Thread by @MerricB

I delight in running all levels of Dungeons & Dragons. There are always interesting challenges you can throw at the party, and they can always surprise you with their solutions.

I find nothing better than setting a challenge without knowing how to overcome it, and watch the players invent something in front of my eyes.

As the DM, you are the interpreter of the adventure environment. You should have a good idea where the key elements are, and then be able to extrapolate where additional elements are.

One of the pieces of advice I detest is this: "Move a clue to where the players can find it." Not how I see it.

Instead, if the players do a good job of investigating in a place where they could reasonably expect to find a clue, *and you forgot to put one there*, then extrapolate from the scenario's parameters and determine what they discover.

Any scenario - whether one you design or prewritten by another - covers the most likely topics in the eyes of the designer. But the glory of TTRPGs is that the referee can add additional details. It's best when they aren't arbitrary, but follow logically.

In one session, the players cast speak with animals. Suddenly, they were interrogating the dogs who had attacked the criminals. Not something I'd thought of when I did the design, but I knew the criminals used mind magic to eliminate memories.

But the scenario also had dogs disappearing from a neighbourhood. So the dogs *could* tell them about that. (I described the howling of the dogs at night as the "dog telegraph", and how the voices of the dogs had gone silent in that neighbourhood).

That's the extrapolation from the parameters of the scenario that I mentioned. I don't want to say "You didn't do exactly what I laid out, so you fail," but instead to reward intelligent and innovative play.

It took me time to learn these techniques. I ran a lot of sessions where if the players didn't do exactly what was laid out in the adventure, they failed. But I've gotten better at improvising from material.

Tonight's session saw the party (of 17th and 18th level characters) reach the Forgotten City, the lost capital of the Suel Empire, in the Sea of Dust. I described how there were three notable buildings - all else utterly ruined - and how smoke issued from one.

The party were there seeking the seventh segment of the Rod of Seven Parts. As far as they knew, no-one lived here in the dessicated wasteland.

At this point, I didn't know what they would do. They sent the barbarian in to scout. (Amusing fact: he's the only one with good Stealth, but also the worst Perception). He discovered a band of 20 warriors serving the evil demigod Iuz in the building from which smoke issued.

Now, what would you do? Bypass the warriors? Attack them? Try to trick them?

This is Dungeons & Dragons. You could try any of those things, or even more besides.

My party was fairly obvious about it. They attacked. The foes were CR 5 gladiators, and the fight took 90 minutes or so to resolve, I think.

This was one of those fights where the players weren't constrained. No immunities or resistances. The party were at full power.

Lots of spells were cast. 112 hit points for each gladiator was a lot, though. The cleric took full advantage of his wings of flight to keep out of harm's way and harass the foes. At one point, he used reverse gravity to keep six of them out of the fight.

The wizard and cleric used a lot of area effect spells. This was one of the combats where they could shine. The fighter and barbarian were less effective, but still key as they tied up the foes and allowed the spellcasters to mostly stay free.

By the end of the combat, the players were able to capture a Warrior of Iuz that had been taken out of the fight by Reverse Gravity and interrogate him. They learned that the warriors had accompanied a powerful servant of Iuz: Zig.

I then revealed to the players that it was the same Zig who had hired the characters at the very beginning of the campaign to recover some scrolls from Castle Greyhawk.

The players betrayed him, which led to him manoeuvring the city council to have them exiled.

That all led to the sequence of events that shaped the campaign. I had intended to run a Castle Greyhawk campaign. Instead, it became a campaign in Furyondy and Veluna, with Iuz annoyed at them and other threats coming into play.

The end of the campaign is tying back to the beginning. I expect Zig will find the seventh part of the Rod, and so they'll have to defeat him. (And he'll reveal everything that he did to discredit them.)

Now the party have defeated the Warriors, and learnt that Zig is exploring the catacombs below. What would you do next?

My group has chosen to go to a place of safety and rest, since they expended most of their high level spells fighting the warriors.

Of course, this then gives Zig more time to find the Rod!

Freedom of actions and consequences. Consider if the party had gone immediately into the catacombs, or if they'd bypassed the warriors first.

If they'd bypassed the warriors, does that mean that Zig might leave the catacombs and used the warriors to trap the party?

Incidentally, I didn't do the calculation on "20 CR 5 monsters". I just guessed that it might be challenging. Could have been, might not have been. If they ended up to be too tough, then the party had options to retreat and/or sneak. Too easy, then onwards!

You don't always need to know the party's strength relative to monsters. If the party has more options than just "get into a fight" - and options to retreat if they fight and then realise it's too hard - you're all good.