T w e n t y S i d e d

Sometime in the early days of this site I mentioned that I enjoy reading accounts of people’s D&D sessions. Campaign logs. (It seems like we need a better name for these. “web log” got shortened to “blog”, but if you shorten “campaign log” you’ll end up with something like… “clog”, which doesn’t really work for me.) Once in a while someone finds those old posts and sends along an email with a link to their campaign log, hoping I’ll read or link it. I normally don’t mention them because they’re always brand new: It doesn’t make any sense to send readers into a brand spanking new blog with no content. What you want to do is get a few posts under your belt, and then promote it. It’s easier to get links when you’ve got content, and it’s easier to acquire and keep new readers if you have a good story to hook them.

Complete campaign logs like mine are pretty rare. Blogging a campaign is rare. Of those that do, a lot of the games fizzle out, for all the normal reasons games fizzle. Of those that go the distance, often the campaign finishes but the blog doesn’t get updated. (I was guilty of that myself for a while. It took a lot of prodding from my readers to get me to finish the thing, and our campaign wasn’t even that long by most standards.)

I enjoy reading them, but good ones are danged hard to find. Many are semi-private. They’re not hidden or anything, but the author (usually the GM) is setting things down for the benefit of the other players in the group, not strangers like me on the internet. What I look for in a campaign blog is one that will let me enjoy the session vicariously.

Everyone reads and writes these things for their own reason. Here was how I approached my own campaign blog, and what I look for in others:

1. Let the reader sit in on your session. You need to draw them not just into your gameworld, but into your group. Let them know who is playing. (Use pseudonyms to protect your player’s privacy if you need to.) How old are the players? How long have you been playing together? Letting the reader know the age and gender of the players lets us put their roleplaying into context. Someone playing a character of a different gender and age is a lot more interesting than someone that just seems to be playing themselves, but as an elf.
2. Be careful with the flavor text. Some campaign blogs try to turn their story into a novel. This can make for interesting reading, but it’s risky. It takes a long time to write that way, which increases the odds you won’t be able to keep up with the thing. You don’t talk that way to the players, which means you’re not so much blogging the campaign as writing a book in parallel. Odds are you’re not a professional writer, but people reading your work are going to compare you to one if you go for that style of writing. This is not always a bad thing, and honing your writing skills is always good for a storyteller, but you need to be aware that if you go for novel-style writing you’ll most likely end up doing a lot more more work for fewer readers. I give Jennifer Snow a nod for doing this and doing it well, but her site is an exception.
3. Let the reader in on the campaign setting. Post maps if you have them. Give the reader a little background. I hit a lot of campaign blogs that feel like I just started reading a book in the middle. You don’t need to define every little hamlet and NPC in the game, but a general overview of the major locations, leaders, and problems is really important for people trying to make sense of your story.
4. Break huge posts down into smaller posts. It makes it easier for people to read the thing if you put it up in bite-sized chunks. Some people just want to read their blogroll over morning coffee, and don’t have time for your five thousand word beast on Monday morning. It’s also a little more rewarding for you as the writer. Once you get done typing it all up, you’ll have five posts instead of just one. Finally, this makes it easier for readers to link to and comment on the bits the interest them.
5. Normal blogging rules also apply: Regular updates. An “about” page or something for newcomers to get up to speed. Some author info. Make sure you have good navigation so visitors can easily read the whole thing in sequence.

I’m looking for some fun campaign logs to read. Don’t worry if they don’t follow my list above, that’s more a personal ideal than a list of rules. If you have or know of a good campaign log, please drop a link in the comments.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.