Dungeons & Dragons: How To Run A Short Campaign

Short campaigns can be underrepresented when people think about Dungeons & Dragons. Epic year spanning adventures aren't fit for every group, and certainly not for people trying to get the feel for the game and the group they're playing with.

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A briefer game comes with its own issues and advantages. Scheduling commitments are easier if you don't need to book the same night off every week for a year. At the same time, you need to have a strong grasp of the pacing to gauge how much content to prepare. Here are a few tips to keep it short and sweet.

Decide On A Game Length And Commit To It

A 'short campaign' can be ambiguous. When planning the game and pitching to players you want to have specific descriptors that will help both of you understand expectations and make time accordingly.

Duration

Contents

Player Expectations

Two to four sessions

One central plot is pursued over several games.

No time for personal quests tied to player backstory. The focus will be on the narrative and gameplay.

Five to eight sessions

Some red herrings and side plots can be worked in, but none are likely to take more than a session.

There is enough time for the characters to go through simple arcs.

Nine to twelve sessions

The game is analogous to a season of television: Multiple narratives are happening at once, converging in the finale.

Characters have the room for growth expected of a longer campaign.

The length can also determine what types of stories you can tell. If you only have a few hours to tell the story, it becomes harder to slowly build up an emotionally complex villain. At the same time, several months is a long time to dedicate to a single murder mystery.

You can also have the time limit to be part of the setting. Not only do the players have only five weeks to complete the campaign, but the party has five days before the volcano erupts or the evil ritual is completed.

Focus On A Strong Start

Short campaigns can fit in a strange place narratively between single-session games and longer campaigns.

• A one-shot can easily start with you reading out a title crawl explaining the mission and context of the game, and then jumping straight into action.
• A longer campaign can afford to take a slow pace, starting the narrative as the party walks into town and then roleplaying through the process of the players exploring and meeting characters who will later become important.

You want to have a strong concept of what the narrative and gameplay are going to be from the beginning, while not outright giving everything away. There are a few things you can do that make unique use of the premise and duration of your game.

Technique

Advantage

Example

Introduce The Final Boss Early

This adventure doesn't span ten levels, so the party can fight this stronger adversary without dying instantly. Starting with a difficult fight sets the tone for the game and gives an achievable goal for the players to conquer by the end.

The party are routed by the local gang boss and needs to gather allies over several sessions to defeat them.

Be Generous With Loot

One-shots typically end before the players can use any magic items they can find, while longer campaigns need to worry about the risk of the party saving up every potion and then drinking all of them at once. Short campaigns fit the sweet spot of being able to experiment with exotic magics while not keeping them long enough to get stale.

The players start with a Candle of Invocation, giving unlimited first-level spells for the duration of the game.

Use Experimental Content

Short campaigns can be a great way to test out a new mechanic or homebrew class and see how it handles continuous use. Some come with campaign concepts attached.

A campaign about renovating a bastion can have a chain of local quests that flow naturally while rewarding the players with mechanical benefits.

Be Conscious Of Bottlenecks

If you're working to a schedule, issues can snowball if a puzzle or encounter takes longer than you accounted for in planning. Carefully consider where these bottlenecks can occur and how you can resolve them.

Bottleneck

Example

Solution

Example Solution

Combat

A player cast a lightning bolt on a shambling mound, healing it and extending the fight.

Reduce the size of the next encounter or skip it entirely if the plot doesn't require it.

The crash of lightning scared away the wild dogs that were going to be in the next fight.

Puzzle

The party is stumped on how to open a magical door.

Allow a brute-force solution or workaround that imposes a consequence.

An NPC companion uses a spell to blast the door open but is too exhausted to help in the next fight.

Red Herrings

The party adamantly believes the bartender knows more than he is letting on and is spending a long time trying to investigate him.

Create prompts and scenarios that encourage the players to investigate other leads.

The bartender is attacked by the actual culprit while the party is shadowing him.

The same applies in reverse. Have some extra content you can improvise or slot in quickly if the players are moving faster than you expected.

Use A Linear Narrative

A linear narrative doesn't have to mean removing player agency, but that the encounters and content are designed to be played in a specific order.

Each session should have a clear resolution that points towards the next session and ties into the overall plot for the campaign.

• The antagonist they defeat is carrying a letter from their master, giving the party a clear indication of where to go next.
• The bad guy escapes but leaves a trail that can be followed.
• The reputation the party gains puts them in contact with the next quest giver.

Having an order to the content is important because short campaigns will frequently have faster leveling and character progression. Gameplay balance and narrative pacing can get skewed, and you'll have fewer opportunities to recycle skipped encounters.

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