Dungeon Master Tools – Story Arcs

What’s A Story Arc in Television?

Let’s start out with what is a story arc. I think for a lot of us, we know what it is. It’s going to be a series of episodes in television that all go together to tell a particular story. In television sometimes this is a whole season that is one story arc, but most of the time, you end up with smaller and shorter story arcs spread throughout the season. There is a whole through line of the main story, but the story arcs are all supporting that or supporting character development.

Why Use It in an RPG?

So why might you want to use it as a Dungeon Master in your game of Dungeons and Dragons? Well, because it makes your life simpler. Let’s say I have an idea for an epic campaign. I sit down to start jotting out notes.

Example

I come up with some big events that I want to happen, firstly, they need to find a treasure that is going to reveal this big plot. Then they need to fight a boss once they find him who will tell them about the larger scope of it and the world ending big bad. After that, they go and search for a way to defeat the big bad and meet a wizard who tells them about an artifact. Then they find the artifact. Finally, they face off against the big bad.

Too Much Work

That’s a lot in there. And you can see each sentence that I wrote is an arc. Now, the temptation is to start filling out everything. I write up where the treasure is in a dungeon and what’s in that dungeon. Next I create hints for this mid-level boss that I sprinkle in and create what the boss is going to be like. I start dropping in hints about the wizard and this other treasure and create their plot lines and what the party has to do to get the wizard to tell them about the artifact. And I make it so they run into the big bad early on but they don’t know it.

Eventually I script out the whole thing that is going on and I’ve spent tons of time creating my campaign. All of this is done before we even start playing the game and I’m feeling burned out on the story, possibly. Or the players catch who the big bad is right away or try and skip over elements that I put time into already.

The Story Arc Way

So, is there a better way? Yes, the story arc way. One of the main things about tips is that I want to make it easy. I want it easier for the Dungeon Master to get a game going. Because, too much work keeps campaigns on hold forever.

Let’s talk about the better way. Firstly, it’s not bad to know where you want to go with the story. In fact, knowing some arcs, loosely isn’t bad. So what I wrote for example, that is going to be solid, but you want them to be bullet points.

Example Arcs

• Find treasure
• Fight Mid-level boss
• Learn about Big Bad
• Search for way to stop Big Bad
• Get information from wizard
• Find artifact
• Confront big bad

There are what I would call seven arcs. What you do then is look at three things this list. Firstly, what do I need to know for the first arc. You want to plan out that arc only at this point. Keep it simple, give yourself something you can work with. Also ask yourself, are there arcs within this arc. If so, break it out more. You might break it out to sessions (episodes) like this.

Break it Down

• Find Treasure
  • Get party together and get quest
  • Find where the dungeon is and travel there
  • Explore dungeon

Now as you look at that it’s easier to work with. That is what you want to get planned out. In fact, you just want to get the party together and get them the quest. We went through this in the Session 1 article. You want to simply focus on that element of your game and plan out that session. But as I said, keep on eye on a few things. So besides your current arc, also look for your next arc and session. For the next arc, maybe not right away, but drop in a hint. For the next session, as you plan your session, make it lead to the right point to kick off the next session.

The final thing is, does it make sense for the overall plot. This isn’t about the final big bad fight. But thematically, is the story leading where you want it to go. Or is the arc and what you are planning going against it. Now that might be on purpose, or it might not, so think about that.

Let’s Recap

So let’s just do a quick recap for using story arcs as a Dungeon Master.

• Bullet point out your story arcs
• Focus only on the first arc
• Break that first arc into sessions if it makes sense
• Fill out details a session at a time
• Make sure the session leads to the next session
• Hint at next arc, if it makes sense
• Verify that the arc and session serve the overall story

That is a pretty long list. Longer than I want it to be. But to sum it up in a sentence or two, let’s try that.

Worry about only the arc and session you are on as you plan. You know the other arcs will come, but don’t plan them all at once.

There, that’s much simpler. So start using arcs and planning in bullet points. See if it can take the pressure off planning everything. And going back to the campaign article and kicking that off, this planning starts after you have a group together and people excited for a campaign, not before. You plan your arc and session only when you are ready to start playing.

Final Thoughts

This is a technique that I use a little bit. I generally hold a lot of this information in my head. But I want to start using it more as a thirty minute pre-session planning activity, or maybe more than that. Because it is going to help me keep track of everything and what happens. But even for myself who loves playing and running games of Dungeons and Dragons as the Dungeon Master, I don’t want to spend all my time prepping. I want to play the game.

Do you think this is something you can incorporate as a Dungeon Master?

What’s next:

• World Building
• Combat
• Exploration
• NPCs/Social Interactions
• Meta Game and Players at the Table

And let me know if there are other things to cover as well that you want to know more about, or help with. I think that there are a ton of different things that new Dungeon Masters are curious about or that feel intimidating. So I hope that I can help make them clearer and simpler for you.

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Top 5 Office Lunch Board Games

5. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

This one is iffy to have on the list. But I want some bigger board games on the list as well, because most lunch sized games are smaller. Heat: Pedal to the Metal is iffy mainly because the first game with teach might push that hour time frame. And the number of players, which this one can play more, is going to push that time frame as well.

Heat is a hand and deck management game as you try and get around the race course as fast as possible. However, if you push your car to hard you create undo stress and cause the engine to heat up, possibly overheating. So you need to balance that within the game so it’s not just go fast but knowing when to push around the corners.

This one works, because, as I said, when you know the game it goes fast. Actions are simultaneous for picking your cards and getting into gear. So some of the game just runs at the same time. And then moving cars, this is where the first game can take longer, it goes fast, once you know the system.

4. Dice Throne

Dice Throne is another one of those board games that maybe could take longer. If you play with more than two people. I think a three person game could get done in under an hour, but under that it’s less likely, even with the rules for King of the Hill rules for the game.

Dice Throne is mainly considered to be a head to head dice battling game. Where you take one character into battle against your opponents to see who can outlast the other. I think this one works well if you don’t have the battle chests. I do, so that makes it trickier, but you can get character boxes which aren’t big and are therefore easy to move around and transport.

But one of the benefits is that you can swap out characters as well. If you own a big box, you can change up who you play easily without learning massive amounts of new rules. So a box like the Marvel four character box which has been available at Target and other retailers might be the best fit. It gives you some options, gives you a familiar theme, and isn’t as big as the big chests to carry around.

3. Floriferous

Next up is a much smaller game. Floriferous is just going to be a small box with cards but it packs a lot of game. It’s a card drafting game with set collection and variable scoring to it. I like that it goes a lot in that little box without it becoming too bogged down or too slow.

This one I think you could probably get a 4 player game of done in an hour, but that’d be tight. As a three or two player game, you can for sure. And I think with work lunches that a lot of the time you are just playing with two, not with more.

In Floriferous, you draft cards from a center tableau. The twist is that you draft from a column at a time. And how high in that column, that determines when you’ll pick in the next column. So you might think, go high and get an early pick next time, but you also need to pick scoring cards which are at the bottom. It’s a fun puzzle of a game with a flower theme many will like.

2. My City Roll and Build

My City: Roll and Build is different from the rest of the board games here. This one is a campaign game. That means that you need a consistent group. But it is also a fast game. And it is a game where everyone does their actions at once.

In this roll and write style game, you try and build a town. Each chapter of the game is having your build the town in a sightly different way. And generally, some rules are being added to how you build it. Each player is building it on their own grid in an attempt to get the best score for that particular game and scenario.

This one I know works well as I’ve played it at lunch. And I know it works with more than two players. Again, as I mentioned with Heat, when you play at the same time, it helps it fit into a lunch hour better. And My City: Roll and Build leans into that. So it’s great for lunch that way.

1. Star Wars Unlimited

Finally, this could be a lot of TCG’s. I’d say that Magic the Gathering, Lorcana, or One Piece all work here. It’s more of a pick your flavor for what you want to do. I went with Star Wars Unlimited as my game as that is the one that I’ve been enjoying the most lately.

But any of these games really work well as you can play head to head or in bigger groups and battle it out. I think the nature of these games works well for a lot of people because it’s kind of familiar. And with all the ones coming out now, you can really tailor it to your audience.

I think that Star Wars Unlimited is the sweet spot for me because it is very fast. So is Lorcana and One Piece, but with Lorcana the decision making space is less interesting, to me. And with One Piece, it is a more obscure fandom. But Star Wars, people are going to know that which makes is a great lunch game.

Final Thoughts

There are so many games that I could pick. Faster escape room games, or about 30 different roll and write games. Small card games, simultaneous drafting games. You pick what you like best and play those at work. It’s all about what works best for you.

And I know with people working hybrid or from home now, it’s maybe less of a thing. But when you go into the office, board games can be a great team building thing. It’s a way to bring people together and chat with it being clearly not about work. It’s a chance to build that comradery that maybe has decreased over the past years or needs to be built with the new people who were never in office all the time.

Do you have a go to work lunch game?

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The Criteria

• Small/Portable
• Plays in 30 minutes or less
• Little to no set-up/tear down
• Easy to teach
• Small Footprint
• Plays well with few People

Small/Portable

There are some big games that do play fast or meet some of the other criteria, but let’s face it, you probably won’t be bringing in a Gloomhaven sized box, or have a spot to keep a Gloomhaven campaign set-up. If you do, you are lucky. So instead if a game is small and easy to take around, that is going to be the best way to go.

30 Minutes or Less

Game play needs to be fast. Even if you get an hour for lunch, you probably want to play something that is fast. A game that takes an hour, with teaching the rules, and other things can take longer. And you don’t want to have something that you can’t finish in that hour. Now, if you have a table in your work area, you can maybe leave something set-up, but otherwise, keep it snappy.

Minimal Set-up

This ties into that thirty minutes or less as well, Keep the game simple to set-up and take down. You don’t want to spend half your lunch setting up the game to rush through the game and be taking it down once lunch is over. So, instead, look for games that you can play basically right out of the box.

A Fast Teach

Rules are another big thing to think about. If I teach Gloomhaven, that’d probably take 15-20 minutes by itself. But there are games out there that you can teach really quickly. Pick those ones off of your shelf first. Or if the people you are playing with are up for it, teach them ahead of time via Watch It Played or some other rules video.

Small Footprint

You might think I already talked about this with a small game, but this different. A small footprint game is going to take up way less space on the table. Some of the Tiny Epic games come in a small box, but they take up a lot of table space. This one depends more on your work. some offices might afford you room at break room tables to play bigger games. I have played Power Grid and Dominion during lunch, not the smallest games. So know if it’ll work for you work.

Player Count

Some games scale well without adding times, some games do not. If you bring in Sushi Go Party, you can play with 8 people in the same time as two. Other games, however, you add in more players it increases the game time. Also find out if you play with analysis paralysis players, because that will make a difference in what you bring in, or what player counts you can do.

What Games Would Work?

Hanamikoji

This game is only a two player game, but you generally can knock out a game of it in 15 minutes. The actions are simple, set-up is fast, you could maybe even get in three games during an hour lunch. The biggest table hog part of it is the cards that are in the middle of the table, but generally pretty small and can be set-up and taught extremely fast.

Ohanami

This game is set-up right out of the box. And it is a drafting game, so that means from two players up to four players, the game goes about the same speed, which is as fast as the slowest player. Now, this does take up a bit more room, but you could condense the stacks so just see the high and low cards and then flip through scoring at the right time. But another really easy to teach.

Criss Cross

First of a few roll and write games on this list. Criss Cross is one where everyone goes at the same time, and that’s going to be a theme of all the roll and writes. It works well because the rules are fairly simple. The only tricky part of the teach is getting people to place the dice in pairs, so just really emphasize that.

Second Chance

Another roll and write game, this one again has everyone playing at once. So it can really scale as high as you want. Second Chance, to me, is supposed to be a relaxing game, so rushing to fit it into a half hour lunch with the teach and eating might make it seem a little bit fast, but once people know it, it’ll be easy to pull out.

Magic The Gathering

Now, this one breaks one of the rules for sure. Magic the Gathering is not easy to teach. So I wouldn’t recommend teaching it during a lunch period. But there are a lot of people who play Magic the Gathering. Instead of teaching it, hope the person knows it and has their own decks. A standard game of Magic with a 60 card deck and players knowledgeable in the game can make it go fast.

Cartographers

Back to roll and write games. The theme for them is that everyone goes at once. Cartographers is fun because for a roll and write, it offers more player interaction. I really like that about it. Teaching it can take a bit longer than the other two, but since it is map making, I feel like the teach can be a bit smoother as well. The game provides framework for what you are doing based off of the theme.

Sushi Go Party

I mentioned this one above, it works well and scales well. Since it’s a drafting game, the slowest person determines the speed of the game. And even in the players first game, people generally get faster as the game goes on. The one tricky thing is the combinations of scoring can change a lot. So to make it even simpler, consider just Sushi Go where you don’t have the card variability.

Dice Throne

This one would work better for a longer lunch because of the dice rolling. Now, there will be some people who don’t think this works because they have the big box of everything. So it isn’t a small box to take around. Open up your big box, take out two of the Game Trayz and take those. Or, I have all the duel boxes because I wanted to keep it portable. Probably for an hour lunch, but the dice rolling Yahtzee style makes it an easy one to teach.

Final Thoughts

Board games can be a good way to interact and get to know co-workers more as people. Out of a number of my jobs I have left with good friends who I still talk with. I know some people like to keep their personal life and work life separate, I don’t. I can get that mindset because sometimes people lose the business and professionalism over time. But I think being able to see your co-workers and people and friends can be helpful at times. And then be professional at other times.

I asked it at the beginning, but what board game would you bring in to play with this theoretical co-worker?

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