It's time for me to do it. I think I'm ready. I'm going to learn how to be a DM--a dungeon master. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long for me to decide I wanted to run my own D&D campaign. I started playing when I was sixteen, and I did it regularly until I had kids. After a twenty-five year break while I raised them, I am back at it, reveling in my nerdy splendor. Lucky for me, my kids are in on the game too. The weekly group is friendly and supportive, and I can't think of a better environment in which to test my wings. I've grown as a player, from those early days when I did the average teenage girl things (like playing only pretty female elf characters) to now, when I find the role playing more fun (like playing an impatient male dwarf who dresses like Dolores Umbridge, has a thing for kittens and Jason Momoa, and couldn't care less about treasure). I've discovered how much I love character creation (it was my favorite part of fiction writing), and this is the perfect venue to go wild on making up new people, whether they are put to use or not.
When my foster daughter and her husband started their campaigns, they frowned heavily on the bard class. This is a real shame, because Mr S-P desperately wants to play one, and being told no has just made it worse. He has done everything he can to direct his long-term character Santa (spelled more like San'ta'a, but I forget exactly) into a pseudo bard, and it makes our daughter (the DM of our longest running series) so frustrated. It's quite funny, actually. It made me joke that we should have a campaign that is all bards. And as soon as the words were out of my mouth, an idea was born.
Way back in high school, I was bored in class, and started making a list. I wrote down the name of a band, and underneath the name I put two songs they had released as a single, outline style. And then I put down another, and another, until I had covered three sheets of paper, both sides, two columns across, in my tiny, neat handwriting, a list of every rock act I could think of. Some of my friends noticed, and offered advice. (I remember a guy I used to have a crush on reading it in French class, and chiding me for the entries I had listed for the band Golden Earring. They had followed up their song "Twilight Zone" with a forgettable number called "The Devil Made Me Do It," and this guy made me erase that and put in "Radar Love." He was right. It was a much better choice.) I wish I still had that handwritten masterwork, but it is long since lost to time. I relay this story to explain, I have always been like I am. I am a giant music nerd. I have an encyclopedic knowledge of popular music, and while there are a few gaps during times I was too busy to pay attention to what was out there, I have tried to fill in what I could after the fact. My nightly songs are usually out of my head, not just because I'm talented with the Google.
And thus, my grand idea is currently gestating. I'm combining these things to come up with Rockbard the Campaign. I will have each of my players create a level five or six character (randomly chosen between the two), and multi-classing is encouraged. However, no fewer than three levels will be in bard. They can base their characters on real musicians they like, or they can create their own persona. They will choose a musical genre, and tailor it to fit. I am allowing complete flexibility with genre--rock, country, classical, folk, novelty, dance, anything. And I am creating encounters based on my wealth of musical knowledge. They might be battles, puzzles, or quests. If they recognize the people or lyrics on which the encounters are based, that might give them an advantage, but will not necessarily solve everything.
This is going to take months to write out, which is fine. We still have the big shipwreck campaign that Mr S-P wrote (which is fantastic, for the record), and the two that we alternate with from our foster daughter and son-in-law. If there is a slot open for me by winter, I might be ready then. I have a lot of research to do, starting with going back and watching how-to videos on YouTube, as I have been doing all evening.
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