There’s a little trick dungeon masters can learn from authors that will keep your players coming back for more. When you create a campaign, an adventure, a session, or even a single encounter, remember this one bit of wisdom all good writers instinctively know and strive for: give your readers a reason to keep reading.
Well, if you’re a game master, give your players a reason to keep playing.
Here’s how.
The Author’s Trick
Authors of practically every genre except those who produce reference materials and stereo instructions want to write in a way that motivates the reader to keep reading. The smart writer strives to motivate the reader to keep turning to the next page. Along the way they give reader some moments of rest where adrenaline levels can settle down a bit, but even then they still want to give the reader a reason to keep going.
There are two compliments every author loves to hear when a reader describes their book: “It was a real page turner!” and “I couldn’t put it down!”
Designing and then running your D&D adventure is much the same way. Give your players a reason to look forward to the next session.
The trick is to make it an emotional reason, not just a functional one. Here are some examples.
Peril
The peril is too perilous!
The first is peril. This is a situation where the player characters are in danger and their fate is uncertain. It could go either way: death or survival.
All adventures should have uncertain outcomes, otherwise why bother? In the case of peril, however, you want that uncertainty to include the very real possibility that the character — or even the whole party — won’t survive. Death, or at least impactful dismemberment, is possible. It’s up to you as the dungeon master to decide how likely that is.
Greed
Greed is the root of most adventure.
Money in particular and treasure in general is a long-standing motivator for fantasy adventurers. In fact, old-school rules tied experience points to treasure gained on a 1 XP per 1 gold piece basis.
A smart dungeon master pushes and pulls the levers of treasure and expenses in a way that maintains a certain degree of hunger within the players. They gain some treasure while at the same time they have opportunities to spend it. As their ability to acquire more treasure increases, so do the possibilities of what they can spend it on.
At beginning levels, players are often motivated to upgrade their weapons and armor. Most magic items are out of their reach, so simply going from a dagger to a sword is a big deal. They adventure forth, gain some treasure, cash in their loot and spend their hard-earned gold on newer or more powerful gear. Empowered, they head out on new adventures against increasing odds, but with increasing rewards.
The cycle continues.
This loop of risk and reward is an underlying functional motivator to characters in nearly every adventure to one degree or another. But the trick is to provide emotional motivation to your players as well. Be aware that greed and that dopamine surge from acquiring something that was difficult to obtain is a powerful motivator.
Sanctuary
The adventurers are bruised, battered, weakened, and need to find a safe harbor to rest and heal. As I mentioned at the beginning of this video, good authors know that their story can’t be all action, all peril, all the time. The reader needs a few moments here and there to relax and feel safe.
Safety and security was pretty important to Abraham Maslow for a reason. It is a common, universal emotional need amongst all humankind.
Even elves, dwarves and halflings enjoy safety. Half-orcs, maybe not so much.
Players can get burned out on an emotional level if the peril their characters face never seems to end. Be sure to give them a place and time within your adventures where they can let their guard down. Provide ways for them to even have some fun without risk.
Providing sanctuary at key moments during an adventure is crucial for the players. One tip, though, is to let them linger as long as they feel necessary. Don’t put a ticking clock on their safe space or it won’t feel safe. You’ll know when to move the adventure forward when the players start getting bored. They’ll start planning their next move and discussing their next objectives. That’s when you know it’s time to kick things back up a notch.
Shopping (yes, shopping!)
The adventure has been successful and the players are itching to spend all the loot their characters fought for and won.
This ties into the greed motivator I described before. Gaining treasure for its own sake isn’t very exciting. For every 10 gold pieces the party acquires — hopefully by facing peril and uncertainty and surviving — give them 12 gold pieces worth of cool stuff to buy.
This ratio is arbitrary but has worked for me in the past. The party should always have about 10 or 20% less treasure than they need to buy that cool new shiny thing, whether it’s a better suit of armor or a sweet deal on an abandoned castle they saw on Zillow.
The sanctuary and safe place I just talked about can be a shopping trip to town. The only risk they face is getting swindled by a crafty shopkeeper. And here’s a tip: let the outcome of their negotiations be a result of the player’s choices, not on dice rolls and skill checks. This is an emotional thing, not a mechanical one, but this is up to you and your table. Some people work hard to build up their character’s Persuasion stats, in which case you want to reward that effort by letting them roll.
Mystery
The party has discovered something mysterious, or a clue to an existing mystery, and the next session gives them the opportunity to seek answers.
Solving mysteries naturally appeals to some players more than others, but overcoming obstacles, of which mysteries are just one type, is pretty much universal among D&D players (otherwise they wouldn’t be playing D&D).
The way you use mystery as an emotional driver is to judiciously present the mystery at the end of a session. This gives them a motivator to show up to the next one in search of clues and answers.
In my experience, every session should end in a question of some sort. Will we survive this big boss battle? Is the treasure room behind this locked door?
Why did that town guard’s eye start twitching when we said we were going to stay the night at the Motel 6 instead of at the Green Dragon Inn?
Some players are oblivious to what are overlty obvious clues. You can tell them there’s a glowing blue orb hovering magically in the air above a desk in a wizard’s study, but instead of investigating the orb, the party will check the thread count on the wizard’s bed sheets. Go figure, but it happens.
The way to avoid this player phenomena is to get them invested in the mystery first before presenting your clues. If a clue is found but the party isn’t even aware they’re trying to solve a mystery, it will be wasted room dressing. Once they’re already in hot pursuit of answers, they will usually be more hyper-aware of little details, seeking answers to what they mean.
Emotions
All of these things deal with emotions. Quests are the reason but not the motivation. Rescuing the King’s child and heir to the throne is a reason for the characters to act, but isn’t necessarily an emotional motivator for the players.
Give your players an emotional reason to come back and play again.
Get them personally invested in the actions and outcome of their characters. Pay attention to their personalities and read the room.
In the current group I DM, the players are teens aged 12 to 15. The party came across a flumph that had been trapped deep within a dungeon. The party formed an emotional connection with the flumph after a particularly memorable and personalized interaction. The flumph communicated with each character telepathically, one at a time. Afterward, the kiddos commented that this interaction with what essentially was an NPC was “better than any therapy they’d ever had.”
Later, I gave them an adventure hook to rescue the flumph which had no tangible benefits in-game, but had huge emotional impact to the players. The delight they experienced at discovering the flumph was held captive and they had the ability to rescue it was off the charts. I took the emotional bond the players had formed with an NPC and used that to give them an emotional reason to turn the page and eagerly attend the next session.
