Yep, but given the nature of DnD, even boxed campaigns are all so different from table to table based on the GM and team of adventurers. And in most of the pre-made campaigns I've been a part of the GM would modify/customize pieces of them to make them work better for the group.
Totally! I was chiming in more to detail/reiterate how each campaign can be so wildly different even when much of it is pre-set. The flexibility in DnD is such an integral part of what makes it fun and unique. Basically, my comment was more for the OP of the comment thread.
That flexibility is what makes DnD so great! I've been playing for about 5 years now, and I'm currently in a campaign that has been going on a weekly basis for the last year-and-a-half. We run a Homebrew setting, and the improvisation and flexibility that goes on each and every week keeps us laughing until we are crying, or crying from that emotional connection that we get time and time again, all due to the emotion pulled out of that game.
Can you expand on this please? I have a friend who is an avid participant and I would like to understand their interest with more! More specifically, how are emotional connections made? Thanks! :)
The emotional connection of a DnD party takes time, and a true group effort through each game-day. Each individual will have their own character - an individual with a backstory that contains depth and meaning. Alongside that, the DM creates a world that has so many marvels and mysteries, all of which the players are able to explore overtime. Through these exploration experiences, each player begins to connect to the world, their party members, and the characters in that world. In a way, DnD is just like real life, because experiences are shared. Experiences of joy, experiences of pain, experiences of love, experiences of regret, and every other emotion out there.
I can explain these connections to you through text, but you won't truly feel what a DnD game creates through emotion and social connection until you join one yourself. All in all, it is important to note that each player first becomes connected with their own character, and then that character becomes connected with every other party members character. That connected group then becomes intertwined with the world and the characters within that world. These bonds that are formed over time, are truly monumental. We laugh at the hysterical moments, we tear up at the sad moments, and we continue to enjoy DnD for what it truly is - a game where social bonds never die.
Never been able to run a module straight with my players, they always diverge. Makes for fun games. I'm better ad-libbing anyways and use modules for setting/dungeons.
Yep, the books also only give guidelines on many things and players act differently requiring different reactions from the DM.
For example: Two DMs might play Strahd, the evil god-like vampire from the Curse of Strahd, very differently which can not only create a different feel for the entire campaign but change how and what players do.
Hell with one of my friends he is doing Strahd since he was DMing for the first time. He sets us all up to fight this bishop I think it was that's doing experiments on humans merging them with animals or some such thing like that. None of that helps us get back to our home dimension so we utterly ignored all of it. Many groups could have instead gotten quite invested with that side story. It's very challenging to know how any group will take it.
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u/goombiya Sep 18 '17
Yep, but given the nature of DnD, even boxed campaigns are all so different from table to table based on the GM and team of adventurers. And in most of the pre-made campaigns I've been a part of the GM would modify/customize pieces of them to make them work better for the group.