How do you write a Dungeons and Dragons campaign? A Candlekeep Mysteries writer explains
An exclusive Candlekeep Mysteries interview with Dungeons and Dragons writer Amy Vorpahl.
How do you write a Dungeons and
Dragons campaign? It’s something most Dungeon Masters dream of doing, and it’s the dream for many fans of the best tabletop RPGs.
The process isn’t what you’d expect, though. In fact, it’s probably quite the opposite. According to Amy Vorpahl (one of more than a dozen writers on the Candlekeep Mysteries anthology), the best approach is to throw what you know about storytelling out of the window. If anything, it’s more like putting together instructions for an Ikea manual. Only with more monsters.
This manual is firmly tonguein-cheek when it comes to Vorpahl’s adventure, Kandlekeep Dekonstruktion. Every adventure in the book revolves around a mystery that begins within the Forgotten Realms library of Candlekeep, but this one is much quirkier than most; featuring a stolen tome and disgruntled janitors harboring plans for revenge, it leads players to a tower that ends up being much more than it seems. Although saying anything more would ruin the surprise, it’s refreshingly lighthearted and wouldn’t be out of place in the pages of a Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams novel.
However, twists of the kind you’d find in those books are frowned upon. They are on the written page, at least. The aim isn’t to surprise Dungeon Masters, it’s to serve up secrets on a golden platter instead. Revealing heel-turns is for the DM, and that’s why they need to know everything from the start. It’s a very different way of thinking that caught actor, writer, and longtime Dungeon Master
Vorpahl off-guard.
“It’s so counterintuitive as a writer,” she tells us when we sit down for an exclusive chat about
Kandle keep Dekonstruktion. “You are not writing a narrative story, you’re not writing plot. So you don’t need to hide anything… you’re writing a letter to the Dungeon Master. And then the Dungeon Master who’s reading it is able to extrapolate and play their version of what you wrote.”
As a result, adventure writers are actually crafting a playground rather than a story. Littered with toys and tools like a jungle-gym of the imagination, it’s an invitation to come play – or not, as the case may be. That’s the hardest part of writing your own Dungeons and Dragons campaign: knowing that chunks of your hard work are going to be missed or ignored.
“You have to turn off the Dungeon Master brain in order to write because you do not get to decide all the hypotheticals that could possibly happen,” Vorpahl reveals. “You are literally there to name and define places and people, and to give those people a small smidgen of what their motivation is and what they expect.”
Whatever you write, players will just do whatever you think they won’t do
The bizarre but loveable contraptions known as skitter widgets – initially conceived as “baby rocketships” and inspired by modrons from one of the other Dungeons and Dragons books – demonstrate why this is important.
“So [skitterwidgets] can reproduce and produce Kiddywidgets,” Vorpahl explains. “And the fun thing about that is I wrote them to have stats. But
Chris [Perkins, project lead] was like, ‘these are babies. Whether they’re baby animals, constructs, or people, do you really want to give them stats? Because that means people can kill them. So just make them noncombatants.’ And I was like, ‘oh my gosh, totally’. Then, in playtesting, adventurers 100% wanted to kill these babies. Whatever you write, players will just do whatever you think they won’t do.”
Benjamin Abbott
According to Amy Vorpahl, the best approach is to throw what you know about storytelling out of the window. If anything, it’s more like putting together instructions for an Ikea manual. Only with more monsters.