The Dungeon Direction – Project Announcement!

Well, well, well. College is a thing. Did you know I’m in one right now? Yeah, it’s a thing. However, sometimes it’s a good thing. For example, it means I have enough people around to run a game and play in two more. Moreover, it means I can spend my last semester working on a D&D advice book!

Here at Champlain College, us Professional Writing majors spend our last semester, among other classes, working on a big project that is writing related. In my case, I’ll be doing a book that is tentatively titled “The Dungeon Direction” after this blog series.

My current plan for it is to focus on advice for Dungeon Masters. Even then I don’t know if I’ll be able to cover everything I want to. I have a friend who may join me in this project, in which case it would be expanded to be advice for both DMs and players, but until then, it will just be for DMs (though I feel like I have slightly more authority on being a player, given my relative experience).

Why am I doing this? While there’s a lot of DMing advice spread across forums, YouTube, podcasts, and blogs like this one, there are very few written, edited, and published works on the matter. Kobold Press has some excellent books on writing adventures, worldbuilding, and other such matters, those books aren’t focused on the actual running of the game. I want to write something that DMs can look at if they are worried about the actual act of running the game; sitting at that special spot where everyone looks to you for the night’s fun. It can be anxiety inducing, even for experienced DMs, and I’d like to provide at least some amount of calm to that experience.

The rest of the semester should carry on as normal. Getting really into this project won’t start until next semester. Once I do start, however, I may not be able to work on that and keep up with the blog posts. Whatever the case, I’ll keep you as updated as I can.

Until then, [insert catchy oneliner about directions in dungeons]!