After our second session I’m pretty sure that I’ll only want to play as a DM (Dungeon Master) from here on in. The job (an awesomely fun one) is very creative and really open in what you can do.
D&D is a game of imagination so anything can happen really. I’m currently enjoying mulling over ideas for the campaign ahead. Once my group finishes the published adventure (Keep on the Shadowfell) we will move onto stuff purely written by myself. I really can’t wait for this as thinking up battle encounters and story arcs is really fun.
Creating a campaign is a lot of work so it’s a good thing I’m enjoying it. Here’s some of the things you have to create when you plan a campaign:
- A story arch that allows for player interaction and decisions
- Non-Player Character. Basically anyone the party comes across in their journeys
- Quests that involve the characters back story as a group and individually
- The main villian and their motivations
- Battle encounters.
That’s just some of the things to think about. If you’re not using a campaign setting like me then you would also have to design a whole world, which can be as detailed as you want it to be. The detail would depend on your group though, not all groups like to sit around hearing about lore etc.
As for groups, I think my group is getting a hang of the rules now which is great. We breeze though combat and they seem to be doing things like thinking about when to use their skills without me dropping any hints.
I’ve really found the 4th Edition D&D books to be quiet clear and easily accessible to a newbie DM like myself. I’ve gone a bit nuts in buying the books and now I currently have:
- Dungeon Master’s Guide
- Monster Manual
- Player’s Handbook
- Dungeon Master’s Guide II
- Monster Manual II
- Player’s Handbook II
- Adventure’s Vault
- Adventure’s Vault II
- Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
- Forgotten Realms Player’s Handbook
I probably don’t need all of those books but I like having options as I feel the more options you have the more real the world will seem.
I’ve also found some great online resources for D&D such as Obsidian Portal which is a online site to help you chronicle & organise your D&D campaign. My campaign can be found here.
There’s also a bunch of great blogs out there for players and DM’s alike. Covering every aspect of playing D&D:
Are the ones I keep up to date with and are only a handful of helpful D&D related blogs out there.
I’ve also created a bunch of stuff for my campaign such as Quest Cards and Monster tokens which I’ll put up on here later on.
