Campaign Writeup: The Eight Arms and the Conqueror Worm

I recently concluded the second campaign in the Eight Arms universe, The Eight Arms and the Conqueror Worm. It’s part of my continuing effort to design a D&D super-adventure by building a setting organically through a series of campaigns (basically, a campaign setting that fixes everything wrong with campaign settings). This one was special in that it only lasted five sessions, which is the shortest campaign I’ve run and the second-shortest campaign I’ve heard of. The Eight Arms send a small contingent of their greatest craftsmen to investigate some disappearances in the dwarven capital. Their investigation leads them to a tiefling instructing some demons and duergar in building a war machine with the intent of attacking the city.

Here’s what I learned from running this campaign:

• Again, I have a hard time remembering that I’m running campaigns for grown-ups now, though in a different way. I’m used to a world where “adult behavior in a campaign” means “roll a Constitution check, snicker under your breath”. But now I know people who are able to handle that kind of thing, and I feel like I missed some opportunities to give them the campaign they wanted.
• Short campaigns are hard, because there’s less leeway if something explodes. In a normal campaign, there’s so much wiggle room that it’s fine if the players get stuck on a puzzle, go the wrong way in a dungeon, or (and I’m just pulling an example out of space here) spend four hours of at-the-table time investigating an empty warehouse. Similarly, if players accidentally or intentionally jump a few steps ahead in a plot, there’s plenty of time to complicate things. In a campaign that has to go from start to end in only thirty hours (minus time for faffing about and getting the technology to work), there’s a tighter leash on pacing.
• Nobody much likes dwarves at all, except for the people who love them. I guess I already knew this, but it’s worth remembering.

Given the option, here’s what I would change:

• I would have explained the concept of “non-fight combats”, a combat-based, initiative-paced version of 4th Edition’s skill challenges (note to self, find a better term for that). Players who aren’t used to thinking outside of the box, using skills in combat, or dealing with problems in a way besides attack rolls tend to shut down when attack rolls don’t work. I could have saved us all a few rounds by explaining what a skill challenge was beforehand.
• I would have named the succubus. I kind of didn’t expect her to be a running NPC or for the players to name her themselves. Now I’m stuck with a demon named Pepper.
• I would have updated the wiki more. Perhaps not between sessions, but there should have been more information available to players when the campaign started, or ideally during character creation.

I’m happy about this campaign, both on its own and in the context of the world in general. The characters could end up being a small forward party, dealing with small issues or exploring the wilds while the high-level characters rub their faces against problems at home. Now we can burn two cities to the ground at once, which is dramatically more efficient.