Leftover Sandwich: Repurposing Unused D&D Content for Future Sessions

Most Dungeon Masters (DMs) step behind the screen with a spark of creativity, ready to breathe life into epic battles, cunning villains, and moments that veer from heart-pounding intensity to side-splitting humor. This creative drive doesn’t just vanish when we run a pre-written adventure, like those storied D&D 5e official modules. In fact, it often flourishes, leading us to tailor encounters and quests that resonate with our unique party. But there’s a catch: sometimes, despite our best-laid plans, some creations never see the light of day, leaving us with a tinge of regret. Rather than view these as lost efforts, I propose we see them as holiday leftovers—ready to be transformed into delightful surprises for future sessions.

Don’t throw out those unused goblins - reuse them!

No Prep is Wasted

As we delve deeper into the art of repurposing content, it’s important to navigate the fine line between recycling and redundancy. Our goal is to enhance our campaigns with previously unused or successful elements without detracting from the sense of discovery and agency that players cherish. Here, we’ll explore strategies for breaking down encounters into their fundamental components, making it easier to adapt and integrate them into new settings. Alongside, I’ll introduce a handy tool—a fillable PDF or a Notion template—that can help streamline this process, ensuring your creative reserves are always ripe for exploration.

Bob the Skull says “Proper organization makes the world better!”

Note-taking Tips to Improve Content Reuse

Session prep is a creative process, whether planning a single encounter or an entire campaign. While it’s rewarding to have a plan for every scenario, inevitably, some ideas remain unused. However, we don't waste these 'creative leftovers' - we see them as opportunities waiting for the right moment to shine.

Ever since I started running campaigns, I have always tried to keep a section for unused adventures. This section in my notebook (either physical or digital) would often serve as an inspiration for an adventure or to flesh out next week’s encounter. Whenever I planned to use one of these adventures, I would copy those notes over to my session planning section (much easier when I started using OneNote [LINK]). This would often lead to me having multiple outlines or encounters written out, especially if my party had many choices to make in an evening. I would initially delete unused material, but I released that I just returned it to my unused adventures section. As I did this, I realized that any material my party did not use, they would not know about. 

When I ran an adventure in Eberron, the party had the option to gain favor with one or more of the local factions operating in Sharn. The party needed help, and they had their choice of the various gangs and other factions. The party ultimately worked with the Tyrants, a shadowy organization run by Changelings that traded in information. That meant that the party passed up working for the Boromar clan or Daask, two of the other factions in the area. I had written out encounters for both, completed to varying degrees. But where some might see wasted effort, I saw potential encounters for the future. 

While my players knew that there was the potential for jobs to be done, they did not know the specifics. This exercise in adaptation not only saved me preparation time but also taught me the invaluable lesson of viewing every piece of content as a versatile asset, adaptable to countless scenarios. Having explored how our ‘creative leftovers’ can serve as a reservoir of inspiration, let’s pivot to examine their practical application in the near term. Short-term reuse of these elements not only enriches the ongoing narrative but also underscores the fluidity of our role as DMs.

Short-Term Reuse Strategies

Often, you can reuse these unused adventures in the campaign they were originally made for. These adventures have the benefit of being written with your specific party and setting in mind. Travel encounters (even random encounters) are a great candidate for this kind of reusing. If your party will travel through a certain environment, you may have very little to change. A group of bandits pretending to be a merchant caravan in need of help could pop up at any point in time on the road, even if your party avoids them the first time.

When reusing in the short term, it is important to not take away the value of player choice. When a party makes a choice, the other option should not reappear immediately. If the party avoids an encounter, the same encounter should not appear again in that section of the adventure. For example, if a party braves the cold and snow to go over a mountain top instead delving into the abandoned dwarven hold, the next leg of the journey should not force them to go into that mine (unless that was the plan all along [LINK]). But the next time the party goes adventuring in the world and they come across an area that would realistically have a dwarven mine in it, then they can certainly use that material again.

In my previous example, the adventure for the Boromar clan that I had created involved clearing out a Daask base of operations that was (according to Boromar) in their territory. Just because the party chose not to take that job, then does not mean they will never be in a situation to have such an encounter. If the party ends up, for example, needing to infiltrate this place to get important information, I already had created maps and populated it with guards and other enemies. As we navigate the immediate benefits of reintroducing unused content into our campaigns, it becomes equally important to cast our gaze further afield. As we navigate the immediate benefits of reintroducing unused content into our campaigns, we must also cast our gaze further afield and explore the transformative power of our creative endeavors, ensuring that no idea, no matter how small or specific, goes to waste.

Long-Term Repurposing Techniques

Sometimes the material you make does not end up being used in the adventure you made it for. Perhaps the location was extremely specific, and would not feel realistic elsewhere in the world. Maybe the party made choices that make the specific invalid. Again, you can use this material, but you may need to do some work to prepare it. 

For long-term reuse, consider not just the setting of an unused encounter, but its underlying conflict or challenge. I like to outline the adventure in as general terms as possible. I remove a lot of the setting and campaign specific elements, and create an outline for a somewhat basic encounter that can be more easily repurposed in the future. You may lose some of the work that you did, but in the end, you still have material that you can use. You can transform a negotiation with a thieves' guild in a bustling city into a tense standoff with tribal leaders in a remote wilderness by making adjustments to dialogue and cultural references.

Going back to my previous example, perhaps my party never ends up invading a Daask stronghold. Maybe the stronghold ceased to exist over time, or maybe the Boromar no longer wants this done. I can take this encounter and distill it down to its most basic elements. Instead of “Infiltrating a Daask stronghold to gain valuable information”, it becomes “Enemy Faction Stronghold, with valuables in a certain location”. Any specific enemies made for the encounter just become “Guard” or “mage”. Ultimately, I create a blueprint I can use the next time I need it.

One tip I like to keep in mind (and which is much easier digitally) is placing my general outline at the beginning of my notes on the encounter, and keeping the specific elements on a second page. That way I can refer to my notes if I am trying to understand something I had chosen, or am just looking for inspiration.

Tips for Reuse:

Organizing your GM journal is crucial for managing unused content. A digital tool like OneNote can be effective, thanks to its ability to create dedicated sections—think of it as your personal “Jobs” board for quests and encounters. This method not only keeps your ideas at your fingertips but also encourages you to revisit and refine them.

For organizing your GM journal, I recommend starting with a simple structure in OneNote: create sections labeled ‘Campaign Ideas,’ ‘Unused Encounters,’ and ‘Player Feedback.’ This setup not only streamlines your workflow but turns your notebook into a dynamic resource that evolves with your campaign.

Point of Inspiration - Recycle Everything

So following along with me so far, you may have had the same realization that I had, which is why only do this for unused content? In a lot of cases, you can easily take side quests and encounters you have created, and save them for use later on. Especially if something received extremely positive feedback at the table, it gives even more reason to revisit it later on. When doing something like this, I will often try to get the input of the party on what they liked and disliked about an encounter. I like to jot down those notes so that if I revisit the material, I can make adjustments and create something better.

Reusing old content can be a great way to plan a session efficiently. Especially if you know the adventure or encounter worked well, it can be a great way to have more options to throw at the party. But a word of caution when doing this: Try not to overuse old content.

Every table and adventure will differ slightly from one another, even if it’s the same players involved. Different character personalities and builds will approach the same challenge with a slightly different perspective, and can cause a different outcome. Relying on material you have used previously can work, but you should use this as well as material made specifically for the party. It’s the bespoking of a campaign to fit a table that separates tabletop roleplaying games from other forms of interactive media, such as video games.

Conclusion

As we’ve journeyed through the possibilities of recycling and repurposing our unused and successful campaign elements, the role of a Dungeon Master extends beyond mere storytelling. We are curators of experiences, architects of adventure, and stewards of creativity. By adopting a mindset of flexibility and innovation, we can ensure that our efforts—both used and unused—contribute to a rich tapestry of tales that enrich our games and ignite the imaginations of our players. 

Remember, you never waste any creative endeavor within your campaign. Each unused plot, encounter, or character is a seed that, when replanted in the fertile ground of future adventures, has the potential to grow into something extraordinary. So, keep organizing, keep recycling, and most importantly, keep creating. Your next glorious adventure might just be a well-loved “leftover” waiting to be discovered anew.