Following Matt Mercer: How to be a Better Dungeon Master - You’re Under Arrest! (How to make consequences fun)
Following Matt Mercer: How to be a Better Dungeon MasterYou’re Under Arrest! (How to make consequences fun)
Not going to lie. When I first pitched this series of articles to Rob, this was easily the article I was most afraid of writing. It was also the most necessary one, though, so buckle up. Last week I talked about chaotic neutral characters. I mentioned a few ways you can deal with them. There’s one option I didn’t talk about, though. Punishing them.
It can feel really good when you’re the Dungeon Master. The players have been making fun of your world all night, ripping apart your carefully constructed plot and acting like there’s no consequences. Well, you’ll show them! HERE’S THE TOWN GUARD! GUESS WHAT?! THEY’RE ALL CR 24! DIEDIEDIEDIE – you get the idea. Dungeons and Dragons is a game for you too, after all. Don’t you get to have fun?
Yes. But not like that. See, here’s the thing. If you punish the players, you’re changing the dynamic pretty majorly. It’s not you telling a story and the players listening. It’s not you facilitating the players so they can do cool things. It’s you beating on the players and them desperately trying to survive. It’s a rare group that enjoys that. Now I’m not saying that players should never face consequences for their actions. They absolutely should. If you fireball the town’s headman, for instance, then the town militia absolutely SHOULD hunt you down and kill you. The world doesn’t feel real otherwise, and it gives the players’ choices weight. But Dungeons and Dragons isn’t just a pure simulation; we’re telling stories, here, people. That town militia? They’re chasing you through the streets! Run away! Find cool ways to escape them! Moon them from a distance to emphasise your natural awesomeness!
And that’s the trick. When you are a Dungeon Master, you’re not punishing your players; you’re giving them cool things to do to escape the consequences of their actions. You’re THREATENING them with punishment. They’ve just escaped the town militia, but one militia man is standing on the walls, screaming in rage and misery. Later on, he shows up again, vengeful and armed now with magic after selling his soul to a hexblade in exchange for power. They kill him? His ghost returns from the underworld, even more angry, bent on receiving the justice he is owed.
Even when you have to close off options (and you will), offer alternatives. They just fireballed the village headman, and the whole village want them dead. They’re never going to get that job to hunt down the goblin horde now. But! They might get the quest to drive the goblin horde out of the forest from the local bandit camp! They have gold too, after all.
At the end of the day, this whole thing comes down to remembering your group wants to have fun. So let them. You’ll enjoy it more anyway.
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