D&D: The preparations – A world emerges

Always wanted to know what it’s like to be a GM in Dungeons and Dragons? Then accompany me, the author of these lines, on an adventurous journey into a new campaign. I’ll try to publish new posts weekly – as long as we as a group were able to keep our Saturday night game deadline. I hope you’re as excited as I am about this new format called Gamemaster’s Diary! Have a good read!

A GM Diary – What is it?

The great art of mastery, mysteriously practiced behind the game master’s screen, hidden from the eyes of the players. Many (and especially many new) players do not dare to be game masters. You are afraid of making mistakes. They fear their campaign will not bring joy to players. They see their weaknesses but not their strengths. And it doesn’t help that many game masters don’t let their cards be looked at. Wild improvisation and “fake it until you make it” happen without players ever realizing it. You shouldn’t even get it pointed out, because of the story. And because game masters are untouchable gods who anticipate their players’ every move and are prepared for anything. Always. puff cake!

Because real life is very different, I’ve decided to keep a GM diary and be brutally honest. A fight is disastrously balanced? I will stand by it. My players surprise me with their decisions and force me to spontaneously throw out the best plans? You will read about it. I hope that newcomers in particular will benefit from my experiences, but I believe that these reports can also be very amusing for old hands. After all, hasn’t we all pulled an entire dungeon out of the blue while panicking and pretending everything was fine?

The author

Carmen has been running D&D campaigns for over four years. At the start of her latest campaign, she takes you with her and shows you what life as a game master is like.

Source: buffed



Dungeons and Dragons has been my absolute passion for more than four years – and I’ve been a game master for just as long. After learning the basics and playing four or five sessions (starting with The Lost Mines of Phandelver like many others) I was keen to run a campaign of my own, preferably one of my own making.

I have always loved writing stories and in mastering I saw the opportunity to share my ideas and stories with others. So I started my Gladîn campaign with my group, which took us through 106 sessions up to level 20. Since we were all very new to the world of D&D, we made a lot of mistakes and

It all started with that first sketch. Over time, this became the basic concept for the continuation of the homebrew Gladîn series.

Source: buffed



I would have done some things differently today. I will change a lot in the new campaign. It’s likely that not everything will go smoothly, after all, it never does. But I am already looking forward to this new journey, which I would like to take you, the readers, with me through the GM diary.

Preparations and campaign planning

I’ve been preparing for Gladîn 2: Shattered Worlds for about a year and a half now. Not all the time, of course, but every now and then when the motivation and inspiration overwhelmed me.

Sometimes for a few days in a row I would plan dungeons, draw city maps and name NPCs in a frenzy of writing. Then I didn’t touch my purple splinter worlds folder for weeks. The result: part one of the campaign (i.e. up to about level six) is almost completely planned. This chapter has yet to be completed, but it will take at least half a year for my players to get there, so I still have plenty of time to work this out.

What comes after that is just a fuzzy idea in my head so far. In the middle levels, my players will play a city game. I have already designed the city and its rough structures, but quests, dungeons, adventures are still missing. I have more than enough to do with that over the winter.[h2]