I had an idea for a missing NPC. An artist, Trebor, who works odd jobs to support his wife and kids and allow free time to work on his art. He goes out south of town seeking pigments and items to make his paints, dyes, and glazes, and clay for his pottery. He is also planning to scout the ancient quarries for rock suitable for making statues. He goes out and is usually not gone more than one night. However, he has gone missing and had been gone two nights.

His wife is frantic and seeks out someone to find him.

This fit in with the direction the players planned to travel.

They had an encounter along the way, but managed to find him trapped atop a rock surrounded by kobolds. The players managed to defeat the kobolds and get the artist back home. His wife has promised to make them a good home-cooked meal.

This was just something that came to me off the top of my head and I added in to add some interest to the game. I didn’t need to do that, as I mentioned in a previous post, my youngest son’s character started a riot.

I still have one more NPC and family in the mix of NPCs in town.

While out walking the dog yesterday, I came up with a couple more.

Adding NPCs to the town to help flesh it out and bring it to life are difficult to just do, but when an idea comes up and I put it to use, they always seem to work well. Even dumb ideas I have, or I think are dumb, tend to work out when the players encounter the idea for an NPC, adventure, etc.

I find that thinking about building my world while doing mundane, thoughtless tasks, like walking the dog, doing dishes, laundry, etc. frees me to let ideas bubble to the surface and I don’t think about my troubles. Most of my troubles are of my own making and building my game world and the surroundings of the players gives me entertainment without having to spend a lot of money. Ten dollars buys a lot of graph paper, index cards, etc. I have computer equipment and other game materials that are paid for, so I don’t have to spend a lot to have fun.

I decided a couple years ago that I spent too much time on my career, more doing the work of the job, than working towards advancement in position or salary. I tried for a better position and it became clear to me that my nose is the wrong color for advancement. I am at a place in my job where it is as secure as it can be, and it is mine to lose, unless something happens out of left field. So I have a job that I know how to do and I can get paid a salary that pays my bills and helps me work down my debt. I will put in my 8 hours each day and come home. On my lunch break, I don’t worry about work. I can use my free time to take care of my house and yard, spend time with my dog, watch the few shows I follow on Hulu for free. I’ve gotten into an online D&D group that had an excellent first session and promises to be a long term one if the next few sessions go as well.

I have thought a lot about RPGs over the years and not allowed myself the time to explore and play. Now that I have given myself that freedom, things seem to be falling into place to be able to find people to play with and actually play. My own efforts as a DM have gone well each session, I just need to get more comfortable with parts of it. I am comfortable just making up things on the fly, but certain mechanics of the game I want to use the rules to give a framework, so I end up looking things up, like mining and construction. I don’t want to make some things up, as it will be way off one way or the other. One gets better as a DM by doing it more. I look forward to trying to use Google+ Hangouts and Roll20 with my sons to perhaps do a weekly game. I need to spend less time reading RPG blogs and fleshing out the bits of the sandbox. I have a key with some basics of what is there, but nothing worked up for more specifics. I need to stat that stuff out and then build an encounter table for the area. Probably the equivalent on one night’s RPG reading, blogging and other activities would get that done. I’m really good at the big, high-level aspect of designing a campaign. I don’t mean level as in PC level, but the larger framework of the campaign and themes. Getting into the details seems to grab my attention and the less important things end up with minute detail, and the things that really need that minute detail get the back-burner treatment. I plan this week to work on this. I am writing this on Sunday, March 23, 2014, so by the time this publishes on Sunday the 30th, I hope to have those items done.