What's your initial handout?

[Tinkerer]

Good day all! After some sick time slowed me down (and it still is) I'm gearing up for prep on my new campaign and putting together my new initial handout booklet. I've got a number of people who are new to the system for this one and I'm the only one with the required books so we only have two copies of the players manual available. As a result I'm going a little deeper on mechanics than I usually do for these. The particular system which I'm using is Savage Rifts but with a few exceptions initial handout booklets tend to be not very system specific. The general format of the booklet is as follows.

1 page of: World Overview. A general breakdown of the world in which the campaign will take place along with a snazzy pic or two providing a feel for the setting. Nothing in depth, just a general description of the world overall. Pretty much a cover page.

1 page of: System Overview. Just a basic rundown of how the system works. Exploding dice, Wild dice, card based initiative etc...

1 page of: House Rules. All the little tweaks that I have made to the system. I used to have this as the last thing in the handouts but I realized I should have it before character creation for obvious reasons. Not terribly fond of it there though since it's often easier to understand some of what it's talking about when you have a character made. Bit of a catch-22.

2 pages of: Character Creation. 1 line descriptions of each of the available races and Iconic Frameworks (essentially classes) as well as the feat and skill lists. Should be enough for the players to decide what they want to look at when they get a crack at the books. A basic breakdown of what specialists also need to select (spellcasters need to create spells, cybernetic characters need to select those, etc...)

4-5 pages of: Setting Information. Going a little deeper on this one than I normally do since my players' characters all live in the same area currently (confirmed that one from them before session 0). Common knowledge, local groups, rumours from far off, a map or two, etc... Just stuff that they would have as shared background knowledge in.

2 pages of: Combat. 1 page is a glossary page that lays out maneuvers and what not. The other page is a combat flow chart.

6 pages of: Character Sheet. Some of those will not apply to the characters, I just get them to hand those back at the end. Usually winds up being 4 sheets to a character.

Foolscap to taste.

I slap them into a colour coded duo-tang, first to show is first to pick their colour for the campaign (still have fond memories of the hot pink barbarian). Hand them out before Session 0 and the players should be good to start character generation when they show up.

I've heard some other GMs on here talk about their handouts and I was curious as to what you normally include in yours?

[Pugwampy]

a printed house plan if they won property as a prize

[Hellpyre]

I usually just sit down with my players and a map showing the major powers of the world, and then open up for questions about setting stuff. Afterwards, I ask if there's any house rules they want to talk about implementing or any questionable builds they want me to okay before they start gathering pre-reqs. But then, I've always done RPGs face-to-face. I have no idea what I'd do for a play-by-post game as a GM.

[Quertus]

That's... pretty awesome. If a GM every gave me something like that, it'd get a special place on my bookshelf, next to my gaming books.

I'll give my players time, and work with them before we start session 1, to make sure that they're comfortable with the rules, their character, etc, but I rarely commit much to paper.

[LordCdrMilitant]

My handout for the first campaign I ever ran included several pages of backstory and a map, compiled after several days of talking with my friends and arranging aspects of the world to suit all their character concepts.

My most recent campaign-start handout was just a character sheet to each player. I even forgot the scan of the page with the XP costs for upgrades.

[Lord Torath]

Something along the lines of this.

[Anonymouswizard]

For my next game (a one shot Fate game) I plan on the following handout for my players:

A two (2) page overview of the system, taken directly from the back of the book.

A one (1) page character sheet, A4 size.

A one (1) page overview of the setting to the details they need, coupled with a one (1) page listed faces and places important to the scenario.

A one (1) page overview of character creation, including a brief description of Aspects, Approaches, and Stunts.

A two (2) page list of example Stunts. Because we don't really have time for DIY stunts.

[JAL_1138]

My first hand out? Mage Hand. If starting at higher levels, Bigby's Hand.

Jokes aside, the first things I hand out are:
*House rules and setting overview if it's non-League, usually as an email or sent to a group chat.
*Character sheets if nobody has 'em.
*Adventurers' League logsheets, if nobody has 'em, marked "NOT FOR ADVENTURERS' LEAGUE USE" if it's a non-League game (they're still useful to track XP, gold, and adventure notes).
*An index card for players to fill out with player name, character name, character level, race, background, class, faction if League, max HP, AC, spell save DC, passive perception, and anything else I should note (such as "can't be surprised b/c Weapon of Warning" or some such), which will be given back to me and used to track initiative and other stuff.
*A second index card to use as a name tent.

[Friv]

It'll depend heavily on what we're doing.

I tend to run a Session Zero, in which we do in-depth character creation and world discussion, and some degree of setting design depending on the game, so we don't usually need a rules or character creation summary. But I will generally write up the following:

*) A one-page summary of the setting, provided that the setting is not one we're building together. If it is, I'll provide a half-page framework for what I'm imagining for us to use to build the setting around.
*) A one-page rules summary if the players aren't already familiar with the setting and system.
*) The character sheet so that people can take a look over their options in advance.

[DigoDragon]

For an X-Files style campaign, the GM gave us a two-page "Orientation Packet". He wrote it up like an in-universe orientation packet to work for the Feds. Page 1 was the style and flavor of the campaign he was aiming for, the house rules he will use, and any last-minute details we should put on our character sheets. Page 2 was a high-level list of PCs, NPCs we'll interact with often (like our boss), how the X-Files department is organized, and what to do if we need to requisition anything for a mission. Oh, and the last section was our first mission.


The last Shadowrun campaign I ran I gave everyone a handout with current events in the news (useful for ice breaking on their first meet), a simple map of Seattle as of the year 2071, and a cheat sheet on combat actions (half the players were new to 4e).

[Airk]

Am I seriously the only one who thinks this sounds like a whole lot of stuff the players aren't going to read? I mean, you know your players better than we do, but my success rate with getting players to commit to reading anything over a page of material is super low.

Additionally, a lot of that stuff is useless after the first session. Strip the chargen stuff out of there, IMHO. If you need lists and explanations, you can have a couple of copies on hand when you make characters (you ARE doing this together as a group, right?)

Honestly, I'd just hand out the rules stuff, and structure it as a quick reference rather than an explanation.

[Anonymouswizard]

Am I seriously the only one who thinks this sounds like a whole lot of stuff the players aren't going to read? I mean, you know your players better than we do, but my success rate with getting players to commit to reading anything over a page of material is super low.

Additionally, a lot of that stuff is useless after the first session. Strip the chargen stuff out of there, IMHO. If you need lists and explanations, you can have a couple of copies on hand when you make characters (you ARE doing this together as a group, right?)

Honestly, I'd just hand out the rules stuff, and structure it as a quick reference rather than an explanation.

With mine, the character creation stuff is because we don't have time for a session 0. Otherwise I'd limit it to a list of Faces and Places (and Organisations if applicable) for players to reference during play, plus maybe a map of the area. They might get a setting overview, but they probably won't, and the character creation stuff isn't required as we don't need to go through it all in an hour. Plus a system overview, because those should be standard (and it'll stop the 'what die do I roll' question from appearing six times a session).

I'll say it now, if the game isn't moving around a lot (and sometimes if it is) a list of Faces and Places with high level descriptions is a life saver. If you need to know the name of someone important look at it, you can reference any names the GM gives you to see if your characters would know them, and so on. No more 'should we know this guy?' Just check the list and boom, Mayor of Luminopolis.

[Tinkerer]

Am I seriously the only one who thinks this sounds like a whole lot of stuff the players aren't going to read? I mean, you know your players better than we do, but my success rate with getting players to commit to reading anything over a page of material is super low.

Additionally, a lot of that stuff is useless after the first session. Strip the chargen stuff out of there, IMHO. If you need lists and explanations, you can have a couple of copies on hand when you make characters (you ARE doing this together as a group, right?)

Honestly, I'd just hand out the rules stuff, and structure it as a quick reference rather than an explanation.

Oh I did forget to mention that the character generation portion usually gets handed back after character generation. A handful of players do want to hold onto it for reference so that they can spot what other characters may be capable of, as well as a couple of people who just want a copy of every handout (I'm one of those people as well ). The house rules are the only item which are not optional for characters to keep, I insist that everybody have a copy. The basic system rules explanation is optional though and I'd say from past experience about 1/2 of the players wind up handing it back within the first 5 sessions, as well as the combat flowchart.

So after things which are normally returned get back and items are put in playing order rather than starting order we are usually looking at:

~4 pages of character sheets
Foolscap
1 cover page
1 page of combat quick reference
1 page of house rules
4-5 pages of setting information (includes maps)

I do tend to spend my time around a lot of people who read a fair bit though and while I haven't played with this upcoming group I do know that at least half of them are voracious readers so I think I should be good. While we are doing character generation in a group there is always downtime that you're waiting on something during that (especially when you only have 2 books) so they have something to keep them occupied.

Although...

Hmmm...

I just realized this is a world split between fantasy and sci-fi. Maybe I should split things between handouts and online resources? I'm gonna ponder that one...

[MrZJunior]

It probably speaks to the kind of GM I am, but I never even considered putting rules information in my initial handout. I've only ever done setting and world building type stuff.

I'll say it now, if the game isn't moving around a lot (and sometimes if it is) a list of Faces and Places with high level descriptions is a life saver. If you need to know the name of someone important look at it, you can reference any names the GM gives you to see if your characters would know them, and so on. No more 'should we know this guy?' Just check the list and boom, Mayor of Luminopolis.

Brilliant! I will have to start doing this.

[Tanarii]

I never let mine go over two pages. I try to keep it to one page. It's 100% character creation rules, although there is typically setting blurb effectively buried in with that. ie something explaining why only certain classes/races are allowed in the focused on nation, or theme, and maybe a short 'unusual characters' for ones allowed that are out of the ordinary but allowed.

My experience is only hard core gamers* will read more than that, or read anything beyond basic need-to-know for roleplaying quirks stuff related to setting at all. If you tell beginning or casual players 'Traladarans are basically Eastern Europeans' they'll take that and run with it. If you give them a dissertation on the Church of Karameikos, not a single Cleric player will read it. (Direct example from my latest one party campaign I started, I included a link for the Cleric and Paladin at the Gazateer PDF online specifically referencing it contained religious setting details, and both never read it.)

In fact, my experience is also that some players in an open table campaign with non-fixed parties will show up to their first session not even having had read even that much, bringing a LE Tiefling Necromancer to a game which the session 0 document says clearly no evil PCs, and Tieflings don't exist.

Edit: *specifically hard core table top roleplaying gamers who also are into reading settings and campaign world stuff. That's an amazingly small cross section of even trpg players, let along generic "gamers". And most of them end up being GMs.