You Are Empowered: Mastering Dungeons & Dragons Adventurers League

A little over a year ago I decided to get back into RPGs. I quickly gravitated to the role of Dungeon Master for D&D's Adventurer's League (AL) and I've kept that up running games once or twice a week in local stores.

In that time, I've refined my system for running games. I thought I would share my advice for getting the most out of your games in D&D's Adventures League.

You are Empowered

Adventurer's League is Dungeons & Dragons. The role of the Dungeon Master is not fundamentally changed in AL. There are restrictions on what character players can bring to the table. The rewards the players can walk away with are limited by the adventure and AL rules. Within the adventure, you are the DM. You have all the powers and responsibilities that come with the role.

Your first responsibility is to the story. Everyone is there to have fun. Everyone should be there for an adventure. You have the power, but also the obligation, to challenge the players. You have a sacred mandate to make them sweat. Work with the players to shape the best story that you can. In pursuit of that goal you can (you should!) improvise, surprise them, and reward creativity. You have the power to interpret any situation and adjudicate the rules however you see fit. Use this power wisely. Use it to enhance the story.

 There is plenty of on-line advice on dos and don't. Like all advice (including this post) it's up to you to decide what guidance to follow and which you will not. Find a style that works for you. Your guiding principals are the pursuit of adventure and fun.  

The Adventure is the Script. You are the Director.

I enjoy the creative aspect of DMing. Initially, I was worried about being restricted to stories written by other people instead of coming up with my own. Now I really embrace it. There are a ton of wonderful, creative, adventures available. Running them doesn't limit my creativity. It unleashes it.

I think of each session I'll be running as a movie I'll be directing. I treat the adventure as a (rather rough) script. I want to respect and take advantage of the creativity, talent, and inspiration of the author. But, like any good director, I also want to make my mark on it. I want to use these ingredients to tell the best story that I can.

Generally, I know what adventures I'll be running several weeks in advance. I download, print them out, and read them long before I intend to run them. I'm running an adventure or two each week. So, I usually have several adventures lying around, in my queue, at any given time.

I read over the adventure. Then I let it marinate for a while. I think about them at work, when I'm in the car, washing dishes, going about my day. What's special and unique about this adventure? What genre is it? What's the story? Who are the antagonists and what do they want? Who are the NPCs and what are they like? What are our action scenes? What's the best pacing for this story? How challenging will it be? 

What I want to do is figure out what is cool and interesting and unique about this particular adventure. Then I want to lean into that - figure out how show that, use it and enhance it. 

I also consider things that the adventure, as written, maybe doesn't do so well. How well does it tell it's own story? How well defined and interesting are the NPCs? Can I make them more interesting? What does it do to surprise the players? 

I think about how I can bring out the greatness of each adventure. I think about what I can do to address the weaknesses of the adventure. I incorporate those ideas into my adventure planning.

Prep Doesn't Have to Be Work

Most of my adventure "prep" time is really in the noodling, daydreaming, and thinking through the adventure. It's not work. It's the opposite. It's fun. 

Over the days and weeks, I'll go back and skim the adventure a few times and maybe do a close re-read of a few sections. Within a few days of my "run date", I'll have mapped out in my head how I want things to go. I'll have a handle on the characters, scenes, and action sequences and how I intend to run them. 

At that point, I'll prepare my notes. I prepare a single piece of paper, in two columns. I write down names or characters and locations. I'll do quick reminder of each scene. For fights, I'll note the types and number of each adversary. For traps, I'll note the saves and damage. Typically, I can fit everything I'll need to remember on a single piece of paper. 

If the adventure involves fighting spell-casters (and most of them do), I'll have given thought to which spells are likely to be cast. I'll look up those spells and paste the description into my notes. I'll also separate out the stat blocks for the adversaries from the rest of the adventure, and put those with my notes as well.

With that packet - notes, spells, monsters - I tend to have everything I need. I'll have the adventure print-out if I need it. But generally, I won't be spending much time looking at it. I've got my plan. I've got my notes. When the unexpected happens, I can look it up, or make it up. 

For the final steps, I'll grab the maps and minis I'll need from my collection and set those aside. I have a reasonable collection of both, but they are something of an afterthought. I can comfortably make do as needed.

Maps, minis, notes, plan. I'm ready to run.

Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

I've recently finished reading David Wallace-Wells' book The Uninhabitable Earth. It is a sobering, terrifying, and absolutely essential book. It also offers a potent counter to the many lies that we hear and tell ourselves about global warming.



Lie Number 1: This is an issue about prior and future generations.

More than half of all greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere have been released since 1990. Some changes and warming are already unavoidable. But, if we do not make radical reductions in human emissions by 2050, the damage will be catastrophic and irreversible.

The vast majority of greenhouse admissions have happened and will continue to happen during our lifetimes. Most of it has occurred since we became aware of the dangers of global warming. And it will continue to compound indefinitely. If we do not act then we will condemn all of humanity for every future generation. That sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration. It isn't one.

We, the people alive today, have the only chance to address this problem.



Lie Number 2: It won't be that bad. "Nature lovers" might care, but humanity will be fine.

We are already beginning to see the effects of a warming world: more hurricanes, more wildfires, flooding, heat waves, etc... This is the very beginning. It will continue and it will continue to get worse. As the temperatures rise, year after year, tiny increases - fractions of a degree in a global average - will have a compounding and relentless effect.

Wildfires will continue to eradicate communities. Higher temperatures will render much of the earth essentially uninhabitable. Storms will overwhelm and flood areas where people live on a regular basis - including many of our largest and most populous cities. Water supplies will dry up. Heat waves and droughts will endanger much of the world's food supply. Season after season.Year after year. Without end. The cumulative effect will lead to massive migration, dislocation, and unrest.

Our current path puts us on course for a world that is very different from the one we live in. This is not in some far-flung future. We are seeing it now. We'll continue to see the effects accumulate in the years and decades to come. By the end of this century, the world could be violently transformed. And the changes will continue.



Lie Number 3: We have bigger problems right now. 

With most policy, political, and societal issues we can make changes. Politicians serve limited terms. They can be voted out. Their policies can be reversed. Tax policies can be altered. Health care plans can be enacted. The process of change can be slow, partial, and infuriating. But with time and enough dissatisfied voters, it can happen.

Or sometimes change doesn't happen. We muddle along for decades dealing with inefficiencies, sub-optimal conditions, and even gross injustice. But, we can. We do. We muddle along. Life goes on. And when the conditions are finally right for a change, it can happen.

Global warming is not like that. If the good people of 2040 or 2062 or 2087 decide that they have had enough - it will be too late. If they decide, only then, to get serious, then we will be on the wrong side of irreversible. Dramatic action in future years can prevent an even worse fate. It won't allow them to un-melt the glaciers, refill aquifers, or turn parched fallow fields back into fertile land.

The time to act to is now. We can continue to strive for progress elsewhere. But we really don't have more important issues to work on.



Lie number 4: This is a partisan issue.

Nobody will escape the effects of catastrophic climate change. It doesn't matter where you live. Rural, urban, north, south, coastal, inland - everyone will be affected. We're all in this together. And everything and everyone you care about is under threat.

We know that tribalism has an extremely powerful pull. We can see that the human capacity for rationalization is limitless. You can find reasons to look away, to ignore the problem, to oppose the solutions, to wait-and-see. There is no shortage of people offering convenient excuses and lies.

But you can choose to see the truth. You can choose to confront it and all of it's terrible implications. You can support, request, require, and demand action. And when you do, you can do so knowing it the right and necessary thing to do.




Lie number 5: It's already too late

It is not too late to act. We've been slow to act. At this point, some warming is inevitable. But it's not too late to achieve a stable, sustainable world. It's not too late to leave our children and grandchildren a world that is recognizably similar to the one we inherited.

We have the technology today. And that technology will continue to improve. We can see the extent of the problem. The solutions are known. Changes will be needed. We'll all be asked to make sacrifices. There will be costs. But the cost of inaction will greatly exceed of costs of doing what needs to be done.

This is the fundamental challenge of our time. But it's not too late to embrace it.