Thoughts on my own campaign

Before I start, I feel the need to mention that its been so long since I wrote here, I totally forgot that I changed my user-picture last time. I am quite special.

Anyway, in case I hadn't mentioned, I started my campaign up again - complete with plot-like goodness. It has been going very well in general. I've had trouble DMing in the past, but it seems like I've finally found my own way of doing it that makes it enjoyable not only for my players, but for me as well. I have to do a LOT of preparation before each session, but at least its working out, and I do feel its worth it.

This last session, however, was pretty bad. It was decided last-minute that we needed to start right after I got home from work, which annihilated my preparation time (all I needed to do was print stuff and bookmark certain pages in the DMG, but still), and since I was just getting off work I was quite frazzled. One of my players was exhausted and had a toothache, another was having a very bad day, and there's only 4 of us all together. So, needless to say, it didn't end that spectacularly. The players took their journey in a direction I hadn't anticipated, which I can handle normally, but since I was so frazzled I didn't know what to do and as a result looked even less prepared than I already did. One of my players is a DM as well, and he's really amazing at it, and he has this tendency to be obviously judgemental of how I run my game, and he started doing that, so that didn't help matters either. In the end I just sent everyone home in the middle of what we were supposed to be doing, since they threw me for a loop I didn't anticipate (which was just really stupid of me, if I had thought things through I would have realized that they might choose what they chose and could have been prepared for it), and have put off working on any gaming stuff all week. I haven't even given them XP yet.

In the past, this would have made me freak out and put my game on another hiatus. But a day later, certain things in my life kind of exploded, and my llady hasn't been having a great week either, so its made me re-evaluate what happened. Moral of story - one bad session is not enough to end a campaign. Plus. we're headed in a really interesting direction. The characters are about to land on a war-torn continent, having to introduce themselves to people who a) have never heard of the place they come from and b) will hate some of them right from the start. The part of the continent they'll be landing on first is very Greek in culture, too, and I love Ancient Greek everything, so I am quite stoked for that. It should make some gorgeous drawings, if I ever get to draw my own stuff again. Plus, there were still pirates in the bad session, and everything's better with pirates.

That's all, really. I just needed to get that out before I play in Heather's campaign tonight (the one I play Tanisevania in). Hopefully things will go smoother and I'll have more happy DnD stories next week.