Getting the Campaign Back on Track

I think the biggest challenge to being a dungeon master for D&D is just getting people to show up.

I love running the game, particularly running my own story. The players always come up with different ways to do things than I expect, and I'm now thinking of how I might shift the adventure around.

Basically, the players now know that they're going up against a vampire named Baron Orszag (yes, that's just the Hungarian name for "land," like how the Hungarian word for Hungary is "Magyarország," because my dad was born there and my grandfather had Bela Lugosi's accent) who engineered a subtle plot to have their patron, Baron Angir, killed (Angir is also a vampire, but a good guy.)

Anyway, we've been unable to play a lot this year due to various scheduling issues, but now that I've A: shifted the game to play at my own apartment, which is closer for most of the players and B: added my other apartment-mate to the game (she's married to the first apartment-mate) I've got enough people to, I hope, consistently get people together to play (my general rule is we want at least four to show up not counting me, and with two players and the DM living where we play, it should be easier to get that.)

We have a lot of other games going on - one of my players also runs a game here that I play in, and that first roommate is about to start a Curse of Strahd game as well (I'm going to play in that as well! And yes, I'm aware that it's funny we're both starting big Vampire-themed adventures at the same time, but I've had this one planned out for over a year, so there.)

Anyway, we didn't have any combat encounters this session, but we'll be starting the next one with a big fight against an angry mob (I might alter the Bar Brawl stat block to treat them as a swarm) as well as a lesser vampire (using the Blood Drinker Vampire stats from Ravnica) and a pair of gargoyles.

It should be a fun opportunity for the players to shake the rust off, and I think that with a CR 8 vampire and two CR 3 gargoyles (if I'm remembering those stats right) plus some potential threat from the crowd, it should be a decently challenging but manageable fight.

Anyway, I'm hoping we'll get another game in soon - if not next week then the week after - and get this game back into gear soon. There's a lot of fun to be had and...

If by some chance you're in this game and read this blog without having told me you do, maybe don't read the next bit...

Right? Good?

There's also three dungeons in this adventure, with some major twists and ideas I'm really proud of that I'm super excited to try out.