User Journeys: Keeping Player wants in focus when session planning

A common mistake many new Dungeon Masters make is thinking of themselves as the rule master and storyteller, expecting players to progress linearly through prepared the plot points and locations.

Ha ha ha.

In reality, the players run the game. A good Dungeon Master loosely shapes the tale in response to the player’s choices, delivering outcomes and new challenges as the game progresses.

Together, in a natural give and take between player characters, monsters, and NPCs, the story is woven. This organic, freeform, collaborative improv is what makes role playing games different than video or board games, and also what makes it so great.

But there in lies the problem... and the reason why this podcast was created. The best Dungeon Masters allow for complete player freedom within the worlds they've created, but so in a way that doesn't undermine gameplay (and result in murder hobo-ing every session).

How do you allow for freedom without chaos?

How do you organically direct players toward the content you've prepared without it feeling forced?

One answer is to create a user journey for your party.

What is a User Journey?

In user experience (UX) design, we talk about user journeys and use cases a lot. These are the paths that we anticipate users will take as they interact with our products. We try to predict all the different ways users might want to achieve their goals, and then design the steps necessary to facilitate those.

An example of a user journey from Miro, one of my favorite white-boarding and wire-framing tools

Basically, a user journey shows how we anticipate a customer or user will interact with what we’ve designed.

Sometimes we get it wrong…

The customer journey can rarely be represented in a linear journey from point A to point B because users often take a back and forth, cyclical, multi-channel journey.

Similarly, in Dungeons & Dragons, the player characters often take a non-linear path through the adventure. If the Dungeon Master (DM) has designed a linear sequence of events, the players will likely find a way to veer off course. Players might backtrack to explore an area they missed or make multiple forays into side quests.

User Journeys in Table Top Gaming: Focus on the Player Needs

If you've ever felt like you were railroading your players, it's probably because you didn't have a good user journey in place.

One way we can prevent rail-roading is by identifying the different user journeys (or in this case, player journeys) so that you can design your game in a way that keeps the player's goals front and center.

What do the players want to accomplish? If you're in the middle of a campaign, you likely know at least one or two things each player would like to do, from big ideas (avenge my sister's death) to small desires (get a +2 axe). The party might share a collective goal, such as finally killing the Big Bad once and for all.

As a DM, you directly influence player goals through storytelling. One of the DMs I l know created an NPC so irritating that the entire party willingly entered a fishing competition just to defeat the NPC. It was great for the DM, who wanted to run a fishing competition game, and great for our party, because we wanted to shame the NPC with his loss.

Before you sit down to plan your session, briefly identify the shared and individual goals of your party, and then consider how you can weave those desires into your campaign.

Here's an Example for you

Say you've thought of a session in which the party investigates a string of murders in a small town.

You know that one of the player characters wants to find her sister's killer.

To motivate the party to get to the bottom of the murders and save the town, you'd leave a clue at one of the crime scenes that connects the murder to the dead sister. Suddenly there's a personal reason for getting involved that aligns with a player's needs and goals.

User Journeys Show Weak Links in Your Story

You could consider creating a user journey for all - or portions of - your campaign. To do this, you would need to map out all the possible ways a player could interact with your content. This includes every branching path, side quest, and piece of optional content (in UX, we call these "touchpoints").

Between each piece of content, note the player motivations to engage with this content, such as "This island is the location of the hidden key that they need to get to the Big Bad’s lair" or "There's a wedding for notable NPC happening here and one of the players was asked to be the best man, but learns he slept with the bride-to-be").

Having a hard time coming up with reasons why your players would engage with a piece of your campaign content? That's a hint you may need to strengthen your storyline and add compelling reasons for player involvement.

You don't need to map out your entire campaign, but even a small user journey can be immensely helpful when you're trying to figure out how to make your sessions more flexible without the gameplay itself feeling too loose.

In conclusion

Keeping player needs and wants top of mind is essential for running a game that feels organic instead of forced. By weaving player desires into your content, you’ll find the party naturally wants to engage with what you’ve prepared, because you’ve taken a moment to ensure it matters to them!

How have you incorporated player needs into your campaigns? Did it work or not? Let us know in the comments below!