In the midst of the Dwarven Dungeon project and the Dungeon 26 challenge, our weekly gaming group, which has been playing together for four decades, was ready to start a new campaign. I am not always the dungeon master, but this time around my name was pulled from the proverbial hat, and I needed to create something. My normal practice would be to dive into something large-scale and grandiose, a campaign of legendary heroes. This time, however, I thought to myself, “Self, running an epic campaign while trying to keep up with other commitments might be too much.” For those of you who know me, this is not a thought I would have ever had or even considered in my youth. But, as the number of candles on my birthday cake grows, I find that time is a lot more limited. So, I ended up thinking, “That is probably a really good point.”
So, what do you do when you really love the grandiose, epic campaign but don’t have the time to commit to its creation? You cheat. Well, cheat is not the right word. You improvise. I delved into the piles of dungeons, scenarios, adventures, and small quests that I have created over the decades and began weaving them together into a new adventuring tapestry. If you do not have a backlog of adventures, modules are also a great way to handle the burden. There are many out there. Some from the original days, but others created by those who want to keep the magic alive.
I ran many of the original modules in my youth. When I first started gaming (at eight years old), my much older brothers had me run modules to teach me how to play and create adventures (and because the things I was writing at the time were wildly strange and unbalanced). Over time, I learned that you don’t need to run the modules verbatim. You can make changes, alterations, and tweaks that allow you to inject your own creativity and style into the mix, while still using the majority of the adventure.
Modules can have great storylines, hooks, and situations, but might not always fit your player characters’ level or the theme of your campaign. So, study what you like and then make notes on what you want to change to fit your needs. Maybe you need to reduce the number of monsters because they are too powerful, or swap out a monster because your campaign has a certain villain that you want to include. For example, you could take The Isle of Dread map, but remove the planned encounters and replace them with a lizardman shaman, a cult of bullywugs, and a horde of zombies. Maybe you replace some of the planned encounters on the map with different monsters equal to your characters’ levels, but keep some of the wandering monsters that your players should avoid at all costs. You could start them in the settlement, but add some new NPC characters designed to guide your players on quests. Using the majority of the island’s background and cinematic themes, you can save a lot of time, but still use your own creativity to make it your own.
I started the new campaign this week. It was a good first night, though some of the players complained about their stats. One had a 5 strength, another had a 2 charisma (-2 from half-orcs), and they had about 10 hit points between them. But they survived (which is a plus). We ended the night with a hook that will lead them to the next adventure. Because I finished the third level of the Dwarven Dungeon ahead of schedule, I have a little time to continue weaving my tapestry. We shall see what happens on March 12th when the dungeon starts again. When that happens, who knows? It might be time to pull out the DM hat and pick a new name.