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I've had a couple requests for this and because I foresaw it as an opportunity to troll and attack me, my game and/or players, I hesitated. After a few more requests though, I've relented.

I think it's important for me to point out that this thread is not just an exercise in my talking about my campaign and the events of it as that would not fulfill an instructional purpose. Since this is being posted in a DM advice forum, I'll be using my own approach and campaign as a tool to explain my approach to the game in the hopes it might help others. With that in mind, no one needs to think they'll be "interrupting" me by asking questions or pointing stuff out or anything. I might also skip over parts of the game that just reiterate things I've already explained or framed. For stuff that has a long explaination, I plan on putting it in spoilers so that people that want more context have access to it. Some of this will be copy-paste from my notes so it might be in a non-standard format. I'll clarify those notes when possible. I'll also provide links to tools I use, when possible, so that their creators get proper credit and so those reading have access to what I'm talking about.

With that out of the way, let me first say that just about my biggest goal in my mechanical approach to DMing is to reduce arbitrary decisions coming from me whenever possible when it is game-time. I limit myself merely to placing pieces in the world and then I leave the rest up to the dice and the PCs. The only exception is the use of logic when appropriate. When something would be logical I make that decision...but only when it's reasonable. This is a subjective matter in many ways and I don't dispute that. "Logic" of a fantasy world is not easily determined but hopefully my own approach to this will become clear.

Alright, let's start.

My game world. I say 'my' though only in that I'm currently running it because the design of much of the world came as a joint effort between myself and two long-time friends. Our goal was to create a setting with many classic fantasy tropes but with as many explained as possible. For instance, magic in the world is explained...gods (and how they are formed) is explained...the afterlife is explained. Etc etc. The nice thing is that as we went along, the foundation we established helped us flesh out things that came later. It's a lot to go into. I can expand on any of them if someone wants but it's not necessary at the moment so I won't...if something comes up as relevant as I'm explaining, I'll "Spoiler tag" it and have it explained.

The world has a bare-bones history going back about 4000 years with major events at the 4000 year and 2000 year marks leading up to the current game year. Again, as the history comes up I'll explain it if it's relevant...otherwise, ask if you're interested. None of my players read the boards so I'm not really that worried about spoilers.

So the world is out of the way as far as explanation goes...next post I'll go over the players and initial set-up.

EDIT: I just wanted to add to this as I noticed a good opportunity...

I find it extremely helpful to ask & answer "Why" as much as possible about concepts in a game world. This is how the world I use was made. We started with questions about tropes in the game such as magic. Magic uses verbal components. Why? Magic uses somatic components? Why? Etc etc. We would ask WHY repeatedly until there was no more reason to ask why or until something we had fleshed out previously answered the "Why" itself...basically closing the questioning loop. Or until the "Why" was a fundamental force.

I will use magic as a quick example here...

Spoiler: Show


Enough explaining of that stuff. Suffice to say, the more you ask "Why" the easier "Why" can become to answer for a given question. This is PARAMOUNT to the ease with which a DM can navigate their own world. The world itself is infinitely complex and a fantasy world has to stand up to potentially infinite poking/prodding thanks to the ingenuity & inventiveness of players. The more you understand about your world the easier it is to extrapolate things about it. This creates consistency. As DM, you take on the role of a narrator and referee...consistency in BOTH roles is incredibly important. No one would trust an inconsistent referee and an inconsistent narrative edges closer and closer to nonsense or even contradiction.

As a DM, you are a the window through which your players experience the world. The ease with which you provide this viewpoint will help your players in understanding and navigating the fictional construct being constantly crafted around them. This might be the single most important aspect of presenting information to your players...it has to come from a position of authority. Not authority over your players, but rather authority over your own knowledge...authority over the information being presented. The more "Why" you have answered, the less you'll be unable to answer when you sit down at a table. After all, many of us have had that moment where we've asked a DM "how" or "why" and received a blank answer from the DM followed by a shrug and a slightly dismissive "I dunno. It just is". I try to avoid that at all costs because I've been on the receiving end and it feels like not only a dismissal of one's interest but a betrayal of the trust invested in the fictional world itself. It is like a book writing "And then this happened because..uh..just because. Moving on...". It sucks.

Nov 17, 2012 -- 3:30AM, Max1867 wrote:

What do you do when your players reach a 'Why?' that you hadn't thought of? Do you just improvise something? It seems that improvising would be a bit restricted by having a semi-comprehensive framework already in place, but if your players have never asked questions that you hadn't prepared for, then I can see how this system would be better than most others.

By having a thorough framework in place it makes it much easier for me to answer "Why". Think of it like knowing a lot of history of the world...if you were teaching a class and someone asked you why something specific happened in history, even if you didn't know exactly but had a good working knowledge of history you could probably extrapolate an answer. The benefit of D&D over a history class is that you can make that fact retroactively true. Mathematically it's like knowing that A=1, B=2 and A+B=C. So if someone were to ask "Why does C equal A+B?" you could say that it's because C=3. You don't ACTUALLY know that, but it is simple to infer because of the surrounding information you have.

Of course, this can't account for EVERYTHING a player might ask but it gives you as strong a foundation as possible. Even between games, long after the world has been created, I've been making sure to continually ask myself WHY about things I have presented to my players even if they've moved on from it. It goes a long way to making plot threads expand as well because it gives you the ability to actively craft history and personality and such. This is important because as you do it, it feeds back into itself, making you better at improvising when you need to. I improvise quite a bit because I do not pre-script stuff for my PCs...I have events going on and such, but once I place them in the world I don't know how they will play out. They go along and resolve (or don't) themselves (I have a die system for this).

Nov 17, 2012 -- 3:30PM, Zaramon wrote:

Interesting stuff. I do many similar things, but with a drastically different thought process motivating it.

Everyone has different motivations and a different thought process when it comes to how we achieve and strive towards improvement. What matters is the destination, as far as I'm concerned.

My airsoft teams motto is "Perfect tomorrow, improvement today" and it was crafted because of the play-to-win and community-improvement attitudes. The players that come onto the team surely want to do this for varied reasons, but the WHY is infinitely less important than the goal.

It is always great to see, however, that when people start with a goal of constant improvement the end result almost invariably looks the same from the outside.

Nov 20, 2012 -- 9:05AM, Yokel wrote:

How do you use alignment in your game? Do you think it is a benefit?

Alignment in my game is a representation of cosmic forces. Law/Chaos/Good/Evil all are cosmic forces that even the gods are beholden to. They aren't sentient or anything, mind you, they are just concepts like space & time. They're fundamental forces.

My players have alignments and they are welcome to act according to that alignment or to change that alignment by acting in ways that are consistent with a different alignment. Since it is their character it is their perogative to do so.

I will always gladly tell them when an action is "Lawful" or "Chaotic" or "Good" or "Evil" however because it is my job as DM to do so. Alignment is a rule system and a mechanical interaction and so it is my job as DM to adjudicate it and relate it to the players. I have no expectations upon the players though to act in one way or the other. That is beyond my control and beyond my investment.

An example I can give is that the players found themselve surrounded by orcs (after a few rolls and some teleportation magic). Now, this was a dozen orcs (one of whom had a single class level) and 4 level 3 characters in Pathfinder. The orcs would have been MINCEMEAT in a fight. Instead of fighting, the players parlayed and the Oruk (sorta like an orc) challenged and beheaded the orc troop leader. Then intimidated the other orcs into following him. Long story short, they ended up with the strongest orc and the smartest orc as survivors of a days worth of adventuring (dice can be a harsh mistress when you're an orc). These two orcs pal'd around with the group for several weeks of out-of-game time.

When they first recruited (more like pressganged) these orcs into their service the group Wizard was absent (he had to work). When he asked what happened and I told him he immediately said "I'm going to kill the two orcs as soon as I can". Now, his wizard is Chaotic Good...but is heavily racist against orcs. He despises them.

The end all be all of my reply to him was "Okay. So you know that's an evil act if you kill them in cold-blood since they haven't threatened any of you in any way and have actively tried to help you".

He was a bit confused by this (not having played under me as DM in about a decade) and said "But aren't they evil?"

"Yes they are Chaotic Evil beings. They don't radiate it though...it's just their disposition and alignment. They haven't performed any evil in your presence though, which is why the paladin has let them live since they're currently serving law and good by helping you guys"

"So...I shouldn't kill them?"

"Huh? No you can kill them if you want. It'd be easy"

"But it's evil?"

"Yeah. So?"

It was at that point during the conversation that it clicked for him and he said "Oh. I got it. Yeah [the wizard] hates orcs...but he won't lower himself to their level by murdering them. I think he's going to use it as an experiment to see if, like dogs, orcs can be domesticated" which was pretty funny, if I do say so.

Now, keep in mind, he could have just as easily decided "Oh. I got it. Yeah, evil be damned, orcs gotta die. He'll get his hands dirty to kill them" because it's HIS character.

Would it have been an evil act? Yup. But the player had the INFORMED CHOICE to make. By having that choice be informed he was able to make an intelligent, interesting decision regarding his character. He had to put thought into the situation. By using the alignment system, I was able to put that decision in simple, concrete terms that related to something mechanical in the game.

Nov 20, 2012 -- 9:29AM, Yokel wrote:

Cool! Would you make a thread just for alignment? Maybe it will help to explain alignments to the cmmunity.

Already did.

Also how do you use traps in your game? It is hard sometimes to use them.

I have traps in my game when and where they would be appropriate.

I always put clues to the nature of traps in my description of what players "see" in-game with the description reflecting the nature of the trap.

If it helps you, you can give me a specific example of a trap and I can tell you how I'd approach presenting it to the players.

I would also like to know if the point of your game is to have fun or something else. 

We get together because we find D&D to be fun...but the fun is derived from the mechanical point of the game. My players like to grow their characters through experiences, experience, wealth, influence, etc. We were previously playing Mutants & Masterminds, but my players get more enjoyment out of the HP management and resource balancing of D&D (three of them have never played D&D previously and M&M was their introduction to tabletop).