Give them a world that lives and breathes
GM: As you trudge through the forest, you
encounter… I don’t know… let me consult a table… ogres, I guess…
Players: yaaaay…
Remember how bad the Sequel Trilogy was?
One of the many, many problems was the big reveal that Palpatine was behind it all along.
One of the many, many problems with that reveal was it came out of nowhere.
It had to, since they were making up the trilogy as they went. It’s hard to foreshadow something when you don’t know what that something is. But while it wouldn’t have saved the sequels, it would have made them better if they sprinkled clues throughout the other movies.
The first clue that Palpatine is behind it shouldn’t be him appearing and saying it.
As it is with movies, so it is with your campaign.
The first clue that ogres inhabit these woods shouldn’t be a club to the face.
Many GMs know this, so they place tracks and manure for high-Survival characters to find.
You can do even better than that.
When large, dangerous predators move into a forest, the whole forest changes. It can’t not. Ogres won’t just leave footprints in the ground, but in every aspect of the forest and even the lands around it.
Show the players those footprints. They won’t know what they mean at first, but they’ll learn.
You can do that with my appropriately-named Footprints - your guide to creating worlds where monsters live, not just spawn as the plot demands.
Not every GM wants this. Some like running random encounters against a cardboard universe.
For everyone else, check this out: