Choosing content for our group
As DMs we are often faced with the choice of which adventure or campaign we run for our players. Here’s a simple but important criteria for that decision: Run what excites you. When we run adventures which make us look forward to the game, which we can’t stop thinking about, and which get our DM brains working, we’re bound to run an awesome game.
There are, of course, many different aspects to consider when we choose content for our gaming group: the level of the characters, how well the themes of the adventure align with the interests of the players, what we ran before this game, and much more. All of these are important criteria to consider. But none of them will create a great gaming experience if we as the DM aren’t passionate about the content of the adventure.
Whether we homebrew, run a published adventure, or a mix of the two—being excited about the adventure will ease our game preparation, will help us generate new ideas for the game, and will invigorate the atmosphere at the table.
The adventure gut check
When we’re deciding on the next adventure to run, we can check in with our gut feeling about any adventure we’re considering. Is there an option which immediately engages us, where ideas start flooding our imagination, where we can clearly imagine our group playing through it? These kinds of emotions are a strong indicator that we’re onto something.
Here’s a few reasons why an adventure might excite us:
- cool monsters
- compelling NPCs
- fantastic locations
- interesting themes
- mysterious lore
- a kind of adventure we have never run before
- fascinating types of player characters
- strong character motivations
Following these feelings to their root can tell us which aspect of the adventure we can lean into. Is it the cool monsters in the adventure? We can make sure to build onto this aspect by foreshadowing monsters early on, build monster hunting into the motivation of the characters, and create our own versions of the monsters which originally excited us.
Run what excites you and you’re already on track for running a great game for your players.
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