Playing With the Future: How to DM Foreshadowing in Dungeons and Dragons and other TTRPG Campaigns

3 Wise DMs

Foreshadowing is a powerful tool for any storyteller, but it can be hard to use effectively at the campaign table. Whether you’re playing D&D or another role-playing game, you’re really DMing against your players’ distractions. And a table full of food, phones and click-clackety math rocks can hide subtle hints more effectively than the rug you put them under. On the other hand, if you hit your players over the head with foreshadowing, it can ruin your surprises and turn the plot into a running table joke.

So can you use foreshadowing in your games in ways your players will notice but not too easily? In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about how they use foreshadowing in their games, what’s worked and not worked for them in the past, and tell a few campaign stories about DMing with an eye on the future of your story.

2:00 A listener question: How do you foreshadow major events without beating your players over the head?

10:00 The tactics of foreshadowing and how to hint that the joke character is actually the BBEG

18:00 What to do when the players don’t remember your foreshadowing

23:00 How foreshadowing in a TTRPG is different from a book or movie, and that changes what works and doesn’t work

32:00 Storytime: How foreshadowing has worked out in some of our campaigns

36:00 Give them something to do with it: How players remember details and experience foreshadowing

39:00 Final thoughts