What is a DnD West Marches Campaign?
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If you’re a Dungeons & Dragons fan, you may have heard the term “West Marches Campaign” before. The concept has been around for over a decade and remains a popular form of play, even recently appearing in Campaign 4 of Critical Role. But what exactly is it?
Put simply, a DnD West Marches campaign is an open-world, episodic tabletop RPG style where a pool of players are responsible for scheduling games rather than the Dungeon Master. This means there is a dynamic, rotating cast of characters, all of whom are exploring a persistent world from a shared home base. Unlike traditional DnD campaigns, there’s no fixed party or overarching plot. Instead, whatever players are available for that particular session choose what adventures to undertake, with gameplay focused on single-sessions devoted to exploration, discovery and collecting treasure. The ultimate goal is to provide a flexible framework that’s driven largely by player choices rather than the DM.
What are the key features of a West Marches campaign?
There are a number of important elements that differentiate a West Marches campaign from a traditional DnD campaign.
- Open Table & Rotating Parties: A large group of players sign up for sessions as they are available, meaning each game typically features a different group from the overall pool. The ideal number of total players is anywhere between 10-20 (which is in stark contrast to the 4-6 players which are ideal for a typical DnD campaign). Notably, during a West Marches session, there are typically 4-6 players in attendance taken from the overall pool.
- Player-Driven Exploration: Players decide which expeditions to take, with the Dungeon Master providing potential adventures and challenges. Typically this occurs in a larger uncharted wilderness setting, although some groups have also run West Marches campaigns in settings such as cities, mega dungeons and even Wildspace. One such example is an Infernal Marches campaign which is set in Avernus.
- Persistent World: While the parties change, the world itself remains the same, with a shared history and geography that characters advance and explore over time. The most important aspect is that the world responds and changes based on the character’s actions and choices.
- Episodic Adventures: Game sessions are short, focused and designed to be completed in a single sitting, rather than requiring commitment to a long-term, overarching story. This allows different players to jump in to any given session without requiring extensive knowledge of what previously occurred.
- Focus on Exploration:The primary goal is to explore the nearby area while mapping uncharted areas, exploring dungeons, claiming treasures and constantly pushing into new territory. While combat and social encounters can and will also occur, these core pillars of DnD gameplay tend to take a back seat to exploration.
- Shared Responsibility: Players are responsible for scheduling sessions, documenting their findings and managing their own characters’ growth. This is a major departure from a traditional DnD campaign where the onus for scheduling and organization rests primarily with the Dungeon Master.
In essence, a West Marches campaign offers a more flexible and dynamic approach to Dungeons & Dragons, addressing challenges with scheduling while fostering a greater sense of shared discovery and player agency.
Where did the term “West Marches Campaign” come from?
The term “West Marches” originally referred to the name of the frontier region in a campaign designed and run by game designer Ben Robbins in 2007. He coined the term to describe a rugged, untamed wilderness lying on the edge of civilization, with a single fortified settlement serving as the safe starting point for explorers. This notion comes straight from Robbins’ blog series entitled “Grand Experiments: West Marches.”
Over time, the concept of a West Marches campaign has evolved from Robbins’ original design and has become a popular style of play among Dungeons & Dragons players. Notably, the concept has also spread to other TTRPGs. For example, the popular Kingmaker Adventure Path for Pathfinder borrows extensively from the concept of a West Marches campaign.
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Cameron Nichols is a Senior Editor who lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and has been playing D&D since the early 90s, when he was introduced by his older brother and cut his teeth on AD&D 2nd Edition. Since then he’s played virtually every RPG he could get his nerdy little mitts on (including a weird Goth phase in the early 2000s when he rocked Vampire: The Masquerade pretty hard). His favorite D&D campaign setting is the Forgotten Realms and his favorite character to play was a Half-Orc Barbarian named Grug (who was unfortunately devoured by a gelatinous cube).
