Tabletop Gaming
I'd like to write out the way that I run adventures and campaigns. A lot of people ask me to explain this and maybe this will help fledgling GMs. One could always hope, right?
The World
Per Sifolis' request, here is the history of the last world that I ran and the campaign that took place within it: This campaign lasted a little over three years and ended about a year and a half ago.
My campaign is dead. Long live my campaign.
Explanation: The campaign I was playing in died prematurely a month ago, as two players quit the group because of time-management problems (i.e. Life).
I figured I'd start a thred on the adventures me and my crew have been having recently in a place Qwom. We are in the middle of playing our 9th-11th game here in Qwom now, and its been one hell of a run.
most games I have been a PC in seem to have one common bond. Lots of fighting...The DM tends to think that throwing sword swinging bad guys at the part 3-9 times a game means action, and action makes for a perfect game.
I'm currently playing a game with an open-ended GM. He has a world and a timeline of major events, but everything else is pretty much left to the group.
In this world demons are controlling elves and other sentient "good" creatures and their army is wiping out kingdoms.
I decided, since I am working a 10 hour shift, locked in my own sort of dungeon, that I would start a thred that could useful to me, you, and any DM looking to see just what other DMs are doing behind their screens of death. Sure we all roll dice, throw orks at our PCs, inform our players of castles, kingdoms, evil horrors, use pretty much the same attack-vs-AC basics...But behind every campaign or one-shot, there are things you do that no other DM does. You have crafted your style, polished your delivery, tweeked and retooled home-rules and found ways to handle things that the book never even hinted at. You have a working system all your own, and I want to see it.
Last night we got back to our campaign that I do not GM (for a change). Our group has three campaigns going on, and we take turns over weeks running the main table. I DM my game for an 8-12 hour session, three times, every other week, then we rest from my campaign and return to one of my best friend's campaign for another three games played every other week.
Ok boys, girls, squirrels and tilt-o-whirls its time (that is, if time really exists) to openly talk about those weird mechanics of your realm that your NPCs take as "physics" but have no place in the real world.
At last night's gaming session (GURPS) someone started a somewhat tangential reminiscense about an adventure I ran a few years back in our D&D campaign. It was a mission to rescue a captive goddess from Graz'zt's realm in the Abyss. Some of you might recognise the basic plot from the Forgotten Realms module 'For Duty & Deity' although by the time I'd finished with it it bore only a fleeting resemblance to that rather content-light scenario.
