One of the goals of the D&D Adventurers League is to make being a Dungeon Master (DM) easy. We provide a story and all the needed monster statistics. All a DM needs to do is follow the directions and go. However, the Admins have been considering feedback from the community on how we might improve our adventures to be even easier to run. In future seasons, here are a few changes you will be seeing.

A common challenge in running any organized play adventure is portraying Non-Player Characters consistently, when a player might play with any number of other Dungeon Masters. We are expanding the role-playing information for important NPCs to give the DM more tips and tricks on how to portray them, along with more details of their motivations and plans, so the DM is better prepared for what is to come. This should help busy DMs make their portrayals more consistent for NPCs that players may see several times.

In upcoming seasons, the admins plan to insert additional advice, tips and tricks on employing important game elements. These callouts will help new DMs learn uncommonly used rules and shine a light on new ideas for how to use these rules items in creative and entertaining ways. These sidebars can help any DM improve their skill set and cut down on the time it might take to look up rules.

Some of our DMs have been asking about ways to tailor the D&D Adventurers League adventures to their players while still offering a shared experience with other DMs and players throughout the campaign. That is not always easy with our staggered release schedule, where even the DM might not know what is happening next. While we already offer suggestions for adjusting the difficulty of an adventure based party strength and size, we also want to give DMs more information about which NPCs and locations appear in future adventures and why. The DM will know which NPCs or locations might require special handling when the DM tailors the adventure to the actions of their players.

This information will help the DM adjust and customize the story to a given table even more, while still making sure all the important story beats are covered and plot related NPCs and locations continue on for future adventures. An angry adventurer wants to kill the town mayor? If the DM knows the mayor is a key NPC in the next adventure, it is easy for the DM to work the mayor’s escape into the narrative. Is it key that the characters learn that the baker’s daughter has been to Sembia but the characters never go to the bakery? Knowing this is important, the DM can have the characters run into her in the inn. Knowing these key plot points that will be used in future adventures will let the DM modify the adventure, but still be confident that his or her players will still possess information vital to play in future adventures.

The D&D Adventurers League is committed to providing easy to run, quality content and these are just a few ideas we plan on implementing in the near future. Do you have other ideas? Make sure to join the discussion on the D&D Dungeon Masters League Facebook group of drop use a line at [email protected].