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Reinforce the Theme of your D&D Campaign
by Mike on 21 November 2022
Campaigns like Wild Beyond the Witchlight, Rime of the Frostmaiden, and Descent into Avernus all have themes to them. Your homebrew campaign has a theme to it. We can best try to articulate this theme by defining it with a short phrase or even a single word. Here are some examples:
- Rime of the Frostmaiden: Isolation
- Wild Beyond the Witchlight: Whimsy
- Descent into Avernus: Redemption
You may not agree with the themes above. That's cool. Reinforce the themes you want for your campaign. Perhaps, instead of "redemption" for Descent into Avernus, you prefer "fall from grace". You get to choose.
Defining the theme of your campaign gives it focus. Every strong start, every scene, every secret or clue, every location, every NPC, every monster, every piece of treasure; every component of our prep and story reinforces this theme.
Wild Beyond the Witchlight doesn't just have bullywugs, it has bullywugs in a silly court of constant betrayal all while wearing funny hats and frocks. Descent into Avernus doesn't just have death knights, it has death knights who once were members of an angel's army and now serve her after her fall knowing how far she has fallen. Rime of the Frostmaiden doesn't just have a ruined city, it has a city trapped under the ice for thousands of years.
Here are two questions to ask yourself right now:
What is the one-word theme of your current campaign?
How do the components of your next game reinforce this theme?
More Sly Flourish Stuff
This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos including "Describe D&D Character Abilities on Leveling Up" and "lazy DM Prep for Scarlet Citadel Session 6".
Patreons of Sly Flourish got lots of cool new things this past week:
- A biography and stat block for the assassin-priest Brother Cavel for the City of Arches PDF.
- A greatly expanded section on the Worlds Beyond the Arches for the City of Arches PDF.
- A new Lazy DM Generator with random generators for all sorts of people, places, items, and worlds.
Check out the November Patreon preview in the Lazy D&D Talk Show. Patrons can find them in your Patreon rewards post.
Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:
- November Patreon Rewards
- WOTC's New Inclusivity Review
- Jaquays-Style Design for Dungeon and Overland Travel
Patreon Questions and Answers
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from the monthly Sly Flourish Patreon Q&A thread. Here are last week's questions and answers:
- Keeping Villains Alive in Combat
- Using Paper Notes for In-Person Games
- Mourning the End of a Campaign
- Deciding on a Campaign to Run
- Using Time Flies Rules from the Midgard Worldbook
- Tips for Promoting Paper Character Sheets with Players
- Scaling Up Monsters and their Stories to 11th level
D&D Tips
Each week I ponder what I learned in my last D&D game and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's D&D tips:
- Prep scenes with fantastic locations, interesting NPCs, potential secrets to unravel, and a situation to unravel.
- Expose history and narrative in small bites over the course of an adventure.
- Don’t take away magic items.
- Keep a list of potential magic items that fit the characters. Award them when it fits the situation.
- Make each magic item unique with a history and, if it makes sense, a once per day spell effect.
- Be wary putting the characters up against undefeatable foes. It’s a downward beat before it even begins.
- Dot your maps with small lairs and old ruins to explore as sidequests.
- Draw simple pointcrawl maps by hand. Be a kid again!
Related Articles
- Tying Characters to a Campaign's Theme
- Experiences Running Wild Beyond the Witchlight
- Build Cities Around the Characters
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Sly Flourish's Books
- City of Arches
- Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
- Lazy DM's Companion
- Lazy DM's Workbook
- Forge of Foes
- Fantastic Lairs
- Ruins of the Grendleroot
- Fantastic Adventures
- Fantastic Locations
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