I've worked very hard at limiting my Gaming ADD over the past 12 months and I'm finally finding success with it. I'd like to impart some secret to it but I've just been focused on story over rules and being very intentional with my focus.
The upside is that my DnD 5.5 game is cruising along. Since being honest with myself about disliking the resource management aspect of combat encounters most of our sessions are filled with roleplaying with a combat every 2-3 sessions. The plot is player driven with a fairly light outline in place but player goals are prioritized.
The game is set on Greyhawk and the group has just recently visited the sprawling metropolis to lie low from several agents of Iuz the Old.
I have come to except, to some degree, that 5E and its derivatives are what my group is most comfortable playing and honestly, while I do have a strong interest in Savage Worlds, Shadow of the Demon Lord/Weird Wizard, and Basic Role Playing, I do like the current version of DnD quite a bit and the 2024 update is an excellent product.
There are three plot threads in play right now: Finding a ritual called the Ebon Maw that can break a pact made by one of their allies; Acquiring a spelljammer to tool around in; And a mission into the sewers of Greyhawk to locate an asset of the Violet Spiral Thieves' Guild.
We finished up last night with the group entering the Black Ziggurat looking for the Ebon Maw. They encountered some skeletons, bypassed some traps, and are on the verge of meeting its primary resident.
The Ebon Maw ritual was created by a lich named Ikabod Langstrüm and is believed to be hidden within the Ziggurat which he used as a sanctum for many decades. There has been a lot of negotiating in this game and that is fine by me. At one point the players were really skirting the line of villainy but they pulled themselves back from the edge by putting some distance between themselves and those agents. I'm really leaning into the high fantasy aspects of DnD with a Greyhawk lens. All of my past successful 5E campaigns have formed a setting I call the Polyverse which feature Ashardolon as the God of Chromatic Dragons and Saint Cuthbert being imprisoned within Ravenloft. My intention is to allow them to rub elbows with the big players and I am prepared for them to make permanent changes to the mythology of DnD.
