I saw this comment and thought, "Hey that's what Dael says!" Then I realized it was you actually saying it. Big thanks to both you and Matt for getting the gears turning for me as a DM. I look forward to moments where I can throw my players into the strange corners of my world where "vague and evocative" is the first order of business.
Don’t know if you’d see this, but thank you for inspiring me. Both you and Matt have helped me get on my feet when it comes to storytelling through this beautiful game. Looking forward to being able to share with you both one day :)
I feel like the whole "vision in response to a question" (or any stimulus, really) could be easily clarified by adding straight up connecting the two as the trance starts. Something like "Your vision blurs and your ears ring. The only sound you're able to make out is the question [Question here], asked by your friend, echoing and forcing the colors into shapes [Vision here]."
@@nvk3435 Yup. just so long as it is abundantly clear that A is in result of B. Probably also should have given them a vision when they inherit the powers.
Another is to have the vision go into a 3rd person perspective until it reaches the city. Minor events take place, then the city is destroyed. Camera pans back out, and back to the party emerging victorious from the Dungeon.
In this particular case it would've worked well to tie it to the dungeon aesthetic. If you've found a door leading into a dungeon covered with art of fire and snakes, and you think "What happens if we don't explore this dungeon?" then you get a vision of fire and snakes bursting free? The players are going to put two and two together. The tricky bit is whether they'll interpret it as "We need to get in there and stop this!" or "Sounds like we'd better not mess with this dungeon and risk setting whatever-it-is free"...
@@nvk3435 That would be more obvious but also would require the DM to immediately think of the right prophetic dream. As a DM I rarely think of plotpoints immediately and only get ideas way after the current session, so you need to connect the dots for the players and remind them of what would be obvious to the characters. By the time the characters in my game got the information, they just lived through the relevant stuff a few hours ago, but for the players it was weeks
"I'm Matt Colville, I can do anything" at 6:13 is one of my favorite soundbytes. That could replace "peace out" at the end of each video and I would laugh every time.
OOOOH ok this is my time to shine!! I have a Way of the Four Elements monk in my homebrew world right now, and he's just starting to get visions after defeating the Master of Vipers (thanks for that one) in single combat. Before, he was just hearing a voice vocalizing on the wind occasionally, or when he used his elemental powers his own master tattoos would briefly appear on his skin- but now the visions start. He's seen memories of what this previous master did as well, so he knows "this is something that happened, or might happen". The thing he normally has to figure out is if this is something in the past, or the future. Some have been obvious, but some even I don't know. If they bite and follow a hook - well gosh that was in the future, if they don't, it was the past. This way, I can frame the same vision differently, and previously something that was in the future has become past when they were clever and tried to apply it, or vice versa. I've been doing this for a few months now and it hasn't bitten me yet- so a mix of memory and prophecy is how I'm making it work.
To quote the great Wilma Thistlespring from Fantasy High, “If you have a dream you remember when you wake up, talk to a Wizard about it, because magic is real.”
"As it was written" has become the slogan for a player's cleric in one of my games. Just retroactively applying prophecy to everything. He and I actually maintain a google doc of minor and major prophecy's in his character's religion that he strikes through when one is fulfilled. Also, if you want to see an interesting example of prophecy, Critical Role had some fortune telling near the end of C2 where a character drew from a tarot deck, which both is vague enough that no matter what it'll be accurate, but has enough specificity that it feels like it couldn't just apply to anyone. Was super cool to see how it turned out.
That is awesome, not just the line but the fact I'm sure it makes for a _great_ in-joke with the group xD Also love that prophecies doc thing. Nothing like a player who will participate in more than just character sheet shenanigans and table time.
I played a similar cleric! I called him Ios The Prophet. He had a scribe tag along with him writing down everything he said because he was convinced he knew the future. Also used that same gimmick of retroactively saying "this was foreseen!" type things. Lots of fun. Funny you did the same thing. Maybe it was destiny for me to read this comment??
Good Matt loves playing around with prophetic dreams and fortune telling. Vex has a tarot reading when they went to Marquette, Molly did his charlatan tarot reading at the beginning of C2, Fjord and Cad have buttloads of visions, and now Imogen in C3 seems to be a vision girl, at least the one time.
Hey Matt, you've previously explained how you like to use "cutscenes" to show things that happen off screen. One of my players gets visions of things as they are happening as he views the world through the eyes of animals that happen to be in significant places at significant times, like a fly on the wall. It's like Nature identifying threats to the natural order of things that it wants him to deal with. He sees things happening that the players wouldn't otherwise. He becomes curious and that acts as a plot hook. They come as random dreams. Works best if not over-used I find.
@@ThanatoselNyx 💯 No, not sure this is a joke though and needs explanation. Hindsight is 20/20 refers to perfect vision, which is measured 20/20. The odds are 50/50 means half the time you get it, the other half you don't. Combining the two turns off phrase means when you look back half the time you see things clearly, and half the time you remember them wrong.
My answer to how I make it work: “Foreshadowing.” I’ve used visions successfully in 3 ways: 1) to allow a view in to the BBEG’s machinations 2) to tie to character backstory (I have a PC with a big hole in her backstory, I’m giving her glimpses of what happened as the story goes on). I then tie this new knowledge to things upcoming. 3) direct foreshadowing: let the vision be a little further out than “what happens if we don’t make this decision now”, so that the players are in the position to question “oh, is this ‘that vision coming true’?”
#3 is good. Using immediate vision like in the dungeon example just feels like putting a quest marker above the dungeon entrance. It turns into "I guess that's what the DM wants us to do."
Both, I think. I think the value of treating Visions and Prophecies as foreshadowing is that you’re not tying them to a direct decision by the player. So there’s no railroading involved. If it doesn’t land, then it’s just a nice vignette showing the fantastical elements of the game world. If it does land, it adds drama and propels the story forward.
Foreshadowing and keep it short. My players were approaching a show down with a skeleton dragon. I gave them vague dreams of flying and and flashbacks of the dragon attacking at city.
I had my party fall into a shared experience dream where they each got to be one of the BBEGs, scaled up to be stronger than they will be when the party encounters them in game. (The giant variants from Volo's) I then told them their goal was to cause as much destruction as possible. This allowed them to still play while also learning they're on a clock. It has been guiding them for months now, and was my personal favorite session.
Tip for visions, plan the end first. When you describe the vision, remember everything you say is basically set in stone (so write it down). If you say the villan wore a blue cloak then when the players meet them they must be wearing a cloak and it must be blue. Leave space for things to change and let the players make decisions, even if those decisions mess with your initial plans but if you plan loosely the end first, you can always add or change things later to steer the players to your desired outcome.
@@Marcel2278 Absolutely! Currently running a game that will lead to the party facing a lich. I have the cleric a dream of basically the Lich’s backstory without saying he’s a lich, and teased the quest item for the first session so when he clocked that it was connected he immediately wrote everything he could down to see if it lined up.
Hi Matt! I’ve returned with some successful uses of visions in my campaign. Basically, the eminent return of the dragons- and their god not long after that- has caused those particularly susceptible to visions to be plagued by them. I established this by a PC in the first iteration of the campaign- a dream Druid kalishrar- getting strange visions including the moon turning into an egg, then the egg hatching, devouring her, and threatening her to stay out of the way. That iteration of the campaign fizzled but 3 players stayed in the group, so we started a new campaign in the same world with a new group of adventurers being formed by the regent of the city the old party had just visited (and informed him of their concerns). This group _also_ featured a dream Druid, from the same player, and so she was given a prophesy that where the ground ran purple there their dangerous would be worst. Kobolds bleed purple in my world, and when the first kobold was slain the party _all_ knew both in and out of game that these strange creatures were the key. They later found a necromancer who’d been driven mad by visions of claws and teeth, tooth and bone, a flood of a purple river sweeping across the world and washing away all life into the sea. He tried to make a “wall of flesh to stem the tide.” The party found his journal which helped piece both his story and the greater narrative. Later the dream Druid (Myn) had visions similar to those described by the necromancer, but she got far more detail as _she_ was having them. I described what ended up being Dwarven ruins (though dwarves were “just a myth” in my world). Later a nature cleric joined the party and I had him see similar visions in his backstory which, when comparing stories in-game, confirmed in the party’s character’s minds that they were meant to work together. Now the party is in the Dwarven ruins seeing the very same view both the Druid and the cleric had in their visions, staring down a Dragonborn (dragonoids weren’t even _a myth_ in my world, they simply didn’t exist as far as anyone was concerned) who’s about to start a ritual ro revive a dragon. So yeah, I used visions to deliver plot information in a more exciting manor than “you passed a history check while in a library” and especially to deliver info the party _could not possibly_ have acquired in other ways (no one else alive knew about the kobolds for example when the party got their visions).
Worth bearing in mind that many of the most famous prophecies in myth and legend are the central tension of tragic or dramatic irony precisely because they are misinterpreted. Think Oedipus, or McBeth or indeed Lukes vision of Vader on Degobah. That's how I use prophecy and visions in my games, as forshadowing which is revealed later rather than nudges for the players to act.
I once started a campaign by having my players make characters but not pick their class. I assigned the standard array stats. They Began the adventure as their background. I started them off with absolutely nothing but commoners clothing and a set of iron cuffs on their feet. They were held as captured towns folk about to be pressed into slavery. The most memorable characters evolved from that game. They escaped with a half baked plan, a sharpened bone, a sling made from a shirt , a stolen frying pan, and a broken window shutter. Legendary game.
My favorite phrophecy i’ve seen was in a home brew campaign that started off with the pc’s in wizard school. There was a section dedicated to each of the schools of magic, and a running joke was how the divination school was constantly predicting the end of the world. Flash forward to the end of the campaign rn and it turns out that one of the apocalypse plots the dm mentioned for us to laugh at was the endgame plan of the bbeg and we are now having to thwart it. The dm’s face was an extremely smug grin when we realized that.
I used my warlock characters strained relationship with his patron to deliver ominous visions of that otherworldly being's malicious intentions. The character's choices moving forward shaped the prophecy, which eventually culminated in a boss battle against the patron with some far-reaching consequences upon the world
I've run prophetic visions in my latest campaign - the Psalms of Woe, a book which teeters on the edge of reality, created, accidentally, when an ancient mage tapped into the leylines of the world. They are basically the elder scrolls, going insane/ blind when reading them, they appear randomly throughout history, etc. I just wrapped up the act in our campaign that pertained to the Psalms, and their prophecies. The one thing I learnt: KEEP IT VAGUE. If you give yourself room to wriggle with the metaphors you place in the prophecy, you can account for the chaos that is your players, and incorporate their decisions into the slots the prophecies provide. An example of this - “ When the dead god comes, his form made flesh; Cities will fall, their walls will thresh. The Well of Wishes is what they seek; But now the dead rise at feet. **Okay, so we set the stage for the Act 3 BBEG here, dead god, what are the details of this dead god - I had no idea at the time, it sounded cool and could work in any lore, so I ran with it. I now know exactly who he is, because I've had a year since I showed the players the prophecy, and have weaved him into all of their lore. Set an end goal - the well of wishes is something specific to my setting, but it can be any McGuffin. Set the stage for what's at stake - cities crumbling, the dead rising from the earth, all very normal end of the world shit. Hidden in skins of steel they wait, To hurry their cruel master’s fate. The warm hearted general will protect, The cost his soul, they must collect. **Skins of steel - i kept it vague - are they just dudes in suits of armour? Are the in dwarven machinations? Are they made of steel? I gave myself options for what the players could fight, depending on how they steered the story. The warm hearted general was someone who died the session they were able to read the psalms - it was more setting specific to me, and it was good motivation for them to continue the fight. To defeat the heralds, saints you need, But a what once was four will soon be three, What was four will be four friends made new, With their wits and magic, the dead one they’ll undo. **Who is the heralds? I had a vague idea, but I set myself up for success by keeping my options open once again. The next two lines are lore specific to my world, so i wont bore you. Wits and magic, they will defeat the dead one, a call to action - they WILL win if they follow the Psalms. Look West, you must, to mountains tall, The chapel long standing shall soon fall. Go far now, where they dug too deep, And see what fate that kingdom did reap. Friends you must use to guide your way, Run and live another day, Now the five go on their final journey, Use your wits, and show no mercy.” **Last two stanzas are the final call to action, giving them a solid direction, and a pat on the back - leading them to the destination I had set the finale in Act 1 in. I never railroaded, because when they went astray, they went "lets check the prophecy again!" and self corrected, using it as a compass themselves, which also made them feel in control, since they were the ones using the information at hand to keep pushing forward with their duty. All in all - from someone that ran a prophecy, which I consider very successful for my party, keep it vague, do it early, give direction, and let them steer the ship.
One of my favorite lines from Dimension 20 was in Fantasy High. One of the PCs told their parents that they’ve been having weird dreams and asked if it meant anything, and their parent said “Well, magic is real in this world so dreams definitely have real meaning.” If you’re a DM, use dreams! They’re a great way of giving hints and clues and exposition in a dramatic fashion.
Haven't watched the video yet. But it is uncanny that I just found these amazing series a weeks ago and I am at the video #37. On which Matt says he's afraid someone just like me(a new dm aspiring to be a good storyteller one day) will stumble upone these videos and think "Holy crap do I have to know all of these things to run dnd?" And while I was thinking about that 100th video's notification came up. Was a good chuckle. And no, Matt. I stumbled upon these videos and thought WHAT A TREASURE THIS MAN OFFERS. Thanks for being a river to us. All your efforts are much appreciated.
Ive used visions very successfully in my Stars Without Numbers campaign, one of the PCs was a psychic with telepathy powers, and sometimes when the PCs were asleep, he would tap into the dreams (or nightmares) of the other party members. These illustrated their trauma's, fears and aspirations in a somewhat cryptic way, and really intrigued the psychic PC. Additionally, this particular PC suffered from retrograde amnesia after his psychic powers bloomed for the first time as a child, and as the campaign goes on, he would receive occasional visions of his old memories, filling in some of the mystery of his characters nature.
In my experience running my monster of the week game which has lots of dream stuff, the best way to do a vision is not to plan it out with waking world logic. Visions of future or any type of future sight has the chance to be contradicted by the players. The way to make a vision truly work is by not set up a specific point down the timeline. It's about setting up themes and moments. One of my players in this monster of the week game, playing "the spooky" had a vision of stabbing another player "the chosen" with that player's own weapon. At the end of the arc that this vision occurred, the spooky had hold of the chosen's weapon because they alone had the power to reforge it after it was broken. Holding this sword, I forced them to make checks not to stab the chosen. Everyone was really freaking out that maybe there was no way out of this, but then, the spooky rolled really well to resist this urge and the crisis was averted! I was content to conclude this as a satisfying ending to that plot thread. The vision was more a portent of a possible future rather than a prophecy. But here is the best part of keeping visions vague and malleable! Only two sessions ago, a character that is effectively the spooky's evil twin (who was being run by the spooky's player despite being a villain, long story lol) completely due to the actions of the players, not me, ended up with that magical sword. As if they were acting out the vision from a whole arc earlier, this version of the spooky stabbed the chosen with their own chosen weapon and everyone collectively lost their minds. The best part of any prophecy is when the subject does everything in their power to avert that outcome. Yet it happens anyway, only not in the way that they expected.
Here's my vision story: I'm a Paladin of Ulaa the Stonewife, and we were dealing with some morally dubious shenanigans. Basically people being brought back as undead by the government and seeing it as a blessing. Anyway I asked my god for advice because it was hard to tell how I should treat these undead. I got a vague message "Beware of Elves and those well-dressed. Trust the stone." Trust the stone? Of that I was confused. Well, many many sessions later, we're fighting a spellcaster in an underground tunnel surrounded by undead. He's used a cone of cold to nearly wipe our entire party, and we're getting up with a tiny amount of HP. Our druid drops her newest magic item, the Fragment of Elder Starlight. It's a glowing golden rock that deals a bunch of radiant damage to undead and fiends in a big radius, once per day. Suddenly, I shout "Trust the stone! The fragment!" Our rogue picks it up, calls the command phrase, and gives us enough opening to heal a bit and chase the caster off. Felt genius for that one. Also shameless self promo: We do podcast this game it's called Super Dice Boys, find it wherever you get podcasts!
Thanks for the stories and lessons Matt. And I think you hit on the most important point at the end there - "Keep playing." It's almost like painting a scene from a distance, and as the players make decisions and shape the story themselves, the details of the scene become clearer. Our distance from the painting closes in a little more. Then finally, when you've frantically been keeping up with the chaos of the PC's, and enough pieces from their trail have been gathered, you bring them all together in a way that satisfies the promises of the vision, and truly finishes the painting. For good, Or ill.
I’ve always done visions and the like in the style of Dael Kingsmill’s game: vague and evocative. Rather than specifics, which cause players to act, I do more general visions, where if they see someone, something, or somewhere they know, it’s obvious that it’s not right this second, but a possible future, based on other clues in the vision. In short, I want the players to think about the vision before acting, so they consider multiple options for acting. It also means, if you wanted, you could take the Greek view on prohecy, with the players actions causing the disaster they saw in their vision.
Your videos bring me the dopamine to make it through the day. But also the intermittency with which the dopamine is administered may have created a mild addiction. Either way it is nothing short of an absolute pleasure partake of the waters of your river again.
Visions in my own campaigns: About 5-6 years ago I was running a Ravenloft campaign and I was playing a ton of "Fallen London". I wanted to incorporate the style of prose that one finds in Fallen London into my games. To do this, I'd start each session with a 2-3 minute vision written in that style. I'd use these to foreshadow events that were happening outside of the immediate area, or provide backstories, or explain world events. It worked really well to set the mood and get the players thinking about the world. I also used the program Twine to create short one-shot choose-your-own-adventures for individual players between sessions. One got to live out stories from his previous life, another had his soul stolen and Twine allowed him to see what was happening to it. When we'd come back to the table they'd all share these half-remembered stories. Great time all around.
"I stand atop a spiral stair an oracle confronts me there. He leads me on lightyears away, through astral nights, galactic days. I see the works of gifted hands, that grace this strange and wondrous land. I see the hand of Man arise, with hungry mind and open eyes. They left the planet long ago The elder race still learn and grow Their power grows with purpose strong, to claim the home where they belong. Home to tear the Temples down Home to change"- Oracle: The Dream, 2112, Rush
At this point, I think Matt has a wire tap in my house. All his videos of late are perfect to the campaign I'm writing. Love the channel Matt, and I'm loving the Arcadia magazines.
Matt, thank you for pouring out your massive experience in building stories and worlds to everyone here. I know you're not just talking about D&D, or roleplaying games even, you're sharing your perception of reality and how we live our lives from the wisdom you've gained over your life as a story teller.
It's probably how you set it up for us, directly and clearly as a story of what happened afterwards, so when you talked about Jason's warlock getting the eyes and then having a vision right after asking that question, that made it seem really obvious to me that was what it meant.
Yeah the way he told this story really just makes them look stupid. I ASSUME that there was a large period of time in between where the oracle powers just didn't come up.
A great video topic! Dreams and prophecy are a great way to advance individual player's individual story, as well as the plot at large. At times when I've used prophecy, I've had no earthly idea as to what the true meaning was, and it acted as a fun and interesting narrative constraint to try to fulfill some reasonable yet unexpected outcome. One of my favorite narrative tools!
I use oracles and visions in almost all of my campaigns, usually to good effect. In my current campaign, we're in a sort of Roman inspired campaign, and one of my players wanted to play an Orpheus-like bard, and she was already playing an Aasimar. So I made her the daughter of "Helius" the god of prophecy, poetry, truth and lies. I gave her a song at the beginning of the campaign that gave some information about what the campaign was going to be about (e.g., this orc tribe is up to no good, there's goblins that could be enemies or could be allies depending on what you do, and there's a unicorn that needs rescuing). I've found that so far it helps to keep the campaign moving. Compared to past campaigns where there might be times the PCs might spend and entire session just debating what to do or where to go.
Had mixed success with visions in games like Dark Heresy : The lessons I learned is you can't give "actual information" with a vision (at least not at first), but you can give "actual emotional responses". You can describe how an oracle's subconscious reacts which can help interpret the message too. Pack a single idea in a vision, and everything about that vision should be directly relatable to that idea. If they can figure out even a single word out of it, it's should be enough for your vision to be a success.
Today I will DM my first game ever, with six people who have also never played D&D. I´ve watched 99 running the game videos, every single one of which I loved. So thank you Matt, this is an amazing series and I will continue watching it for as long as you will make it
I love your content. Every video you put out is amazing. I'm saddened somewhat by what you've said on streams about the future of running the game (that you've basically said all that needs to be said). Each of your videos inspires and excites me. Thanks for doing what you do.
I see your foundation reference, and I appreciate it. It’s the only book you’ve mentioned in all of your Running the Games videos that I actually know 😅
I've delievered prophecies to the players with strange strong imagery. That way even if your players can't make heads or tails of it-- you can use similar imagery outside of the dream to direct them where to go. Maybe if they werent curious before they might develop curiosity later on as certain signs come to pass.
Personally, the only time I’ve ever used visions or anything like that. Are for Warlocks, and once in a current running game. Visions give a great way for a Warlock’s patron to act as both a help, and a unreliable narrator. For instance an Aboleth patron lying to their Warlock that an area they want the player to go would have the things they desire. As for the other instance, dragon with time magic to a kobold PC that sees her as a goddess. Basically it just confirmed the path he was already traveling to a certain degree. While also giving it a tiny bit of weariness.
I'm currently running a campaign that is heavily influenced by the gods of that world, and characters regularly receive visions. Some of them are more messages than oracular visions, but some give vision of the future which may come to pass if the PCs do nothing. The most complex form of this was a trip to one potential future for the PCs for several game sessions; it showed the potential 'end of the world' outcome, but not what might avert it. Worked well. Visions seem to work in the campaign for a number of reasons - one is, my PCs have played with me and as a group for 30+ years, so we know each other well. The other is to hold the adventure lightly - I've had them walk past the dungeon and do something else, and had to make it up as I go along very rapidly. But this regularly happens without the visions, they just give the PCs an occasional poke. And knowing them well, I normally have an idea how they will react and what they will do next; but equally am often proved wrong. However, I'm also cool with throwing something in and, post session, working out what it means for the campaign and the more immediate plot. Works for us, anyway..
I LOVE that you made this video, I've been pondering how to make an Oracle type work for some time. I felt like having such an ability would go against the laws of the natural world, so I made it somewhat of a curse! Not something players can have happen (hopefully)
I've used visions and dreams to great effect in my great pendragon campaign. I know what's coming up in the pendragon timeline and I know what my players are interested in. It's an easy match and extremely, extremely on brand for arthuriana. Sometimes they're vague, sometimes they're concrete. My personal favorite way to introduce visions of the future is using figures from the past.
i remember a while back you said something like "i want my channel to be like [shutupandsitdown] when it grows up" and now today checking my subscriptions and seeing a new shutupandsitdown video and a new Matthew Colville video, i am SIGNIFICANTLY more excited to see the Matt Colville video first than the shutupandsitdown one. and i get REALLY exited to see a shutupandsitdown video
I used visions fairly well in my recent Red Hand Of Doom campaign. First, I wanted to test the lethality of some Horde soldiers, so I described a wild scream piercing the night, fog rolling in over the party, ghost riders in the sky, and then the fog cleared for the fight. I described the same things after the fight with the players unable to find any corpses or loot. Second, I wanted to make sure the players went to the start point of the campaign. I gave the cleric of Thor a vision where he was riding just behind a one eyed rider in the sky. They flew over two cities and many villages towards a giant bonfire where the cleric saw a vast horde of Hobgoblins and other monsters. The one eyed rider said to the cleric, “Brindol, Drellins Ferry, Vrath Keep, Rhestilon.” I had some other uses of visions which were side quest related.
I got into this series a few years ago when I was a player character with only a year or so of game experience, and I hadn't checked in in a while. I was very pleasantly surprised to see this was only uploaded a few weeks ago! I'm currently working on making my first ever Campaign with a capital C and it's terrifying, I've got some big shoes to fill and some players who know the game rules a hell of a lot better than I do. Your videos have been a saving grace, and a very calming reassurance : ) Thank you for all the advice and all the ideas, and I'm endlessly happy to see this series is still going!!
Two points of clarification first, then my experience DMing visions and dreams: - bunches of zero level characters run by one person is referred to as a "funnel" - You said "6 fingers" and I did not think of Vecna. I thought of Grazz't. Grazz't has 6 fingers. The Hand of Vecna does not. Okay, visions and dreams. Right. These work better for *players* (not characters) who are curious and who are willing to follow the clues. If you have a spiritual character being played by a player who just wants to hit things with a hammer, do not expect any level of success. Also if the player has a world view that they refuse to question, alter, or consider, visions are not a good idea. I have two examples of a vision/waking dream/hallucination that I want to talk about: *"The boy"* - As a result of saving a halfling village, one Dwarven cleric of Thor (his idea) became something of a hero to a young halfling boy who would follow him around wearing a pot on his head and wielding a stick. This boy was also gifted a woolen fake beard to better "resemble" his hero. When I needed the cleric to be in the proximity of where a clue might be, the cleric would be sent a text or secret note saying he saw this boy standing somewhere or walking somewhere. Because this boy, in "reality" did have a tendency to run away, the cleric would run after him. When the Dwarf arrived where he saw "the boy", there would be no trace, including footprints. After a number of these occurrences the Dwarf returned to that village to find that the boy had never left. Later "visions" would include townspeople around the Dwarf and this "boy" slowing in time, as if they were no longer part of the same reality. This was a great way to give the cleric cryptic clues. *"The tree of the dead"* - There's always that one player. Everyone else rolls one type of character and this one player rolls something that hates them. The group rolled a bunch of arcane types in a region where arcane magic was restricted, so this one player rolled a Paladin who hunted these sorts of characters. Instead of drama, this caused a lot of friction and in-party fighting. I could see my table suffering. I knew that the theological ruling body of this region had twisted the meaning and words of the god they professed to follow, so I thought that I would use this as my avenue. During one night's rest, the Paladin had a dream. In that dream, a figure in battered steel armor, wrapped in a grey cloak lead this Paladin though a landscape of thick fog and dead hardwood trees. From these trees hung several dead bodies, each in different stages of decay. They all wore the garments of the order to which this Paladin belonged. The figure simply stated "What are my tenets?". When the Paladin stammered, or obfuscated, the figure said it louder. "What are my tenets?!". The paladin stammered and stumbled for an answer. The figure now yelled. "Protect the weak! Hold the line!" It then repeated it's question. The Paladin did not answer. The figure yelled again. "Protect the weak! Hold the line!". "What are my tenets?" When the player looked at me with confusion and alarm, I told them their sight was now cast slowly up a massive tree. The dead littered this tree. The higher up, the more desiccated they became. The Paladin started recognizing members of his order, including it's Knight Protector...near the top, and all but bones and rags...but still moving. "You have violated my tenets. Burning "witches"? Hunting children? Prosecuting the innocent? Wherein these actions are you holding the line? Wherein these crimes have you protected the weak?! WHAT. ARE. MY. TENETS?!?!" Now the Paladin was at the top of the tree, hanging from it's tallest branch, rotting in fast forward. "You have abandoned me. I now abandon your heresy." The paladin awoke with a cold sweat and immediately scrambled to look through his pack. Within he found the silver mask he wore when hunting "witches"...and cast it into the fire. Sadly, that PC died not long after that, but did so heroically defending a village of those he would have persecuted in the past. He was redeemed. This player wasn't what you would call flexible in their world view, but the "no nonsense" way this played out at least ended the table friction between the players...until his next character....
I actually used something similar to start a campaign. Had my players start at age 6 and play through their childhoods with some time jumps over three sessions and at 16 they become level 1. It worked SO well, bound the characters to each other and the setting organically, made their class choices make sense for their backgrounds (and changed the mind of one player from rogue to ranger) and helped give me a good group of experiences to work from.
I consider this man a consumate dm and I do love hearing the fails he's made, some of which mirror my own. It's reaffirming and really helps. Thank you sir!!
“If your campaign isn’t regularly teetering on the precipice of disaster, are you really playing dnd?” (Paraphrased) I’m feeling this callout so hard. Simultaneously thinking I’m definitely doing things right but also that precipice of disaster LOOMS heavy.
I have managed to utilise prophetic dreams in a campaign before by making them wide-spread. Every member of the party had a dream and as they went about their morning came to understand that it was a shared dream. They were confused but had no further clues, and so decided to head into town to find a quest. When they arrived they saw a town of tired, distressed villagers. By making it a huge thing it was able to drive the quest line forward without spoiling too much and gave me the option to add more dreams to create a sense of urgency
The time it worked: Players had a set plan - get into the keep through the sewer. Gotta run an errand in the meantime. On their way they meet some refugees/destitutes, including a little blind girl who tells a PC, "You are destined for grate things... the time will come sooner than you think". I'll let you put 2 and 2 together, but I was elated when that PC took the 2nd place in marching order after an NPC.
@@evelynda5235 Just the cherry on top, a perfect set-up for me to have the NPC in front try with all his might to use his "bend bars/lift gates" ability, fail utterly, and then ask the "grATE hero" who was right behind in 2nd place. If he chose to be in the back, it would have been an awkward ordeal to "fudge" the situation.
This is very very very important for me rn, since I'm running a game about oracles. One of the players, the Divination Wizard, is a developing Seer, while the players are in the process of (despite not knowing it) rescuing an elven Oracle from thousands of years ago.
This video has been up for 19 hours and already had almost 700 comments. You have done an amazing job Matt. I hope you know how much joy you have brought to do many people
When my DM ran out of the Abyss he created a complicated and thorough prophecy that had the eventual destiny of all of our characters and the villains in the story. He accomplished this by making the prophecy extremely vague so that the conditions could be met without constrains on time or place. There was a lot of railroading involved, but he was good and it was a pre-written adventure, so nobody felt like it was adverse to the experience. This was brilliant and amazing as our characters figured out what the prophecy meant as parts of it came to pass. At first we were lost to the meaning, but then as events passed we were able to use it to tell the future a little bit. It was a fun.
The hardest part of giving my players prophecies and visions is players taking what I say literally. But that happens with lots of NPC interaction, so business as usual, I suppose.
its a tricky one, just have them encounter different NPC's with different views or beliefs about the same thing. when they start to realise that the NPC's have their own non DM handed down interpretations of reality theill start to take what they say as part of the world rather than information handed down from the godly entety that is the DM.
I’m currently teaching a course on The Book of Revelation. A series of visions that are perpetually misunderstood. The author GK Chesterton wrote, “St. John saw no monster more extraordinary than one of his interpreters.” If an Apostle can’t guarantee his visions will be understood, then DMs shouldn’t feel to bad if players misunderstand their visions. In a way, misunderstood visions/prophecies are a fantasy trope as well ie Harry Potter
I had off-handily included an oracle in my campaign in some remote location but now this is actively making me think about getting the players to this dangerous area that the oracle resides. Thanks matt!
As someone who heavily incorporated warlock premonition dreams into his campaign, this video reinforced that these dreams are indeed as rad and fun as they appear to be!
I loved your oracle/vision story. I laughed this morning! In one of my current campaigns, I've made heavy use of visions to mixed results. The first adventure my party went on was heavily guided by a seer who wanted them to recover some artifacts. She had constant visions through out the adventure that lasted about 6 or 7 months and they were able to eventually decipher all of the clues and find all of the artifacts. Sometimes they misinterpreted some of the visions in amusing ways but since it was well established that the visions were relevant to what they were doing, they mostly stayed on track and it worked really well. Once they had left the seer behind and started on another adventure, I decided to give them another vision. I figured since it was well established at this point that visions are useful that they'd continue to react the way I expected they would. I forgot that I'm the GM and I should never expect that. They basically had a dream sequence of them finding unending hordes of zombies in a swamp. They thought it was real at first but one of the clues that it wasn't was that a party member who shouldn't have been there because the player was on a several month long hiatus was in the group fighting alongside them. The vision was meant to foretell a future where they would be fighting zombies together, in the swamp. I figured since I included the player who wasn't playing but that they knew would be returning, that they would understand that it was something to come. That's not how they took it. They assumed that the vision meant that their friend was trapped in the swamp and they needed to go rescue her. This was even though they had left their friend behind in a city that was literally on the opposite end of the continent from said swamp. They rushed there anyway and nearly got themselves killed by the necromancers who had taken up residence there. They were able to confirm, at least, that the undead threat was a real thing. I learned not to give my players a vision of something that I didn't want them to go experience yet.
"as soon as the question is spoken, you hear it echo back and forth in your head. It rings louder and louder until it deafens you and you can hear nothing else. It grows until it fills your vision, blocking out all sight. Overwhelmed by the oppressive sound and darkness, you fall to your knees. You see fire and blood and death. You know without a doubt, with a knowledge that transcends understanding, that if you do not venture into this dungeon now, there will be disaster in the city in the future"
LOVE THIS. my first campaign had a witch with an unknown patron. She started to see the future, and eventually saw the party die to some very strong mummy lords. They avoid it and during the confrontation with their leader, her patron , HERSELVES ! came to help. After this, it was revealed that she was to become the Oracle of Time. She's still in the world 50 game years later and has had different effects on the world (and can be sought out by players that compete her tower). One of the last BBEG was a seeker of knowledge that , armed with The Oracle's vision of him never being accepted by society, sought out the violence that made him become a villain. Throughout my games i use dreams quite frequently. It helps to show how they are progressing on their solo story. God, saints, demons..they love to use dreams. In some ways, its the Dm talking through the narrative to the player. I love it.
I haven't much experience DMing, but I like to use dreams to show players about their unknown background. It is an easy way to approach visions because I know exactly what happened in their backgrounds, and it is something I know they have interst in. It's a win-win!
I start a one shot I regularly run by giving the players a shared dream (vision). It starts off fairly vague in its description, but most of the information the party uncovers throughout the adventure brings that dream into greater focus, revealing the little hidden story behind the adventure. Nothing is necessarily prophesied, but it helps maintain focus and creates a pretty solid through line.
The best part of a campaign teetering on the edge of disaster, or from my seat collapse, it that moment when somehow the players pull it back from the brink and then explain to you how it was all part of some master plan. That plan did not exist, but thank you for that credit.
The oracle of Foundation (the novels anyway, I haven't watched the series) is less a scientist, more a system. A combination of sociology, psychology, and historiography with mathematical formulae plugged in to use past patterns of human behavior to predict future actions. Also, today in "I am way too young to be that old." I have never seen The Road To Eldorado in it's entirety - I started watching it after friends around my age raved about it, it did not grab me and could not hold me - but I have seen two of the Hope-Crosby Road movies.
Heres how to handle visions. 1. Make it clear that their character would assume that they are having a vision of some kind. So make sure to make it clear that what they are experiencing is what the character would describe as a vision. 2. Make it quick. if you drag it out for too long, they will sit there and talk about the irrelevant parts of the vision for an hour or more. Only include the information that they need. No need to confuse anyone. 3. After the vision is over, make them roll an intelligence check, if they roll higher than a 15, you explain exactly how the vision is to be interpreted. 10-14, you give a hint, but nothing too obvious. 9 or lower, you only tell them what they saw and what it *could* mean, but not what it truly means.
I love the idea of the sun cracking. I deployed a mass city wide nightmare from the birth of a karaken. Lots of haunted townsfolk and my players (with another vision telling them which beach the murdered bodies were located) were souper hooked into the upcoming dungeon delve
Oooh when you said in the future your players might find an ancient tome of prophecies perfectly describing the players' exploits, it totally inspired me. I can't wait to start writing my game's prophecy book!
Personally I play mostly no-prep RPGs often with shared narrative, so I am absolutely not in control of the adventure nor I know where it will go, and I still throw in visions or even let players come up with vague ones of their own and it's so satisfying and cool when I, or better - we, find a way to put into the story how this destiny is realized or thwarted.
Matt you are truly a river to your people. A kind of 'thinking out loud' video like this is just what the doctor ordered. It gets the brain juices percolating.
I once gave each of my players a small poem, each a prophecy from a seer (who was famous for their strange poems that come to pass), and my players were analyzing each of their poems for every session up until it ended. I then explained everything after the fact, because I knew what my symbolism meant.
To add to the video: visions from the past! One of my players is a Knowledge Domain Cleric and he gets some insight into what did go down thousands of years ago. Great way to give the players some info on dungeons or some lore that is important for the quest while still keeping some mystery to spark their interest. When they finally come into contact with the stuff from the vision there is this big "Oooh!" moment.
This reminds me a lot of my favorite vision in fiction: Medivh sending visions to Thrall in Warcraft 3. Its nice and oblique, gives some hints of what's coming in the game and to who the new villain is.
I often explore my players questions and concerns in dreams. Sometimes they’re active players within the dreams and sometimes it’s more like quick time events. Alternatively there is a blind beholder character in our campaign called “The Soothsayer” that will give prophetic information and visions in exchange for for the thing that sustains it: delicious questions. Really love exploring this kind of stuff in the campaign!
One of my first DMs used portents. Our characters went down a river, met a man scared and mentally broken from some experience he had in the swamp. We only got vague references in a rhyme he said, but we tried to puzzle it out. Our failures to figure it out only drove us to be more paranoid, to be freaked out by the saying that was ominous- but beyond us. We kept expecting some thing from the portent to happen, and we weren't sure what it would even be. Then we encountered some of the things we were warned of. It made even little things like traps in the swamp have more weight, to fit in to our mystery. When we thought we were through with it all, one of the characters found a mysterious puzzle ring. The ring, combined with the portentous rhyme continued to feed more clues and visions to whoever held it, and it kept the stakes up. It was a cool tool that I hope inspires some of the DMs here.
The "play the background" part is really fun! I have a group that started off as level 0 kids with lots of downtime between micro missions to age up. They got to bond and really pick a path that made sense to their developing personality - half of them, different than what they first planed on doing. It's pretty a pretty cool way to start. And we're playing with dreams! It's in Eberron, so dreams have a special meaning in this world and right now, clues are being dropped. I can't say if it worked on not, as we've not reached a conclusion, but it has had many PC delve into exploring their own origins, which I'm loving. It's been well received and I think these can totally work. But yet, it's a hit or miss. When I played Curse of Strahd, we tried the oracle thing and the moment itself was kind of cool, but then it was just kind of background noise no one cared about. It really depends on the context and use.
In the third game of my long running campaign, I had a wandering prophet vaguely warn the party of the 5 major villains of the campaign. At the time the party thought nothing of it, but now, 50 games later, they're starting to put together the pieces and realize several of the notable NPCs they talked to might be members of the 'Claimants Five' - as the wandering prophet called them. Of course by now it's too late. Plans are already in motion and there's very little the party can do now to stop what's coming. But either way it's been entertaining to watch as they've slowly realized how a random prophecy from 50 games ago is crucially relevant to their current situation.
One of the most memorable sessions I've been in involved visions and prophecy. The party had to convince a federation of local tribes to help them,and when they arrived at the main encampment they discovered the High Guardian had been poisoned. The final words of this oracular individual were an instruction to the party that they must choose his successor. After the death feast the traditional spirit cup was served to the newly appointed arbiters. Cue lights out and different dreams/visions for everyone. When they awoke the next day they were faced with the difficult task of sorting out what all the dreams meant and who they applied to. After a lengthy session and some serious roleplay and politics the characters chose. TLDR: by giving unique visions to each character, everyone felt engaged and like they knew what the right answer was. Epic.
I just started playing dnd in June of 2020 and after three weeks of playing, decided to home brew an entire adventure, story, and world. I had almost no previous experience; however, I believe it was quite successful. The world took place in an Ancient Greek setting, so naturally, I had to utilize the Oracle of Delphi. Like Matt is saying, there is no “right” way to make prophecies. I found that being vague opens up player interpretation while also allowing for alterations based on how they react. The game was mainly narratively driven, so perhaps that also helped. It was my first time being a DM, and since then, I’ve discovered that I enjoy writing and making up stories, and if I may be so bold, I am quite good at it. I think oracles and prophecies are best used sparingly so they seem more important and less like a gimmick. Information can be powerful. I am always learning. This is why I continue to watch Matt. I’ve seen many of his videos multiple times and I believe he is an excellent writer and experienced DM. I thank him for his willingness to assist others and for his knowledge he has so kindly shared.
I was able to use a vision successfully once. I had just started a new group on the updated version of Lost Mines of Phandelver and I wanted each character to have their own call to action. One of my players was a divination wizard, so I gave them a vision of swirling green energies and a towering obelisk. They had decided prior that their character was a fortuneteller by trade so it tied in pretty well!
I played a Divination wizard in a 3 year long level 1-20 campaign. Visions I was given fluctuated between very clear "if this happens, this happens" and also very esoteric metaphor based visions. One vision I had was the BBEG stood over my body. I assumed for about a years worth of campaign that this would be my death and planned for it. What actually happened was when we defeated the BBEG, the green flame (mega powerful source of magic) that he wielded went to me. Him stood over me actually ended up as him as a spirit guiding my character in the final moments of the campaign. The vagaries of the vision meant that it could come to fruition in a way that was satisfying but also in a way that I hadn't expected. TOP CLASS DMING
"If your campaign isn't regularly teetering on the edge of disaster, are you even really a DM?"
Truer words, Colville. Truer words.
Now is he talking about in-game disaster, or out-of-game disaster...? 😅
@@drakinkoren Yes.
DM =/= Dungeon Master
DM = Disaster Manager
Our scheduling is a disaster, does that count?
@@RecklessFables Amen
11:36 VAGUE AND EVOCATIVE
I saw this comment and thought, "Hey that's what Dael says!" Then I realized it was you actually saying it.
Big thanks to both you and Matt for getting the gears turning for me as a DM. I look forward to moments where I can throw my players into the strange corners of my world where "vague and evocative" is the first order of business.
Don’t know if you’d see this, but thank you for inspiring me. Both you and Matt have helped me get on my feet when it comes to storytelling through this beautiful game. Looking forward to being able to share with you both one day :)
Wait... that's... OH, HI DAEL
Ha! I was thinking of this during the video
Me too!
"Folks say hindsight is 20/20 but I say it's 50/50"
I love this
I feel like the whole "vision in response to a question" (or any stimulus, really) could be easily clarified by adding straight up connecting the two as the trance starts. Something like "Your vision blurs and your ears ring. The only sound you're able to make out is the question [Question here], asked by your friend, echoing and forcing the colors into shapes [Vision here]."
Or even simpler:
Character A: Question?
DM (interrupting): Character B, as you hear Character A ask that question, your vision blurs and you see….
@@nvk3435 Yup. just so long as it is abundantly clear that A is in result of B. Probably also should have given them a vision when they inherit the powers.
Another is to have the vision go into a 3rd person perspective until it reaches the city. Minor events take place, then the city is destroyed. Camera pans back out, and back to the party emerging victorious from the Dungeon.
In this particular case it would've worked well to tie it to the dungeon aesthetic. If you've found a door leading into a dungeon covered with art of fire and snakes, and you think "What happens if we don't explore this dungeon?" then you get a vision of fire and snakes bursting free? The players are going to put two and two together. The tricky bit is whether they'll interpret it as "We need to get in there and stop this!" or "Sounds like we'd better not mess with this dungeon and risk setting whatever-it-is free"...
@@nvk3435 That would be more obvious but also would require the DM to immediately think of the right prophetic dream. As a DM I rarely think of plotpoints immediately and only get ideas way after the current session, so you need to connect the dots for the players and remind them of what would be obvious to the characters. By the time the characters in my game got the information, they just lived through the relevant stuff a few hours ago, but for the players it was weeks
I have dreamt about this day.
OOOOHHHHHHH
Did your dream prepare you for the events that unfolded?
I knew you'd say that...
Deja vu.
I'm accordance with the prophecy.
I love that he's willing to explore a failed concept that he hasn't fully answered.
Most importantly, he doesn't pretend that he has made it work.
That was exactly the moment I liked the video 😜
@@Stonegolem6 true!
"I'm Matt Colville, I can do anything" at 6:13 is one of my favorite soundbytes. That could replace "peace out" at the end of each video and I would laugh every time.
His expression was priceless, too.
OOOOH ok this is my time to shine!!
I have a Way of the Four Elements monk in my homebrew world right now, and he's just starting to get visions after defeating the Master of Vipers (thanks for that one) in single combat. Before, he was just hearing a voice vocalizing on the wind occasionally, or when he used his elemental powers his own master tattoos would briefly appear on his skin- but now the visions start. He's seen memories of what this previous master did as well, so he knows "this is something that happened, or might happen". The thing he normally has to figure out is if this is something in the past, or the future. Some have been obvious, but some even I don't know. If they bite and follow a hook - well gosh that was in the future, if they don't, it was the past.
This way, I can frame the same vision differently, and previously something that was in the future has become past when they were clever and tried to apply it, or vice versa. I've been doing this for a few months now and it hasn't bitten me yet- so a mix of memory and prophecy is how I'm making it work.
That's a brilliant balance. I love this take. 🙂
Side note: I keep running into you today! I guess we've fallen down the same D&D hole. 🙂
This is really insightful, great technique
Sounds like an awesome, flexible way to use visions :)
I knew this would be good the second I read “Master of Vipers”
To quote the great Wilma Thistlespring from Fantasy High, “If you have a dream you remember when you wake up, talk to a Wizard about it, because magic is real.”
"As it was written" has become the slogan for a player's cleric in one of my games. Just retroactively applying prophecy to everything. He and I actually maintain a google doc of minor and major prophecy's in his character's religion that he strikes through when one is fulfilled.
Also, if you want to see an interesting example of prophecy, Critical Role had some fortune telling near the end of C2 where a character drew from a tarot deck, which both is vague enough that no matter what it'll be accurate, but has enough specificity that it feels like it couldn't just apply to anyone. Was super cool to see how it turned out.
That is awesome, not just the line but the fact I'm sure it makes for a _great_ in-joke with the group xD
Also love that prophecies doc thing. Nothing like a player who will participate in more than just character sheet shenanigans and table time.
I played a similar cleric! I called him Ios The Prophet. He had a scribe tag along with him writing down everything he said because he was convinced he knew the future. Also used that same gimmick of retroactively saying "this was foreseen!" type things. Lots of fun. Funny you did the same thing. Maybe it was destiny for me to read this comment??
Good Matt loves playing around with prophetic dreams and fortune telling. Vex has a tarot reading when they went to Marquette, Molly did his charlatan tarot reading at the beginning of C2, Fjord and Cad have buttloads of visions, and now Imogen in C3 seems to be a vision girl, at least the one time.
Hey Matt, you've previously explained how you like to use "cutscenes" to show things that happen off screen. One of my players gets visions of things as they are happening as he views the world through the eyes of animals that happen to be in significant places at significant times, like a fly on the wall. It's like Nature identifying threats to the natural order of things that it wants him to deal with. He sees things happening that the players wouldn't otherwise. He becomes curious and that acts as a plot hook. They come as random dreams.
Works best if not over-used I find.
"Hindsight is 50/50" has been a favorite saying of mine for years. So glad to see it in use.
But it means the same thing as 20/20!?
@@ThanatoselNyx 💯
No, not sure this is a joke though and needs explanation.
Hindsight is 20/20 refers to perfect vision, which is measured 20/20.
The odds are 50/50 means half the time you get it, the other half you don't.
Combining the two turns off phrase means when you look back half the time you see things clearly, and half the time you remember them wrong.
My answer to how I make it work: “Foreshadowing.”
I’ve used visions successfully in 3 ways:
1) to allow a view in to the BBEG’s machinations
2) to tie to character backstory (I have a PC with a big hole in her backstory, I’m giving her glimpses of what happened as the story goes on). I then tie this new knowledge to things upcoming.
3) direct foreshadowing: let the vision be a little further out than “what happens if we don’t make this decision now”, so that the players are in the position to question “oh, is this ‘that vision coming true’?”
Tying a character's backstory to the main plot as well, nicely done :)
#3 is good. Using immediate vision like in the dungeon example just feels like putting a quest marker above the dungeon entrance. It turns into "I guess that's what the DM wants us to do."
Would Tony Stark's vision be foreshadowing or is it more along the lines of a call to action threat that Galadriel shows Frodo?
Or am I way far off?
Both, I think.
I think the value of treating Visions and Prophecies as foreshadowing is that you’re not tying them to a direct decision by the player. So there’s no railroading involved.
If it doesn’t land, then it’s just a nice vignette showing the fantastical elements of the game world. If it does land, it adds drama and propels the story forward.
Foreshadowing and keep it short. My players were approaching a show down with a skeleton dragon. I gave them vague dreams of flying and and flashbacks of the dragon attacking at city.
I had my party fall into a shared experience dream where they each got to be one of the BBEGs, scaled up to be stronger than they will be when the party encounters them in game. (The giant variants from Volo's) I then told them their goal was to cause as much destruction as possible.
This allowed them to still play while also learning they're on a clock. It has been guiding them for months now, and was my personal favorite session.
How in the world did you know I’m starting my first campaign in 2 days and was gonna start with a player having a vision? COLLVVVVIIIILLLLEEEEE
It was fate!
Tip for visions, plan the end first. When you describe the vision, remember everything you say is basically set in stone (so write it down). If you say the villan wore a blue cloak then when the players meet them they must be wearing a cloak and it must be blue. Leave space for things to change and let the players make decisions, even if those decisions mess with your initial plans but if you plan loosely the end first, you can always add or change things later to steer the players to your desired outcome.
@@Marcel2278 Absolutely! Currently running a game that will lead to the party facing a lich. I have the cleric a dream of basically the Lich’s backstory without saying he’s a lich, and teased the quest item for the first session so when he clocked that it was connected he immediately wrote everything he could down to see if it lined up.
Hi Matt! I’ve returned with some successful uses of visions in my campaign.
Basically, the eminent return of the dragons- and their god not long after that- has caused those particularly susceptible to visions to be plagued by them.
I established this by a PC in the first iteration of the campaign- a dream Druid kalishrar- getting strange visions including the moon turning into an egg, then the egg hatching, devouring her, and threatening her to stay out of the way.
That iteration of the campaign fizzled but 3 players stayed in the group, so we started a new campaign in the same world with a new group of adventurers being formed by the regent of the city the old party had just visited (and informed him of their concerns).
This group _also_ featured a dream Druid, from the same player, and so she was given a prophesy that where the ground ran purple there their dangerous would be worst.
Kobolds bleed purple in my world, and when the first kobold was slain the party _all_ knew both in and out of game that these strange creatures were the key.
They later found a necromancer who’d been driven mad by visions of claws and teeth, tooth and bone, a flood of a purple river sweeping across the world and washing away all life into the sea.
He tried to make a “wall of flesh to stem the tide.”
The party found his journal which helped piece both his story and the greater narrative.
Later the dream Druid (Myn) had visions similar to those described by the necromancer, but she got far more detail as _she_ was having them. I described what ended up being Dwarven ruins (though dwarves were “just a myth” in my world).
Later a nature cleric joined the party and I had him see similar visions in his backstory which, when comparing stories in-game, confirmed in the party’s character’s minds that they were meant to work together.
Now the party is in the Dwarven ruins seeing the very same view both the Druid and the cleric had in their visions, staring down a Dragonborn (dragonoids weren’t even _a myth_ in my world, they simply didn’t exist as far as anyone was concerned) who’s about to start a ritual ro revive a dragon.
So yeah, I used visions to deliver plot information in a more exciting manor than “you passed a history check while in a library” and especially to deliver info the party _could not possibly_ have acquired in other ways (no one else alive knew about the kobolds for example when the party got their visions).
Worth bearing in mind that many of the most famous prophecies in myth and legend are the central tension of tragic or dramatic irony precisely because they are misinterpreted. Think Oedipus, or McBeth or indeed Lukes vision of Vader on Degobah. That's how I use prophecy and visions in my games, as forshadowing which is revealed later rather than nudges for the players to act.
I once started a campaign by having my players make characters but not pick their class. I assigned the standard array stats. They Began the adventure as their background. I started them off with absolutely nothing but commoners clothing and a set of iron cuffs on their feet. They were held as captured towns folk about to be pressed into slavery. The most memorable characters evolved from that game. They escaped with a half baked plan, a sharpened bone, a sling made from a shirt , a stolen frying pan, and a broken window shutter. Legendary game.
“If you’re campaign isn’t regularly teetering on disaster, are you really a dm?”
I felt that.
My favorite phrophecy i’ve seen was in a home brew campaign that started off with the pc’s in wizard school. There was a section dedicated to each of the schools of magic, and a running joke was how the divination school was constantly predicting the end of the world. Flash forward to the end of the campaign rn and it turns out that one of the apocalypse plots the dm mentioned for us to laugh at was the endgame plan of the bbeg and we are now having to thwart it. The dm’s face was an extremely smug grin when we realized that.
I used my warlock characters strained relationship with his patron to deliver ominous visions of that otherworldly being's malicious intentions. The character's choices moving forward shaped the prophecy, which eventually culminated in a boss battle against the patron with some far-reaching consequences upon the world
I've run prophetic visions in my latest campaign - the Psalms of Woe, a book which teeters on the edge of reality, created, accidentally, when an ancient mage tapped into the leylines of the world. They are basically the elder scrolls, going insane/ blind when reading them, they appear randomly throughout history, etc.
I just wrapped up the act in our campaign that pertained to the Psalms, and their prophecies. The one thing I learnt: KEEP IT VAGUE.
If you give yourself room to wriggle with the metaphors you place in the prophecy, you can account for the chaos that is your players, and incorporate their decisions into the slots the prophecies provide.
An example of this -
“
When the dead god comes, his form made flesh;
Cities will fall, their walls will thresh.
The Well of Wishes is what they seek;
But now the dead rise at feet.
**Okay, so we set the stage for the Act 3 BBEG here, dead god, what are the details of this dead god - I had no idea at the time, it sounded cool and could work in any lore, so I ran with it.
I now know exactly who he is, because I've had a year since I showed the players the prophecy, and have weaved him into all of their lore.
Set an end goal - the well of wishes is something specific to my setting, but it can be any McGuffin.
Set the stage for what's at stake - cities crumbling, the dead rising from the earth, all very normal end of the world shit.
Hidden in skins of steel they wait,
To hurry their cruel master’s fate.
The warm hearted general will protect,
The cost his soul, they must collect.
**Skins of steel - i kept it vague - are they just dudes in suits of armour? Are the in dwarven machinations? Are they made of steel? I gave myself options for what the players could fight, depending on how they steered the story.
The warm hearted general was someone who died the session they were able to read the psalms - it was more setting specific to me, and it was good motivation for them to continue the fight.
To defeat the heralds, saints you need,
But a what once was four will soon be three,
What was four will be four friends made new,
With their wits and magic, the dead one they’ll undo.
**Who is the heralds? I had a vague idea, but I set myself up for success by keeping my options open once again.
The next two lines are lore specific to my world, so i wont bore you.
Wits and magic, they will defeat the dead one, a call to action - they WILL win if they follow the Psalms.
Look West, you must, to mountains tall,
The chapel long standing shall soon fall.
Go far now, where they dug too deep,
And see what fate that kingdom did reap.
Friends you must use to guide your way,
Run and live another day,
Now the five go on their final journey,
Use your wits, and show no mercy.”
**Last two stanzas are the final call to action, giving them a solid direction, and a pat on the back - leading them to the destination I had set the finale in Act 1 in. I never railroaded, because when they went astray, they went "lets check the prophecy again!" and self corrected, using it as a compass themselves, which also made them feel in control, since they were the ones using the information at hand to keep pushing forward with their duty.
All in all - from someone that ran a prophecy, which I consider very successful for my party, keep it vague, do it early, give direction, and let them steer the ship.
One of my favorite lines from Dimension 20 was in Fantasy High. One of the PCs told their parents that they’ve been having weird dreams and asked if it meant anything, and their parent said “Well, magic is real in this world so dreams definitely have real meaning.”
If you’re a DM, use dreams! They’re a great way of giving hints and clues and exposition in a dramatic fashion.
Haven't watched the video yet. But it is uncanny that I just found these amazing series a weeks ago and I am at the video #37. On which Matt says he's afraid someone just like me(a new dm aspiring to be a good storyteller one day) will stumble upone these videos and think "Holy crap do I have to know all of these things to run dnd?" And while I was thinking about that 100th video's notification came up. Was a good chuckle. And no, Matt. I stumbled upon these videos and thought WHAT A TREASURE THIS MAN OFFERS. Thanks for being a river to us. All your efforts are much appreciated.
Ive used visions very successfully in my Stars Without Numbers campaign, one of the PCs was a psychic with telepathy powers, and sometimes when the PCs were asleep, he would tap into the dreams (or nightmares) of the other party members. These illustrated their trauma's, fears and aspirations in a somewhat cryptic way, and really intrigued the psychic PC. Additionally, this particular PC suffered from retrograde amnesia after his psychic powers bloomed for the first time as a child, and as the campaign goes on, he would receive occasional visions of his old memories, filling in some of the mystery of his characters nature.
In my experience running my monster of the week game which has lots of dream stuff, the best way to do a vision is not to plan it out with waking world logic. Visions of future or any type of future sight has the chance to be contradicted by the players. The way to make a vision truly work is by not set up a specific point down the timeline. It's about setting up themes and moments.
One of my players in this monster of the week game, playing "the spooky" had a vision of stabbing another player "the chosen" with that player's own weapon. At the end of the arc that this vision occurred, the spooky had hold of the chosen's weapon because they alone had the power to reforge it after it was broken. Holding this sword, I forced them to make checks not to stab the chosen. Everyone was really freaking out that maybe there was no way out of this, but then, the spooky rolled really well to resist this urge and the crisis was averted! I was content to conclude this as a satisfying ending to that plot thread. The vision was more a portent of a possible future rather than a prophecy.
But here is the best part of keeping visions vague and malleable! Only two sessions ago, a character that is effectively the spooky's evil twin (who was being run by the spooky's player despite being a villain, long story lol) completely due to the actions of the players, not me, ended up with that magical sword. As if they were acting out the vision from a whole arc earlier, this version of the spooky stabbed the chosen with their own chosen weapon and everyone collectively lost their minds. The best part of any prophecy is when the subject does everything in their power to avert that outcome. Yet it happens anyway, only not in the way that they expected.
Here's my vision story:
I'm a Paladin of Ulaa the Stonewife, and we were dealing with some morally dubious shenanigans. Basically people being brought back as undead by the government and seeing it as a blessing. Anyway I asked my god for advice because it was hard to tell how I should treat these undead. I got a vague message "Beware of Elves and those well-dressed. Trust the stone."
Trust the stone? Of that I was confused. Well, many many sessions later, we're fighting a spellcaster in an underground tunnel surrounded by undead. He's used a cone of cold to nearly wipe our entire party, and we're getting up with a tiny amount of HP. Our druid drops her newest magic item, the Fragment of Elder Starlight. It's a glowing golden rock that deals a bunch of radiant damage to undead and fiends in a big radius, once per day. Suddenly, I shout "Trust the stone! The fragment!"
Our rogue picks it up, calls the command phrase, and gives us enough opening to heal a bit and chase the caster off. Felt genius for that one.
Also shameless self promo: We do podcast this game it's called Super Dice Boys, find it wherever you get podcasts!
So you essentially pulled a Galadriel on them. Nice. Very nice.
Thanks for the stories and lessons Matt. And I think you hit on the most important point at the end there -
"Keep playing."
It's almost like painting a scene from a distance, and as the players make decisions and shape the story themselves, the details of the scene become clearer.
Our distance from the painting closes in a little more.
Then finally, when you've frantically been keeping up with the chaos of the PC's, and enough pieces from their trail have been gathered, you bring them all together in a way that satisfies the promises of the vision, and truly finishes the painting.
For good,
Or ill.
You made my day with this upload.. your clip, hot tea and warm blanket. Enough to make living worth while. Thanks man, I rlly needed it ^^
I’ve always done visions and the like in the style of Dael Kingsmill’s game: vague and evocative. Rather than specifics, which cause players to act, I do more general visions, where if they see someone, something, or somewhere they know, it’s obvious that it’s not right this second, but a possible future, based on other clues in the vision. In short, I want the players to think about the vision before acting, so they consider multiple options for acting. It also means, if you wanted, you could take the Greek view on prohecy, with the players actions causing the disaster they saw in their vision.
Your videos bring me the dopamine to make it through the day.
But also the intermittency with which the dopamine is administered may have created a mild addiction. Either way it is nothing short of an absolute pleasure partake of the waters of your river again.
Well said, king. 👑
Visions in my own campaigns:
About 5-6 years ago I was running a Ravenloft campaign and I was playing a ton of "Fallen London". I wanted to incorporate the style of prose that one finds in Fallen London into my games. To do this, I'd start each session with a 2-3 minute vision written in that style. I'd use these to foreshadow events that were happening outside of the immediate area, or provide backstories, or explain world events. It worked really well to set the mood and get the players thinking about the world.
I also used the program Twine to create short one-shot choose-your-own-adventures for individual players between sessions. One got to live out stories from his previous life, another had his soul stolen and Twine allowed him to see what was happening to it. When we'd come back to the table they'd all share these half-remembered stories. Great time all around.
"I stand atop a spiral stair
an oracle confronts me there.
He leads me on lightyears away,
through astral nights, galactic days.
I see the works of gifted hands, that grace this strange and wondrous land.
I see the hand of Man arise,
with hungry mind and open eyes.
They left the planet long ago
The elder race still learn and grow
Their power grows with purpose strong, to claim the home where they belong.
Home to tear the Temples down
Home to change"- Oracle: The Dream, 2112, Rush
It wasn't until I saw this comment that I realized the connection between Matt's shirt and the video's topic.
My favorite part of my favorite song by my favorite band.
At this point, I think Matt has a wire tap in my house. All his videos of late are perfect to the campaign I'm writing. Love the channel Matt, and I'm loving the Arcadia magazines.
Matt, thank you for pouring out your massive experience in building stories and worlds to everyone here.
I know you're not just talking about D&D, or roleplaying games even, you're sharing your perception of reality and how we live our lives from the wisdom you've gained over your life as a story teller.
It's probably how you set it up for us, directly and clearly as a story of what happened afterwards, so when you talked about Jason's warlock getting the eyes and then having a vision right after asking that question, that made it seem really obvious to me that was what it meant.
Yeah the way he told this story really just makes them look stupid. I ASSUME that there was a large period of time in between where the oracle powers just didn't come up.
A great video topic! Dreams and prophecy are a great way to advance individual player's individual story, as well as the plot at large. At times when I've used prophecy, I've had no earthly idea as to what the true meaning was, and it acted as a fun and interesting narrative constraint to try to fulfill some reasonable yet unexpected outcome. One of my favorite narrative tools!
I use oracles and visions in almost all of my campaigns, usually to good effect.
In my current campaign, we're in a sort of Roman inspired campaign, and one of my players wanted to play an Orpheus-like bard, and she was already playing an Aasimar. So I made her the daughter of "Helius" the god of prophecy, poetry, truth and lies. I gave her a song at the beginning of the campaign that gave some information about what the campaign was going to be about (e.g., this orc tribe is up to no good, there's goblins that could be enemies or could be allies depending on what you do, and there's a unicorn that needs rescuing).
I've found that so far it helps to keep the campaign moving. Compared to past campaigns where there might be times the PCs might spend and entire session just debating what to do or where to go.
Had mixed success with visions in games like Dark Heresy : The lessons I learned is you can't give "actual information" with a vision (at least not at first), but you can give "actual emotional responses". You can describe how an oracle's subconscious reacts which can help interpret the message too. Pack a single idea in a vision, and everything about that vision should be directly relatable to that idea. If they can figure out even a single word out of it, it's should be enough for your vision to be a success.
Today I will DM my first game ever, with six people who have also never played D&D. I´ve watched 99 running the game videos, every single one of which I loved. So thank you Matt, this is an amazing series and I will continue watching it for as long as you will make it
I love your content. Every video you put out is amazing. I'm saddened somewhat by what you've said on streams about the future of running the game (that you've basically said all that needs to be said). Each of your videos inspires and excites me. Thanks for doing what you do.
I see your foundation reference, and I appreciate it. It’s the only book you’ve mentioned in all of your Running the Games videos that I actually know 😅
I've delievered prophecies to the players with strange strong imagery. That way even if your players can't make heads or tails of it-- you can use similar imagery outside of the dream to direct them where to go. Maybe if they werent curious before they might develop curiosity later on as certain signs come to pass.
A sage, someone to interpret visions, is what my campaigns need. Thanks for the idea!
Personally, the only time I’ve ever used visions or anything like that. Are for Warlocks, and once in a current running game.
Visions give a great way for a Warlock’s patron to act as both a help, and a unreliable narrator. For instance an Aboleth patron lying to their Warlock that an area they want the player to go would have the things they desire.
As for the other instance, dragon with time magic to a kobold PC that sees her as a goddess. Basically it just confirmed the path he was already traveling to a certain degree. While also giving it a tiny bit of weariness.
A Warlock of the Fey (I believe) even gets visions from their deity, as described in their class feat!
I'm currently running a campaign that is heavily influenced by the gods of that world, and characters regularly receive visions. Some of them are more messages than oracular visions, but some give vision of the future which may come to pass if the PCs do nothing. The most complex form of this was a trip to one potential future for the PCs for several game sessions; it showed the potential 'end of the world' outcome, but not what might avert it. Worked well. Visions seem to work in the campaign for a number of reasons - one is, my PCs have played with me and as a group for 30+ years, so we know each other well. The other is to hold the adventure lightly - I've had them walk past the dungeon and do something else, and had to make it up as I go along very rapidly. But this regularly happens without the visions, they just give the PCs an occasional poke. And knowing them well, I normally have an idea how they will react and what they will do next; but equally am often proved wrong. However, I'm also cool with throwing something in and, post session, working out what it means for the campaign and the more immediate plot. Works for us, anyway..
I LOVE that you made this video, I've been pondering how to make an Oracle type work for some time. I felt like having such an ability would go against the laws of the natural world, so I made it somewhat of a curse! Not something players can have happen (hopefully)
I love keeping them abstract and vague as to follow the lead of the resulting interpretation. A great tool to let the players drive/create the story.
I've used visions and dreams to great effect in my great pendragon campaign. I know what's coming up in the pendragon timeline and I know what my players are interested in. It's an easy match and extremely, extremely on brand for arthuriana. Sometimes they're vague, sometimes they're concrete. My personal favorite way to introduce visions of the future is using figures from the past.
i remember a while back you said something like "i want my channel to be like [shutupandsitdown] when it grows up" and now today checking my subscriptions and seeing a new shutupandsitdown video and a new Matthew Colville video, i am SIGNIFICANTLY more excited to see the Matt Colville video first than the shutupandsitdown one. and i get REALLY exited to see a shutupandsitdown video
I used visions fairly well in my recent Red Hand Of Doom campaign. First, I wanted to test the lethality of some Horde soldiers, so I described a wild scream piercing the night, fog rolling in over the party, ghost riders in the sky, and then the fog cleared for the fight. I described the same things after the fight with the players unable to find any corpses or loot. Second, I wanted to make sure the players went to the start point of the campaign. I gave the cleric of Thor a vision where he was riding just behind a one eyed rider in the sky. They flew over two cities and many villages towards a giant bonfire where the cleric saw a vast horde of Hobgoblins and other monsters. The one eyed rider said to the cleric, “Brindol, Drellins Ferry, Vrath Keep, Rhestilon.” I had some other uses of visions which were side quest related.
Huzzah! I love the Red Hand of DOOM! My favorite campaign, module, storyline, in D&D .
I'm running it now getting my players up to level by running against the cult of the reptile god then lost mines of phandalin.
I got into this series a few years ago when I was a player character with only a year or so of game experience, and I hadn't checked in in a while. I was very pleasantly surprised to see this was only uploaded a few weeks ago!
I'm currently working on making my first ever Campaign with a capital C and it's terrifying, I've got some big shoes to fill and some players who know the game rules a hell of a lot better than I do. Your videos have been a saving grace, and a very calming reassurance : )
Thank you for all the advice and all the ideas, and I'm endlessly happy to see this series is still going!!
Two points of clarification first, then my experience DMing visions and dreams:
- bunches of zero level characters run by one person is referred to as a "funnel"
- You said "6 fingers" and I did not think of Vecna. I thought of Grazz't. Grazz't has 6 fingers. The Hand of Vecna does not.
Okay, visions and dreams. Right. These work better for *players* (not characters) who are curious and who are willing to follow the clues. If you have a spiritual character being played by a player who just wants to hit things with a hammer, do not expect any level of success. Also if the player has a world view that they refuse to question, alter, or consider, visions are not a good idea.
I have two examples of a vision/waking dream/hallucination that I want to talk about:
*"The boy"* - As a result of saving a halfling village, one Dwarven cleric of Thor (his idea) became something of a hero to a young halfling boy who would follow him around wearing a pot on his head and wielding a stick. This boy was also gifted a woolen fake beard to better "resemble" his hero.
When I needed the cleric to be in the proximity of where a clue might be, the cleric would be sent a text or secret note saying he saw this boy standing somewhere or walking somewhere. Because this boy, in "reality" did have a tendency to run away, the cleric would run after him. When the Dwarf arrived where he saw "the boy", there would be no trace, including footprints. After a number of these occurrences the Dwarf returned to that village to find that the boy had never left. Later "visions" would include townspeople around the Dwarf and this "boy" slowing in time, as if they were no longer part of the same reality. This was a great way to give the cleric cryptic clues.
*"The tree of the dead"* - There's always that one player. Everyone else rolls one type of character and this one player rolls something that hates them. The group rolled a bunch of arcane types in a region where arcane magic was restricted, so this one player rolled a Paladin who hunted these sorts of characters. Instead of drama, this caused a lot of friction and in-party fighting. I could see my table suffering. I knew that the theological ruling body of this region had twisted the meaning and words of the god they professed to follow, so I thought that I would use this as my avenue.
During one night's rest, the Paladin had a dream. In that dream, a figure in battered steel armor, wrapped in a grey cloak lead this Paladin though a landscape of thick fog and dead hardwood trees. From these trees hung several dead bodies, each in different stages of decay. They all wore the garments of the order to which this Paladin belonged. The figure simply stated "What are my tenets?". When the Paladin stammered, or obfuscated, the figure said it louder. "What are my tenets?!".
The paladin stammered and stumbled for an answer. The figure now yelled. "Protect the weak! Hold the line!" It then repeated it's question. The Paladin did not answer. The figure yelled again. "Protect the weak! Hold the line!". "What are my tenets?"
When the player looked at me with confusion and alarm, I told them their sight was now cast slowly up a massive tree. The dead littered this tree. The higher up, the more desiccated they became. The Paladin started recognizing members of his order, including it's Knight Protector...near the top, and all but bones and rags...but still moving. "You have violated my tenets. Burning "witches"? Hunting children? Prosecuting the innocent? Wherein these actions are you holding the line? Wherein these crimes have you protected the weak?! WHAT. ARE. MY. TENETS?!?!"
Now the Paladin was at the top of the tree, hanging from it's tallest branch, rotting in fast forward.
"You have abandoned me. I now abandon your heresy."
The paladin awoke with a cold sweat and immediately scrambled to look through his pack. Within he found the silver mask he wore when hunting "witches"...and cast it into the fire. Sadly, that PC died not long after that, but did so heroically defending a village of those he would have persecuted in the past. He was redeemed.
This player wasn't what you would call flexible in their world view, but the "no nonsense" way this played out at least ended the table friction between the players...until his next character....
I actually used something similar to start a campaign. Had my players start at age 6 and play through their childhoods with some time jumps over three sessions and at 16 they become level 1. It worked SO well, bound the characters to each other and the setting organically, made their class choices make sense for their backgrounds (and changed the mind of one player from rogue to ranger) and helped give me a good group of experiences to work from.
“If your campaign isn’t regularly teetering on the edge of disaster, are you even really a DM?” - Matt Coville
This hit way too close to home.
I consider this man a consumate dm and I do love hearing the fails he's made, some of which mirror my own. It's reaffirming and really helps. Thank you sir!!
“If your campaign isn’t regularly teetering on the precipice of disaster, are you really playing dnd?” (Paraphrased)
I’m feeling this callout so hard. Simultaneously thinking I’m definitely doing things right but also that precipice of disaster LOOMS heavy.
Omg! I saw you read this live the other night and this is fantastic, it feels nicely wrapped up.
I’m so glad the Mutant/Dungeon Crawl classic character funnel is catching on. It’s the best
Went to the comments section specifically just to see if that rang anyone's bell. Good good... 🙂
I have managed to utilise prophetic dreams in a campaign before by making them wide-spread.
Every member of the party had a dream and as they went about their morning came to understand that it was a shared dream.
They were confused but had no further clues, and so decided to head into town to find a quest.
When they arrived they saw a town of tired, distressed villagers.
By making it a huge thing it was able to drive the quest line forward without spoiling too much and gave me the option to add more dreams to create a sense of urgency
The time it worked: Players had a set plan - get into the keep through the sewer. Gotta run an errand in the meantime. On their way they meet some refugees/destitutes, including a little blind girl who tells a PC, "You are destined for grate things... the time will come sooner than you think". I'll let you put 2 and 2 together, but I was elated when that PC took the 2nd place in marching order after an NPC.
I dont get it! :(
@@evelynda5235 "destined for grATE things" - as in things having to do with grates, such as the one they had to lift to get up from the sewer.
@@btfx i thought about that. But i still dont get how that is related to marching order.
@@evelynda5235 Just the cherry on top, a perfect set-up for me to have the NPC in front try with all his might to use his "bend bars/lift gates" ability, fail utterly, and then ask the "grATE hero" who was right behind in 2nd place. If he chose to be in the back, it would have been an awkward ordeal to "fudge" the situation.
This is very very very important for me rn, since I'm running a game about oracles. One of the players, the Divination Wizard, is a developing Seer, while the players are in the process of (despite not knowing it) rescuing an elven Oracle from thousands of years ago.
This video has been up for 19 hours and already had almost 700 comments. You have done an amazing job Matt. I hope you know how much joy you have brought to do many people
This was a really interesting video. Really got the juices flowing. Now all I need is to get over my anxiety and start an online game. 😬
You can do it!
The bones tell me ... nothing.
When my DM ran out of the Abyss he created a complicated and thorough prophecy that had the eventual destiny of all of our characters and the villains in the story. He accomplished this by making the prophecy extremely vague so that the conditions could be met without constrains on time or place. There was a lot of railroading involved, but he was good and it was a pre-written adventure, so nobody felt like it was adverse to the experience. This was brilliant and amazing as our characters figured out what the prophecy meant as parts of it came to pass. At first we were lost to the meaning, but then as events passed we were able to use it to tell the future a little bit. It was a fun.
The hardest part of giving my players prophecies and visions is players taking what I say literally. But that happens with lots of NPC interaction, so business as usual, I suppose.
its a tricky one, just have them encounter different NPC's with different views or beliefs about the same thing. when they start to realise that the NPC's have their own non DM handed down interpretations of reality theill start to take what they say as part of the world rather than information handed down from the godly entety that is the DM.
@@TheRacoonGhost This. A thousand times, this. Well said.
I've been toying with using visions in my game. This video is super helpful! Thanks Matt!!
I’m currently teaching a course on The Book of Revelation. A series of visions that are perpetually misunderstood. The author GK Chesterton wrote, “St. John saw no monster more extraordinary than one of his interpreters.” If an Apostle can’t guarantee his visions will be understood, then DMs shouldn’t feel to bad if players misunderstand their visions. In a way, misunderstood visions/prophecies are a fantasy trope as well ie Harry Potter
I had off-handily included an oracle in my campaign in some remote location but now this is actively making me think about getting the players to this dangerous area that the oracle resides. Thanks matt!
As someone who heavily incorporated warlock premonition dreams into his campaign, this video reinforced that these dreams are indeed as rad and fun as they appear to be!
Ooooh a new ColVideo! 😊 Don't have time to watch right this second, but commenting anyway to feed the hype :-) I'm looking forward to watching later!
I loved your oracle/vision story. I laughed this morning! In one of my current campaigns, I've made heavy use of visions to mixed results. The first adventure my party went on was heavily guided by a seer who wanted them to recover some artifacts. She had constant visions through out the adventure that lasted about 6 or 7 months and they were able to eventually decipher all of the clues and find all of the artifacts. Sometimes they misinterpreted some of the visions in amusing ways but since it was well established that the visions were relevant to what they were doing, they mostly stayed on track and it worked really well.
Once they had left the seer behind and started on another adventure, I decided to give them another vision. I figured since it was well established at this point that visions are useful that they'd continue to react the way I expected they would. I forgot that I'm the GM and I should never expect that. They basically had a dream sequence of them finding unending hordes of zombies in a swamp. They thought it was real at first but one of the clues that it wasn't was that a party member who shouldn't have been there because the player was on a several month long hiatus was in the group fighting alongside them. The vision was meant to foretell a future where they would be fighting zombies together, in the swamp. I figured since I included the player who wasn't playing but that they knew would be returning, that they would understand that it was something to come. That's not how they took it. They assumed that the vision meant that their friend was trapped in the swamp and they needed to go rescue her. This was even though they had left their friend behind in a city that was literally on the opposite end of the continent from said swamp.
They rushed there anyway and nearly got themselves killed by the necromancers who had taken up residence there. They were able to confirm, at least, that the undead threat was a real thing. I learned not to give my players a vision of something that I didn't want them to go experience yet.
"as soon as the question is spoken, you hear it echo back and forth in your head. It rings louder and louder until it deafens you and you can hear nothing else. It grows until it fills your vision, blocking out all sight. Overwhelmed by the oppressive sound and darkness, you fall to your knees. You see fire and blood and death. You know without a doubt, with a knowledge that transcends understanding, that if you do not venture into this dungeon now, there will be disaster in the city in the future"
LOVE THIS. my first campaign had a witch with an unknown patron. She started to see the future, and eventually saw the party die to some very strong mummy lords. They avoid it and during the confrontation with their leader, her patron , HERSELVES ! came to help. After this, it was revealed that she was to become the Oracle of Time. She's still in the world 50 game years later and has had different effects on the world (and can be sought out by players that compete her tower). One of the last BBEG was a seeker of knowledge that , armed with The Oracle's vision of him never being accepted by society, sought out the violence that made him become a villain.
Throughout my games i use dreams quite frequently. It helps to show how they are progressing on their solo story. God, saints, demons..they love to use dreams. In some ways, its the Dm talking through the narrative to the player. I love it.
I haven't much experience DMing, but I like to use dreams to show players about their unknown background. It is an easy way to approach visions because I know exactly what happened in their backgrounds, and it is something I know they have interst in. It's a win-win!
I start a one shot I regularly run by giving the players a shared dream (vision). It starts off fairly vague in its description, but most of the information the party uncovers throughout the adventure brings that dream into greater focus, revealing the little hidden story behind the adventure. Nothing is necessarily prophesied, but it helps maintain focus and creates a pretty solid through line.
The best part of a campaign teetering on the edge of disaster, or from my seat collapse, it that moment when somehow the players pull it back from the brink and then explain to you how it was all part of some master plan. That plan did not exist, but thank you for that credit.
The oracle of Foundation (the novels anyway, I haven't watched the series) is less a scientist, more a system. A combination of sociology, psychology, and historiography with mathematical formulae plugged in to use past patterns of human behavior to predict future actions.
Also, today in "I am way too young to be that old." I have never seen The Road To Eldorado in it's entirety - I started watching it after friends around my age raved about it, it did not grab me and could not hold me - but I have seen two of the Hope-Crosby Road movies.
Heres how to handle visions.
1. Make it clear that their character would assume that they are having a vision of some kind. So make sure to make it clear that what they are experiencing is what the character would describe as a vision.
2. Make it quick. if you drag it out for too long, they will sit there and talk about the irrelevant parts of the vision for an hour or more. Only include the information that they need. No need to confuse anyone.
3. After the vision is over, make them roll an intelligence check, if they roll higher than a 15, you explain exactly how the vision is to be interpreted. 10-14, you give a hint, but nothing too obvious. 9 or lower, you only tell them what they saw and what it *could* mean, but not what it truly means.
I love the idea of the sun cracking.
I deployed a mass city wide nightmare from the birth of a karaken. Lots of haunted townsfolk and my players (with another vision telling them which beach the murdered bodies were located) were souper hooked into the upcoming dungeon delve
Great way to add lore, mystery and guide the players without leading them by the nose.
Oooh when you said in the future your players might find an ancient tome of prophecies perfectly describing the players' exploits, it totally inspired me. I can't wait to start writing my game's prophecy book!
Personally I play mostly no-prep RPGs often with shared narrative, so I am absolutely not in control of the adventure nor I know where it will go, and I still throw in visions or even let players come up with vague ones of their own and it's so satisfying and cool when I, or better - we, find a way to put into the story how this destiny is realized or thwarted.
Matt you are truly a river to your people. A kind of 'thinking out loud' video like this is just what the doctor ordered. It gets the brain juices percolating.
I once gave each of my players a small poem, each a prophecy from a seer (who was famous for their strange poems that come to pass), and my players were analyzing each of their poems for every session up until it ended. I then explained everything after the fact, because I knew what my symbolism meant.
To add to the video: visions from the past! One of my players is a Knowledge Domain Cleric and he gets some insight into what did go down thousands of years ago. Great way to give the players some info on dungeons or some lore that is important for the quest while still keeping some mystery to spark their interest. When they finally come into contact with the stuff from the vision there is this big "Oooh!" moment.
Also great for loredump and keeping that verisimilitude alive.
I love the honesty...and hilarious presentation sir.
Huzzah! ,,, " keep playing. " best advice ever. Thanks Matt
This reminds me a lot of my favorite vision in fiction: Medivh sending visions to Thrall in Warcraft 3. Its nice and oblique, gives some hints of what's coming in the game and to who the new villain is.
"...if your campaign isn't regularly teetering on the edge of disaster, are you even really a DM"?
I needed to hear this today : )
I often explore my players questions and concerns in dreams. Sometimes they’re active players within the dreams and sometimes it’s more like quick time events.
Alternatively there is a blind beholder character in our campaign called “The Soothsayer” that will give prophetic information and visions in exchange for for the thing that sustains it: delicious questions.
Really love exploring this kind of stuff in the campaign!
One of my first DMs used portents. Our characters went down a river, met a man scared and mentally broken from some experience he had in the swamp. We only got vague references in a rhyme he said, but we tried to puzzle it out. Our failures to figure it out only drove us to be more paranoid, to be freaked out by the saying that was ominous- but beyond us. We kept expecting some thing from the portent to happen, and we weren't sure what it would even be. Then we encountered some of the things we were warned of. It made even little things like traps in the swamp have more weight, to fit in to our mystery. When we thought we were through with it all, one of the characters found a mysterious puzzle ring. The ring, combined with the portentous rhyme continued to feed more clues and visions to whoever held it, and it kept the stakes up. It was a cool tool that I hope inspires some of the DMs here.
The "play the background" part is really fun! I have a group that started off as level 0 kids with lots of downtime between micro missions to age up. They got to bond and really pick a path that made sense to their developing personality - half of them, different than what they first planed on doing. It's pretty a pretty cool way to start. And we're playing with dreams! It's in Eberron, so dreams have a special meaning in this world and right now, clues are being dropped. I can't say if it worked on not, as we've not reached a conclusion, but it has had many PC delve into exploring their own origins, which I'm loving. It's been well received and I think these can totally work. But yet, it's a hit or miss. When I played Curse of Strahd, we tried the oracle thing and the moment itself was kind of cool, but then it was just kind of background noise no one cared about. It really depends on the context and use.
In the third game of my long running campaign, I had a wandering prophet vaguely warn the party of the 5 major villains of the campaign. At the time the party thought nothing of it, but now, 50 games later, they're starting to put together the pieces and realize several of the notable NPCs they talked to might be members of the 'Claimants Five' - as the wandering prophet called them. Of course by now it's too late. Plans are already in motion and there's very little the party can do now to stop what's coming. But either way it's been entertaining to watch as they've slowly realized how a random prophecy from 50 games ago is crucially relevant to their current situation.
One of the most memorable sessions I've been in involved visions and prophecy.
The party had to convince a federation of local tribes to help them,and when they arrived at the main encampment they discovered the High Guardian had been poisoned.
The final words of this oracular individual were an instruction to the party that they must choose his successor. After the death feast the traditional spirit cup was served to the newly appointed arbiters.
Cue lights out and different dreams/visions for everyone. When they awoke the next day they were faced with the difficult task of sorting out what all the dreams meant and who they applied to. After a lengthy session and some serious roleplay and politics the characters chose.
TLDR: by giving unique visions to each character, everyone felt engaged and like they knew what the right answer was. Epic.
I just started playing dnd in June of 2020 and after three weeks of playing, decided to home brew an entire adventure, story, and world. I had almost no previous experience; however, I believe it was quite successful. The world took place in an Ancient Greek setting, so naturally, I had to utilize the Oracle of Delphi. Like Matt is saying, there is no “right” way to make prophecies. I found that being vague opens up player interpretation while also allowing for alterations based on how they react. The game was mainly narratively driven, so perhaps that also helped. It was my first time being a DM, and since then, I’ve discovered that I enjoy writing and making up stories, and if I may be so bold, I am quite good at it. I think oracles and prophecies are best used sparingly so they seem more important and less like a gimmick. Information can be powerful. I am always learning. This is why I continue to watch Matt. I’ve seen many of his videos multiple times and I believe he is an excellent writer and experienced DM. I thank him for his willingness to assist others and for his knowledge he has so kindly shared.
Where was this video last night when I needed it for my Theros campaign! Godammit!!
I was able to use a vision successfully once. I had just started a new group on the updated version of Lost Mines of Phandelver and I wanted each character to have their own call to action. One of my players was a divination wizard, so I gave them a vision of swirling green energies and a towering obelisk. They had decided prior that their character was a fortuneteller by trade so it tied in pretty well!
I played a Divination wizard in a 3 year long level 1-20 campaign. Visions I was given fluctuated between very clear "if this happens, this happens" and also very esoteric metaphor based visions. One vision I had was the BBEG stood over my body. I assumed for about a years worth of campaign that this would be my death and planned for it. What actually happened was when we defeated the BBEG, the green flame (mega powerful source of magic) that he wielded went to me. Him stood over me actually ended up as him as a spirit guiding my character in the final moments of the campaign. The vagaries of the vision meant that it could come to fruition in a way that was satisfying but also in a way that I hadn't expected. TOP CLASS DMING