4 out of 5 stars

In a tie-in to this month’s big release, the DMG2, James today looks at the advice contained within said book and how it applies to his Greenbriar campaign as he’s developed it thus far.  That means he’s not looking to develop more of the campaign, but rather take stock and provide direction for his future development of the campaign.  He does, after all have plans for the paragon and epic tiers already and his players are only 3rd level.  While he doesn’t come out and say it, this is a process that every DM should engage in when campaign building, though tying it into a book release is a clear commercial stunt that the average DM need not duplicate.

To start, James looks at the first five chapters in the DMG2 sequentially, analyzing how well what he’s done so far follows the advice given in those chapters and in cases where there is a mismatch, how he might adjust his campaign design or DMing practices to better follow the advice.

Next, rather than do the same thing for Chapter 6 (which is about the paragon tier), James talks about his campaign’s planned paragon tier in more general terms and, in particular, focuses on how it will be different than the heroic tier.  Of course, that ties back into the advice in Chapter 6 of the DMG2 which is mostly about how the scale of the threats the PCs face and the people they interact with should change in the paragon tier.

Finally, James mentions a two things that are going into his idea file, one inspired by an advanced copy of Primal Power that he’s seen and the other reinforcing something he mentioned before.

As another example of the kind of practices that a DM should engage in or adapt when doing their own campaign prep.  As the series goes on, however, I find myself wanting more explicit acknowledgment of that from James in the writing.