How Pro DnD DM's Start New Games

See, if you don't like the theme do not play. Human Centipede is disgusting but well fitting for some demons or devils.

So if you like sunshine'n faerie farts then do not play.

Even a DM can say no. To any! political ideology for that matter.

Wish I would have seen this last week. 😢

The thing about people being too sensitive these days is something that I do think is true, but I have a very easy solution to that: when I put out an ad looking for players, I ask for stuff that makes them uncomfortable, and if they give me a fucking 3 paragraph document, I just don't invite them, and instead invite the dude who is chill with everything.

A lot of these guides are interesting suggestions and these people with the resources to make their groups famous and distributed are fine and all but, fr
don't listen to the yesses and nos of the casted, partially scripted, entertainment industry GMs. Just like everything else, it's 1. Not real life and 2. not your life. Find what works for your group and know, know, know that what works will change. All this 'advice' is largely useless. Comparison is the thief of joy.

My experience, going back decades now, is that most players want to get into the adventure right away. None of the shopping for iron spikes and rope nonsense nor stumbling about a pub looking for adventure clues. They are there to get into the game rolling dice and making heroic decisions where their characters survival hang in the balance. The stuff of legends and myths. Keep the backstory minimal and launch into the game. This is also the way to have a successful movie or book, viewers and readers don't want to sit through a long boring backstory of the prior ages, they want to get out there and understand the prior ages impact as events unfold, like "why was that wizard wearing a carmine colored hat? The same color as the shop keeper who wouldn't sell us a wooden stake?"

I did a 1 shot as a test run for some players to see how everyone would work together for a campaign, but they decided it should be a campaign and have no backstory, what do i do?!

misleading thumbnail, do not approve

Wow thanks so much for the great videos! i subscribed a couple of moths ago before you hit 1k and its no wonder you've grown so fast

Session zero, then character building, then session 1. That's my model.

- Session zero for a brand new group or at the end of a campaign. "What would you like to play next?", "what are your red flags?", "What kind of game do you like the most?", and so on.

- Character building: done together, in person or online. Stats rolled, backgrounds chosen, classes announced. Then, backstory. I give up to 3 uncommon magical items, rolled magically, based on how much background is given. A 1-sentence description is good for 1 item. A paragraph or two with some hooks and motivations, 2. Give me that, plus a description of how they got where they are and how that shaped them as a character? 3 items. Works like a charm. Even my wife, who is basically murderhobo-lite, gave me enough for 2 items.

- Session 1: how the party gets together and the beginnings of the story. Sometimes in Media Res, sometimes Meet in a Tavern, sometimes individual slices of time, one at a time, until they meet.

Session 0 is just making sure your players will be OK and that they will vibe with the game. That's it. Doesn't need to be complicated.

I keep a slide show full of my ideas for campaigns. Each slide acts as a mood board, pictures tha capture the vibe of the campaign, key words and phrases that outline expectations and styles (combat oriented, creepy, dinosaurs, indiana jones, knights and courts, ect.) and a little blurb about what brings the adventures together with l vauge goals, (finding the lost city, escape borovia, survive the invasion ect ). And we go through the slide show as a group and pick which one sounds the most interesting to everyone. From there we do group character creation. Having a strong theme with vague goals gives me direction as a dm and keeps the scale of the campaign in check. So when each adventure is finished I have a whole catalog of ideas for the next one. This way I'm not putting anything more than a half hour of thought into a campaign that our group doesn't vibe with. But still keep it around. 😊

these are all story game techniques, and if you decide the story is better served by a PC having evil parents, don't ask them... do it.

Calling this safety tools is really jarring. Boundaries seems way less... Dramatic.

I have a 1:1 with each players and we build their backstory together. It takes about 20 minutes. Then, for a campaign, I do a small adventure, about an hour or so, where they get an excounter with one or two characters. That way I learn about their characters and they get a chance to make changes. The end result of theses mini games is a character entering the game that both the player and the DM are comfortable with.

Some of you will need to hear this. You aren’t a pro Dm do a session 0 2-3 hour one shot. You get the feel of the players and how they play.

Session 0 is like the PCs looking into a crystal ball if its done wrong ...and Connie is a terrible person and her hate has no place in the hobby

Ragebait title thats opposite of the content.

DMs *

People mistake session 0 for "the character creation session". Session 0 is when you discuss what kind of BS house rules the DM has, if he's going to have "extremely graphic sexual content" and so on, before they make the choice to leave (or reach a compromise) and what are the player expectations. It has nothing to do with PCs or backgrounds. The only reason those happen in S0 is because usually there's some free time at the end. If there's enough time it can even turn into Session 1 almost immediately...

Saying don't have a session 0, do private pc chargen is tone deaf.

I have played DnD from edition 1. Long before "session 0" was a named thing, but it still happened. My understanding of the "session 0" definition is any kind of back-and-forth between player and DM between the agreement to start a new campaign and the start of the first play session is all "session 0". It may not be formal or in face. Maybe over emails, messengers, what's app. It is all "Session 0". And the players getting together to say "hey I'll be the tank, who wants to be healer?" THAT is session 0.

Lots of these Pro DMs talk about doing session 0s off camera. They still happen, we just don't see them as the audience because it's for the players, not the audience

I still prefer a session 0. For me, it shows that the group is willing to sit down and actually discuss things and leave an open road to communication. I can also get a feel for what that communication is like and how effective and compatible it is. Even more, it allows me to pick up a vibe on each person’s character and this, then lets me create a character that can, equal parts, align and contrast with the party members. I am someone who prefers to create a character around the campaign and the party for best compatibility and balance. Make no mistake, I do usually have a general idea of what type of arc I would like to see out of my character and share that with the dm and group so we are all on the same page about what I would like out of this game too. But honestly, I do enjoy making a character that can highlight and help along the intended storylines of the other party members and most easily assist the dm if pushing the plot along in the general direction they ask.

Honestly, I feel like this is generally why I get tapped for being a later addition and joining games that are already in-progress. So long as I’m given that time, maybe even allowed a sit in for a session before my official first one, I usually can gather all the information I feel I need to inspire up a character for myself.

Does this mean that I don’t always get an “official” session 0? Yeah, but I’m over here usually poking around and asking questions and having one-on-one talks with each person at the table and figuring out what type of direction I need to build in.

I do have a comfort zone of course, usually having a strong preference for the ranger class. I just enjoy archer builds and builds that allow me to play more along the lines of a battlefield medic (not dedicated healer, I mean prepping healing potions, being able to get in and out of spaces to get to those who need to be healed, making sure I have a healer’s kit, and putting a lot into the medicine skill so I can stabilize or diagnose as needed). This means I have a preference of a lot of mobility and ranged attacks that focus down on high value targets and reward tactical play. This isn’t the only class I have played however.

Sometimes, I’m the one joining the session 0 who has the most solid idea of what to play. For instance, I once decided to give a full druid build a go. The build I chose was very healing oriented and I communicated this to the group. Some of the others had been waffling about taking a cleric class or some other class, and my saying this ended up helping them decide to go with a build that wasn’t focused on healing (one did take up artificer so some healing still, but he and I discussed and he told me he wished to keep it supplementary only).

Now I know some reading this will pick up on that I play with a lot of strangers, and you aren’t wrong and it is a large reason as to why I push so hard for session 0 where I can get one. But I do also have a regular group I play with whom I have been with for multiple campaigns. We still check in. Perhaps not all that formal, but we prefer to check in. We are all friends after all. It’s good to check in and make sure that what you assume is ok, actually is ok, and a session 0 is an official, nonjudgmental, place to do that, a place where we lay the important cards all on the table and go over them.

But what about plot twist secrets? Those are discussed in private, always with the dm in the loop as well as any player that I may be building this secret with. I also check in with the dm and ask if this type of thing we might have come up with is compatible with the rest of the party, their arcs, and won’t be some type of trigger or overshadow something the others wanted to do, and will be something that contributes to the over all story in a way that the party genuinely cares about. For me, secrets are meant to be discovered so I like making sure there is foreshadowing dropped about them throughout without being distracting or pretentious about it.

An example I did for this one time was simple. I had a character who had a late fiancé. I left several ways the party could have asked a question or discover something that would reveal the existence of this person (yes the fiancé is important even though they are dead). One method was through the poems my character would write as was their hobby. A good many of these poems (yes, I wrote actual poems) would drop hints about this person which I knew one character in particular would not be able to resist asking (it was established they were very nosy about hints of a romance in a person’s past). Another direction was my character, a scholar, had mentioned their area of study was of a particular race and that culture, and was a linguistics expert. This race actually has multiple languages associated with them and my character admitted to all but one blatantly and distracted the party from asking about the “missing” language. The last is my character, a fighter, carries multiple swords but only uses one. The remaining swords have their handles covered and are given generic sheaths. However, once uncovered, one in particular is revealed to be of a distinct make from a certain country, the country of origin of my character’s fiancé. This would stick out like a sore thumb as the country were are set in, is at war with that country. This means that my party has every reason to ask why my character is carrying around a sword that could easily mark them as a traitor. That would end up revealing to the party that secret. Again, yes, the existence of the fiancé is important. Who they were and the loss of them informed a lot of the motives behind my character. What’s more, the fallout of the incident that lost my character their fiancé created some allies and enemies for my character that the party can utilize or not. And even more, this was designed to lure the party towards that country, which it has, since the reveal did have all the other players discussing wanting to head there.

So that is one of my examples of how I create secrets. The way the reveal happened, for those curious, was the language route, mixed with the sword a bit. The ex-soldier character and mine were having a conversation, with mine trying to reassure him things weren’t as dire as he thought, and this transitioned into him asking about the missing language. He then explained he was disillusioned with his own country and wanted to learn about those on the other side of the war and was hoping I knew the language and would teach it to him so he could understand those people better. This prompted my character to give a shot at trusting him and handed over the sword, and having him recognize the make when he uncovered it, before explaining the fiancé connection, and that yes, they knew the language, warned that it would be dangerous, but that my character would do it since the reason that player character gave aligned with the idealistic dream their late fiancé always had near and dear to their heart. So yeah, my character shared a secret for a secret and to honor the type of person their fiancé was in life. What’s great was that this really highlighted a ton of the character growth that this player character had gone through. I love that I could contribute to that and my secret made them feel cool for it (also the side conversations by those not in the scene blew up a little when the secret was revealed and I was very amused by it and had a harder time keeping a straight face, but persevered).

But off topic. It’s for all these experiences that I prefer a session 0 if at all possible. I very much need a sense of open communication and collaboration to enjoy the game. I get anxious if I don’t have that tool and it feels isolating. The game stops being fun for me when too much isn’t being communicated above board. I don’t mean meta-gaming by the way. I just mean I like creative collaboration and need to information that makes that feasible. I got into this hobby for the group collaboration part of it. That’s what I enjoy and what keeps me continuing with this hobby and having fun with it. If that stops? Or is discouraged? I have no reason to stick around, especially not long term. This is just an aspect of the game I feel I need. Valid for other people to not have it, just not for me. For me it’s a nonnegotiable part of the hobby.

My campaign is basicically skyrim with greek mythology instead of dragons

Session 0 so you players are so attached to their characters so they are crushed when they die!

Session 0s are not needed if you have a group of friend you play with and vibe with. Its good for groups of strangers

Okay. Believe it or not this helps me a lot and not even for D&D. But I have been wanting to branch out and try out VTM and I recently just realized after making this massive world based on Current Day New Orleans… I didn’t know how to make my players interested in the lore that wasn’t just their backstories outside the world.

So this helps. Because now I know how to prepare for session zero.

While its always very important to having a conversation with your players about the game you're about to run, and everything can be negotiatied, i have one very important tip to any new gm's out there: is ok to say no. In the campaign im currently running i made the mistake of not saying no to a player whose characters was the cliche edgy, shady & violent rogue, but i let them play said character because i thought "its my duty as a GM to find a way to integrate this character into the narrative i want the table to play and develop." and that's true, but boy, it was rough at the beginning because he came from a different style of playing dnd and it took some out of the table conversations and time to not be that.

So, what do I do if I do not want to embrace the dark side? Do I have to unsubscribe now?