08/09/2024

If you haven’t seen the Deficient Master on YouTube, you should do yourself a favor and watch his videos. He provides great DM tips and guides in a very entertaining way. My wife will even watch his videos, that is how good he is. (She’ll watch Seth Skorkowsky too but that is it for DM advice YouTube channels).

In his video “Faking it: Improv Tips of D&D”, Deficient Master introduces the idea of Schrödinger’s Scenarios as a better alternative to the “Quantum Ogre”.

What is a Quantum Ogre?

A “Quantum Ogre” is a concept from tabletop role-playing games, particularly in the context of game design and dungeon mastering. It refers to a situation where the player’s choices are effectively an illusion because the outcome is predetermined or controlled by the game master.

Example:

Consider a scenario where the party is exploring a dungeon and comes to an intersection with two choices: Left or Right. The party decides to go Left. However, the GM has already decided that a powerful ogre will confront the player regardless of the choice. Whether the party picks Left or Right, the ogre is waiting, as if it has “quantum leaped” to wherever the party is. This effectively removes the choice from the players.

Schrödinger’s Scenarios

Schrödinger’s Scenarios on the other hand of small encounters that didn’t exist in the game world but can be added to the campaign. When the party wanders off the beaten path, you simply drop one of your encounters into the game world for them to find (or avoid if that is the party’s choice).

A great place to get ideas for these are all of the different adventures you have lying around (trust me, I am PLENTY). You steal a small dungeon encounter from this module, an NPC from that campaign book, and you have a folder of usable stuff before you know it. It might take a little improv from the DM to mesh it but you will have something for the players that will save the game session.

Example:

The party is moving through the Underdark on their way to a Duergar fortress. Along the way, the party decides to take a different path to the fortress, using an underground lake to come in from the other side. You could just say the party makes it across the lake easily and skip to the fortress but you want to have a memorable encounter at the lake. You own the Out of the Abyss 5E module so you look through the Schrödinger’s Scenarios that you “borrowed” for the Underdark from that module. You find an encounter with the green hag, Nanny Plunk. She is listed as liking to taunt and lead travelers astray plus she knows a lot about the lake and surrounding area.

Maybe Nanny Pluck tricks the party into a trap or bargains with the party, becoming an ally (of course she will try to betray them later). She could be a source of knowledge for the local area, maybe even giving the party quests. If the party kills her, Nanny Pluck’s sister might hunt down the party for revenge. While it will require some improv work, this is something interesting for the party to do and a reason why most of the Underdark inhabitants don’t use the lake to get to the fortress.

Keep on gaming!