We are starting a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign this week. I’m running a roll20 campaign for four people that have never played, and one long time player. None of us have much experience in roll20.net…..But I don’t know that our first session should be about roll20, so here are my plans for session zero for new players. I’m stealing liberally from this great list on Reddit.
Rules for Playing D&D Together
Before we talk about the game at all, we’ll talk about some of the things about how we play together.
- Player Discomfort – It at any point we are doing something that makes you uncomfortable, say something! Either in chat to me or using the voice tools, let us know that you are not comfortable
- Player distraction – we’ll talk about trying to keep focused on the game while playing, and why that increases fun for everyone
- Rules debates – look, I’m bad at the rules, so if I mess them up, let me know in chat. If it has a big effect on the game, we can roll time back. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter that I got the rules wrong. Also, no long debates about the rules while we play. Want to do that? Use discord when we aren’t playing.
- The world reacts – you can be a murder hobo or drow if you want, but the world will react to that. Be aware of the world…….
- Spotlight sharing and Efficiency – the goal is for everyone to have fun. So, let everyone else have fun too! If a player wants to do something you don’t think is a good idea, your character can try to convince their character to do something else….but not every time. Look, not everyone makes optimal or good choices all the time, let it go. Also, don’t be the type that makes the killing blow, or cuts off the other players, or whatever makes only YOU the spotlight. It’s a group, not a one on one game.
- Ask questions – we are all new at this, either playing or using roll20. If you have a question, ask someone.
Remind Them of the Basics for How to Play Dungeons and Dragons
Our next discussion will be about some simple things to know when starting to play Dungeons and Dragons. I have two other posts about this, and I’ll remind them to read those before we meet (though I don’t know they all will). I’ll ask them to prepare questions about those documents, though I am pretty sure they’ve all played video games before, so they might not have a ton. We’ll see. We’ll talk a bit about meta-gaming also, I think…..
The Core Mechanic
I’ll go over the core mechanic for sure, since that’s the thing I note about new players. The DM will ask for a roll of some kind, and the new players don’t remember that the idea is almost always to roll a D20.
Rules, Don’t Worry About them, and Here are Some House Rules
Oops, this will be the first topic, and I do discuss this in more detail on getting started, so I won’t repeat that here. I’ll just remind them that the rules are there for us to have a way to have fun together, not a way to play gotcha games or interfere with fun.
Any play test rules are legal. Any rules from “big” third party publishers are legal. Others should be talked about with me. I am working on new initiative systems, so I’ll point that out and let them know that taking Alert or ramping up Dexterity just for initiative might not have great value in this game. Also, monsters in my games do NOT play by the same rules as players, and I often modify them. Also, I’ll level them up when I feel like it, and we won’t use experience points.
Describe My Dungeons and Dragons Campaign
Next, we’ll talk a little bit about the campaign. I don’t like games with evil characters, or lots of party in-fighting. It just isn’t fun for me (it might be for you, that’s cool). I will encourage them to work together for common goals, but to also have individual goals. We’ll incorporate that into the character creation work below.
Things they know: I’ll talk about bit about Toril, and where they are in relation to the rest of the world. We’ll talk a bit about the area around the campaign, and point out places they can be from. We’ll talk a bit about magic, and how it exists in Toril, including that I’ll be pulling in some third party content if they are interested in learning about tattoos or void magic or rune magic to let me know.
The characters will usually choose what to do next, but I may nudge them occasionally. We’ll see how everyone is doing with being in a sandbox type game to start, but again, it should be fine.
Character Creation
Now for the meat ( I hope the meat) of session zero. Let’s create characters together. First, everyone should have access to my campaign at dndbeyond.com. We own the PHB, so you can use all the items there. Starting there is the best bet. Then we’ll work on getting any information into roll20 as needed. I’m hoping that the players all help each other with this, either in chat or on the discord channel using voice. If anyone has not created a character, we can all do that too……no biggie.
Next, we’ll talk about what everyone’s character is. Just the basics like class, name, gender, and ancestry. Then I’ll ask everyone to consider the following questions so we can figure out WHO their character is:
- How did you meet? Do you even all know each other at all?
- Is one of you willing to not know anyone else to start……..because we can use that in the first adventure.
- What backstory do you have, if any (remember, you start with an idea, but you don’t really know your character until you’ve played hours of sessions and figured out who they really are)
- Anyone that doesn’t know, we can help them figure it out, suggest they steal a backstory from the pre-gen characters, or just let it go. It doesn’t matter a ton at this point……but it does make things more interesting.
The goal here is to make sure that the players know their characters, and that the other players sort of know the other player’s characters. Also, let’s try to have stuff I can pull into the game as we play…..if you have stories, it’s easier for me to have good stories in support of those.
EDIT: I just found this advice, and might try it, we’ll see…….In Session 0, I take the “hook” to the adventure/campaign and have the players roleplay the story backwards of how they got to the adventure, linking themselves together to explain why they’re invested in the setting and one another.
If We Have Time, Run an Encounter
If we have time, we’ll run an encounter. Most likely that will be theater of the mind, but that’s ok. We’ll still use roll20 for initiative and rolls and whatnot. There are a few goals here:
- Learn roll20 a bit
- Learn initiative
- Learn combat a bit
- Practice looking ahead to your action, while also paying attention to what is going on
- Answer questions about abilities like feats, spells, class abilities, etc.
So, that’ it. That is my plan for session zero. Thoughts?