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Message: <blockquote data-quote="El Mahdi" data-source="post: 4732810" data-attributes="member: 59506">I play for many reasons: to spend time with friends, to flex my imagination/creativity, and just as equally - the love of good old fashioned, childish make-believe (something we adults forget all to easily and to our own detriment). I DM for the obvious creativity aspect, but I also DM for the challenge. DM'ing has the aspects of: on the fly, creative storytelling - and the necessity of managing multiple threads at once such as players, npc's, story, plot, rules adjudication and improvisational acting. When I pull it off successfully according to the standards I set for myself, I have an immense sense of accomplishment. It's kind of like falling down a flight of stairs and landing on your feet, and making it look like that's what you meant to do.  It's an outlet for my creativity.  Because D&D is a real-time and interactive, creative medium with immediate feedback and gratification.  Whether player or DM, everyone who was present during the game. The story that happens when a group is together, whether similiar to other peoples games or groups, is still a unique entity. The story is a collaborative effort of everyone at the table, therefore it belongs to all who were at that table. The only difference to whether it was a published adventure or not, is that I would consider the basic adventure story to be a copyrighted work belonging to the author of the adventure. That means I wouldn't write and publish a story based off the game session, at least not one that exactly followed the copyrighted adventure.  I do, but I also feel that anyone who played in (or DM'd) the game where the PC was used also has the right to freely use it. Whether it was used in a published adventure I feel is irrelevent to PC's. PC's are the creation of the players, not the adventure's author. The story of the PC is partially shaped by the influence of the other players and DM, therefore they have as much right to use it as the specific player. (Technically I feel that the author of the adventure has the same right to use the PC's, but since they don't know of the existance of the PC, it's irrelevent.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />)  I want a mix of familiarity and originality. Without the familiar you have no common reference to relate to the story, but without any originality it would be just a tedious and boring retell of a story you've already heard.  Being part of the creation and telling of an entertaining and enjoyable story. If I (as DM or player) and the other players find ourselves talking about the game session (story) after the game is over, then it's a win. But even if we don't, I won't necessarily see it as a loss. In a way it's kind of like sex. Even though, technicaly, there is such a thing as bad sex, most people would agree that the only truly bad sex would be the absence of it.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  A structure and framework for character equity and action adjudication/resolution.  At the end of an adventure or plot line when the players have that look on their face that says, "that was so cool". That only happens when the players are able to really get into and participate in the story.  It may be a common one, but it's from the very first time I played D&D. I was playing with a group of people who had been playing for quite a while (at least ten years - since their teens). I had just made my first character and was basically following the rest of the group as I learned how to play. We broke into a chamber in a tomb where we were attacked by a Stone Golem. It was a long hard fight that almost killed a couple of characters. We eventually got it knocked prone and on my turn, I was able to deliver the killing blow to it. We had a pretty good DM, and I guess I have a pretty good imagination, because I had such a cool picture in my head of what was happening. It may have been just a common stone golem, but it's still one of my most memorable D&D memories.    I hope you find this useful. And, good luck on the paper.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></blockquote>

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