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In my role as a DM, I usually shied away from heavy use of luck during my Dungeons & Dragons games. I preferred was for narrative flow and session development to be determined by player choice instead of pure luck. Recently, I opted to change my approach, and I'm very pleased with the outcome.

The Inspiration: Watching an Improvised Tool

An influential streamed game utilizes a DM who often requests "luck rolls" from the adventurers. He does this by choosing a type of die and assigning possible results contingent on the roll. It's at its core no distinct from using a random table, these get invented spontaneously when a player's action lacks a clear resolution.

I chose to experiment with this approach at my own session, mainly because it looked novel and presented a departure from my normal practice. The experience were remarkable, prompting me to reconsider the ongoing dynamic between planning and improvisation in a D&D campaign.

A Memorable Story Beat

During one session, my group had concluded a massive conflict. Afterwards, a cleric character wondered if two beloved NPCs—a pair—had lived. Instead of deciding myself, I handed it over to chance. I instructed the player to roll a d20. I defined the outcomes as: on a 1-4, both died; on a 5-9, a single one would die; a high roll, they survived.

Fate decreed a 4. This resulted in a profoundly poignant scene where the adventurers discovered the corpses of their companions, forever holding hands in death. The party performed a ceremony, which was uniquely powerful due to previous story developments. As a final reward, I decided that the remains were suddenly restored, revealing a spell-storing object. I randomized, the item's contained spell was precisely what the party needed to solve another major situation. One just plan such magical story beats.

Improving On-the-Spot Skills

This incident made me wonder if improvisation and making it up are truly the beating heart of this game. While you are a prep-heavy DM, your improvisation muscles may atrophy. Groups frequently find joy in upending the best constructed narratives. Therefore, a good DM has to be able to adapt swiftly and create content in the moment.

Utilizing luck rolls is a fantastic way to develop these abilities without straying too much outside your comfort zone. The trick is to deploy them for minor decisions that have a limited impact on the session's primary direction. To illustrate, I would not employ it to establish if the central plot figure is a traitor. However, I could use it to determine whether the characters reach a location just in time to see a major incident takes place.

Strengthening Collaborative Storytelling

Luck rolls also helps maintain tension and foster the sensation that the adventure is alive, evolving in reaction to their choices in real-time. It combats the feeling that they are merely actors in a rigidly planned narrative, thereby bolstering the shared nature of the game.

This approach has long been integral to the original design. Early editions were enamored with random tables, which made sense for a game focused on dungeon crawling. Even though current D&D often focuses on narrative and role-play, leading many DMs to feel they require detailed plans, this isn't always the best approach.

Striking the Right Balance

Absolutely no issue with doing your prep. Yet, there is also nothing wrong with letting go and letting the whim of chance to guide minor details rather than you. Control is a big part of a DM's role. We need it to run the game, yet we can be reluctant to release it, even when doing so could be beneficial.

A piece of advice is this: Have no fear of letting go of the reins. Embrace a little randomness for smaller details. The result could create that the organic story beat is significantly more rewarding than anything you could have pre-written by yourself.