“My latest thought is that I need to repeat the mantra ‘visible, accessible, compelling’. It doesn't matter how cool my cool stuff is if (a) they don't see that it's there, or (b) they see it, but don't see what they can do about it, or (c) they see it and could act, but don't feel like it.” — Fritz, DM extraordinaire, and man of far too many talents to be contained in mere blogs or quotes.

“They” are the players. “I” am the dungeon master. In a nutshell, my job is that of the narrator, providing commentary that accompanies the actions of the players. As Fritz suggests, I talk about cool stuff and hope that the players see it, figure they can interact with it, and are intrigued enough to do so. Since the players have shown up to play, in theory I’m already ahead of the game. In practice, it’s possible to bore a group of players into inactivity. Even when they’ve consumed enough Mountain Dew to fuel an X-Games event.

So, how do I go about making sure the situations I’m creating are visible, accessible, and compelling? There are as many answers as there are DMs.

Combat encounters are the meat and potatoes of many D&D games. In some games they’re the meat, while role-playing encounters are the potatoes, and in others vice versa. Whatever style of D&D you play, it likely has some combat encounters. There’s lots of good advice online and in the latest publications about how to design these. However, in the context of ‘visible, accessible, and compelling’, here’s how I’m currently trying to go about it.

Combat Encounters

You spot the foe. How do you know they’re the foe? They stand between you and the objective. The players have to have an objective in mind, or I have to present one that is compelling enough that they’ll be willing to risk their character’s lives in combat to get it. Visibility then encompasses the compulsion the players feel to engage in the encounter. What they see, or think they see, motivates them to act.

The necromancer stands atop a switchback flight of stone steps across the room from you. He has hunted and haunted you for months, and you are finally able to confront him directly. He is shielded by a flickering cylinder of deep blue light — a wavelength that is almost painful to your eyes. Four corpses stand at attention in various points about the room, their desiccated flesh stretched taut over their bones, and their dead white eyes gazing upward. Each of their faces is illuminated by small flames — in the same deep blue as the cylinder — that flicker from their nostrils.

There is a huge crack in the floor of the chamber, an abyss faintly illuminated at one end by the weird blue glow. A heavy plank spans it to your left. Standing near the plank are a pair of massive, gnarled trolls hefting huge clubs. Another pair stands at the base of the switchback stair.

Visible: Nine potential foes. A couple of potential obstacles.

Accessible: What are the party resources? Have they just finished a combat encounter? Fresh from a full night’s rest? Have they fought trolls before? Or necromancers? And what about those corpses, can you tell if they’re simple zombies, or something much worse?

4e D&D rulebooks suggest creating encounters that are relatively balanced with the capabilities of your players’ party. Accessibility becomes a combination of metagame knowledge (e.g., trolls are 9th level, zombies are 2nd level), trust in the DM (e.g., Keith doesn’t usually set up encounters where we don’t have a chance, so perhaps the necromancer is of a level close to ours), and tactical analysis (e.g., to get to the necromancer, we’ll have to either fight the trolls and zombies, or avoid them. We’ll also have to figure out what that blue glow is about, and whether or not it needs to be overcome or avoided.)

Compelling: Why does the party want or need to deal with this situation? Is there another exit or option, aside from initiating combat? In this case, the necromancer is recognized as a long-time foe of the party. They have been harmed and frustrated by this individual before. They probably want to turn out the lights, and end his little necromantic party right here.

I think it’s fairly easy to apply Fritz’s mantra to combat encounters. There are some variables that have to be taken into account, both by the DM and by the party, when judging whether or not an encounter is accessible. You can follow the rules, and balance encounters to suit your party. You can adjust on the fly if your players opt to take on an encounter that is visibly not accessible to them, or hovers right on the edge of accessibility.

Don’t forget the potatoes!

For a balanced meal, depending on the interests of your players, you should try to craft your non-combat encounters with the same criteria in mind. In this case, I’m lumping several types of encounters together and calling them “role-playing encounters”. This might be 4e skill challenges, scenes you’ve set up to help fill in backstory for your campaign or adventure, or just flavor elements you want to include to really immerse your players.

Non-Combat Encounters

It should be obvious to your players that their combat skills are either unnecessary or worthless in this kind of situation. One of the tricky aspects of non-combat encounters can be establishing a clear objective. In many cases the PCs will enter the situation with an objective in mind: Get from point A to point B; Locate the shrine of Nerull; Or, find out who killed Euclid the Axiomatic. So how do we apply the “visible” portion of the mantra in this case? The answer lies in the obstacles, or the opportunities.

You’re in the Vast Swamp, one of the most infamous locales of the Greyhawk campaign setting. The air is wet and sticky, causing your clothes to hang on you with uncomfortable dampness. With every step, your feet sink several inches into the omnipresent mud, releasing strange and unpleasant odors of fungus and rot to assail your nose.

Swamp grass grows in thick, reedy patches from the stagnant water, so high that it is difficult to estimate your position. Large trees hung with all manner of vines, hag’s hair (Spanish) moss, and other moldy garlands poke above the water in random spots, sometimes marking the location of solid, if muddy, ground. The sounds of small insects is a constant whine in your ears, and dark clouds of stinging gnats are an all-too-common sight and sensation.

Visible: The potential obstacles include: difficulty in estimating party position, sinking into the mud, and insects. Of course there are others. For example, on closer examination, hidden among the vines are poisonous snakes; and mats of solid vegetation called quaking bogs. Dead vegetable matter so thick that it can support the weight of a full-grown human-sized creature. The danger lies not in breaking through from above, but in the creatures that could break through from below.

The visibility of the obstacles is variable, and given the objective — say, to get from point A to point B — how accessible is it? That is, does the party see anything they can do about the obstacles?

Accessible: Keeping the objective in mind, I need the players to tell me what they’re going to do to deal with the obstacles I’ve shown them. How clearly were those obstacles presented? I’ll revise my flavor text to make the encounter obstacles more accessible:

You’re in the Vast Swamp, one of the most infamous locales of the Greyhawk campaign setting. You want to head north, out of the swamp, and into Corul, to the town of Calgen.

It’s possible that the players are purposeful enough that they’ve remembered they were heading for Calgen, but sometimes encountering bands of bullywugs and wandering necromancers can act as a distraction, so I’ve reminded them they need to estimate their party position and establish a direction of travel towards their objective.

Finally, how compelling is this situation, or resolving this situation, really? They’ve seen the obstacles, I’ve verbally highlighted the obstacle type so they’ll have some hints about what capabilities they’ll need to apply, thus making them more accessible. But what is compelling about finding your way out of a swamp?

Compelling: What is happening in Calgen that necessitated the journey to begin with? Why did the party choose to travel through the swamp rather than around it? What is the consequence for failing to get oriented in the swamp? The first two questions have to do with the party’s overall mission, and hopefully you and the players have worked that out. (I haven’t outlined specifics here, because I’m focusing more specifically on the encounter itself.)

By creating consequences for failure, I can motivate the players to find a way to overcome the obstacles. For example, getting lost in the swamp might mean that you lose some healing surges, or some supplies, or suffer penalties to hit or to hit points. Of course the failure shouldn’t derail the adventure objective, but it should make it more difficult to accomplish. The added difficulty makes it more compelling to complete the objective before additional consequences are applied.

Whenever I create an encounter, looking at it with an eye towards making it visible, accessible, and compelling, is going to make it better. The bottom line is that by addressing the three components of the mantra, hopefully you’ve engaged the players fully. It should be fun. It should be risky. And, at the end, your players should sigh with relief and try to ready themselves for the next encounter.