How much to tell the players beforehand?

[GnomeChomsky]

Hello, I am a new-ish DM looking for some advice. I've been playing with the same group for about a year now, and every other player has DM'd, so now it is my turn.

The initial premise I came up with a while ago was to have the players "wake-up" at the beginning of the first session to discover that their town was placed under a botched sleeping curse. Some residents have been turned into zombies, some are sleep walking, some are still preserved in sleep, and the players have woken up early. Theoretically they would then go off to find out what happened/wake up the rest of the town.

My concern is whether or not to warn the players that they will essentially be traveling into the future, with no way of going back. I know it's technically not a spoiler, since it happens at the very beginning, but I worry that it might negatively affect their character creation.

I planned on giving them a map of the surrounding area and asking what their characters have been up to. Thematically I feel the unwilling skip in time should carry emotional weight, and I want their characters to have at least *some* investment in the world around them. I'm concerned that if I do warn them, they may not put in that much effort, thinking they're just going to leave it behind anyway, and that if I don't warn them, they might feel upset or lied to in terms of what the campaign would be about or feel like their agency is being taken away.

It is *not* my intention to have their backstories be meaningless or to punish them for coming up with their own ideas. I do have some story ideas already, but I am planning on taking whatever they come up with for their characters and writing those into the campaign as well. If everyone expresses a clear interest in something on the map that would be derailed by the time jump, then I am okay with going with that instead.

Thoughts on how I can best handle this without disappointing or blindsiding the players too much?

[bc56]

This isn't like giving the PCs amnesia, that is it doesn't rob them of agency in character creation or involvement in the world. It actually gives them extra involvement once they wake up, because they'll want to help their loved ones who are affected by the curse. I would probably give them the basic premise beforehand, something I do for every game, so they know a basic idea of what to expect.

[Ventruenox]

I would suggest that they each have multiple ties to their family or environment. Some or most of them will be lost due to this curse, but there are ties that remain or can be regained as they adventure. For instance, a PCs family may be dead due to old age as time passed, but a grandchild is still out there and in need of support, or a childhood friend is still under the sleeping curse. A family business may have endured, and the PC needs to try to claim it back as an unwelcomed inheritor.

[Samayu]

I don't like giving players any idea of what's to come. If it's a surprise to their characters, it should be a surprise to them. They should be able to deal with it. That's half the fun of it. On the other hand, I don't want to put them in a situation where their character concept would be wasted.

I wouldn't want someone to design his character around a special sword that was handed down through the generations, only to have it taken away in scene 1, with no chance of retrieval. That's a lot of work down the drain for that person.

You could give hints. Or try to get in on their character creation in the early stages, and steer them away from certain directions.

[Madfellow]

I think your concept would work much better as a surprise, and you should keep it that way. It will give the players more motivation to break the curse if it affects their characters in a way they didn't anticipate.

[smcmike]

I would not give them any warning about what’s to come.

On the other hand, I would give them some framing. Let them know some things about the village they are starting in, and give them an opportunity to tie their backstory to that village. Sometimes players think they need to bring some internal motivation to kick their character into a life of adventure, so letting them know that this isn’t necessary might be nice. If anyone is interested in starting with a strong story hook, like a missing sister or a plot for revenge, think about whether that hook can either survive the curse or be turned toward meaningful character development following it.

[Pelle]

As I understand it, the very first thing happening will be the wake up/time skip. Thus, there is no spoiler in informing the players about that in advance. The only purpose of not telling it would be to have an "untainted" character creation.

Depends on the players, I think it's a little risky to change the premise of the game without waring the players. I think it is better to have the wake up in the pitch for the campaign before character creation, and then instruct the players what is an appropriate character for this game, including the amount of bonds, family, contacts etc for this game to work.

At least IME, players would write a more detailed character background if this was announced, than if not saying anything. My group is quite minimalistic as default when it comes to backstory...

[OzDragon]

It would really depend on how far in the future you are going to send them.

If you are talking a few days/weeks/months/years then some backstory elements are definitely still available.

If you are talking decades/centuries then backstory is right out and meaningless.

Also why no way to get back? That takes things out of the players hands altogether. Personally not a fan of giving the players no choice of what happens to them or how to fix what has happened to them.

[Pex]

Tell them the premise of the game. The players buy in by playing. It doesn't spoil anything to know. The premise does not reveal the solution. Players are allowed to know the game they're playing. If campaign circumstances are significantly different than the expected norm players needs to know this.

[GnomeChomsky]

Thank you all for your responses. For those who feel it would be best to tell the players in advance, is it sufficient to say something vague along the lines of "This is the world you know, but at the start, something is going to happen to drastically alter things"? Or do you still feel I should more explicitly state there will be a time jump?

I ask this partially because the first session is supposed to be them "discovering" they've been placed under a sleeping curse by exploring the town. So at minimum I'd like to keep the exact details as something they need to figure out on their own (though perhaps this is too transparent and they will figure it out immediately?)

Regarding there being no way to get back -- I'm not necessarily opposed with coming up with something if the players seem to particularly want that, but since they're going forward by sleeping, there isn't any built in time-travel to get them back (and also messing with time-travel is sketchy).

[Rynjin]

"Let them in on the premise of the game"is my take in almost any circumstance: nobody likes being told one thing and then having the rug pulled out from under them. Don't tell somebody you're playing a seafaring campaign, for instance, let them make a pirate, and then go "GOTCHA! 5 minutes in a calamity happens and all the oceans dry up!" (or in one notable instance for a game I quickly left "I'm going to let you make characters with all sorts of spellcasting, SLAs, and Su abilities and not tell you until we start playing that magic doesn't function properly in this game and has the tendency to warp in ways that will **** you over").

In this case, I don't think you necessarily need to tell them EXACTLY what will happen before game start (and I actually don't think the START should be waking up from the slumber either). The best way to handle this IMO is to describe the village and its inhabitants and tell your players "You are inhabitants of this village with whatever role you choose to have. Something will happen early on that will severely change what's going on, but you'll enjoy yourself more if you fully commit to the 'being a villager' thing from the start".

Have your first session (or part of a session) be "a day in the life", and THEN spring the slumber spell on them. This retains the surprise and confusion as they don't know WHEN something is going to happen, you just have them going about their day, and you can even interrupt a player as they're saying they do something "Aaaand...you black out." or what have you.

Cue waking up and learning about the spell.

If you want to kind of mask exactly what happened, perhaps pair it with some kind of attack of another sort. Maybe there's an explosion or something and THEN everyone passes out. They wake up and it's a different time of day, parts of the village are charred and burnt (those with Survival might get the first hints something is weird if they can is old, certainly more than a few hours burnt out). They may all think the village just got attacked and they were knocked unconscious.

Then when they learn it's 50 years later or whatever they can freak out.

[lperkins2]

You probably don't need to specifically state it will involve being thrown into the future, but do mention that things will be changing drastically right at the start of the campaign. You might even describe it as post-apocalyptic. That lets them know that the character back stories and connections will likely collapse, which might be important if someone was thinking of playing a scholar, or similar, but leaves the time travel aspect for a big reveal later.

[Gorgo]

Are you starting a new campaign, or rotating DMs in an ongoing campaign? If it's a new campaign, I don't think that introducing a time skip at the very start would be a big deal, though you might want to warn the players so they don't invest too much energy in background that will become moot. This might lessen the sense of disconnection the characters feel, but IMO it's better than having some of your players feel that you "broke" their character concept.

If it's a rotating-DM campaign, then I'd strongly suggest discussing the idea with the other DMs, as jumping forward in time might screw up a bunch of plots they'd been planning on using when their turn came around again.

[shadow_archmagi]

So, fish-out-of-water television shows and stories work because the actors commit to portraying the complex blend of grief and acceptance and curiosity and confusion that come from being in another time/place.

If I show up at the table ready to play Dadmar, the Paladins who loves his son, that is *not* the emotional journey I was promised. Like all surprises it could go poorly. I'd at the very least tell your players the themes involved. I don't think "plan on making a PC that's out of time, trying to get home" will ruin anything

[smcmike]

So, fish-out-of-water television shows and stories work because the actors commit to portraying the complex blend of grief and acceptance and curiosity and confusion that come from being in another time/place.

If I show up at the table ready to play Dadmar, the Paladins who loves his son, that is *not* the emotional journey I was promised. Like all surprises it could go poorly. I'd at the very least tell your players the themes involved. I don't think "plan on making a PC that's out of time, trying to get home" will ruin anything

Is “Dadmar” really a common character concept? Most characters I see are designed to have few close personal connections, to allow for easy transition into adventuring. If anything, I’d encourage players to increase the numbers of personal connections that they’d normally have. If a player does want to play Dadmar, you can make that work - maybe his kid is asleep in suspended animation, and can be saved. Maybe he’s missing, and can be tracked down (now an adult? Now older than the party?). These are interesting possibilities that aren’t entirely sad.

[shadow_archmagi]

Is “Dadmar” really a common character concept? Most characters I see are designed to have few close personal connections, to allow for easy transition into adventuring. If anything, I’d encourage players to increase the numbers of personal connections that they’d normally have. If a player does want to play Dadmar, you can make that work - maybe his kid is asleep in suspended animation, and can be saved. Maybe he’s missing, and can be tracked down (now an adult? Now older than the party?). These are interesting possibilities that aren’t entirely sad.

The core issue isn't so much about whether the realization of the character concept is sad or not, it's about whether it's the type of journey the player was excited for, and while it's true that you might be able to recapture that through another lens, it's definitely a jump where you have the potential to not stick the landing.

[Honest Tiefling]

If I show up at the table ready to play Dadmar, the Paladins who loves his son, that is *not* the emotional journey I was promised. Like all surprises it could go poorly. I'd at the very least tell your players the themes involved. I don't think "plan on making a PC that's out of time, trying to get home" will ruin anything

This is precisely the issue I would worry about. It might be jarring enough for a player as to ruin immersion. And yes, I've seen people trying to protect children/adopted waifs/lovers/partners in crime/etc. enough to worry about it as a premise.

As for phrasing it...Emphasize that this is a role-play heavy campaign, first and foremost. This won't spoil anything, but people will definitely try to show up with hooks and attachments in mind. One thing you could outright do is to inform them of the premise from the beginning...And give mechanical benefits for determining a day in the life stuff. Bribe them with goodies and knowledge to make those connections.

Since you know your players better, perhaps you should ask yourself how you'd want to be informed.

[Pex]

This is precisely the issue I would worry about. It might be jarring enough for a player as to ruin immersion. And yes, I've seen people trying to protect children/adopted waifs/lovers/partners in crime/etc. enough to worry about it as a premise.

As for phrasing it...Emphasize that this is a role-play heavy campaign, first and foremost. This won't spoil anything, but people will definitely try to show up with hooks and attachments in mind. One thing you could outright do is to inform them of the premise from the beginning...And give mechanical benefits for determining a day in the life stuff. Bribe them with goodies and knowledge to make those connections.

Since you know your players better, perhaps you should ask yourself how you'd want to be informed.

That doesn't work. You could end up with PCs who have friends, family, boyfriends, and girlfriends and suddenly they're all dead, undead, or old aged. That's not going to enamor the players.

[GnomeChomsky]

The group I play with tends to be pretty laid back. At minimum everyone behaves maturely, and there have never been any big disagreements. I have one player who prefers roleplay/story, one who is pretty balanced between roleplay/mechanics, and one who leans more towards optimization. That last player I have asked in vague terms whether or not something like a time jump should be mentioned during character creation, and he was a bit miffed that I told him, saying he would have preferred it be kept a secret. But of course that is just one player. We may have a fourth player who I don't know and that will be the wild card.

Our group always has a session 0 for character creation, so I will do my best to feel out player expectations during that. I'll start by saying their world is going to change drastically and if it becomes clear that I need to explicitly state there will be a time jump (e.g. if a player is investing heavily in a backstory that can't survive the jump) then I'll say so. Again my plan was to try to incorporate backstories as much as possible into the changed world (and to the specific examples given, loved ones will certainly be suspended/preserved in sleep).

[Gorgo]

Feeling out the player expectations during session 0 sounds like a good plan to me. Playing a character who has to deal with a world that's very different from the one that they expected can be a lot of fun. As a player, having the world be very different from the one you expected is often dissatisfying, so much so that not writing games that did that was one of the main rules of a LARP group I used to be part of.

[Socratov]

Ok, what I am going to say here might earn me some unfavourable views, but here I go.

Since its wargaming roots DnD and RPG's in general have become more about collaborative storytelling then simulation and wargaming. If anything is an indication it's the difference between 3.5 and 5e; one has a table, class, spell or ability for anything and indeed everything, the other uses a lot of abstraction to keep things streamlined. I'm not saying one is better then another (different tastes/expectations/etc.) but quite dissimilar. To be honest in 3.5 I find that players have greater agency, and with it you can play a more punishing game. It's a situation where indeed the players and DM can put their wits against each other, the player in terms of character building and equipment buying, the DM in environment/monsters/plots/traps/etc. You can approach it in cooperation, but you don't have to.

5e is a different beast. In its rules the DM is much more empowered to tell the player what s/he can or can't do. If you are truly gonna push player vs. DM, the player will have a bad time.

It's exactly this what leads to my answer, in 3.5 you could very well blindside your players trusting that some classes could carry the encounter if necessary. In 5e, when blindsiding your players it's very easy to take away vital tools for the players to interact with the world. I't rather suggest that for a first campaign DMing, to work with your players and find something you all enjoy. I find that an epic roleplaying experience is not made by what you think you will run, but by the moments you will spend together around that table, rolling dice and crafting stories.

TL;DR - for a new DM, be smart and work with your players, don't worry too much, have fun and pick something that you al think is cool.