Rodney Thompson Looks Behind The Screen

WotC's Rodney Thompson is the author of the first in a new series of articles on the official D&D website, "a regular column by Dungeon Masters for Dungeon Masters that presents helpful tips for use in your D&D campaign." The first article looks at the creation of an adventure cheat/prep sheet, incuding the adventure, interludes, character arcs, encounters, and more.

You can read it here. Additionally, check out the DM Support Group video below!

[video=youtube;teHtEpCk64Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teHtEpCk64Y#t=123[/video]
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[Mr. Flibble]

I like the idea of it. Prep is one of those things that tends to be really personal to individual DMs, has been my experience. Certainly room enough here for people to talk about their particular preferences.

I agree, and Mr. Thompson's approach is a nice one for inexperienced DMs to see. The principles of preparing extra stuff at several levels of play is expressed well. The more-experienced can forget that these notions aren't all that self-evident.

 

[iserith]

I'm curious how other DMs prep. Who would be willing to show their prep/cheat sheets?

I use Fronts from Dungeon World to prep my D&D games.

 

[Zaran]

It's not that I don't appreciate the usefulness of this article for GMs. It just seems like a filler. Much like the Eberron article. It makes me believe that the RPG has been reduced to "as little as possible" mode. If they were more open with what is being worked on I would be happy. Because it seems like these articles have taken very little time to produce.

 

[Blue]

Maybe they should split this series of articles up into two separate series, one with basic tips for new DMs and one with more advanced tips for experienced DMs. I was just kinda expecting more in-depth/outside the box DM advise like what you see over on the MtG site, or even like what the Kobold Press guys post in their blog.

Chris Perkin's DM series that included a lot of tips for "more advanced DMs" were really good though petered down to "just good" by the end. I believe he's been running his Valoreign campaign now for a few years, perhaps he has more material to post.

But with the focus on getting new players into the game, I'm happy with this being content on the official D&D page. For more advanced tips there are plenty of good bloggers who combined have more time to put out articles than the D&D team do. It's not hard to find ones that have a style and focus compatible with your own while any official articles need to be more inclusive in regards to style.

 

[lkj]

Rodney has provided some example prep notes based on his article:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1138086092873983&type=3&l=593e9b4f02

From a Greyhawk campaign apparently.

AD

 

[mamol]

I also really liked the interlude section. Going to try this out next session.

 

[Nemio]

As a new DM I can say the article was interesting to read
It's something I'll take into account in the future.

 

[bedir than]

The day you can't learn from another DM is the day you die. It's like anything else you do in life, expose yourself to others and learn from them. The reminder that there is both story arc and character arc is important. Sometimes those overlap, sometimes they do not. The reminder that there are opportunities for interludes that don't necessarily connect to either of those arcs is wonderful. Characters are operating in a worldspace. Sometimes things happen that don't fit their mission. Including those items makes the world live.

 

[pemerton]

I think that same critique could be leveled at all of his examples in every category: depending on the context, the risk exists that players will treat the interlude like an adventure hook and run with it

I see your point, but I think that PC-oriented "interludes" generate the risk in a particularly strong fashion: each player, after all, is engaging the game via his/her PC, and so has (or at least hopefully has) a particularly strong reason to take seriously events that engage with his/he PC's personal motivations and backstory.

Personally this is one of the things I really like about the traditional D&D story arc campaign: PCs must balance their personal goals and impulses against whatever Big Important Thing they're doing, with consequences either way.

In many classic fantasy story arcs, though, the personal and the "big picture" tend to blend together: defeating the Empire also requires Luke to reconcile with his father; defeating Sauron also requires Aragorn to take up his kingship and culminate his relationship with Arwen; defeating the dragon armies also requires Tanis to sort out his ambivalence towards his ex-girlfriend; etc.

 

[dd.stevenson]

In many classic fantasy story arcs, though, the personal and the "big picture" tend to blend together: defeating the Empire also requires Luke to reconcile with his father; defeating Sauron also requires Aragorn to take up his kingship and culminate his relationship with Arwen; defeating the dragon armies also requires Tanis to sort out his ambivalence towards his ex-girlfriend; etc.

Yes, this is one thing that novel story arcs and "typical" D&D arc campaigns don't have in common. Novels & screenplays distribute character development out to subplots, which (by definition) are mini-plots that must be resolved in order for the main plot to be resolved.

On the other hand, unless the players & DM collaborate to create characters who are deeply tied in with the main story, it's more likely than not that their personal goals won't be in line with the campaign, and they'll end up with the situation I described. I think it's a bit more common nowadays for big published story-driven campaigns (like, Paizo APs) to come with lots of pre-made character backgrounds that will tie into the main campaign. But, IME, this kind of setup ain't the norm--and I like that about D&D.