From my experience: if you are DMing a game, don’t be afraid to accelerate the pacing faster than what you think the system recommends. Part of what kills interest in a game is if the players feel like they aren’t making progress and nothing is happening week to week.
Do milestone levels, give a level after each “chapter” of your game, and have a chapter take 2, 3 sessions max.
Our group did a two-part Microscope-like after a “season” of 14 sessions to wrap up a ton of loose ends and set up the next season. It was super satisfying to zoom in on only what the players wanted to see and resolve.
Our first session of January is going to be another Microscope session too, we’ve got a giant pointcrawl to backtrack and see the fallout of our action or inaction.
As DM, here’s my advice: when starting a new campaign/table, and you’re recruiting your players, be very upfront about a set schedule. “We will meet every Friday night at 9pm provided I have between three and six available players. Anyone joining this table should have this time available on a regular basis to be considered.” And you’ll get through a few years without issues before people’s lives change their schedules too much.
I’ve played 2 campaigns that went from 1 to 20, both became a chore late game just trying to keep track of all the items and threads. IMO, a game should stay bound to 2 tiers at most (the tiers being 1-4, 5-10, 11-16, and 17-20), going from peasant to world ender is just too much baggage. Maybe 3 tiers if you do want a complex and difficult to manage, but still possible to manage end game.
Extra credit here being that you are a shit load more likely to actually complete the story you want to tell
I’ve actually had this except it was 1.5 years and not 4. Great great times with some fucking insane people… I mean one of them was a halfling who was missing his legs so two brooms were strapped to the bottom of his stumps like a set of skis, giving him 0 walk speed but 25 flight speed. The rest of them were not much better.
Holly shit, that’s badass
I’ve been a lurker for years and I’ve wanted to get started but it seems like a lot to learn on top of finding 3 others that have already learned or are willing to learn all of it
It’s not actually that much to learn when you realize that the core rules are pretty simple, and all of the rules are pretty much just suggestions to help you wing it.
I’ve brought players into my games before who know literally nothing about it and they just figure it out on the fly.
DMing is a little more demanding, but it’s the same deal: You just need to know the basics, and then you mostly wing it.
D&D is hard. Sure the core of it is straight forward but then things start to add up. It is a game that wants you to care about minutia. How far travelled, distance between two points, the height of dungeons ceilings, how long passed since that spell was cast, how much you ate yesterday. And it wants you to arbitrate spell interactions, players weird schemes and prepare a lot of stuff. Also it wants you to actually run the narrative. Some love this difficulty, find the intricacies challenging and desire to master it all.
The good news is that the behemoth of D&D isn’t alone out there. Really lots of good stuff can be found. First problem is knowing what one want to find. Second is finding others that have similar taste to you. But it is doable and a good thing to do is ask for help. Because if it is something we like here it is to talk about ttrpgs. Getting us to shut up… better ask santa for a dragon.
I got to level 17 before my friend group dissolved.
Silver
That little girl be actin’ hella sus
I’ve been on one campaign for Like 4 years and we’re level… 10? it’s the DM and 5 players, initially 4
