#3 : Behind the Screen
The Adventurer’s League
There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes when organizing a season of D&D Encounters at Twenty Sided Store. I constantly try different approaches. Each new season presents new challenges to overcome. I hope to spread ideas and inspiration for stores and Master DMs by sharing these experiences.
I want the Adventurers League experience on the store level to be social like a convention, where players get to meet new people and experience many different gaming styles, but still provide the intimacy and payoff of a home campaign. The more DMs and tables, the more difficult this becomes.
As Encounters grows at the store, I look for advice on how to manage large events. There are a lot of solutions available for how to run a home game, or running a large convention of 20+ tables. However, there are not many resources for running Encounters in a store with 3 – 7 tables.
In this article I will give you a little peak behind the Master Dungeon Master’s screen and show you Twenty Sided Team DM’s preparations for the Hoard of the Dragon Queen Season of D&D Encounters.
Managing Sessions
Actions have rewards and consequences. Players want to feel like their decisions matter. The goal of Team DM is to find opportunities for players decisions to affect the outcome of the story without having to completely rewrite the module. The goal is to keep the prep simple and cohesive. The party drives the story and the DMs steer it.
I try to plan every session with a clear beginning, middle, and end – prefacing each session by letting the players know the focus – Exploration, Social Interaction, or Combat. Sessions are time based; in game and at the table. Time passes and the world’s Framing Events are affected, whether or not players are influencing those events. This creates an overall story thread for the DMs to follow and gives a starting point for discussion when planning the next session.
At individual tables, the events may be the same, but how the players interact with these events will be drastically different depending on the decisions they make – how well they plan and prepare, how fast or slow they pace themselves in game, etc. The objective is to get players from point A to B in a specified amount of time. The module usually dictates what has to happen. Team DM prepares a bunch of options for each DM to use, like a tool kit, to navigate the session based on the DMs strengths and the party’s play style.
Selecting a Team of Dungeon Masters
When I select a DM, I look for someone I can trust to represent the store, who will be on time and ready to run their table each week, and who will be a contributing member of Team DM. I look for someone who is friendly and patient with new players, yet firm and educating with difficult players.
Running a game for organized play is about people management more than anything else. I don’t need to seek out someone who knows all the rules. The support of Team DM will provide a new DM with the tools they need and allow for skills to develop through experience. I try to take on one new DM each season if possible.
Twenty Sided Team DM
Running an ongoing campaign week to week is a lot of work. As a business, I can’t postpone a game because a DM didn’t have time to prepare or didn’t show up. I ask for a full season commitment from all DMs on Team DM. Here is an example of my requirements and compensation for their hard work.
Each DM is assigned a job. Each job focuses on a portion of the preparations, then the pooled resources get distributed to the rest of the Team. This creates a great support network and consistency amongst individual tables, which considerably cuts down on individual prep time. It also makes it much easier for another DM to help out and pick up the slack when a DM is absent.
Master Dungeon Master – This person needs to be a strong reliable leader for the team, uphold the store’s policies, and should be responsible for educating the store’s staff on how to promote D&D Encounters to their customers in between sessions.
I am Master Dungeon Master for Team DM. I manage the overall experience of D&D Encounters. I create the overall schedule (session breakdown) for the season. I work with every DM individually, and as a group. I handle all major disputes and advise Team DM on how to handle minor disputes.
I am back up on every job detail. I combine all the materials provided by each DM and distribute them to the group in the form of handouts for use as game aids at the table. I prepare DM binders with tools needed for the season, like wet erase markers and a spare dice set. These binders live in the store and get passed on to new DMs when a DM retires or takes a break for a season. I also create other tools like weekly sign up sheets for the store and player trackers for the DMs to reference.
Rules Master – This person should have a strong handle on the rules and should be the one all the DMs can look to for a final answer on any rules dispute.
Chris is Rules Master. He has DM-ed the most consecutive seasons of D&D Encounters at Twenty Sided Store. I just recently hired him as an employee of the store. I schedule him to work behind the counter on Wednesday nights. He sets up the tables and answers any questions players might have before the game. He also acts as a fill in DM incase someone is out for the week.
Beat Master - This person should have a really good handle on timing and pacing of encounters.
Ken is our Beat Master. He and I work very closely as we adjust the schedule week to week based on players actions and how they effect the campaign throughout the season. Here is an example of what the Hoard of the Dragon Queen Beat looked like for Episode 3 Session 5.
Master Scribe – This job goes to someone who really enjoys writing and can capture what has happened, as well as seeding what is about to happen in a creative way.
Leo is our Master Scribe. He is a great writer and can work on a deadline. Check out the Hoard of the Dragon Queen recaps.
Lore Masters – Lore Masters do the bulk of the prep work for each session. They comb through the module fact checking and expanding on the material provided, inspiring ideas and solutions to in-game situations. They coordinate regularly with each other and the Rules Master, Beat Master, and Master Scribe managing continuity and story threads. I am lucky to have four Lore Masters!
Tim acts as an asset to the Team providing input and assistance where needed.
Tom handles Monster Lore. He pulls descriptions and motivations of monsters that players could face each session. He comes up with combat tactics for DMs to use in an encounter. He lists any Magic Items or Treasure that can be found throughout each session. He also determines what random encounters are a good fit for the scenario. Check out the Monster Lore for Hoard of the Dragon Queen Episode 1.
Lisa handles the Location Lore. She brings people and places to life. She researches the history and gathers information. She creates NPCs, shops, menus, scripts that might not be provided in the module, and basically anything for DMs to flesh out their roleplaying of a scene. Check out the Notable NPCs of Greenest she came up with.
Richard handles Faction Lore, and all Adventure’s League Log questions. He keeps track of the who, what, where, and why, Faction Renown, and manages all XP distribution for each session.
Player Trackers are filled out by the players and kept in the store. Players are asked to fill in information about what happened at their table on these log sheets. Richard combs through these log sheets and reports back to Team DM any information that can be folded into future sessions.
Dear Master Dungeon Master,
How does a store deal with fluctuating player turnout (players that miss sessions or join in mid-season) and keep the engagement up?
Every gaming community is different and attracts a different player and DM base. It is important to learn about your community and do what is best to cultivate the environment the store is striving for.
People management is probably the most difficult aspect of Organized Play. I might not be able to make everyone happy every session, but I try to have something for everyone over the entirety of the season.
Something I do, that works really well for Twenty Sided Store, but may not work well for other stores, is randomize the seating. Players have an opportunity to try out different DM-ing styles and play with different players each week. This incentivizes players to describe their characters at the beginning of every session and fill in other players on what has been happening. Each session has a clear objective, so a player jumping in mid-season can easily get caught up in the action, even if they don’t have any prior relationships to the overall story or NPCs yet.
We assume that the entire 42 players are one large adventuring party. When there are decisions that the party as a whole has to make we have everyone in the room roleplay together (Group RP) and take a vote on what to do next.
At the end of every session, players fill out player trackers so Team DM can fold in some of the themes and story arcs created by the players. The more often a player attends sessions, the greater impact their character has on the plot line.
I’ve always wondered how you go about breaking down adventures into sessions? It seems like something that is a challenge and that can end in either success or failure.
When I break down the sessions I am thinking about the continuing campaign mixed with an episodic session. I do this because of my customer base. I have a percentage of players that attend every session, but I also have new players jumping in each week and players that often miss several sessions throughout the course of a full season.
I feel that the new Adventure’s League modules have made it easier than ever to cater a campaign to each store’s scheduling preferences. The writing is so good that almost every event, depending on the players and DMs that end up together at individual tables, will have vastly different experiences based on the game the party wants to play at that moment.
How do you decide to pace the adventures - between introducing the narrative, having a small fight, a little bit of search and seizure, planning the next move, and then launching the final boss fight - is there a strategy in place to mix that up and keep it fresh?
I leave the details up to each DM. The objective is to get all the players at each table from point A – B within the allotted amount of time. It doesn’t matter how players get from point A – B, just that they do. One table might have the players kick down he door and kill everyone, then search for clues. While another table might set a trap to capture and interrogate the enemy behind the door and get the same information about what to do next.
As a general rule, Team DM prepares more material than is needed to complete the objective. We use extra encounters and side missions to slow a party down or reveal a bit of extra information about the plot.
Speeding up an adventure can be a bit more difficult depending on the players. By reading the players at the table, a DM knows what parts the players want to influence and what parts can be narrated, as if it were read text, to move the party closer to accomplishing the main objective.
I usually try to gauge my pace about halfway or three quarters of the way into the session so I don’t find myself rushing the climactic end or leaving my players feeling like they missed out on something – which can happen if I am not paying attention to the clock or if we are all really immersed in the game.
Taking a mandatory break in the session not only reminds a DM to check the pace, it also supports the store. By giving the players an opportunity to stretch their legs, use the bathroom, or grab a snack, they might also purchase a set of dice or a mini. The DM can use this time to draw a map or prep a change in the course of action depending upon what the players did in the first half of the session.