Discovered Artistic Aspects of DM'ing for D&D, and Found Tools That Help

[poikilos]

Hello,
I am a traditional artist but also got into advanced graphics during early high school and programming before that. I have been working on computer game ideas for years, especially one that is ancient historical fiction. A few years ago I started watching theDMsCraft's YouTube videos where he uses cool techniques to make amazing game terrain using cardboard, hot glue, and paint. I like doing arts and crafts so this interested me. I showed my artistic friend the channel, who then wanted to try D&D. My only experience with it was that I played Icewind Dale on PC (based on Advanced D&D aka 2nd Edition) a long time before that, but it gave me some confidence to try actual D&D. We and two others all tried the Starter Set for a while, and I had fun making some printable props we used, but the DM was a first-time player and eventually wanted to see if we could join a group so we did. During this time we played Hoard of the Dragon Queen. I really liked the artwork that went into the maps and characters we were shown (and various illustrations in the Player's Handbook). I started thinking I should make my game into a D&D Campaign, even if I later have to change content (to remove proprietary content) to make it into a computer game. I spent about 2 months just working on JUST the setting. This was very helpful, especially for making the game somewhat flexible with player decisions. After the DM at the venue became unavailable, I offered to run my campaign, and the other players let me give it a try. I had some time to plan out actual gameplay and narration. Believe it or not, I used Warcraft III World Editor to make some of the printable maps even in 2016. I already had extensive experience with it, and found that to be the easiest method without using professional map-making software. Having a terrain feature in World Editor made reworking painless. Other than World Editor I used graph paper with tiny squares so I could draw the map with similar ease and with ease of erasing (I later found out that Tiled Map Editor had a Terrain feature [automatic placement of transition blocks between two terrain types] and I use that now). I wrote parts of the campaign last minute, especially during the middle third or so, but having people depend on me really pushed me to fill in all the details of what would happen. My acting skills filled in gaps in narration. I eventually learned how much work it took to get things to happen the way I wanted without leaving too many technical/narrative gaps to write on the fly (though I understand experienced DMs can do Campaigns that are almost all improv, I wasn't skilled enough to improve the technical parts and still make enemies contribute to the story how I wanted). I plan to publish this campaign. I have it all on paper still (some handwritten or drawn, some typed), and I'm in the process of putting it into Scribus. I plan to release a printed version which may have commissioned illustrations as a perk, but I also plan to digitally release a free version that is simple but complete. The campaign is long--though probably not as long as Hoard of the Dragon Queen. I am done about 1/3 of it, and it will be about 90 pages if similar to the handmade version. I hope you found this post interesting if you made it this far. I look forward to what we can learn from each other!