🔗 Share this article

In my role as a Dungeon Master, I historically shied away from significant use of randomization during my Dungeons & Dragons games. I tended was for narrative flow and session development to be guided by player choice as opposed to random chance. However, I chose to alter my method, and I'm truly glad I did.

The Spark: Watching a Custom Mechanic

A popular actual-play show showcases a DM who regularly requests "fate rolls" from the participants. He does this by selecting a polyhedral and defining potential outcomes contingent on the result. This is essentially no unlike consulting a random table, these are created in the moment when a character's decision has no obvious resolution.

I decided to try this method at my own table, primarily because it looked interesting and presented a departure from my normal practice. The results were eye-opening, prompting me to reconsider the perennial balance between preparation and spontaneity in a D&D campaign.

A Memorable Story Beat

In a recent session, my group had just emerged from a city-wide conflict. Later, a player wondered if two key NPCs—a brother and sister—had made it. Rather than choosing an outcome, I handed it over to chance. I asked the player to roll a d20. The possible results were: a low roll, both died; a middling roll, a single one succumbed; on a 10+, they both lived.

Fate decreed a 4. This triggered a deeply emotional sequence where the characters came upon the corpses of their companions, forever united in death. The cleric performed a ceremony, which was uniquely significant due to previous story developments. As a parting reward, I improvised that the NPCs' bodies were suddenly restored, revealing a enchanted item. I rolled for, the item's contained spell was exactly what the party lacked to resolve another pressing situation. One just orchestrate this type of perfect moments.

Honing On-the-Spot Skills

This event led me to ponder if chance and thinking on your feet are truly the core of D&D. Although you are a detail-oriented DM, your improvisation muscles may atrophy. Players reliably take delight in ignoring the most carefully laid plots. Therefore, a skilled DM has to be able to adapt swiftly and invent details in the moment.

Utilizing luck rolls is a great way to practice these skills without venturing too far outside your comfort zone. The strategy is to deploy them for small-scale circumstances that don't fundamentally change the session's primary direction. To illustrate, I would not employ it to determine if the main villain is a secret enemy. Instead, I might use it to determine if the PCs arrive moments before a major incident takes place.

Empowering Player Agency

This technique also serves to make players feel invested and foster the impression that the adventure is responsive, progressing based on their choices as they play. It combats the feeling that they are merely characters in a pre-written script, thereby strengthening the cooperative nature of storytelling.

Randomization has historically been embedded in the original design. The game's roots were enamored with random tables, which made sense for a playstyle focused on dungeon crawling. Although modern D&D tends to emphasizes plot-driven play, leading many DMs to feel they need exhaustive notes, it's not necessarily the required method.

Achieving the Healthy Equilibrium

There is absolutely no problem with doing your prep. But, there is also no issue with letting go and allowing the dice to determine certain outcomes rather than you. Direction is a major part of a DM's job. We use it to facilitate play, yet we often struggle to give some up, at times when doing so might improve the game.

My final suggestion is this: Have no fear of temporarily losing your plan. Embrace a little randomness for smaller details. The result could discover that the unexpected outcome is significantly more rewarding than anything you would have planned on your own.