Infinite Ideas: Building the Infinity Tower

I had a lot of fun this session! To be honest, the session before didn't come off as well as I had wanted. I had a vision in my head of how things would go and the session just didn't match that. That was my problem, not the players. It was also a good reminder to me- when you build a game, have options in mind. If you think things are certain to go one way, make sure it's something the players and their characters would go for. To me, that's already pretty hard! Knowing that your players and characters will definitely go in a certain direction is almost impossible. Forcing them to solve the problem in a particular way can only lead to disappointment. So this session, I prepped differently. A lot of this was due to being on a road trip. I focused on the setting and the characters and left the fighting to be addressed as it would. I knew I wouldn't have a lot of space. I also knew that I wouldn't have a lot of time to build terrain or prep the scene. I embr...

I confronted a lot of questions I had about my current story and direction in this session. How do you define a large arc versus a small arc? Can you delay pressure and conflict once you've built it? How do you pace a story? How many characters should be affected by a story arc? A session? Should one character's background and history define an story? A session? In short, I had a lot of questions I wanted to address. The previous few sessions had been very player-driven and role-playing focused. This was coming off of a series of very heavy map-and-mini driven fights that I think got pretty heavy. I have an awesome group of people that I play with that are very creative and interested in role-playing. They build amazing backstories and really get in character. I love it! It also encourages me to say 'yes' and collaborate on the story. The last few sessions have been focusing on two, maybe even three, out of four characters. This session I tried to balance that...

This session went by quickly! It was also a great example of a session where you shouldn't prep too hard. The session started on a cliffhanger, the players waiting to fight a stone construct. I had ideas of how the players would survive but I didn't plan for a real fight. One player had a strong idea of how she would overcome the threat; something rooted in character backstory. I rolled with it, the fight never happened. Roleplaying interactions in a session is important to me. I want it to be fun for players, I want the details to be interesting and I want to encourage players to take part in further roleplaying. I don't worry about whether a fight is avoided or overcome without dice, as long as it makes some sense. A lot of the remainder of this session was about that same character's backstory being explained to the other PCs, giving them the opportunity to learn more about their world and their companion. It wasn't entirely comfortable and has introduced a l...