Ultimate Guide to Episodic Campaigns in DnD and Other TTRPGs

It’s for those that want to have your cake and eat it too…

Most online discussions are either about West Marches, traditional campaigns, or one-shots, but not so much about my personal favorite, the Episodic Campaign. I think it’s the superior campaign format, and the best one for most tables actually. So it’s a shame that we see so little discussion about it.

What are episodic campaigns in DnD and TTRPGs in general?

Take almost any tv-show from the 90s or early 2000s, the cast is the same in every episode, but the plot is different and has little to do with last episode’s plot. Those are the core components of episodic content in general. For TTRPGs this means you prep one session at a time, and prep in such a way that whatever you prepped, resolves during that session. You leave minimal lose ends, and present minimal ongoing plots. The goal is for each session to be self containing, but still connected to the whole.

In Friends, the Ross and Rachel relationship is an overarching plot that runs over the entire series, but they only touch on it every now and then, and there are usually 3-4 episodes about completely different things between each episode that focuses more on the Ross & Rachel thing. The same is true for How i Met Your Mother. We all want to know how Ted meets the mother of his children, but 99% of the episodes are about random shenanigans the gang has. Other notable example of exactly the same thing: Penny and Leonard in The Big Bang Theory as well as Jim and Pam in The Office.

This is what episodic campaigns are.

In a TTRPG this can take the form of a persistent world, where the player characters have a home base in a major city. From there they go on different adventures each session. It’s beneficial to add an overarching narrative on top of it all, like the (Ross & Rachel relationship), but it’s not needed for it to work.

Pros of episodic campaigns

• Easier scheduling – The major benefit of episodic play is that you can have players dropping in and out of your campaign from week to week. They won’t have to join every session to keep track of what’s going on, because each episode is self contained. But they will recognize overarching and recurring details
• Easier prep – There is a clear formula for prepping a session, sort of a checklist you want to complete
• Easy to get started – You don’t need to build a whole world and populate it with interesting NPCs and magnificent locations. Episodic campaigns are by far the easiest ones to get started with, because you only have to prepare the first session to get going
• No need to write an elaborate story – A rough idea on an overarching threat is more than enough to fuel a year of episodic play

Cons of episodic campaigns

• Less re-usable assets – You will most often have to prepare an entire self-contained adventure each session. So you will rarely get to use your assets multiple times, like random encounter lists, NPCs and so on.

How to prep an episodic campaign

From a campaign perspective you can get by with the bare minimum, meaning a settlement that serves as the home base, and that’s it, you don’t need any more campaign-level prep. You don’t need any persistent components, no elaborate NPCs, no Big Bad Evil Guy and no lore. Remember, just prep one session at a time.

The easiest campaign premise is: “The PCs are members of an adventuring guild, and go on new adventures each week“. That’s it, you really don’t need more exposition than that.

With that said, the game will of course be better the more persistent elements you add. Some things I recommend you add:

• An overarching narrative – The PCs can be members of the adventuring guild, but at the same time the civilized lands of men are threatened by mysterious necromancer across the mountains, who’s gathering up ancient relics to fuel his undead army. Now some of the episodic sessions can be about retrieving these artifacts before the necromancer finds them. A simple but effective setup that adds recurring themes and NPCs.
• Recurring friendly NPCs – Something that can be fun is two NPCs with conflicting goals, but that both want to hire the PCs to go on adventures. Who do they help? What does that lead to down the line. The simplest setup could be a Runesmith and an Antiquarian. They both want the PCs to fetch the same rare materials on their journeys, and depending on which one the PCs choose to help they “unlock” new services and items to buy in preparations of their next adventure.
• A world map – Mapping out the region you will be playing in will help your players visualize the world, and it will help you as the GM come up with new and cool adventure locations. But you shouldn’t map it out in detail, just terrain and a handful of major points of interest is more than enough. You will add the rest as you go, each new episodic session can add one or two new points of interest, that’s sort of the whole idea of the episodic setup.

How to prep an episodic session?

While campaign prep is super simple, session prep requires a bit more. Your goal is to come up with a scenario that can be resolved in one session. Having an idea of an overarching threat surely helps here, but you don’t have to stick to it, remember how Friends, The Office, Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother works, some episodes are about the recurring “story” but most of them are just about random fun stuff.

So think of a cool scenario you would like to run, and prep that. Feel like hunting goblins this week? Good, the adventure guild just got a request from a merchant guild about stopping the goblins raiding their trade caravans in the Silverpine forest two days travel to the east.

To make sure you’ve got the components you need to run a smooth session I recommend including the following:

1. Scenario overview – Write a few sentences about the scenario, this will help you answer any questions the players might have
2. A map – A simple sketch of the region that the scenario takes place in enough, just something to help you visualize things more clearly
3. Three critical NPCs – Tie them to the scenario and flesh them out with; Goal, Fear and Quirk, or just use our NPC generator
4. At least 4 Interesting locations – A village in the Silverpine forest, the goblin’s cave, a mysterious lake and why not a tavern with a rat problem? The classics are classics for a reason
5. A dungeon – Again, the classics work. One of the four locations above should be your dungeon, if you feel you need it, draw a map or just write the room descriptions and play entirely in theatre of the mind
6. A bestiary – It can be as simple as just noting their page in the monster manual, or creating brand new ones, but make sure you’ve decided on what foes to include, and where to find their stats
7. Random list of names – This is one of those things that seem small, but man can it break the immersion when you can’t think of a suitable name for that blacksmith or goblin leader… Always always always include a random list of names you can roll on, for every session, trust me, it’s worth it
8. Treasure – Prepare treasure beforehand, improvising good magic items is near impossible, so spend a few minutes and prepare, or check out our lists of Fire themed magic items, Lightning themed magic items, Frost themed magic items for some inspiration.

If you’ve prepped these things, you’re good to go, chances that you’ll be caught of guard are very slim.

How to run an episodic campaign

Here we see the biggest benefit to the format, because you’ll have almost no recurring things to keep track of. In order to run an episodic campaign you just have to worry about the next session. If you feel like tying it to the overarching scenario, do so, but you don’t have to. If you’ve had a rough week at work it’s totally fine to just prep a scenario about hunting a gryphon terrorizing sheep herders north of the city. Nothing fancy, but it will be a great session, I promise.

Pitfalls and risks

Sticking to this format means minimal overhead, minimal risks and maximum flexibility, but there are a few things to look out for, to ensure long-term success:

1. Power creep – Episodic play is optimal for groups that can’t really get together everyone each session. Someone’s always missing out due to life coming in the way, and that’s fine. But you do have to be mindful of the power growth during the campaign, and you want to keep it as flat as possible. Because if one player joins the first session, and then again the fifth session, you don’t want them to be completely behind everyone else. So either pick a rules system that is built with a horizontal power progression, like Adventurous, or think of a way to balance it out
2. Too light on recurring elements – It’s a format built for maximum flexibility and minimum reliance on “long-term plot”, but not having any of that can make it feel a bit boring for the players. So try to include at least some connection to an overarching scenario or theme every third of fourth session

Episodic campaigns are great for new GMs

As mentioned above, episodic campaigns are easy to get started with. You don’t need a giant plot. You don’t need to architect a West Marches sandbox. You just prep one adventure. Run it. Watch what the players latch onto. Then build the next adventure around that energy.

Session by session, you slowly grow the home base or whatever settlement the PCs return to. Add details when you have time. Let the world take shape naturally. No overarching story needed, all that can emerge later as the players explore and make choices.

For the first session, all you need is one exciting, self-contained adventure. The campaign grows from there.

Simple starter seeds for your episodic campaign

Here are a few basic but effective seeds for your first adventure in a new episodic campaign. They are generic enough to be able to connect to anything you might want to cook up for future sessions, but still specific enough get your imagination going.

1. Bandits have kidnapped a noble’s daughter, they are rumored to have a hideout in the dark forest to the north
2. Undead have been seen at an old graveyard just one day’s travel from town
3. A strange mist have been sweeping down from the mountains in the west
4. A troll has moved into an old windmill, and is snatching cows from the nearby fields

Example modules suitable for episodic campaigns

Our three modules, The Serpent Cult, The Crimson Monastery and The Slithering River are all great examples of content you can drop into an episodic campaign and run straight away. They can fit in any fantasy world and won’t interfere with any overarching narrative you want to explore.

Closing thoughts

There are many campaign formats, and for some reason the episodic campaign seems neglected. I guess West Marches is all the buzz right now, and that all the big actual play streamers focus on heavily scripted “traditional campaigns”. So that’s why I put together this guide, to bring it into the light, because it is, without a doubt, the most efficient and GM-friendly campaign format out there.

Episodic campaigns require the least amount of work, and most importantly, the least amount of long-term planning. You just need to worry about the next session, nothing else, and you don’t even have to worry about how it connects to previous or future sessions, it’s isolated, episodic. And if you want to add persistent elements, you have infinite opportunity to do so, but you don’t have to, and that’s why it’s the best campaign format for both new GMs and veteran GMs that want less work and more fun.

Looking for a GM-friendly system?

Being a GM is tough, that’s why we’ve designed Adventurous to be Easy to Learn, Easy to Play and Easy to Run, every aspect of the game is built to make your job as the GM as easy as possible. Adventurous is actively supported with multiple expansions and official adventure modules, each one fitting perfectly in an episodic campaign!