A weekend of D&D

If we can arrange it, playing D&D with friends for an entire weekend can be an extraordinary gaming experience. Here’s the main takeaways from my weekend of running D&D for 16 hours:

• Run four adventures, one in each tier of play.
• Choose whether to run homebrew or published setting and adventures.
• Create a recurring cast of NPCs.
• Adapt to the events of the mini-campaign in between sessions.
• Let months or years of downtime pass between adventures.
• Shower the characters in magic items.

Let’s dive into each of these, beginning with the overall format.

Homebrew or published?

When we prepare for a weekend of D&D, the first decision we have to make is this: homebrew or published? Do we run published adventures or make our own? Do we set them in a published world, or make our own? This decision matrix represents the options we have:

All Homebrew

In this format, we make everything up from scratch. This can be the most time-intensive method but also potentially the most rewarding setup for a weekend of D&D. We can create a unique setting for the four adventures and build everything around the characters: setting and adventures.

We can even do this together with the players in preparation for the weekend of D&D. Geography, politics, religion, and myth can all develop in a conversation between us, the DM, and the players. Whether via text or in person, this way, every participant of the weekend of D&D is invested in the world and the characters from the start. We create all of it together!

Published Adventures

If we don’t want to also prepare four adventures from the ground up, we can run published adventures and adapt them to the custom world we create for the weekend of D&D. We can take plots, maps, NPCs, and monsters and adapt them to our homebrew world.

Or, we simply run a an arc of published adventures in a published setting if we want to keep preparation light. This can also help players engage with the world if it’s a setting they have previously played in.

I have taken this approach previously with my adventure path Veragon’s Doom.

Homebrew Adventures in a Published Setting

Finally, we can take a published setting, have the players build characters for that setting, and then come up with custom adventures built around the characters, set in a published world.

This approach combines the expertise of published settings with the flexibility of creating our own adventures in these worlds. We can take all of the lore of the Forgotten Realms as inspiration, and then craft four unique adventures in this world for our weekend of D&D.

Creating the adventures ourselves, allows us to craft a tight-knit adventure path centered around the characters. Setting the adventures in a published world gives us access to fantastic inspirational material to tie these adventures to a larger fantasy.

A recurring cast of NPCs

Playing for 16 hours with characters levelling from 4th to 20th level can be confusing. To tie the adventures together, give the characters more investment in the story, and provide narrative anchors for the players, we can create a small cast of recurring NPCs. During the first-tier adventure, we can introduce these NPCs, let characters interact with them, and take note of the developing relationships.

One of these NPCs might become the group patron of the party. For example, the first-tier adventure might feature a grand gala where the party aligns with the rebel leader of the world by stealing something for the rebellion from the noble guests of the gala. Then, in the other three adventures, the rebel leader becomes a central figure giving quests to the party who must decide how long they’re willing to side with the rebels.

Keeping the cast of NPCs small (around five NPCs) allows us to create a tight-knit story together with the players. Villains, allies and independent faction leaders become the cast of our 16-hour epic. Why a small cast of NPCs for 16 hours? Even in a 16-hour narrative, like the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy (extended version), we can’t keep up with ten new characters every four hours.

Keep the world small, it will make for a more coherent narrative during our weekend of D&D.

Adapt in between adventures

We can’t play 16 hours in one session. At least I can’t. That’s why we run four sessions of four hours each. An additional benefit is that we have breaks in between adventures. This time allows us to adapt the next adventure to the events of the previous one. The characters have stolen an artefact from the ruling noble family during the grand gala? Well now we can add a group of vengeful knights as an additional complication to the next adventure. Perhaps in the final battle of that adventure, the knights show up, demanding the characters hand over the artefact or the knights will side with the villain.

Breaks in between adventures give us a chance to weave the narrative of our weekend of D&D even tighter together. We can adapt the upcoming adventure to the events of the previous one.

Months and years of downtime

A weekend of D&D is a lot of playtime. But for the 16 hours to truly feel like a campaign, we need to give the characters space to develop. By letting months, or, better yet, years of downtime pass in between adventures, we give space for character development that might happen over many weekly sessions in a long campaign.

For example, letting three to four years pass after the first adventure gives us in-world time for a character to develop a romantic relationship with the rebel leader, or to build a reputation as a pirate captain, or to rise through the ranks of the church. These developments create rich character backgrounds which will make the experience of a weekend of D&D feel like an epic story of heroic characters living dramatic lives.

Let years of downtime pass in between adventures and ask the players what their characters are doing in the time to create the feeling of an epic campaign in one weekend of D&D.

Lots of magic items

It’s a one-shot. Give the characters a vorpal sword, a staff of power, and a ring of invisibility. Usually, these kinds of items (or just too many magic items) can create an unbalanced game experience. But who cares about balance in a one-shot?

A weekend of D&D is a lot of playtime, but it’s also over after the weekend. So we can give the characters loads of magic items early on without worrying too much about them becoming too powerful too fast.

In any adventure, give out magic items appropriate for the next tier of play. Because characters will level up multiple levels in between adventures, we need to give them more powerful magic items than usual in each adventure. The loot the characters receive at the end of one adventure should be meaningful for the tier of play of the next adventure. So at level 4, we can give the characters +2 weapons because these are appropriate for an 8th-level party. In the next adventure, the now 8th-level characters have magic items from the previous adventure which match their current tier of play.

Try it out!

The weekend of D&D I had recently was fantastic. In every sense of the word. We had a weekend away from everyday life, we created an epic story of adventure, and we shared a few wonderful days together as friends.

Give it a shot! You might have to schedule this kind of multi-day event weeks or months in advance. But then you have all that time to build a unique world together with the players, and prepare for an unforgettable D&D experience.