Active Quest: Dungeon Master
July 2, 2015: Yesterday I forced myself to sit down and make progress on the little D&D adventure. I used my morning writing to process one of the encounters that was holding me up and, like magic, it worked. I got unstuck but it was still difficult to play out the scene in my head and put words down on paper. And then I doubted myself and wondered if I was putting too much effort and thought into describing an NPC and her backstory and abode and the history of the village. But then maybe it wasn't that much and I was trying to convince myself it was hard and that I should just give up or not put too much of me into it. Now that I'm typing all this, I think that was the reason and I should keep plugging along. I have the map drawn out and marked locations for important encounters so right now I focus on an encounter and write up everything I can think of about it. I'm out of practice and haven't played many table top RPGs in a very long time. Not even video game RPGs. Just out of practice, I guess. But adventures are there in my head and I need to sit down and write some out and eventually they'll start spilling out and I won't be able to stop writing. That's my hope. I may or may not tackle writing another encounter today. There aren't too many because it's supposed to be a one-session game, but they still take time since I'm creating them from scratch from the depths of my brain.
June 23, 2015: I have this ambitious quest to run an all ladies Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I bought a fancy three ring binder with file folder to act as my Dungeon Master's folder. Like an adult Trapper Keeper. (I wish I still had that Trapper Keeper. It was blue with rainbow ribbons on the cover. Ahh!) Earlier this year I bought the three important tomes to start a D&D 5.0 adventure: the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual. One of my friends has never played a table top RPG and I felt this had to change for her geek street cred. Now that I think about it, I probably wrote a blog post about this. So I shall not go into further details about the party.
Anyway, I have notes written up for the story, an encounter, and the beginnings of a map of the village. I'm kind of stuck on the middle parts, waiting for the inspiration that eventually comes.