Prepping for 2017!

Preach

This post won't contain the usual stuff I would post on M/W/F, but I wanted to post about some goals I have for 2017, in relation to gaming and D&D.

2016 was a very busy year for me! I juggled 3 monthly campaigns while running a weekly campaign on the side. Some weekends I ended up with three games, one each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Although it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot, I think I will need to cut back on the various games in order to meet some of my non-gaming goals.

Of course, those non-gaming goals aren't boring things like working or studying. I want to write story and music for the video game company I work with, and try out some new skill areas such as drawing and fitness. I've always liked the idea of becoming a polymath, and keeping myself to strict goals is a good way to push forward on that.

Anyway...

Dungeons and Dragons Goals for 2017



Snap into a slim jim!

1. Finish my current campaigns

As I said, I currently have four campaigns running. Two of them are linked, and I'd like to do a combined game (14 players!) to finish off the sessions. But I will need to set it up, meaning I have at least 3 more games to run. One for each group separately and a final combined game. Honestly, that will be pretty difficult, considering how hard it is to coordinate even a few people's schedules.

The other two campaigns will require a different approach. My epic evil campaign only has one game remaining, so I will just have to write that and finish it off. However, my weekly campaign (by y estimations) could go until August. Obviously I will need to think about what sort of games I want to run after that, but unless the players have an uprising against Princes of the Apocalypse, I have some time to think about that one.

2. Start new campaigns using published modules

Will these guys be in it? Short answer: Don't worry about it!

With new goals outside of gaming, I want to cut down on the bulk of the time I spend on gaming: prep. I spent a LOT of time this year writing up games for my campaigns. One session (which is still yet to happen, should be in about a month) ended up at 17,500 words. For reference, that's the length of a novella. Perhaps I have a different style that the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-screen DMs who don't prepare anything, but even then I put a lot of work into these, and if I want to meet my other goals this year, I have to cut back.

That doesn't mean I want to game less, though, so I think I will be kicking off some new campaigns using published modules. Curse of Strahd or Storm King's Thunder would make excellent monthly games, and I can easily continue Princes of the Apocalypse until either a new module comes out or I figure a good way to make Out of the Abyss work. The nice thing about Curse of Strahd is that I wouldn't have to change much to fit them into my homebrewed game world.

Additionally, I'm looking forward to receiving my copy of Operation Unfathomable, which I can use to run a DCC game with. I've only started looking into non-5th Edition systems (my background in homebrew games doesn't lend itself well to complex systems) and Dungeon Crawl Classics has a really cool philosophy around it.


Or I could just play this cracking classic! The best thing about hero quest is...

So, the gaming will continue, albeit without the massive prep time that comes from homebrewing sessions. If I can find enough material, I may even run 4 campaigns again, since the time needed to play isn't nearly as stressful as the time needed to prep. However, that is highly dependant on if my other goals are being met.

3. Continue writing on this blog

I've accumulated quite a bit of material from my old games, and I want to keep sharing it with you. I've already written articles enough to fill my Wednesday and Friday slots through February and into March, so hopefully I will be able to keep producing posts for your perusal in the meantime.

Also, my players have responded really well to the game recaps that I've posted, and I'd like to keep that up to have a record of the games I run. Sometimes (as may happen this coming Monday) I might have multiple recaps to post, but I'd definitely like to make sure each game gets its own post, for organizational capability. So expect those to continue, and maybe even increase as my monthly campaign players come back from the holidays.


Boom shake shake shake the room

4. Maybe write some music articles here too

A fair amount of my 2017 goals have to do with writing and creating music for various projects. In addition to writing music and improving my skills, I am planning to take up piano lessons and work on a couple music transcriptions. But at the moment, all the stuff I'm working on with regards to music is very hush-hush, under wraps, still in development. So while I am working hard on music, I can't really talk about it here. Though this is a small public forum, it is a forum nonetheless, and I don't want to get in trouble with my boss for leaking stuff about the game.

However, that should all change relatively soon. I am planning on writing a few articles for the developer's blog for the game, and when we release more information I can mirror those articles here. I don't want to take away from regularly scheduled content (aside from this article of course lol), so I might put them in on Tuesday or Thursday.


Look at those losers playing Desks and Deadlines

So, that is about all I want to do in 2017 with D&D. It isn't too much, but I find my interests ebb and flow. Maybe taking a year off from writing D&D will help me recover from doing it for the past two and a half years, and give me the itch to get back into it.

At least, that's how I've noticed most Dungeon Masters do it.

Thanks for reading! Your regularly scheduled D&D drivel will return shortly.