In this blog column, veteran RPG freelancer Shawn Merwin looks at the field of RPGs from all angles: from running and designing games to navigating the pitfalls of the industry as a freelancer.
I'm a strong believer in synergy, in finding solutions where as many people as possible benefit. Last week I put into action a project called Special Delivery - A Charity 5e Adventure. The goals of this project are numerable and diverse. I want to share some of those goals and hopes with you. If any of these goals and hopes mesh with your own, I invite you to join me in this journey. But first, a little...
The Acquisitions Incorporated D&D hardcover is now on the game store shelves, in the virtual warehouses of D&D Beyond, and sitting on gaming tables around the world. I was unbelievably lucky enough to get the chance to get to be one of the designers on the book, one of the many, many talented and creative and dedicated people who contributed to make the book what it is. As I was watching and re-watching episodes of...
As a D&D adventure designer, you can include all three pillars of play - and make them important to play - even in the shortest adventure. ...
The fourth mini-mission of Defiance in Phlan is the most controversial, the hardest to run for many DMs, and the one that can be the most satisfying to players if everything goes well. As I attempted to highlight each pillars of play within the various mini-missions, this is the one where I decided to let roleplaying interaction have its time in the spotlight. Roleplaying, as a skill, can come naturally to some and harder to others....
In this series of blog articles, I have so far looked at the design of the Adventurers League Season 1 introductory adventure Defiance in Phlan, including the first two mini-adventures: “The Meeting at Deepnight” and “The Screams at Dawn.” Today I want to take a closer look at the third mini-adventure, “The Dead at Highsun.” In the overall structure of the adventure, I wish I had placed this one second instead of third. In hindsight, this...
The previous two blog articles in this series at the overall structure, and then the first mini-adventure, in the Adventurers League introductory adventure Defiance in Phlan for the Tyranny of Dragons storyline season. This week I am looking at the second mini-adventure entitled "The Screams at Dawn." For those of you who do not want to witness self-flagellation, turn away now. This is my least favorite of all the missions in this adventure, and I...
Last week, in my blog post called "Lessons Learned: Four Years Designing 5e," I talked about writing Defiance in Phlan, one of the first 5e adventures available to the public, and the first for the D&D Adventurers League. The design restrictions and mandates for that adventure made it one of the most challenging I have every written. It had to introduce a new edition of D&D, a new organized play campaign, be comprised on five...
When the Adventurers League launched at Gen Con 2014, in conjunction with the release of the 5th edition of D&D, there were a great many question marks. How would the new edition be received? How strong would sales be? Would the new Living campaign, referred to as the D&D Adventurers League, be a comparable replacement to the Living campaigns of the past? Overall, what did the future hold for D&D in particular and roleplaying games...
Wow! Six years ago today I finished penning this article for the D&D website about my work on the lead adventure in the 200th issue of Dungeon Magazine. It is no longer available on the Wizards of the Coast website, but if you have any nostalgia for the history of the game, and for 4e adventures, give it a read. Enjoy! The Enduring Flame The first issue of Dungeon magazine was published when I was in high...
Brains crave stories. Some brains want fantasy, some want dramas, or romances, or comedies. Some brains prefer stories delivered as novels or short stories, but just as many enjoy TV or movies or plays or musicals, or video games, or songs, or just hearing people talk. My brain is no different. It wants to hear stories constantly, and it wants to tell stories, and through those stories it hopes to understand actions, emotions, and the...
For an imaginative young DM growing up in the heyday of AD&D in the 1980s, the hours and days and weeks spent creating fantasy worlds was anything but wasted time. Starting with the expansive creation stories for your home-brewed gaming world (a staple for excited young—and old—DMs), you inevitably had to focus on the adventures—the places where your players would actually interact with your world. And for me, at least, one piece of adventure design...
One does not simply return from Gen Con. You don't simply immerse yourself in the best 4 (or more) days of gaming, and then walk back into normal life unscathed. The dive into the deep ocean of tabletop gaming nirvana brings you to magical places, but the decompression sickness can break you as you surface. This Gen Con was much different for me. I am usually running 20 - 40 hours worth of games, and this time...
Last week I looked at the recent D&D Adventurers League article “State of Mulmaster", which revealed that the casting of unsanctioned arcane magic within the city of Mulmaster would be punished harshly. The comments on my blog and elsewhere on the Interwebz were (generally) thoughtful and helpful in creating a dialogue to explain the various effects of the ruling and minimize the problems that the ruling might cause at the table. Many of the commenters here,...
An intriguing discussion popped up last week in the D&D Adventurers League world. The administrators of the large and popular Organized Play campaign released a document called State of Mulmaster. The first part of this very interesting article highlighted the city of Mulmaster, where the second season of the D&D Expeditions adventures—in the Elemental Evil storyline—is taking place. Mulmaster is a highly volatile setting for a campaign, and is thus a very interesting one. The controversy...
With a background in creative writing and English academia, I’ve read a lot about creating and understanding stories. And while it is debatable if I actually learned much from all that reading, I cannot deny that I have picked up a few things. And one of those things is directly applicable to storytelling in D&D. In a set of famous lectures given by acclaimed writer E. M. Forster, he answered a question often posed to him...
In the last installment of this column, I fretted over the question, “Is D&D a Storytelling Game?” I looked at that question in terms of establishing semantics and defining terms. Now I have to start to work on answering those questions. For the seminar I will be presenting at Origins and Gen Con, the main question is going to be this: How can the Dungeon Master (DM) manage the narrative when running a game of...
One of my many freelancing gigs is to act as the DM Training Seminar Coordinator for the Herald’s Guild of DMs. We are in the process of creating content to help DMs get better at the craft of running D&D games. One seminar that I am responsible for personally creating, in preparation for presentation at Origins and Gen Con, has to do with “Storytelling in D&D.” I’ve written a couple different drafts of the seminar,...
So far in this series of blog posts on pacing, I have been looking at pacing at the table, from keeping players and DMs on their toes to managing initiative. Now I’d like to look at a different kind of pacing: adventure pacing. When designing an adventure, whether for a home group or for publication, whether for a one-shot event or as part of a long-running campaign, adventures must deal with pacing and encounter flow. Just...
When you design an adventure for publication, whether it be for D&D or any other RPG system, it is no different than performing any other creative task. You may start with certain design goals, or the traits of the end product may take form through the design process. Either way, the form of the end product is informed by the goals and the process – and if the designer has done her job, that product...
This week we are back to looking at pacing at the table in D&D games. Just as a reminder, this pacing discussion is most relevant to games being run when time is an important factor, such as during conventions or at game stores when the game has to end at a certain time. This advice, however, even applies to home games when certain parts of the game—especially combat—are dragging on too long or not going...