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Dungeons & Dragonsis a great vehicle for group storytelling, though the cooperative nature means you’ll often need to change how you approach it. A Dungeon Master controls most of the characters and the world, but they aren’t writing a book or a setting primer.
Foreshadowing is one of the literary techniques that needs the biggest change in how you use it. When writing a book or a movie there is no chance of the protagonist asking “Does our friendly mentor look kind of similar to the evil wizard wearing a wig?” and preempting a twist you had planned for later.
Decide On A Narrative Goal
There are different ways of using foreshadowing that lend themselves to specific goals. Deciding on a goal will also help you decide how much attention to give to foreshadowing. It is a fun narrative tool but isonly part of a broader toolkit. Be careful that youdon’t compromise your narrativeor spoil your plot bybeing too eagerto give hints.
It can also be an issue that different people have different expectations for foreshadowing. Most D&D gamesdon’t open with a Greek Chorus coming on stageexplaining the conclusion. Ina game where dice determine results, being a week from retirement doesn’t guarantee a character’s tragic death.
Approach
Create A Mystery
If you want to create a mystery for agroup of players that keep good notes and enjoy a challenge, you’ll want to be subtle with what foreshadowing you include. The main goal should be the mystery, but with a few notes that they can look back on later that make sense retroactively.
Set Up A Future Plot
If you’re looking to set up a later antagonist, the focus should be onmaking their presence felt, even before the party knows their identity. This means constructing a character and identity for them that you can express well and mesh with the other parts of your setting.
Entertain An Audience
When you’re playing for an audience, you might choose toinclude detailsandnarrative conventions that wouldn’t be visible to characters within the storybut are clear to an external observer.
How To Use Foreshadowing In Dungeons & Dragons
You have a few different techniques on hand for including foreshadowing in your campaign. you may plan some of these ahead of time, and other points you canstitch together retroactively as a form of emergent storytelling.
Describe Details of The Environment
One way that many Dungeon Masters already use foreshadowing without considering it is in how they describe scenes. It’s a common convention at most tables thatdescriptions are reserved for important details.
Most rooms the players walk into will be rooms, while the private chambers of an important character will have moreelaborate descriptionsof the furnishings, decorations, and any containers the players can rummage through.
Other forms of description can help to signal details to the players ahead of time.The players will be more cautious exploring a cave if there is a pile of skulls outside. Foreshadowing isn’t exclusively about hinting at your final boss’s lethal dairy allergy.
Keep notes on the detailsyou are determined to include in the scene description, since it is easy to forget stray bits in the heat of the moment.
No Such Thing As A Random Encounter
Having an encounter or quest that doesn’t connect to other events can have the adverse effect ofteaching your players that they can ‘turn off’ from investigating the narrative. Even an enemy from the random encounter table can be linked to events elsewhere.
Link To Wider Plot
Wild Beasts
The party’s long rest is interrupted when a bear wanders into their camp.
Wolves and bears might turn aggressive after their territory has been encroached on. Your antagonist might have been moving people or cargo through the area or extracting resources.A nature or investigation check might reveal the creature’s behaviour is unusual.
Intelligent Humanoids
A group of bandits extorts the party for money on a road or bridge.
Outlaws might bewillingly or unknowingly be carrying out orders from your greater antagonist or their proxies. It could be as simple as the bandits having a list of people they know better than to collect tolls from.
Magical Creatures
An enraged fire elemental assails a peaceful town the party is staying in.
Using a magical creature for arandom encounter outside its habitat is a good way of demonstrating there is something worth investigating. Demons don’t just summon themselves: there must be more to be discovered. The party might jump to accusing the local arcane experts, or recruiting their help.
When In Doubt, Be Obvious
Different groups will deduce different amounts from the hints you give them, but the general rule is thatfor each clue you want the players to pick up on, you need to include it in three different places.
On the small scale, it means that players searching a scene should be able to find three different leads that nudge them towards investigating where you want them to go next: Let’s say they’ve defeated a local crime boss and are searching his office for leads on his benefactor.
All three of these leads can prompt players to remember details that build a picture of the mystery benefactor. The hardest clue, in the safe, gives the players the most complete picture, but isn’t required.
The majority of groups will not pick up on overt Latin or Germanic names that hint at or outright state a character’s future role. If Darth Vader can be named after the German word for father, you can get away withnaming your fey doppelganger after the Gemini constellation.
Have A Backup Plan
Foreshadowing is a fun narrative technique, but youshouldn’t bend the worldandcharactersto make it fit. Use it naturally when it is relevant, but alsobe prepared for different outcomesbased onhow the players respond.
Solution
Players Jump To The Wrong Conclusion
The party throwing around spurious accusations will hurt their reputation and even advance the plans of their rivals. If they’re persistent in investigating the wrong lead,you may increase the scope of these consequences.
Players Jump To The Right Conclusion
The players might know who to suspect,but won’t be able to act without proper evidence. If they’re overt about suspecting a character, have that character begin taking extra precautions as a result.
The Players Make No Assumptions
If the party doesn’t consider the foreshadowing important, trustworthy or relevant, you canfall back on other techniques you know to work with them.Continue the story as it would otherwise butmake a note of details they might want to look back on laterwhen they have a more complete picture.
