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How a West Marches campaign works
The format is easiest to understand as a structure for organizing a campaign, not as a particular setting or set of rules. It connects a larger pool of players to a shared world through separate expeditions.
- A larger player pool: More people participate in the campaign than usually sit down for any one session. Each trip has a subset of that pool.
- Player-chosen expeditions: Players decide which leads or destinations to pursue and coordinate who will join, rather than relying on a permanent party and a GM-set route.
- A shared, persistent world: Groups explore the same places. Discoveries, changes, and consequences can carry over to sessions attended by different players.
- A home base: Characters have a familiar place to regroup between excursions; expeditions typically set out from and return to it.
- Sessions that accommodate a changing roster: Individual trips need to work for whoever is present, even as the campaign’s larger story grows through the world’s accumulated events.
Jennifer Burdoo’s 2020 account of using the approach in a library RPG program describes a dozen or more possible participants and characters, with attendance varying from session to session. That is an example of a larger pool, not a required campaign size. Read Burdoo’s account at the American Library Association’s Games and Gaming Round Table.
Where the name and format come from
A guide sample credits game designer Ben Robbins with starting the original West Marches game around 2000, using D&D Third Edition. It describes that campaign as having no set meeting time, regular party, or regular plot. The date is approximate, and the format has since come to mean a style of play rather than that original campaign alone. The sample of Izirion’s Enchiridion of the West Marches describes the original player pool as roughly 10–15 people; that figure is historical context, not a universal recommendation.
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Today, the defining ideas are player-directed exploration, parties that change from expedition to expedition, and a world that remembers what those parties do. A hex map, a particular online scheduling tool, a set player count, or a specific edition may be useful in a given game, but none is a defining requirement established by these sources. For a modern overview of the style, see Westmarches Game’s guide to West Marches play.
What players and the DM do between sessions
Players choose goals and form a group
Players take initiative: they discuss leads, choose where to go, and arrange which characters will make the trip. This puts more of the scheduling and destination choice in players’ hands than a conventional campaign with a standing party and recurring meeting time.
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The DM prepares a world that supports choices
The DM still has substantial preparation to do. A West Marches game benefits from a world with multiple possible destinations, useful maps, distinct locations, encounters, and missions that can support different expeditions. The players’ freedom to choose where to go shifts some planning to them; it does not remove the DM’s work.
The campaign changes even when the roster changes
Because expeditions affect a common world, the group that goes next may encounter the results of an earlier trip. A location might have been explored or altered, or a faction might respond to what happened. The campaign’s continuity comes from this shared history, rather than requiring every participant to attend every chapter of one plot.
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Is a West Marches campaign right for your group?
The structure can suit groups whose members cannot reliably attend on the same schedule. Burdoo describes using it in a library program where participants’ availability varied. A session can be organized around the players who are available instead of being canceled whenever a member of a fixed party cannot make it. That flexibility depends on people being willing to coordinate trips and take part in a shared campaign.
| Consideration | West Marches emphasis | Fixed-party emphasis |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduling | Expeditions can be organized around available participants. | A recurring session often depends on the same group being available. |
| Who sets the agenda | Players choose destinations and organize trips. | The GM more often sets the route or session agenda. |
| How the story develops | A shared world accumulates discoveries and consequences across expeditions. | Players commonly follow a more continuous plot together. |
| Coordination | Players need to communicate about plans, groups, and what their characters learn. | Coordination can center on the regular party and its next session. |
This is a broad comparison, not a rule about every campaign. A fixed-party game can feature player-led exploration, and a West Marches game can include recurring characters or long-term plots. The important question is which structure your group wants to organize around.
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It is a stronger fit if
- Players enjoy choosing destinations and pursuing leads without waiting for the DM to assign every objective.
- Exploration, travel, risk, and resource management sound more appealing than a tightly plotted story every character experiences together.
- Participants are comfortable coordinating outside the session and keeping useful notes or maps.
- The DM enjoys preparing a setting with several possible routes and places to discover.
It may be a weaker fit if
- Your group wants a single, closely directed plot that the same characters experience together.
- Players prefer low-coordination sessions with little planning between meetings.
- Self-organized groups could leave some players feeling overlooked unless the campaign has a fair, visible way to form expeditions.
That last concern matters: the guide sample warns that players may feel left out when groups organize themselves without attention to participation. A DM should monitor who gets opportunities to join and whether a small clique is monopolizing desirable trips.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What West Marches is not
West Marches is not a D&D edition, an official campaign setting, or a mandatory ruleset. The original game is described as using Third Edition, but the structure can be used with different editions. Optional procedures for wilderness travel, weather, or survival may help a particular table, but they are additions rather than requirements. Izirion’s Enchiridion, for example, is a third-party guide with tools and advice for this style; it is not an official D&D book, and buying it is not necessary to run a West Marches campaign.
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The 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide offers broader advice on campaign premises, journaling, player investment, adventure planning, and home bases. That material may help a DM plan a campaign, but the book is not itself a definition of West Marches or a dedicated rulebook for the format. D&D Beyond’s overview of creating a campaign with the 2024 guide discusses that wider planning context.
Questions to settle before starting
Before the first expedition, the DM and players should agree on how the group will put the format into practice. The structure is flexible, so clarity about the table’s own procedures helps prevent avoidable confusion.
Quick Recap
- How will players propose trips? Decide where plans and available leads will be shared.
- How will expedition groups form? Make the process visible enough that players know how to join and opportunities do not routinely go to the same people.
- What should players record? Agree on how to share maps, discoveries, and consequential decisions with people who missed a session.
- How much freedom does the world offer? The DM should prepare enough destinations and usable information for player choices to matter without needing to predict every route.
- What kind of story does the group want? Set expectations about episodic trips, exploration, risk, and how much of the narrative will emerge from player decisions rather than a planned plot.
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