Progress of the 4E “Dream” Campaign

An update from Sunday Afternoon (4:25 PM)

Campaign Status: Freaking Ready Enough.

Hey, friends. I’m at the very tail-end of the break we get between lunch and dinner. In a minute, I’m going back into the kitchen to smoke turkey legs for 150 hungry French kids. I’ve used this entire break to design as much of Part III as I care to. I had plans for another whole third leg of the crawl to take place before the end, but I just didn’t have enough time or ideas to make that a reality. As it stands, Part III takes place within one room and, though it contains harder-than-average combat encounters, I’ve tried to design it not to just be a tense slug-fest.

Also, while I wrote extensive flavor text for parts I and II, I have written very little for III. Though I know that this is mainly because I’m lazy, I can also claim that I’m hoping to gain the ability to just spit it out as I get more and more practice DMing in the next few days. I’m also going to be keeping an eye on how you guys do on the semi-arbitrary skill and ability checks I’ve added, and in combat. So, basically, I’m beginning by DMing from a script and will try to be ad-libbing the same kind of stuff by the end.

For now, I intend to spend whatever time I have tonight re-reading the entire player’s handbook and dungeon master’s guide. Matt, I may call on you and your books to help me over the course of the session – I am, after all, going to also find time to pack.

Finally, can anyone give me a ride from my house to wherever we’re convening? I want to fucking milk every minute dry and don’t want to get stuck at home on Monday night.

Appropriately geeky ButTech Banner is GO.

Status of the Dream Campaign As of Friday Night Sunday Afternoon

1. Part I
   1. Mapping – 100%
   2. Flavor – 100%
   3. Encounters – 100%
2. Part II
   1. Mapping – 100%
   2. Flavor – 100%
   3. Encounters – 100%
3. Part III
   1. Mapping – 100%
   2. Flavor – 100%
   3. Encounters - 100%
   4. Dialog – 100%  I finished the dialog tonight! It’s a long-winded NPC, okay?
4. Beyond…
   1. Planning has just begun for the adventure which may or may not spring from the Dream campaign. I already have place-names and some of the challenges you might face in the voyage, and am very excited about organizing something other than dungeon-crawling.

Okay, I’ve got about three or four days to work on this. If I keep working my ass off, which I intend to do, I might have the whole package ready for you guys on Monday night.

Well, my surprise Tuesday off has come and gone, and I’ve definitely got something to show for it. I spent most of the day cooped up in my especially warm baker’s cabin, ineffectual fan turned full-bore on my naked body, designing dungeons and writing flavor text. I drained a thermos of coffee after noon. I didn’t eat a meal until an hour ago – I survived on marble cake.

I can say for sure that I will have the following things ready for our meeting in one week: A two-part dungeon with pages of flavor text, a handful of traps, six or more combat encounters, a little mechanical quirk to add a layer of puzzle-solving, and a hook for a deeper plot at the end. I’m designing the dungeon in a special program and am using concept-mapping software to string the (If players this then execute that, else do this) kind of logic.

Right now, the dungeon size is definitely “small.” However, it’s bigger and more complex than Kobold Hall, which took us long enough on its own. I’m thinking that it will break down nicely into two parts, it will be in three parts, each about the play-length of the dungeons we’ve previously run.

I’ve got to get back to work in an hour, and I intend to use the rest of my break working on this project. For now, have a very, very miniature version of the concept map for part I of the dungeon: