What I Learned From My D&D Mini-Campaign

On Saturday I ran the last session of my Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition mini-campaign. The game was started to fill time while our normal Saturday GM prepared for their next game. All in all it went well, and was a refreshing change of pace going back to some old school more dungeon-crawlie specific adventure based RPG goodness. I also learned a lot, or re-learned a lot, and wanted to share some of those things today.

Learning A Skill - Mapping

Visual aids can be a powerful thing in games. There's a reason most setting books have pictures and maps of the location, because they give you something to point at and go "it looks like this" and that spares you a whole ton of description. This is even better if description isn't a core skill of yours, if some aspect of the specific appearance is vitally important, or if you just don't want to take the time to describe in intricate detail every foe or monster. With cities and buildings it can be much the same way, and maps are a great way to not only show the city but also to show where a player is versus where they have to be.