A DM Reborn? Let's hope!

Over four and a half years ago I ended my first D&D campaign as a DM. It ran for about a year and it went really well. The players were kind of bummed out that is was ending, but I was getting burned out from the twice a month four hours sessions. I write all my own stuff and run in my own world, and I also tend to put a lot of detail in to my adventures. So, needless to say, it took up a lot of time to run 6 character from 1st to 15th level. Don't get me wrong, I loved it and still have found memories of that year, it was a blast. But university was calling and was taking up a lot of my time.

Over these four and a half years my players have come to me on and off asking when I was going to start up the adventure again. My answer as always been, "I'm not sure", or, "I would love to but I just don't have the time." Both, understandably, not satisfying answers. My reluctance has been that I have felt like I kind of 'blew my load', if you'll pardon the expression, that first time around. I've tired to run other adventure, just one offs, or a few just for fun, but it has not ever been the same. I constantly felt like I was letting the players down, or that I was railroading them though the story. I always felt like I had lost the touch that I seemed to have had all those years ago. I would sometimes think to myself, "Wow, was I just meant to run one great campaign, and thats it?" Inspiration just was not coming to me. Or at least not by a means that I felt like I could sit down and right some great stuff. Muse just did not seem to be with me. It drove me crazy. I felt like there was so many good ideas about the world I could run stuff around, I just had no idea how the hell to get there. The blank page would just stare back at me.

That said, recently, I feel like the passion is back. More to the point, I came to realize again what it was that made the last, and as said, my first, campaign go so well... I did not push. I had an over all idea of what was going to happen, but I let each session build from the next. I would give the characters, and players, little side adventures that had nothing to do with the over all story. I introduce NPC's that would show up later in the story, sometime wholly by happy accident, that would tie treads together (thank you Dread Wraith). I realized all this again and I thought, "I can do this again, just have fun!"

So after a hell of a lot of thinking, and a lot of reading of The Lord of the Rings, a Grand Story fell into view. New ideas for the characters started to form. Great adventures and meetings with great NPC's started to fill my mind, and I knew I had to run the story. But, hell, how do I get them there. "Well,' I thought, 'let's find out!" With that in mind, I texted my players and told them to prepare for the adventure to start again. I got great responses from the players, which I have to say was very welcome and a big boost.

So, once more into the breach I go! Here is hoping that this DM can make the magic happen once more. I feel pretty good about it!