You sit down at the fire. You’ve traveled a long distance to reach these particular nomads. You’ve heard tell that these nomads have mystical powers and can guide you on finding unknowable secrets. You look around. Their long arms show a fierce exterior, but they’ve let you sit in their circle. They’ve shared their meat with you. Their hair hides their faces though you can see pinpricks of light reflect off of their eyes and hidden behind their hair. They seem to look at you expectantly.
“Um… what am I…”
It’s at that moment that one of their numbers starts beating a drum produced from somewhere within the folds of their outer garments. More drums are produced and the rhythm continues and amplifies. Soon the sound of beating drums is all you hear. It echoes the beating of a heart. Not your heart but the communal heart of this tribe.
You let yourself fall into the rhythm. After a moment, you notice an elder stand up and walk towards the central fire. He chants some things and then throws some dust into the fire. There’s a puff of green smoke and you smell a distinct earthy smell. Soon, your senses become slurred and you seem to drift from reality.
Your eyes open and instead of at a ritual fire, you’re standing waist-deep in the ocean. You look over and see another tribal member standing with you. You both wield spears and look for fish. You throw your spear.
Flash.
Instead of being near a ritual fire, you’re crouching low in a snowy copse of trees. You peer out from behind some bushes and see an auroch munching on greenery. The rest of your hunting party has snuck around to flank the beast. You hear the double hoot of an owl. That’s the signal. You jump up and charge to attack the beast.
Flash.
Instead of at a ritual fire, you’re in a grotto. You see a large stone monolith. Inscribed on the giant stone are ancient runes. They glow softly blue in the dim light. At the base of the monolith is a pool of water that seems pure and as you approach it starts to glow light blue. This is what you’ve come for.
So what would you like to do?
Welcome back to another episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and together you and I will learn how to tell better stories as we DM sessions of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.
First of all, I’ve got to say thank you so much. Since we started the show, we’ve seen amazing growth that I never could have predicted. It’s all because of you guys. You guys have allowed us to create cool content and spread it to some awesome people.
Next don’t forget to listen to the end of today’s episode to hear how you can support the show.
Today, let’s talk about immersion.
Now, I’m not going to be talking about Virtual Reality, though we can all expect that within our lifetimes we’ll see all sorts of leaps in bounds in that area.
No, I’m talking about learning to help your players feel like they are in your world. You have to help your players slip the bonds of our time and space and instead drift through the planes to the material plane on which you play D&D.
No amount of cool voice-changing software or LED lights will cover up bad storytelling. Storytelling is character, plot, voice, and conflict. It’s also scene. You need to be able to paint pictures with your words.
Work on your descriptions of all points of your gameplay. There’s a fine balancing act here though. You can’t take forever describing something but you also shouldn’t do it in just one word. You need to be concise and evocative.
It’s helpful to describe things using your senses. Don’t forget that sixth sense we all get. You know like when there’s tension in the air and no one is saying anything but you can feel that something is wrong.
One thing I’d recommend steering away from that is somewhat a crutch is using analogies from our world. I struggle with this because it’s so helpful and easy but I think it pulls your players out of the world you’re describing when you compare something to a thing that exists in the real world.
I know you thought you were done studying after you graduated high school or college but it makes things feel real when your player asks an NPC a question and the NPC can respond almost immediately. There’s something magical when you as the dungeon master know the names and major players in the plot and you don’t have to immediately reference the guidebook to remember that the villain’s henchman’s name is Botheg and that Botheg loves to eat silver spotted mushrooms that allow him to have very special dreams at night. If you’re an advanced dungeon master, you can do better than that.
Know what you’re going to do every session. I completely understand having to take a minute to make up an entire encounter that you didn’t plan on. We’ve all been there. But you can at least put in the effort to make sure the encounters you did plan on are seamless. Part of it is making sure you’ve understood the sequence of events. Another part is making sure you have the NPCs lined up. A final part is going through all of this in your head so you aren’t constantly checking notes and stammering, “One second.” It takes practice of course, but this is the standard you want to set for yourself.
While being one of the most common things most of us do while driving to work in the morning… No… just me? Anyways, changing your voice to fit your NPCs can go a long way to helping your players immerse themselves into the game. A quick Youtube search will give you many results for tips and tutorials on how to actually make your voice change in a convincing way. Another option is acting lessons. Most of us wrote off acting when we were younger. Now we spend a lot of time watching professional actors on TV and think, “maybe it wasn’t good to brush that off.”
I know that most of us feel awkward roleplaying. We grew up playing make-believe and then for some reason we stepped away from it. It felt childish to pretend to be someone we’re not. So we stopped. We hid it. We found that we do funny voices and accents while we’re alone in our car driving to or from work, but we never do that in front of someone else. Or if we do, it’s never in a structured way, it’s just fun.
Let me tell you, roleplaying can make or break the immersion. There have been times when I’ve paused and said, “What would they say?” because I didn’t know what a particular NPC would say. The momentum halted and the mood broke. There have been other times when I’ve thrown caution to the wind and said something somewhat ridiculous but I committed and I felt that the table enjoyed the risk. So when you sit at your table, try and step into the role of the character you are playing. Try being an actor for a second. It’s ok. You won’t be perfect and no one will judge you. If they do, just add 10 hitpoints to their next encounter.
This one is admittedly low on the list of things you should do to make your game more immersive. Mood lighting can be an awesome way to, well, get your players in the mood. It also can become a distraction if you make it really complicated. I would say keep it simple stupid and set something up and leave it for a while to see how it works before changing it over and over and over.
This is a tough one specifically for those of us who like to use our phones for managing our character. You need to make a rule at the table that everyone’s main focus will be on the game. There are always extenuating circumstances but for the most part, removing distractions is an easy and in my opinion necessary step to achieving the nirvana of a gameplay experience. It gets very old looking up from my DM screen and seeing certain players scrolling on their phones rather than engaging in the game. I also do appreciate the fact that my wife uses a paper character sheet. She says she prefers it, but I think it has something to do with her knowing that being on her phone would be distracting.
While a most costly method of immersion, popping out the occasional prop can help your players transcend their natural bonds and reach an elevated space of gameplay. When your characters buy a map it can drastically change the way they play when you hand them a real-life map to be sure. Again, this is more costly in terms of time and money, but it could be just the juice you need to spice things up.
Nothing beats practice. Period. No amount of cool props or amazing voices will cover for the fact that your story is garbage. If you can’t tell a story, you can’t make up for it. At least not in the long run. So first things first are if nothing else, start playing D&D. You need to at least get in the habit of role-playing. The next step after that is to start DMing. Find a group where you can experiment and try things out. What you are looking for is iteration and repetition rather than one-and-done experiences.
Almost nothing can cover up a bad plot. Your players will never enjoy a bad or boring story, no matter how many cool doodads you have. So spend time working on the main tenets of a plot. Improve the conflicts, twists and tension, and resolution. You can’t expect your players to enjoy or immerse themselves in a story that you truly aren’t immersed in or crazy about.
There you have it, 10 ways to make your DND Campaign more immersive.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Make sure to stick around after to hear some announcements but until next time,
Let’s roll initiative.
Music from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCBCLYvWGwI
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