Dark is the Sun - March Ed.

The third evening of our Dark Sun campaign kicked off this past Saturday night. We ate subs as a substitute to "crappy" pizza. We had four iPhones at the table and not one of them snapped a picture. The story of Fire Watch plodded forward.

Motivation
Back in October of 2010 I wrote, in the wrap up of my first D&D campaign, that I wanted to "Establish my villain sooner". I thought I was on the road to doing that with this game, but after Saturday I don't know that I am. I have an NPC the players hate, which I as a DM love. I have a few other evil NPCs that are plotting and scheming, but have not made their presence felt enough yet. Without an imminent threat I find my players lacking the get up and go I want from them. This is something I plan to rectify in the coming game nights.

Four Encounters Too Many
Our game nights usually consist of 4-5 hours of actual play. It can seem long, but considering we only play once a month it is warranted. Knowing this and knowing that encounters, no matter how you shorten them, take a hour or more, it is silly to plan more than three. Apparently I needed that lesson repeated for me as I planned to run four on Saturday. We never got to the fourth encounter, I glossed over it and spent the rest of the evening wrapping up the story elements I wanted to convey. Lesson learned...maybe.

Fatigue
My players and I all seemed to be yawning and glass eyed by the end of Saturday night. Blame too much beer, sickness, lack of sleep or any number of reasons. The result was a general feeling that the game was dragging. Something that really bugged me as I headed to bed post midnight. I awoke feeling sick and even more bummed by the prior nights game. Emails from my players with a positive outlook on the night and my own chance to reflect have since changed that bummed feeling. Now I just want to make the next night even better.