Well the weekend is here and hopefully my scheduled dnd game goes ahead tonight as I have my party surrounded by a horde of ghouls after the party slew their Elder Ghast ‘king’.
So today’s post is really two fold. A snapshot of whats been put together this week as well as a small discussion for Dungeon Masters out there.
Snap shot
I find this process of mapping out a few scenarios and spending time fleshing out my musings is very beneficial. At the end of the week I attach the materials I didn’t use to the back of the A4 sheet and put it into storage.
For D&D I normally conjure up to he adventure mentally an hour before the dnd session. After so long, and having quite a few players who took pride in detailing my carefully laid out adventures I had to get very good at improvisation and thinking on my feet. So I developed what I call my Rome approach, which I am sure many many other DMs and GMs already do, which has served me well these past few years. I hope to write it up later so I can share this approach with as many DMs as I can.
The second thing I want to talk about today is something I’ve had to experience three times (too many) in my current campaign.
A player throwing in the towel and leaving the group.
It sucks, let’s be blunt here.
The first was due to different expectations around long running campaigns and the desire to change character’s every few sessions. Not a bad thing for the series of one shots I was running but when it starts to impact the games flow and the experience for the other players you’ve got to draw a line in the sand and say no to the third reroll (without a party member death that is).
The second was weirdest. They just stopped showing up and never responded to messages. It was weird because they were almost the most passionate player who loved ever session and had a ball every game.
The last one was understandable and recent (last week). Simply put, COVID and dealing with added responsibilities meant something had to give and sadly dnd was it. Having young kids also made it hard.
Dealing with party members leaving isn’t new, but the same familiar feelings do return. Self doubt is the big one.
Despite knowing that their leaving wasn’t due to my story, the relationships built during the game or what I brought to the table it still impacted my motivation and made me doubt the campaign that I’d be working on for over 3 years.
Motivation is hard to fix, especially when it’s felt across across the entire party and it’s been the death of many a adventuring party. The only way forward is to try and rekindle that spark, and get your party excited for it too and thats part of the reason I have started this adventure a week personal challenge. To motivate myself and get that Spark going again but share the process with others.
Thats enough rambling I think, I’ve got a ghoul keep to prepare.
Have a good weekend and don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe
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