I love a campaign with a good central plot, but as much as I love those, some of my favorite times and revelations at the table come from the B-plots; those small scenes and stories that are tailored to one or a few characters. I find a place for them in nearly all my games. Over the years, I have a formula for working them into my games. So let’s talk about it…

What are B Plots? 

The B-plot, according to Google, is a subplot or secondary narrative, that runs parallel to the main plotline (sometimes known as the A-plot). In RPGs, these are little side scenes or stories that you work into the session. While they can occur at nearly any time in a story, they tend to appear more when the A-plot is not actively being worked on. This could be before or after the A-plot or during a break in the A-plot. 

A B-plot can center on a single character or a group of characters. My preference is 1-2 characters, otherwise, it’s creeping up on an A-plot. More about that in a few min. 

In the games I run, the B-plot gets 1-2 scenes before we move back to the A-plot. However for a full table of 5 players that may be 5-10 scenes, in which the entire session could be just various B-plots. I am comfortable with that for my home games, but in a one-shot or convention game, I may not run a B-plot and if I did I would not go past 1 scene per character.

What do they do? 

The B-plot can do a few things for your players and the session. Here is a short list:

• • Spotlight Time – When you create a B-plot scene focused on just one character, you are creating spotlight time for the character. You are dedicating a portion of the game for them to shine, to have the attention of the GM and the table. 
  • Depth of character –  Often the A-plot is about some larger thing happening in the world, and while the characters will grow by their interaction with the A-plot, with the B-plot you can narrow in on just one character and focus on their personal stories. The things you make up for these scenes and the actions the character takes will help to make the character deeper. 
  • Engagement – Combining these first two things…spotlight and personal stories create player engagement. The player will become more attentive and will be emotionally engaged. This will raise the quality of play at the table for that player and everyone else.
  • Experimentation – A-plots have a lot riding on them, and need to progress for the main parts of the campaign to be successful. Not B-plots. B-plots can be nearly anything, something taken from the character’s background, a wish the player had, or a GM thought experiment (i.e. I wonder what they would do if someone tried to steal their staff?). You are free to try stuff out, and if something doesn’t work, no worries it was just one scene in the game, you can find something new next session.

Some Tips for Good B-Plots

These are just some of my tips for making a good B-plot. They may or may not work in your game, story, campaign, or group. Like any buffet, take what looks good… 

• Simple – I keep my B-plots simple; few twists, no red herrings. They typically have a single large goal for the whole plot. For example: Chad will discover his uncle is embezzling from the family business.
• Episodic – My B-plots are episodic, meaning that whatever scene or two is played in that session, incrementally moves along the overall plot. In future sessions, the plot will be moved further until its conclusion. For example: In tonight’s session, Chad will see his uncle skulking around in the office after closing. He will have a chance to confront him or observe.
• Not tied to the main plot – My preference is for the B-plot to be something independent of the A-plot so that the player feels free to do what they want without worrying that it will affect the whole group. It also gives a break or a beat change from the A-plot.
• Only a Scene or Two – Most of the time, I have about a scene-worth of material prepared for this, and then break it into two parts to keep the spotlight moving.
• A B-plot for everyone – Every player character in my game gets a B-plot so that everyone can have some spotlight time.
• Phone A Friend – Sometimes, I like a B-plot to be for a single character, but if they want to pull others into a scene I welcome and at times encourage it.

Where to fit the B Plot?

I have a preference for where I put my B-plots. This is not the only way to do it. It is my preferred way to do it. 

I like B-plots between A-plot stories (not sessions). After an A-plot story has concluded, after any leveling up, and before the next A-plot story starts, I like to put in a round of B-plots. It looks something like this:

• Session 1: A-Plot Story 1 (start)
• Session 2: A-Plot Story 1 (middle)
• Session 3: A-Plot Story 1 (end), Experience, Advancement, etc
• Session 4: B-plots & Start of A-Plot Story 2
• Session 5: A-Plot Story 2 (middle)
• Etc

This way we have finished an A-plot story, the characters have progressed, and in most of my campaigns, some time will pass before the next A-plot story starts. This place, where time has passed, is a perfect place to put in these B-plots. 

It is not the only structure that works, it’s just one that is easy because the A-plot is out of the way. Depending on your game there may be other places where those could occur. For instance, if your starship was on a long warp jump, in the middle of the A-plot, you could switch to B-plots to see what the characters are doing during the jump, and then return to the A-plot as they come out of warp.

Just A Small Plot… it’s Wafer-Thin

B-plots are a nice break from the main plot of a campaign and are a great way to spotlight and build engagement in your players. Good B-plots are simple and incremental, moving along a larger plot or question, a scene at a time. An easy place to place B-plots is between larger A-plot stories, but with some creativity, you can fit them into other parts of the story.

Do you like B-plots? What is your favorite B-plot in a game you have played/run? Where do you like to run your B-plots in your overall campaign? 

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Basically, what every dev is looking for are players who will spend on the game and players who will continue to engage with the game content outside of the game itself. The more people the game can reach organically, the more likely they'll get more players, more paying players, and more overall success.

PS. Conversely, if you want to do your part to kill a game, just don't engage with it at all. Let it rot, pay it no mind, and don't engage with it even if you hate it. Hate posting is still engagement. The only way to win is not to play at all.

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Last month we noted how deteriorating quality over at Google search and Google news was resulting in both platforms being flooded by AI-generated gibberish and nonsense, with money that should be going to real journalists instead being funneled to a rotating crop of lazy automated engagement farmers.

This collapse of online informational integrity is happening at precisely the same time that U.S. journalism is effectively being lobotomized by a handful of hedge fund brunchlords for whom accurately informing the public has long been a distant afterthought.

It’s a moment in time where the financial incentives all point toward lazy automated ad engagement, and away from pesky things like the truth or public welfare. It costs companies money to implement systems at scale that can help clean up online information pollution, and it’s far more profitable to spend that time and those resources lazily maximizing engagement at any cost. The end result is everywhere you look.

The latest case in point: as hustlebros look to profit from automated engagement bait, The Verge notes that there has been a rise in automated obituary spam.

Like we’ve seen elsewhere in the field of journalism, engagement is all that matters, resulting in a flood of bizarre, automated zero-calorie gibberish where facts, truth, and public welfare simply don’t matter. The result, automated obituaries at unprecedented scale for people who aren’t dead. Like this poor widower, whose death was widely (and incorrectly) reported by dozens of trash automation sites:

“[The obituaries] had this real world impact where at least four people that I know of called [our] mutual friends, and thought that I had died with her, like we had a suicide pact or something,” says Vastag, who for a time was married to Mazur and remained close with her. “It caused extra distress to some of my friends, and that made me really angry.”

Much like the recent complaints over the deteriorating quality of Google News, and the deteriorating quality of Google search, Google sits nestled at the heart of the problem thanks to a refusal to meaningfully invest in combating “obituary scraping”:

“Google has long struggled to contain obituary spam — for years, low-effort SEO-bait websites have simmered in the background and popped to the top of search results after an individual dies. The sites then aggressively monetize the content by loading up pages with intrusive ads and profit when searchers click on results. Now, the widespread availability of generative AI tools appears to be accelerating the deluge of low-quality fake obituaries.”

Yes, managing this kind of flood of automated gibberish is, like content moderation, impossible to tackle perfectly (or anywhere close) at scale. At the same time, all of the financial incentives in the modern engagement infotainment economy point toward prioritizing the embrace of automated engagement bait, as opposed to spending time and resources policing information quality (even using AI).

As journalism collapses and a parade of engagement baiting automation (and rank political propaganda) fills the void, the American public’s head gets increasingly filled with pebbles, pudding, and hate. We’re in desperate need of a paradigm shift away from viewing absolutely everything (even human death) through the MBA lens of maximizing profitability and engagement at boundless scale at any cost.

At some point morals, ethics, and competent leadership in the online information space needs to make an appearance somewhere in the frame in a bid to protect public welfare and even the accurate documentation of history. It’s just decidedly unclear how we bridge the gap.