u/Visible-Clothes-5029

Hey all, running a new V5 campaign called Harbour Rites, set in a famous city in the UK called Bristol.

The pitch: Fifteen years ago, four warring Kindred factions ended a near-catastrophic war by writing down every debt, secret, and blood-price they owed each other, then burying the record so well even its keeper doesn't know where it is. That uncertainty has been the peace ever since. It's not holding anymore; entries are surfacing, ordinary people are being confronted with debts they don't remember owing, and every faction is convinced a rival broke the seal. None of them is right. You're an outside coterie with no history in Bristol, which makes you either the only Kindred every faction can trust a little, or the easiest scapegoat once the truth comes out.

Style: Low combat, roleplay-heavy, political intrigue with no clean villains. There's a visible ledger/debt tracker the whole table watches grow over the course of play.

Details:

• System: Vampire: The Masquerade 5e
• Platform: Foundry VTT + Discord
• Schedule: Weekly, Tuesdays 7PM GMT+1
• Session length: 2.5–3 hours
• Campaign length: ~13–16 sessions
• Price: $20/session
• Experience level: Open to all, new to V5 is totally fine
• 18+, seats: 2 needed to start

Full listing with reviews/details here: https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmsruzuoc00lxla044ookmz3f

Happy to answer questions in the comments!

Hey all, running a heist one-shot and need 2 players to fill the table (3 tables actually going up, more on that below).

The pitch: you've been hired to walk into Vellithra's Curios, a warded magic shop sitting in the busiest district of Baldur's Gate, and walk out with a lantern that isn't yours. In broad daylight. No cover of night, no empty streets, just you, a crowd of witnesses, and a ward you'll have to talk, swap, or pick your way past.

However you get in is on you. Sweet talk the owner. Palm a decoy while you're mid-conversation. Take the ward apart with your own hands if you think you can. But the second an alarm goes off, the job becomes a chase: rooftops, market alleys packed with stalls you can use for cover or knock into your pursuers, a construction site with scaffolding you could bring down behind you. Every environment is a tool if you can think fast enough to use it.

This is roleplay-heavy and action-packed in equal measure. I'm not steering you toward "the" solution, if you can describe it and it's plausible, we'll find out together whether it works. Combat, when it happens, is quick and mean, not a slog.

Character creation: none needed. Four pregen level 5 characters, play them however you like. Sheets and a quick rundown sent before session, we'll cover anything else in the first ten minutes.

Logistics: 3 hours, D&D Beyond + Discord, mic required. Comfort/tone check at the start, open door policy throughout, Lines & Veils and X/N/O cards on the table. One content warning: snakes.

Three tables currently open, pick whichever fits your week:

• Wed Aug 5, 11PM GMT+1
• Fri Aug 7, 6PM GMT+1
• Sat Aug 8, 4PM GMT+1

$15/session, only charged once a session actually starts. Each table needs 2 players to lock in.

If a fast, cinematic heist-gone-loud sounds like your kind of Wednesday (or Friday, or Saturday) night, join here:

• Wed Aug 5, 11PM GMT+1 https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmsfea1i602emla04ylfy7occ
• Fri Aug 7, 6PM GMT+1 https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmsfe92oc001zl304begja3kh
• Sat Aug 8, 4PM GMT+1 https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmsfebqjb01z8jo04y327gfn4

Currently 1/6 filled, need 2 to actually get this moving. One player's already in, so this isn't a completely blank table.

The setup: You start this one as a prisoner, no gear, no plan, marched through Underdark tunnels by Drow captors who don't much care whether you make it. From there it's genuinely on you: scavenge, barter, figure out who's actually trustworthy down there, because the terrain is doing about as much damage as anything hunting you. It's a non-linear map, so where you go and who you throw in with changes how (and if) this ends. There's also something spreading up from further down that's getting into people's heads, that's the real horror engine here, not jump scares.

Logistics

• System: D&D 5e (2024 PHB, other splatbooks discussed case-by-case)
• Start level: new characters come in at 1, or match the party's current level if joining a bit later (party's currently around level 3)
• Session time: Wednesdays, 2:00 PM GMT+1, ~3 hrs
• Cost: $15/session through StartPlaying
• Platform: Discord + D&D Beyond + Foundry VTT (via Forge, browser-based, no downloads, but note Safari isn't supported)
• Pre-built characters available if you'd rather skip building and just play

Table style: slower-burn, exploration-heavy, roleplay and atmosphere over constant combat. When fights do happen they're meant to feel tense and consequential, not a grind. Resting is tied to how secure your current spot actually is, so finding/fortifying safe ground is its own mini-goal.

Content warnings: mind alteration, devils/demons/fiends, cults, character death, spiders (relevant one, given the setting). Before joining you'll fill out Monte Cook's RPG Consent Checklist so I've got your lines and veils ahead of Session 0, and X/N/O signals are usable any time via chat or DM during play.

If interested join here: https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmrk5cfz200efl1040vzsv1sz

Running a modified/expanded take on Descent into Avernus and looking to fill out the table. Currently sitting at 0/4, need 3 to actually start, so this is very much a from-scratch group forming.

The setup: Campaign opens on the Feast of the Morninglord in Elturel: one night a year the whole city's out celebrating together, nobles and gutter-born on the same streets. Your characters are there for their own reasons. Somebody offers you coin to chase down a rumour, you take it, and by the time you realize what you've actually found, a rift's already opened under the city and Elturel is getting dragged into the Nine Hells in real time. You get out. Not everyone does.

Act 1 is the Sword Coast, playing as some of the only people who actually know what happened to Elturel, which makes you useful to some factions and a liability to others. Act 2 is Avernus itself, where you're not just surviving the war, you're commandeering infernal war rigs and cutting deals with devils to try to drag your city back out of Hell.

Logistics

• System: D&D 5e (2024 rules, legacy 2014 subclasses allowed where there's no update)
• Start level: 3, milestone leveling, ends around 15
• Session time: Sundays, 12:00 AM GMT+1, roughly 2.75–3.25 hrs
• Length: expecting 45–55 sessions total
• Cost: $20/session, charged per session through StartPlaying
• Platform: Discord (voice) + D&D Beyond (sheets) + Foundry VTT
• Beginner friendly, no prior 5e experience needed

What I actually run like: backstory isn't flavour text, it drives what happens, your reason for being in Elturel and what it'd cost you to lose the city matters all the way through. Combat is real and dangerous when it happens but the table leans roleplay/investigation-heavy overall, especially in Act 1. Full house rules (including how vehicle combat works in Avernus) get pinned on Discord before Session 0.

Content warnings up front since it's relevant: character death, body horror, mutilation of corpses, fire, murder. Session 0 covers safety tools properly (breaks, private lines & veils, X/N/O cards, stars & wishes) before anything starts.

If you're interested join here: https://startplaying.games/adventure/cms6qyl8z00gfjs04we0plxn5

Hey all I'm running a long-term campaign (3-14, 40-50 sessions) and have 4 seats open, need 1 more to begin.

The pitch: you live in a small town behind your own hometown, if that makes sense. Every few nights someone stops waking up. No blood, no broken locks, no struggle, just an empty bed, and if you're out at the wrong hour, a train whistle from tracks that don't exist. Your characters already live here or are moving here. You might have already lost someone to it. Dive far enough and you find yourself up on a ghost train that isn't taking you home.

What this is: folk horror, not hack-and-slash. Investigation and roleplay first, combat second, but when it happens, it's real and it can hurt. The dread comes from watching people you've grown to care about walk toward ruin, and not being sure you can stop it. Not everyone gets saved. I say that upfront because I'd rather you know now than feel blindsided later, this genre doesn't hand you clean wins.

What I bring: fully prepped sessions, voiced NPCs, ambient music, maps and handouts, a setting with 13 original species, 15 subclasses, 40 spells, and its own flavour of warlock bargains if you want one. Full safety tools: Lines & Veils, real breaks, Stars & Wishes, Session 0 done properly.

Logistics: Wednesdays, 9PM GMT+1, 3hr sessions, $20/session, D&D Beyond + Discord + Foundry VTT, mic required (cam optional). New players welcome, I'll walk you through everything.

If a slow-burn horror mystery where the town itself is the first monster sounds good to you, if interested join here: https://startplaying.games/adventure/cms6lc8d9009xl704tsdslxdf

You wake up in chains. No gear, no idea how long you've been down here, and the only light comes from fungus that shouldn't glow the way it does. The Drow who took you don't care why you were topside, only that you're useful until you're not. Somewhere below all of this, something older than the Drow is starting to stir, and it's already in your dreams.

I want your character to have a reason they were topside in the first place, and a reason worth surviving for now that they're not. Send me a backstory and I'll use it, not just as flavor text, it'll come back around later and you'll have to deal with what it brings with it. Weird concepts welcome, I'd rather work with something unconventional than reskin the same fighter for the fifth time.

We play on Foundry, custom maps and handouts for the caverns and ruins as you find them, session summaries after each one so missing a week doesn't leave you lost. New to 5e or new to horror games? Fine by me, we build your character together in session zero and I'll walk you through anything you need. I'll follow the rules as written when it matters, and follow the moment when it matters more.

The campaign opens with your escape from the Drow patrol marching you deeper into the dark. That buys you maybe a day before they realize you're gone and come looking, and that's if the tunnels themselves don't get you first. Every direction you could run leads somewhere worse, you just don't know which "worse" yet.

$10/session, Wednesdays 2PM GMT+1, 3 hour sessions, starting at level 3. 6 seats total, 4 seats left, 1 needed to start.

https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmrk5cfz200efl1040vzsv1sz

You wake up in chains. No gear, no idea how long you've been down here, and the only light comes from fungus that shouldn't glow the way it does. The Drow who took you don't care why you were topside, only that you're useful until you're not. Somewhere below all of this, something older than the Drow is starting to stir, and it's already in your dreams.

I want your character to have a reason they were topside in the first place, and a reason worth surviving for now that they're not. Send me a backstory and I'll use it, not just as flavor text, it'll come back around later and you'll have to deal with what it brings with it. Weird concepts welcome, I'd rather work with something unconventional than reskin the same fighter for the fifth time.

We play on Foundry, custom maps and handouts for the caverns and ruins as you find them, session summaries after each one so missing a week doesn't leave you lost. New to 5e or new to horror games? Fine by me, we build your character together in session zero and I'll walk you through anything you need. I'll follow the rules as written when it matters, and follow the moment when it matters more.

The campaign opens with your escape from the Drow patrol marching you deeper into the dark. That buys you maybe a day before they realize you're gone and come looking, and that's if the tunnels themselves don't get you first. Every direction you could run leads somewhere worse, you just don't know which "worse" yet.

$10/session, Wednesdays 2PM GMT+1, 3 hour sessions, starting at level 3. 6 seats total, 4 seats left, 1 needed to start.

https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmrk5cfz200efl1040vzsv1sz

The rival you make in your first trimester is still your problem in your fourth year. Nothing here resets.

Start undeclared, pick your college at the end of Year 1 once you've actually seen what each one's about. Bring one rival, one mentor, one secret to session zero, all three come back around, and I mean actually come back, not as flavor text.

What to expect: real finals played out as scenes, not one roll deciding your term. Martial classes earn relics that sharpen what they already do, so nobody's outshined by the casters. House rules that change combat feel (crits, death saves, bonus-action potions, full list on listing). Downtime, rumors, and rivalry get just as much table time as fights. Spotlight rotated on purpose across four years.

Session 0 covers lines/veils, X/N/O cards live every session, open door always. Queer-friendly, neurodivergent-welcoming table.

Foundry + D&D Beyond + Discord.

$15/session, Saturdays 6PM GMT+1, 2.5–3hr sessions, starts level 3. 5 seats total, 3 left, 1 needed to start.

Full listing: https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmrh0levz00d4lc04ppjr1e78

You wake up in chains. No gear, no idea how long you've been down here, and the only light comes from fungus that shouldn't glow the way it does. The Drow who took you don't care why you were topside, only that you're useful until you're not. Somewhere below all of this, something older than the Drow is starting to stir, and it's already in your dreams.

I want your character to have a reason they were topside in the first place, and a reason worth surviving for now that they're not. Send me a backstory and I'll use it, not just as flavor text, it'll come back around later and you'll have to deal with what it brings with it. Weird concepts welcome, I'd rather work with something unconventional than reskin the same fighter for the fifth time.

We play on Foundry, I run it with custom maps and handouts for the caverns and ruins as you find them, and I write up a summary after each session so missing one doesn't leave you lost. New to 5e or new to horror games? Fine by me, we build your character together in session zero and I'll walk you through anything you need.

The campaign opens with your escape from the Drow patrol marching you deeper into the dark. That buys you maybe a day before they realize you're gone and come looking, and that's if the tunnels themselves don't get you first. Every direction you could run leads somewhere worse, you just don't know which "worse" yet.

$15/session, Wednesdays 2PM GMT+1, 3 hour sessions, starting at level 3. 6 seats total, 4 needed to start.

Full listing: https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmrk5cfz200efl1040vzsv1sz

Greenest was supposed to be safe. By sunrise, half the town was burning and something enormous was circling overhead in the dark. People in purple robes walked calmly through the fire while everyone else ran. You survived. That already makes you unusual.

The party is level 4 and 3 seats are open. If you want a campaign where backstories get pulled into the story, creative characters are taken seriously, and weird concepts are welcome rather than tolerated, this is that game.

Sessions run on Foundry VTT with custom maps, lore handouts, and written summaries after each session. New players welcome. Session zero is free.

$15/session. Wednesdays 9 PM GMT+1. You can join here: https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmmxbmqag0003l104qf601aiu

The sun hasn't risen over Icewind Dale in two years. The harvests are gone, the trade routes are gone, and the Ten Towns are turning on each other. Auril rides the sky every night, and everyone agrees she's why. They're wrong. Something built this winter was done deliberately. Every lead points to a plan that's been two years in the making, and nobody who followed it to the end came back to say what they found.

Before session one, your character already has a reason to be here, not a vague wanderer reason, a real one. Something they want badly enough to still be in the Dale when everyone sensible has left. I read every backstory and build it into the campaign. At some point, something you wrote down is going to walk back into the story, and your character is going to have to deal with it.

Sessions run on Foundry VTT with custom maps, lore handouts, and written summaries after each session. New players welcome. Session zero is where we build your character together before anything starts.

$20/session. Thursdays 10 PM GMT+1. Level 3 start, running to 15. Need 3 players to begin, 2 seats already filled.

Full listing: https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmn82ctn7002kl204gskwvxuc

Okay so. I've been running D&D since I was eleven. I'm eighteen now. I have not stopped. I don't think I'm going to stop.

Rime of the Frostmaiden is one of the most underrated campaigns Wizards has ever published and I think the reason people sleep on it is that it gets run like a dungeon crawl when it is actually a conspiracy thriller set inside a dying world. Two years of endless night. A goddess riding the sky. Ten towns slowly running out of food and hope and reasons to trust each other. And something out on the ice leaving tracks that don't match anything in the books.

That's the setup. What I do with it is build toward the moment your character's past stops being backstory and starts being plot. That debt you thought was flavour text? It just knocked on the door. That rival you invented to make your sheet interesting? They're in Act Two. I write session recaps within 24 hours, I commission NPC artwork, I do voices, I run custom ambient soundscapes. This is the thing I care most about doing well.

This is a Learn to Play game. New to 5e? Great. New to TTRPGs entirely? Also great. You'll start at Level 3 so you have a subclass and interesting abilities from session one, and we do a full Session 0 to build your character together so you actually feel like you belong in Icewind Dale rather than just arriving randomly.

Details:

• $20/session via StartPlaying
• Thursdays 10PM GMT+1 | 2.5–3 hours
• Foundry VTT + Discord + D&D Beyond (all free to access)
• Combat lite, roleplay heavy, sandbox structure, consequences that matter
• 2/6 seats filled, need 1 more to begin

If you want a table where your choices echo forward and the story belongs to everyone sitting at it, DM me or grab a seat through the StartPlaying link, where you can get $10 off your first session

https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmn82ctn7002jl204yfxonynr?ref=clp6e0g1i005xl408post584y

I have been running this campaign for eight sessions now and I genuinely think it is the best table I have ever run.

Quick context on what makes this version different. Every character at the table has an ancestor who knew Strahd personally four hundred years ago. Not knew of him. Knew him. One player is descended from Tatyana herself. Another is the son of Strahd's former general. There is a wizard from the Petrovich family who keeps knowing things slightly before they happen, which is unnerving everyone including me. And there is a warlock whose ancestor was Strahd's personal spymaster during the founding of Barovia, which means they have inherited knowledge that really should not exist anymore.

The result is that Barovia already has opinions about this party before they open their mouths. Some NPCs are relieved to see them. Some are furious. Strahd himself has been writing letters.

Right now the party is stuck in Vallaki dealing with two problems that are both about to become catastrophes. The town's Baron and its Council are in the middle of a full political collapse, genuinely at war with each other over how to keep Vallaki alive, while simultaneously the druids of the Svalich Wood have cut every single supply route into the city. No food coming in. No resources. The party is trying to hold a town together from the inside while it starves and its leaders argue. It is a mess and I am very proud of it.

A few things about how I run this:

Every few sessions the players step back four hundred years and play as their ancestors. They make the choices that shaped everything. They watch it go wrong. It has produced some of the best roleplay moments I have ever seen at a table.

Between sessions letters arrive from Strahd. Memories surface. The world reacts to what happened last Sunday. The story does not pause. There are four possible endings and none of them are guaranteed.

On the learn to play side, two of my current players had never touched D&D before session one. Both of them are now the players who stay in character the longest and ask the most interesting questions. I do a free 45 minute one on one before the campaign starts where we build your character together, go through every mechanic you will actually need, and figure out your ancestor's connection to Strahd. You will not feel lost on session one. I have done this enough times to know how to make it work.

Everything is provided. Foundry VTT, all D&D Beyond content, commissioned character art for major NPCs, voice acted characters, session recaps within 24 hours. You need a computer and a microphone.

Sessions run Sundays at 7PM GMT+1, two and a half to three hours, $25 a session. Two seats left.

If this sounds like your kind of table join via this link and you can get $10 off your first session https://startplaying.games/adventure/cml9hb7ns0076l204ltqqtqsk?ref=clp6e0g1i005xl408post584y

Happy to answer any questions about the campaign, the system, or what to expect as a new player.

Been running this campaign for about a month and a half and I've got four seats open. Posting here because I'd rather find people who actually want to play than just fill chairs.

Quick version: it's Tyranny of Dragons, fully rebuilt with a custom profession system, 80+ character options, and a world that treats your backstory like foreshadowing rather than decoration. You start as nobody: a dockworker, a pit fighter, a merchant who took the wrong road, and by the end of the campaign the world has opinions about you. That shift is the whole point.

We're five sessions in which I know sounds like a reason not to join. It's actually the opposite. Here's where things stand.

The party survived a dragon cult burning an entire town to the ground. Not a skirmish. The whole town, dragonfire through the rooftops, people dying in the streets. They got out. And then they started noticing things that didn't add up. The cult wasn't looting. They weren't making a statement. They were looking for something specific, and whatever it was, they didn't find it. Now the party is three days down the road toward a city called Berdusk, chasing a contact hiding inside a travelling circus who apparently knows what the cult was actually after.

What they don't know yet is that the cult's enforcer, a half-dragon named Cyanwrath, the kind of person who makes experienced adventurers reconsider their life choices, is on the exact same road. Same destination. And he's travelling with a wizard who seems to know one of the party members personally, though that particular thread hasn't been pulled yet.

There's a stolen dragon egg somewhere in all of this. A spy who went dark. A map to a dragon lair that keeps coming up in conversation in a way that suggests it isn't nearly as abandoned as everyone keeps saying. The party has been collecting pieces for five sessions and they're right at the moment where those pieces are about to start clicking into something a lot bigger and a lot worse than a town burning down.

If you join now you're not catching up. You're arriving exactly when it gets good.

No experience needed whatsoever. Complete beginners are genuinely welcome, I've brought in people who'd never rolled a dice before and they've become some of the most invested players I've had. Free Session Zero before anything costs you a penny, I walk you through everything there, character creation included.

The practical stuff:

• Wednesdays 9pm GMT+1
• Foundry VTT, Discord for voice, D&D Beyond, all books provided, you buy nothing
• $25 a session
• $10 off your first session through this link: https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmmxbmqag0002l104imgk2nxo?ref=clp6e0g1i005xl408post584y

Happy to answer anything in the comments or DMs.