168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons is like a magnet. For a long time I was dancing on the periphery like one of those iron shavings from Science class, twitching under the game’s pull but maintaining a healthy distance. In the last few months howeveಞr, I have been yanked in close. Stuck to the magnet as if the tit🍌ular dragon had sunk its talons in my torso and swept me away. Mostly, this has co🌟me via DMing my own adventures.
My journey into DMing began with an anthology collection - 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Candlekeep Mysteries. It’s ostensibly a set of devilish puzzle adventures that Sherlockian heroes need to deduce their way out of, though it often devolves into figuring out who the big bad is then hitting them really hard. As I’ve written about previously, the first time I played the game I felt uneasy about what my character could and couldn’t do - not just the fear of misinterpreting my comprehensive (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:if rewarding) character sheet, but a lack of knowledge of the world itself, the wider rule✨s of engagement, and the edges of the adventure.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Running a game as DM changed that. I had to know the adventure inside out, and could still make it my own. I streamlined parts, added depth to others, merged storylines, and added towns and encounters, good and bad. But I f𝕴ound myself wanting more control over the world. The anthology presented scenarios I thought could be punched up for my group, but I was wary of changing too much from a bo🌳ok they had been excited to play.
Likewise, there was an aura of knowledge around the adventures that I lacked - one of my players asked, qu🧸ite reasonably, if they could roll to discover the family history of an NPC introduced by both names. The only problem was I didn’t know it. The adventure didn’t i𓄧mmediately provide it, but the use of surname suggested there was one. Was it further in the anthology? Did he reappear? Was it in a different book? Was I simply supposed to know? I don’t mind improvising as a DM (it might be my favourite element of play), but there was clearly a right answer here, and I didn’t have it.
That’s why I moved into creating my own adventures. A whole world, built entirely from scratch. I have one 11 level adventure completely written, and another one about 60 percent finished. I write all new characters (close to 300 across both adventures), homebrew some races, spells, and items, design all of the maps, and build each encounter from scratch. It feels like the magnet has gotten strong🔯er, and I’ve been pulled in deeper. I am the master of this world. I alone know its limits and boundaries. Every character, every crack in the pavement, belongs to me.
If you’re going to do your own adventure, you need to commit to it absolutely. It’s a major time investment, but it’s worth the impact. I know some DMs use the piano teacher method, staying one step ahead of the kids, planning only the session in play and building t♕he next from there. But for me, the joy is not in the mutual storytelling that comes from shaping the world as you go, but the mutual storytelling of presenting your group with a complete world and allowing them to poke holes in it.
In my most recent session in this world, I described a nearby fishing village for flavour text and to highlight the fairly dull surroundings - the group immediately set off for the fishing village that was not written at all. So despite my pristine world, I had to invent the village, the tavern, and a task of helping the village with their fishing haul on the fly - but I loved that I could because this was my world, not a book the players had strayed outside of that I needed to guide them b𝐆ack to lest they interfere with as-yet unknown future events.
But also, if my group is reading this (whic🐟h they are, since they’re my fellow editors at TheGamer), why did you think the fishing village I specifically described as ‘sleepy’ and ‘uninteresting’ would help you find a Beholder?
I saw creating my own adventure as the next step as a DM, and it’s true that some general experience will have helped me in having the confidence to begin my structure. But I don’t think it needs to be the next step, I think as long as you know the basic rules and rhythm of a game, 🐭it&r🐷squo;s the best way to dive in. It’s your world, all controlled and curated by you. The only limit is your imagination… and your players who decide to ignore the quest in order to hunt Beholders in nondescript fishing villages.