The Western Canadian Marches

I may have been too ambitious with the time available. What I intended to happen in this session was to have the players accomplish a set number of tasks in the defence of their "hometown" and looking back, there are some things I would change for the future. I personally have not run something of this nature before so I am giving myself that at least. Here is a copy of my outline for the 3 finale sessions. The orange are player encounters, the grey is a choice of where to send NPCs for support, the yellow is another player encounter, and the final red block will be the finale session, a massive 10 player combat and epilogue of season 1. Part 1: The War Council I was definitely overzealous with the NPCs at this part. My intention was for the players to play a pivotal role in the planning of the defence of the town. I included way too many NPCs, many served no purpose, they were just in attendance for the "Hey, thanks for helping us out in the past adven...

Season 2: 5 Years Later The Music Perfectly captures the feeling I want to create a legacy. A little dramatic, but I want to create a shared history of this world with the players in my West Marches campaign. Over time they have grown attached to their characters, as have I. I want their choices to have impact, and see the effort that they put into the game be put to use. Therefore, following the conclusion of season 1, which took place over the course of 15 four hour sessions over the course of 5 months, the next season will start 5 years in the future. In addition, following the final session, the players will be given a chance to create their own epilogue for their character, briefly describing what they would like to accomplish over the 5 year time skip. This time skip will allow the players and I to write in the history that takes place between the seasons. What new locations will arise in that time, what old ones will fall into ruins, what characters will pass on and ...

Music is powerful, as I'm sure you are well aware. Music can invoke an immense range of emotions, the chaos of a fight, the thrill of a chase scene, the dread of the monster around the corner. I personally draw on inspiration from film and video games when creating my RPG playlists for sessions. Playing music can really set the mood and ever since I have started DMing, I have always had some form of audio to support my verbal descriptions of scenes. I attest my education and personal experiences for providing me with the point of view that everyone learns new information in different ways. As a result, when running the game, I will try and touch on a multitude of styles throughout a session. Incorporating music to set the mood and tone, providing evocative visuals when my words falter,  and writing out "boxed text" to verbally describe when players encounter new areas, are just some of the ways I can spark player imagination during a session. In the heat of t...

A little background... Since September of 2017 I have been hosting a weekly drop-in Dungeons & Dragons campaign at a nearby local cafe. In D&D there are two main types of sessions: one-shots and campaigns. One-shots are typically a self contained story and only last one night. Campaigns typically last longer and can often span years if done well. For my game I designed the structure around the West Marches  style codified by Ben Robbins . This style of campaign differs from the traditional style where there is 1 Dungeon Master or Game Master that facilitates a story and game for a group of about 3 - 6 players. Some D&D groups will have more or less players, but they typically hover around that range. The West Marches hearkens back to older editions of D&D when there would be a large group of players (20+) and multiple DMs, all playing together in the same shared setting . Why West Marches? I decided to create this modified West Marches campaign in order to ...