You ' re too kind ! Yeah , I really wanted Phandalin to have this bleak western feeling , which seems appropriate given it ' s a small mining frontier town . Seemed like having the mayor hung up , and the townsfolk too scared to take him down , contributed nicely to that feeling Speaking more generally , in my limited experience I feel like priority number one for me as a DM is to create the sense of a living , breathing , dynamic world that surrounds the players , reacts to them , and zigzags across their actions . And I also think it ' s very important to take your cues from what players do . This means frequently changing things up , so the players feel like the world is actually responding to them , but also doesn ' t wait for them in order to change . At first this was a terrifying proposition to me , because I was really intent on telling the story I ' d planned seems this is DM mistake number 1 . But I soon realised that if I can get my players to feel like they ' re driving the story and then just build an incredible world around that , then everyone would feel way more involved and have way more fun umattcolville has a great video about this over on his YouTube channel the Story vs . Adventure video , I think . That said , I also think it ' s great to give hints of world dynamics at work that don ' t necessarily concern the players yet . For instance , now that Harbin Wester has been deposed , it ' s opened a power vacuum that I think Halia Thornton , the richest woman in town , will step in to fill . The measly town guard has pretty much been obliterated , and so she ' s actually paying some Redbrand mercenaries double what Glasstaff is paying them to switch sides and guard the town . Of course noone , least of all the townsfolk , are very happy about this , and she knows she can ' t afford to pay the price the mercenaries are asking for long . So she ' s imploring the party to fix this Redbrand crisis asap , and offering them a great deal of money to do it more player motivations ! . But , of course , what the players don ' t know is that she ' s Zhentarim and looking to consolidate the faction ' s position in town . This could lead to all kinds of other plot hooks and complex political intrigue , perhaps only really factoring in several months later in playing time or game time , and it might only affect the players indirectly , when they ' re in a different town and pick up on something that connects back to the Zhentarim base that Phandelin has subsequently become . So again , there is a sense of a greater world that surrounds the players , and that changes along with them . Moreover , what ' s great is that all of these ideas came about just from the players deciding to retreat from the Redbrand Hideout . So they ' re helping tell the story even though they don ' t know it .