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View Full Version : [DMing]Phew, just filled in another Plot Hole



Totally Guy
2009-01-22, 05:13 PM
Alternatively - How I end up planning sessions

Do you ever find yourself spotting more and more plot holes as the adventure progresses in ways you never thought imaginable... I'm filling in one now and there's always consequences. I end up changing the villain's next move which changes the next storyline. I end up planting exposition all over the place to move the session smoothly. I get quite lucky actually, filling the plot holes and processing the consequences has repeatedly made it easier to communicate to my players what the threats are now and what is at stake.

A lot of these challenges stem from my habit of keeping to a beginning, middle, end (climax/anti-climax *alternating sessions:smalltongue:*) structure.

Does anybody else find that every week isn't so much planning a session but filling a dumb gap up and inadvertantly creating a session from that. Then the unexpected happens and by the start of the next week you're looking at a gaping hole again.

Tell me about all the most important considerations you pay special attention to when planning a session.

Prometheus
2009-01-22, 07:10 PM
Actually, its usually the opposite for me. My players just don't get it, and I have to find more and more obvious hints to drop or just rework the storyline so that part isn't important.

TrogdorX
2009-01-23, 04:55 AM
I always loved when I had a Plot Hole show up when I DM'd sessions and was able to fill it. Ironically enough most PH's that I ran into came from random encounters or completely winged sessions when my players got off task of what I'd tried to plan. But for me that was half the fun of being the DM, essentially you are a writer who has plotted out a sequence of events that you'd like to see your players fulfill, when suddenly the players throw YOU a plot twist by doing something unplanned, which ultimately leads to an even more enriched world and environment. I joke around with my friends about it now that it often felt like I was improvising the campaign as we went along, as due to the rather diverse party personalities we had things never seemed to follow the plotted story I wanted, but I was fine with that as it keeps the DM on his toes.

As for the things that I tried to organize before each session, I usually wanted to accomplish several things:

1- Plot advancement. Find something that continues to draw the PC's into the web of the world you are spinning and help them define what causes they wish to serve.
2- Challenge the PC's. Now this could be meant as throwing them to the wolves so to speak in dungeon crawls to give them a chance to work as a party on how to defeat the foe(s), giving them some sort of puzzle/riddle challenge, having them actually RP encounters in town that force them to get inside their characters heads more, or any combination of the above. If your sessions don't keep them interested from session to session, you need to look at your DMing style and take input from your PC's on what they want to see more of and adapt.
3- Have fun. If for whatever reason #1 and 2 aren't happening, find a way to make the session enjoyable. I've never been involved in a DM/PC dynamic where joking around back and forth doesn't happen, it is part of the social dynamic between friends or gives you a chance to make new friends who have similar interests. Keeping the atmosphere serious and yet light at the same time can be a delicate balancing act, as for me I never wanted to have a session end where someone didn't feel involved or the group walked away with a total downer.

To me, #3 is one of the main reasons I love to RP, and if you succeed at it, the other 2 fall into place. Being a DM means you get to help weave a wonderful story with the actions of the PC's helping you refine it as you go. I actually had one of my buddies suggest that we write the story of their adventures that they'd done and post them online to share so we could all look back at them and relive the fun. Back then we didn't have the means to do so easily, nowadays there are plenty of ways to do that thankfully. Makes me want to find my old notes and compile them to share.

Narmoth
2009-01-23, 05:08 AM
The hardest plot-hole I've had to fill was when I suddenly realized I would be needing one more noble house in the drow city they were playing in.
After I made a detailed map with all the palaces and such, and handed it ower to the players