S. & B. ask:

In the Dragon Heist Remix, what should I do if the PCs head to the Brandath Crypts and find the secret door leading to the vault doors early? My players found the references to the Cassalanters being interested in the Brandath Crypts at the converted windmill, went to check it out, and found the secret door. If they find the Vault this way, couldn’t they figure out how to open it without ever getting the Stone of Golorr and skip straight to the end of the campaign?

Converted Windmill → Crypt isn’t even the speed run of Dragon Heist. My players jumped directly from “the Zhentarim are interested in his mom’s necklace” → “we should check out his mom’s crypt” before they’d even gone to Trollskull Manor. They actually missed the check to find the secret passage in Lady Alethea’s Crypt by one point.

This created a huge payoff when they came back to the crypt at the end of the campaign: “Wait… we were standing right on top of it?!”

One thing you may notice is that the Brandath Crypts in the Alexandrian Remix of Dragon Heist are much more elaborate than those in the original adventure.

Here’s the original map:

And the revised map:

This is partly for lore reasons (demonstrating the long history of the Brandaths), but also because it places the Vault under ablative shielding. The PCs will

• Need to figure out the Crypt is involved.
• Need to find the secret door.
• Once through the secret door, find the opened secret compartment from which the Cassalanters took the Eye. (This is a red herring that can cause groups to stop looking, particularly if they come from the converted windmill: “Oh. This is where they found what they came here for.”)
• Need to find the second hidden passage behind the illusion.
• Need to figure out how to open the Vault. (Without direct access to a legend lore spell through the Stone of Golorr, so they’ll either need to call in a favor or get clever.)

You know how you use the Three Clue Rule to create robust connections? This is basically the exact opposite of that: We’re deliberately designing a chain of fragile connections, with the high expectation that at least one of these chains will break, turning the PCs away (but also rewarding them later with the cool, “We were so close!” reveal).

Okay, but what if the chain doesn’t break, the PCs do all of those things, and they get into the Vault “early”?

100% let it happen. And then play to find out.

First, your players are going to think this is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to them at the gaming table. I guarantee it. Plus, they’re going to trust you implicitly as a GM for the rest of eternity. On top of that, just think about the story they’re going to have to tell other D&D players?

In my opinion, even if you had to throw out the rest of the campaign, it would still be worth it.

It’ll be like my players telling the story of how they beat the Tomb of Horrors by casting locate object on their stolen stuff, drilling a hole through the wall, and using gaseous form to loot the treasury. Except on steroids.

If you’ve ever wanted to run a campaign that your player will remember forever, this is how you do it. My wife still talks about another campaign where she convinced the rest of her group to unexpectedly double back, confront the secret villainess, and completely derailed the Epic Quest™ the PCs were supposed to be embarking on.

But also, if you’re running the Dragon Heist Remix, you won’t have to throw out the rest of the campaign, because, second, the rest of the campaign is still in motion.

One of the great things about prepping situations instead of plots and then actively playing those situations is that, even when those situations go in a completely unexpected direction… you can just keep playing.

You’ve found the money. What do you do with it? How do you get it out of the Vault? These questions are often trivialized at the end of a Dragon Heist campaign because the PCs have taken some factions off the board and made alliances with others. But if they breach the vault early, all of these factions will still be fully active and likely mysterious to the PCs.

To take an easy example, the Cassalanters still need this money to save their kids. Just because the money isn’t in the Vault any more doesn’t mean that the Cassalanters aren’t still going to be trying to get their hands on it.

The Stone of Golorr is still in play. Even if the Stone is no longer required to find Neverember’s stolen money, it’s still a pretty big deal in its own right. It’s a powerful artifact filled with secrets and capable of incredible things. Most or all of the people who were looking for it will still be looking for it!

In other words, the Grand Game is still very much in play. And there can be some absolutely fascinating stuff that comes out of the PCs suddenly being flush with a small fortune while still pursuing the Stone of Golorr:

• How does their wealth change their relationship with the various factions?
• What resources can they purchase to further their goals?
• If they use the money for unrelated purchases, what are the consequences?

Flow with what’s happening and keep actively playing the situation. The Remix gives you the tools you need to keep reacting and keep playing.

In “How the Remix Works,” for example, there’s a simple checklist for the GM to follow as a default option:

1. Are the PCs looking for a lead to one of the Eyes? If yes, pick a Faction Outpost and point them at it.

2. Did the PCs just piss off one of the Factions? If yes, pick a Faction Response Team and have them target the PCs.

3. Are the PCs floundering and don’t know what to do next? If yes, pick a Faction Response Team and have them targe the PCs. (If you’re not sure how they might target the PCs, just have them show up and try to kill them.)

Repeat until the campaign is done.

What’s notable is that even with a huge curveball like “they opened the Vault at the beginning of the campaign,” this checklist still just… works.

Here’s a few key questions to think about, though:

• Who knows that the PCs have the money / know the location of the Vault? (This includes both “friendly” and villainous factions.)
• What do they do about that? (Try to steal it? Ask for a donation? Recommend that they return it to the city government?)
• As the PCs spend the money, what happens as a result of their purchases?

The other thing to think about is how the instigating action / scenario hook for the Grand Game might shift as a result of the PCs’ altered trajectory.

In the campaign as written, the assumption is that the PCs are known for rescuing Renaer and are also known to operate out of Trollskull Manor. Therefore, Dalakhar goes looking for them at Trollskull Manor and gets blown up in the fireball.

If the PCs are instead known to have somehow gotten access to the Vault, then maybe Dalakhar is actually coming to Trollskull Manor with a message from Neverember about the money. The message could actually be found on his body after the explosion. (This could result in Neverember being more directly active in the Grand Game, an option we’ve previously discussed.)

You might also have one or more factions (e.g., the Gralhunds) assume that if the PCs got access to the Vault, it must mean that they have the Stone of Golorr! Maybe the PCs find themselves under nimblewright surveillance! Maybe Emmek Frewn and his wererats get recruited to help keep tabs on them.

If you were running a prepped plot, then the PCs skipping to the end would break all your prep. But the Dragon Heist Remix reorganized the plot into a toybox. The Vault and the treasure inside it are positioned as a natural goal for the campaign, but they’re ultimately still positioned as toys: If the PCs pull them out and starting playing with them a little “early,” it doesn’t stop you – or them! – from continuing to play with all of the other toys!

Go to Ask the Alexandrian #1

Go to Part 1

How quickly can you complete a run of the Dragon Heist remix?

This is a question I get asked fairly frequently.

Personally, I like this campaign a lot, and I don’t recommend rushing it. One of the things that makes it special is how the PCs can become entwined in the fabric of the city — invested in Trollskull and its community; linked to friendly factions; becoming the nemeses of other factions. Weaving a campaign like that, though, takes time. You have to give yourself (and your players) the space to explore all of those threads. If you rush it, those connections will never get formed and will never have a chance to grow and interact with each other.

But, of course, there’s all kinds of reasons why you might need to speed things up: Maybe you want to run it for a D&D summer camp and you only have a limited amount of time. Or you’re midway through the campaign, a player is moving away, and you’d like to wrap things up before they leave.

Whatever the case may be, how can you make sure you reach the finish line before you run out of time?

HOW LONG IS THE REMIX?

Let’s start by establishing some baselines.

When I ran Dragon Heist, the campaign lasted for twenty-two sessions. Several of these sessions, however, were 8-hour marathons. Looking at my recordings, it appears that it took us approximately 120 hours to complete the campaign (as described in Dragon Heist: The Final Session), which would translate to roughly thirty 4-hour sessions.

I’ve talked with a number of DMs running the remix campaign, however, and its length can vary quite a bit: The longest I know of ran a 300-hour version of the campaign (with a lot of extra material). Most seem to cluster between 80 and 150 hours.

One of the biggest variables seems to be Chapter 2: From the time they get Trollskull Manor from Volo to the point where the fireball goes off and the next phase of the campaign begins is a very sandbox-y period. The PCs are repairing their inn, interacting with the NPCs of Trollskull Alley, meeting faction reps, dealing with Emmet Frewn, and going on faction missions. The number and detail of the faction missions, in particular, can vary a lot depending on how much interest the PCs have in the factions and how much effort the DM puts into the missions. The PCs might also be following up on questions they have from Chapter 1 (possibly getting a jump start on the Grand Game), and it’s also not unusual for DMs to add brand new adventures (like The Lady of Trollskull Priory, Blue Alley, The Veiled Society, or something of their own creation) here.

As a result, groups can easily spend dozens of hours in Chapter 2. I know of one group who spent over a year of biweekly sessions on just this one section of the campaign. (Personally, my group spent 20 hours here.)

On the other hand, it’s also quite trivial to speed run Chapter 2: You can skim past or even completely cut a lot of stuff here without fundamentally sabotaging the rest of the campaign. (The players will likely feel less connected to the city and the PCs will have fewer resources to call upon during the Grand Game, but these aren’t crippling problems.) I know of several groups who have rescued Floon & Renaer in one session and then triggered the fireball just one or two sessions later.

The other major variable, of course, is the heists. Each heist itself generally takes less than four hours and can be wrapped up in a single session, but you also need to consider the set-up (i.e., as described in Part 7 of the Remix, tracking faction activity to faction outposts, following the leads from the faction outposts back to the faction lairs, and planning the heist).

In practice, it looks like each heist will take 10-15 hours of playing time (including the heist itself). This generally won’t be sequential, though — i.e., 15 hours on one heist and then 15 hours on the next heist. Instead, the investigations and interactions with the various factions will weave around each other.

Although slightly different in form, this timeline also seems to roughly apply to the Gralhund Raid (with the setup time being spent on the fireball investigation). In practice, this might be a little quicker, but it’s close enough for our purposes.

Wrapping things up, Chapter 1 took my group about 5 hours to complete and the finale of the campaign after the PCs have reassembled the Stone of Golorr — i.e., breaching the vault, getting the gold, and then dealing with whatever the aftermath of getting the gold is — seems to take another 5-10 hours.

To sum that up with a conservative estimate:

• Chapter 1: 5 hours
• Chapter 2: 20 hours
• Gralhund Raid: 15 hours
• Heists: 15 hours x 4 heists
• The Vault: 10 hours

To this, you’ll probably want to add another 10-20 hours of miscellaneous activities. (In my campaign, that included a romance subplot, setting up an orphanage, and running additional faction missions after Chapter 2, among other things.)

So our baseline running time for the Dragon Heist remix is roughly 120 hours, or 30 four-hour sessions.

DRAGON HEIST: THE FAST VERSION

Now, let’s speed things up. For this discussion I’m going to refer to 4-hour sessions, but the advice should hold regardless (e.g., if you have 2-hour sessions, then when I say something should take one session, it should take you two sessions).

Chapter 1: Set a tight pace here to make sure you wrap this chapter up in a single session. To make this happen, you probably want to be exiting the Yawning Portal no later than the 45-minute mark in your first session. (You may need to skip the troll fight to make this happen.)

In this version of the campaign, the PCs will only be aligned with a single friendly faction. Pre-select that faction and use them as the contact who hooks the group up with Volo.

Chapter 2: You’ll also want to wrap this chapter up in a single session. For me, that probably looks like this:

• Hello urchins! (In the scene where the PCs arrive at Trollskull for the first time, introduce the urchins.)
• This Old Tavern (Establish a budget for repairs, then have one or two roleplaying interactions with guilds and/or people they’re trying to borrow money from. This will create a personal investment in Trollskull Manor.)
• Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It. (Have the friendly faction reconnect with the PCs and give them a single simple faction mission. This mission should be resolved in one scene.)
• Opening night! (Establish some of the neighborhood personalities.)
• Fireball! (End the session on a cliffhanger.)

Miscellaneous Activities: Eliminate as much of this stuff as possible. After Chapter 2, I’d recommend bringing in just one additional faction mission. Keep the Trollskull-related roleplaying to a minimum. If the PCs are getting distracted by non-essential activities, try to frame hard, resolve it quickly/decisively, and redirect them away from it.

Heists: Try to keep the faction investigations as tight as possible. Frame aggressively and don’t let the players dither too much in their planning. If they’re in any way confused or suffering analysis paralysis, bring in a faction response team with a bunch of explicit clues in their pockets. You don’t need to pare things down to the bone here; just keep it tight.

Vault Keys: For the finale, eliminate the vault keys. Once the PCs know where the Vault is, they can just go there and enter.

Doing all of this should result in a campaign that looks more like this:

• Chapter 1: 4 hours
• Chapter 2: 4 hours
• Gralhund Raid: 12 hours
• Heists: 12.5 hours x 4 heists
• The Vault: 5 hours
• Miscellaneous: 5 hours (including post-Vault epilogue)

So we can run a fast version of the Dragon Heist remix in roughly 80 hours, or 20 four-hour sessions.

DRAGON HEIST: THE SPEED RUN

But that’s not good enough! Suzie just got a new job in a different country and we need to wrap things up ASAP!

This is the point where we’re going to make some very deep cuts and even fundamentally alter the dynamic of the campaign.

Fast Version: Start, of course, by implementing everything from the fast version of the campaign described above.

Goodbye Gralhunds: We’re going to get rid of the Gralhunds by replacing them with the Cassalanters.

• The nimblewright who triggers the fireball belongs to the Cassalanters. (Which means, of course, that the fireball investigation leads directly to the Cassalanters.)
• The Cassalanters have the Stone + an Eye.
• To keep things simple, I recommend just having the Cassalanters live in the Gralhund Villa and using the Gralhund Raid as described in the Remix.
• I recommend simplifying things even further: The Cassalanters are not Asmodean cultists. (Whether you use the Gralhund Villa or Cassalanter Villa maps, this lets you eliminate the Asmodean temple. Their faction outposts will also not come into play in this version of the campaign.)
• You can still have the Cassalanters try to sell the PCs a sob story about their kids as their reason for doing all this. If you’ve decided that they’re not cultists themselves, then this is even more straightforward: Their kids really WERE cursed by cultists (or maybe it’s a legacy from an ancestor) and this is the only way the Cassalanters can save them.

Fast Heists: To speed up the heists as much as possible, we’re going to run each heist in a single session. This means that we need to eliminate the faction investigations and most or all of the groundwork. We have a couple options for this.

First, we can give the Cassalanters have much more actionable and comprehensive intelligence about the Grand Game: They know that Xanathar has one Eye and Manshoon the other. They also have blueprints and locations for both lairs.

The PCs can now go directly from the Cassalanter Raid to performing the other two heists back-to-back.

If the PCs miss the Cassalanters’ Grand Game report (and, therefore, all this heist-related intelligence they need), you can backstop this by having a friendly faction — e.g., Force Grey — sweep the Cassalanter Villa after the raid, discover the intel, and then bring it to the PCs.

Alternatively, you can use the PCs’ friendly faction to frame up these heists as faction mission assignments. I prefer the Cassalanter intel solution because it keeps the players in the driver’s seat of the campaign, but if all else fails having someone show up and say, “We know you’re looking for the Eyes, and we think we’ve identified the location for one of them…” will certainly cut to the chase.

Option – Simultaneous Heist: You could speed things up even more by having an allied faction do one of the two final Eye heists at the same time the PCs are doing the other. This could be the Cassalanters, if the PCs have decided to help them, or it should be whatever friendly faction the PCs have allied with.

Option — The Final Eye: Eliminate the final Eye Heist entirely by having the faction holding the Eye come to the PCs with the Eye to negotiate. They can make whatever offer seems reasonable and makes sense given the circumstances.

Whatever the offer may be, either:

• The PCs cut a deal, the Stone is reunited, and everybody heads to the Vault.
• The PCs double-cross the enemy faction and take the Eye without a heist.
• The NPCs try to double-cross the PCs, and then the PCs take the Eye after righteously thrashing the double-crossing knaves.

Mix-and-Match: You do not, of course, have to use all of these options at the same time. Depending on just how breakneck you need the pace to be, you can mix-and-match whichever options make the most sense.

If you were to use all of these options, however, your campaign would likely look something like this:

• Chapter 1: 4 hours
• Chapter 2: 4 hours
• Gralhund/Cassalanter Raid: 10 hours
• Optional – Sea Maidens Heist: 4 hours
• Eye Heist: 4 hours (including simultaneous heist or Final Eye negotiation)
• The Vault: 4 hours
• Miscellaneous: 2 hours

This gives you a lightning-fast 32 hour version of the Dragon Heist remix, which can be played in 8 four-hour sessions.

TRANSITIONING MID-CAMPAIGN

If you’re midway through a run of the Dragon Heist remix, there are any number of reasons why you might need to transition to a high-speed wrap-up. The options above should give you the tools to figure out how best to tighten things up and focus on what’s essential for a satisfying conclusion, but a lot of the specifics will depend on exactly what’s going on in your campaign.

For example, if you’re in the middle of Chapter 2, then it’s probably best to trigger the fireball at the beginning of your next session and then chart a course from there.

On the other hand, if you’re in the middle of the Eye heists and now running out of time, you might be best served considering an option like having a friendly faction run one of the remaining heists for the PCs. Or put a twist on that idea by having whichever faction the PCs are targeting next carry out a successful heist on one of the OTHER factions, resulting in them having two Eyes onsite when the PCs arrive.

Whatever form your campaign takes, I hope it has an epic conclusion for you and your players!

SPOILERS FOR DRAGON HEIST

Matu67 asks:

I’m running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (Alexandrian remix), and I’m wondering: How do you improvise sources of information?

For example, a faction knows that character X did Y, but the DM hasn’t written down the reason why the faction knows this. When the players ask the faction, “How did you come across this piece of info?”, what do I say as the DM?

In Dragon Heist, for example, the Cassalanters know that Dalakhar was carrying the Stone of Golorr, and the DM is encouraged to give this information to the PCs if the PCs ally with them. Then the PCs ask, “Hey, Cassalanters, how do you know that?” And then I freeze up.

We can start here by getting down to the most basic ontology of the question:

How do we know things?

In this case, how does a faction in an RPG scenario — like the Cassalanters — know stuff? Where does that information come from?

Well, broadly speaking, they will have agents. (In an espionage campaign like Dragon Heist these might be literal secret agents, but generally we just mean anyone who’s a member of the faction or working with the faction.) For a faction to “know” something, it means that these agents will have either witnessed it directly or they’ll have learned the information from someone who did.

For example, “How do you know the Potenska Apocrypha can be found in the Ebon Library?”

Either someone saw the book in the Ebon Library themselves, or they’ve spoken to a scholar / read a reference to the Apocrypha in another book / cast a commune spell and been informed by the gods that the book is there.

To forge that connection, start with: Who definitely knows about the thing you’re trying to source?

For example, who knows that Dalakhar has the Stone of Golorr? Well, Dalakhar, obviously. But also, since he stole the Stone from Xanathar, members of Xanathar’s gang would know.

Who knows that the Potenska Papers are in the Ebon Library? Well… librarians, right? And probably other scholars who have seen it there? (To this general list, you could potentially also add any specific NPCs who you know have visited the Ebon Library.)

At this point, you have two options for creating the data trail.

First: If it’s possible the agents could have directly witnessed the information, then problem solved. You’re done. (e.g., “When I visited the Ebon Library, I saw the Potenska Papers in their collection.”)

You can flesh this out by providing an explanation for why they were there. (e.g., “When I was at the Ebon Library researching a summoning ritual for Demogorgon, I saw the Potenska Papers in their collection.”) The great thing is that, in an espionage scenario, you can almost always default to “…because they were spying on them” as the explanation. (e.g., “Our spy in Xanathar’s hideout was there because they were spying on Xanathar.”)

Second: If agents couldn’t have directly witnessed the information, then you just need to connect the agents to the people who do.

In some cases, it will be easier – or more fun! – if you imagine this happening in multiple steps. (For example, X talked to Y and the conversation was overheard by Z. Or the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence intercepted communication between a US Senator and the Lytekkas Corporation, which was scooped up from a vulnerable server during a Mossad operation, and we grabbed it from them because we’ve got a worm installed in their Tel Aviv data center.)

But you don’t usually need to over-complicate it. A single step is usually more than enough.

For example, “We have an informant in Xanathar’s gang, and he was sent out as part of a team to find Dalakhar and retrieve the Stone.” Or, “One of our agents intercepted written orders that were sent to Xanatharian agents to be on the look out for Dalakhar and to retrieve the Stone he carried.” Or, “I hired a Sage of Orthoria to research the Potenska Papers, and they found a reference to a copy that was given to the Ebon Library.”

If the players want to dig even deeper – e.g., “Who is this agent?” – an espionage campaign usually gives you the luxury of waving them off. (“Their identity is confidential. I’m sure you can understand that revealing it could potentially put them in danger.”)  On the other hand, there’s often no harm in satisfying their curiosity: If you know who the agent is, great If not, then it’s time to reach for your list of NPC names and spin somebody up.

This may also be a good point to figure out why the players are so insistent about digging into this data trail. (This is a slightly hidden case of making sure you know the intention of an action before resolving the action.) For example, maybe they want to question the Cassalanters’ informant; or maybe they just want to make sure they don’t accidentally kill them when they raid Xanathar’s hideout. Maybe the reason they want access to the original Tel Aviv intercept is because they want to run a data analysis and see if they can identify the location of the IP address the message was originally sent from.

Once you know what they’re actually looking for, it becomes a lot easier to aim your improv.

The way to do this, of course, is to simply ask them!

You might be able to do that in character – for example, the Cassalanters ask them why it’s so important for them to know the identity of their informant. But, as the GM, you can also just ask the players directly what their goal is.

Go to Ask the Alexandrian #13

Go to Part 1

In my Dragon Heist campaign, the PCs ended up adopting the orphans. (Something which I have rather good reason to suspect is far from uncommon.) They also decided that they would, of course, have to make arrangements for their proper education, and so they began arranging apprenticeships and tutors for them.

JENKS wanted to become a cook. (He’d already been hanging out with the cooks the PCs had hired for Trollskull Manor and had been helping out in the kitchen.) His apprenticeship in my campaign was rather bespoke, as the PCs had acquired Frewn’s Brews (after driving Emmet Frewn out of town), converted it into a bakery, and made arrangements with the Baker’s Guild to sponsor an apprentice cook who was ready to become her own master. Thus was born Amara’s Bakery, and it was quite natural for Jenks to be apprenticed there.

NAT wanted to learn magic. Eltorchul Academy was an arcane academy founded by the Eltorchul family. (Detailed in the 3rd Edition City of Splendors sourcebook.) The current headmaster is Ambrulavage and Nat was placed under the immediate attention of Miss Ferolie.

SQUIDDLY, inspired by the party’s ranger, wanted to become an archer. He was apprenticed to the Fellowship of Bowyers and Fletchers. The guildmaster is Javan Riautar and Squiddly was apprenticed to Master Kennadr.

TUTORS

In addition to their apprenticeships, the PCs also arranged for additional tutors. I had four tutors respond to their advertisement, and the PCs ended up hiring several of them.

NALOLIR is a podrikey — a dwarven mining construct with the brain and spinal column of a kobold inside it. Nalolir escaped from Undermountain a hundred years go and now focuses on teaching history. He speaks with a somewhat robotic voice, but moves with a gentleness and precision somewhat belied by the sheer mass of metal being propelled.

FIREDROP is a pixie philosopher. She teaches the three philosophers — natural (the properties of the physical universe), moral (the study of sentient thought and ideology), and metaphysical (lore of the arcane and extraplanar). Physically, she is effervescent, always in flight and flitting here and there. Her speech is erudite, while also reflecting the endless, bubbling font of curiosity which is constantly driving her.

STARAI is a kenku scholar. His teaching method is extremely Socratic, almost ceaselessly echoing speech as a reflected question.

ETHLANDO is an elven scholar who was once a magi. Tragically, he suffered a curse which stripped his magic from him. (He does not hide his history as an arcanist or the curse which afflicts him, but he does not speak of why or how he came to be cursed.) His owl familiar, Bulbuena, remains loyal and is rarely far from his side.

I’m not sure how much general use these tutors might see, but I had mentioned them in a live chat and a number of patrons reached out to ask if I would share my notes on them. As you can see, they were not given an abundance of detail: The PCs’ arrangements for their adopted kids’ education were happening towards the end of the campaign, and even the ones they ended up hiring did not have much time for development.

You might consider calling upon them for any occasion where you might have need of a scholar.

SPOILERS FOR DRAGON HEIST

A.M. asks:

One of my players is going to be leaving my Dragon Heist remix campaign soon. It’s currently five days before Trollskull Manor’s grand opening and two days before the fireball. We have two more sessions with her, and I have another player lined up to replace her when she leaves, but I’m not sure if it’d be better to pad things out a bit so the new player is part of the group when the fireball goes off; or breeze through and have the fireball with the old player still there.

There are three things I would consider here:

1. Is there any way that I can give the departing player a satisfying send-off?
2. How am I going to hook the new player in?
3. Is there any reason the new player can’t join before the old player leaves? (Which immediately alleviates any sequencing woes that might interfere with the best answers for #1 and #2.)

For the send-off, I’m looking for some kind of conclusion. Some dramatic note that allows this specific player to feel like their experience in the campaign is “complete.” This is, of course, good for the player leaving, but I think it’s also important for the other players, because it provides a sense of closure.

Generally speaking, this is going to boil down to either a major milestone in the campaign or it’s going to be about resolving a personal goal. In either case, though, you want to focus on what you know about the specific player: What stuff do they seem to care most about in the campaign?

MILESTONES

In terms of a milestone, for example, you’re in a somewhat awkward point of the Dragon Heist campaign where one set of objectives has been completed, but the next phase of the campaign hasn’t really kicked off.

If there’s not a natural milestone sitting right there, however, then sometimes you can fast-track a milestone. For example, if you think the nimblewright investigation could get wrapped up in a couple sessions (including the Gralhund raid), then you might fast-track the fireball and have it go off immediately. Discovering the culprits (Gralhunds) and recovering the Stone (albeit not its Eyes) might be a nice, satisfying milestone.

Alternatively, maybe this player seems to be really invested in Trollskull Manor. If so, focusing on the grand opening as their big conclusion might be the milestone you need. This might actually mean slowing down the milestone (so it arrives at the right time), possibly by adding an additional complication in the form of a mini-scenario to put extra weight on it. In the case of Dragon Heist, the campaign conveniently provides the machinations of Frewn, a business competitor, to disrupt the opening of Trollskull Manor: Maybe you’ve already resolved that in your campaign, but if not you can compress that down into the next couple sessions and have Frewn (and his wererats) go in HARD on screwing up the opening. Thwarting Frewn and celebrating a big, glorious opening day might be a great final session for this player.

Random Tip: In my Dragon Heist run, the players actually put together a menu for Trollskull Manor by having each PC name one food. Then one of the players actually made that menu for dinner one night. You could do something similar, creating a real world feast and celebration to mirror the one in your game.)

PERSONAL GOALS

In terms of personal goals, of course, this depends entirely on the specific PC in question. But it largely boils down to identifying the most important personal goal and wrapping it up.

• Are they seeking revenge on their father’s killer? Oh, look! There’s the six-fingered man now!
• Are they trying to raise money to raise their dead wife from the dead? Insert a mini-scenario that gives them access to a magic item that lets them do that. (If you want to run hard, simultaneously frame things up so that they’re faced with a dilemma: Do they raise their dead wife? Or the orphan killed in the fireball?)
• They wanted to become a teacher at the House of Wonder? Renaer arranges for them to get a position.

You may also be able to combine personal goals and milestones. For example, Renaer surprises them with the position at the House of Wonder during the grand-opening of Trollskull. Or it turns out Lord Gralhund was their father’s killer.

If you’re scratching your head over this or uncertain about what you should do, you can always unleash your GMing superpower by turning to the player and asking, “Hey. Is there anything you really want to get done before leaving the campaign?”

HOOKING THE NEW PLAYER

When it comes to hooking the new player, I discuss this in more detail here.

In most cases, even if you screw this up completely, the metagame will paper over the gaping cracks: Everybody knows this is Peter’s new character, so they will just kind of “naturally” accept him as part of the group. But it is, in fact, this kind of “go with the flow” tendency which, for me, makes it even more important to not have it be that simple; to have the new addition to the group make sense in character.

In terms of the existing player’s send-off, this is mostly significant if sequencing is a problem – i.e., the original player needs to leave before the new player can join, but it would be better or easier to bring the new player in before the milestone that would provide a satisfactory conclusion to the original player.

In these cases, I would almost always tip things in favor of the original player. It’s much more important, in my opinion, to make sure they get a proper send-off; they’ll be plenty of time for the new player to have rewarding experiences in your game.

If possible, though, I’d try to overlap the players. It can, in my experience, make the transition feel much more natural. The only reasons to avoid that would be either interpersonal issues (maybe the original player would be angry playing with the new player for some reason) or if the time dedicated to bringing in the new PC would make it difficult to drive the campaign towards the original player’s big send-off.

Go to Ask the Alexandrian #11