By GamerMomLuna
This is not a sponsored review. We were not given any compensation or benefit in return for a review of our experience with Adventure Away.
Over the weekend of February 17-19, Jason and I embarked on an “adventure away” to play Dungeons and Dragons for the weekend with 3 other couples and a DM. The weekend was planned and organized by Adventure Away, “a B&B with D&D,” in Maryland.
How It Works
Adventure Away advertises weekends away at various locations around Maryland.
“Join us for a RPG mini vacation at our weekend retreat. Our relaxing bed and breakfast atmosphere where all meals are included, allow guests to focus on the main attraction: an immersive tabletop roleplaying game.”
Adventure Away partners with local sites to rent them out for the weekend, which is why they have several locations. We stayed at Redwall Castle. Details about the location were able to be found on AirBnB after a quick search for the location online. A quick look on AirBnB allowed us to also find the other locations used by Adventure Away. They all look like beautiful locations! It’s important to note this is the way it’s done, however, because if there is an issue with the facility itself, Adventure Away may not be able to correct it during your stay.
Adventure Preparation
The preparation for our adventure started by being added to the Adventure Away Discord server. While this is a great way to let parties get to know each other, the server itself is a little chaotic. Everyone in the server has access to every channel (which, in fairness, is only a general channel and then one for the upcoming games). If you’re not a regular Discord user, this could be a little overwhelming, as all users will get notified of all posts in all channels. It would be great if there were a way to set up users as they come in to only have access to the general chanel and the channel for their weekend, but this could be challenging on the part of the owners, as it would require them to have everyone’s usernames and know exactly when they are registered to attend.
The Discord channel for our weekend also allowed us to have some initial interaction with our DM. They provided us with some basic details about the setting of the game that might be relevant to creating characters. We received information about how to roll stats (or use point buy/standard array if we were using that instead), and were able to discuss character options with the DM – if something wasn’t standard, then our DM was open to discussion and possible review. This was great for being able to get character creation done prior to our arrival.
Meal Planning
We didn’t have to worry about any meals while we stayed, but all guests were asked to provide any dietary restrictions so they could be accommodated. We were also asked for our choices of snacks and drinks, so we could enjoy them while we played our game all weekend. Our group was pretty open with sharing any dietary needs, but obtaining relevant dietary information would probably be better via email from guests rather than through the Discord, though I can see why having it available there would be easy to do, as when planning meals and snacks, it can be referred to by the weekend.
Another thing we felt it was important to share is that on the website, the owners speak a lot about their enjoyment of cooking, and also state that meals are catered by local restaurants. However, what this means is that the meals were all take-out from local fast-food places. Our first night we had Chinese food. Breakfast was made in house on our first morning – D20 shaped waffles, sausages, yogurt, fruit, coffee, juice. Lunch that day was sandwiches from Jersey Mikes, and dinner was burgers from Red Robin. It also seemed that there was a price cap on how much people could order, though this wasn’t made clear initially. Breakfast the last morning was cinnamon rolls, fruit, yogurt, coffee, and juice.
The owners did work with people with dietary restrictions to try to find places that could accommodate their needs (for example, one guest couldn’t have gluten, and Jersey Mike’s has gluten free bread available for their subs).
Game Time
Now for the actual game itself. Our DM did a great job preparing for a game for 8 adults. They were engaging and enjoyable to play with. They started off the game Friday night after everyone had arrived and dinner was ordered. This allowed us time to have discussion around expectations, safety tools, and how the event would work. Because of the conversation in the Discord, we already knew we were playing a game based in Barovia, and did have some time to voice any concerns we may have, but this would have been another opportunity to discuss these if needed. When we’d all had dinner, we dove into the game and played for roughly three hours on Friday night, ending around 10pm. Saturday morning, breakfast was served at 9am, with a planned start time for gaming at 10am. We played in several hour bursts throughout Saturday, with the game itself ending around 10pm that night. When all was said and done, we’d had about 10 hours of gaming between Friday night and all day Saturday, but the breaks were well timed, so it didn’t feel like we were sitting at the table for stretches that were long and uncomfortable. We even had a break after lunch for a few hours in which everyone was able to go off and explore – whether that was by going into town or taking a walk.
Overall Thoughts
Our DM was great, and the owners of Adventure Away are very kind and friendly. We’d recommend the experience to anyone who likes to play D&D, and is looking for a unique opportunity to get away for a weekend. We enjoyed our trip and our game with Adventure Away. We did feel it was very expensive for the two of us, when we could have rented the same AirBnB location with 6 additional friends for half of what we paid for the two of us. While we recognize that we had to cover food, the fee for our DM, and the fee to the business for coordinating it, we likely wouldn’t do this regularly. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give this about a 7.
