Lessons Learned 27

Sometimes you need to slow down and not roll any dice for a session. As simple as that, you need some sessions to back off the pace, let your players breathe a bit, and do some honest, back and forth dialoguing with no Persuasion or Intimidation rolls. Let the players talk amongst themselves and formulate plans for the next part of your campaign; do some light downtime activities that do not call for a dice roll (shopping for supplies is a good one); and putting down some lore on the players is also a good low key activity, and you are not interrupting anything else that is high action, drama, or intensity. That last one I like to do after the PCs have encountered a boss or BBEG, let them see what happens after they have left, or maybe some other action that takes place as a result of what the party has just accomplished. In one campaign, the party had not fought the Lich (instant TPK if they had), instead they talked to it and found the BBEG had stolen its phylactery and was forcing the Lich to create undead. The party found the phylactery, returned it to the rightful owner, then proceeded to kill said BBEG. In the interim between that campaign arc and the next, I described how the BBEG had also forced the Lich to make a Clone, and that when the party killed the BBEG, the Lich easily captured his newly "hatched" Clone and began taking out his revenge on the BBEG. There are worse things than death, after all.

That is what my party did this past week, just sat and talked. I laid a little lore on them, asked them what they wanted to do to prepare for the next arc of the campaign, and they just made plans. Not one die was rolled all evening, and they enjoyed it. Could I do that every week for an entire campaign? I am a decent enough DM,  but I will be the first to admit that sounds boring. If you want to do that in D&D, you can, but why? D&D is great, but it is focused on the physical struggle, not the mental or social ones. If you really want to play that way, do it, but use a ruleset purpose built for non-combat resolutions.

This week it will be back to the grind - battlemaps and initiatives and Investigation checks and Wilderness Survival checks. Need to write up some monster cards. Hope you all have a good week!