I'm a few weeks out from my first campaign as DM, and I decided to play a session 0 with my husband's character to get a little bit of practice in the DM seat. We played for 4 hours straight. It was a completely impromptu, "you somehow need to wind up at point b" the totality of what was planned. My husband had this horrified expression on his face, and he kept swallowing, clearly upset himself -- that part is great, he was obviously invested and on the edge of his seat, but I choked up too. I made myself cry, actually. That's only slightly embarrassing. So, I was wondering if any other DM's can share some ideas on how to weave emotionally impactful stories without getting drawn into it yourself. I'm sure I ruined the game somewhat when I went quiet for a few minutes and sniffled miserably behind my computer screen as Zook, the sweet, elderly Gnome lay broken and bloodied on the road, his walking staff shattered in his hand at the end. u_u
