D&D: Five Ways to Shake Up Your Next Campaign
Starting a new D&D campaign? Give it some sass with some fresh takes to mix things up. Try these ideas to add some spice.
D&D is a fantastic game, but every now and then, you need to add a little extra zest to shake things up just a little. Maybe you start everyone off at a different level. Maybe this time everyone is secretly arob ot and they don’t know it. Whatever it takes to keep everyone at the table engaged and excited. So, to that end, here are some things you can try to give your next campaign a little extra seasoning.
Start at Higher Levels
One oft he easiest things to do to shake thiings up a little is to start your campaign a little it forward on the timeline. Instead of starting heroes off at 1st level as a bunch of weirdos meeting up in a tavern for the first time, what if you started them off as a more established bunch of weirdos, meeting up in a tavern for the nth time? Simply starting at, say, level 3 does interesting things to the game.
For one, it can get players excited to play their characters even more, since they will have their subclass by then. But it also means having new things about the world. It means something to be 3rd level. And figuring out what that means for your campaign can be pretty exciting.
Genre Mashup
Another easy ingredient to add to your next D&D campaign soup is another genre. Make your next campaign horror themed. Or add some sci-fi flavor bby having someone secretly be robots. You can do this with big broad genre umbrellas, like sci-fi, horror, western, rom-com (trust me, it can so totally be done), but you can get much more weirdly specific.
A big part of what makes Dimension 20 stand out is their genre mashup abilities. Fantasy High is D&D + Teen Movie. Unsleeping City is New York + D&D; the possibilities are limitless. But you have to know the genre you’re working with. So maybe pick something you feel like you know the structure of well.
No Magic OR Oops All Wizards
Another big lever that you can pull is the “how much magic in this setting lever”. Though if you’re out there saying “I’m gonna do a low magic world” be warned—no matter how much you try, you’ll never actually succeed at it. First you’re just like “oh maybe a little magic” and then the next thing you know, there’s magic mecha and everything.
But aside from high-magic fantasy worlds, you could also do the “no magic” which is often shortened to “no arcane magic” which is then usually “player characters can’t be arcane spellcasters”—but even that kind of restriction makes for an interesting campaign. What is a world like where Wizards are outlawed? And what does that do to the ensuing party composition?
Play as the “Monsters”
You could always go the ol’ Uno Reverse Card route. Now instead of playing as adventuring heroes, you could play as a party of monsters. You don’t have to even play an evil campaign (though you certainly could). Maybe you all used to work for the same evil overlord and you quit/got fired/unionized and were let go. And now you’re out in a world, like a dragon without a dungeon.
Gods and Their Followers
Finally, there’s always the gods. Campaign worlds often are littered with religions. What if you play with the dial on those? Maybe everyone in the party is a follower of a different god, and there’s some sort of divine gamesmanship happening. Maybe everyone in the party plays as a god as well as one of the followers, so you have a PC and a god that you play as. Or maybe you play in a world without clerics, where the gods are silent.
Whichever option you choose, it’ll give your next campaign a unique spin on things.
What’s the best way you’ve ever spiced up one of your games of D&D?
