- It's so tempting to
reveal to your D&D players metagame information after
the game session is over. What would have happened if? The secret loot they missed. And so on. But the counterintuitive truth is that revealing certain
out-of-character information to your players will worsen
their game experience and make it far less satisfying. Today's deep dive on this topic
will include a rule of thumb for what you should
reveal to your players, five things you should
never reveal to them, and a note on exceptions to these rules. If the character doesn't know it; the player doesn't know it. This is the rule to rule all rules. Most of the other specific
things we're gonna go over follow this single guideline. It's a simple rule, too. If the player's character in the game doesn't know something, then the dungeon master should not tell the player that something. Okay, I know that was a
mind-bending deep truth right there, so let's look at five specific things that I think game masters
are prone to tell players that they probably shouldn't. These are the things to
always keep behind the screen and not tell your players. Number 1: Things they
Missed in an Adventure. Loot and secret doors and secret areas are the most common things characters will miss in an adventure. The rationale around sharing
this information with players goes something like this, "If they already played
through that adventure, there's no harm in telling
them what they missed, right?" And you'd be wrong. Let's ignore the fact that players could just then decide to go back later and take another look just in case. Filthy metagamers might attempt
that, but not your players. Who knows? It'd be a whole new level of sleaze, but I wouldn't rule it out. Sounds like something I might
do in a game if I'm a player. I'd be like, "Yeah, you just told me about
the magic item back there. I'm gonna go back and look for it." But there are two other
reasons to avoid this. First of all, you might reuse some of that content in a future game. Yes, that's right, fellow dungeon masters: welcome to the world of
recycling your unused content for future adventures. The second reason I'll
get to in my next point. But first, a shameless plug for this video's amazing sponsor: dScryb! dScryb.com is an awesome
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scenes for you to use. And if you decide to unlock everything with a paid subscription, use the discount code THEDMLAIR to get 10% off your first payment. Number 2: What Would Have Happened If... Players love doing this. After the game session they
come up to you and are like, "Say, Luke, what would have happened if we had let that goblin go free and try to make a deal with
his tribe on our behalf? I mean, I know we murderized him, but would it have worked if we had tried?" My advice to you is to
keep your lips sealed when your players approach you with these hypothetical what if questions after a game session. I usually just respond
with something like, "I guess you'll never
know," while smiling, and my player is like, "Oh crap, come on!" (laughs) Even though your
players want to know, it's way more fun for
everyone if they don't. And why, might you ask? Luke, Luke, why? I'm melodramatic and
over the top at times. I do apologize. You're just gonna have to live with it. You're gonna have to live with
the crazy man on the YouTube. Anyway, to this I say, don't underestimate the power
of mystery and the unknown. Not knowing drives our curiosity and stokes our imaginations. Some things are better left unknown, and indeed more fun if unknown. Furthermore, not knowing the
what ifs for past decisions makes their future decisions
that much more interesting and important for players. I don't know how to explain this, really; it's just something I know intuitively. Number 3: If you fudged anything. Never, ever, ever reveal fudging of any type to your players. Let's say you were fudging your
dice rolls behind the screen to avoid a TPK. Nobody's ever done that before, have they? Or you allowed their
solution to the riddle to work even though it
wasn't the correct answer. Here's the problem with your players knowing that you're doing
this: it demeans player agency and tells them that
their choices and actions don't matter in the game. It doesn't matter that
you all picked a fight with an ancient black dragon; your dungeon master made
sure you won regardless. It doesn't matter that
you gave the wrong answer; your DM's got your back. When your players know
that you are fudging things to affect outcomes, and especially if it's to
tell the story you wanna tell, it can straight-up ruin the
game experience for them. They'll know that your world is not a living, breathing world
where their choices matter; instead, it's a highly curated world where you simply decide
what will happen when and your players are
powerless to affect it. I've discussed in prior videos the importance of player agency and making their choices meaningful, so I won't belabor the point. But what I will do is
give you a better solution than not telling them that
you're fudging things: stop fudging things, mostly. He's yelling at me. Don't fudge things mostly. Luke, I don't know. (splutters) All right, calm down. Let's just calm down. (laughs) In my games, my dice rolls are public except for specific ones,
such as death saving throws, that I intentionally hide
for very specific reasons. I want my players to see the dice. I want them to know that I'm not changing
things behind the screen. For the record, I never
fudge death saving throws, but I sometimes do fudge other dice rolls that don't have a discernible
impact on outcomes and don't affect player agency, such as rolling for random
encounters, let's say. Sometimes you need a random encounter or another random encounter
is the last thing you need. Believe me, I have been in game sessions where by the luck of the dice, we've rolled up random
encounter after random encounter after random encounter,
and it's not that fun. By the way, if you're enjoying this video, give me a thumbs up and leave a comment for
the algorithm down below. Let YouTube know what
you like on your nachos. And, you know, that I
don't completely suck. Nachos. (nachos whooshing) (nachos crunching) Number 4: Monsters Stats. Yeah, don't share these with your players. I go so far as to not even share the real name of the
monster with my players, unless it was obvious. All it does is ruin the mystery of things. There is zero benefit
in telling your players after the game session the stats of the monsters they fought. Okay, I get that it's
satisfying in the moment and during your post-game debrief where everyone is standing around talking about the game session. I get that; I do. But you'd be trading
a brief momentary gain for a long-term loss, in my opinion. Instead, allow your players
to experience the mystery and suspense of not knowing what the crap that crazy thing they fought was or everything that it was capable of. Number 5: What You Planned
vs. What You Improvised. Dear fellow game masters,
guard this information closely. Never reveal it to your players. Don't let them see what the
wizard does behind the curtain. It's far better for
your players to believe that everything was prepared in advance and that the world is what the world is before they come into contact with it. That cave full of gremlins existed before they decided
to walk into the cave. Those gremlins have been there for years, working their nasty alchemy business. It was fortuitous that
the characters found and stopped them when they did. Let your players believe that. Let them feel proud that they decided to wander
into that random cave just in time. If you tell them after the game session that you made it all up on the spot, you are cheapening the
game experience for them. Everything they did to stop those gremlins now loses its flavor and excitement because they know that if they
hadn't walked into that cave, nothing would have happened, 'cause those gremlins didn't really exist. They didn't really exist. Again, this has to do in
part with player agency and their choices mattering. But it also has to do with
suspension of disbelief. You want your players to believe that the world is what the world is, and that there isn't a
wizard behind the curtain creating everything. When you tell them that you improvised anything on the spot, you shatter that suspension of disbelief. Exceptions to These Rules. I rarely break these do not
share rules, but when I do, it's almost always for the
sake of maintaining the peace, so to speak. And what I mean by this is that if a disagreement
arises at the game table and revealing something behind the screen is the best way to
resolve it, I will do so. For instance, if my players are upset that a flying monster is coming close, attacking, and flying away, but they don't get an opportunity attack, I might say something like this: "Some monsters have abilities that get around opportunity attacks." Or I might just straight-up say that it has the Flyby Attack feature. And honestly, this is probably
the only exception I make to rolling back the dungeon master screen. If it's not to maintain the peace, I simply avoid sharing
out-of-character information with my players. Click on the screen now to
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long live cheesy nachos!
