A few months ago, the wife seen a brand new boxset that they were selling at Walmart, of all places, so she picked it up and gave it to me. We’ve been wanting to teach the children how to play and this looked like a nice, small adventure to start with. It is 5^th edition, Forgotten Realms . . . I was able to fix the 5e thing, and turn it into 2e, and I thought about transferring it all over to Greyhawk as well, but to be honest, my players never got excited about Greyhawk, so I figured why not?

I don’t know about you, but I have avoided Forgotten Realms for a very long time. I have played in the world quite a bit, but all of the DMs who ran the games were BIG into FR, so, I will admit to being kind of intimidated by the whole thing. It has tones of books and baggage that goes with it . .  . but really, how is that any different then with Greyhawk? In fact, Greyhawk is a political hell. If you run the game as is, it would be terrible! So I went ahead and ran the first night of the game, letting the players know that what ever it is that they think that they know about Forgotten Realms, probably won’t be true with my game.

We were all very rusty! It has been several years since we last played. I got some practice with my conversions, but when it came to running the game, I found lots of rust that needed shook off.

I had thought about creating my own map . . . but I didn’t have time for THAT much prep. Besides, if I did, then I’d be working on my Masque of the Red Death campaign, so I got to looking at a map of Forgotten Realms that was left here, and decided that I might as well jump in. I found an affordable copy of the 2e Box Set and actually fell in love! The crummy political system of Greyhawk was gone, and this one seemed like something that I could manage a lot better. I even started reading the Drizzts series of novels and find them entertaining.

Oddly enough, this adventure takes place near Neverwinter, and I had no map, but I had already let the players know that many of them were from there, and some simple facts about what the 5e box told me had happened there, which of course hasn’t happened in my world. Anyway, I got to build my own city of Neverwinter, WHICH IS HUGE!!! The largest city that I ever wrote! There was lots of stuff online to help flesh the thing out so that it is halfway recognizable for players who know more then I do, but it is still my own. It took several weeks of writing to get everything just so, but I am pleased with the results.

Anyway, the DM is back to playing again. I’ve got lots of ideas for the blog already so get ready for some updates!

It’s good to be back :)