Homebrew Campaign Loosing Momentum · Game Master's Laboratory

Homebrew Campaign Loosing Momentum

So the game I DM for seems to be loosing its fuel. Players tell me they are enjoying the sessions. We just wrapped up a mini arc that introduces the main conflict of the campaign or at least last session it was revealed to the players that there’s something going on. We play once a month and we play regardless if someone misses.

My group size started at 6 but I haven’t DM for all 6 players at once. As of now two players are out completely because of personal stuff and another has only shown up twice because of schedule conflicts. I have three dedicated players who usually show up no matter what but one of them is going to miss this month’s session.

Another dedicated player is starting to feel that the campaign is a “wash” because other players aren’t consistent with showing up to play, it’s been difficult for players to keep track of what’s going on because they don’t bother reading other player’s adventure logs when they miss sessions so they stay in the loop, and that while the story and campaign are interesting it is extensive and requires a lot out of the players to keep track off.

We’re planning on going a break either in June or July because my wife(other dedicated player) is giving birth to twins and most likely won’t be starting back up until some time next year around March to May.

Dedicated player is worried that when we go on break that we don’t be able to pick right back up where we left off or keep playing.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Last time I tried running Curse Of Strahd and it ended because of scheduling and the players didn’t really have a goal in mind or if they did, they didn’t tell me so I could plan around what they wanted to do.

The only person that has stuck with the group is my wife. Everyone else is new to this homebrew campaign but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong as a DM. Not sure if I need to look at doing more sessions a month, give them less freedom in what they want to do, or what.

The first 5 sessions were sort of railroading and by that I mean at the end of a session after completely a quest, I would ask what they wanted to do next and between sessions would come up with a couple of quests that got posted to the job board in our discord server. I would give them about a week to decide which job they were taking and then the following session we would start that job/quest/adventure hook.

I’m super fair with the rules and adjust accordingly after sessions and not during sessions. Two of the players only experience with DnD is through BG3. Like I’m not sure if it’s my DMing skill, style, narration, or something completely different. I’ve slowly been dropping hints at character backstories and making sure to include each player so they don’t feel left out. The one dedicated player who has voiced their concerns is really big into the RP while the others not so much.

I don’t think what is going on is bad dnd per say but something definitely feels off.

Anyone experience this or have advice on could help?

11 comments