Summary

  • Remember to establish boundaries and expectations in a cozy campaign for a relaxing and enjoyable experience.
  • Create a cozy atmosphere with the right physical environment and mood-setting elements like music and lighting.
  • Keep the stakes low and focus on small, achievable goals rather than high-intensity combat in a cozy campaign.

Dungeons & Dragons campaigns are usually high-stakes roleplaying games that, more often than not, lead to the party at the doorstep of a god or god-like being, ready to throw down. However, sometimes life just gets hard and stressful, and you need a good break from all of it.

Related

Dungeons & Dragons: 10 DM Tips To Avoid Cancelling A Session

You spent too many hours setting plotting that map and balancing that encounter.

Posts

Having a high-intensity campaign may not be what you need, but something a lot more comforting and cozy might work wonderfully—a gentle escape from life, where you can find your reprieve in a fantasy world. With lower stakes and a familiar setting and system, a good, cozy campaign can help you relax and unwind.

10 Run A Session Zero

Establish Boundaries And Expectations

Recruitment Drive by Diego Gisbert

Before you kick off any Dungeons & Dragons campaign, you should probably have a Session Zero to start. However, for a cozy campaign, this session may be more important than ever.

It will help you establish what everyone considers cozy and what they might like to explore, and it will set up a precedent for any conflict and encounters you may have in the game. Not everyone may define cozy in the same way, so having a baseline understanding of what players expect and want is vital.

9 Set The Mood

Your Physical Environment Affects Your Mental State

Kas and Vecna by Lily Abullina

True coziness cannot be achieved in the theater of the mind alone. Your surroundings and environment are just as important when you’re trying to reach the epitome of a cozy campaign. Picking the right sized space, filling it with things that make you and your players comfortable, and ensuring you have proper lighting is important here.

You should even take some time to consider what music or ambiance you’re going to play and at what volume. Don’t hesitate to run things by your players either to see what their opinions are.

8 Try Out Combatless Campaigns

Combat Can Be Intense, But It Isn't Necessary

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight Tiefling Concept Art by Clint Cearley

Although Dungeons & Dragons often relies on combat to spice up the game and move things along, there are perfectly combatless campaigns you can use. Things like the Wild Beyond the Witchlight are made with the idea that you can move through the entire campaign without any combat.

Related

Dungeons & Dragons: 8 Best Ways To Use Vampires In Your Campaigns

Bonus points if you make them hot. Players love a hot Vampire.

Posts

You also don’t have to follow these campaigns to the letter - feel free to experiment and mess around. Add in a dash of homebrew, adjust puzzles, and even adjust NPC behavior to make everything tailored to you and your table.

7 Keep The Stakes Low

Fighting A Pantheon Shouldn't Be Your Priority

Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos art by Caroline Gariba

You don’t need to fight a pantheon of gods in a cozy Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Instead, you should consider lowering the stakes to, hopefully, mitigate any anxiety that your players might end up facing. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have any danger - having risk and danger helps to keep things interesting and keep players invested. This doesn't necessarily mean you'll have a lot of downtime activities (unless you want to); it just means you need to get a bit creative.

However, instead of life and death stakes, consider things that are more tame. Think of goals to strive for to better the community your players have situated themselves in. If they run a shop, farm, or any other business, consider a competition. Perhaps they’re gathering herbs for the local apothecary or helping other local small businesses to stay afloat while they drive out the larger noble businesses.

6 Milestone Progression Over Experience

Milestone Progression Puts Less Pressure On Players

Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos Cover Art by Magali Villeneuve

In a cozy campaign, the chances of you initiating a lot of combat are probably relatively low. As such, you should consider taking experience-based progression off of the table entirely. Instead, focus on milestone progression as a way to encourage your players to keep going, developing their skills and their creativity.

That said, your milestones also don’t need to be huge, game-altering moments, either. Small things or moments that your players may have struggled with could be a good enough reason to let them level up.

5 Take Inspiration From Your Favorite Cozy Media

Cozy Media Works For A Reason, So Use It

Art by Clint Clearly via Wizards of the Coast

When you’re planning your campaign, don’t be afraid to look to your favorite cozy pieces of media, like books and video games, for inspiration. There’s a reason that they bring you a comforting feeling when you’re indulging in them, and you are more than welcome to incorporate them into your game.

Steal characters and settings and implement them into your games, take plotlines and concepts, and do whatever you want, really. Don’t feel pressure to come up with a completely 100 percent original idea, just do whatever your heart desires.

4 Keep The World Small And Familiar

Intimacy And Comfort Stems From Familiarity

Neverwinter Harbor via Jedd Chevrier

You probably don’t want to take your merry crew on cross-continent adventures, chasing after unknown entities and unfamiliar threats. Consider keeping things contained to a handful of towns or perhaps one of the largest cities, that way players can get to know it intimately. They’ll know the people who live there, those who regularly pass through, and all the quirks that generally only the locals are aware of.

Related

Dungeons & Dragons: 7 DM Tips To Counter Fighter Characters

These DM tips will help you to fairly counter fighter characters in your D&D campaign.

Posts

There’s a sense of comfort that comes with the familiar, and it’s a great way to make your players feel at home in your campaign. You don’t have to always stay in one town, but the more familiar something is, the more comfortable and cozy it becomes.

3 NPC Connections Are Important

Strangers Are More Likely To Put Players On Guard

Tavern Bard by Rob Rey

It’s no secret that players often find characters and NPCs that they grow almost absurdly attached to. In a cozy campaign, you should be ready to play off of this, inviting warm and comforting characters into your players’ lives. These NPCs could be the player character’s family members, friends, or former connections.

You could also have characters that want to foster new relationships, in which case, you can explore what it takes to develop and build new relationships. Feel free to explore old, wise characters who pass as parental figures or close confidants, new friends who they can go on relatively tame (and yet somehow still chaotic) adventures with, and perhaps even an NPC or two that they fall in love with.

2 Theater Of The Mind Is Important

Try To Be Immersive With Your Descriptions

Prosperous Innkeeper MtG Art from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms by Eric Deschamps

If you really want to set the scene and send your players into a world of cozy Dungeons & Dragons adventures, take the time to think about how you describe things. If you use the right descriptions, you can help get your players into the right frame of mind. You don’t need to be overly poetic, but think about how you set the scene carefully.

Instead of saying something like, “You walk into the Inn and are greeted by the barkeep,” consider something like, “You walk into the Inn, the scent of ale and freshly baked wildberry pie beckoning you in. The barkeep looks up and greets you all with a warm and welcoming smile.” Although these are small details you could get to eventually, they help to set the scene and, inevitably, make it feel more welcoming.

1 Let Your Players Direct The Story

Players Know What They Like, So Let Them Indulge

Stick Together by Dave Greco

Even in your standard, non-cozy Dungeons & Dragons games, players maintain a certain amount of control over the direction that the story takes. However, you should be exceptionally lenient when it comes to cozy games. You can give them gentle nudges to keep them on track or perhaps to keep them from venturing outside the realm of coziness, but strict railroading is decidedly uncozy.

You don’t need to struggle and play catch-up with your players—knowing when to say no or put your foot down is important. However, they will give hints or say what they would like to keep exploring. Consider asking at the end of the session what they would like to keep doing and what they might like to explore next time.

Next

Dungeons & Dragons: 7 DM Tips To Counter Monk Characters

Not everything can be solved by another Flurry of Blows.

Posts