I’m going to take a moment to introduce you to my ‘Blending of Shadows’ campaign and show you how to evolve a game into something new while continuing to keep the throughline of the narrative.

Last article, I talked about the narrative session structure (‘NSS’ for short), a way of viewing a game session so you can think about pacing in a constructive way.

I discussed decoupling narratives and how we can change and challenge stereotypes.

We’ve never talked about structure when it comes to the nitty gritty of a game; how to build and run a session, how to build and run a campaign.

The reason I have done this is that I want people to be able to play characters that look like themselves without resorting to stereotypes – not every person with darker skin has to be from some desert empire.

Now I’d like to crank the dial the other way and up the scale to the nation and world-changing campaign. Focus on giving your campaign a sense of depth and scale. How do you make a world and story feel massive?

I have been running a few D&D campaigns for almost two years, and I’ve watched the stories we tell slowly shift upwards in their viewpoint.

The story has stuck in my head, not only as a laughably bad example of how not to respect player agency but also as an interesting thing that can happen during games.