Discussions from the Convention: Your Players Don’t Know What Was Supposed to Happen

While talking about Game Mastering at our first convention, I mentioned one of the most freeing lessons I have learned from running games:

Your players do not know what was supposed to happen.

That lesson was drilled into me by my best friend, who has run games for me for years. Whenever the players went in an unexpected direction or a plan stopped working, his advice was essentially the same:

The players do not know what you originally planned, so roll with what is happening now.

They do not know what was written in your notes.

They do not know which encounter was originally planned for another location.

They do not know that a clue was supposed to come from someone else.

They only know what actually reaches the table.

Once that lesson sinks in, running a game becomes much less intimidating.

Your Notes Are Not the Story

A Game Master may spend hours preparing locations, conversations, enemies, clues, and possible scenes.

Then the session begins, and the players do something unexpected.

That does not mean your preparation failed.

Your notes are preparation for the story.

They are not the story itself.

The story is what happens when the players interact with what you prepared.

Sometimes that means moving an encounter.

Sometimes it means changing where the players find a clue.

Sometimes it means adjusting a conversation because the person you expected them to question is currently three towns away while the party interrogates Fred the dockworker instead.

And sometimes it means accepting that the players found a completely valid way around everything you prepared.

The Portal Home

A while back, I was playing in a game where our party was trapped on another plane.

While setting the scene, the Game Master described demons escaping through a portal that led back to our home plane.

His intention was to show us what was happening around us before we fought through the final two floors he had prepared.

My friend heard something different.

He heard:

“There is a viable portal back home.”

So he asked whether we could try to use it.

The Game Master immediately realized what had happened.

He had unintentionally presented us with a possible escape route that bypassed the remainder of the dungeon.

He could have declared that the portal only worked for demons.

He could have closed it before we reached it.

He could have invented a reason that forced us back toward the two floors he had prepared.

Instead, he said yes.

He chose a difficulty he felt was appropriate and allowed each of us to roll.

Every member of the party succeeded.

The Game Master looked at us and essentially said:

“Okay, we are done for the night because you just bypassed the last two floors I prepared. Level up twice for next week.”

He gave us full credit.

That was the right call.

Let the Players’ Choices Matter

The Game Master had prepared two more floors of encounters.

That was real work, and I am sure he would have preferred to use it.

But we found a solution that made sense based on the situation he described.

Rather than protecting his preparation, he allowed our decision and the dice to determine what happened.

The remaining dungeon was not the story anymore.

Our escape through the portal was.

That does not mean every unexpected idea should automatically succeed.

The plan still needs to make sense.

The characters may still need to overcome a meaningful challenge.

The dice may still say no.

In our case, the Game Master set a difficulty and let us attempt it.

We could have failed.

We did not.

Once we succeeded, he respected the result.

That is the important part.

Do Not Protect Your Preparation From the Players

There is a temptation when you have spent hours preparing something to make sure the players experience it.

That makes sense.

You worked on it.

You want to use it.

But forcing the players toward something simply because it exists in your notes can make their choices feel less meaningful.

If every road eventually leads to the encounter you prepared, did choosing the road really matter?

If the players discover a reasonable way around the problem but the world changes specifically to prevent them from using it, are they solving the situation or simply searching for the answer you already decided upon?

Sometimes you will need to redirect things.

Sometimes there are perfectly legitimate reasons a plan cannot work.

But “I prepared something else” should not be one of them.

Preparation exists to support the game.

The game does not exist to justify the preparation.

Be Willing to Adjust

Sometimes the players will miss an encounter you prepared.

Sometimes they will solve a problem in a way you never considered.

Sometimes one sentence in your description will give them an idea that skips two entire floors of your dungeon.

You are allowed to adjust.

You can move an encounter somewhere else if it still makes sense.

You can reuse a creature, location, or idea later.

You can save something for another campaign.

Or you can simply accept that the game went somewhere different.

Nothing says every good idea you prepare has to appear in the campaign where you originally created it.

The players are not there to experience your notes in the correct order.

They are there to make decisions and discover what happens because of them.

They Only Know What Happened

My best friend drilled this lesson into me over years of playing together:

The players do not know what was supposed to happen, so roll with what is happening.

Prepare your session.

Make your plans.

Build encounters you think will be fun.

Then be willing to change them, move them, save them for later, or abandon them entirely when the game takes a different direction.

Your players will never know that the monster they fought in the basement was originally supposed to be in the forest.

They will not know that the clue they received from the bartender was originally written for the town guard.

They will not know that an entire section of the dungeon disappeared because someone noticed a portal you never expected them to use.

They only know the game they experienced.

Make that version count.