Been a while since I've felt the need to post anything at all DnD related. I went ahead and unarchived all my older posts from the last campaign; not to reread them or even care one way or the other about that, but because it was a solid campaign up to that point and if nothing else, maybe people will still get a chuckle. Plus, going forward, I may want to revisit some of that information to make sure I'm not recycling plot, story, or character stuff.
Though, with that being said, maybe a one-off Besiljka continuation from the ruins of Phandalin could be in order...
At any rate, I still haven't watched any Critical Role, other than Legend of Vox Machina, but I have been digging reading about Wildemont and may get the Tal'Dorei Reborn sourcebook before Call of the Netherdeep releases. Some of the minis are looking great! Working on getting all of the 5e books released from 2014 to now, since it looks like 6e (or 5.5e) is coming between this year and 2024. Not sure how I feel about the changing to a "multiverse view" of different humanoid & monsters but it's the way the winds are blowing. Plus, I never really liked the Drow as a "totally evil race except this one dude" depiction. I love Drizzt, and the stories of the Companions of the Hall. It's very much a "nature versus nurture" concept. But in general, even just looking at FR campaigns, I swap the Drow for Golgari so I'm not entirely attached to the "but muh black Drow are teh evilzz!!!" that so many neckbeards seem to be up in arms over. I don't really like the concepts for the not-evil Drow either though, they just sound like Moon Elves with an extra step honestly.
Also kinda interesting that they retconned goblinoid races to be from the Feywild and enslaved by an evil god so that's why they're such a menace everywhere else. Again, totally get the identity politics that go into not depicting an entire classification of sentient beings as one thing or another, just seems kinda overkill on gobbos and orcs and the whatnots.
Goblin Slayer will be very disappointed.
That's all a bunch of digression. I think on a regular basis about the takeaways from my first campaign+ and ways to improve as a DM. I like minis a lot as a wargamer so having table top representation is important to me, but I also learned that it can detract from things if people focus too much of their attention on the way the mini looks or what gear it is equipped with. Ex; having a necromancer represented by a mini in bone armor when the necromancer isn't actually wearing bone armor or a minotaur armed with an axe and the miniature having a flail. Or, putting together some buildings to roughly resemble a town just for visual purposes and then having a player want to take their character to the magic shop because one of the buildings you put together has magic looking stuff in it even though the characters had just been in the actual magic shop like six "campaign days" prior & that particular player just didn't remember that entire interaction. Stuff like that.
Probably should get better about talking in the first person as well, instead of just relaying information. Maybe that'll make NPCs more memorable.
I'm not Mercer though. Just saying.
Writing tons of plot hooks and threads ahead of time has proven to be useful in world continuity. Conversely, I need to learn to let go of 100% of the background building and let players give input ahead of time. Probably should also ask players "what kind of campaign do YOU want to play in?" so that I'm tailoring more encounters to their preference. Some players want to smash stuff and some want to play the long con political game. It's easy to incorporate a ton of variety if it gets communicated up front.
More D&D novels set outside of the Realms would probably be cool, or more Magic novels, because every time I start rereading Drizzt books, it just further cements the Realms as being where my next campaign should be. Instead of where I'd really like more inspiration to play, like Innistrad or Zendikar or Theros or Ixalan or whatever else. Eberron even. Warforged Barbarians all around. Saltmarsh is mostly setting neutral or easy enough to adapt and I'd planned on incorporating it into the Realms but I'd just as easily place it in Ixalan as well. Basically any place I could run a nautical campaign. I dunno. But DMing is all about flexibility and I'm working on that the most.
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