Same here. I'm very fortunate to be in the middle of my third year-long campaign with the same group, but that is a RARITY and I haven't had a similar experience in a very long time outside of the last few years. Design your campaigns for your players! Colville and Professor DM are both old-schoolers and the old school is the better way.
"Don't hold back the good stuff" - yes! If you have a cool idea, throw it on the table! That session! Just go for it - you have an unlimited special effects budget ;)
Yeah, it feels great. I hear that Ander Wood is coming back as well and I've been having tons of fun with his Within the Ring of Fire game! Sure it's not OSR and feels a little more like a classless 3.5/pathfinder but it's simple enough to understand. My only gripe is the lack of stat blocks. There are a few but if you want creatures that are just a little weaker or stronger than the base, you have to do a lot of work.
I've run adventures that have run 30-40 minutes, 6 hours, some much longer. One that ran about 4 years meeting one day a week, 50 weeks each year (off 2 weeks each year) and each session was about 4-5 hours. So that adventure ran for perhaps 800 to 1000 total hours. This was in the 80's among friends.
Love that you included a short example adventure. I hope this video does well, because as a GM that content is so valuable; it's part of why the old adventure recaps are so great.
6:40 your notebook is a Work of Art ! and should be Envied and discussed in all DnD game rooms thru out the Realm and living rooms. really nicely done, sir.
I love the self-contained episode approach. My players are a similar vintage and most of them grew up watching TV in the 80s. I like to have them feel they accomplished something after three hours. I think they like it, too, because they keep coming back.
I always limit a story arc to a maximum of 3 sessions or less, and if during the second session it appears that the current thread is going to extend out further than 3 sessions I start cutting content as needed to allow the adventure to wrap up on a high note. Some cut content may end up in another adventure, and maybe the current content will lead to something else in the future, but I almost never plan anything further out, preferring to allow things to progress organically. Letting my players make their own connections and conspiracies out of my short adventures almost always leads an engaging campaign where we all have fun. I also tend to limit campaigns to a small area in our long running homebrew world. Rarely multiple continent spanning ones, and never world spanning. We usually retire our parties at level 10 and begin a new campaign in another part of the world or another time frame. It has worked for our group for many years, which is really all that matters in the end. Thanks for all the great content Professor! It helps keep my thinking fresh.
I mean, there is a reason the a team got canceled; once you have seen one episode you saw them all. Once a show "jumped the shark" it was the end as the newness of the specticle was the only thing to engage the audience. TV and ttrpgs are not the best comparison, I will admit, but that makes this an even worse idea as your TV audience can change from week to week without affecting the numbers; ie if 0% of the audience from last week comes back this week, no one cares so long as the numbers remain the same. That kind of thing generally means you started a new game if none of your players come back week 2. People would talk to their friends about that thing they did last week and get new people in without a cap as the original viewers get bored with the same old pattern and drop off. That does not typically work with a ttrpg group as it is much more intimate.
Several people in my group are fixated on the idea that campaigns absolutely must be these vast, sweeping narratives with Tolkienesque complexity. It's nice to see Prof. DM and others giving voice to the fact that episodic, serial adventures have a place at the table too.
This can also apply to the realm of video games. Final Fantasy often tends towards this very strong narrative focus throughout the entire game. Sure there might be some shorter episodes here and there, but they're mostly in service to the overarching narrative. Dragon Quest on the other hand, starting from III often has a very episodic feel with generally a loose connection to the larger plot at hand, Dragon Quest VII, in my view, managed this best where each island visited felt like its own self-contained story.
This is always an interesting topic. I just ran a 1 shot over the weekend where one of the players was looking for more RP scenarios where it was mostly a combat run as they were running through a collapsing castle trying to kill a villain. It was their first entry into Crown & Skull and they understood that being a 1-shot in 2 hrs would limit those opportunities, but I struggle to maintain the momentum if there is too much RP in anything but a multi-session adventure or a campaign.
*glances at my leopard gecko in her tank*: “Why didn’t you tell me you had a cameo in this episode?! When did you get to meet the Professor in-person?!” 😄
4:57...you misspelled "Mutual". I will admit to being old enough to remember Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom coming on NBC when I was a boy. My grandparents would watch it on Sunday nights, the NBC stations out of Joplin and Tulsa being two of the six channels they received out where they lived.
The Giant series (G1-G3) led to the Descent into the Depths of the Earth series (D1-D3), and finally the Queen of the Demonweb pits (Q1) adventure, the first long running series that I recall.
I like the smaller adventures. It gives you more flexibility. You have the option to expand it if you want or make it part of something bigger. Plus it’s way easier to prep for for sure
In d4 rounds! That's VERY quick! Perhaps 4+1d6 rounds would be better. Of course, you don't tell the players. Griffin Mountain was published in 1981 and might have been the first 'sandbox' adventure sourcebook, and it had enough material to keep playing going for years. What defines an adventure? A single trip away from a base? Defeating a single problem/foe? The characters that go on it? How long is a piece of string?
ICRPG uses this Timer concept, actually telling the players that something will happen in 4 rounds keeps the pressure and the tension up. keeps them moving, and not analyzing to the nth degree or wasting time.
@@orbitalair2103 Oh as a GM I'd give plenty of clues, such as describing how the flames spread, how jars of liquids get spilled, how NPCs panic and try to get out of there etc.
I love all Dungeon Craft videos! I've watched this video a few times on Patreon. It is some amazing advice! I've already started plotting this way for my home game that is restarting after a few years
Love it - The Adventure Paths from Dungeon Mag under Paizo at the end of 3rd edition also contributed to the “make your adventure 20 levels long” trend.
I came in right at the end of the premiere. So I just finished the video. Awesome insight as usual. I seem to always have a thread in my games. I love one shots and two shots as well. I am running a west marches style campaign right now and my players are so used to ongoing story threads that they are putting things together that I never would. Cheers!
That's always cool when they unknowingly give u connections that weren't there before. Inused to ignore them for whatever I had planned but now I know better and keeps prep shorter.
I usually split adventures between "Short" adventures -- which take 1 session "Long-ish" adventures, which take 2 or 3 sessions and "Crawls" which is basically only a unit of measure for that I use for huge dungeons, a "Crawl" being the length it takes to go from town, to a goal, and back -- which in bigger dungeons with certain groups, might be up to 4 or 5 sessions. Generally, though, I try to break up any multi-session adventure into smaller pieces -- I judge the overall adventure length by how long it takes from the party setting out from town towards a goal, to them arriving back in a place of relative safety to rest, recover, spend their loot, and whatever else. So that 3-session adventure might be broken into a "Getting there in time" session "Accomplishing the goal" session , and a "getting back to town in one piece" session -- which are, essentially, each a short adventure of their own with their own encounters and complications. Similarly, a 4-session crawl might be two sessions of just getting to the right place -- dealing with the traps and monsters along the way and stopping to interact with the dungeon's resident factions and such -- then an adventure of doing... whatever they came to do, then a one-session "getting back out alive" adventure dealing with whatever problems have come up in the path behind them or maybe having to find a whole new route back to safety. [as a general rule -- "getting back to safety" is generally at most 1 session and includes going over downtime activities the group is doing when they make it there and some time for them to discuss what they're planning next.] This lets me have the flexibility for longer-term adventures, while still having each session act as an adventure in it's own right, and having an upper limit of about 3 sessions keeps the amount of prep I have to do minimal (usually, for the 1st session of a long adventure; I know what that session will be, and what the ultimate goal of the adventure is, and that's it.) But it depends on the group -- my current group tends to move at a pretty slow pace; I've had them take 2 sessions to go through an area I designed to be done in under 2 hours [and even for things I have had other groups get through in less than 2 hours] and they still have a good time of it, and when I get bored I roll some dice to remind them random encounters exist if they sit around too long, so I don't mind running at that sort of pace. When I was running games in University, where it was always jsut kind of a "whoever shows up at D&D time plays, once the table is full, the table is full." situation, then, I was much more strict abotu the 1 session = 1 adventure thing, because there were 14 different lplayer characters running around the same shared region of the world with 4 to 8 playing in any given session, so, everyone needed to be back in the home-base town by the end of the session so by next week any random combination of them could run off on the next one.
Personally I like the idea that as PCs get stronger threats get bigger and adventures get a little longer If we are talking the 5e an adventure should take half the players proficiency bonus rounded up. I did like to make the final boss sessions 4 sessions with a lot of stuff like after the 2nd session they have defeated the right hand man
Good summary of the history and different schools of thought. I loved rhe Firefly RPG for the way they framed the supplied episodes as three to five acts just like episodic television, with the option to create throwbacks and call backs
Thank you Sir! I love Dungeon-Craft and love the advice don't hold back on using your best ideas. I've made the mistake of putting the goods stuff at the end of a long campaign and never getting there. Keep it short, keep it fun, keep em' comming back to the table.
I absolutely love your adventure timer, I remember you talking about it in an earlier video (in your Frankenstein adventure?) and I'm glad to see it reappear here, it's such a great device!
I love all Dungeon Craft videos! Modules are my favourites, especially when there are follow-on modules. I don't mind bouncing around, but I do like adventures that could be connected into a long-term campaign. Good video. Thanks for this.
I recently joined a West Marches community, which for those uninitiated basically just means DMs prepare single session adventures based on prompts from the community rather than planning out huge campaigns to run the party through which take several sessions of play. The most important lesson I've learned being in this community is that you absolutely do not need more than a single session to tell a compelling, dramatic, and meaningful story. Each game I've run typically comprises about 3 encounters, floating between combat, intrigue, roleplay, exploration, and cinematic sequences (Skill Challenges). And I've consistently been overwhelmed by how punchy these sessions feel, and how empowered it's made me feel in creating a super concise beginning-middle-end session/adventure design. The major lesson for me when I go back to running "campaigns" is that I very much can consider a single session like an episode of a TV show, with an arc within that single episode, which may or may not tie into some larger plot, but which has its own dramatic tension that arises, resolves, and sets up for even more dramatic events. Of course, given the West Marches style of playing I've been running, the expectation of downtime between adventures is explicit, so players are always highly motivated to go on the adventures to gain the resources they need to advance their own goals.
In the early 80's i bought G1, 2, 3 Against the Giants module for $15 when most modules were $10. It was a minimum of 15 sessions to complete it, and it lead into the D series of modules. I brought many groups through it, and players who'd done it before didn't remember it when doing it a second time. And don't get me started on Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. So much content!! Every campaign needs a few 5 room dungeons, but it's truly epic to have a 30 or 50 room encounter.
I love ALL Dungeon Craft videos and can't wait to see them in my recommended videos queue! Note to the Professor: UA-cam cut into your video with 25+ seconds of mandatory ads, almost in synch with you saying, "and now a word from our sponsor."
The UA-cam devs are getting good at figuring out where you’re putting your own ads. I got 20 seconds of designer perfume and then about 8 seconds of some muscle head trying to neg me into following his fitness methods. In terms of predictive ad selection it’s a thumbs down, but placement within your video was almost surgical. The times they are a-changin’
The videos are farkin' great! I remember running the Dragonlance saga back in 1986. I waited for all the modules to come out before giving it a go and spent a month seeing how the whole thing clicked together. It was an epic 16 month campaign. Thanks for reminding me of those wild old days.
My preference is *slightly* toward longer spanning adventures. I run a hex crawl in Shadowdark and sometimes a session is mostly travel and the PCs meet members of the various factions along their way and either help or thwart them, shifting their relationships with those factions as they play. Once they arrive at the adventure location it might take a session or two to get through. I'm also fond of megadungeons and in my experience players won't leave right when they've achieved the current goal that brought them there. They'll explore until they need to go back to resupply or rest. If they're continuing because they're engaged with the game world, you're doing it right.
Chapter 1 of Monte Cook’s Ptolus-themed adventure, Night of Dissolution, takes place mostly in an abandoned and haunted brothel called Pythoness House. The building has eight stories and nearly 50 rooms. It took my group six sessions to explore it all. Since we play monthly, that was half a year IRL. It was fun, but it was such a relief to finally get out and move on that I accept all of your points about smaller modular adventures. With one exception: I really enjoy a good cliffhanger, or the Marvel end credits scene hinting at what is to come. When the current adventure wraps up, I find it most satisfying when it leaves us teetering on the brink of the next adventure.
Thanks Professor! Remember, whilst trapped in ‘92 you don’t have to listen to Color Me Badd; there’s R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People and U2’s Achtung Baby.
Great watch Prof DM. Long Post Warning! Danger! Last year I ran a BECMI one-shot 5 room dungeon for 3 different groups. It was totally completable in a single session. 4 hours of gameplay (although one adventure with only 5 players exploded out to 12 hours... ran over two 6 hr sessions). I put in a tonne of work making dungeon terrain from scratch and prerecording NPC dialogue to intro the quest and also for the main villain and damsel in the story. I created a town as starting location, populated with important NPCs and made about 40 pre-generated characters with art and reference cards. The party are sent on a quest into the nearby mountains to rescue and maiden elf and her brother who had been captured by goblin mine full of slaves with a drow villain boss. There are rumours the goblins have found a rare dwarven relic - the legendary Horn of Kagyar. One group was 11 players, yes 11 players who I split into two separate groups. Each party is sent on the same quest by a shifty retired master thief who is now a collector of rare magic items. The master thief sends along his trusty servant guide with one adventuring party, who is a thief himself and has secret orders to secure a treasure map which is in the possession of the goblins. Each split party were staggered and sent half a day apart. The group with the servant NPC thief/guide is sent second as the master thief is hoping the first group pathe the way for the second group to have success. A PC thief, who will lead the first 'expendable' adventuring party is given a map to the entrance of the goblin mines. So now, that each party has a guide (each with a map) to fast fwd travel to the goblin mines... they didn't know if they were the first or second party to depart until they find clues in the dungeon such as dead goblin guards. When they get to the mines, both groups of adventurers learn the goblins have captured and enslaved a number of human captives, including a gnome former employee who has earned the ire of the "Big Boss' and is now a prisoner. The gnome captive can help the party as a 'mostly reliable' guide in return for the promise of his freedom. The goblins are using human slaves to mine 'purple mushrooms' which have strange and unpredictable side effects when eaten. The slaves are fed the 'magic' mushrooms to keep them in a zombie-like trance. The villain is using the slaves to mine for a dwarven relic lost in the mines. The split party was loads of fun with both groups of adventurers losing characters to a spider trapdoor/tunnel trap that sends its victims tumbling down a shoot and into a large cage inside the dungeon room that is guarded by a giant spider. From the 11 PCs, all but 3 ended up in the dungeon room cage and the 3 remaining adventurers had to rescue their comrades which resulted in hilarious rescue scene with both parties merging inside the cage (They had met previously only briefly at the mission briefing back in the starting town but i chose to run this instro as two different briefings so they only recognised each other and didnt really interact until the cage scene. The final boss room contained a rusty crank attached to a rope holding a cage containing the elf maiden suspended between two pillars. I had made the crank mechanism with string and pulley system as part of the dungeon terrain for the adventure and it moved the cage up and down when the wheel was turned (similar to a giant fishing reel that required two STR based checks to lower the cage). The adventurers could find the back door to the boss room if they befriended/questioned the gnome captive and he might even warn them about the rolling bolder trap placed in the tunnel... or not! It was fun to run the same adventure with different groups, some had never played D&D before. The boss room contained a pit of snakes and a 6 headed hydra. If they beat them too quick I had the villain flee to a nearby secret chamber which held a medusa and a legendary dwarven relic (The Horn of Kagyar aka Horn of Blasting) that could create an earthquake triggering a deathtarp collapsing the roof of the cave on our adventurers heads if they failed to make some timely DEX escape rolls and beat a hasty retreat. The medusa could be turned into an ally by any female character who could persuade her to turn against her slave master. What was really cool is the NPC thief guide and the PC thief developed a healthy rivalry during the adventure both wanting to impress the master Thief who hired them which made for some fun role-playing in the final boss room with the NPC guide going rogue and pocketing loot instead of fighting the villain, goblin guards and pet hydra and at one point both thieves squared off in the middle of the final battle to fight each other! I perhaps should have used universal dungeon terrain for the boss room but didnt learn about it until id made the floor tiles and terrain for the full dungeon... including doors, painted floor tiles, pillars and mini's.
Currently running a large Hex crawl divided into 12 distinct regions. Each region has its own style, from very linear to very open ended and exploration based, with a variety of quests along the way. This lets the players enjoy the variety of the episodic approach and freedom of choice, while also getting the satisfaction of of seeing well built up plot lines develop. 70 sessions in and they're loving it, hoping it continues!
As I've to my knowledge only played one series of adventures based on a campaign module our DM couldn't find when we started (involved dwarves, we ended up with our "Dwarven Trilogy"), shows you what I know about the history of D&D. I thought "Curse of Stradh" was a campaign setting and a series of adventures within that setting! Oddly enough, when I played regularly in the 90s, any adventures that were one session only tended to be the all day one our group played around the date of Bilbo Baggins' birthday. I couldn't really tell you how long our average adventure was! Still had fun though!
I am running an extended dungeon crawl but I still base each session around this type of idea. Each game session, the party goes into the dungeon with an idea of what they want to accomplish but they may not share it with me until that day... or it might change. I prep several ideas in advance and pull out the area that the party goes into. Each area has a few monsters or traps and fits into the bigger picture. I also have side adventures prepped in case the party decides not to go in the dungeon that day. I also keep in mind how the dungeon changes based on the party's actions from the last few sessions. This way the world (in this case the dungeon and nearby town) feels alive. things change as the players have an impact. The players also get a sense of accomplishment and can see the results of their actions.
2) when I write for my regular game group, I try to plan enough material to play four hours. When I write for a convention I plan for three and a half hours of game play, allowing for a fifteen minute break at the midpoint and hopefully wrap up fifteen minutes early so players can get to their next event.
Cool mini-adventure. But isntead of "exploding in 1d4 rounds", use 'Countdown Dice. (Called Duration Dice in my game as I use them for spell durations). Say 3d6. Players roll them every round. Any time a 1 comes up there is an explosion/fire spreads. Remove the die from the pool. When no dice are left it really explodes. Great way of adding tension and no one knows exactly when the event will happen.
I played in a game for a year that was very episodic, and at first, I was really impressed with the DM for keeping the pacing up, and making sure each episode fit into our weekly session... But by the end of the year, I realized that every session was the same thing: Premise. Skill Challenge. Combat. Long Rest. So even though there was an over-arching narrative stringing things together, everything felt so Samey that we were just doing the same session over again each week...
I never heard of Matt Coleville before Bob World Builder's recent video, and boy his channel is awesome. Major recommend from a relatively new D&D player.
That's how I've been running my OSE games. As we play each module, more of my homebrew world gets defined. It started with a place for the adventure to begin, hence "THE CITY" (City of Chandor) in the Empire of Chandor founder by...you guessed it. Emperor Chandor. A vaguely Romanesque city. I created the "Foreign Quarter" of the city and the market area, the dropped in OSE's Incandescent Grottos, I used a few nice hooks provided and jotted a few basic notes on these for a nice campaign end BBEG fight after the connected module "The Hole in the Oak". They have been working to stop the necromancer and the High Prismist work with a rogue Prismist to uncover what hapoened to the Emperor. Is he dead, is the person sitting the throne using illusionary magic to impersonate him?
I like to run games with what I call the "adventure, story, campaign" structure. And to continue the television analogy, think of it as Stargate: SG1. An adventure should last 1-2 sessions, 3 if we're faffing about a lot, and have a clearly defined goal. It should be self-contained for the most part. This is the episode. The story is a series of adventures all thematically linked somehow. There is a goal or threat, but is more nebulous. Each adventure builds into it. This is the season. The campaign what ties the story or stories together. It's the over plot, what ties it all together. This is the series. Adventures can call back on previous adventures. This is good and smart; it makes the players feel like they have agency or that their actions have weight. Remember when they were level 1 and fighting rats for the inn keeper? Well, now he's doing really good and he has invited them back to celebrate them! But other enemies they have faced in the past want revenge and are planning on crashing the party. Can the party defeat the enemies without spoiling the festivities of the innkeeper and the other people they've helped?? Stargate SG1 was great about this. How many episodes started with "Previously on Stagate SG1..."? Each episode was its own adventure (for the most part), but it built in a way that the end of the season felt satisfying and left you looking forward to the next season. And we look back on the series with fondness. Yeah, we have favorite episodes, maybe even favorite seasons. And that's a strength, not a hindrance. You can make plot adjustments far easier that way. My current campaign is that the party of members of the mercenaries guild escorting a spy (well, more of the daughter of a handler than a spy themselves) as she goes to deliver reports to various cells around the kingdom. But the agreed upon price was from 20 years ago, and inflation is a thing, so they're allowed to do side jobs along the way. Those side jobs, as well as the complications of of escorting their client, are the adventure. The quest of taking her to make all of her deliveries is the story. What's REALLY going on is the campaign. Next season/story, they'll encounter some hard truths about what was actually happening in the current one and have to make some hard decisions. Depending on those decisions, it dictates how the campaign will go from there.
I'm currently writing my first campaign for my family to play. It's a multi session story and I'm making sure to keep it as 1-2 hours a session with 1-2 combats a session. It's proving to be a lot of fun.
Agree on this, Professor DM! I always like to make sure a dungeon (or dungeon-like scenario) can be completed in 3 sessions max (I also run much shorter sessions, they tend to be only about 2 hours at most, so closer in time to some group's single session or double session).
Preach! My gaming group made the switch back in February. It feels like it did back in the day when we ran modules/adventures. Shorter is much better. We can finish one in less than a month only playing 3-4 hours once a week.
An amazing video as always! Big fan! I made a video about "Don't hold back the good stuff" and got some fair backlash as I've put it a bit differently and given a very overexaggerated example...but yes, in a nutshell, I think that the best stuff your mind came up with this week should be in front of the PCs as soon as possible, get that dopamine kicking and keep the brain happy with producing more cool stuff! That is pretty much my number one rule when prepping. The second is "no page flipping" prep for sure! It changed my prep forever! And the third should certainly be the "episodic play" that you mention here...that is how you keep the game going the longest. Don't get me wrong I do love vast tightly coupled stories...but I think if not done in an episodic manner that can really go into diminishing returns of prep time
Coming from the olden days off RPGA one-shots (pre-Living City), I still tend to break things down by 8-10 encounters per session and use a 3-Act structure per scenario as pushed by Warhammer FRP THIRD edition. I still advise people to follow that lead. The Rule of Three applies to a lot of other things too--which you have addressed in other episodes.
I played a 2e Island of Doctor Moreau adapted for 3.5... by no means was it done in one session, 3-4 at most. Adventures can be as long as they need to be. Sometimes one shots are too short, especially when you really enjoy the plot of what's going on.
When I was a teen we'd normally have 8 hour sessions every week. Once in awhile we'd do a weekend sleep over and do two 12 hour sessions in a row. I miss that. With modern attention spans and adult work schedules everything feels so rushed and ADHD these days.
Love the video, typical of your usual quality. Thanks for posting! The nostalgia was great too. I half expected to see Marlin and Jim out in the African savannah after that Mutual of Omaha line! :)
I'm a simple man -- I see Dungeon Craft, I watch it. Another fantastic addition to a catalogue of amazing videos!
Wow, thanks!
Yep, that how it goes every time. Keep up the good work @DUNGEONCRAFT1
Well said. Another great one.
Same here. I'm very fortunate to be in the middle of my third year-long campaign with the same group, but that is a RARITY and I haven't had a similar experience in a very long time outside of the last few years. Design your campaigns for your players! Colville and Professor DM are both old-schoolers and the old school is the better way.
Yes, the professor be praised!
"Don't hold back the good stuff" - yes! If you have a cool idea, throw it on the table! That session! Just go for it - you have an unlimited special effects budget ;)
I dig it. Reminds me of the "old days" of RPG talk on UA-cam where different video makers responded to each other.
Yeah, it feels great.
I hear that Ander Wood is coming back as well and I've been having tons of fun with his Within the Ring of Fire game! Sure it's not OSR and feels a little more like a classless 3.5/pathfinder but it's simple enough to understand.
My only gripe is the lack of stat blocks. There are a few but if you want creatures that are just a little weaker or stronger than the base, you have to do a lot of work.
I've run adventures that have run 30-40 minutes, 6 hours, some much longer. One that ran about 4 years meeting one day a week, 50 weeks each year (off 2 weeks each year) and each session was about 4-5 hours. So that adventure ran for perhaps 800 to 1000 total hours. This was in the 80's among friends.
Love that you included a short example adventure. I hope this video does well, because as a GM that content is so valuable; it's part of why the old adventure recaps are so great.
6:40 your notebook is a Work of Art !
and should be Envied and discussed in all DnD game rooms thru out the Realm and living rooms.
really nicely done, sir.
Thank you.
Prof DM helping me improve my DMing one episode at a time. A whole, info packed episode everytime! Just like his DnD campaign!
I love the self-contained episode approach. My players are a similar vintage and most of them grew up watching TV in the 80s. I like to have them feel they accomplished something after three hours. I think they like it, too, because they keep coming back.
I love the taunting of the Professor with the appearing text. FYI, Mutual of Omaha is misspelled.
I'll check that out. Thanks.
Oh my. I immediatly pictured the various commercials for those two things. Does that make me old...yeah, it does.
was a GREAT reference though !
I always limit a story arc to a maximum of 3 sessions or less, and if during the second session it appears that the current thread is going to extend out further than 3 sessions I start cutting content as needed to allow the adventure to wrap up on a high note.
Some cut content may end up in another adventure, and maybe the current content will lead to something else in the future, but I almost never plan anything further out, preferring to allow things to progress organically.
Letting my players make their own connections and conspiracies out of my short adventures almost always leads an engaging campaign where we all have fun.
I also tend to limit campaigns to a small area in our long running homebrew world. Rarely multiple continent spanning ones, and never world spanning.
We usually retire our parties at level 10 and begin a new campaign in another part of the world or another time frame. It has worked for our group for many years, which is really all that matters in the end.
Thanks for all the great content Professor! It helps keep my thinking fresh.
The A Team did this very well.
Defeat tthe baddie in random remote village. -
Then an overarching background threat of Colonel Decker.
Thanks for sharing.
Back when DeadLands was new, I ran the A-Team as a convention game repeatedly. It worked great!
I pity the fool who don't run a quick adventure!
I mean, there is a reason the a team got canceled; once you have seen one episode you saw them all. Once a show "jumped the shark" it was the end as the newness of the specticle was the only thing to engage the audience.
TV and ttrpgs are not the best comparison, I will admit, but that makes this an even worse idea as your TV audience can change from week to week without affecting the numbers; ie if 0% of the audience from last week comes back this week, no one cares so long as the numbers remain the same. That kind of thing generally means you started a new game if none of your players come back week 2. People would talk to their friends about that thing they did last week and get new people in without a cap as the original viewers get bored with the same old pattern and drop off. That does not typically work with a ttrpg group as it is much more intimate.
@@purplefuzzymonster17yeah, this works great for con games and one shots.
Several people in my group are fixated on the idea that campaigns absolutely must be these vast, sweeping narratives with Tolkienesque complexity. It's nice to see Prof. DM and others giving voice to the fact that episodic, serial adventures have a place at the table too.
Thanks. You'l like my Vecna video. it drops next week.
This can also apply to the realm of video games. Final Fantasy often tends towards this very strong narrative focus throughout the entire game. Sure there might be some shorter episodes here and there, but they're mostly in service to the overarching narrative. Dragon Quest on the other hand, starting from III often has a very episodic feel with generally a loose connection to the larger plot at hand, Dragon Quest VII, in my view, managed this best where each island visited felt like its own self-contained story.
This is always an interesting topic. I just ran a 1 shot over the weekend where one of the players was looking for more RP scenarios where it was mostly a combat run as they were running through a collapsing castle trying to kill a villain. It was their first entry into Crown & Skull and they understood that being a 1-shot in 2 hrs would limit those opportunities, but I struggle to maintain the momentum if there is too much RP in anything but a multi-session adventure or a campaign.
*glances at my leopard gecko in her tank*: “Why didn’t you tell me you had a cameo in this episode?! When did you get to meet the Professor in-person?!” 😄
4:57...you misspelled "Mutual".
I will admit to being old enough to remember Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom coming on NBC when I was a boy. My grandparents would watch it on Sunday nights, the NBC stations out of Joplin and Tulsa being two of the six channels they received out where they lived.
It was Deathbringer who did the editing. Do you want to tell him he can't spell?
Ah, no. I'm keen on keeping the majority of my body parts attached to the rest of my body...
The Giant series (G1-G3) led to the Descent into the Depths of the Earth series (D1-D3), and finally the Queen of the Demonweb pits (Q1) adventure, the first long running series that I recall.
Yes and I think all of those were sold separately in the beginning.
That's what I was going to say. It was published in 1980 (or so says wikipedia).
"A stand up chameleon!?" Oh, Professor ... enough with the off-color humor!
And I love all of the Dungeon Craft videos 😊
Good pun!
And he thought that joke would just blend in…
@@Corvus-fw2hr if the joke fell flat, do you suppose that would be a reptile dysfunction?
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1Switch that out for a Karma Chameleon for those edgy players who like to play evil characters. LOL
As a professor in a zookeeper college program, I approve of these reptile jokes.
I like the smaller adventures. It gives you more flexibility. You have the option to expand it if you want or make it part of something bigger. Plus it’s way easier to prep for for sure
It can be a spring board for sure.
In d4 rounds! That's VERY quick! Perhaps 4+1d6 rounds would be better. Of course, you don't tell the players. Griffin Mountain was published in 1981 and might have been the first 'sandbox' adventure sourcebook, and it had enough material to keep playing going for years.
What defines an adventure? A single trip away from a base? Defeating a single problem/foe? The characters that go on it? How long is a piece of string?
Many combats don't get to 5+ rounds, 1d4 means the odds of that actually impacting the combat are significantly higher.
ICRPG uses this Timer concept, actually telling the players that something will happen in 4 rounds keeps the pressure and the tension up. keeps them moving, and not analyzing to the nth degree or wasting time.
@@orbitalair2103 Oh as a GM I'd give plenty of clues, such as describing how the flames spread, how jars of liquids get spilled, how NPCs panic and try to get out of there etc.
Once again top notch content that makes my life as a DM easier. That is why I love all Dungeon Craft videos. Keep it up.
Glad you like them! Thanks for your support.
Very interested in this, I’ve been thinking the same lately, but struggle with ending one-shots in ‘One’ session
The struggle is real, but worth it.
Awesome episode - my favorite of the last several! Love all the content, but talking about adventures and modules is mah jam.
Glad you enjoy it! Thanks for watching!
I love all Dungeon Craft videos! I've watched this video a few times on Patreon. It is some amazing advice! I've already started plotting this way for my home game that is restarting after a few years
Another great video chocked full of great advice! You really have made my job as a DM much easier. Thank you, good sir!
Love it - The Adventure Paths from Dungeon Mag under Paizo at the end of 3rd edition also contributed to the “make your adventure 20 levels long” trend.
I came in right at the end of the premiere. So I just finished the video. Awesome insight as usual. I seem to always have a thread in my games. I love one shots and two shots as well. I am running a west marches style campaign right now and my players are so used to ongoing story threads that they are putting things together that I never would. Cheers!
Glad you enjoyed it! Cheers!
That's always cool when they unknowingly give u connections that weren't there before. Inused to ignore them for whatever I had planned but now I know better and keeps prep shorter.
I usually split adventures between "Short" adventures -- which take 1 session
"Long-ish" adventures, which take 2 or 3 sessions
and "Crawls" which is basically only a unit of measure for that I use for huge dungeons, a "Crawl" being the length it takes to go from town, to a goal, and back -- which in bigger dungeons with certain groups, might be up to 4 or 5 sessions.
Generally, though, I try to break up any multi-session adventure into smaller pieces -- I judge the overall adventure length by how long it takes from the party setting out from town towards a goal, to them arriving back in a place of relative safety to rest, recover, spend their loot, and whatever else.
So that 3-session adventure might be broken into a "Getting there in time" session "Accomplishing the goal" session , and a "getting back to town in one piece" session -- which are, essentially, each a short adventure of their own with their own encounters and complications.
Similarly, a 4-session crawl might be two sessions of just getting to the right place -- dealing with the traps and monsters along the way and stopping to interact with the dungeon's resident factions and such -- then an adventure of doing... whatever they came to do, then a one-session "getting back out alive" adventure dealing with whatever problems have come up in the path behind them or maybe having to find a whole new route back to safety.
[as a general rule -- "getting back to safety" is generally at most 1 session and includes going over downtime activities the group is doing when they make it there and some time for them to discuss what they're planning next.]
This lets me have the flexibility for longer-term adventures, while still having each session act as an adventure in it's own right, and having an upper limit of about 3 sessions keeps the amount of prep I have to do minimal (usually, for the 1st session of a long adventure; I know what that session will be, and what the ultimate goal of the adventure is, and that's it.)
But it depends on the group -- my current group tends to move at a pretty slow pace; I've had them take 2 sessions to go through an area I designed to be done in under 2 hours [and even for things I have had other groups get through in less than 2 hours]
and they still have a good time of it, and when I get bored I roll some dice to remind them random encounters exist if they sit around too long, so I don't mind running at that sort of pace.
When I was running games in University, where it was always jsut kind of a "whoever shows up at D&D time plays, once the table is full, the table is full." situation, then, I was much more strict abotu the 1 session = 1 adventure thing, because there were 14 different lplayer characters running around the same shared region of the world with 4 to 8 playing in any given session, so, everyone needed to be back in the home-base town by the end of the session so by next week any random combination of them could run off on the next one.
Personally I like the idea that as PCs get stronger threats get bigger and adventures get a little longer
If we are talking the 5e an adventure should take half the players proficiency bonus rounded up. I did like to make the final boss sessions 4 sessions with a lot of stuff like after the 2nd session they have defeated the right hand man
I loved all the videos in this series. And Professor DM added something great to it. Your encounters are over the top
Thank you.
I love your videos they're so informative and they've completely changed my DMing for the better by far and with so much less stress. Thank you!!
Good summary of the history and different schools of thought. I loved rhe Firefly RPG for the way they framed the supplied episodes as three to five acts just like episodic television, with the option to create throwbacks and call backs
Another great video, PDM. Solid content that will be useful at the table. Or in the vernacular of our time, "news you can use." 😉
I Love ALL Dungeon Craft videos! Especially ones that include adventure ideas I can steal!
Thank you Sir! I love Dungeon-Craft and love the advice don't hold back on using your best ideas. I've made the mistake of putting the goods stuff at the end of a long campaign and never getting there. Keep it short, keep it fun, keep em' comming back to the table.
I absolutely love your adventure timer, I remember you talking about it in an earlier video (in your Frankenstein adventure?) and I'm glad to see it reappear here, it's such a great device!
You've been watching for a long time. Thanks for sticking with me.
Much love to you Professor for another solid video - cheers!
I love all Dungeon Craft videos! Modules are my favourites, especially when there are follow-on modules. I don't mind bouncing around, but I do like adventures that could be connected into a long-term campaign. Good video. Thanks for this.
You're not "He's Old", just well experienced. Thanks for the wisdom of "ages"!
Three kings in the space coming together to give great advice. Love to see it.
Couldn't watch this yesterday but as soon as it came across my UA-cam feed I clicked to watch today!!! Love Dungeon Craft videos!!!
Thanks for your support!
This is super insightful! Definitely good to know how to have a simple adventure to run and keeping it tight.
"He was a stand up chameleon" A great video AND Dad jokes? You're really setting the bar high here professor!🤣Thanks for a great video!
Episode is the way to go. Life interferes player schedules and no one wants their fun canceled because the meat shield or healer can't run.
Good stuff as always! Great advice.
I love all of the dungeon craft videos!
"Dont hold back the good stuff for later" best advice for new DMs
Love the peeks into your DM notebook in your great videos professor!
I recently joined a West Marches community, which for those uninitiated basically just means DMs prepare single session adventures based on prompts from the community rather than planning out huge campaigns to run the party through which take several sessions of play.
The most important lesson I've learned being in this community is that you absolutely do not need more than a single session to tell a compelling, dramatic, and meaningful story.
Each game I've run typically comprises about 3 encounters, floating between combat, intrigue, roleplay, exploration, and cinematic sequences (Skill Challenges). And I've consistently been overwhelmed by how punchy these sessions feel, and how empowered it's made me feel in creating a super concise beginning-middle-end session/adventure design.
The major lesson for me when I go back to running "campaigns" is that I very much can consider a single session like an episode of a TV show, with an arc within that single episode, which may or may not tie into some larger plot, but which has its own dramatic tension that arises, resolves, and sets up for even more dramatic events.
Of course, given the West Marches style of playing I've been running, the expectation of downtime between adventures is explicit, so players are always highly motivated to go on the adventures to gain the resources they need to advance their own goals.
Nice! Agreed. Try to keep this in mind myself, even in larger narratives I try to compartmentalize smaller loops where definite progress is made
In the early 80's i bought G1, 2, 3 Against the Giants module for $15 when most modules were $10. It was a minimum of 15 sessions to complete it, and it lead into the D series of modules. I brought many groups through it, and players who'd done it before didn't remember it when doing it a second time. And don't get me started on Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. So much content!! Every campaign needs a few 5 room dungeons, but it's truly epic to have a 30 or 50 room encounter.
Honestly is awesome that everyone is sharing a small dungeon to try out. Thank you professor!
I would really really really love more videos on simple adventures like the ones you and Bob gave in these videos.
More to come! Check out my "Demon Tailor" video.
Fantastic episode. Very insightful!
I love ALL Dungeon Craft videos and can't wait to see them in my recommended videos queue!
Note to the Professor: UA-cam cut into your video with 25+ seconds of mandatory ads, almost in synch with you saying, "and now a word from our sponsor."
Lol. People complained about me putting ads at the start. I can't win!
The UA-cam devs are getting good at figuring out where you’re putting your own ads. I got 20 seconds of designer perfume and then about 8 seconds of some muscle head trying to neg me into following his fitness methods. In terms of predictive ad selection it’s a thumbs down, but placement within your video was almost surgical. The times they are a-changin’
Fully agreed! I write adventures for my groups as a series of one-shots for all the reasons you just laid out. Brilliantly said! Well done!
Thank you kindly!
I love all DungeonCraft videos!
Exactly. That's why so many of us, despite the obvious logical inconsistencies, loved adventures like The Keep on the Borderlands.
The videos are farkin' great! I remember running the Dragonlance saga back in 1986. I waited for all the modules to come out before giving it a go and spent a month seeing how the whole thing clicked together. It was an epic 16 month campaign. Thanks for reminding me of those wild old days.
Cool, thanks!
My preference is *slightly* toward longer spanning adventures. I run a hex crawl in Shadowdark and sometimes a session is mostly travel and the PCs meet members of the various factions along their way and either help or thwart them, shifting their relationships with those factions as they play. Once they arrive at the adventure location it might take a session or two to get through.
I'm also fond of megadungeons and in my experience players won't leave right when they've achieved the current goal that brought them there. They'll explore until they need to go back to resupply or rest. If they're continuing because they're engaged with the game world, you're doing it right.
Always appreciate the tips and suggestions. My games have come a long way, especially in how I maximize my prep time.
Glad to help! Game on!
Chapter 1 of Monte Cook’s Ptolus-themed adventure, Night of Dissolution, takes place mostly in an abandoned and haunted brothel called Pythoness House. The building has eight stories and nearly 50 rooms. It took my group six sessions to explore it all. Since we play monthly, that was half a year IRL.
It was fun, but it was such a relief to finally get out and move on that I accept all of your points about smaller modular adventures.
With one exception: I really enjoy a good cliffhanger, or the Marvel end credits scene hinting at what is to come. When the current adventure wraps up, I find it most satisfying when it leaves us teetering on the brink of the next adventure.
If everyone shows up the next time, cliffhangers are great.
Thanks Professor! Remember, whilst trapped in ‘92 you don’t have to listen to Color Me Badd; there’s R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People and U2’s Achtung Baby.
Short adventures is the way to go. Thanks for the video, Professor DM.
Glad you like them! Thanks for your support!
Another great episode of Dungeon Craft where the Professor gives us the benefit of his wisdom.
Great watch Prof DM. Long Post Warning! Danger! Last year I ran a BECMI one-shot 5 room dungeon for 3 different groups. It was totally completable in a single session. 4 hours of gameplay (although one adventure with only 5 players exploded out to 12 hours... ran over two 6 hr sessions). I put in a tonne of work making dungeon terrain from scratch and prerecording NPC dialogue to intro the quest and also for the main villain and damsel in the story. I created a town as starting location, populated with important NPCs and made about 40 pre-generated characters with art and reference cards. The party are sent on a quest into the nearby mountains to rescue and maiden elf and her brother who had been captured by goblin mine full of slaves with a drow villain boss. There are rumours the goblins have found a rare dwarven relic - the legendary Horn of Kagyar. One group was 11 players, yes 11 players who I split into two separate groups. Each party is sent on the same quest by a shifty retired master thief who is now a collector of rare magic items. The master thief sends along his trusty servant guide with one adventuring party, who is a thief himself and has secret orders to secure a treasure map which is in the possession of the goblins. Each split party were staggered and sent half a day apart. The group with the servant NPC thief/guide is sent second as the master thief is hoping the first group pathe the way for the second group to have success. A PC thief, who will lead the first 'expendable' adventuring party is given a map to the entrance of the goblin mines. So now, that each party has a guide (each with a map) to fast fwd travel to the goblin mines... they didn't know if they were the first or second party to depart until they find clues in the dungeon such as dead goblin guards. When they get to the mines, both groups of adventurers learn the goblins have captured and enslaved a number of human captives, including a gnome former employee who has earned the ire of the "Big Boss' and is now a prisoner. The gnome captive can help the party as a 'mostly reliable' guide in return for the promise of his freedom. The goblins are using human slaves to mine 'purple mushrooms' which have strange and unpredictable side effects when eaten. The slaves are fed the 'magic' mushrooms to keep them in a zombie-like trance. The villain is using the slaves to mine for a dwarven relic lost in the mines. The split party was loads of fun with both groups of adventurers losing characters to a spider trapdoor/tunnel trap that sends its victims tumbling down a shoot and into a large cage inside the dungeon room that is guarded by a giant spider. From the 11 PCs, all but 3 ended up in the dungeon room cage and the 3 remaining adventurers had to rescue their comrades which resulted in hilarious rescue scene with both parties merging inside the cage (They had met previously only briefly at the mission briefing back in the starting town but i chose to run this instro as two different briefings so they only recognised each other and didnt really interact until the cage scene. The final boss room contained a rusty crank attached to a rope holding a cage containing the elf maiden suspended between two pillars. I had made the crank mechanism with string and pulley system as part of the dungeon terrain for the adventure and it moved the cage up and down when the wheel was turned (similar to a giant fishing reel that required two STR based checks to lower the cage). The adventurers could find the back door to the boss room if they befriended/questioned the gnome captive and he might even warn them about the rolling bolder trap placed in the tunnel... or not! It was fun to run the same adventure with different groups, some had never played D&D before. The boss room contained a pit of snakes and a 6 headed hydra. If they beat them too quick I had the villain flee to a nearby secret chamber which held a medusa and a legendary dwarven relic (The Horn of Kagyar aka Horn of Blasting) that could create an earthquake triggering a deathtarp collapsing the roof of the cave on our adventurers heads if they failed to make some timely DEX escape rolls and beat a hasty retreat. The medusa could be turned into an ally by any female character who could persuade her to turn against her slave master. What was really cool is the NPC thief guide and the PC thief developed a healthy rivalry during the adventure both wanting to impress the master Thief who hired them which made for some fun role-playing in the final boss room with the NPC guide going rogue and pocketing loot instead of fighting the villain, goblin guards and pet hydra and at one point both thieves squared off in the middle of the final battle to fight each other! I perhaps should have used universal dungeon terrain for the boss room but didnt learn about it until id made the floor tiles and terrain for the full dungeon... including doors, painted floor tiles, pillars and mini's.
Currently running a large Hex crawl divided into 12 distinct regions. Each region has its own style, from very linear to very open ended and exploration based, with a variety of quests along the way. This lets the players enjoy the variety of the episodic approach and freedom of choice, while also getting the satisfaction of of seeing well built up plot lines develop. 70 sessions in and they're loving it, hoping it continues!
Dungeon Craft is still my favorite on UA-cam.
Thanks for your support!
I enjoy all of Dungeon Craft videos
As I've to my knowledge only played one series of adventures based on a campaign module our DM couldn't find when we started (involved dwarves, we ended up with our "Dwarven Trilogy"), shows you what I know about the history of D&D. I thought "Curse of Stradh" was a campaign setting and a series of adventures within that setting!
Oddly enough, when I played regularly in the 90s, any adventures that were one session only tended to be the all day one our group played around the date of Bilbo Baggins' birthday. I couldn't really tell you how long our average adventure was! Still had fun though!
I am running an extended dungeon crawl but I still base each session around this type of idea. Each game session, the party goes into the dungeon with an idea of what they want to accomplish but they may not share it with me until that day... or it might change. I prep several ideas in advance and pull out the area that the party goes into. Each area has a few monsters or traps and fits into the bigger picture. I also have side adventures prepped in case the party decides not to go in the dungeon that day.
I also keep in mind how the dungeon changes based on the party's actions from the last few sessions. This way the world (in this case the dungeon and nearby town) feels alive. things change as the players have an impact. The players also get a sense of accomplishment and can see the results of their actions.
Very cool. Thanks for sharing!
2) when I write for my regular game group, I try to plan enough material to play four hours. When I write for a convention I plan for three and a half hours of game play, allowing for a fifteen minute break at the midpoint and hopefully wrap up fifteen minutes early so players can get to their next event.
Thanks for sharing!
Great video! I love ALL of the Dungeon Craft videos.
Thanks for watching!
Another great instruction video to add to my collection. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!
Cool mini-adventure. But isntead of "exploding in 1d4 rounds", use 'Countdown Dice. (Called Duration Dice in my game as I use them for spell durations). Say 3d6. Players roll them every round. Any time a 1 comes up there is an explosion/fire spreads. Remove the die from the pool. When no dice are left it really explodes. Great way of adding tension and no one knows exactly when the event will happen.
Cool idea!
I played in a game for a year that was very episodic, and at first, I was really impressed with the DM for keeping the pacing up, and making sure each episode fit into our weekly session...
But by the end of the year, I realized that every session was the same thing:
Premise.
Skill Challenge.
Combat.
Long Rest.
So even though there was an over-arching narrative stringing things together, everything felt so Samey that we were just doing the same session over again each week...
Sounds like he rolled a 1.
I never heard of Matt Coleville before Bob World Builder's recent video, and boy his channel is awesome. Major recommend from a relatively new D&D player.
And also recommended for starting DMs! He’s one of my favorites.
That's how I've been running my OSE games. As we play each module, more of my homebrew world gets defined. It started with a place for the adventure to begin, hence "THE CITY" (City of Chandor) in the Empire of Chandor founder by...you guessed it. Emperor Chandor. A vaguely Romanesque city. I created the "Foreign Quarter" of the city and the market area, the dropped in OSE's Incandescent Grottos, I used a few nice hooks provided and jotted a few basic notes on these for a nice campaign end BBEG fight after the connected module "The Hole in the Oak". They have been working to stop the necromancer and the High Prismist work with a rogue Prismist to uncover what hapoened to the Emperor. Is he dead, is the person sitting the throne using illusionary magic to impersonate him?
Cool idea.
Tower of The Elephant inspired your random adventure in this video, lol!!! Love it!!!
I like to run games with what I call the "adventure, story, campaign" structure. And to continue the television analogy, think of it as Stargate: SG1.
An adventure should last 1-2 sessions, 3 if we're faffing about a lot, and have a clearly defined goal. It should be self-contained for the most part. This is the episode.
The story is a series of adventures all thematically linked somehow. There is a goal or threat, but is more nebulous. Each adventure builds into it. This is the season.
The campaign what ties the story or stories together. It's the over plot, what ties it all together. This is the series.
Adventures can call back on previous adventures. This is good and smart; it makes the players feel like they have agency or that their actions have weight. Remember when they were level 1 and fighting rats for the inn keeper? Well, now he's doing really good and he has invited them back to celebrate them! But other enemies they have faced in the past want revenge and are planning on crashing the party. Can the party defeat the enemies without spoiling the festivities of the innkeeper and the other people they've helped??
Stargate SG1 was great about this. How many episodes started with "Previously on Stagate SG1..."? Each episode was its own adventure (for the most part), but it built in a way that the end of the season felt satisfying and left you looking forward to the next season. And we look back on the series with fondness. Yeah, we have favorite episodes, maybe even favorite seasons. And that's a strength, not a hindrance. You can make plot adjustments far easier that way.
My current campaign is that the party of members of the mercenaries guild escorting a spy (well, more of the daughter of a handler than a spy themselves) as she goes to deliver reports to various cells around the kingdom. But the agreed upon price was from 20 years ago, and inflation is a thing, so they're allowed to do side jobs along the way. Those side jobs, as well as the complications of of escorting their client, are the adventure. The quest of taking her to make all of her deliveries is the story. What's REALLY going on is the campaign. Next season/story, they'll encounter some hard truths about what was actually happening in the current one and have to make some hard decisions. Depending on those decisions, it dictates how the campaign will go from there.
Thanks for sharing.
I love all videos created by Dungeon Craft and Professor DM.
I'm currently writing my first campaign for my family to play. It's a multi session story and I'm making sure to keep it as 1-2 hours a session with 1-2 combats a session. It's proving to be a lot of fun.
Agree on this, Professor DM! I always like to make sure a dungeon (or dungeon-like scenario) can be completed in 3 sessions max (I also run much shorter sessions, they tend to be only about 2 hours at most, so closer in time to some group's single session or double session).
About to run something similar this weekend. Love the timer!
Love the green screen lizard. Nice adventure! Definitely could run soon.
Great advice as always professor DM! Love it!
Thank you kindly!
I love all Dungeon Craft Videos. Especially the Adventure advice!
Another superb video in the record books. Thanks! I look forward to what comes next! ;)
Thank you for your support!
Preach! My gaming group made the switch back in February. It feels like it did back in the day when we ran modules/adventures. Shorter is much better. We can finish one in less than a month only playing 3-4 hours once a week.
Yes! Thanks for sharing.
I loved the tag line comments. They were hilarious! Great change professor
I love all of the Dungeon Craft videos
Thank you!
I love ALL Dungeon Craft videos!!!!
An amazing video as always! Big fan!
I made a video about "Don't hold back the good stuff" and got some fair backlash as I've put it a bit differently and given a very overexaggerated example...but yes, in a nutshell, I think that the best stuff your mind came up with this week should be in front of the PCs as soon as possible, get that dopamine kicking and keep the brain happy with producing more cool stuff!
That is pretty much my number one rule when prepping.
The second is "no page flipping" prep for sure! It changed my prep forever!
And the third should certainly be the "episodic play" that you mention here...that is how you keep the game going the longest. Don't get me wrong I do love vast tightly coupled stories...but I think if not done in an episodic manner that can really go into diminishing returns of prep time
Thank God, I was jonesing for another vid! My man!
Next week's drops on Wednesday.
Another awesome video. I love all dungeon craft videos.
For the algorithm!
Coming from the olden days off RPGA one-shots (pre-Living City), I still tend to break things down by 8-10 encounters per session and use a 3-Act structure per scenario as pushed by Warhammer FRP THIRD edition. I still advise people to follow that lead. The Rule of Three applies to a lot of other things too--which you have addressed in other episodes.
I love DM/Player advice videos! Thanks Professor!
I played a 2e Island of Doctor Moreau adapted for 3.5... by no means was it done in one session, 3-4 at most.
Adventures can be as long as they need to be. Sometimes one shots are too short, especially when you really enjoy the plot of what's going on.
It does depend.
When I was a teen we'd normally have 8 hour sessions every week. Once in awhile we'd do a weekend sleep over and do two 12 hour sessions in a row. I miss that. With modern attention spans and adult work schedules everything feels so rushed and ADHD these days.
That’s gonna be the real name of the new D&D One edition-ADHDD&D! Each adventure lasts 30 minutes or less!
Thanks for the video! I'm going back to read some Dragon Lance soon, so I always like hearing more about Hickman.
I liked the little history behind the trend. I wonder if anyone interviewed the people that did those first long adventures since then about it.
Goos question.
7:21 The pause got me pretty good.😆
Thanks for watching!
Love the video, typical of your usual quality. Thanks for posting!
The nostalgia was great too. I half expected to see Marlin and Jim out in the African savannah after that Mutual of Omaha line! :)