How to Move a Stalled RPG Campaign Forward

At some point, every DM sees their party get lost in the woods … or the weeds … or the brothels … Whatever the specific distraction, it’s easy to get caught up in the session-to-session filler content and see the game grind to a slog of travel encounters or petty larcenies or extended haggling sessions that bore everyone at the table.How do you get the party back on track and involved with the big, bad plotline? How do you make it epic again if the game’s gotten a bit mundane? How do you link the little adventures into the big adventures, so you have a campaign that’s truly worthy of legend? How do you get the party out of the weeds and back on the path to adventure?In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about how they link elements together to let the PCs explore the town or woods, but still keep them engaging with the big epic content heroes are made of. They’ll also talk about some of their favorite things to do in a campaign and their DMing trademarks.For more basics about how to build an adventure, check out: Adventure Time: 15 Tips to Build and DM Great Adventures3:00 A new DM gets lost in Wildemount, and how we’d try to find our way out9:00 How do you progress the party from low-level missions to epic adventures?14:00 How the player characters and party dynamic can shift where the campaign is heading17:00 “You’re meddling in affairs you do not understand!” Using lower-level enemies to yank the party into the BBEG’s plans23:00 “You need other things in there.” The value of one-shots, side quests and “palate cleansers”26:00 Protagonist-driven (party) vs. antagonist-driven (BBEG) plotlines30:00 Our favorite ways to hook the party on an adventure plot32:00 Is Strahd’s schtick too stuck in the 80s?35:00 When PCs don’t reveal their key backstories, secrets and potentially important plot points38:00 Creating adventures that lead into more adventures43:00 Completing PC quests and backstories encourages protagonist-driven plot development49:00 Our trademark DM moves55:00 Things that annoy us as players that we’re trying to learn from as DMs65:00 Final thoughts