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D&D campaigns

Building a New Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Diary #13 – Organizing

by Bob

photo credit: kirk lau
(The above pic has NOTHING to do with Building a new campaign.  I just liked it, thought you might like it too.) 
Up to this point, I (and hopefully you) have just a ton of materials, some of which are related to one another, and others that aren’t.  I decided this weekend that [...]

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Dealing with Problem Players

by Bob

A while back, I wrote about how, as a DM, I tend to make one of the worst players.  I think this is pretty common among DMs.  It is a different feeling, being on the other side of the screen.
So, let me tell you about my character.  If you’re not interested, skip to the list [...]

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Building a New Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Diary #12 – Sociology Redux

by Bob

It’s very cool to watch a world start to take shape.  If you’re like me, the process of campaign design is a lot like raising a child.  You conceive the thing, and pretty soon it’s right in front of you;  then, the real work starts.  You’ve got to teach it, train it, love it, provide [...]

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Building a New Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Diary #11 – Get to Know Your World

by Bob

Time to zoom back out for a day or two.  In fact, I think it’s time to revisit the 41 questions, don’t you?
I think that we’ll delve into the section on sociology for the next couple of days.  Let me pick one or two of the questions for today, and see where I can get [...]

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Building a New Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Diary #10 – Evil Lives

by Bob

“And don’t even get me started on the sense of control that a DM has. We know what world-building, god-complex control freaks they all are.”  – Dave Noonan
I’ll confess for a minute:
I love building a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign world.
Even if no one ever read this journal, I’d love doing it.
Why?  Lots of reasons.  [...]

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The Role of the Dungeon Master

by Bob

Have you ever thought about the jargon used to describe us? Dungeon Master.  Master of Dungeons.  or, for non D&D-ers, Game Master.  It seems a little pretentious, don’t you think?  Doesn’t it imply that we’ve indeed “mastered” the game, or that perhaps we hold some form of rank (setting aside all PC demands that we don’t [...]

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Building a New Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Diary #9 – Lessons Learned

by Bob

Welcome back.  I trust your weekend was good.  Mine was a hoot.
You’ll recall that I had several things I wanted to do over the weekend.  I accomplished several, and I wanted to share my results with you.  Here’s what I came up with, goal by goal: 

Watch Rio Bravo

I did manage to do this.  What did it [...]

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Building a New D&D Campaign Diary – Entry #8: Inspiration

by Bob

Note:  Today’s task is big, so I’m giving you four days to work on it.  Come back to the Diary on Monday to see where we land.  Regular blog posts will continue, however. 
I know I’ve talked about sources of inspiration here before, but I think it’s worth spending a day (or a weekend, if you’ve got it) thinking [...]

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Building a New D&D Campaign Diary – Entry #7: From the Bottom Up

by Bob

Tell me you didn’t see this coming.
We’ve spent a heck of a lot of time in Elfland and Topsy-Turvydom to this point.  We’ve messed around with freewriting, we’ve taken a birds-eye view, we’ve asked the big questions and refused, on principle, to answer them.
Today, we go to the other extreme.
Now that we’ve got some scaffolding place, I [...]

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Building a New D&D Campaign Diary – Entry #5: From the Top Down

by Bob

Happy Monday, all.
If you’re like me, it sometimes helps to take a step back, and try to look at things from the “big picture” perspective.  I’m not saying that the details aren’t important;  quite the contrary, the details in any new D&D campaign will determine, at least initially, how your players respond to the world.  Players [...]

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