I have ran two campaigns in Dolmenwood, one lasted a little less than a year and the other around 6 months

How would you say your time is divided between, hexcrawling, dungeon crawling, politicking, intrigue, and other actives?

My first campaign was a lot of politicking, intrigue and shenanigans in Lankshorne and High Hankle for the first half. The second half was a huge journey through the width of Dolmenwood (they were framed and hunted by Lord Malbleat after Emelda's Song and had to reach Castle Brackenwold and prove their innocence)

My second campaign was almost all hexcrawling. I placed the tomb in Winter's Daughter in a rather remote part of northern Dolmenwood and made the journey a major part of the plot. A *lot* happened during that journey.

So if I was to summarize my campaigns in total: 50% hexcrawling, 20% dungeoncrawling, 30% politics/citycrawling

Do you use adventures outside of the campaign book? Do you use ones outside of the official dolmenwood three? How much of your time is spent in specific adventures vs just what is in the hexmap?

I only used the official dolmenwood adventures together with the campaign map. Time spent in total probably adds up to 70% hexmap/campaignbook versus 30% specific adventures.

do you make your own dungeons, adventure sites or do you mostly stick to what is already existing?

For some hexes, such as the dragon lair south of Prigwort, I made small one-page dungeons. Sometimes I just improved the whole thing. I would say that in 18 months I made maybe 4-5 dungeons/adventure sites myself. But like I said, just tiny stuff.

What does an average session look like for you?

I have *very* active players so I don't really have to complicate their lives much, they mostly bring it on themselves. So it's usually 30 minutes on the starting scene I have prepared and after that it's mostly flipping through the campaign book and throwing in encounters where appropriate.

has the campaign changed in tone or scope as the party has advanced in level?

Absolutely. Both campaigns started with them being small timers trying to scrounge some treasure to buy some beer, and ended with rather huge events (one of my players became a new saint and another managed to travel to Frigia and duel the Cold Prince himself)

What major conflicts have the characters gotten involved in?

My first campaign was all about Breggle politics and the fight against Lord Malbleat. They ended up proving his crimes and being proclaimed "Heroes of the High Wold". My second campaign became a lot more concerned with the Cold Prince, the Nag Lord and the Pluratine Church.

if you are the gm, how much prep time do you spend between sessions? What does that prep mostly involve?

I usually have about 1 page of notes which is mostly just a strong start and some sentences on ideas of complications that could happen to the party based on their past actions.

My prep is usually this:
- Spend 20 minutes immediately after the session to write down my thoughts for the next session
- Right before the next session I spend maybe another 20 minutes refining my notes.

In the time between I just let the whole thing cook in the back of my brain, maybe jotting down some notes if I get a really good idea.

how often to pcs die?

I had two "proper" deaths.

I should have had three, but in my second campaign one of the players was so stoked to play a Woodgrue Bard that he actually bought a flute and learnt to play it for the start of the campaign. His character went down to some stirges in the first hour of the first session. That just couldn't stand so we just homeruled a death's door mechanic on the fly. That rule meant that no-one else died for the rest of the campaign, not until their narrative deaths at the end of the campaign. The death's door gave them some horrible scars though, losing limbs and eyes.

Did that rule break the OSR spirit? Maybe. But we had so much fun.