On Stories and Player Engagement

In a recent installment of their Mastering Dungeons podcast, Teos Abadia and Shawn Merwin concluded their look at the oldest D&D modules with a look forward: what is missing in current D&D adventures, what should there be more of? At around minute 58, Shawn challenged Teos to

... thinks about something that would be at least attractive to a subset of the D&D audience and be really good at doing what it is that that is going to do.

Teos answer was

There can be more adventures that handle the narrative between where you start and where you go better (...) In a lot of 5th edition adventures, you start somewhere that seems super important and you never come back to it. I would would want to create an experience that revolves around your start more strongly.

Shawn wants adventures to

... manage things well for game masters on the encounter level. That's where the players actually interact with the story. The players put themselves onto the page when they are in an encounter. Outside of that, they are not adding themselves to the story -- they are just listening to you telling the story. So your encounters have to have all the components necessary for your characters to become part of the story. (...)

What Shawn means becomes more clear in the ensuing discussion:

1. Players should gain some kind of recognition within the story, their role should be acknowledged.
2. Players actions should have visible consequences for the development of the story.
3. Subsequent encounters should reveal to the players more and more information about the overall story; adventure modules should help the GMs by telling them when to reveal which piece of information.

Both wishes of Teos and Shawn aim into the same direction: once the game is over, the players should have experienced a satisfying story in which they recognize at least the broad strokes of what has been happening and how their actions have influenced what has happened.