Infinite Ideas: Building the Infinity Tower

Things change so fast in a game, just like real life. The way a character deals with tension and stress or with new information should feel like a person. What's the core of a character? What drives them forward? We had lots of examples of dealing with these core values and important ideals this session. Even before this session started, tensions mounted between our Tabaxi entertainer monk and our Gnome gunslinger. The previous session had ended after gunfire in a tavern set off a riot. I had it in my notes, knew it happended but it didn't drive my story. For the player of the entertainer, it was a serious black mark on her prestige as a performer. It doesn't help that in real life the player is a performer, so she really knows the importance of a good reputation. By game day, she was ready to have it out over that interaction. For my part, when I found that out I revised my recap to highlight the situation and make sure things would be in context for players and the au...

Before I talk about the session, I want to mention that the community on Twitch and Twitter is awesome! We have been very lucky and humbled to have great viewership, a large number of followers and subscribers, and to meet 2 goals this week! So awesome and appreciated. Thanks everyone, especially people reading this! This session was very player-directed. I had a lot of improvisation going on because I had decided I really wanted players to be able to pursue the stories and leads that interested them. The result was a session with very few scenes and lots of role-playing. The advancement of the story was much more personal and small-scale. As a DM, parts of it were freeing, because I knew what players wanted out of the story and could help them get it. Parts were challenging, because I haven't fleshed out Eastkeep as much as I might have. I stand by the decision to build as I go, but there's always the challenge of keeping up with players. I'm somewhat conflicted abo...

Concluding a plot is as important as starting it! The same way that you have to build a hook that interests your characters and draws them in, there has to be some sort of resolution that makes the plot end satisfying to them. We've had about 10 sessions of dark, moral-heavy material dealing with curses, transformations, choices, burdens. These are all super heavy things. Some good things came out of this, particularly at the end. The players all started to chime in on how their characters had come to be- the background moments that gave them purpose. Many of these were things that we had discussed at the start of the game, but there was also a lot of development at this point. What did we DO this session? Role-play. Explore. I was checking out an podcast by Mike O'Shea (@SlyFlourish) where he discussed adventures with Shawn Merwin. (@shawnmerwin). They mentioned among other things the 3 pillars of D&D: Combat, Exploration and RP. In short adventures, Merwin advocate...