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A West Marches campaign in pen-and-paper RPGs refers to a campaign style that differs from traditional roleplaying campaigns. Such a campaign usually focuses on a central town where players start and to which players return after their adventures. Around the starting town lies unexplored wilderness with quests and dungeons that players can explore. The world outside the starting town is dangerous, and only together can the players survive and report what they have found. There is also no conventional plot.
The trick is to divide the campaign into individual adventures. Each individual adventure is completed by a specific player composition. After the short adventure, players return to the starting town and receive their reward. For the next session, a completely different party can then set out. Player characters of players who are not present for a session simply remain in the starting town. This way, no one has to worry about what happens to their character if they miss a session. The whole system is strongly reminiscent of video games like 🛒Darkest Dungeon.
Advantages of a West Marches Campaign
The advantage of a West Marches campaign lies in being able to play with different player compositions. You are therefore more flexible regarding time planning. In fact, you don’t even have to plan your gaming sessions in advance. As long as the DM and enough players have time and desire to play, you can get started.
Additionally, more people can participate in the campaign. In a conventional pen-and-paper game, 4 players are, in my opinion, the optimal number. More than 4 players at a table usually slow down pen-and-paper games significantly. In a West Marches campaign, you don’t have to limit yourself.
Since a West Marches campaign lacks the overarching story that must be told in one piece, it also offers players an extreme amount of freedom of choice. Since there is no set “goal” for the campaign, you can go wild in the sandbox and see which locations you want to explore around the town.
Disadvantages of a West Marches Campaign
The advantages of a West Marches campaign are simultaneously its disadvantages: you simply don’t always play with the same characters in a party. So you also don’t grow together as in more linear pen-and-paper campaigns, and the potential for character growth is smaller.
Additionally, a “planned” story from A to B is missing. Some players love this and it can provide a great gaming experience. I have found that too much freedom of choice and open world leads to aimless and bewildered players.
Another negative point is that players must decide in advance of sessions which area around the starting town they want to explore. Yes, you can play West Marches spontaneously, but the Dungeon Master should have prepared the session to offer an exciting adventure and so they don’t have to improvise everything.
Additional Aspects
When playing a West Marches campaign together, it is common practice for players to write short summaries for each session. These are then shared with other players who did not participate in the session. This way everyone can follow the campaign’s experiences and has no knowledge gaps when it comes to locations, items, or villains.
It is also typical for West Marches to have a map available to all players. However, this should be incomplete and inaccurate! In this way, you create incentives as a Dungeon Master to explore the area and complete the shared map.
Jealousy is viewed as a useful motivational force for sessions to emerge. If someone else levels up faster or gets better loot, players might be more motivated to play. A healthy competition between players over who explores the most locations and defeats the most monsters is therefore desired.
The idea of a West Marches campaign was created by Ben Robbins. It was first mentioned in his blog post from 2007. He had 14 players in his campaign who explored the dangerous West Marches. This is also where the name of this campaign style comes from.
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If you want to explore the West Marches, you need the right Pen & Paper Map Maker and the right Music for Pen-and-Paper.
