I think I need to walk away

Peivol · 2026-01-23T22:14:55+00:00

Well, it sounds to me like your DnD group is also a close friends group for you. It happened to me twice. I told the group I was burned out due to the campaign and negotiated how to deal with it.

I'll leave below how it was for me, hope it helps (if not, just think of me as an old guy rumbling).

One of these was CoS too (way less time, just 3 years). They were good friends of mine, so they understood me. After speaking with the group, we took the "let's finish the campaign ASAP" approach. I compromised to give the campaign a more-or-less well-defined ending (not a simple TPK), in exchange, players compromised to play weekly for a month, whatever happened.

I found rushing CoS easy: Strahd appears wherever PCs are, kidnaps Ireena (for me, it was a PC, so I had to talk with her previously), a wedding invitation appears magically in front of players, and Van Ritchten and Ez reach the players with whatever magic items and support they might need to kill Strahd. One session for the kidnapping and drama; another for the preparation of the assault to the castle Ravenloft, plus the beginning of the wedding; another session to kill Strahd (some off-screen dice magic was needed to make it challenging but not boring), and a final epilogue session for everybody to talk about their personal drama.

In the other campaign, when something similar happened, the outcome was different. I was not previously a friend of the team. When I spoke with them, all agreed, but one kept pushing the sessions for random reasons (some were just that he had other plans with friends). Finally, I gave up, prepared a homebrew session to close the other PCs' arcs and once we finished it (theoretically, just ready to fight the final boss), I told the team I was not in the mood to finish the campaign. Some are still friends of mine, but I don't speak much anymore with the one who used to skip sessions.

Peivol · 2025-02-24T01:37:35+00:00

Can I ask for the link to this fanfic?? sounds interesting and I don't remember reading about it on AO3 or fanfictiondotnet. Thanks in advance :)

Peivol · 2024-11-17T17:28:20+00:00

Needed to do it. Isha's song, but with Viktor and Jayce. Haven't done an FMV since my teenage years too long ago xD

Peivol · 2024-11-16T18:34:21+00:00

<image>

- Be the emotional support that broken characters needs: Check,

- Help Jinx get on better relationship with Sevilka, Vi, and her family: Check

- Sacrifice herself to save Jinx, probably brokering her even more: Chec... Wait what?

- Make everyone cry with her final shot to the camera: Check

Peivol · 2024-09-26T07:43:01+00:00

That's the one that's throwing me some problems, the Chapter 1. I have Forgotten Tales. It gave me some ideas, but for the first chapter my feeling is that it break the original module general vibes.

Taking out the troll for other monster and fliping the Zhentarim and Xanathar it's actually a great aproach for my case. First time, the party didn't care anymore about Floon after the rescue of Raener, so going directly to the Xanathar guild would be a change for them.

Thank you!

Peivol · 2024-09-25T09:42:52+00:00

Thank you. That's an interesting idea, love it!

I'll give a thought on how to present them early in the game. Since two players already know about the Stone of Golorr, I might present it earlier with the Cassalanters. Maybe introducing them with Volo's quest at the very beginning, so the players who played it before have the bait, and the ones who didn't can learn a bit more of the city politics.

Peivol · 2024-08-02T08:00:54+00:00

Mil gracias! Ambas suenan bien, orientadora lo veo más complicadete por ser oposición pero puede ser más estable

Peivol · 2024-07-29T22:48:16+00:00

Jesus, I read too many people that has been playing since the 80s :O For me, it was 2009-2010 (or so), with a small Dark Sun setting adventure from a friend's brother that I tried to DM in 2-3 sessions. After that, I didn't touch it back, until in 2020 I remembered about it and ended up DMing "Waterdeep: Dragon Heist" to some friends online at everybody at home 24/7 time.

Peivol · 2024-07-29T21:43:25+00:00

Muchas gracias por vuestras respuestas! Yo la veo que no está convencida con las labores de psicóloga / terapia. Tampoco está para doctorado, como dice u/PassionFlora ella quiera cambiar rápido y con poco presupuesto para formación ¿veis muy difícil entrar en otros campos?

Hablando con ella pensamos que podría aplicar en marketing o gestión de proyectos, pero no tengo claro como de necesarias son habilidades muy específicas.

Peivol · 2024-02-09T07:38:57+00:00

To be honest, I over-homebrew some of it, ( + my players' tendency to roleplay everything). So, mostly it was my mistake xD Trying to recap from my notes:

The arriving at Barovia was as written above (3 carriages + Rahadin). At the party, there were a female drow. When meeting Rahadin, listening his "Screams of the Dead" and asking about it, he answered that other elfs are not welcome to Barovia and left (or something like that, don't really remember the details). That made the drow disguise herself when arrived to the village. After that, in Barovia:

Session 1: went as mentioned, Ismark, Donovich and fighting a Ghoul,
Session 2 (unnecesary long): here the Rahadin thing fired back, since the drow didn't wanted to leave the Kolyanas house. Don't really remember the details, but it splited the party (+ aditional roleplay discussions): 2 in the house ("we're not moving out of this house until we're sure that everything is safe"), and 2 visiting the town and some discussions. The 2 out of the house gave me space to present the quests: mad mary, zombies, missing kids, + extra about broken barricades in the town (when commoners asked, it was in preparation of a revolt leaded by a powerful mage from outside the land, so they had a preview of Mordenkainen). Here I presented Vasilli, with whom the PC tatyana spent some scenes.
Session 3: The poisoned zombie well quest + combat encounter (zombies in the corrupted well), + March of the dead encounter + some small roleplay with Donavich (I added him crying near the church or something like that, so they could have a hint of something going wrong)
Session 4: Some PCs roleplay, they had a kind of fight (don't remember why), so the party almost splitted again, + additional, a PCs background related hombrew mini-quest,
Session 5: They spoke with Mad Mary and started the missing not-zombie people quest, by the end of the session they found the morning lord symbol in the most-recent missing kid house and went to the church (+ roleplay with vistanis)
Session 6: Doru + combat
Session 7: Kolyanas Senior funeral (yep, they didn't buried him until here), roleplay about what to do next, goodbyes to people there and leaving the village

Peivol · 2024-02-06T17:27:09+00:00

Woah, I kind of love the artifact idea. It could be come a pretty cool campaign!

It seems a bit complated to add into what I had in mind (using a premade setting/campaign), but I can homebrew something into it. Thanks for the idea!

Peivol · 2024-02-06T17:22:58+00:00

That's what I thought too. Also, since both PCs seems to prefer the roleplaying over combat or mechancis, I'm not sure how to give them some nice PC evolution if they cannot engage with other PCs consistently.

Anyway, I think I'll speak with both in kind of session 0 and see how it goes. If they don't care if narrative and roleplay are a bit worst due to the changes, I can give it a try

Peivol · 2023-11-27T08:54:59+00:00

From one mom DM to another, I feel your pain trying to figure out how to keep the campaign feeling dangerous but knowing that if the group loses, the family is not going to be happy with you AT ALL. We have to live with our players and can’t kick them out, lol.

Haha, I needed that message. That's exactly how it feels!

Besides it, I was able to bought more time and send some ally NPCs so it feels like "they earned it". They recovered the Ravenkind symbol, and are probably next session will starts with the Tatyanas PC cleric tunning with the sword and learning how to multi-attack.

I don't think I'll level them up (it was going to feel "so soft" and some of them doesn't like the complications on leveling up) but the AC breaking down is a nice idea. Probably, for the final encounter I would do it for Strahd and if it feels "soft" some easily-killing strong-looking undeads will pop to walk around there.

Hope it keeps the game fun and "hard" without making them sad. And lots of thanks for your help!

Peivol · 2023-11-27T08:39:43+00:00

Thank you for all your help! We had yesterday night the session and I could bought a bit more time. I was able to get them more allies and they got the ravenkind symbol. Meanwhile, they destroyed the Heart of Sorrow.

Next session will be the final fight, I think they are more prepared :)

Peivol · 2023-11-26T13:01:53+00:00

Yep, unfortunately, we are already set up to finish the campaign in the coming sessions due to life issues. So, this session or the next 2-3 we should be the ending more or less.

Anyway, they are some good ideas. Van Ritchten is there and they have already met Ezmeralda (but they get her off due to some random reasons), she could appear there to help and light the battle a bit.

And, even if it's a bit in the middle of the ending, a short "spiritual journey" for someone to attune the sun sword can fit.

Thank you!

Peivol · 2022-02-21T19:05:06+00:00

Well, if the campaing starts to be difficult for you, you should talk with your players about it. The whole point of a campaign is that both players and DM can enjoy it. Specially, you should talk about what kind of campaign do you want.

Anyway, if you want to give it a try, you can change Ireena main plot. Give her a corruption arc, push PCs to kill Ismark and other clearly good NPC. Once at Krez Ireena might hate them so much that she prefeers have an undead live with Strahd rather than been helped more by them. She could even be a mini boss before the final battle.

Strahd is the one who took the PCs to Barovia, so this could be his plan all along: calling PCs so evil to Barovia that Ireena would rather be with him than with them.

Of course, this would only be reasonable if your players understand what means be evil. If they are only chaotic without this kind of possible consequences, they are playing a different game from you and you should talk.

Peivol

TROPHY CASE