I should just quit attempting to do write ups for any campaigns that I play in or run, it never has enough steam to make it to the finish line.

BUT the online DRYH went pretty well, all in all.  We wandered quite a bit right at the start until I realized that this particular group needed more direction and encouragement than my previous one.  Once I manned up (metaphorically) and started to be more active in moving the story forward, things got more exciting.  I feel like all the characters got a satisfying end and a couple of moments to shine.  Once again, one of my players ended up dethroning the Wax King and then taking his place.  I have to wonder if it's something that I'm doing, or if his amibiguous backstory just lends itself to this kind of interpretation about his intrinsic nature.  In my version of the City, he's the Dread Pirate Roberts.

Meanwhile, back in meatspace, my Tues night group and I were kicking around various ideas about what to do while Shawn's DM battery recharges.  Originally I wanted to run some Spirit of the Century, and I still intend to do so at some future time, but what we settled out on was something very basic.  I'm going to run an H1 official D&D 4th ed Adventure Module and everyone will roll up new characters.   I wanted to do this for a few reasons.  I feel like my DMing in 4th ed is weak and I can't really figure out why.  Letting the module do all the heavy lifting might shed some light on this.  Also everyone is going to choose character classes and personalities that are contrary to their natural preferences. 

I'm hoping this might shake us loose from the rut we seem to be in.   Lately our gaming sessions have seemed sort of unexciting and almost drudging.  The last session of Shawn's campaign was entirely outside the norm of what we've done before - a well laid out dungeon crawl - and we all really savoured it.  Maybe in our desire to present complex and intellectually challenging stories, we've been neglecting the base tenents that D&D is built upon - killing monsters and taking their stuff.  More exciting battles, with terrain and traps and interesting monster tactics are definitely the focus of the module I chose, with very minimal overarching intrigue so that should be a refreshing change. I want to run it pretty fast and loose on the roleplaying side, too.  I'll be sticking to the flavour text and module descriptions of the various NPCs, resisting the impulse to tart it up with all kinds of political complexity. 

Sometimes you just want vanilla, you know?