Besides writing, what's the best way to improve as a writer?

[CharlesEBrown]

I DM for a 5e game, we just finished arc 1 of that campaign last week. Now I am building a custom campaign. It is based in 1939-1940ish Germany

All the players will be cereal mascots, and we are going up against the Nazi's General Mills, trying to discredit and defeat their balanced Breakfast campaign. It will follow 5e kind of but I will be adjusting rules as needed.

I have also dabbled in Call of Cthulu and Blades in the Dark a bit.

Sounds like something one of my friends in high school would have suggested, we'd all get excited, and either I'd be drafted to run or someone else would volunteer... then the day of the game would come and either only one player showed, or someone had a new game they'd just bought that they wanted everyone to look at and make characters for...

We kept dabbling with other systems, but always wound up either playing Champions (first through fourth edition), AD&D (first edition), or Chill (original Pacesetter not the later Mayfair or the newer versions). In college we replaced Champions with Villains and Vigilantes (revised) and Star Wars (WEG/D6),

Do you have the Fast Food Wars supplement that Wendys put out for 5e a few years ago (free as a PDF or like $0.99 for print version in the store)? Might be useful for the cereal game too...

 

[Juia_Darkcrest]

Sounds like something one of my friends in high school would have suggested, we'd all get excited, and either I'd be drafted to run or someone else would volunteer... then the day of the game would come and either only one player showed, or someone had a new game they'd just bought that they wanted everyone to look at and make characters for...

We kept dabbling with other systems, but always wound up either playing Champions (first through fourth edition), AD&D (first edition), or Chill (original Pacesetter not the later Mayfair or the newer versions). In college we replaced Champions with Villains and Vigilantes (revised) and Star Wars (WEG/D6),

Do you have the Fast Food Wars supplement that Wendys put out for 5e a few years ago (free as a PDF or like $0.99 for print version in the store)? Might be useful for the cereal game too...

I don't

So our group is lucky. We have two primary DMs who each have larger campaigns, and two novice DM who run short campaigns. And the other two players are also DMs, one teaches it to kids at school.

Our large campaigns are between arcs right now, so the novice DMs are running these small ones to gain some experience. Us two primary guys, also run another game with other players on Saturdays, called Bard-For-Life. Level 5 chars who need at least 3 levels of bard. We travel to different towns, cause chaos, solve problems, then get barred from the town for life =)

 

[WhereIStand]

Watching tv, and scripting the show in your head as you watch

I do that subconsciously. I boiled it down to maybe a weird habit I had but I guess other people do it too with a clear purpose.

 

[writerwolf359]

Editing. I can't recommend finding another author to trade editing with enough. It really forces you to pay attention to another person's story and the mistakes they make. You develop a critical eye and learn how to better think about your own stories from a reader's perspective.