Dungeons & Dragons owes a lot of its current popularity to “actual-play” shows, where podcasters or YouTubers play the popular tabletop role-playing game for fans to enjoy. Acquisitions Incorporated, created by Penny Arcade, was a pioneer of the genre, but today the format brings one show immediately to mind: Critical Role, created by voice over artist Matt Mercer and a group of actor friends, which has evolved into a multiplatform entertainment phenomenon.
Critical Role’s popularity looms so large over the RPG scene that it has had an unexpected impact on the game: At D&D tables throughout the world, players’ expectations of what is required out of a session began to change. Mercer, who has typically run the games as Dungeon Master, and his friends are all experienced actors, and their exceptional role-playing ability is key to the show’s success. The DM’s vivid descriptions of the setting and action, coupled with how everyone at that table can bring characters to life, gave their D&D campaign the vibe of an exciting TV show where actors don’t follow a script and decisions are taken in real time. It’s fun, exciting, and immersive, and almost everyone wants to play D&D like that, including me. And that’s a problem.
Ever since I got back into D&D eight years ago after a long break, I’ve followed that model as a DM. My inspirations are more Acquisitions Incorporated and the defunct Dice, Camera, Action, but the premise is the same: D&D is a collaborative storytelling game, and my goal as a DM is to tell a great story along with my players, emphasizing role-playing, plot, and character development. I’ve run three full campaigns with that style, and it’s been a blast. My biggest satisfaction as a DM is to watch the emotion and excitement of a player when they witness their character and the backstory they created blossom into a real story that they get to share and live at the table. However, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that this style is not necessarily sustainable forever. Or to be blunt: There is more to D&D than that.
Photo: Critical Role
After hitting pause on my homebrew campaign to take a break and gather more ideas for the setting, I’ve recently started a new published campaign, Out of the Abyss, which I approached in the same way as ever. I asked players to create a backstory for their characters, which I would then weave into the overall plot. I found this to be a good way to “customize” published campaigns, making these pre-established settings feel more personal for players. After the first few sessions, however, I realized that something was off, and it wasn’t the players’ fault. It was mine.
I was not doing my part. I was not putting the same amount of creative energy and effort into telling this D&D story as I did in the past. I was burned out, and not by the game, but by my style of play. It may sound obvious, but playing a narrative-focused D&D game requires a lot of effort from the DM. For things like combat and exploration, you rely on hard data: tables, stat blocks, maps. You’re more of a coordinator than a director. A referee — a terminology that many TTRPG still use today. However, when you are juggling plot threads, NPCs, and role-playing intensely with your players, you use a different, and larger, set of skills, mostly sustained by improv — which is why actors excel at it. It’s an amazing experience, but it’s also demanding and, most importantly, hard to sustain for a long time.
Surely, you can always play a D&D adventure or campaign that is focused on the more traditional aspects of the game, but I would argue that this is not exactly true, or easy to do. One of the reasons why the storytelling aspect of D&D has become so prominent in recent years is that the rules for 5e seem to have been custom-made for that style. D&D 5e has a very loose set of rules, which encourages DMs to use their judgment and encourages flexibility, as represented by the catch-all “advantage or disadvantage” rule. It’s not an edition made for dungeon crawling fanatics, to be sure. For that play style, you’d be better off playing one of the many “Old School Renaissance” games, such as Dungeon Crawl Classics, which harken back to the early days of D&D in the 1970s to deliver an experience that cares little about role-playing and narrative (but, of course, you can still insert those elements in these games.)
Image: Goodman Games
Variety is the spice of life, so taking a break from D&D to try a different game can be refreshing and let you come back to your narrative games with new energy. Still, that may not be necessary. The great thing about D&D, and what allowed it to survive and thrive for 50 years, is that you can play the game however you want. The player base loves to fight and be split over every minor difference, but the truth is that different is good. Just like an ideal D&D session should have a bit of exploration, a bit of combat, and a bit of role-playing, a campaign can (and should) also contain all these elements, in different dosages to fit your mood and needs. If you are tired of thinking of the next great plot twist to surprise your players with, or to find a specific voice for Goblin Henchman No. 4, why not spice things up with a couple of sessions of good old dungeon crawling? And trust me, this can be anything but dull and unimaginitive.
As the excellent content creator Bob World Builder explains in this video, there is so much that can go into building a dungeon; enough to make the simple acts of exploring, finding treasure, and killing monsters into an actual story. A basic question like “How do the monsters in this dungeon get food and water?” can spark an entire session of engaging role-play. It’s true that 5e rules are not the most suited for this, but you can always pull inspirations, tables, and other tools from other games (Dungeon Crawl Classics and Shadowdark are perfect for this,) or compensate with some solid prep work. Sure, the result may not be like that time Joe Manganiello stole the Hand of Vecna from under Vox Machina’s nose, but it will still be engaging and immersive for players.
Playing narrative-focused D&D campaigns has been one of the best experiences in my life. However, I have realized that focusing only on that aspect can be a mistake in the long run. Bringing in different elements of the game will make sure that things stay fresh for both me and my players. I will always remember the moment when the Paladin in my previous campaign finally let go of his vow of vengeance and his hatred, renouncing a witch’s offer to resurrect the man who killed his family, whom he had pursued for two years only to find him dead, in exchange for the life of one of his party members. However, now I can’t wait to see my players struggling to navigate a deadly tomb in the Underdark, careful of each step they take, calculating how many rations they have left, trying to understand why the oozes in the tunnels are not behaving as they usually do. At least, oozes don’t speak, so I won’t have to come up with another funny voice.
