Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus is a sprawling, high-stakesDungeons & Dragonscampaign that takes adventurers from the crime-ridden streets of Baldur’s Gate to the fiery depths of the Nine Hells. Running this adventure requires balancing intrigue, moral dilemmas, and epic battles while keeping players engaged in a world of war machines, fiendish bargains, and desperate heroism.
With its unique setting and nonlinear storytelling, Dungeon Masters must adapt to player choices while maintaining the tension of a descent into damnation. These tips will help enhance roleplaying opportunities and ensure your journey through Avernus is as immersive and unforgettable as possible.
7Have Players Invested In The Cities
Either Elturel Or Baldur’s Gate
Descent into Avernusis called as such due to Elturel being pulled into the hellish realm, with the players having to do what they can to rescue the city and the Baldur’s Gate officials trapped there. If the players lack any significant connection to either of these places, then the main hook is lost for the party to journey into the Nine Hells to begin with.
Work with your players so they have a real interest in saving the city, at least if their characters aren’t the lawful-good heroic type. Something as simple as spending their childhood in Elturel will give them a reason to care, even if they choose not to interact with all that many NPCs while in the city.
6Use The Dark Secret
Hell Is Worst For Someone With Regrets
The Dark Secret is a background option for the players that is shared by the entire party. They all share a dark bond from a previous misdeed that ties them together, not only tightening up the group, but also giving you a lot to play with while in Avernus.
Of course, the Dark Secret is only as entertaining as both the Dungeon Master and the players are willing to make it, but it can still be enjoyable for parties that roleplay a little. Action-oriented players will still enjoy the nod to their dark past, even if that nod doesn’t make their moral compass waver.
5Add Some Friendly Faces In Avernus
Some Parties Enjoy The Break
This will vary significantly depending on your group (as most things do), but you may notice that,while in Avernus, everything wants to kill you. That is completely on-brand for a place that is meant to be hell, but it can be exhausting for certain groups that like to break up the action now and again.
This doesn’t mean that Avernus should be a walk in the park or anything like that, and true friendly NPCs should be scarce. Still, having friends in hell can go a long way in making the journey fun, and you could even have the players meet popular characters like Karlach before the events of Baldur’s Gate 3.
4Have Fights Be Meaningful
Give Them Hell
All the mercy you wish to show your players should be reserved for the early levels of the campaign, particularly at the fabled Dungeon of the Dead Three. While the whole campaign is meant to be difficult, you want your players to at least see hell before you slay them all.
Once the party makes it to Avernus, all bets are off. The fights at this point need to be the meanest they can be, with creatures being particularly ruthless, since that is what the party will expect: this is hell, everything hates you, and fights will hurt.
3Use Both Demons And Devils
The Whole Fiendish Spectrum
While the Blood War happens all throughout the Lower Planes, its main stage is Avernus. As such, players can expect to be in the middle of countless conflicts betweenDevils and Demonswhen exploring the first layer of the Hells, often needing to choose the lesser evil to move forward.
Unless you need the campaign to be fairly short, you should use both sides of the Blood War to give unholy life to the setting, letting players fight, interact, and even side with the denizens of Avernus. Both Devils and Demons have a lot to offer, and there is even room for a few Yugoloths to tempt the players with shady deals.
2Use The Warmachines To Their Full Extent
Both For And Against The Players
Any power you give the players is one you can easily take away, so don’t be afraid of handing the party the ability to ride a hellish Warmachine for a while. The feeling of mowing down enemies with ease is not something you always come by in Dungeons & Dragons, and it can speed up travel when you don’t want to bother with it.
As a hellish device, there is a cost to using them: the Soul Coins. These coins house souls inside of them, and the Warmachines consume them for power; their screams of anguish are audible several feet around the device, and good-aligned players might choose to free the soul before it is consumed by the machine to ease some guilt off their shoulders.
1Let Players Express Themselves
They Are The Main Characters After All
While Descent Into Avernus has several endings, choices to make, and paths to take, a lot of them can feel dangerously close to a railroad. This isn’t bad on its own, with a lot of players preferring a few clear choices rather than unlimited foggy freedom, but sometimes a spark of creativity comes along that not even the designers of the adventure module could predict.
In those moments, remember that, while the module has its outcomes for the story, it is your story when you are running it, and you are free to make as many changes as you see fit. The players might choose to stay in hell, and spend the rest of their campaign delving deeper into the layers rather than aiding Elturel, and that is their choice to make (and yours to allow).
