On April 7th 2015 Wizards of the Coast released Princes of the Apocalypse (PotA). An adventure module focused on the small town of Red Larch and the growing threat of four separate, but connected cults tied to the twisted force known as Elemental Evil. The party goes and solves at first what seems like small mysteries but eventually leads them down into the depths of a massive interconnected dungeon, each themed with one of the four elements: earth, air, fire, water. At the end of each of these paths is that elements cult leader; the first two being somewhat caught off guard, while the third is in their lair and therefor much, much harder. The last in classic Dungeons and Dragons fashion summons their big bad for the party to defeat in an awesome cinematic battle to end the threat to Red Larch once and for all. While the premise is simple, I believe that this is Wizards best 5th edition adventure module.

But we don’t care about actually any of that. What I’m here to talk about today is Chapter 6 of PotA: Alarums and Excursions. You see, PotA is an adventure for 3rd level characters. But being the amazing book that PotA is they expect this to be somebodies first time running or playing D&D. So they create a prologue of sorts to the real adventure I described above; the stakes are a lot lower, but helps set a tone for the players as they discover the surface level cult activities.

Within this chapter is a little section called Bears and Bows. Its descriptive text reads as follows:

In a brush-choked dell a short distance from the Cairn Road is a makeshift camp in front of a cave entrance. Four surly humans sharpen their blades around the fire. Nearby is a wagon with a wooden cage atop it. Inside the cage, a black bear paws at the bars.

Princes of the Apocalypse. Wizards of the Coast, 2015.

This paragraph gets me so excited! The players were probably expecting to find the bandits, but this bear is a mystery element. We have all seen it in fantasy media: when a fight breaks out between the humans, the animal starts freaking out. Is the bear friendly to the bandits? Are the bandits going to unleash the bear? Is this bear going to go berserk as the combat continues? Are we the party able to handle a bear AND bandits? This is the core of what I want to talk about. All new dungeon masters should take this dumb little encounter and run it.

Every encounter should have its own bear in a cage. Nothing is more tedious to a player than an encounter just for the sake of an encounter. No thought, nothing unexpected. Basic attack and eldritch blast into victory. Congrats you beat the most basic form of D&D combat: a stat check. This encounter is the most basic form of avoiding that sluggish feeling in an encounter which drags on way past its welcome.

As you might expect, the module tells you that the bear begins to attempt escaping the cage once the fighting begins. A simple DC 15 strength check, and boom: this encounter just got a lot more deadly and now the party has to figure out what to do next. Do they run? Perhaps all the bandits are dead and the bear has no care for who it fights, it just wants a fresh meal. Even better, that bandits are still alive, and one of them, fresh into the bandit life starts having some major regrets and offers to join the parties side so that she can live another day. The party might feel opportunistic, rushing into the cave amidst the chaos of the bear fighting the bandits, just to take the loot without any further resource drain. Or so they thought: a new opportunity for a bear in a cage. Those bandits outside were waiting, not guarding, and you’re ambushed by their leader. He is no ordinary bandit, no, he is very clearly serving some sort of cult. The DM chose to use a stat block of one of the foot soldiers from the earth or fire cult. These bandits are suddenly tied to the cults; roleplay and storytelling is abundant.

There is no reason that the “Bear in a Cage” technique as I’ve come to call it has to be only applied in combat scenarios. One great example of this is from the first act of Baldur’s Gate 3. For context, your character finds themselves in a race against time to find a cure for what appears to be the uncurbable. Eventually, you find yourself in a druid camp besieged by goblins. You learn a few things; firstly that the goblins serve The Cult of the Absolute who are in some way connected to what ails you. Second, that if you find the druid Halsin he would likely try to help you. Within the camp however, you find a goblin prisoner named Sazza. Should you free Sazza from the druids grove and make it back to the goblin war camp you can get the chance to speak with two characters. The first is the previously mentioned druid Halsin (who amazingly you find as a bear in a cage) and he tells you that if you defeat all three of the goblins leaders, the druid grove will be safe and that he will assist you. The other, far more interesting character is the drow paladin: Minthara, one of the three leaders in the camp who gives you the opposite decision; betray the druid camp and the refugees there therefor indirectly join the Cult of the Absolute who so far has been your main antagonist.

Their bear in a cage is this: Join Halsin and hope that he can give you answers about how the cult is connected to your characters problems. Or, betray everyone you’ve met so far and infiltrate the cult. The latter, while obviously the evil choice, is also the choice which lays a clear path to your goals. It’s not as sudden as the literal bear in a cage, but it takes what is the obvious choice of help Halsin, and gives it pause. The pause is likely short for most players, they want to be the hero, but that dramatic choice is better than the absence of one.

This is all a long winded any TTRPG should give the party challenging options and opportunities. The most mundane of shop keeper encounters are not excluded from this. Your shop keeper might just hate all half-orcs, charges the shortest party member 1 extra gold, or has an accent the players have never heard before. Your meeting with the mayor could be interrupted by a sudden appearance of a wizard who demands the mayor pay him for his services at long last. Need more intensity? We have bigger bears. The party is caught in the middle of a coup where the party could be the deciding factor to if its successful. They Hardly know the mayor, he’s probably a good guy though, right? (He’s not.) Big boss battle in your campaign? A critical miss of your rangers bow hits the wizards relic (Same wizard from before, probably) and it has made the relic unstable, giving the wizard the power to fly.

All of these examples are easy to do in the moment, and are even better when planned. It’s not hard to engage your players, just give them thought provoking challenges that they were not expecting. Minimum it will probably stop Alex from texting in the middle of your session long enough for him to actually start caring. Thanks Alex.

Here is some quick guidelines to hopefully help out when trying to apply the Bear in a Cage technique.

1. Keep it simple when doing this improvised. Get to crazy with it and you might find yourself creating questions you can’t answer or convoluting your narrative with new details you didn’t plan for.
2. Challenge is good, impossible odds are not. The bear in chapter 6 could be an Owl Bear. But that would likely go super bad if it hit a level 1 or 2 player even once. If you wanted to make it an owl bear, give the players other tools or hints to the coming lethality of the bear. Maybe the cage doesn’t break after the first DC 15 strength check. Maybe it takes at least two. Describing the amount of force the Owl Bear is using to instill a sense of dread.
3. If it’s super unexpected every time, it will come off as cheap thrills. The wizard appearing in the mayors office randomly is really exiting the first time. But if every encounter has a 16th level wizard appearing, starts to get real boring and eyes will roll. That being said, having the same really bad at his job wizard appear as comedic relief between adventures isn’t so bad in moderation.

That’s really all I got for now on this. If you have an encounter and want to Bear in a Cage it, I implore you to do so. Get creative and remember, it’s suppose to be fun for you and the party! Good luck out there Dungeon Master!