Hello again everyone. Crunch here. I hope you are enjoying Wrought Iron so far. I apologize that this article is a little late. I blame Batman v Superman. And me failing some Fort saves.
As I said last time, this article will be discussing episodes 1 and 2. Michael already started talking about some of these details. But he just ripped the corner off of the package. Let’s get into tearing open everything under the tree. Or next to the cake. This analogy got complicated.
It is well-known that I dislike low-level campaigns. But I recognize the importance of starting at low level when it comes to fully developing characters in a campaign that runs through to level twenty. However, I also feel (just my opinion) that levels 1 and 2 in 5E are exceptionally useless. Thus, my plan was to start the campaign proper at level 3.
My pitch to the gang was to fast-forward through levels 1 and 2 in the form of character flashbacks. We included this development in our extended session zero discussion and planned out what events would best serve to establish the characters and their relationships as well as highlight the details of the home-brew world we were creating.
Here’s the big secret about episodes 1 and 2: we partially scripted them. I don’t want anyone to think that we cheated. Our “script” was really just an outline of events.
Beyond being an entertaining way to start the game, it was also my attempt of solving the problem of excessive exposition. The fantasy genre, and especially Dungeons and Dragons, relies on a lot of classic tropes. There’s no need to explain things like magic or why monsters exist. But there is need to explain the unique aspects of the world that we created. And we spent weeks discussing and developing this world. We could’ve had an episode where we simply told the story of the world, or we could’ve shared the details in a written post. But I wanted to do it more creatively.
At this point, the world of the game is still somewhat mysterious. There are a lot of details that we know that have not been revealed yet. And to be honest, As we move forward, those details will all be revealed. Our strategy is to incorporate these details into each game session so that they come up organically. I feel that this method will prove more engaging and entertaining for you, the audience.
Recording these episodes was really fun. We all contributed to creating the outline and worked together to make sure that the episodes did what we wanted and needed them to do. We recorded multiple takes and discussed exactly how the scenes needed to play out. One of the things we attempted was to keep the flashbacks in past tense and the rest of the episodes in present tense, in order to reinforce the difference between the scenes. During editing, we found out that we didn’t do so well at this. In the moments of playing the game and improving the scenes, as well as really focusing on the details of the content, it was a detail that we all neglected. It’s definitely something that we learned during the process and will pay more attention to in the future.
Ultimately, we made very careful choices for these stories told in the flashbacks. They weren’t just random adventures. We included very specific details that were necessary to jump start the larger story and attract the interest of the listeners. I think we were successful in doing so, but only time (and feedback) will tell. There is also a very subtle format that we included, but it might not be apparent until episode three.
What we did for episode 1 and 2 doesn’t quite apply to your home games. You might create an outline for a game that you run, but you probably replay scenes in your game to get a more entertaining outcome. (You could, but that’s a different type of game, I think.) So the best thing that you can learn from our method is the importance of working as a group to create a detailed and vivid world for your game. A group can always create better ideas than a single person. Sharing the creative process lifts the burden from the GM and allows everyone to contribute and improve ideas. Getting everyone involved will result in a better game and better characters, which will be more fun for everyone.
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