First Published 30 April 2016 | Last Updated 7 June 2022

An adventuring party on a campaign

Your characters have a whole heap of events ahead of them. Some are small and some are really big. Here are the differences between them.

An encounter is an event that occurs in the game. For example, a battle with goblins, a conversation with a town mayor, or getting caught in a rock slide are all encounters.

An adventure is a string of encounters strung together to create a storyline. For example, a farmer may ask for you to go to a kobold lair and clear it out. The encounter with the farmer and the encounter with the kobolds put together form an adventure.

Many adventures will make up a campaign. A campaign is a string of adventures that all tie loosely together to make a larger plot. For example, you may be searching for a magical jewel as the main story of the campaign. There will be many small adventure deviations, but this main plot will always be the eventual focus. Campaigns continue for many game sessions, sometimes lasting months or even years, and often have entire worlds created around them.