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Offer three choices at several points in your games to give your players agency over the campaign they play. Selecting from three meaningful choices gives your campaign a clear direction, focuses where you need to prep, and ensures you're not railroading the characters down a single predetermined path.

Whenever your adventure or campaign reaches a moment of decision, offer three reasonable choices to the players. Whenever the characters complete a quest or story arc, give them enough new quests to get back to three choices. Let old choices fall off the list when they become irrelevant and let the players add their own choices if they have their own ideas.

There are several places in our games where we can offer such choices:

Which one of three villains do the characters want to focus on?Which one of three adventure locations do the characters want to visit?Which one of three different types of quests do the players want to engage in?Which one of three paths do the characters want to travel?Which one of three entrances do the characters want to use to infiltrate the keep?

Offering three choices gives players agency over the game without offering so many options that players become paralyzed with indecision.

Offer Reasonable Choices

These choices should all be reasonable and viable. These options shouldn't be fake choices that all really lead down the same path. And you, as the GM, should be ready to roll with any of them. Don't play favorites. There shouldn't be a "bad" choice or one that's too obviously the "right" choice. Each choice should hold some potential interest to the players and none should lead down the "wrong" path.

Managing your three choices can be tricky. Some choices really do seem like better options. Players often choose traveling down a less-traveled path over a well-traveled path or choose to go through a hidden entrance into a keep instead of through the well-guarded front door. So you'll need to make other paths more viable ��� those less traveled paths could be more dangerous than the well traveled ones.

Offer Choices at the End of the Session

If you're coming to the end of a quest or adventure, give yourself extra time at the end of the session to offer three choices for the future path of the game before the session ends and let your players choose. With a path chosen at the end of the session, you know where to focus your prep. You'll want to think two horizons out during your prep so you know what three choices to offer. You want to include enough information to offer meaningful choices players can choose so you know what to prep next.

Facilitate Decisions

Let the players discuss the three choices in front of them. Often they come to an agreement on their own. Sometimes you'll need to facilitate the conversation �����clarifying details and bringing the players to a consensus.

You can use a simplified rank-choice vote to see how people lean. Clarify each of the choices and ask each player to pick their top choice (which puts two points on their first choice) and their second top choice (which puts one point on their second choice). Once you've asked all of your players, tally the results.

You'll still want to ensure everyone is ok with the top-voted choice especially if it wasn't their top or even second choice. Check in with each player to make sure they're ok with the decision. If not, discuss the choices further to see if anyone changes their mind. Ensure everyone gets a chance to make their case. Ideally the group can all agree where to go even if some of them aren't 100% happy with it.

Reveal Gameplay Options Through Choices

These choices in our RPGs can also identify particular paths of gameplay. The characters may have the choice to either meet with the emperor and her advisors to build a strategy to deal with the Red Spear hobgoblin siege. Or they can explore the old sewers beneath the city to see if they can find a way past the Red Spear lines. Or they can travel over the wall and attempt to slay the Red Spear wizard Kallax Graytongue in the ruined watchtower south of the city. Each of these options offers different gameplay from the others and gives the players a chance to guide what sort of game they'll enjoy playing.

Such choices can be more focused too. When faced with the challenge of infiltrating a manor, they might choose to pose as hired guards for the manor, or as famed relic hunters, or sneak in through the hidden slime-ridden vaults beneath the manor. Each choice focuses on a different element of gameplay: subterfuge, negotiation, exploration, or combat.

Offer Meaningful Directions Without Paralyzing Decisions

Offering three choices gives enough options to the players to steer the direction of your campaign without getting bogged down in continual debate and indecision. Offer three choices and enjoy the story that unfolds at the table.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

Just Use BearsTwo Minute Session ZerosShadowdark Ravenloft Lazy GM KitRise of the Lazy Game Master EditingLaTia Jacquise Let Go from WOTCCeleste Conowitch Joins WOTCThe Four-Year WOTC Hiring and Firing ListRebuilding Trust in WOTC ��� Wait a YearKnock Magazine Bundle of HoldingAtlas VTT for ObsidianTen Ways to Be a Better TTRPG PlayerEN World 50% PDF SaleThe Red Death Party for DaggerheartDisability Pride DiceMake the EffortCouncil of AlliesPatreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here's last week's question and answer.

Scaling Prep to Lore-Heavy Settings (Jaron M)Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

Just Use BearsTwo Minute Session Zeros for Single Session AdventuresRunning I6 Ravenloft with Shadowdark RPGLaTia Jacquise let go from WOTCCeleste Conowitch, lead designer of Tales of the Valiant at Kobold Press joins WOTCBig list of hirings and firings at WOTCKnock Bundle of HoldingAtlas VTT for ObsidianAtlas VTT YouTube Video10 Ways To Be A Better TTRPG PlayerBig EN World Publishing sale ��� P offRed Death Party: A Horror One-Shot Adventure For DaggerheartDungeons & Dragons: Disability Pride Dice SetDDB Article about the Disability Pride DicePeople getting together less

Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on The Winged Apocalypse ��� Dragon Empire Prep Session 84 and Just Use Bears.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

Run low level campaigns to keep your games speedy and minimize strange game-breaking combinations.Ensure the scope of the problems your characters face match their strengths, power, and positions in the world.Three to five players is often your sweet spot.Treat your highest-level games as "best of" adventures where characters face ridiculous threats and show off the vast powers they've accumulated.Run wars by focusing your spotlight on the characters and narrating what's happening in the larger war surrounding them.Take your favorite ideas from several RPGs and mash them into the one you're playing.The only "official" material is the material you use at your table.Related ArticlesOffer Real ChoicesOffer Choices at the End of the SessionOffer Secret Paths in Dungeons or Overland JourneysGet More from Sly FlourishArticlesNewsletterBookstorePatreonPodcastYouTubeBuy Sly Flourish's Books Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster City of Arches Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master Lazy DM's Companion Lazy DM's Workbook Forge of Foes Fantastic Lairs Ruins of the Grendleroot Fantastic Adventures Fantastic Locations

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