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Quinton
2014-07-22, 01:55 PM
I'm starting to play D&D with a group of friends, and I'm the only one who has ever played. Any suggestions for a fun and interesting way to begin a campaign?

mig el pig
2014-07-22, 02:32 PM
I'm starting to play D&D with a group of friends, and I'm the only one who has ever played. Any suggestions for a fun and interesting way to begin a campaign?

Depending on the specifics but when I run a game for new players I prefer to start with pregenerated characters who already have connections with each other. I try to make about # of players + 2 to 4 depending of the size of the group. in addition I also prefer a small scenario instead of trying to start a campaign. The last A Game of Thrones demo I ran, my outlines where like this.

-> Party is escorting their new maester(also a PC) en route to their homestead. They have been traveling together for a couple of weeks, mostly uneventful except several severe rainstorms in the last couple of days.
-> During such a storm they surprise a group of armed men standing over the corpse of a young man, probably a squire and they are carving up the horse. You can have a fight, diplomacy or let the bandits get away. The most important thing is that they discover the dead horse, which is in fact a well-bred warhorse (destrier).
-> When they continue on their route they come across a castle with a small village. The castle used to be bigger but nearly the entire outer wall is destroyed and several of the towers are only ruins.
-> They visit the castle (they couldn't continue on their route because the bridge was destroyed by the recent rains)
-> In the castle their are about 10 generic guards, 5 servants, the Lady of the house who has 2 sons and 1 daughter, the maester, a knight and a hunt-master.

The maester is the uncle of the hunt-master and he has an affair with the lady of the house, the youngest son is actually their child. The lord of the house is still alive but is kept in his chamber while drugged with milk of the poppy (opium). The eldest son and heir is unaware of this and is a rather cocky young knight who hopes to restore the honour of the house. The dead young boy was his squire and it was his last warhorse that the party found on the road. The daughter is aware that her second brother is a bastard and hopes to escape with her lover, the knight.

The maester is the one who hired the armed men to lure the heir out of the castle and dispose of him so his son would inherit the castle. Neither the lady of the house or the second son are in on the plan.

How the story unfolds is up to the party. They can further investigate the armed men, kill the heir because he's being a a**hole (One of my players was a knight and he was upset the heir thought that the dead horse was more important then the dead squire, it nearly came to a duel), investigate the castle, ...

When I ran it my party eventually noticed the resemblance between the maester, the youngest son, and the huntmaster, the great supply of milk of the poppy in the maesters chambers and confronting the daughter.

Quinton
2014-07-22, 03:04 PM
Depending on the specifics but when I run a game for new players I prefer to start with pregenerated characters who already have connections with each other. I try to make about # of players + 2 to 4 depending of the size of the group. in addition I also prefer a small scenario instead of trying to start a campaign. The last A Game of Thrones demo I ran, my outlines where like this.

-> Party is escorting their new maester(also a PC) en route to their homestead. They have been traveling together for a couple of weeks, mostly uneventful except several severe rainstorms in the last couple of days.
-> During such a storm they surprise a group of armed men standing over the corpse of a young man, probably a squire and they are carving up the horse. You can have a fight, diplomacy or let the bandits get away. The most important thing is that they discover the dead horse, which is in fact a well-bred warhorse (destrier).
-> When they continue on their route they come across a castle with a small village. The castle used to be bigger but nearly the entire outer wall is destroyed and several of the towers are only ruins.
-> They visit the castle (they couldn't continue on their route because the bridge was destroyed by the recent rains)
-> In the castle their are about 10 generic guards, 5 servants, the Lady of the house who has 2 sons and 1 daughter, the maester, a knight and a hunt-master.

The maester is the uncle of the hunt-master and he has an affair with the lady of the house, the youngest son is actually their child. The lord of the house is still alive but is kept in his chamber while drugged with milk of the poppy (opium). The eldest son and heir is unaware of this and is a rather cocky young knight who hopes to restore the honour of the house. The dead young boy was his squire and it was his last warhorse that the party found on the road. The daughter is aware that her second brother is a bastard and hopes to escape with her lover, the knight.

The maester is the one who hired the armed men to lure the heir out of the castle and dispose of him so his son would inherit the castle. Neither the lady of the house or the second son are in on the plan.

How the story unfolds is up to the party. They can further investigate the armed men, kill the heir because he's being a a**hole (One of my players was a knight and he was upset the heir thought that the dead horse was more important then the dead squire, it nearly came to a duel), investigate the castle, ...

When I ran it my party eventually noticed the resemblance between the maester, the youngest son, and the huntmaster, the great supply of milk of the poppy in the maesters chambers and confronting the daughter.

Thank you, that helps. And I didn't even think about playing in alternate fantasy world like GoT, that is a good idea and sounds really fun.

LibraryOgre
2014-07-22, 04:04 PM
A lot depends on where I'm going with it, but I like to make a simple scenario with pregens... something to introduce them to the system and the game, while not really having much impact... I've frequently used "Clear out some bandits" or "find shelter from a storm"... something that requires problem solving, a bit of combat, and can be improvised through, but not really around.

Airk
2014-07-22, 04:19 PM
Well, first of all you should decide if you want to go all kinds of crazy and make a "campaign" (I recommend "no" for beginners, but some people don't like that advice) or just a one-shot or "few shot".

If you are running a one shot scenario (or a "one shot with potential continuation if people are into it") then you should probably just do pregenerated characters. Hit your iconic archetypes for the setting - if you're talking about a generic fantasy game, you can literally go the Dungeon World route and have "The Fighter", "The Cleric", "The Wizard" etc, as long as they are not completely bland. Doing pregenerated characters has a couple of advantages. First, it means that you don't waste any time during your one session doing chargen and second, it means that you can pre-bake the backgrounds and motivations of the characters so that they A) Are interested in the scenario and B) Are interested in working together. Note: These games have an implicit assumption that if you are showing up to play an RPG, that you are interested in PLAYING AN RPG, not in making the GM tease and prod you into action. Once you have characters, throw them right into the action. "It's the third day of the journey from Hellsfast to Morghir, the snow is coming down hard, and the oxen are struggling to move the wagon, when suddenly..." Don't dawdle. Time is of the essence.

If you are running a "few shot" you probably have time to have a "chargen session" where folks sit down and make characters (You can also do this before a one shot if you have a timeslot to do a sort of "session zero") but it's important that you still keep people on task - they need reasons to be together, work together, and be interested in the scenario - and you should TELL them, in at least loose terms, what it's going to be. "This game is about the last heroes of a dying world who band together to make a last ditch effort to halt the collapse of the Planet Crystal." or whatever. And you should use your GM authority to put the kibosh on character concepts that clearly don't fit with the game. From there, it runs rather like a longer version of the one-shot.

okay, this post got bit rambly and didn't entirely answer the question, but hopefully it's not a complete waste of electrons.

Arimadios
2014-07-22, 05:04 PM
Airk raises excellent points, but, Personally, I favor this approach.


First - When pre-rolling characters? Make "Option Sheets" - Basically, boil making characters down to this:

2 to 3 standard point buy setups (For fighter, make a Sir-Smashy-FACEKILLER, Str, Con, Dump everything else, and then a Sir Greenhilt (Int score in combat, whut?)

2 to 3 Weapon choices. (A newbie fighter who goes with 2 daggers in combat is flavorful, but horribly unoptimized. Give them simple choices. IE: Sword n Board, Big smashy hammer, Finessey spear.)

2 to 3 Armor choices. (A fighter with a great maul is NOT going to have enough dex to make use of light or medium armor. Similarly, He doesn't need a shield, and thus, can afford heavy armor, but that medium armored sword n boarder shouldn't end up in heavy armor.)

Let them "Pick'n'max" skills - give them a suggested set, and say, "But you can substitute for X Y Z or A."

Suggest feats based on weapons. (Never fails.)

Have a prepared spell sheet for "Enchanters & Charmers", "Blasters", "Debilitators", "Buffers", and "Utility" (And also, I recommend having a backup "BATMAN" sheet.)



That's 2-4 hours of your work for something that can never be undone and will ALWAYS be useful with noobs. (Get a little crazy, Optimize the option sheets.)

This leads to 10 minutes of you explaining the roles of each sheet, and then, the players spend 10-20 picking sheets. You have Char gen done in 30 minutes. Fill out paperwork (Have it noted on the option sheets.) And play.



As far as what to do?

DMG has a "Roll an adventure." table. Use it. If you do, and it turns up something epicly awesomely long? Shrug, Use it. If they don't figure out what a TPK is when they see a Balor summoning Erinyes in a temple, that's THEIR Fault. But if they wade through a dozen goblins and come out without a scratch? That's their fault too. You just roll something up, look at it, make it themey, and bam. BAMF adventure, cooked and ready to go. Do it beforehand and you can save 30 minutes at the table.

Basically? SPend 5 hours setting up the first time, then two hours between sessions building the next 'Module' of the adventure. Build with a notepad detailing your story notes, and keep it with you.


DO these things? You'll be on the way to awesome DM hood.

Also? Throw out the damn rules if they don't work. Seriously, if you don't like grapple? Homebrew a new one, or look at Pathfinder's CMM and CMD checks. It's good to remember that as the DM, you decide things in he world. This can mean good for the party, bad for them. Don't put them in impossible situations, and don't make it a cakewalk. TPK Happens, don't pull punches, and remember rule -1. (It comes before Rule 0.)

HAVE. FUN.

*Turn mic, drop it, walk away.*