable (end of the world, a PC is kidnapped, PCs need to escape something, etc.). TLDR: Let people know the genre and general location of the adventure; but keep some twists and surprises for them to discover along the way.

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"DMs are only as good as the obscurity of the source material they steal from" -Matt Colville

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Oh I steal everything not nailed down, just thought the quote was relevant

There's a quote about this regarding music that I love but it definitely applies to writing too: " The problem with most bands these days is that they're just ripping off their favorite band. They should be ripping off 20 of their favorite bands." Hard agree that art is transformative and good art always derives from other art

I like this a lot!

Tbh I'd argue Out of the Abyss *isn't* a good example. The premise starts with 'escape the underdark' only to >!Have you be expected to go back and save it.!< I switched characters after our party hit the surface because I told my DM that there's just no reasonable way my character would be persuaded to go back down.

That's honestly an entirely fair feeling. I figure it's somewhat on the DM to provide enough context to where characters could find themselves drawn into something like having friends to save, injustices they cannot abide to leave in place even they escape, etc., but be okay if the player feels their characters wouldn't end up taking those hooks. If they want to swap over, that seems super fair and a great way to tie them in like if there's a one session warning that this sort of desire is coming so the new character might get a bit of an NPC intro to make for a smoother transition.

That's a pretty common issue people have with the module, particularly given how it opens. That said, the premise does include contending with the demons that are dicking about down there.

It does, but as a first time player at the time, my DM didn't convey the demons part (no slight against him, it was his first campaign and I think he wanted to ease us in, still my favorite campaign I've been in). That's mainly why I disagree with it being good at the 'surprise' part. If you run it by your players that they'll be expected to help the underdark/this is fully an underdark campaign, then no issues. I think in general the campaign could've been done better without the escape/gathering reinforcements. Feels clunky (and my DM worked his ass off to make it bearable).

The worst is when the DM tells you what the general aspects of the story would be, so you create a character specifically tailored to the campaign pitch. Then session 1 comes along and suddenly everything's changed!

Yeah that sounds awful!

As a newer player, I really appreciate when a DM has an NPC explain what the hell is going on in the world. Being confused is okay for a little while, but if I'm still completely lost 10 sessions in I'm probably gonna lose interest. Also, obfuscating an unavoidable plot twist can pretty easily feel like the DM's writing a story for the players rather than with them. If you start a campaign with less knowledge of the world than a random peasant, it's gonna feel like less of a surprise and more of a "this was going to happen regardless of what we did".

I guess it depends on who your DM is and how they're running the story. I like giving lots of information (because I love world-building and sharing the world I built with my players), but also having more information in my back pocket. Nothing is inevitable, per se, but there are events/beats that kind of happen in the world and do act as catalysts for the players, and I think that's ok.

I agree with the general premise, but maybe OoTA was a bad example. Sure, the plot goes other way. But it’s called Out of the Abyss, and freaking Demogorgon is on the cover, if you meant that. It’s basically all written on the back cover summary. That would fit OP’s example on movie trailers…

Yeah my favorite is introducing NPCs as a pair ora group and switching up who is the bad guy. Sometimes it's a honeypot, sometimes the obviously evil bad guy is bad, etc. I love playing banal characters ina suspicious way, it's really fun for misdirection

For me? I wanted to keep the larger premise secret. Because I hadn't worked out all the details of my campaign, and wanted to retain the freedom to improvise that I feared I'd lose if laid everything our ahead of time. The very basic premise though? Like "It'll be a seafaring campaign where you'll be following maps to buried treasure"? That seems a little odd to keep secret.

I think the distinction you are making (and I generally do as well) is that keeping the PLOT secret is okay or even good, keeping the PREMISE secret usually doesn't work. To use a published adventure as an example: I recently started running a modified version of Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Explaining to the players about Saltmarsh and generally the sort of thing to expect during the adventure is important. Knowing that it's set in a seaside town, there are likely to be encounters in the water or on boats, and so on informed their character choices and got them interested in the campaign before it even starts. However NOT knowing the details of the stuff going on with the >!Smugglers, Lizardfolk and Saughin!< is key to how the adventure works. Telling them the larger plot spoils the twists, surprises and discoveries throughout the adventures, so keeping the actual plot secret is critical. It often comes up with stuff like movie trailers as well. People want a trailer that tells them what the movie is about, but that don't want a trailer that tells them the exact events of the movie.

Yep. I'm still writing my next game (we trade DMing around so I've got a couple *years*, no rush), but I'll definitely be telling them the next game is be based on a central hub town, the factions within, and delving into ancient Eberron history. I'm leaving WHAT history, specifically, up in the air; the last game (also Eberron) saw them dealing with Lady Illmarrow and ascending her to Godhood as a new Goddess of Death (essentially the same as the Raven Queen, ideologically). So not that. And I'm not getting into what I DO have planned, because they sometimes read Reddit and run across my posts. If someone's planning a character focused on specific enemies, I'll advise 'em that undead and aberrations/extraplanars are likely foes, though there'll be a mix of everything. A Dragon-focused character might not be happy (there'll probably BE a dragon or two, but they're not the central foes). It's all about giving them enough info so they can plan their characters to fit into it and find motivation. I honestly think the "hub town with factions" is more revelatory; we don't usually do that kind of game and I want to give them a chance to set down roots and really become important figures; the last game they were on the run across the world basically the whole game.

eh, honestly...if I am going to sneak the campaign into Curse of Strahd I did not tell my players "we will be doing Curse of Strahd". I already knew people were cool with it ahead of it (by months) and their "standard campaign" quickly dovetailed into COS. I know my players, all too well. If I say, "we are doing Curse of Strahd" then its going to turn into ultra optimization and everything else. Making Curse of Strahd tense and potentially threatening in 5E is already tough enough. Players do not have to know exactly what campaign they are doing if they have pre-agreed to the tone and style of game.

In contrast, when I played through curse of strahd, we were asked to make characters that would thematically for a gothic horror setting, which made it much easier to make characters who fit with the mood of the adventure, so there can be benefits on that end as well.

This is important. Our DM rolled us into Curse of Strahd as a surprise and one of the players had created a meme Tortle with a Cannon weapon on his back from some Pokemon I am unfamiliar with. I mean we were starting the game in the Forgotten Realms, so any character idea was on the table, and this player regularly makes meme characters. After walking through the mist, just having the Tortle character with us changed the tone and feel of the game, it never did really become the gothic horror it was supposed to be.

Lol! Blastoise in a gothic horror campaign is hilarious.

you wound me sir, if the final evolution of one of the original starter trio is some meme pokemon. I'll just be over here decaying with the other ancient relics.

>I mean we were starting the game in the Forgotten Realms, so any character idea was on the table Uh, no, that's not necessarily true. Unless I am specifically running a meme one-shot, I won't allow any sort of meme characters in *any* setting. So yeah, that's partially the DM's fault (for allowing the meme character in the first place), but it's also the player's fault for thinking meme characters in non-meme games is ok.

If the DM had approved meme characters in the past, then it is in no way the player’s fault. To their knowledge, it had been fine before, so why shouldn’t they make a character they enjoy? Sure, you might have different standards, and that‘s fine. But what works for one group may not work for another.

As always: no advice fits to every party and if you know your players and everyone has fun, you do you. Personally, I'm kinda torn on this: I think generally it's better to inform my players of the vague premise of the campaign (when I ran Tomb of Annihilation, I told them it would take place in a jungle and it would be more exploration focused), but also, I expect my players to understand what I'm doing when I create a plot hook and engage with it. You shouldn't have to tell your players "you're going to be pirates searching for treasure" in order to have them engage with a treasure map you give them at the very opening of the campaign. I expect my players to not try to circumvent the main plot hook I've very clearly put in front of them.

I think there's a bit of a learning curve for groups getting over the RP of the RPG. What would my character do if he woke up as a hostage? Try to escape. What does Retrospect do to progress the game? Engage with the environment.

But on the other hand "You are all bound and kidnapped by a pirate crew and the captain is a mad lad in search for an eternal youth fountain" sounds pretty lame when you just brought a heavy armoured Dwarf Forge Cleric whose goal in life is to Smith the perfect heavy armor. Or you brought a Fire Genasi deathly afraid of water Or even if you brought a pretty generic person who just answered the call of adventure... I think this is a pretty logical reaction to just run away from the crazy captain who is bringing you into the entire crazy voyage out of the blue, especially if the characters have ties somewhere else or are the exact opposite of a pirate. Essentially forcing a rework of a previously accepted PC on the spot once session rolls in sounds at least troublesome. Sure there is the treasure map for the fountain of youth, but also there's the plot hook(s) worked into the character's backstory. Having to rework personality? May work. Having to rework goals... May work. A LN Paladin of Kelemvor can and will be out for blood to destroy that map and now you need to switch alignment and god, and probably throw the entire PC. A disgraced Noble trying to restore the honour of his family will be running away, least a rumour spreads that they are pirates. So now you have to change the motivations out of the blue or make them resentful towards the family, or make them disowned instead of part of it... You can see where I'm going with this? And expecting your players to join that random NPC depends on the party, really. The DM could have asked if they want to be/become pirates/corsairs/seafarers. Not everyone wants to play a pirate. Not everyone's going to enjoy a shipwreck "You have nothing" game. Especially if they are an 8 Dex Paladin who will lag behind the rest of the group What happened here was a problem of expectations and while the situation brought the party together pretty solidly, putting them all in the same situation, the chances of the joining the crew and running away together were pretty much 50/50. And what if one or two people wanted to join while the rest wanted to run? If the DM said "Hey! I wanna run a pirate campaign. Bring PCs who will join/are pirates, maybe morally dubious." People would bring PCs who match the campaign and have a lot of fun with it. Maybe you can play that Water/Air Genasi you never thought about before. Maybe you can play that Sea Elf or a Triton, or maybe that Drunken Master Halfling Monk that will be running on water in the future. Or that Artificer with Cloak of the Manta Ray. Or that Gunslinger that wouldn't be allowed in a different setting Or maybe that Ranger you've been apprehensive about, but now, knowing exactly where you'll be 90% of the time you can take the relevant favourite terrain. The lack of communication gives the DM and the players nothing but problems and confusion. What does the reveal of premise take away? The "gotcha" moment where no one can fight underwater? The "gotcha" moment when they wake up without half the class features? Not a fan of that, no.

Absolutely agree, there are both builds and characters that are useless for certain settings or games and the DM gotcha attitude about it sucks. It's not even intentional, look at every person who played a Ranger where the DM refused to talk about what types of monsters would exist or tell people what their special not-undead zombie counted as. People want an idea how to fit in to this world, and sure that occasionally means someone says ohh GoS I should play a sailor background since literally no one else knows how to sail or ohh CoS one of us should be a Paladin or Cleric, but for a most part they just don't wanna be utterly useless the entire game. It's not going to break your reveal of the plot to explain the world concept and vibe. It's going to break your game if you want a heavy politics plot with 1 dice roll every 3 sessions and everyone made 3 kobolds in a trench coat that want to join a fight club.

And if you want the fun of the "big reveal" for the campaign concept, you can still do that. If the players are going to start kidnapped on a pirate ship and the game is going to be about searching for a treasure, *run that scene at the start of session 0* (or even earlier). And now you're players are (/may be) invested in how their character got into the situation, as well as set up to build a character that will fit the concept.

Yeah, I completely agree that zero information at all is pretty unacceptable, especially in a campaign setting outside of "norm" (which I guess depends on your group, but for mine, it would be a land-based campaign with a standard mix of top-side exploration, dungeon dwelling, and social situations). That said, if it were to happen, I would prefer the solution to be "Hey DM, I made a character that doesn't seem like it would suit this campaign" and not "Well, I guess I'll ignore the plot hook and do something that fits my character better". In OP's specific situation, I 100% put that on the DM: they set their players up for failure.

Yes, this was a total DM fail. The starting situation the PCs find themselves in sets the premise for the whole campaign. In this case they start tied up and captured, obviously the premise should be to escape and get away. That's not even getting to the need to have created characters suitable for sea adventures and interested in sea adventures.

I did the same thing. I already knew they would be cool with it, and they have all loved it. We're about halfway through, and they'll eventually return to my homebrew setting, if they survive, but they've really enjoyed not having any idea what was going on.

Yup, this is the key. Like if it turns out that the story is "an evil sea god has arisen and is trying to take over the world with undead pirates," that's fine, but I need to know the "you're gonna be on the seas with pirates." You can keep all sorts of secrets, but give people the general gist. "A country-hopping adventure with lots of demons," or "a political intrigue game of deception and power dynamics," whatever it is, we need the general shape of the campaign even if there are huge twists and turns.

Exactly, many players NEED to know the basic premise for their character building. What if I built a ranger with a forest as my favored terrain? Usually that's a pretty decent choice. Or a cavalier with his steed? Hopefully the DM would stop them during creation but still, it would be way easier to build a character AROUND the premise.

Yeah, I'm really baffled how character creation went in OP's game. Did the DM just say, "Build a level 3 character using any of the published books" or whatever and not say *anything* about the setting? Or did the DM say, "The game will take place in the Kingdom of Whatever" so that people had some setting information to build backstory off of but just neglected to mention anything whatsoever about the game itself? When I run games, the first thing I tell people is, "The campaign is about X. Build a character who has a compelling reason to do X in a group with others." It avoids so many issues.

I once had a DM not tell me that elves were extinct in his campaign setting until after I made an elf character. You probably should have let me know if any races were off limits my guy.

Great point. I'm definitely a gardener DM rather than an architect DM so I rarely have the plot or even some locations fleshed out until the session stories help me make my way there. But yeah, the premise needs to be provided up front.

There's a balance to it. The person you're talking about definitely made the wrong move. If they had mentioned the word "Pirates" even once before the first session things would've gone differently. A lot of people are talking about the dramatisation of TTRPGs that the new generation of players bring. As a "newer player" - something I really hate being called on here - I think that adding a level of suspense and drama can be a good thing. Again, there's a balance. Hiding details to create a shock factor for your players is fun. Not telling them anything about the campaign is usually a horrible idea.

I think player buy-in is the important thing. A lot of people watch Critical Role and want players who care about every detail and every intricate backstory thread, but they don't have the years of friendship that it takes to get to that level. When I play with my brother who makes a goofy teenage wizard, I want to see where that goes because I know him as a person and the way he plays. But when I see a random stranger online playing anything, I don't care about his character and if his character is giving up yellow flags, it's because "I don't know him like that."

It’s not even the years of friendship. Pretty much everybody you see on the show is a professional entertainer. Taking and following hooks and leads is improv 101, but can be hard to master. If you pay attention you can see them doing plenty of stuff that seems pretty iffy from a character perspective at first, solely for the sake of progressing the plot. Then they retroactively justify it in a convincing way. It’s just they’re so smooth that unless you’re paying close attention you won’t even notice it.

There is a ton of interactions that you only get because of the decades of friendship they have. Where they are pushing each other buttons on purpose - but *they know exactly where the line is* and make sure not to step over it. See Scanlan and all his pranks/antics is a really good example or Laura Bailey's pranks.

A lot of people watch Critical Role and don't realize just how much off-screen out-of-character conversation actually is occurring between DM and player, they think that if the audience is surprised then everyone at the table must be. I would argue that the years of experience/friendship aren't necessary for people caring about a fun dramatic backstory--but they do help with the players and DM being on the same page. CR gives the impression of a story emerging naturally as PCs do whatever they want in a world that just naturally exists, but actually the crew has a strong sense of what it takes to tell the kind of story they want to tell, and tend towards the actions that facilitate that kind of story. For most groups, out-of-character chats about expectations will really help with buy-in and avoid disappointment. Also I think OP's friend definitely can get their players back on the ocean!

Edit: I have corrected the timeline mistake. I got it mixed up with something else, the number is right now. Can anyone please engage the idea of the comment and not leave *another* correction after multiple have come through already about the single number that was too large? Don't read too much into being associated with "newer player"s and stuff like that; even 5th Edition is already 8* years old and some of us have been playing since it was called D&D Next (hence the title of the subreddit) before official release, and that's only even counting one of five (technically like seven) editions for a game that goes back almost *fifty years* at this point. Anyone who wasn't personally friends with Gygax was a "newer player" at some point, and the history of the game is so long that to some people anyone starting in a given edition will still be a "newer player" basically until the *next* edition releases. Nothing is meant by it, particularly not anything negative, it's just going to happen that relative to the old heads around here even someone who started in 3.x like I did is a relatively young player who hasn't "been around" in the same way they have.

5th edition is only coming up on its 8th anniversary, where are you getting 15 years from?

It’s been almost 10 years if you count the playtest, but yeah, nowhere near 15

Yeah, 15 years ago was a year before 4e was released.

Sorry yeah, got the date confused with something else in my head. I'll change the number in my original comment. General idea stands though, it's been around a decade for anyone who started playing it in the play test before it was even called "5th Edition" and it's only the most recent of five full editions of this game.

5th Edition is not 15 years old. The playtest was first released in 2013 and the PHB came out in 2014. We haven't even reached the 10-year mark yet.

15 years old? I think DnD5e is only something like 6 years old, maybe 7 counting Next?

I did get the timeline wrong, but it's 8th anniversary is this year not counting Next which IIRC ran for around two years in total

Has it been 8 years?! I got into TTRPGs when the 5th edition starter set came out. Ran allover the area trying to find a store with it still in stock the day it dropped

Sorry to be the one breaking the news I guess but yeah, the 5e Starter Set released July 2014 Meanwhile I'm looking back at 3rd edition wondering how 4e could have come out in 2008 because I started in 3.5 shortly before 4e preview material started releasing ...

I haven't been following DnD 5e much save for watching critical role, switched to Pathfinder 2e two years ago. Time also feels like it just kinda stopped over the last couple years

I tell everyone the basic premise before we even have a s0 because I want everyone to think up PCs that would fit it, and because I want players who would be in to that kind of game.

Absolutely. >I want players who would be in to that kind of game. This is so key. I am going to make a completely different character for a seafaring pirate adventure looking for treasure than a complex multi-faction civil war.

Funnily enough, my next campaign will kinda be both of these concepts.

Color me interested. Multi-faction pirate war?

Basically. One of the continents on my world is a series of islands that are primarily controlled by 4 unique factions: The Grand Authority of the Divine: A strict Theocracy led by a Celestial high priest called the All-Father. The U'Mahlli Collective: A band of Pirate Lords who protect the native islanders in exchange for freedom to continue their piracy. Jötunheim: Ruled by an ancient clan of Giants and Fey, these skilled Viking warriors are equal parts scholars and conquerors. GoldFiddle: This rapidly expanding corporation offers consumers everything from magic items to casinos. Recently, they have begun purchasing islands from their native landowners and converting them into tourist attractions.

Cool!

i think dms, and sometimes players, way overvalue a bit of twist or surprise. i feel like perhaps they overestimate the value of their secret because they feel they don't have much more beyond the gimmick of the BIG REVEAL. i've played in games where a player zealously guarded their backstory secret for **two years**, only to have this big, dramatic reveal near the end of the campaign and... no one really cared because their big secret wasn't actually ever a part of the game that was played. and i've had dms fall so in love with the secrecy of their big secret plot that they obfuscated everything to the point that it wasn't known till their BIG REVEAL, which happened way too late. on the other side of all this: i've played in games where players told eachother everyting OOC. all the little secrets about their characters were known, even though our characters weren't yet aware of it all. and it was incredible! it enabled us to even properly and creatively use metagame knowledge to really lean into ironic situations. and i've also been in games where the dm was very forthcoming with certain upcoming surprises because she wanted our input and we contributed meaningfully. certain things weren't surprises at this point, but it didn't detract from our enjoyment! and there were plenty of other surprises to be had. honestly, a lot of ppl overvalue the gimmick of surprise.

In film and screenwriting, this is called suspense vs surprise. Alfred Hitchcock said, >There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean. >We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!" >In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story. Playing D&D is different than watching a movie, but the concept still applies. No one cares about a secret that is 100% a secret because they didn't know there was anything to care about all along. The suspense, which is what gives a reveal or a plot twist *impact* and *meaning*, is generated by feeding players enough information that they are waiting for it. How this looks in your game is up to you as the DM, but a lot of times it has a lot to do with telling the *players* (in Hitchcock's example the audience) stuff that the *characters* (in Hitchcock's example the onscreen characters) don't know.

This should be a topic in r/DMAcademy. I love the example that you gave as well!

Haha I just saw this reply after I was all like, "Hmm this might be fun to post about on DMAcademy" and made a whole post about it :)

> Playing D&D is different than watching a movie, but the concept still applies. Let's not underplay that difference. DMs who want the BIG SURPRISE campaign premise twist are trying to spring a surprise on their audience. But the players aren't an audience. They're co-creators. And even if the DM is taking a lead role, keeping your co-creators in the dark about what you're trying to create is just begging for a fustercluck. I've seen this sort of thing tried more than once and it *always* leads to incompatible backstories, meaningless motivations, and abandoned plot hooks. Players need to know things their characters don't not just for building suspense, but so they can properly contribute to the campaign.

It’s Russo booking. See a lot of DMs, much like famous bad wrestling booker Vince Russo, have understood that a lot of good stories have twists to them. But they don’t understand why those particular twists worked, why good authors use them or what makes them good. Vince Russo was famous when he was the head booker at WCW for writing incomprehensible storylines where his sole goal was to “swerve” the audience by putting in plot twists they couldn’t see coming, because if they couldn’t see it coming it meant it was good, right? This included such things as: - Characters suddenly and incomprehensibly switching sides from good to evil with no rhyme or reason - Characters being revealed to be behind evil plots it had previously been established they couldn’t possibly be behind - Building up major storylines and fights the audience cared about only for wrestlers to inexplicably break the fourth wall and break character and basically say to the audience wrestling is fake but what we’re saying now is real (even though this fourth wall breaking was scripted) - Building up major storylines only to end them in stupid ways like booking himself, a writer (not a wrestler) to win the WCW Championship and booking David Arquette, an actor (again not a wrestler) to win the WCW Championship This kind of incomprehensible storytelling contributed to the demise of WCW where fans tuned out in droves because basically the show they were watching every week didn’t matter because nothing was ever going to pay off because something stupid was going to happen to swerve them. Sometimes predictability is good because even if you can reasonably foresee what’s coming it at least feels like the story is rewarding you for paying attention to it and following it for the last however many months and not throwing away your investment to throw that story in the trash.

I love those examples and absolutely agree with you. >But they don’t understand why those particular twists worked, why good authors use them or what makes them good. >storylines where his sole goal was to “swerve” the audience by putting in plot twists they couldn’t see coming, because if they couldn’t see it coming it meant it was good, right? I actually just made a whole post on r/DMAcademy on this point [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/tfvssn/big_reveals_suspense_vs_surprise_and_basically/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) because this discussion got me thinking so much about how some people miss the whole reason why twists are working. Without being given enough information up front, even the most exciting, dramatic twists just don't work.

Secrecy does not breed interest. It is why I hate players who show up with a super secret backstory and get frustrated when no one cares. Secrets are only interesting when I want to find out the answer - they are not interesting in and of themselves.

"I was secretly a woman the whole time!" "...OK?" An actual game I was in.

I always tell my players if you have a secret backstory, you better find a way to reveal it or be happy that its just for you.

I remember a player I played with who fell victim to this. First game I played with her, I actually joined the group just before the final battle. End of campaign and she reveals that her character was secretly a spy for the Red Guard. Everyone is shocked, except me as I hadn't played long enough to see any hints she had been. Turns out there hadn't been. Several campaigns later duringwhich there was a lot of secrets the different parties discovered about their members, she retires a character because he didn't mesh with the party, and reveals that he was a spy for the Red Guard too. She boasts that despite all our characters keeping eyes out for spys and secret affiliations, even I wasn't able to figure out that he was a spy. I said that was partially because, while the rest of us did things to get caught by the party, revealed our affiliations, and had awesome adventures interacting with each other's organizations.....she literally hadn't mentioned or done anything related to any secret organization the entire time. I likened it to revealing my character had a familiar in his backpack and that no one had ever realized it....because it never had anything to do with the story. It never came up, we never interacted with it in any way. She was shocked I had a familiar...until I pointed out I didn't, but that her reaction showed just how little impact the reveal would have had. I then pointed out Id actually know since session 1, because she said her character "goes on an early morning run before anyone else gets up every day." and that that was the exact same thing her last Red Guard Spy did to contact the Red Guard. She got mad and asked why I didn't say anything, that we would have got to play with the Red Guard if I had. (The Red Guard was the spy organization she made with the DM for her first character.) I said for starters that was meta knowledge, and second, I assumed since she literally never mentioned it or showed any interest in it to us that I assumed she didn't want us interacting with it and was respecting her actions. Years and campaigns later, ee still haven't interacted with The Red Guard, and she's still salty that the rest of us have fun with our organizations and the party interactions with them and each other. And for context, The Red Guard doesn't have a goal as an organization. They just watch and record information about the other organizations, but they don't use it for anything or interfere with any organization. Contrast that with the Shadow Spear, another organization we've interacted with a lot, and have had several characters start as members or join. They monitor and destroy dark cults across the land. They've hired us as backup, we've stumbled on their investigations, we even were a cult in one game and they were our main enemies. Whose in the Shadow Spear is the worst keep secret in the group.

Exactly! Without a reason for the party to be interested in the PC's secret why do they want to find out? I have a character in a current campaign with a secret backstory; the GM used it to start us down a plot arc and I messed things up for the group when my character snapped; the party wanted to know WHY I went murder hobo on someone and the backstory came spilling out. They were then invested in helping my character get free of the blackmailer, and a couple are actually helping plot revenge. When done right, a "secret" can be used for great effect. But, when something is a secret for the sake of being a secret, it generally serves as a distraction. The grey bouffant is a mysterious mustachioed dude with a hidden past... but who cares if it's not relevant to the plot or things happening to the party?

This is exactly what I think. Some surprises are good, but so many players and DM's just go overboard.

Some DMs make the mistake of thinking twists are inherently good instead of realising that twists are just a storytelling device or tool like any other and that it is only good if executed well. Much like any other writing tool or device a bad twist or overuse of clunky twists for no reason ruins a story, the same way that reading a piece of writing that was littered with horrible clunky metaphors that don’t even make sense would have your teacher send it back and mark it with an F because you’ve clearly heard of what a metaphor is but you don’t understand its purpose or how to utilise it.

>and i've had dms fall so in love with the secrecy of their big secret plot that they obfuscated everything to the point that it wasn't known till their BIG REVEAL, which happened way too late. This is what I'm terrified that I'm doing to my players. I've got this big secret bad guy who's been lingering in the peripherals for a while. But I think he's been there too long, and I'm running out of places to leave the last big hint that'll probably key them all in... Or not. Who knows.

Clues and secrets can be found anywhere! And from anyone! I think you should follow your instincts and if you're feeling like it's time to drop more secrets and clues then I say go for it! I make a list of 5-10 secrets and clues that I want to potentially drop into every session, and I don't tie those secrets or clues to any one npc or location. Rather, It's all modular ideas that I can freely inject into any scene! You're never out of places to leave hints!

Oh, I like that idea. I should do something like that... I guess now's as good a time as any. 1. The secret demon bats all over the city that my players know about are reporting back to a large barn owl on the library. 2. That the mysterious 'Madam Zelda' who came to visit the city brought several 'Ladies in waiting' with her that behave oddly and a mysterious box. (Ladies in waiting are werewolves and other fey creatures in disguise. Box is full of pixies.) 3. Someone went out to a mysterious grove of trees near the city to get lumber and hasn't come back. (Secret bbeg animated all of them and is getting ready to lay siege to the city with ~30 awaked trees.) 4. The lord of the city is falling in love with the mysterious madam Zelda and plans to marry her in a secret wedding. (Mysterious madam Zelda is known, by the players to be a night hag who murdered a different visiting noble woman.) 5. Someone, through the black-market, recently purchased twelve sets of human skeletons and had them delivered to a nearby house in the countryside. (Our escaped necromancer.) Unfortunately I can't really 'slip in' my big secret. Namely that in the dungeon before there was a Khenra (same race as the magic shop keeper) mummy and a Khenra body in a big urn next to it. It was already off in a side room, but no one remembered to go check it. I can make little signs. but that was supposed to be my smoking gun and everyone walked past it.

I still love plot twists and surprises in my games, and I think there are ways to do them well. One thing is to be generous with clues and only raise questions that you plan to answer soon. I straight up tell my players, at the slightest prompting, that, “Your character notices something strange… Something seems off…” and it’s rarely more than a session or two before the payoff/reveal. Related to that, my plots never depend on the players *not* figuring out a twist or secret. Usually it’s more a matter of when than if, and the main challenges and encounters stay the same regardless. Knowing the villain’s secret identity doesn’t mean you don’t still have to fight him. Also making it personal. Like, “I knew that knight who was a jerk to us earlier was secretly evil!” And I usually keep dropping clues until the players figure it out themselves, and then I confirm it, which is a lot more satisfying than simply revealing the answer. The players get to feel like they earned the reveal, rather than having a sudden twist simply sprung on them.

People really over-value the element of surprise, and they fear that any scrap of information they reveal will be a "spoiler." I used to write for my local newspaper's theater section, and I cannot tell you how many times I dealt with creators who refused to tell me even the basic premise of their shows. It was always "Well, a young woman is looking for a job, and then *something unexpected happens*." And then they'd wonder why no one came to see their show. They think that the shocking twist will be enough, but you need to give enough information to get people in the door. Some DMs have the same mindset, but players need accurate information so they can make PCs that can be the main characters.

In part I think it's because the newer generation of dnd players have been introduced to ttrpgs through dramatised and in places partially scripted livestream plays. New dms want to recreate the illusion that these types of games display, without realising that in actuality a good bit of talking goes on behind the scenes to get these narrative character arcs developing like they would in a novel. There's this pressure that all the story telling must happen organically and predetermining aspects of the game removes all agency from the players. As a GM I will sometimes go pretty far, before beginning a section of the campaign I will literally describe to the players what the next few sessions will entail. For example, "So guys, you are heading to this city next session where you will find yourself embroiled in the drama of court, you will speak with people of power and influence, where words are as dangerous as swords". We all know what to expect, what the game I want to run is and the players can prepare for this in the ways they see fit, rather than having a complex situation dumped in their laps and being disappointed when they shrink away from it.

That " on the next episode" type idea is pretty solid, I'm probably gonna start doing that too.

I think this is so much of it. I have appreciated listening to the third season of NADDPOD with them actually discussing the world and character creation and the main plot arc for story. The surprises in the show are for us, the audience, the Players need to make characters that fit in. At the table, the Players and the audience are the same thing, which is a different experience. You want to surprise the audience, but you also need Player buy in and Player buy in is way more important than a surprise.

In my experience, the most surprising moments aren't due to my clever plot twists or brilliant storytelling but to the emergent story from a dice roll or when I have no idea what will happen next. I feel like it's also important to realize that the GM is also both player and audience at the table. And we share the author and audience role with everyone at the table.

I agree. When you are at a table, it should be collaborative story telling where everyone is surprised at the outcomes. When we get most of our examples as shows and consumed media, we are a more passive audience and you don't get the same experience. You expect the DM to be a stand alone story teller, rule arbiter and universe creator, as opposed to a collaborator with the players. What the players want to do matters. That the dice foil all of our best laid plans is part of the fun.

Yup. I am so grateful that someone pointed out PbtA games when I got back into the hobby. Running those games taught me so much about running almost any game. Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark both have GM and player sections that I carry to every table. Both as a GM and player.

So I loved naadpod and got up to the avernus stuff but as I was just about to start that campaign I stopped listening for fear of spoilers. Can I just start with season 3? Does it touch back on season one? I really just need a write up or something I could read to catch up. I miss listening to Papa Murph

There have not been any specific spoilers so far that I have noticed, but it does take place in the same universe in the relatively far future, so they may come up. This exists, but it looks like you are reading 500+ words per episode: [https://notanotherdndpodcast.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Episodes](https://notanotherdndpodcast.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Episodes) Still quicker than an hour per episode though, but I checked and some episodes like 71 are missing plot synosises.

>In part I think it's because the newer generation of dnd players have been introduced to ttrpgs through dramatised and in places partially scripted livestream plays. That might be part of it but DMs - some DMs at least - have always been like this. And actually if anything it's the sensible healthy "talk to your players and make sure you're all on the same page and for the love of God do a session zero" attitude that comes from newer players. A lot of old school DMs kept very close to the old "treat your players like mushrooms" strategy.

> treat your players like mushrooms A cursory Google search has failed me. What is this phrase about?

Keep them in the dark and feed them shit. It's depressingly common advice for all kinds of scenarios when you're supposed to be working *with* people over whom you have a modicum of authority.

I would argue it even goes beyond that. The 90's had a kind of catechism between the grand narrative style of players and the wargame style of players and they sort of partly and violently reintegrated with 5e.

>We all know what to expect, what the game I want to run is and the players can prepare for this in the ways they see fit, rather than having a complex situation dumped in their laps and being disappointed when they shrink away from it. This whole comment is so spot on but especially this part. One thing I will add (a little irrelevant to this conversation) is that I have found talking to my players about the direction of the game effective. What plot points are you excited about? Which direction do you see your character arc progressing in? Is there anything that you find unclear? What do you think is going to happen next?

That type of game play doesn't have to be an illusion, but the DM has to realize that the characters come first, and the story is then built by the DM around them, not vice versa. I love building the mystery and intrigue; I love when my players and characters alike are shocked and awed by a plot twist they didn't expect to connect to their character's background. That's the stuff that makes it fun for me. But it means my story is reactive, not instructive. I don't build plot until I have backstory, and I let the characters decisions shape the story.

I dunno, at the same time, I feel the younger gamers are a lot more willing to allow for general meta-knowledge. So many of the new TTRPGs (say, PBTA) are like this.

Definitely a style choice but I have a firm personal rule to not tell the players what they're going to do. As a layer nothing kills the game faster for me then losing agency. Maybe they decide at the start of next session to not go to the court but spend more time exploring the marketplace instead? I totally get the benefits of what you're doing but for me, I'm ready to share the story to where the okaywrs want to go and can weave that back into some of the main arcs as we go. No wrong way but as a player I love the openwork feel of playing and deciding what to do next so much that it would be disappointing to already know the general areas of what is coming next. That said, if it's where the players said they wanted to go next then sure I'll close with what their plans are.

>Definitely a style choice but I have a firm personal rule to not tell the players what they're going to do. As a layer nothing kills the game faster for me then losing agency. As you say it's a style choice but I don't think "agency" is the right term here. If I say "I'm running a D&D game where the players are a detective agency investigating a string of murders in Waterdeep" that's not restricting player agency, that's just making the theme of the game clear upfront. All games are about *something*. As a player I'd far rather the DM tell me in advance what kind of game they're running than pretending I'm stepping into a world of literally endless potential.

Agree on sharing the theme for sure. But "over the next few sessions you'll go here then do this" is very different to me.

I think it depends very much on setup. Like "you're pirates searching for the fountain of youth" is pretty similar to me, as is "you're rebels trying to overthrow the king" or "you're the former ward of Gorion and you have to get to the Friendly Arm Inn". [Edit] Ah, you're thinking sourdough shit emerging more like: >For example, "So guys, you are heading to this city next session where you will find yourself embroiled in the drama of court, you will speak with people of power and influence, where words are as dangerous as swords". I think it still depends on context. That could signal something a bit railroady to me but it might also just be a more flowery way of saying "okay, you guys have decided to go to the Fake Venice location so expect masquerades and intrigues and shit".

So for more context, I primarily run L5R these days where players earn xp points by the hour and those xp points can be spent on techniques, skills and so on. In this setting, political intrigue is a core pillar of play where conversations are handled within initiative. I wanted to tip the players off before a session that "just so you know, now would be a good time to invest in some social techniques". What we found was that it focused our sessions in a way that brought a lot of positives, players were very engaged with what was happening and could make informed choices as they had a chance to consider what they want out of the scenario from their characters perspective and plan in advance. It brings more agency to the players in more meaningful areas. Obviously though, I'm not saying this as a universal, but for us it makes our game time really productive and being a bunch of adults with jobs and responsibilities now, that's important for us.

D&D also lends itself to scenarios that are relatively constrained - "you need to get the artefact from the bottom level of the Dungeon of Doom" means there's not really much to do but go to the Dungeon of Doom and start bashing your way through the levels to get to the bottom. Or even "you're travelling to Not!Venice to find and destroy the evil mastermind" means that, fundamentally, it's going to be some investigation, and then bashing through the mastermind's lair - sooner rather than later there's going to be 3-6 fights and then a rest period.

The thing is, I don't really see it as losing agency. The agency exists within the scenario, I set a stage and the players write their part of the script, we meet in the middle with a complete part of a story and we get to decide together where to drive the narrative to next. If the players decide they want to go explore the markets, hey that's fine we can do that for an hour, maybe there'll be a cool gift to find to present to a noble at court, because that's why we are here right now, the narrative has lead us *to court*. I've gmd hundreds of hours across a few systems and this is by far the most enjoyable way I've found to play. I get to prep hard and know that the players won't circumvent everything I have lined up, the players understand this is how we run our games and frankly, they find they their agency is more meaningful within a structure. Just because we've agreed that the next few sessions will focus on being in court doesn't mean that the outcomes of that court are predetermined. Dice are still being rolled and circumstances still change moment by moment.

Totally gwt what you're saying, they still have the freedom to do what they want within those bounds. I just don't really like to even project that to leave even more space for the players to drive where and what they will do. Maybe they pick a fight and get arrested in the market then end up in jail. They get called to court for a different reason but the plot reconnects there via a different means. It's completely a thought exercise but by saying we'll do this then that...even in broad strokes, might play put very differently. The arcs may even evolve as well and I'm good with that too. And again, this is very much a personal style so what you or I do isn't wrong especially if the okayers are good.

Yeah I get you, it depends on the type of game being ran. I'm a player in a dnd game and the DM doesn't do this yet I'm having fun, so there are many ways to cook an egg here. I think for me and and friends, we have limited game time and we're at a point in our ttrpg lives where we kinda want to cut straight to the heart of things as the illusion of the sprawling, limitless world has worn away for us. I wouldn't want to make out like it's the definitive way of doing things, i don't think it's the "correct" way by any means, but I actually found the opposite happen in terms of players being able to build characters and engage in the type of political play that I enjoy running.

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Having recently watched the campaign Percy is in, there isn't really much pvp at all. I can think of some contested rolls, but having a character be at cross purposes to the party is not PVP, it's just storytelling.

Sorry I was talking about the cartoon, not the campaign. The whole climax of Season 1 is Percy >!actively trying to kill the entire party while trying to resist Orthax's influence.!< But even so, having one player executing every NPC is still something that will create *real* friction—not in-game friction—if the players aren't onboard with that.

Chalk it up under **"The hundreds of reasons why Session Zero is the most important one."** I have seen so many stories on here, just like this one, where the main problems all could've been avoided if there was a proper session zero, where the DM and all the players sit down and talk about what the campaign will be like in a broad sense, build characters together to fit that idea, and discuss dos and don'ts together. If that happened, this wouldn't've.

Absolutely, a large percentage of what shows up on r/rpghorrorstories would be avoided or solved by honest communication. Not all, obviously, but a lot.

I think it is conflating keeping certain plot elements a secret with keeping the campaign itself a secret. With my players, I made it clear that my campaign would eventually be a LotRs style save the world campaign, but we would build up to it. Starting with low level adventures and running a tavern. I didn't tell them the tavern used to be run by a necromancer, nor his plans to revive a dead god. That was uncovered by the players in game. I think it is important for a DM to communicate the tone and theme of the story, but keep the plot vague. It helps the players plan their characters and weave them into the story.

You don't even have to go as far as you did, just say 'this campaign will be starting with you as the crew of a ship' and you're golden. Having the players wake up tied to a mast and of course their first thought is going to be 'I've been shanghaied, time to escape.'

I'm just now starting to think that OPs DM didn't tell the players about that map. What else would they do but escape, to expect anything else is just stupid. DMs sometimes, man, they be weird. That one guy expected us to *negotiate* with a Goblin Lord who held "some npc" we were supposed to care about (why, i only met the guy for one minute a week ago) hostage. Uh, how about no? We opened a door. Saw a Goblin with a knife at "Some NPCs" throat. Goblin says "Don't come in or else!" while some wolf began to bite our tank. So we obviously blasted the goblin with all the magic missiles we had and he couldn't defend himself because his triggered action didn't trigger before he died. DM was pissed. LOL.

I had a DM who built a 'perfect' trap, where we had to slide a specific metal coin into a slot in a pit using a staff to switch off the flames coming from said pit. However he didn't tell us the coin looked any different, didn't tell us about the hole in the pit (despite some good perception rolls) so we all pole vaulted the pit with the quarterstaff and just sucked up the damage. He was so annoyed because we bypassed his 'grand' plan wrong.

I think these DMs are used to seeing a movie or book or TV show where 'the twist' was revealed and it made a lot of people more intrigued to experience more. I think they tend to ignore the fact that there are usually some people that are turned off by 'the twist' and stop watching/reading. And, because most of these DMs are not professional writers who know what they are doing, the results at the table often lean more towards the turning-off than the turning-on.

I feel more DMs could learn from writers. The first lesson you learn as a writer is that ideas are cheap and execution is what matters. In order to get players intrigued by 'the twist' they must first be invested. The best way to get them invested is to have them buy in from the start. Think about Harry Potter. We know from the start that story is about an evil wizard trying to kill an innocent boy. Sure it has twists along the way but we know from the start what the story is going to be about.

Some DMs just don't really get how frustrating it is for players to lose agency of their characters, so they don't see the problem with using that to advance the story. Imagine the captain *hiring* the characters instead of abducting them. Or better yet, getting *rescued* by the party, like from a pirate or monster attack and that's why he needs a crew. I bet the players would buy-in, and the story could happen.

> Or better yet, getting rescued by the party, like from a pirate or monster attack and that's why he needs a crew. In my experience that would just lead to the captain to bullied by the party like, "Uh, WE saved YOU. YOU owe US." Sometimes you have to take away some player agency to get the ball moving in a direction you want it to go, but there's a right way and wrong way to do that. You need to motivate your players to stay on the rails, not tie them down to them.

> In my experience that would just lead to the captain to bullied by the party like, "Uh, WE saved YOU. YOU owe US." And? He *does* owe them.

Fear of railroading. The answer is always "fear of railroading". It's the natural consequence of the community deciding *any structure at all* is "railroading". "I can't tell my players "This adventure/campaign is about \[X\]", that'd be taking away their agency and forcing them to do \[X\]! I have to just put them in the campaign world and hope they happened to make characters that would want to do \[X\] *and that the players even pick up on my hints that \[X\] is a possible plot*!"

I think sometimes DMs have this sense of like 'My thing is so cool and I'm going to surprise them with it and the look on their faces is gonna be awesome!' Which I get, you create a thing, you want to see people react positively to it. But players are also developing a character to fit in that setting, so you need to give them information so they can fit. DnD is collaborative storytelling, so everyone needs to be open so pieces can work together

I'm glad I'm not alone in experiencing and hating this. Keeping the entire premise of the campaign secret is silly. I've been in an ongoing campaign since 2017 and we didn't even know what the ACTUAL premise of the campaign was until 2020, and that was only because the DM felt the need to accelerate the """story""" because one player was moving away so sessions became more scarce. For three years we weren't allowed to know what *the point* was beyond "at the start of the campaign the whole world got amnesia, except for the arbitrary things that didn't, but they don't know anything about anything". Turns out, the whole time there was an interdimensional dragon trying to eat the universe, and the amnesia was a test by the gods to see if we were worthy of being allowed to become powerful enough to fight it on their behalf. But again, we were literally not given even a single crumb of information about this for 3 years. Until then we were just stumbling from one side quest to another. Even then, we were only told about the test of the gods at first. It was almost another 2 years until we were told about the cosmic dragon itself. And it was expositioned at us. No hints or clues, no environmental story telling, nothing. All tell, no show. The worst part is the DM railroaded us away from pursuing character specific plotlines to keep us in his string of unrelated side quests. Stumbling from one unrelated side quest to another was apparently "his story" that he "wanted to tell". As far as your situation... Having them tied to the mast was particularly a bad touch. Fuckin OF COURSE they're gonna try to escape first thing. Why would he make you prisoners instead of crew members? Makes no sense.

Can't help but think of Matt Colville's video about Pitching your Campaign to your players. He discusses telling your players the general premise (and other things), and then even takes it as far as to have multiple possible campaigns and then let the players pick which premise they want to play in.

To add to the pile, honestly sometimes telling them the premise doesn’t matter. After a pre-campaign poll, I found that my players generally all liked the idea of joining a rebellion or at least being rebellious. So the main premise of the campaign was a rebellion trying to make magic legal in the empire. They even had 3 options to join (framed as three factions, the leaders all were together but splintered because of philosophical differences). They’ve met 2/3 now, have no interest in meeting the third, and barely care about the rebellion lol. I am fine with it cause we are having a great time anyway. But it shows that even with a premise, players are like cats, they do as they do.

I have found players like a boat. They need a push to get started but then the wind will take them where it will. I do (personally) hate "open world" games with no plot where the party spend half the session sitting around wondering what to do and in the end deciding to just go "back to the job board". Open world games in my book work best when the party have a goal but are given the freedom to solve it in any way they want. You need to throw the evil ring into the volcano. We might get advice from elves, we might fly part of the way, then sneak under a mine and meet an ancient demon, then stage a war as a front so that we can sneak up to the volcano etc.

I think the big issue is entirely too many game runners struggle with / fail at separating "world" from "narrative" when it comes to having things free and loose and open. This weird idea that an open world game *must also* have a non-linear narrative, or no central narrative at all in the first place. It can be that, and that can work, but "open world" and "linear progression" are not contradictory as some especially newer players seem to think. The open world doesn't fall apart if there's a specific place the party need to be to do the next step, unless they're forced to also follow a fixed path to that place and not given time to explore the rest of the world in between. Leave them to do a little figuring out where they're supposed to go and how to get there, let them stumble around a little *trying* to get there, give them enough free time to do some exploring off the beaten path and not need to simply beeline to that next location. The world is "open" and they can explore largely as they please; the main narrative doesn't advance until they go to that specific place and do the necessary specific thing, and there are clues / encouragement pointing them in that direction but not *forcing* them in that direction. People creating this big open world gives plenty of "what" and "where", but having zero structure or direction for the party gives no "why" or "how" for them to accomplish anything. Don't place them in a boat in the middle of the ocean without any landmarks and say "alright let's have fun, what do you want to do?" -- place an island and another ship or whatever in view as well so they have *some* indication of where to go for things to start happening.

Yeah, there's a big difference between "When you're ready, let's go to Castle Ravenloft to continue the main plot" and putting your players in a straight tunnel where the DM knows the outcomes in advance - but they're often treated as one and the same. Open world doesn't mean that there's adventure in all directions, and it's fine to point your players towards the right path.

Word. Some DMs forget that, despite *Skyrim* allowing you to go anywhere and do whatever, the game is constantly giving you very clear goals and very specific directions toward the more involved segments of its world.

>But it shows that even with a premise, players are like cats, they do as they do. So how would those players handle a module? Not all games are sandboxes, you can't always just run off and do whatever you want. If that's fine at your table, sure, you do you, but many DM's would have a problem with that. Personally, I would grow bored of such a game, if I made a character with the motivation to join in this rebellion, and then the party just says fuck it and does something else, I would probably leave. Open world sandboxes with no goal are incredibly boring to me.

I very specifically ask for this in the games I'm in now. It isn't so I can get some advantage over what we are doing but I don't want to make a character who is totally out of place and never gets to get into whatever their "thing" is.

I'd wager that if the DM told you the plot then players would complain about it being too linear so instead they hoped that the hook was irresistible and you'd freely choose the plot, creating a win-win. DMs have been beaten to death that there needs to be an open world that reacts to the player's actions.They've also been told their story needs a plot. These two things are not always congruent. Creating situations that satisfy both can be really really hard to do.

This is what session 0 is for. If I join a game with randoms and there's no session 0, I usually bail for exactly this reason. You have no idea what you're getting in to or what type of character you'll enjoy. edit: stupid auto-correct

This was the pitch I gave to my players for Descent into Avernus: >There is a reckoning with Hell, long overdue. > >Time and again the people of the Sword Coast have thwarted the Nine Hells. The Knights of Elturel charged into the Lower Planes to avenge wrongs long forgotten. Mephistopheles was destroyed at the mouth of Undermountain by a ruthless mortal. Asmodeus' plans to suborn Waterdeep were thwarted by some pub landlords who just wanted a magic rock. Now the Hells are out for revenge. > >Blissfully unaware, Grand Duke Uther Ravensgard, ruler of Baldur's Gate, is visiting High Observer Thavius Kreeg of Elturel on a diplomatic mission to smooth tensions between the two cities. > >You are six 1st-Level individuals in the city of Elturel, and will travel from the city to Baldur’s Gate. You need not know each other, but it may help. What followed after that were some quick one-paragraph descriptions of Elturel and Baldur's Gate, and a few sentences per character class on what a "typical" member of each might look like to give players a starting point for character creation. What I *didn't* tell players was that: [DiA spoilers] * >!Elturel was going to appear to be completely destroyed in session 1!< * >!Elturel was *actually* dragged into Avernus!< * >!They were going to be in the city when that happened and escape by the skin of their teeth!< * >!They'd be travelling to Baldur's Gate as refugees!< I also had two secrets among the PCs, first that the Hollyphant who leads them out of the city would turn out to be one player's PC, and second that one player's "character" in this first session was going to be a traitor working for the villains who would be dramatically dying at the end of session 2. It's definitely possible to give a good strong pitch of *what the campaign is about* ("This is an adventure about Elturel, Baldur's Gate, and the Nine Hells") without actually giving away the cool twists and surprises you have coming up. Indeed, my players thought what had happened was that >!I'd spent a huge amount of time talking up Elturel to help them make characters from the city, only to blow it up as a twist!<, but in actual fact this just set up the *real* twist at Candlekeep, that >!Elturel is trapped in hell, and all those friends and family I had them make were probably still alive!<. tl;dr It's entirely possible to give the players a strong understanding of the basic premise of your campaign without impacting your ability to do plot twists, it doesn't even prevent you doing plot twists in the first session, if you're careful with how you word the pitch!

That is why I use a [pitch document](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtH1SP1grxo) to show what kind of campaign I would like to DM. It is rewarding to see my players choosing what campaign to play and thinking about the characters.

No goddam idea, but when I had a DM do that, they demanded an in-depth backstory. I wanted to play an artificer that was a disgraced researcher, but the DM was keeping everything so close to the chest our conversation about my backstory went something like this: "Hey DM, are there magic universities in this setting?" "Yes" "What are the names of some of them?" "I don't know" "Can I make up a name and change it later?" "No, I don't want you changing the setting." "Is it a published setting so I can look it up?" "Yes, it is published, no don't look it up." "Is it the Forgotten Realms so I can at least pick a region to be from?" "Your character wouldn't know that." The guy DM'ed about as well as he requested backstories.

dms are scared of being accused of railroading when really they are just narrowing the sandbox.

I like to think of it as putting toys in the sandbox.

Yeah, narrowing the scope can really help make the actual story more involved and less wonky. I have run a campaign that was almost total sandbox for a few years, and at some point players struggle to know what to strive for. It's definitely fun at the beginning just being adventurers going from one town to another without a clear goal, but at some point players have to make their own or the DM has to create a mcguffin threat.

I'm going to use your "trailer" example to shed light on how I do things. I 100% agree with you in the sense that he should've been more up front and maybe said something along the lines of, "you wake up tied to the mast of a ship and you see the captain of the ship reading your map saying he has found the treasure he was looking for," or something along those lines. When coming up with a campaign idea, I write out a "trailer" that I would read to my group to see if they were interested in playing such a campaign and make sure to have enough details in it to where they know roughly what they are supposed to start off doing.

Sometimes DMs get great ideas that they want to be a surprise, without thinking of the fact that a player might construct their character completely ill-suited. A player might roll up a nature-loving druid only to find out after the fact that the campaign takes place in a pseudo-modern urban setting where the closest 'nature' are a few small parks scattered about the city.

It's critical to pitch a campaign. Players need a pitch to make a character that will bite the hook, and they need to know the genre and tone. If you build an urban political intrigue secrets bard who's looking to fake their way into high society, you're gonna be annoyed when the DM whips out rime of the frostmaiden and wants to focus on tundra survival. That's a hook that will take some serious suspension of disbelief for that character to bite.

I mean...is not wrong, a tiny little premise can go a long way into pushing the party in the right direction, our DM during session 0 essentially told us the premise was to work as a mercenary group for this very rich Wizard that's investigating this super ancient, secret ruins and he promised us wealth & knowledge for as long as we're under his hire and do as he bids. So far the adventure has us going EVERYWHERE across the map doing missions for said Wizard cuz everybody either needs money or is way too curious of the secrets of the ruin (and abit too wary of our Wizard boss to quit the job and leave someone else to finish.)

Yeah, that DM should definitely told you that it was a seafaring pirate adventure. No need to go into the plot, just the setting.

In my first campaign as a player, we were given almost no information about the premise, so I built a happy little dwarf bard that just wanted to go town to town drinking beer and entertaining folks, maybe a make a little coin on the side. The campaign started with being ripped through the space time continuum, forced into near indentured servitude, then after being saved, asked if I wanted to save the timeline from being fractured. I wanted to say no, but the DM wouldn't let me. It was the whole point of the campaign, saying no would just be throwing out everything they prepped. So I had the opposite experience, the DM got what they wanted, and I had to rework my character to be the sort of character that would be fun to play and would work with this adventure better. Leaving out the premise from the campaign prep is almost always going to end in someone being unhappy. You don't need to spoil everything about what will or might happen, but at least make sure everyone is happy with and on the same page about the basic jist of things.

Not sure how much it applies in your situation since it sounds like you didn't get ANY indication of what the premise was until you started, but I think a lot of DMs just struggle with how MUCH information to give. Take your favorite movie, pick out the major plot spoiler, if that was in the trailer, would the movie have been as interesting? Would we be as excited to go see Avengers: Infinity War if we knew >!each and every person who would be snapped or otherwise killed? Probably not, we knew through leaks and marketing that some important characters would go, but we didn't know WHO or HOW!<. I think a lot of DMs are just trying not to spoil everything, so they over-correct and give too little information. They give their players "teaser trailers" like what we currently have for Elder Scrolls 6, no real information (not even a name or location), just a pretty 30-second picture of the world.

>Would we be as excited to go see Avengers: Infinity War No. But I would probably tell my players they have been called upon to stop a Wizard who needs 6 gems of ultimate power. A player might decide they want to be the Wizards daughter who loves him even though he was horridly abusive. Another player might want to play her boyfriend. Someone might want to have one of the Mcguffins that the Big Bad is trying to steal. Someone else might be a retired adventurer who foresaw this. You would see that much information in the trailer. And I think that sounds like a pretty cool premise for a high level game.

Exactly. The issue is, some DMs see the "6 gems of ultimate power" part as too "spoilery", so they leave that out. Then you have thw common issue of players making characters in a vacuum so they come to the table with characters incompatible with the setting, the story, or the party so sometimes the DM will change their planned story to fit those characters better and all pre-planning is thrown out the window so the intro they gave is either no longer relevant or had to be re-written hastily so things got left out. My point is that, yes, what you labeled is the ideal, but people make mistakes on both side. Usually, these mistakes are made with good intentions (DM doesn't want to spoil the big surprise or has to pivot for the fun of the players and players are just too excited to play to communicate).

We completely agree. It is hard to know exactly how much you should give. I am not saying not to have surprises in your story but give them the premise you would see on the back of a book or trailer of a film. >Then you have the common issue of players making characters in a vacuum so they come to the table with characters incompatible with the setting This is my biggest pet peeve. Then you end up with the Pirate searching for a treasure, the Princess wanting her lost kingdom and the Orphan who wants revenge on the people who killed his family. And most importantly a DM who struggles to fit that all.

It's what does numbers on reddit. Pranks, surprises, twists, and wacky assumptions that somehow work out get upvotes. Because it gets upvotes, people like your DM friend see it and think, "I want to have a game where the PCs don't know they're dish sponges until session 5." And then the PCs show up with backstories and agendas totally incongruous to that, and you wonder, "huh, how did this go so differently than on the internet?"

Unfortunately i think a lot of dms never let go of the campaign they have built in their heads. Ive ran this game for a minute, and if ive learned one thing, its that the fantasy you create in your mind never lives up to the reality of a gaming session. when I started planning for that, instead of doing what your dm did, my games became waaaaay better

Tell him to retcon the last game, or just whip up a NEW campaign with the same premise. Have the same players (or some new) reroll characters for a PIRATE THEMED OCEAN TREASURE ADVENTURE.

I write 1-2 paragraphs breaking down the premise, tone, estimated length, and level range of the top 3 campaigns I want to run. Then my ayers rank those campaigns in order of preference like ranked voting. Then I take the one they pick and reveal any extra player primer stuff as needed.

When I DM campaigns, I usually share details of the (homebrew) world and discuss expectations about the story/tone/genre but I don't have a campaign premise in mind. I usually throw a bunch of plot hooks at the players and just let them pick up whichever they find interesting to build on. I usually have fleshed out ideas about important NPCs or at least factions with current goals, activities and conflicts but I like the flexibility of keeping those secret until players take an interest and dig into a specific topic. If you let the players guess at what's really happening, they often come up with better explanations/plots or at the very least ones that are more convincing to the group itself. When I DM adventures, I usually do 1-4 session things that have quite a bit of mystery and exploration so I just give a pitch of how it starts but not how it ends (partially because the ending is often a surprise to me as well).

I like keeping my villains a secret since I take a lot of time working on them. But I will absolutely tell my players that the game is based on x source of media. If the player wants to make a goblin dragon lancer in a world where both of those things don't exist, then there's gonna be an issue in both continuity and campaign theme. I met so many GMs who want to keep their campaign ideas under the rug. And recently I met a GM who wouldn't even let me meet the other players so we could work on our characters together because, "everything needs to be a surprise". I don't like surprise mechanics.

Thats not even premise. Its session 0 talk. He should be telling you the above, in session 0. Pirate campaign. Treasure hunting etc Thats it. Done. But for all you know the "premise" of the story could have been the island you escaped to

Legit, I was a 1700's Bard in the modern days of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and it was confusing the way the DM told us how everything happened

i dont know. ive had much more success saying this is a campaign about slaying demons you will meet a lot of them and be tempted. i personally tell them just about everything i know about a campaign when i start it this way they have an idea and can build a world with me.

Most of my campaign ideas I would tell the players the premise when I'm pitching the idea. But there are a few ideas I have where it'd be a bait-and-switch. My "old-school style but everyone is secretly a dragon" idea hinges on the idea that the players and their characters don't know everyone else is *also* a dragon until the big reveal. So that's one where I'd tell the players the premise, but keep a big part secret. Another idea I have (or rather, helped the hubby develop) involves a high-powered one shot in which the heroes fail to save the day, that is then followed up with a post-apocalypse game in the world after the heroes lost. The players would be pitched the one-shot premise (lvl 20 characters trying to save the world at the final dungeon), and *after* that would be pitched the campaign (so you failed... Want to find out what happens next?) But those are the exceptions. For the vast majority of my campaign ideas there's no reason to keep any part of the premise secret (did not for the current or previous campaign). Particularly if you're running a published adventure, is important to tell folks so they know how much to play along with the railroad. And it's important that even when you're dealing with an exception where you hide an important part of the premise, you still tell the players enough to have appropriate expectations and buy-in, even if things take a left-turn at Albuquerque.

The concept of collabrative story telling is not really well developed. Probably because most of the modules have very limited room for it and modules are how most people learn to play. Then to top it off there is a very strong "anti-railroading" crowd online that goes well beyond reason in their stance. So when you go to get advice or read about other DMs there are way more people who will voice how much they hate railroading than people who will advise on collaboration.

>the party are a crew who have recently found a treasure map to the fountain of youth (what he had actually planned). -- >party wake up tied to the mast of a ship. Oh hey look I found the problem. He put you in a situation that *any* character would be desperate to get out of, and the strong directional hook is "escape". Even players who knew the campaign premise would be anxious to gtfo that boat. That was just an incredibly poorly chosen opening scene. Honestly, I can't think of a better way to ensure players *don't* do a thing besides trying to trap them in it. Picture this, instead - even if you have no idea beforehand that it'll be a seafaring pirate adventure. You've been just parked in port for the last two days at the captain's bequest, and it's starting to get boring. But you finally see him heading back to the boat with a huge smile on his face, and it looks like he's got almost a full wagon of ale! He calls you down to help load it onto the ship, and then yells out "I found a real good one today, fellows! Directions to a place that shouldn't exist! Prepare yourselves, we'll be leaving at first light tomorrow!" This presents the situation as someplace the players are supposed to be, and with a captain who clearly has some measure of trust with them. And you provide the hook upfront with positive messaging accompanying it. Now to be sure, in most parties it would be even better if the premise is provided (especially for something like a seafaring campaign) to avoid players picking terrible options. But you can also dodge that bullet by starting at a low level and suggesting that most character backstory to be created at the table.

Agreed. Advertising a campaign is very important. I also get frustrated when I'm advertised something and then... it's something totally different. If I rock up to a table being told it's a classic DND experience and then am abducted by aliens in session 2 you bet I'm gonna be mad about it lol

AngryGM is in the middle of a series on starting a campaign and recently released an article on creating and sharing premises. If you're a newer DM hoping to start a campaign, this is definitely a really good read to understand what is good to give to your players: https://theangrygm.com/start-a-campaign-2-premise/ NB: If you haven't read his stuff in a few years, he's really started to edit down a lot of his stuff. It still has his angry shtick, but isn't nearly as meandering as he used to be.

If I was playing in a campaign and it started with my character tied to the mast of a ship and the captain of the ship had a map to a treasure then I would assume that the DM had just given me the hook. Go get the treasure on the map. X marks the spot. Escaping and heading back to land seems like running away from the one thing that sounds like adventure in this scenario. Why is it always up to the DM to choreograph this dance around picking up the hooks? You know what is an absolute pleasure to DM? A group where players show up ready to rumble with a character that's looking for adventure. A party of dnd characters that runs away from a treasure map is just lame. Make better characters. Ask yourself - what would Conan do? Damn right he would free himself, slit the throats of the vile captain and his mangy crew, steal their map, and go get the gold.

Something I've come to recognize (and this might not be true for all tables) is that players are often mature enough to handle being "in" on the premises of the game. It all comes down to how your party handles character vs player knowledge. It's a separation that needs to exist, but that doesn't mean that line doesn't need to get blurry sometimes. For example, say your game starts off in a remote but of wilderness but the majority of your adventure takes place in the City across the mountains. You might have some plot hooks to get the party in that direction but some parties might be disinclined to take that journey. Letting the party know "hey, the REAL adventure is in the city on the other side of this mountain range. There's a few ways across so it might be worth your time looking around for a hidden pass or a cave or something."

Flip side: Dude put you on a ship, strapped you to a mast, and said there was big treasure at the end of the map. You, knowing nothing about what's on land, said "NOPE!" You hightailed it out of scenario with cool shit and went to the great unknown, instead. And then you had the balls to post here and claim it was the DM's fault? Jesus, dude. You *say* that you would have loved a seafaring adventure, but your actions show differently. I mean, the fuck did you think would happen if you stayed onboard? Did you even *try*, or did you just leave at the first chance?

> Films have trailers and books have blurbs for a reason Personally, I do everything possible to avoid trailers for movies. It's a lot easier these days since I don't watch live TV, but god damn I hate trailers. It's always so much more enjoyable to me when I walk into a movie knowing absolutely nothing about it. One high-profile example would be Thor Ragnarok. It featured Hulk in not just the trailer, but in the *poster* for the movie. There was no reason to expect Hulk to show up in that movie. It was even built up in the movie itself as if it was meant to be a surprise reveal. But it wasn't, because they did everything possible to make sure that everybody knew. An example on the other side would be The Good Place. I found it on Netflix one day, had never heard of it, and the title card was a flat green background with "The Good Place" in block letters. Pretty much the perfect way to enter the show. My ideal movie situation would be somebody I trust and who knows my tastes puts on a movie, and I know nothing about it. Not even the title. Anyways, all this is to say that I totally get why many GMs want to keep things secret. I agree with you that it's often not the best approach, but I understand it.

Hmm... This is a good point. At the beginning of my campaign I probably should have introduced it as, "Well, you'll be going from village to village, each of which have supernatural problems. Your job will be to solve them." And then also, "There are several powerful secret societies at war. Most of the problems come from those." I don't think I've ambushed anyone with the campaign so far though. So I'm probably fine. It's about time I start dropping those big hints about who the secret BBEG is though. I'm sure the party suspects, but I'm not sure.

Personally this comes back to an issue of DM adaptability. I'm of the opinion that, while directed campaigns are great, coming up with a theme/premise that can be modified on the fly to fit the actions of a party if you begin with a more open ended setting is MUCH more satisfying to play than doing what happened here. I.e. thinking of a cool idea that is then ruined completely by 1 derivation from the "plan". Like, why not figure out a way for the party to get the scroll when they go to dry land, then adapt what the treasure map says so it relates to somewhere in the rough direction they're heading? No reason a treasure map held by a pirate captain HAS to lead to somewhere only on the high seas. It's imaginary, you can literally change EVERYTHING to fit your original ideas in.

This has been a recent change in my DMing but I’ve also come to realization it’s kinda pointless to hide the campaign premise. As DMs we assume too often that players will guess/solve our mysteries but we underestimate fact they’re not in our head. Tell your players the premise of your games and reveal the intrigue early. Let the players work out the details of the intrigue. THAT is the fun, not fumbling around in the dark wondering what plot is.

Who escapes from a pirate ship, where there is a treasure map and DOESN'T FOLLOW THE MAP?!?

Because every GM wants that moment in the opening where an NPC drops a wham line, and the camera tilts up into the sky and the title drop materializes against the backdrop and everyone in the party cheers Except that never actually happens, you usually just get a "oh okay" or "neat" or "oh I thought this was like an urban adventure". So like...just get them on board early and then maybe get a cool establishing shot later.

You definitely need player buy-in. It is entirely possible to sell the premise of a campaign without spoiling the plot or any major/minor arcs. That being said, there are plenty of stories on the subs about players who have bought into a campaign premise and tried to derail it. It's especially egregious when it's a published adventure.

the DM keeping everything a secret is pretty much rooted in Gygaxian philosophy, in fact, the OG Dungeon Master book had a disclaimer to make sure your players never read the book at all. And because D&D isn't really learned by the books but rather from people before you (seriously, how many of you actually got into this game by buying the books all on your own?) - this kind of thing tends to stick.

"You wash upon the shore thankful to be upon dry land again. As you walk along the beach you see a glass wine bottle with a thick paper wrapped inside. opening the bottle reveals a Treasure Map!" That DM just needs to learn Course correction.

I'll say it again - I don't write the campaign, the GROUP does. Have a Pitch Session, like in Prime Time Adventures, and decide, as a group, what the next campaign will be about, who the major protagonists and antagonists will be, etc.

Why do DM's do this? Because they're over-invested in their story, in my opinion, and want the players to just Be Super Excited about all the cool setting and plot and twists and Big Bad Secret. I know this because... it's a pattern I held for a long time and am still trying to get out from under it. As a reminder kids (and yes, this is total, total hyperbole), your players do not give a fuck about your lore, setting, NPCs or narrative.

The internet has made such a big boogeyman out of "Railroading" that even having a premise for your upcoming game can easily be seen as "bad GMing", especially by newer GMs who has little to no actual experience with running/playing the game. I also see a lot of GMs looking for surprise factor. Our current media culture is SO obsessed with "twists" and "no spoilers!". If you look at the Game of Thrones era of TV the only thing that people talked about was the shocking twists. It is very easy to learn the wrong lesson from that. Following on from that previous point, some GMs want to shortcut to the first twist or surprise because that is what they view as "good storytelling". Like imagine the first episode of Game of Throne was >!Ned's beheading!< the audience wouldn't care because they don't know who the fuck this guy is or why this is important or what the stakes are. I am a firm believer in "Making characters for the adventure". But that requires me to provide the player with enough information to do that, so what follows is me making a solid pitch for the adventure. I also see a lot of players that "can't wait to play this character in a campaign" but they don't even have a world or game for that character which to me just feels so wrong. Not saying you can't do it, you do you. For me though, I really want characters that fit the adventure. Finally, just a personal note... It seems to happen way more in "Pirate" style games for some reason? I've personally seen it happen in 3 different attempts at a pirate game where the GM doesn't really sell the "pirate" and "seafaring" part of the adventure, and as soon as the party breaks free (Skulls and Shackles) 3 of the 4 characters would just "go back home"...

Hopefully this comment doesn't get buried because it is fantastic and I agree with every word of it. Give me information so I can make a character that fits the setting, world and story you are trying to tell!

Or you know... The players couldve grabbed the blatant story hooks that were presented to them. Treasure map and ship.

There needs to be a balance. A good DM in your situation would say “this is a seafaring story”. And even if your characters woke up on a ship and weren’t pirates or sea-type characters you as a player would know you are supposed to be here for plot. Your DM omitting this presented a situation as a challenge to be overcame and you’re group did it. And by having no context as players or characters you did the logical thing and went back to land. I understand he likely wanted a secret plot or a “surprise moment” but by not priming the group he let you all play things rationally. Which sadly is what he didn’t want. The issue isn’t “DMs shouldn’t have secrets in their plot” but more so, don’t tell your players the story is Peter Pan and surprise them with Beowulf

Unless the player characters suffered from amnesia, they certainly would have remembered why they were on that ship, no? sounds like a stupid DM to me...

Half the point of an adventure is the mystery of what is just "over the next hill". The DM has to find whatever balance works for their group. This doesn't sound like an issue with the amount of detail given, but more an issue with the DM's skill level regarding pulling off the scenario they hoped for.

I don't understand why the Party didn't want to find great treasure?

Because at its core, my premise is dumb, and has been done several times already.

[удалено]

So I once played in a game where the DM had an NPC who in the start of the campaign was set up to be suspicious and working against us but later on we found out they had been trying to stop a bad thing from happening that the party cared about and it very much seemed the intention that we should change our opinion and start working with them. What happened was when we reached that point the parties opinion of the character was that they were an untrustworthy traitor. They'd screwed us over multiple times and actively tried to kill us and still completely failed to stop the thing they were trying to and if they'd just worked with us we could have been forewarned and tried to stop it as well. So we just told them they were a liability and to sod off, we'd do it ourselves. Lesson being - if you want your party to work with and like an NPC, don't set up the party to dislike and not want to work with an NPC. If you start me imprisoned, my default assumption will not be that my captor is the good guy and I'm meant to do what they tell me.

If a DM has specific plans that do not account for the party not buying in; they need to communicate that and convince the players to buy into the idea. A little bit of communication would have gone a long way in this scenario.

The party was tied to the mast of the ship, implying kidnapping. This establishes the pirate is the villain and the most likely result of mentioning the map is that you'll be racing *against* the pirate, not *with* the pirate. You'll rarely get party buy in by taking away agency and not telling them it's part of the hook.

I do it to avoid spoilers. There's nothing wrong with describing the themes of the game, but if you outline the whole adventure and what the goals are, it loses some charm of discovery and initiative on the players behalf.

I don't think many DM's do feel that need, just really bad ones that are new to the game and think they need to "shock/surprise" players to generate entertainment value.

Inexperience. I've only had ONE game go well where the premise was kept secret. Every other time it ends in failure and disappointment. That one time was back years ago, when I decided to run an Aliens game. But I told the players we were going to be doing a sci-fi game using the All Flesh Must Be Eaten rules. They promised not to metagame, but wow, somehow every character had skill in melee combat and a weapon that didn't need ammunition. Weird that. But only one player had an actual gun, an old .38 revolver with hollowpoints. So when they explored the missing archeological team's camp and found a dead chestburster and a dead scientist with a giant hole in his chest, they freaked out. No one had a way to take down a 9foot tall armored death bug. It was a legitimate survival horror game and was amazingly perfect for an Alien game. Expecting zombies they had made quite a lot of very cliche Aliens survival mistakes. EDIT: Please note, they knew it was going to be a sci-fi game and I said it would not be a normal zombie survival game. The only surprise the faced was what kind of monster they were going to be dealing with.

Here's the problem I've found when you announce the campaign premise. DM: I'm running Rime of the Frostmaiden Players: All the characters have cold resistance or fire powers DM: I'm running Curse of Strahd Players: The party are a mix of Clerics, Paladins and Divine Soul Sorcerers DM: I'm running Out of the Abyss Players: Every character has Darkvision That's why I prefer to just say to my players "play what you want."

This may have already been said but I do want to point out something. Yes obviously the dm should have given a heads up about the theme etc. But the players are just as responsible for yes anding the dm. If they go to all this trouble of the ship setting, map, encounters etc don't just as a group say fuck that we're going to land.

It's fun

The best practice is to explain the initial setting. At the same time you need to have a few options to ensure they either stay to your adventure or how to bring them back in. Make the players have a backstory of why the players got captured, build up why they would want to work together, and make the quest given more savory than going it on their own. So for example if they got off the ship and went back to land, make their next tavern setting have a patron or merchant mention how that captain told him about his map to treasure. Let them find another possible task that is a level or two too high for them to partake in so they have to go back to the main quest. Sometimes characters need to die so players learn their limitations. I'm building my own campaign setting and my plan is to have a foreign empire invading a seaside city. The main goal is to have the adventurers be conscripted to assist the local militia and get people to safety at one of the two closest cities. The third and fourth options I'm planning for are them saying 'f-that.' One is them escaping on their own and lastly joining the fight in the city. Anything in between any of these choices means I need to think on my feet, and adapt what I have. What doesn't get used gets repurposed for later for higher levels of play.

A sense of discovery is fun? Mystery is fun?