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View Full Version : The first session. What is critical?



Buddha's_Cookie
2014-05-06, 05:18 PM
The first session of my high sea campaign is coming up and I have quite a bit of stuff already planned. I want the first session to be for character creation and bit of relevant back history of the world. But what information do I need to give players for them to function? I want to put something together to give the players (map or other info).

I already know what books I will allow players to use.

Sorry if this sounds vague, just not sure how to word this.

Kaun
2014-05-06, 05:44 PM
Some ones going to ask what system your using so i will get that out of the way right off.

* Re creating characters. Give a brief elevator pitch of the setting and what your intent for the game is. (keep it under 2 mins and just hit the basic Points).
Then get them thinking about the types of characters they want to play, using their ideas feed them extra chunks of setting info.

for example if one of your players says something like; "I want to play a sort of spy/assassin!" You can then tell him/her about parts of the setting where that kind of character would come from. Then just feed them chunks of info depending on what they are looking for.

* The 10min start of campaign monologue about the setting generally in my experience seems to be a waste of time. If you have a lot of key info the players need to know in the first session , brake it up into 1 min chunks and spread it out over the first session.

* Have the characters decide how they know each other.
Unless your story revolves around them all being strangers, i generally start by working my way around the table asking each player to tell me how their character met the character of the player to their left. It seems to create better character bonds then when i come up with it and you get some interesting plot hooks out of it too.

* Have a small easy combat within the first 10 mins of the game.
I find that most of my players are generally itching to try out the combat abilities of their new characters when we start a new game so let them get it out of their system. Let them beat something up. Make it easy so they feel good about their characters and then move on to what you have planned. I find doing it this way means they players are less likely to try and fight every NPC they meet in the first session and also more likely to pay attention to the setting info you are feeding them.

* A map of the local section of the world is good to have. A full setting map isn't bad either.

* Don't go into to much detail about any particular element of the setting. Try and keep your description to under a sentence or two and then add to the info later or let the players ask questions.

Often before any session i pick three major bits of setting info i want to convey to my players in the session and focus on getting these across.

Jay R
2014-05-06, 05:45 PM
Before character creation, they need to as much enough about the politics and world situation as any PC would know, so that they can fit in. If they live in a city with only one church, or if there is an evil overlord who oppresses them, or if the army spends its time defending against goblin raids, they need to know that.

The two crucial issues are these:
1. They deserve to know anything that all characters know.
2. They need to know anything necessary to create characters.

I tend to give them a 4-6 page world background.

Thrudd
2014-05-06, 05:55 PM
You should give the players an idea of what sort of tasks they will be expected to accomplish so they can select appropriate characters and skills. If they will be mainly exploring uncharted islands and ancient temples, their characters would be different than if they are meant to be pirates, traders, or naval officers defending the realm.

They need to know general information about the part of the world their characters should be familiar with. The packet can include a short description of the society they belong to including what sort of role or profession they are expected to be filling. Knowing the general climate and geography of the area is always handy, but don't give more information about the world than their characters would be expected to know at the beginning of the game. Don't give an entire world map unless the entire world has been mapped and it's layout common knowledge for everyone in their society.

Garimeth
2014-05-07, 09:31 AM
I agree with all that has been said. I lean toward Jay R's write up example over the 2 minutes here or there thing. I will send out an e-mail with the background info in it to them. The first page will be a synopsis, then the rest will go into specifics. At the first character creation session I will ask if everybody read it, and if somebody didn't I will ask them to read it while I work with the others.

-get archetypes out of the way. If somebody wants to play an archer, give them several good ways that they can be an archer in the setting. Definitely only feed them specifics based off what everybody knows and what they want to play.

-In my last naval based game I was very upfront with them that they would be spending a fair amount of time underwater as well, and they should strongly think about what armor and weapons they wanted to with the advantage being lighter armor and piercing weapons.

Thrudd's first paragraph is VERY important. If they are going to be naval officers, then being a ranger is not really going to be super useful, but if they are exploring uncharted islands, then the ranger will be extremely useful. Ask the players also what elements of the setting sound cool to them and that they would like to do. Groups don't often run a high seas game, and they may have expectations or hopes for the game that you have not considered.

Jay R
2014-05-07, 09:37 AM
If they are going on a ship, they need to know that Swimming and Seamanship are necessary skills. If they live in the mountains, that should affect their skills. They should have the background that everybody knows, and the background that all the locals know.

Buddha's_Cookie
2014-05-07, 08:43 PM
Thanks for all the advice so far. What I did not mention is that it is not a naval campaign but a pirate campaign, but not sure what kind of pirates they will end up playing (probably more like smugglers). And this is our first time doing a high seas game, also my first time GMing. I am taking much of your good advice and will put it to use.

Garimeth
2014-05-08, 07:30 AM
So depending on the system (right now I will assume 3.5 because that is the most prevalent) there are certain key skills that will be necessary for SOMEBODY to have, depending on you the DM obviously. Jay R already mentioned two: sailing and seamanship, but depending on the system there may be a seperate skill for actually navigating. Somebody has to be the Captain. This can cause points of contention is some groups, but its safe to say that the party's face usually should be the Captain.

Are they starting with their own ship or as part of a crew? Personally, I would recommend they start as a crew, that way you can have them getting their own ship as a milestone. Are you planning on doing more naval fights or boarding parties? Either way make sure you know the rules for Naval battle pretty well, or the session will come grinding to a halt as everyone flips through the rules.

I used the 3.5 book Stormwrack heavily for my Naval game. It was also fairly high magic so the normal rules for battle had to be tweaked...alot. (Druid WS'ed into a bird, flew onto the other ship went into the gun deck and blew up there gun powder... after that I decided that in a world with magic seasoned sailors would appropriately recognize that they were too far out to sea for birds to be flying towards their ship and they started shooting them out of the sky.)

Stormwrack has lots of handy rules for weather, travel, example ships, naval combat, and some other flavor stuff. But unless you are set on your system, I have heard there is a system specifically designed for this kind of swashbuckling game, but I can't remember it now. Anyway, just some thoughts.

Buddha's_Cookie
2014-05-08, 08:50 AM
Not that I think it matters a whole lot, but we are playing Pathfinder. I am using Stormwrack as a reference and borrowing some of the rules from it, because I like them over the Pathfinder rules.

Still not sure how I want to start the campaign (just a small problem). part of me wants to ship wreak them on an island (eventually finding a way to a ship) or part of a crew or something.

*Grammar edit*

Garimeth
2014-05-08, 09:32 AM
No that I think it matters a whole lot, but we are playing Pathfinder. I am using Stormwrack as a reference and borrowing some of the rules from it, because I like them over the Pathfinder rules.

Still not sure how I want to start the campaign (just a small problem). part of me wants to ship wreak them on an island (eventually finding a way to a ship) or part of a crew or something.

Why not do both? Here is a top of my head example:

The PCs are part of a pirate crew, they start off near a chain of islands and board and loot a ship. Their Captain, the pirate, is slightly crazy. Have the "face" or even all of them be senior mates or junior "officers" - people with cred and some authority on the crew but not like the top 3 in the chain of command. Towards the end of looting the ship the authorities come around the island, and they either out gun or outnumber the pirates, significantly. Meanwhile a storm has been brewing and the first mate and captain have been barking orders for people to hurry up (this makes it seem like the storm didn't just come out of nowhere - unless that's what you want....) the storm is in the opposite direction of the authorities. They finish the looting and the captain orders the crew to start rowing into the storm and look for a safe place to wait out the storm, because he doesn't think they can get past the authorities. It quickly becomes obvious that this is a beast of a storm, and as they pull into an area that looks safe something catastrophic happens and the ship gets run aground, roughly. (So here you can either just have the ship sink - which means no base to set out from or ship to repair and try and get off the island, or you can have the ship take minor to moderate damage that can be repaired after the storm completes.) So now either way, for a certain period of time they are stuck on the island. Now you have to get rid of the Captain so the PCs can take over. Here are a few examples of how you could accomplish that:

Mutiny - the crew is tired of the captain and his poor decision making, this is just the latest in a string of bad decisions/events.

Sickness/injury - something they encounter on the island proves extremely deadly, and the captain - as well as much of the crew - succumbs to this.

Madness (my favorite) - some magical force on the island makes members of the crew, including the Captain, slowly grow more and more rageful and paranoid - to the point where they either attack the PCs or the PCs are forced to put them down.

So depending on how you go about the above now you have to figure out how do they get off the island? Well again there are many ways you could go about this here is a few examples:

Repairs: the ship was not that badly damaged and enough living/sane crew members survive to fall under the PCs new leadership and eventually repair the ship.

Boarding Party/capture: the authorities show up. So now this could be the same group that was chasing them or another one. If the same group you could make them also stuck on the island and be a source of combat and tension. Alternatively maybe they are fine and simply hunting for the pirates, in which case maybe the surviving pirates can try and capture their ship, OR they arrest the PCs and haul them off to face justice. Lots of options with this one.

Abandoned ship: in some cove or cave the pirates find an old ship of unknown origin that is remarkably well preserved, and with minor repairs can be used to leave the island. If you went with madness or danger on the island to remove the previous Captain then this could be the remnant of whatever civilization either left the curse/danger to protect its resting place or the civilization was destroyed BY the danger/curse. Lots of options with this one too, you could also give the ship some magical properties if that's your thing.

So the end result is that (unless taken prisoner) they have a small crew, a ship, and are in command. Now they are free to go wherever they want or play the rest of the stuff you have laid out or what have you.

Anyway just some suggestion to get the ideas flowing.

LokiRagnarok
2014-05-18, 04:26 AM
Boarding Party/capture: the authorities show up. So now this could be the same group that was chasing them or another one. If the same group you could make them also stuck on the island and be a source of combat and tension. Alternatively maybe they are fine and simply hunting for the pirates, in which case maybe the surviving pirates can try and capture their ship, OR they arrest the PCs and haul them off to face justice. Lots of options with this one.

At this point, I'd expect the face to try to smoothtalk the authorities into "Oh my god, it is so great you came! We were captured by those dastardly pirates and forced to work for them! Please take us with you!"

Garimeth
2014-05-21, 10:49 AM
At this point, I'd expect the face to try to smoothtalk the authorities into "Oh my god, it is so great you came! We were captured by those dastardly pirates and forced to work for them! Please take us with you!"

LOL. and having been outwitted by my players I would probably let that work.

Ossian
2014-05-22, 07:36 AM
A quick "style guide" before the game. Like a paragraph, so no more than 200 words! It's where you do your "a-la" or "in the style of". This is highly optional though. It's even better if you spread that paragraph, in the form of hints, through the character creation time and the first session.

Leave them with a sense of expectancy, an idea that there is more in this world than just xp and gold, and that they have a chance to grow in it. A cliffhanger, if you wish.

Make them choose. Ethical choices, tough ones. Add shades of grey to moral dilemmas, avoid black-and-white.

Make them love the story, more than the level progression. It's cool to hit level 20, but it 's possible that the story won't play out half as cool if that is all they think of.

Buddha's_Cookie
2014-05-22, 10:58 AM
Well here is how the first session went.

Borrowing from Garimeth's idea above, and started out in combat with the party boarding a ship. After the fight they spot an elvish frigate heading their way. NPC captain has a "OH S**T" moment and party takes off hoping to out run the elvish ship. An unnatural storm is ahead of them and a elvish frigate full of spell casters is behind them.

That is where I left off realizing I need to work on my pacing better, as I still had about two hours to kill. Yay

Garimeth
2014-05-22, 12:05 PM
Well here is how the first session went.

Borrowing from Garimeth's idea above, and started out in combat with the party boarding a ship. After the fight they spot an elvish frigate heading their way. NPC captain has a "OH S**T" moment and party takes off hoping to out run the elvish ship. An unnatural storm is ahead of them and a elvish frigate full of spell casters is behind them.

That is where I left off realizing I need to work on my pacing better, as I still had about two hours to kill. Yay

So what did you end up doing for the other two hours? Just wing it, or call it? I'm curious what you choose to do with the island. If you keep this updated for a bit I will keep checking in to see. I like the excitement of a new campaign, even if I'm not in it!

Buddha's_Cookie
2014-05-22, 12:52 PM
I just called it, I am terible at winging it which is why I am doubting if this game will get off the ground. We will see in a session or two.

Thrudd
2014-05-22, 02:10 PM
I just called it, I am terible at winging it which is why I am doubting if this game will get off the ground. We will see in a session or two.

If you want to be a DM, you can't be "terrible at winging it". Don't give up on it, the only way to get better is to do it repeatedly. Players are generally forgiving (and they don't always know or need to know what you did or didn't have planned), just try to make something exciting happen, keep the game moving.

I was once like you, I would rather stop the game than continue without having anything planned. But my players convinced me that they didn't care whether or not I had anything planned, they just wanted to play. Stuff I came up with on the fly was just as fun for them as the dungeon I had carefully mapped out.

Next time, have some random tables ready for encounters. So they wreck on an island, but you don't have a map of the island yet? Describe generic island surroundings for the part of the world they are in. Do you have the Pathfinder Bestiary or 3.5 monster manuals? The books give you encounter tables for all different climate zones to help you in just such occasions. The table should jump start you on ideas. They crash on an island, and they decide to start exploring the jungle. You roll on the table and get a group of bullywugs. Why are they there and what are they doing? Roll to see if they are friendly, cautious, or aggressive. Roll on the encounter table again: a giant constrictor snake. Maybe the bullywugs are being terrorized by a giant snake that they can't kill. Or maybe they worship a giant snake and give it animals and people as sacrifices. Now you've got an interesting scenario that will occupy the players for a bit.

As long as you own this game world in your mind, you can see it and imagine it and operate it in a consistent way, nothing you come up with can be wrong.

Aquillion
2014-05-24, 04:12 AM
Well, when someone rolls a natural 20 on an attack roll, or within the weapon's threat range, you make another roll to confirm--

Oh, oops!

More seriously, here's what I recommend: If you're bad at improvising, come up with a bunch of quick NPC or plot-thread ideas that are loosely connected thematically -- stuff that you can slot in at a moment's notice, stuff suitable for wherever the party is likely to be this session (so if it's on a boat, think of encounters and other stuff that can happen while on a boat.) Maybe write them down on 3x5 cards or whatever. That way, if you get stuck, you can flip through those ideas, figure out which one fits the game the best, and work it in.

Garimeth
2014-05-28, 12:38 PM
I just called it, I am terible at winging it which is why I am doubting if this game will get off the ground. We will see in a session or two.

Well first off Thruud gave you some good advice, especially if combined with Aquillon's.

This is what I do if I need a moment to think: put everyone on a 5-10 minute break. "Alright guys let's take a break just for a bit, while I get my stuff together for the next bit and we can use the bathroom, grab a smoke/coffeee etc."

Get your idea together, think through what the party is MOST likely to do, 3-4 secnarios, and then prep yourself. Remember the rule of cool.

Also, when you start making up names and places, write them down so you can remember and flesh them out later.