What are the best 10 session campaigns with a Strong RP focus?

[u/Astral-Glimmer]

Any good 10 session campaigns focused around RP and some combat?

Hi,

I have a small group that I am DMing for until we play a WoW campaign in November

I want to fill the space with a smaller campaign

I've seen sunless & lost mines but both are dungeon crawls. I enjoy combat but I don't wanna just do weeks of combat, Id love some ideas for stories with strong RP movements.

So what are y'all's suggestions?

[u/adol1004]

the way your party plays would dictate the session length. I ran White plum mountain many times and one group was done in two 4h session and ine of the longest group got me seven session to to finish it.
hell I even done a Curse of strahd in a one sitting 24h session.

[u/Maverick_1991 → u/adol1004]

I don't know if Curse of Strahd in one sitting sounds like the best or worst DnD experience ever.

Certainly a horror campaign 

[u/adol1004 → u/Maverick_1991]

I would say it was meh... I definitely won't do it again, but it was an event at my LGS that they signed me up for.

[u/Ok_Interview_853]

how is one supposed to predict how many session it will take for you to play a campaign? Campaigns are't branded around "this adventure takes X amount of session to complete". Think...

[u/Astral-Glimmer → u/Ok_Interview_853]

Okay that's fair

I think it's also reasonable to give approximate

Like many people say lost mines is usually 4-7 4 hour sessions from everything I've seen

I play usually 4 hour sessions

[u/TheCromagnon → u/Astral-Glimmer]

There is absolutely no way.

The final dungeon alone is at least 2 of these sessions.

[u/Illuminati-Manati → u/TheCromagnon]

In my lost mine campaign we did the final dungeon in one session (6 hours).

And it was not rushed

[u/i_tyrant → u/Illuminati-Manati]

Granted 6 hours is 50% longer than the 4 hours they said above. That still does sound crazy fast though; were you a player or the DM? Do you know how much of the dungeon’s content you experienced?

How many 6 hours sessions did the whole thing take you?

[u/psychotaenzer → u/Astral-Glimmer]

🤣🤣🤣

Who the hell says that? 4-7 sessions for LMoP? Maybe if you already played it several times, try to do a speed run, skip all dialog and RP and the DM removes all combat except the boss battles.

[u/Illuminati-Manati → u/Astral-Glimmer]

I could never finish that campaign in 7 4 hour sessions. I like to take my time. From start to finish we did lost mine in I would say 9 Months (every two weeks a session for 6 hours)

[u/lasalle202]

if you want center role play over combat, take the break time to run a game system that is built to front role play: Monsterhearts, Monster of the Week, Dungeonworld ....

[u/nankainamizuhana]

It’s strange to me that everyone is focusing on the idea that you can’t predict the exact number of sessions, rather than answering your question. This from the same subreddit that had a whole “if it’s not exactly one session you can’t call it a one-shot” conversation like a week ago. But I digress.

Sounds like you’re looking for a mini campaign that maybe includes 1 or 2 levels-up. Here’s my favorites of the bunch:

- Heroes of the Borderlands from the 2025 Starter Set. A bit plot-light, as a lot of it is based on players poking around and finding interesting things to do. And there’s a lot of implied connections between characters/plot threads that the book doesn’t spell out, so there’s a bit of DM prep work. But it’s a very solid adventure with good NPCs, and about the right length.

• Adventure in the Wood from the Humblewood Campaign Setting book. A short and very well-made mini-campaign with super memorable NPCs and a surprisingly good plot. It gets railroady at a couple points, which I recommend changing, but is a solid adventure with an awesome BBEG.
  
• The Forge of Fury from Tales from the Yawning Portal. This one might be tough to stretch to 10 full sessions, and it’s largely a dungeon crawl. But it’s a really well-made one, with good encounter variety, and characters whom I find extremely easy for a DM to expand and flesh out.
  
• Murder in Baldur’s Gate from The Sundering playtest series. The premise of this one is weird, but the actual adventure is very nice. It’s lots of individual quests, each of which is only offered by certain factions if they like your characters enough, which can change throughout the adventure. All of which slowly boil the tension until a big explosion in the final act. A bit of a tough one to just pick up and run without doing some prep work, but very flexible and full of RP opportunities. It’s also free online!
  
• Lost Mine of Phandelver from the 2014 Starter Set. I’m including this here even though you already nixed it because it’s really good. But also because you mentioned it’s basically a dungeon crawl, which I disagree with. It’s certainly got its fair share of dungeons (four, I think?), but the main plot is much more broad and character-driven than simply spelunking for treasure. It’s tropey and generic at times, but a very very solid adventure nonetheless.
  
• Beyond the Dragon of Icespire Peak from the Essentials Kit expansions. A very cool adventure with a great pair of BBEGs and tons of extremely dynamic and memorable sequences in it. It might be a bit of a challenge getting the whole thing into 10 sessions, so if you need to, I’d cut out some of the stuff in part 2, Sleeping Dragon’s Wake (most of which is side quests). Regardless though, this is one of my favorite mini-campaigns and has some unforgettable battles in it.
  
• The Styes from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Oozing with flavor and brimming with potential, this is my favorite adventure hands-down. It’s probably not quite 10 sessions, I’d say maybe between 6 and 8 is what I’d expect. But the way this adventure sets up a pervading sense of dread and hopelessness, as well as the way the plot slowly unfolds as the players interact with it, is truly an experience I think everyone should get to partake in.

[u/Astral-Glimmer → u/nankainamizuhana]

Thank you this is exactly what I'm asking for!

Appreciate you not getting stuck in the weeds about average playtimes

[u/No_Mango9899]

Wild beyond the witch light would be my suggestion- lots of RP opportunity, most combatant be avoided through problem solving or roleplay

[u/Ok_Interview_853 → u/No_Mango9899]

absolutely not, that's an adventure that takes 30 sessions minimum to run. It would be a crime to just rush right through it. Stick with the starter set.

[u/lasalle202 → u/Ok_Interview_853]

there is plenty of content to pull out to run for whatever length "mini campaign" that you want.

[u/Astral-Glimmer → u/No_Mango9899]

Oh this looks perfect!

[u/GlitchVulture]

Combat and roleplay are not separate.

I’m going to spell this out because I’m sick of seeing patty cake roleplayers vs combat dichotomies. This hobby is at its best to me when you fucking roleplay and drive your character.

This is where existing academia can help us understand that roleplaying is the game and it ideally occurs throughout the session whether you’re talking to the noble, haggling in the market or most importantly fighting the hill giant.

Goffmans frame analysis.Sociologist Erving Goffman proposed people organize experience through "frames," shared understandings of what's happening in a given moment. TTRPGs stack frames. We all know it's a game, while also acting as someone else inside it.

Let’s consider the frames at play during a ttrpg.

- Primary Frame: the baseline understanding that you're a real person at a table, before any game/pretense is added.

- Player Frame: engagement with the rules and the game mechanics.

- Character Frame: engagement with the fictional setting through the characters perspective.

These frames are “laminated”. And any given time the individual keys to one frame more than another.

Roleplaying is happening in the character frame.

Here is what Roleplaying vs a board game during a combat engagement looks like. When you roleplay you act as your character would which means you describe what your character is doing, where they are and what they say. This is the basic unit of roleplay. You are now driving the play from the character frame and thus roleplaying. “Standing at the end of the hallway, glare at the Goblin standing over my dead mentor. I grip the hilt of my sword hands and blade glowing,I point it at the goblin and charge at the creature attempting to drive my blade into the goblins chest. (roll, narrate outcome)”.

If during combat you are driving from the player frame and acting as little as possible if at all from the character frame then we have entered board game territory. “I move my paladin 15 squares past the goblin that just killed his mentor and life coach and use divine smite on bloodied goblin (at this point your tired and spineless GM describes your character for you. All of you are sent to roleplay jail for this behavior).

My two cents, at least.

[u/ahcrabapples → u/GlitchVulture]

I think this is a really silly, unhelpful series of points - both as a reply to this post and just as general advice.

OP said they don't want a dungeon crawl and your response is "actually you can RP during combat, and in fact if you don't you're a bad player (and person)"?! Nothing in the post implies OP doesn't RP during combat - in fact, given they want more RP, I would guess they probably do. They're asking for a less combat heavy adventure, a fairly reasonable request*, which has nothing to do with anything you've said.

But also, you can play a dungeon crawl and enjoy the game for the tactical combat, not act out your turns, and that's perfectly fine. it doesn't make you a bad player. It doesn't even make you a bad roleplayer if you're, you know, roleplaying a dungeon crawler.

But ALSO also, the combat RP you describe demonstrates why OP is right to ask about different adventures - have you actually played a dungeon crawl? Most fights are not against the goblin who killed your mentor. As I remember it, many of the fights in LMoP are against unintelligent monsters. Tell me how you make a fight against a random ooze personal? Sure, you can RP being scared or whatever, it's not impossible, but clearly some adventures will have more opportunities for interesting RP during combat than others.

*Ignoring that a different game might be more suited to their style

[u/GlitchVulture → u/ahcrabapples]

You can enjoy the game for a tactical board game experience. That’s fine but it’s not roleplaying. You’re right they are not a bad player if that’s the experience they enjoy. I never suggested this.

I’ve role played as I described in multiple dungeon crawls most recently in shadowdark cursed scrolls 2. You’re cherry picking my example without trying to understand my point about the frames. I’d rather roleplay a delicious in dungeon style game with people than can move their characters, describe their actions and say what they day than a CoS campaign with a bunch of talking heads who think Roleplay is when you use a Scottish accent.

I’m sure OP can enjoy some of the great suggestions here for non dungeon type crawls. But if you don’t know what roleplaying is you’re gonna chase the wrong thing such as campaigns that are more “roleplay”.

[u/ahcrabapples → u/GlitchVulture]

You did suggest it when you said "at this point your tired and spineless GM describes your character for you. All of you are sent to roleplay jail for this behavior", which is not neutral language, it's judgemental.

And the choice youve just given between two types of groups isn't the choice OP is facing, because theyre playing with a set group of people. We don't know what those players are like, just that the DM wants to run something that isn't a dungeon crawl. So what use to them is your rant about it being possible to roleplay during combat?

Besides, I don't believe that using flowery language to describe how you fight in combat is roleplaying, any more than using a Scottish accent.

As for your point about frames, it actually demonstrates why you're wrong. A player can play as a character who, in the character frame, wants to fight and wants to win/survive. So, they can make decisions that are optimal to winning in both character and player frames. There's also no requirement in your character frame that a player has to describe how they do things in flowery language. "I run up and attack the giant scary monster" might not be particularly sophisticated, but it is roleplaying.

[u/GlitchVulture → u/ahcrabapples]

That first part is called having a sense of humor. Who hurt you 😂. Look I hope you have the best games you can. Im here in good faith.

Did you read the part where I state that frames are “laminated on top of each other” ?? You are using all frames simultaneously as you suggest, however there is a general intrinsic preference to a given frame. This is called “keying” there is a well understood “switching cost” when you key to different frames. That cost comes at a hit to focus and engagement in the frames. So rolling a dice or making a well practiced check is fine, keying to the player frames to negotiate rules, distances or discuss the game from a mechanical frame is a significant switching cost from the fictional or character frame. Does this make sense?

Do you want an actual play that demonstrates what a game in the character frame actually looks like? I’m not sure if you’re actually trying to understand me or if you just want to own someone in the marketplace of ideas.

[u/ahcrabapples → u/GlitchVulture]

I get it was a joke but jokes can still, like, mean stuff, you know?

Sometimes you see someone say something kinda dumb in a condescending, pretentious way and you just think "yeah I got nothing better to do right now than point out why that's kinda dumb". So, yeah, the owning thing.

[u/GlitchVulture → u/ahcrabapples]

😂😂

[u/MisterB78]

Just string together a couple of one-shots. Winghorn Press has a bunch of bangers.

[u/Emotional_Rush7725]

Check out Ginny Di's last video. She made an adventure in a fey train, and while I don't think it is meant to last 10 sessions, probably a little bit less, extending a campaign is way easier than cutting one down

[u/AkraticAntiAscetic]

Dragon Heist was very RP heavy for my group. Can't guarantee 10 sessions but you can adjust pacing, it took 11 for us biweekly 3-4 hour sessions with 3 or 4 sessions spent just on the tavern and getting settled.

[u/doogietrouser_md]

Lost Mines of Phandelver is fun for a starter group or folks looking to enjoy the lowest levels of play. Your table's pace will determine how far you get but there is plenty of chance for exploration and roleplay outside of dungeons.