The first two installments of this series explored the concept of running a game like a fiction author. They laid out the important points of getting buy-in from your players and how to prepare—while not overpreparing—your game sessions.

This time, I’ll show you how to put all these pieces together in such a way to drive that story forward at a powerful pace, full of thrills, tension, and eventually a big payoff. This is where you use all the tools at your disposal to guide the action in the direction you want, manipulating events (i.e., “railroading” the plot) to hit all the beats of a well-told story, just like an author writing a thriller does.

The trick is doing this the right way and leaving your players breathless with excitement for what comes next, rather than grumbling about lack of agency. Here’s how.

Use the Rules…

A system of achievement mechanics coupled with randomness (such as dice or cards) is an integral part of nearly every roleplaying game. Most of these systems balance the math to keep outcomes challenging but winnable. The worst thing that usually happens is a delay in the inevitable.

In a combat, a few bad attack or defense rolls might force the adventuring party to fall back and regroup. A bad investigation or social encounter means it takes more time to get what PCs are after. But challenge balance and action economy almost always preclude a disastrous outcome.

This constant inertia in a positive direction can have the undesired side effect of players getting too comfortable with expectations of success. When the outcome is a forgone conclusion, even a handful of bad die rolls signify only a momentary delay and an opportunity to grumble. This mentality is neither “wrongbad” nor unexpected. After all, the point of playing in a heroic fantasy game is to win the day and be the heroes.

But if you want to inject more tension into your campaign, slavishly adhering to the game system and its guidelines for balanced play can become frustrating. If you always build the “perfect” encounter based on recommendations, resolving it eventually becomes a tedious exercise in resource management.

…But Don’t Let Rules Run the Game

To counter this and make your campaign feel more like an action-packed thriller, get comfortable with bending the rules and guidelines. This doesn’t mean just throwing tougher opponents at your group or cheating your die rolls, although that will be a part of this methodology.

It means putting your heroes in impossible situations with an outcome you want that moves the plot forward in a specific direction. Your players’ characters need to experience encounters they can’t win; they need to go up against enemies who outsmart them, out-power them, and out-roll their dice.

Remember when I said back in Part 1 that you need to get buy-in from your group? This is why. Players know when you’re not playing fair. But if you promise them it will be worth it in the end, and you deliver on that promise along the way, they will allow themselves to be manipulated as part of the experience. You just have to know the right way to do it.

Know When to Fudge, and When Not To

So, what is the right way to cheat? It’s employing the big sticks in such a way that the players know their characters are overmatched now. But make it clear that there will come a time when these opposing forces can be overcome.

Whether you throw PCs into a maelstrom of a natural disaster or pit an overwhelming villain against them, use your power to move the plot forward, not just make barriers to their progress.

Then you rig the setting and resources to deliver. Manipulate the players by closing one door but opening another. Thwart them by hook or crook, fudging dice rolls, introducing unexpected barriers, and driving them toward your climactic scene.

Don’t stop giving them choices. Instead, make your preferred choice the most attractive one. There’s an art to this, because if you are too blatant, it feels like they are being led around by the nose. But if you are subtle and give them multiple options (all of which still lead to the outcome you want), they will bask in the illusion of agency.

An Extended Example

I’ve been running a campaign where I drew heavily on material from Campaign Builder: Castles & Crowns to create a powerful tyrant as the leader of a city. He’s a malicious terror and the citizenry is intimidated by his iron rule. The characters fell in with a resistance movement, and they got dragged into a plot to sneak through some old sewer passages into the dungeons below the palace to free some prisoners.

Until they decided to sneak into the lair of the tyrant, the characters had stayed out of sight. But once they entered those sewers, I had an opportunity to reveal more of the plotline—and the tyrant behind them. I wanted them to learn the true nature of the tyrant and realize how horrible he was. I wanted them to witness a horrible ritual, so I revealed that several prisoners (including one important NPC) had been dragged away to “elsewhere” in the palace.

My players were hesitant. They had other priorities than saving this resistance movement, and it made sense to withdraw and leave the NPCs to their own devices. But I wanted them to have this particular moment. So I fudged a few things, manipulated events to drive them deeper in. They had battled a couple of critters in the lowest levels of those sewers on their way in, but I decided in the moment that those were just juveniles, and more, larger versions came out of hibernation when all the commotion started.

Just like that, I had created a barrier to escape. And I didn’t pound on the PCs with these overpowered monsters; I let them hear and see some other NPC rescuers get chewed up. The players could still have chosen to fight their way out (and if they had and the dice were kind, I would have let them). Instead, they decided they stood a better chance by heading up through the palace.

Once inside the palace, I let my players discover the prisoners they were trying to save had already been made into sacrifices to summon a powerful fiend. It was clear that the tyrant was leading the ritual, was some kind of undead, and had seen them. Suddenly, my players knew they were in over their heads. With just a couple of quick cheats, I had them right where I had wanted them, and the story was getting good.

Next Time

I’ll go into more detail on how to manipulate and fudge events, and then I’ll wrap up with a discussion of using cliffhangers and sudden changes to keep your players coming back for more.