Good tips in here.
I’m running a campaign right now that’s very episodic and I’m starting to feel like I’m just running five room dungeons over and over. This will help me spice things up.
Nothing wrong with a five room dungeon, just remember that sometimes a “room” can be more than one room. A “room” can even be a five room dungeon unto itself. Also be sure to create loops, branches, and dead ends. One of the best things to discover in dungeons is when there are multiple ways of traversing them
I’m trying to keep the actual “rooms” from becoming too formulaic, it’s the episodic part that’s got me a little worried. I want my players to control the story but they’re being sent on away missions so I’m worried they feel like they’re just checking boxes:
- get to know the locals
- find the reason they’re there
- gather info
- find/kill the X but, oh no/yay, here comes Y
- repercussions for finding/killing (or not) the X
- possibly stay and party with the ewoks for a while
- head home
Of course, the missions they go on are not happening in a vacuum and affect other missions and the overall story and they choose the missions.
That sounds to me like the standard rinse-and-repeat for most D&D-style TTRPGs. Are your players complaining?
