In the last week of December, I decided to give Professional Dungeon Mastering a try
I’ve been Playing/Dungeon Mastering Dungeons & Dragons on and off for 35+ years, it’s one of my greatest joys
Being I’ve always Homebrewed (Created my own material), as opposed to using official or 3rd party books & material, I decided I would start by using a 5e (D & D 5th Edition) Module I wrote and published two years prior (2019)
That way I’d be super familiar with the material I was running
Image Credit MoodyBlue/DeviantArt
Generally I ran ‘Theater of the Mind’ when I DM’d (Dungeon Mastered) campaigns, but because it was Professional Dungeon Mastering, and people were paying me, I decided to also include Roll 20 so that I could include maps etc.
I started with a Thursday game, then a Friday game, but soon combined the two to make one Friday Game
This game has been running since the last week of December, some Players came, some went, but currently has two of the remaining January Joined Players still in it
I have found the biggest challenge during this 6 months has been when a certain Player is a bit ‘challenging’ to play with, more so for the other Players, then I
I did need to remove two Players during the last 6 months, but one was pretty quick and included a schedule aspect, but the second played with the group for several sessions and I did all I could to keep him
In the end, he completely understood
Sometimes it’s just a bad fit
My Second Campaign began at the end of February, but instead of Frost Rhealm, I created a land called Thunsorra
A single continent world which has some ‘mythical’ mysteries afoot
Originally this began with a single Player, and went on for several weeks that way
But then at the end of March, I was hired through my Profile for a Custom Game Time by a group of 4 people who also chose the Thunsorra Setting
In May I moved my lone Saturday Player to my Friday group for the summer, as he is a teacher, so had the summer off
In mid June I created a Third Campaign called ‘ICERN’, there are several continents in ICERN, but the largest in the center of the land has been plagued with evil which now looks to seize the remaining lands
I’ve had a great time, and gotten quite used to playing with people I had never met before, the most important thing to me as a Dungeon Master I find, is that the Player has enthusiasm for the game
Which all of my Players have had
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You Can Check Out My Dungeon Master Profile Here For Info. About Me As A Dungeon Master DORAGON_DM-4-HIRE
I was orignially exposed to Dungeons & Dragons in the 70’s, I wanted to play so badly
But being a shy kid, I didn’t have a lot of friends, and found many D & D Players to spend a lot of their time arguing over rules during games
It wasn’t until 1986 that I came to the realazation that the only way I’d ever get to play, was to run a game myself
I wasn’t a big reader, so I decided to pick up the Basic (Red Book) Set, as opposed to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, then quickly after the Expert (Blue Book) Set
I then played a bit of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons with a friend, where I was a Player, and bit later he gave up the game, and gave my brother and I all of the books above (Save A D & D 2e, which I purchased at some point, but never played), at which point I began to blend in certain rules from A D & D
Though I began playing D & D in the 80’s, I really ran two actual Campaigns, one from like 1986-88, and one in 1998
Other than that, I ran some single games with people, and played a bit from time to time, mostly online with people I didn’t know (None of which worked out)
Then in 2006-2011 and a bit more in 2014, I played World of Warcraft
It wasn’t until 2017 that I accessed my Dungeons & Dragons Twitter Account, and started to make contact with the D & D Community
It was during that time that I heard about a group of Voice Actors called ‘Critical Role’ who had begun playing/streaming Dungeons & Dragons on Geek and Sundry
I was familiar with Geek and Sundry because I had previously watched Felicia Day in her YouTube Series, ‘The Guild’, which was awesome/hilarious, and I believe inspired by World of Warcraft
I watched a couple ‘Critical Roles’, and really loved the Dungeon Master, and it was obvious the group was a great group of friends, but I wasn’t all that into watching someone elses game (Kait and I started watching later though)
But what really grabbed my attention in ‘Critical Role’, was the D & D 5e System, which I had never heard of, or played
So I ordered a copy of the 5e Players Guide (As opposed to the Dungeon Master Guide, though I generally Dungeon Mastered in the past), and asked a friend if he’d be willing to run a 5e game
He agreed, but said he didn’t have time to create content/prep much for games, so I told him I had some maps (Left) and content he could use what I had never played with, but had created
That group played during 2017, 1/3 of the games were fun, 1/3 were difficult because of one of the players (A friend of the DM) who kinda sorta was really overbearing, which didn’t hinder my play, but did hinder the rest of the group, and 1/3 frustrating, because the DM would cancel sessions last minute (Like we’d literally get online, and he’d tell us that it was canceled)
So I moved on from that group, but during those sessions my girlfriend who’d never been interested in D & D, watched, and was convinced to join, which was the best thing that came from that situation
During this period I was also making a lot of Dungeon & Dragons Vlog Videos on YouTube, mostly talking about World Building, but later some other D & D stuff
After I left that group, I really started to miss playing, so much so that I started a Blog Series about a group of friends who’d get together to play D & D called ‘Magic And Light’
I’d write both in, and out of game perspectives
Then my girlfriend approached me one day and told me that she’d like me to run an Adventure for her, so I purchased the 5e Dungeon Master Guide
Three years later, she has a Level 26 Warlock (Well, Level 25 Warlock, Level 1 Shadow Sorcerous)
In fact, in 2018 she began Writing a Story based on our Campaign, but fleshing it out, you can check it out HERE
She also started Commissiong Art for the Chapters (The Picture above was an Original Picture of the Character, which isn’t used on the Chapters)
During 2017 whilst World Building, I was asked if I was going to Publish any of my Content
At first I considered it, even created a Kickstarter for a 5e Adventure Module called ‘Frost Rhealm’, but Deleted it minutes after I realized I wasn’t sure I wanted to take the Hobby I was most passionate about, and turn it into a job
Soon after I would take a break from my D & D Twitter, over a year actually, not because of anything that happened, I was just focused on other things in my real life…
During that time I did run my Campaign for Kait (My girlfriend), but didn’t really do much Social Media
But I hit a point where I missed the D & D Community, and so I returned
It was also at that time that I picked up my Rough Draft of ‘Frost Rhealm’, and spent the next 10 months finishing it, icluding hiring an Artist for the illustrations (Allen Childers, that’s one of his illustrations above)
To my surprise, 18 of the 20 Sold Copies were Printed Versions, which I prefer, being I’m a seriously Old School Pencil and Paper kind of Player
But I just figured everyone would prefer Digital, but I was wrong
I admit, it was hard moving onto my next project, ‘Frost Rhealm’ is my baby, I just love Adventures based in Frozen Terrain
I did come up with a Concept for my next project in August 2019, three months before Publishing ‘Frost Rhealm’…
…but, I didn’t really start working on ‘HAIKON’ until sometime in 2020, and even then, it was hard
I just loved ‘Frost Rhealm’, lol
So much so, I probabaly Tweeted too much about it, but oh well, lol
I should say, somewhere over a year ago Kait told me she wanted to Dungeon Master for a group of Players
She’d DM’d for me for a handfull of sessions, but wanted to have a larger group
I was stoked, I had been Dungeon Master her Campaing for 2 years at that point, and was definitely interested in being in a Secon Campaign where I got to be a Player
So I reached out to a couple D & D Community Members I really felt were true D & D enthusiasts, and now we play weekly (Weekly with one, a couple times every six weeks with the other two due to scheduling)
Just a couple months ago I also started my first ever Twitter Campaign, which allowed people to play when they had a moment, but nothing was scheduled
But after a few weeks of all of us playing a lot, people got busy, and I quickly realized it might make sense to create a 3rd Campaign, which I’d run online (Somehting I hadn’t done yet), and we had our first Session a couple weeks ago
It was great
So that’s basically my Four Year Journey/Return to D & D, and I don’t forsee walking away from it again
‘Frost Rhealm’ D & D Module – 2nd Edition/Alternative Cover
In order to generate some funds for an illustrator for my upcoming Dungeons & Dragons 5e Campaign Setting/Adventurers Module, ‘HAIKON’, I’ve decided to Publish a 2nd Edition/Alternative Cover version of my D & D Module from last November, ‘Frost Rhealm
Original Cover of ‘Frost Rhealm’
Both the Original Cover, and the New 2nd Edition Alternative Cover Versions are available on Amazon
Most Of The Concept And Design For My “HAIKON’ Dungeons & Dragons 5e Campaign Setting/Adventures Module Is Written & Complete… Meeting With A D & D Buddy Next Thursday To Brainstorm/Refine A Few Elements… Also Keeping My Eyes Out For An illustrator
For updates you can follow my D & D Twitter Account Dragon_Ryder7
Doragon Kishu (Dragon Rider & Paladin) 