Dungeon Delve: Ending

This week was the conclusion of my first mini-series campaign, the Dungeon Delve has arrived. It was both my first real dungeon crawl and my first Tier 2 campaign that I’ve run in Dungeons and Dragons (of any edition). I had fun running the game though mistakes were made during the game, and I also fell into some well-known traps.

Not A Clear Story:

I didn’t do a good enough breaking the story before the game, and anchoring it back to the characters. I had a rough outline that I wanted to do a quest adventure where the two heroes are drafted into helping a group retrieve an artifact though I didn’t tie that quest too much into the heroes.

NPC Allies:

I had several NPC allies and this slowed down the game. I didn’t do a good enough job running them or making them feel like a coherent part of the story.

Encounter Balance:

I am not great at balancing encounters or running exciting combats. I love the story and the fiction, though my encounters will often fall flat. Also, my end boss encounter ended rather abruptly due to some poor initiative rolls, and then also the “big boss” going down due to some lucky shots. It was poorly designed, and I think I rushed what should have been the final set piece to the game.

I am planning to run another short mini-campaign as a more standard urban adventure after this one, and I have some ideas on how that can go more smoothly.