I've been tasked with one of the scariest tasks known to humankind, rivaling only that of turning off the lights and running upstairs as fast as possible before the monster gets you, and taxes.
It's my turn to write a D&D campaign for my friends.
The backstory
For context, this group of college friends and I have decided that every campaign, every year, will be written and directed by someone new. There's six people, so we'll also probably have to continue this even after we graduate, but in the meantime we're currently at the halfway point. And they all have unanimously chosen for that new DM to be me.
Hooray for democracy, I guess.
I mean, I did also say I was amicable to being a DM and the other three didn't want to do it all, so I was just the next (and only) choice.
Honestly, I'm terrified. We've gotten into a few historic arguments over campaigns in the two years we've been doing this, namely the "There was a door here? YOU DIDN'T TELL US" campaign and the "Time travel can be a hit or miss but we can't tell because it ended pretty early" campaign. I don't want there to be another argument, but I can't control that. I also don't know what I'm doing. I'm taking the time this summer, in between all of my other tasks, to start formulating some sort of backstory, but I've never done well in a creative writing class and I'm kind of inept at figuring out characterizations all on my own. The most I've ever done was roleplay on a Harry Potter forum (long winding pages of forums and all) and on Roblox dispersed with the occasional cross dressing of avatars and fashion show games.
What I have so far
What I'm planning on
Yeah I don't have anything actually set in stone. I think I'm going to clear everything and try again, which is kind of an issue because I did already send a 'lore' message to set the story down. The summary of it goes something like this:
- gods exist
- there are many, sort of leaning into domain names but not entirely we're doing common naming tropes -- Death, Life, Fire, Water, War, Peace, Cloud, Frost, etc. (and i make more if we need more. easy peasy)
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gods are born by belief
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you can have incredibly niche gods if there is someone with enough determination (this was NOT inspired by undertale i swear) to continuously believe in them (can be a single person, can be a group of people.)
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(hell, i'm not even sure if they have to be people. maybe dogs believe in a god of treats or bones or dogs or something.) (i'll think about this and maybe retcon / touch back on it.)
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things happen
- there is magic in this world
- this is a classic D&D medieval fantasy setting
- you can talk about gods and religion and that is all fine and swag
- there are no major events atm...i think. i'm working on that. like, yeah there are wars and stuff but nothing i think important to mention in this campaign as of right now
What I want to do
I want to have a lot of little funny moments. I just want us to enjoy the journey. Like, I don't want some crazy, grand plot that touches their hearts forever. My narrator is an author, forced to write down what happens because of some curse or whatever, and this just happens to be one of the many, many stories they were forced to write. I dunno. Like, I just want it to be made clear that they actually, really, don't fucking matter. They're just guys in a story. They're just one of many guys in one of many stories out there. We're going to be one of many, many stories on a floating rock spinning out in the fucking universe. But maybe, just maybe I'll let these guys have an impact. Maybe they get to communicate with us, the players. I really don't know what I want, I just want us to have fun to be honest. I have a bunch of mini plot points and problems for all these different stories, and everyone has a backstory but I don't really want to get into it too much. Maybe I get a good idea and run with it. Matt Mercer has done so much for the D&D community and has also given me a massive case of imposter syndrome, so I'm just going to remind myself that I'm not, in fact, Matt Mercer -- I'm just a kid going to college doing roleplay and am fortunately not being diagnosed with hysteria.
We'll see how it goes.