Immersion as my main focus

For my second campaign, I wanted to push the immersion as far as I could during my game sessions. To achieve that, I worked on several sceneries : 

• A screen table, consisting of a flat TV screen layed down on my table, with a plexiglas sheet on top of it. It allows me to project images, battle maps, videos, and more during sessions.
• A playlist of several musics to fit every ambiance, from cozy town exploration to a chase with the guard, an ancient dungeon, or an ambush. Most of my musics is taken from the Youtube channel Bardify.
• Maps for all the major locations, like cities and towns, common buildings (taverns, inns, temples, etc.), dungeons, and battle maps. I draw the cities maps using ProCreate, and create all the location maps using TaleSpire.
• A world map, hand-drawn, that adapts to the players' journey with new discovered cities and important locations, major roads, and points of interest.
• 3D miniatures and props, either made on HeroForge or on Blender and 3D printed, or taken in some of my boardgames like Massive Darkness. I paint most of my miniatures on my freetime.
• Custom unique props for some dungeon puzzles, health potions, time tracker, dice tower, and more.

I want to thank my players for being available almost every week and for putting so much effort into their roleplay and their character creation, so it is really important for me to put a lot of time into my maps, props and the plot to make it as interesting and enjoyable as possible.

Creating a living world

During my world building process, and now as the dungeon master, I'm tasked to create a living world for my players to explore. This includes : 

• Coming up with an original world with its own unique geography, political system, factions and religions. I started by drawing a rough map with some key cities and various climates, then iterated over it by adding more and more details.
• Creating something believable, both geographically and in terms of society. I had to learn how mountains are created, how rivers flow, how forests grow, and more. I also had to think of a political system and a religion that was not too flat, with just "good guys" and "bad guys", but create tension points, wars (past and present), local economies, and more.
• Making my players part of the world, both in their narrative (include their backstories in the world and in the campaign) and in their actions. I want the world to feel living, which means players actions have consequences, but also that NPCs can live, move, fight, die, outside of the players' sight. Should the players take too long to fight the lich, or create too much troubles on their way, there will be bad consequences outside of their reach.
• Taking inspiration from various cultures and historical or political events to make each region or city unique. Players travelled through rich cities governed by gold and ores, brutal theocratic towns, modern - almost steampunk colonies, etc. As they travel, they have to deal with cultural differences, zealotism, racism, language barriers, which puts their roleplay skills to the test.