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Message: <blockquote data-quote="alleynbard" data-source="post: 4820947" data-attributes="member: 16220">I came pretty much to the same conclusion myself. The last campaign I ran was this epic monstrosity that ended up being very draining. It was one in a long line of campaigns that tried to imitate fantasy epic fiction. Some failed, some succeeded, all of them just about killed me.  It occurred to I was fighting the game, not working with it.  In many ways I think D&D (and many other RPGs) do a better job of emulating Conan or Fahrd and the Grey Mouser rather than The Lord of the Rings.   At least for my table.  My current campaign has a rather episodic feel. Each episode takes about five sessions to wrap up and I am mostly running pre-gen adventures with plenty of adventure hooks for the party to explore  when they "complete".  There is an overarching theme (restoration of some bit of order in a wild land) but no massive story arc.  The only constants might be reoccurring villains and, of course, allied NPCs.  Each adventure is a sandbox with hooks to lead to various adventure sites. Unfortunately, I find myself falling back into old habits every so often and I have to correct myself.  That gets frustrating.  Just something to keep in mind.So I agree with just about everything you said.  Emerging story is gaining traction at my table while epic design is falling away. Much like you, "adventure paths" were not my preferred style of DMing. I am not sure how I transitioned towards directed storytelling.</blockquote>

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