Mike Shea

The players know it's the drive and ambition of their characters.

They all have a good reason to want to disrupt and dismantle the Dragon Empire.

They want to do it.

And you might have an idea about how that's going to go.

For example, I have three villains in my Dragon Empire game.

I have Ibelin the Illustrious, I have Adasha of the Burning Waste, and I have Parsis the Hidden.

I decided I'm going to have three of the 12 Morza be the kind of primary villains for this game.

I don't really know exactly how that relates to dismantling the Dragon Empire, except it seems like if you start to get rid of Morza, you are in a good spot to dismantle the Dragon Empire.

But I wanted to focus it down.

So I focused on those three villains.

And then throughout the prep for my games and sessions, I can always ask myself, like, what are those villains up to now?

What do they want?

What are they doing?

What's their drive and ambition?

What quests have they sent their own minions out?

And that's where the world starts to be like a fun and dynamic place.

But you'll notice that in all of that discussion, I don't have an idea what the final scene is going to be like.

I really have no idea.

But I've got enough there that I feel like in my head I feel comfortable going with the game because I know the general direction.

I have a north star.