It’s apropos that our first-ever players review of a campaign was for DM Tony’s Storm King’s Thunder campaign, as our newest iteration has us returning to the frozen world of the original giants in Mana Project Studios Journey to Ragnarok! We bring on return guests Scott (the Terrain Wrangler), Bonnie (the Chaos Engine) and our newest player to join the group, Jen (the Girlfriend!)

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave sit down with the other three players to review a campaign that had several adjustments made over the course of it – refining it from a completely open-world sandbox-style campaign to a Monster-of-the-Week style.

DMs always have to be adjusting dials, so listen in as we discuss how DM Tony had to adjust for vastly different play types to still create a fun and engaging campaign. DM Chris stated it best: “TTRPGs aren’t reliant on lore, backstory, and epic narratives… sometimes its just about getting together and having fun as a group.”

2:25 Player and character introductions.

7:20 Setting the characters in the world: Origins and Viking Clans!

18:35 How much backstory is enough or is it even required?

19:45 The real time adjustment to how you run the game with various types of gamers.

27:30 Refining a multitude of adventures, political brinksmanship, and storylines down to a Monster-of-the-Week tour of the Nine Realms.

29:20 How new and inexperienced players can help us evolve our DM style.

36:00 The players experience between two completely separate campaigns: completely open world and Monster-of-the-Week within the same campaign.

41:40 Forest for the trees: Seeing a character’s story arc in the macro.

44:47 Final Thoughts.