Infinite Ideas: Building the Infinity Tower

The best part of D&D is being creative and having fun with friends. We had a whole week off and I really missed seeing everyone and playing D&D!!! The fun part of streaming is being able to see what you make and review how things go. A highlights reel of the best times playing a game with friends is an amazing asset, especially when you need a little boost. This session was the conclusion of an arc for us. It was designed as a fight on top of a sinking boat with a group of undead. I never saw this as a fatal, deadly fight for the PCs. Frankly, during the last few sessions I've become aware that clerics are awesome at dealing with undead and that the PCs in general are very powerful- and I love it! I'm also really glad that our group is creative, supportive and ready to improvise. We had the expectation there would be a session that Kat, who plays Aurora, would be out. In the end, every player but Sean was unable to make the game last week, so everyone sat one out. Kat...

So there was a whale. An undead whale being ridden by a horde of other undead. That was the whole concept I had rolling around in my head preparing for the session. I may have mentioned this before, but some sessions I just focus on a conflict and let the ideas develop around it, like ripples spreading out from a stone striking the surface of a pond... or like a branching thought diagram. This is why I love RPGs. Always go with your fun ideas. Just let them be awesome! There was going to be a fight with an undead whale. Things I learned last session: elemental monk powers are pretty good at creating icebergs. Fire spells blow up ships. Little enemies are easily mowed down at a distance despite what CR calculations say. So I wanted a big challenge, something that would be interesting, and something cool to build. I love whales. I'm not particularly knowledgeable about them, but I think they are wonderful. I wanted to have a whale. Plus, the Big Bad of this arc is an undead, so...

I love being able to run a game! Sharing time: I have a lot of ideas that occupy my brain. Running a game is one of the best ways for me to exercise my creative impulses and quiet things down. I often get to run 2 games a week, which is pretty magical, but running at least 1 makes me a much more pleasant and content person. This was another great session with the Infinity Tower Crew that reminds me of the most successful way to develop sessions: present scenes and lay out obstacles. Let the players deal with them in their way. The two examples for this session were outfitting the boat for the journey and the orc raider attack. Outfitting the boat was a question of resources and interactions. How much did the players want to prepare? Who were they willing to trust? It gave me a chance to give Fang some skill and experience, making him less of a caricature. It also let the players meet the NPCs and make decisions about what resources they would have in the future. I think that'...