Almost every Thursday this summer I've been running a game of Dungeons and Dragons for a group of friends. Today, hopefully, will be no different.
Today I wanted to talk about the game I'm running. I am by no means an expert in the art that is the Dungeon/Game Master, and I know I still have a long way to go, but I thought I'd share my experiences with D&D anyway.
First off, I'm running a 4th edition game, which I understand has highly divided the D&D fan base. I'm not interested in covering or going into the edition wars, but I will say that I enjoy this edition and it fits my needs pretty well; anything else I needed I've homebrewed into the game anyway, but at it's core it is still 4th.
First off, I'm running a 4th edition game, which I understand has highly divided the D&D fan base. I'm not interested in covering or going into the edition wars, but I will say that I enjoy this edition and it fits my needs pretty well; anything else I needed I've homebrewed into the game anyway, but at it's core it is still 4th.
This is technically my second campaign, as my first came to an abrupt end due to scheduling conflicts among players and my own personal burnout on Dungeons and Dragons. Flash forward a few months later to March of this year, when I talked with my players and eventually came to the consensus of starting a game up again during the summer.
Once I had got the green-light for the second campaign, pretty much all my personal free time went into world building, plot creation and so on and so forth. My previous setting was a high-fantasy (magic!) campaign where guilds were more-or-less the backbone of civilized society and the players were set to join a benevolent and important guild; after an attack by a force of "barbarous" races (goblins and the like) hired by an unknown client, the guild's leader is kidnapped and the party sets out to find him.
Once I had got the green-light for the second campaign, pretty much all my personal free time went into world building, plot creation and so on and so forth. My previous setting was a high-fantasy (magic!) campaign where guilds were more-or-less the backbone of civilized society and the players were set to join a benevolent and important guild; after an attack by a force of "barbarous" races (goblins and the like) hired by an unknown client, the guild's leader is kidnapped and the party sets out to find him.
That campaign was scrapped when I started up my current one. Mostly.
In terms of story, my current campaign starts off with the players all possibly opposing one another as they enter a tomb of some long-forgotten warlord. There they seek a lost, legendary weapon; one of seven that were used to seal away a great and evil entity long ago but, more importantly, were said to be able to turn the tide of battle in an instant. With my group so far, they've left this tomb and are now moving on to bigger and better things (while being placed in a party together by plot, of course).
Otherwise, I recycled many of my NPC characters because throwing away a character with a good amount of background/history/statistics would be kinda pointless. I'm also planning to implement a few things I had planned for my previous campaign, primarily NPC recruitment and affection a la Bioware games. I really liked the way Mass Effect 2 did companions, where each one character filled a role in combat but also a role in the end game that helped the team progress through the final level, so I sought to emulate that in both my campaigns.
Additionally, each NPC will have a different level of relationship with other players (which can also vary depending on the player's race, status etc etc), with things happening if that affection gets too low (like leaving the party) or too high (benefits, maybe a lover status or something but that might be... awkward). I'll probably also run something similar to this for alliances.
Despite all the heavy planning for gameplay elements, companions, world history and topography, the one thing I largely fail to do is instance build. What I mean by this is that, generally, whenever the party decides where to go, I usually only started planning what that place looks like and how it'll work out maybe a week or two in advance.
I do this mostly to avoid getting burned by planning things out too meticulously only for the party to go in a direction I didn't anticipate. Still, though, it would be nice to have something planned out for the next session whenever they leave a big area, but that's all part of the fun. Right now, the party is headed to a dwarven capital city located high up in the mountains and only two days ago did I finally narrow down what I wanted the city to be like... yeesh. For today's session, I've only planning out the city and maybe some underground locations, but here's hoping they don't get that far.
Despite all the heavy planning for gameplay elements, companions, world history and topography, the one thing I largely fail to do is instance build. What I mean by this is that, generally, whenever the party decides where to go, I usually only started planning what that place looks like and how it'll work out maybe a week or two in advance.
I do this mostly to avoid getting burned by planning things out too meticulously only for the party to go in a direction I didn't anticipate. Still, though, it would be nice to have something planned out for the next session whenever they leave a big area, but that's all part of the fun. Right now, the party is headed to a dwarven capital city located high up in the mountains and only two days ago did I finally narrow down what I wanted the city to be like... yeesh. For today's session, I've only planning out the city and maybe some underground locations, but here's hoping they don't get that far.
Anyway, I need to go prepare a little bit more. I hope this was a little interesting and I'm sorry in advance but this... is only the beginning.
May your rolls always be crits,
Eric
Eric
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