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One of the advantages of a session being cancelled is that you get more time to "polish" a story or set of encounters to go with it. This week's session being put off has meant that I have been able to expand on my previous plans and create (potentially) four, poissibly five, weeks of material from what would have been maybe one or two sessions.
I don't like to labour a point, and if this isn't flowing well in game terms I can probably drop back to the original outline without losing much from my story arc. However, one of these sessions would have been based around a sideline quest.
So, I do wonder, how much time is suitable to devote to a sideline quest? One of the pieces of advice I remember from previous versions of D&D, when it came to campaign/story design, was to avoid monolithic evil....

This was a 2-show of 1 player and 1 DM for the Summer 2012 playtest of D&D Next.

Day 1
[Following a repentant cultist's report concerning Doomsday and the base of the recent raiding operations, the party, after a mid-sized and ominous description, throws their gaze over the desolate gully and its silent, eye-less watchers: the yawning holes deep in the hillsides, the black mouths of the Caves of Chaos!]
Player: And I asked you what we're doing here.
DM: You're the character; you tell me.
Player: I go home.
DM: *Backstory!*, or the Borderlands will go up in flames.
Player: I don't care about Borderlands; that game only looked fun when I wasn't playing it. [still plans to buy Borderlands 2]
DM: There are raids on the Borderlands -
Player: Can I join them?
DM: No.
Player: This isn't D&D; I'm going home....

If you follow my Twitter feed you may have noticed that I have a love of both the Dungeons AND the Dragons. Basically… Wizards of the Coast has me. In a platonic sense. I’m hooked on multiple aspects of Wizardry. I’ve been a Magic player since I was a [c="Wee Dragonauts"]wee[/c] lad with flowing golden locks, wrestling [c]Grizzly Bears[/c] in the frozen highlands of Dominaria. My love of Magic led me to play both Duels of the Planeswalkers and Magic Online. I’ve owned and spent hours playing NetRunner and Axis and Allies. I also have plans to one day steal THIS statue and turn it into a full body suit (don’t you tell nobody).
 

 

However, unlike a lot of Wizards of the Coast fans, I never found myself entering

...

Repeat of Blog and posting on Epic words

Arriving in the small town of Oldtower by way of ship, the party member who had earlier on board the ship helped the crew fend off a pirate attacked; headed towards the inn.

Party:
1. Corwin, Human Warlock
2. Gladius Arcanus Paragonis,Huam Wizard
3. Lia Holi, Elven Cleric
4. Berrit Blacknife, Hobbit Fighter

Oldtower itself is a small town along the deeply forested coast of Taskergart. Though small, it does send small shipments of wood and bitumen from a few small tar pits up the coast. The name Oldtower itself comes from an old broken tower from years ago that can be seen down the coast a few miles.

While in the inn, the party overhears of some problems that have arisen in Oldtower. One, the daughter, Brigid, of the towns leading merchant, Argus....

Good 1st game, though still not sure if I like the experience for levels in Next.

Party:
1. Corwin, Human Warlock
2. Gladius Arcanus Paragonis,Huam Wizard
3. Lia Holi, Elven Cleric
4. Berrit Blacknife, Hobbit Fighter

Check out our group

community.wizards.com/legend

Well, this Sunday the 26th we are going to kick off a new campaign based on playtesting D&D Next. Have to say that I am looking forward to this with my sunday group which is the smaller of the two groups and *laughs* not so Pathfindercentric.

I will be using my own campaign world and actually using the dungeon that was in the Blue Box Basic set from the early days. Have to admit that as much as I love Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms its high time to use my own. Saying I am still working on it after a few decades is a pretty lame excuse.

Cheers!

My Saturday D&D group is fantastic.  We've been playing in this one campaign since 2008, have had very little player (or character) turnover, and everyone seems to be having a great time.  Since my latest pregnancy though, my games have dropped to twice/month and I've felt that we're starting to get a bit hum-drum.  "Why are we here again?"  Especially since we're at the top of Paragon tier, I felt that it was high time we started tieing up some of the loose ends we left dangling in previous modules.  These loose ends are, for the most part, the badguys who got away.

The first to "escape" was Splug, who we encountered in Keep on the Shadowfell.  This little goblin was sprung from jail by the heroes, got drafted into being the local guide, and quickly found himself...

[sblock=Previously Stated]I’ve recently concluded a 4e campaign which will serve as my final experience as a DM within the system for quite some time. I’ve loved 4e through custom campaigns, established campaigns, and D&D Encounters. It was my entry point to D&D as a game and the first edition I truly learned. I later began to learn other editions of D&D and other games. I’ve even begun to collect myriad game systems in .pdf as well as print.

While I set aside the campaign, I want to write some small amount about the notes. It should help me lay to rest the campaign setting until a later date and another system. [/sblock]

PC interactions

During the adventures that made up our campaign, the PCs never really had great cohesion. They just didn’t bond well.

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[sblock=Previously Stated]I’ve recently concluded a 4e campaign which will serve as my final experience as a DM within the system for quite some time. I’ve loved 4e through custom campaigns, established campaigns, and D&D Encounters. It was my entry point to D&D as a game and the first edition I truly learned. I later began to learn other editions of D&D and other games. I’ve even begun to collect myriad game systems in .pdf as well as print.

While I set aside the campaign, I want to write some small amount about the notes. It should help me lay to rest the campaign setting until a later date and another system. [/sblock]

Campaign purpose

This campaign began and ended with a purpose. The session zero provided an open discussion for players to make decisions

...