session 0

by TheDoof

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The follow is a List of things that will be covered through this session 0:

- Tools Needed to Play

- Out of game expectations

- Practicalities

- Playstyle

- Earning Experience

- Character Creation

- Gaining Inspiration

Session 0 - Prepping for the campaign!

The Start of the Adventure

Our campaign is going to be a mix of some Homebrew along with offical released content givin to us by Wizards of the Coast. I ask that while looking into cities / villages / towns / people during your backstory creation that you be wary of a couple of things. The content we will be loosely using is from the adventures The Dragon of Icespice Peak, The Lost Mine of Phandelver and Storm Kings Thunder If you happen to see any spoiler warnings or just these titles in general please Stay Away as you may be coming across potential spoilers to the campaign as well as monster stat blocks and this would be very frowned upon.

Tools Needed to Play

Here is a list of the following websites and extentions you will be needing in order to participate in the campaign.

  • An account on DnDbeyond.com
  • An account on Roll20.net
  • The browser extension Beyond20
  • Discord
  • Optional - Webcam
  • Optional - Dice

Out Of Game Expectations

  • Alcohol Usage: Everyone who wants to drink during sessions is allowed to however, I am asking that each individual limits themselves on how much they drink. I do not want incredibly intoxicated players in my game. This becomes hard to control as a DM and is unfair and disruptive to the other players involved in the game. We're all adults, lets act like it.

  • Player Attention: While playing I ask that everyone try their best to pay attention to the game and try not to let outside conversations interrupt the game. Delaying the game is, again, not fair to those players who are actively paying attention and participating in the game and it will only lead to frustration.

  • Players and Characters: I want everyone to enjoy their game while playing at my table and because of this I want everyone to stay friendly with one another and civil. Your characters, however, can act and play out exactly how you want them to act. If your character has beef, arguments or tensions with someones elses character, that stays between characters - not players. Remember that this is a RolePlaying game and we're all friends here. I also will not allow PvP in my game unless agreed upon between all players and it does not end the campaign.

  • Player Discomfort: If anything for any reason bothers any of you in the game, may it be something that happened in the game or that happened between players or their characters, please come to me and tell me. The last thing I want is for people to not have a good time while playing. I will do my best to remedy the situation.

  • Spotlight Sharing: Everyone is allowed to have their time in the spotlight. Sometimes the story will focus on specific characters, or maybe sometimes some players will be involved in heavy RolePlaying moments that will cause character development. Please be kind to everyone and allow other people to speak or have their time to shine even if your character may be better at said thing than theirs is. Just because your character has a higher persuasion stat than everyone else does not mean that your character gets to do all of the persuasion rolls. Let people play their characters.

  • Murder Hobos and Problem Characters: Not everything in the game can be solved by killing it. Sometimes things will not go your way, combat wise or social wise. If your group decides they want to slaughter a village for no reason other than they cant afford the items they want from the shop, there will be consequences for the characters. If it continues this way, the game will just end because this takes the fun entirely out of the story for everyone and myself as the DM. Also please note; your characters are in a party together.. Please do not try to purposefully screw the group becasue "Thats what my character would do". This is about working as a team, if thats what your character would do then you need to change your characters mindset.

  • Meta-Gaming: I don't allow this, please try your best not to meta game. What is meta gaming? Meta gaming is a term used in role-playing games, which describes a players use of real-life knowledge concerning the state of the game to determine their characters actions, when said character has no relevant knowledge or awareness under the circumstances. Its a form of cheating. Don't look up spoilers for the adventure, dont look up stat blocks for the monsters your fighting, and if your character wasnt in the room when something was said to another character, then your character doesnt know what was said unless told otherwise.

  • Talking during Game: Like I said earlier, please do not talk over one another. Allow one person at a time to speak so that I, the DM, can hear everything and so that everyone gets their time to play their characters. I dont want to have to force mute people.

Practicalities

  • Planning sessions: More than likely we will be planning our next session at the end of the current session we are on. In a perfect world I would love to have session with you guys about 2 - 3 times a month if possible depending on everyones schedule. Sometimes this wont be possible but we will just play it by ear.

  • Player absence: I really dont want to push into the game without anyone but sometimes things come up and shit happens. With that being said, I will continue the game so long as we have at least 4 people available to play at a time. Any less than that and I will cancel the session and we will reschedule it.

  • Debating Rules: The DM has the final say on how things play out. If we need to check up on a rule on something like a spell or feat, I will quickly pause the game for a moment to see what I can look up, however I do not want to take more time out of the session than needed for something that can be looked up and correctly used in the following sessions. If you think a rule was followed incorrectly in the game, feel free to bring it to my attention after the game and we will discuss its future use together.

Playstyle

  • Type of Game: This campaign will be a healthy mix of Social interactions and Combat interactions. This means that not everything will be solved through fighting and you will have to use your heads in order to pass by certain situations. Because of this, I highly recommend that everyone takes notes during the game either in a notebook or on the computer. Trust me, they will be helpful in the long run.

This campaign will be a sandbox style game. This means you will be able to go basically anywhere you want in the world that will be provided to you. Just keep in mind that this means you will be able to enter areas that will be higher level than you are and you will need to tred cautiously in those areas.

  • Notes: As previously mentioned, I really recommend everyone takes notes because I will not be giving you information from sessions ago if you or your character do not remember the information. There is a feat you can take (Keen Mind) that I have changed that can help you with information being givin to you so you dont have to take as many notes, but it is limited in how many in game days back that information can go (Roughly 30 days in game).

  • This is a RolePlaying Game: I will not force anyone to RP in any way but I do encourage it. You dont need to change your voice if you dont want to, or you can even talk about your character in 3rd person, but I will say that there will be times that NPCs will address you directly and you do need to interact with them at least a little in order to progress in certain situations. Do not worry, RPing in DnD gets easier the more you play and I don't judge anyones RP abilities.

Gaining Experience

  • Milestone Leveling: The way I run my games will be through Milestone leveling. Whats this mean? This means that your characters will only advance in level once they reach certain milestones within the campaign. You also will not be leveling up mid-session. This will take place between sessions once you have reached those particular points in the game. I will be around to assist with leveling up and answer questions if you have them outside of the game, just feel free to reach out.

Character Creation

DnDBeyond

DnDbeyond is where your character sheet and inventory will be found. You will be expected to keep track of your own inventory including your currency amounts and your spell components. If you have questions on these things you can always ask me for help and I will do my best to assist you.

  • Questions to think about: -Why is your character an adventurer? -Is your character connected to another character in the party? How? -Who are your parents, siblings, mentors, etc? -What has your character done in life so far to get to where they are?

  • Ability Scores: Your stats. We will be rolling for these using either Dice on live webcam or through Roll20, whichever youd rather do. My system for rolling for dice will be listed below for reference.

Roll 4d6 and discard the lowest number, adding up the highest 3. If you roll a 1 you may re-roll your die.

Repeat this step 7 times so you have 7 total numbers. Take the highest 6 of those numbers and place them anywhere you want in your stats.

If your stats are sub-par then I will allow you to pick between 2 Alternatives: Either let me roll for you as well and you can take my numbers, or take the Standard Array numbers provided in the character sheet (15,14,13,12,10,8). You do not get both options. We will also be rolling for HP as well.

Races/Classes/Alignments/Backgrounds

  • Alignments: With the introduction to 5th Edition they kind of removed the need to select an Alignment for any mechanical purpose, however I highly suggest while creating your characters that you do pick an alignment to follow for your character as this will make it easier to transition into Creating and Role Playing your characters personality.

  • Races: I am allowing the use of most races within the game. The only races that I will not be allowing are that of monster races (Examples: Bugbears, Goblins) and the races from the sourcebook Guildmasters guide to Ravnica. Also, I will be removing the subrace of Human(Varient) from the game because I start all of my players off with a Feat of their choice regardless, thus making that race weaker compared to just picking a normal Human. If you have a question or request about a specific race please feel free to bring it up with me during character creation.

  • Classes: I am allowing the use of all classes except for those found in Guildmasters guide to Ravnica. Multiclassing is also allowed! If you need help expanding on that, please reach out to me.

  • Backgrounds: All backgrounds are allowed except for those found within Guildmasters guide to Ravnica.

Gaining Inspiration

What is inspiration? Inspiration is givin out by the DM for various reasons that I will list down below, but you can only have 1 DM inspiration (Which is also located on your character sheet) Inspiration can be used to give yourself one Advantage on any roll you choose. Once you use up this inspiration, it is gone for good regardless of the outcome of the roll and you will need to earn another inspiration point to do this again.

  • Roleplaying: For moments of great roleplaying between characters or between characters and NPCs I will be awarding inspiration points out at the end of the session to encourage people to participate in roleplaying as their character.

  • Investigation: As a reward for keeping good notes and putting things together through-out the story, I will be awarding inspiration points out to those who are able to keep good notes and figure out things in the story without any kind of hand holding.

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