Sweet Dreams: Campaign Overview

  • Post author:
  • Post comments:0 Comments
  • Reading time:9 mins read

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These) is a homebrew mini-campaign I’m running for five level 4-6 characters. I anticipate it will take 8 – 12 sessions to complete. This Sweet Dreams series chronicles each session with highlights and lessons learned, while the mystery of the sleepwalking curse unfolds throughout! We’re playing Dungeons and Dragons 5e (D&D 5e).

Start Date: 06/19/2021

Format: Discord w/Voice and Video
Tools: DnD Beyond with AboveVTT extension (Chrome/Edge, FireFox)

The Dungeons and Dragons Group

We’re a group of friends that have been playing D&D 5e together for three years and counting. While we started playing in-person around the same table, we’re now split across two states and leverage technology to connect us. Our group is comprised of three couples and we’re all in our late-twenties to mid-thirties. Sometimes we’re mature, sometimes we’re silly, and sometimes the DM (that’s me) yeets their monster off a cliff because it’s been a long day. It’s been a few months since I’ve run Dungeons and Dragons. This compact D&D campaign is my way of getting back into the groove before we resume our long-running campaign.

Continue ReadingSweet Dreams: Campaign Overview

Script the Scenario, Not the Outcome

  • Post author:
  • Post comments:0 Comments
  • Reading time:14 mins read

Session to session, adventuring parties will encounter scenarios the Dungeon Master (DM) has prepared for them. These scenarios give the session content for players to engage with. As DM, you’ll often find yourself coming up with your own scenarios for the party to overcome even if you’re running from a module or campaign book. Many of these scenarios are prepared in advance, or at least conceptualized, before the session they’re featured in. I liken these to scripted events in video games. In Skyrim, quite early into the game, the protagonist is (seemingly randomly) approached by an Old Orc asking for an honorable fight to the death. The two available options are to engage him in a fight and grant his wish, thereby killing him, or to decline and leave him to sit where you found him until the end of time (or you come back and kill him later). Being an iconic RPG, the choice is yours, so long as it fits into one of those two scripted options. Moreover, while the Old Orc approaching you has a degree of randomness as to when and where it happens, it will inevitably happen in your playthrough should you explore enough of Skyrim.

But, tabletop games aren’t video games, nor should they be treated like one.

Continue ReadingScript the Scenario, Not the Outcome