My group refuses to allow more than 30 minutes before the party's together, usually we're together within 5. We have a concept for the campaign that's shared before characters are made so people know whether they wanna join. people work out why they're going to a place, and then it depends on the campaign. either they all have a similar goal and naturally team up, or they're forced together by the D- I mean, by necessity. usually if they sit down together they'll come up with ways to know each other by themselves. you have the same contractor, we were all teleported into the random cave by cultists, you've been struck by a curse that will kill you all. maybe it's a save the town/kingdom/world quest. there are so many reasons to be a party it's hard NOT to be one. but basically if your character is so antisocial or dissimilar to the party that you and the DM can't find a solution to, you either need to find a reason yourself or change the character. this is a social game, you have to be able to function with others.
It is this simple... "In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and you can find them... maybe you can hire The A-Team!" The whole first session "getting together" is just ridiculous.
+TheDMGinfo .... Yes! I want to see a Nerdarchy D&Dized video of the A-Team. B.A., would you create a barbarian rager? or a vengance paladin that uses gold chain(mail)s instead of plate? Face, would he be a arcane trickster or straight up illusionist? or maybe even a bard? and Murdock ... how could he be anything else than a warlock with a Pact of the Screw Loose?
What I've done recently is have the players tell me how they did it. During that discussion, they would drop NPC names, place names and such that I could use as adventure hooks. Collaborative storytelling works like a charm. EDIT: I got an idea from a DMs Rountable on the WoTC channel where a DM said he starts every campaign by having the players tell a story of their first adventure together. A "how the heck did we get here" sort of story. I've used that ever since.
My current campaign started with two of my players bumping into each other at a job board, then moving to a tavern to recruit others to complete it. One dropped out, more players joined in, so I found an in-story way of introducing their players, as unwilling captors for my older players. Events eventuated, and the thieves' guild the new guys were stuck in was destroyed, and so they joined up. Oddly, they're in that "why are we hanging out again?" phase right now. The money they got out of the treasury is a tenuous binding between them; they got rich after working together, so maybe more good things will come if they stick around, but conveniently they're beginning to see glimpses of a bigger story that will keep them working together for a common goal. It involves gnome genocide, an evil empire, and a mysterious prophecy (which took some of my players two sessions to figure out involved them. Two! It would've been fun to have a deep underlying plot as a complete red herring, but I'm not *that* obsessive!). The thing I'm most looking forward to is the adventuring party name they pick for themselves. My prophecy refers to 'foolhardy seekers', I wonder if that's what they'll pick.
If people are really resistant to making backstories that connect to other players, give them insentive. You can become proficient in 1 skill that other character is proficient in. It’s not game breaking but it’s a buff
I really enjoy the process of getting to know the other characters from the first adventure and usually don't wanna know anything about them before that. But I must admit it had its troubles from time to time when we found sooner or later that that some of characters wouldn't go adventuring with each other. We got there trying to emphasize the sense of freedom and didn't always worked out as we thought it would. So your tips are very good. And there's another idea i'd like to add, taken from FATE Core. That starting adventure where it begins with one character in a brief situation written by the DM and then it turns to the left or right of the table and the next character takes on where the previous one left, having all other characters as spectators waiting for their turn. By the end everyone has an idea who's around and they're all already involved in something.
My brother and I have done the relatives connection too. We both created maintain dwarves who are brothers. My dwarf, the older brother, is a fighter with the soldier background. He plays a wizard with the sage background. Growing up, he always wanted to learn about things, and would often go off investigating. But I would sometimes have to come save or protect him. He is one of my character's bonds. Even my trinket I connected him: a sketch of a goblin, which I decided is one that drew for me when we were children, and I keep it for sentimental reasons (even if dwarves might not do such a thing). In combat I would go out of my way to assist my brother's wizard even if puts me at some disadvantage. And, since we are brothers in real life, the dynamic is the same, and it feels real at the table.
In our Pathfinder campaign, our characters all had a reason to go to this city on the other side of the ocean, and all ended up taking the same boat, and through the problems on the ship we ended up having to work together to help protect the ship, and while we still had problems with other in the group, we have found that we work good together. In our orcs only 5e campaign, our dm had us choose one other person that we were acquainted with, and each had a secret. My acquaintance knows that my orc necromancer is a bit of a klepto with books. My secret is that he has stolen the diary of one of the other clan leaders, during the meeting of the six orc clans, called by the Warchief, who requested the characters for a special meeting.
I get they're character info and back story a week out and it gives me time to fabricate a situation where they need to work together. Wether money, vengeance, or prestige I do my best to get them on the same page.
this is honestly a problem I have. My character got to level 5 in an Adventure's League sanctioned game. But the party and DM stopped going to that local comic shop to play. I went to a different one and joined another League party. However, I still feel like an outsider (player & PC), the only reason I can even think of why I go along with them is that I'm Lawful Good and our adventures will be for the good of all. But it's difficult when I'm underleveled and the act paranoid and trigger happy
One of favorite backstories was created by accident. my half elf ranger Richard took the last name Dundragon not knowing the wizard had the same one when my character was introduced as captive the party came across the wizard immediately ran to injured character shouting “Cousin Dicky speak to me!”
My players and I work together to make the characters backstory and then we kinda discus together there involvement then I weave the stories opening around there characters making it as meaningful to them as possible.
I have written a game that teaches players new to D&D and/or 5E how to play 5E. In this setting, the players have all grown up in the same, small, backwoods town. The town is just big enough that not everyone is best friends, just small enough that everyone knows at least everyone else by face. The players then get drafted into the town militia and adventure and hilarity ensue.I have used the tried and true Bethesda Method and made the players all prisoners and thrown them into a life or death situation where they must work together to survive or die.And of course in our steampunk ghostbusters game, all the players are agents for the same government entity, and it's easy enough to explain that a player got assigned into or out of a particular squad.I have also experimented with starting the players off dead with short term memory loss. They get resurrected easily enough, but spend the game putting the pieces of their immediate lives back together.I put together a quick, small game for my kids when we were on vacation where each started off as an officer in opposing armies. They are both running for their lives to escape the Tarrasque, and they have a choice of dying or jumping down a well together. There were Daleks in that game. Good times.
It's funny you should mention the weirdness of players with characters of different genders. Over the weekend, I did a search to find if their is any DnD-like anime. This show, Record of Lodoss War, popped up, which apparently was huge in Japan. It was a group of Japanese guys who played DnD when it first came to Japan in the 80s and then they made an anime of just straight up their DnD campaign. So, the characters are all the typical DnD classes of fighter, Mage, cleric, rogue, dwarf fighter...and an elf girl who was played by a Japanese guy in real life. Well in the anime, the elf girl constantly flirts with the fighter character, and the rogue flirted with the elf girl. While I'm watching this, all could I could think was "I really hope they added this flirtation between the characters just for the anime because if that actually happened at the gaming table, that would have been one super weird, super awkward game of DnD!"
Lol I think its funny we can role play murderers but not sexual tension. That may be legit homophobia just because it shouldn't mean anything. Like why would it be not awkward to role play flirt with a girl that you aren't interested in and she isn't interested in you? Just seems weird that there would be a difference
I just finished a session 0 for a new campaign group at the local games shop. everyone showed up expecting to roll dice ... nope ... put your dice away boys, everyone gets the standard array .... so instead, start by picking a background and start with the story ... let this character help shape itself with where it came from It was an awesome session 0 and left everyone excited for the coming campaign. We've got a really interesting group and they are all bought into the idea of where they are, why they are there and why they are together. When we sit down to start play, it'll be jumping right into the thick of it.
I like to work it out in the Character Creation/"Session 0" as a collaborative effort between DM and players. It's actually one of my favorite parts of a campaign. If I'm the DM, It can be as complicated or simple as the players want it to be.
+Frederick Pagliarulo I did make the mistake to begin at session 1 once.. never again. Session 0 is worth its weight in gold. The players are much more happy and you are DM are allot more happy. Not to mention you can write a campaign fitting the expectations. Instead of having to adjust on the fly.
Blackdragon Securities Exsists in All of my Games Now thanks to Dave! And if you Want Something Done right You have to call these Mercs. Dave, was that character a dwarf?
My up coming 5E campaing the players are orphan nobles under service of important lord, and now in first session I make them tell me how they did their last mission in their lord behalf.
I love all your videos and the information is great. All the help is awesome as well. That being said I have to ask why you all have to have a bottle of water each video? Also during the videos, that on average are less the 15 min, you drink them as if your all dehydrated. Is there a water shortage in New Jersey or is it that hot all the time? I'm sorry this is coming off like nit picking or whatever but I want you guys to succeed because I like your content. I also subscribe to the newsletter! Keep up the great work.
skipping the first adventure, the one in which the party came into being, is just ignoring the problem. It would be better if people just created the party together laying a common foundation from whom the party can stem
Hey is your character falling in love easily a good flaw like any girl he sees who happens to be his fancy he falls like a lead anvil could lead to trouble and mayhem right.
You could say you are all childhood friends. But during the sessions ask the players to tell you a story from when they were growing up together. It would be a really cool little thing that would bond your player together.
My group refuses to allow more than 30 minutes before the party's together, usually we're together within 5. We have a concept for the campaign that's shared before characters are made so people know whether they wanna join. people work out why they're going to a place, and then it depends on the campaign. either they all have a similar goal and naturally team up, or they're forced together by the D- I mean, by necessity. usually if they sit down together they'll come up with ways to know each other by themselves. you have the same contractor, we were all teleported into the random cave by cultists, you've been struck by a curse that will kill you all. maybe it's a save the town/kingdom/world quest. there are so many reasons to be a party it's hard NOT to be one. but basically if your character is so antisocial or dissimilar to the party that you and the DM can't find a solution to, you either need to find a reason yourself or change the character. this is a social game, you have to be able to function with others.
It is this simple... "In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and you can find them... maybe you can hire The A-Team!" The whole first session "getting together" is just ridiculous.
agreed after doing it wrong for years.
- Nerdarchist Dave
+TheDMGinfo .... Yes! I want to see a Nerdarchy D&Dized video of the A-Team.
B.A., would you create a barbarian rager? or a vengance paladin that uses gold chain(mail)s instead of plate?
Face, would he be a arcane trickster or straight up illusionist? or maybe even a bard?
and Murdock ... how could he be anything else than a warlock with a Pact of the Screw Loose?
What I've done recently is have the players tell me how they did it. During that discussion, they would drop NPC names, place names and such that I could use as adventure hooks. Collaborative storytelling works like a charm.
EDIT: I got an idea from a DMs Rountable on the WoTC channel where a DM said he starts every campaign by having the players tell a story of their first adventure together. A "how the heck did we get here" sort of story. I've used that ever since.
My current campaign started with two of my players bumping into each other at a job board, then moving to a tavern to recruit others to complete it. One dropped out, more players joined in, so I found an in-story way of introducing their players, as unwilling captors for my older players. Events eventuated, and the thieves' guild the new guys were stuck in was destroyed, and so they joined up.
Oddly, they're in that "why are we hanging out again?" phase right now. The money they got out of the treasury is a tenuous binding between them; they got rich after working together, so maybe more good things will come if they stick around, but conveniently they're beginning to see glimpses of a bigger story that will keep them working together for a common goal. It involves gnome genocide, an evil empire, and a mysterious prophecy (which took some of my players two sessions to figure out involved them. Two! It would've been fun to have a deep underlying plot as a complete red herring, but I'm not *that* obsessive!).
The thing I'm most looking forward to is the adventuring party name they pick for themselves. My prophecy refers to 'foolhardy seekers', I wonder if that's what they'll pick.
If people are really resistant to making backstories that connect to other players, give them insentive. You can become proficient in 1 skill that other character is proficient in.
It’s not game breaking but it’s a buff
As a fighter with very little proficiencies that are often used, I'd jump on this so quick I swear...
I really enjoy the process of getting to know the other characters from the first adventure and usually don't wanna know anything about them before that. But I must admit it had its troubles from time to time when we found sooner or later that that some of characters wouldn't go adventuring with each other. We got there trying to emphasize the sense of freedom and didn't always worked out as we thought it would. So your tips are very good.
And there's another idea i'd like to add, taken from FATE Core. That starting adventure where it begins with one character in a brief situation written by the DM and then it turns to the left or right of the table and the next character takes on where the previous one left, having all other characters as spectators waiting for their turn. By the end everyone has an idea who's around and they're all already involved in something.
My brother and I have done the relatives connection too. We both created maintain dwarves who are brothers. My dwarf, the older brother, is a fighter with the soldier background. He plays a wizard with the sage background. Growing up, he always wanted to learn about things, and would often go off investigating. But I would sometimes have to come save or protect him. He is one of my character's bonds. Even my trinket I connected him: a sketch of a goblin, which I decided is one that drew for me when we were children, and I keep it for sentimental reasons (even if dwarves might not do such a thing). In combat I would go out of my way to assist my brother's wizard even if puts me at some disadvantage. And, since we are brothers in real life, the dynamic is the same, and it feels real at the table.
In our Pathfinder campaign, our characters all had a reason to go to this city on the other side of the ocean, and all ended up taking the same boat, and through the problems on the ship we ended up having to work together to help protect the ship, and while we still had problems with other in the group, we have found that we work good together.
In our orcs only 5e campaign, our dm had us choose one other person that we were acquainted with, and each had a secret. My acquaintance knows that my orc necromancer is a bit of a klepto with books. My secret is that he has stolen the diary of one of the other clan leaders, during the meeting of the six orc clans, called by the Warchief, who requested the characters for a special meeting.
cool, good stuff.
- Nerdarchist Dave
I get they're character info and back story a week out and it gives me time to fabricate a situation where they need to work together. Wether money, vengeance, or prestige I do my best to get them on the same page.
Hands down, this is the best advice I've seen in a video for new roll players.
this is honestly a problem I have. My character got to level 5 in an Adventure's League sanctioned game. But the party and DM stopped going to that local comic shop to play. I went to a different one and joined another League party. However, I still feel like an outsider (player & PC), the only reason I can even think of why I go along with them is that I'm Lawful Good and our adventures will be for the good of all. But it's difficult when I'm underleveled and the act paranoid and trigger happy
One of favorite backstories was created by accident. my half elf ranger Richard took the last name Dundragon not knowing the wizard had the same one when my character was introduced as captive the party came across the wizard immediately ran to injured character shouting “Cousin Dicky speak to me!”
My players and I work together to make the characters backstory and then we kinda discus together there involvement then I weave the stories opening around there characters making it as meaningful to them as possible.
+Halloweenville That's my favorite!
I have written a game that teaches players new to D&D and/or 5E how to play 5E. In this setting, the players have all grown up in the same, small, backwoods town. The town is just big enough that not everyone is best friends, just small enough that everyone knows at least everyone else by face. The players then get drafted into the town militia and adventure and hilarity ensue.I have used the tried and true Bethesda Method and made the players all prisoners and thrown them into a life or death situation where they must work together to survive or die.And of course in our steampunk ghostbusters game, all the players are agents for the same government entity, and it's easy enough to explain that a player got assigned into or out of a particular squad.I have also experimented with starting the players off dead with short term memory loss. They get resurrected easily enough, but spend the game putting the pieces of their immediate lives back together.I put together a quick, small game for my kids when we were on vacation where each started off as an officer in opposing armies. They are both running for their lives to escape the Tarrasque, and they have a choice of dying or jumping down a well together. There were Daleks in that game. Good times.
It's funny you should mention the weirdness of players with characters of different genders. Over the weekend, I did a search to find if their is any DnD-like anime. This show, Record of Lodoss War, popped up, which apparently was huge in Japan. It was a group of Japanese guys who played DnD when it first came to Japan in the 80s and then they made an anime of just straight up their DnD campaign. So, the characters are all the typical DnD classes of fighter, Mage, cleric, rogue, dwarf fighter...and an elf girl who was played by a Japanese guy in real life. Well in the anime, the elf girl constantly flirts with the fighter character, and the rogue flirted with the elf girl. While I'm watching this, all could I could think was "I really hope they added this flirtation between the characters just for the anime because if that actually happened at the gaming table, that would have been one super weird, super awkward game of DnD!"
Maybe. But maybe they were homosexuals?
Lol I think its funny we can role play murderers but not sexual tension. That may be legit homophobia just because it shouldn't mean anything. Like why would it be not awkward to role play flirt with a girl that you aren't interested in and she isn't interested in you?
Just seems weird that there would be a difference
I just finished a session 0 for a new campaign group at the local games shop. everyone showed up expecting to roll dice ... nope ... put your dice away boys, everyone gets the standard array .... so instead, start by picking a background and start with the story ... let this character help shape itself with where it came from
It was an awesome session 0 and left everyone excited for the coming campaign. We've got a really interesting group and they are all bought into the idea of where they are, why they are there and why they are together. When we sit down to start play, it'll be jumping right into the thick of it.
I like to work it out in the Character Creation/"Session 0" as a collaborative effort between DM and players. It's actually one of my favorite parts of a campaign. If I'm the DM, It can be as complicated or simple as the players want it to be.
Yes good stuff.
- Nerdarchist Dave
Yes × 1000 that is the path to a great game!
+Frederick Pagliarulo
I did make the mistake to begin at session 1 once.. never again. Session 0 is worth its weight in gold.
The players are much more happy and you are DM are allot more happy. Not to mention you can write a campaign fitting the expectations. Instead of having to adjust on the fly.
Blackdragon Securities Exsists in All of my Games Now thanks to Dave! And if you Want Something Done right You have to call these Mercs. Dave, was that character a dwarf?
Dwarven crossbowman.
- Nerdarchist Dave
My up coming 5E campaing the players are orphan nobles under service of important lord, and now in first session I make them tell me how they did their last mission in their lord behalf.
this is a good video, and I just signed in the News Letter. I am ShyGuyWolf. you guys are great with the DawnedForgedCast on the D&D subject.
I love all your videos and the information is great. All the help is awesome as well. That being said I have to ask why you all have to have a bottle of water each video? Also during the videos, that on average are less the 15 min, you drink them as if your all dehydrated. Is there a water shortage in New Jersey or is it that hot all the time? I'm sorry this is coming off like nit picking or whatever but I want you guys to succeed because I like your content. I also subscribe to the newsletter! Keep up the great work.
I guess it's because of the talking. I would become thirsty really quickly.
Non game related tip/question:
Could you perhaps lock the focus on the camera? it really bothers me hahahaha
skipping the first adventure, the one in which the party came into being, is just ignoring the problem. It would be better if people just created the party together laying a common foundation from whom the party can stem
Hey is your character falling in love easily a good flaw like any girl he sees who happens to be his fancy he falls like a lead anvil could lead to trouble and mayhem right.
Where is there dark sun campaign
does there always have to be a complicated backstory? can't you just say you were all childhood friends and go on from there?
it's fine. Whatever works for you and your group.
- Nerdarchist Dave
You could say you are all childhood friends. But during the sessions ask the players to tell you a story from when they were growing up together.
It would be a really cool little thing that would bond your player together.
Simo my players rarely "Bond" most of the characters end up dying pretty quick so it's better not to have any emotional attachment.
what if the players make characters without knowledge of the other players?
This is where a session zero comes in handy.
Nerdarchist Dave
we just assume the group's gotten together already