Well, it’s only been about four weeks since I finished Curse of Strahd, and I’m already putting work into a new campaign. Truthfully, I’ve been tinkering away at this during the weeks leading up to the final CoS session. Now I have time to put some serious work into it!

I’ll be writing about my progress and process as I write this new homebrew campaign! First, let’s talk about the ideas behind it and what I need to do (and why) to playtest it with my group.

The idea

I’ve played a lot of Hades. Like, a lot. I’ve also enjoyed Crypt of the Necrodancer and a few other roguelike/roguelite games. These games feature a protagonist who explores constantly-changing levels, picking up temporary upgrades along the way. When they inevitably die, they return to a central hub area and can exchange the currency they’ve accumulated for more permanent upgrades, making future runs easier.

And, in the case of Hades, you’re always making progress in your relationships with the NPCs and finding out more about the main story, even if you fail many, many times to escape.

I really like this idea, and I want to make a D&D campaign that does that. But how?

Refining the idea

So, the shape of this campaign is going to be pretty different from, say, the open-world campaign we’ve played in, or even Curse of Strahd. My current plan for this campaign involve the following:

  • The PCs are trapped together and forced to run through the Dungeon (working title) to escape
  • Death isn’t permanent—they return to the Tavern (working title) where they can prepare for the next “run”
  • There are a set number of areas and rooms to get through, but the contents/enemies are somewhat randomized, except for special bosses at the end of each area
  • The PCs can earn buffs or special items by going through the Dungeon rooms
  • The PCs can investigate the mystery of why they are trapped and the nature of the Dungeon, which is how they can escape (and end the campaign)

Work I’ve done already

I’ve already developed these things for the campaign:

  • A broad list of monsters for each area
  • The bosses for each area and a vague idea for what the boss fights will be like
  • Part of a list of D&D magic items I’ll use as inspiration to create the buffs you can collect in each room
  • The NPCs and basic plot

I also know that we’ll try keeping a “run” to one session by imposing a time limit, and the session after that will be in the hub area to prepare for the next run. That way, we don’t spend sessions at a time in the dungeon with not much roleplay (knowing my group and I enjoy roleplay).

Why to playtest

I want my group to playtest a sort of “minimum viable” version of this “making runs” system. This is to make sure that my group will actually find the campaign fun—and to make sure that my idea of what bonuses to earn and enemies to fight isn’t busted. I know I’ll probably have to make adjustments during the actual campaign itself. But, playtesting it like this will hopefully help me catch any glaring oversights.

The other reason for this is to introduce the group to this style of campaign. Our previous campaigns and one-shots haven’t been especially combat-focused, so this will be new to us. I want to make sure my friends know what they’re getting into, essentially.

What I need to playtest

So, what does a “minimum viable” version of this look like?

I think I will need these things figured out:

  • Character creation rules (what character options should I make available? What level should people start at?)
  • Campaign intro information (or at least a draft of it) to set expectations
  • Safety tools
  • Workable drafts of three out of the five areas, including boss fights, monster encounters, and bonuses/buffs/items
  • Workable draft of the Tavern and permanent upgrades

For the random stuff (the buffs and monsters), I probably don’t need to figure all of them out, but enough to make it actually random.

Knowing me, I need a deadline—and a deadline I’ve told other people—to actually make something happen anytime soon. So I’m shooting for our group’s April “free weekend,” which used to be CoS time, to run the first session of the playtest. That’s one of the last weeks of April. That might be too soon! But I’ll do my best to have something ready by then.

I’m excited to keep working on this, and I hope my sharing of the process is helpful! This kind of campaign will take more work than usual to develop before starting, so this will be interesting. Thanks for reading!