Creating Campaign Characters | Advanced Gamemastery 

Pinning your comment because I think it would be great for more people to help the koalas! (Link the video description!)

100%. Players knowing each other is completely different than characters knowing each other.

Great to have you here, too!

Once you do it collaboratively once, you'll never go back! Glad to hear you've got your campaign on track!

We who are about to face the algorithm salute you!

I'll check it out!

Thanks! Hope you love the book!

You are so welcome!

I'm a big believer in orientation sessions for new players; I don't just expect them to jump in. It's also not a bad idea to summarize the conclusions/information from Session 0 (for example, what lines and veils were established) for easy future reference. These are documents which can also be provided to new players joining the group.

I actually subscribe to the Elf on the Shelf data-mining reports, so I know EXACTLY what GMs need to know and when they need to know it. ;)

I'll probably be doing a video that's at least secret-society-adjacent soon, but if you're not already familiar with node-based scenario design, it's my go to for that sort of campaign: thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7949/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-part-1-the-plotted-approach Night's Black Agents also includes some really slick clues for PCs vs. Conspiracy game play: thealexandrian.net/wordpress/49659/roleplaying-games/review-nights-black-agents

I don't have any specific articles for that, but Jonathan Tweet gives some great advice in the 3rd Edition of OVER THE EDGE that can easily be universally applied, so you might want to check that out.

@@TheAlexandrian Thanks!

If the character fits and the player is on board with integrating the character into the party and the setting, does it need to be prevented?

I've usually found that just saying, "We'll be creating characters together in the first session," seems to head that off at the pass. If someone comes in with a bunch of work already done on a character, that's probably fine most of the time. (There are specific games like Dresden Files or Burning Empires where it's just not going to work; but that also probably means they didn't do it.) The key thing is that they still need to be flexible in adapting and continuing to develop the character. They can't lock themselves in stone and refuse to participate with the rest of the group. (And, if they do, that may indicate a deeper problem in terms of collaboration.)

I am possibly the world's biggest Masks of Nyarlathotep fan, and I actually consider Eternal Lies to be even better. I've done a full Remix of the campaign, including a breakdown of how my own run of the campaign went: thealexandrian.net/wordpress/37078/roleplaying-games/eternal-lies-the-alexandrian-remix

Dresden Files Accelerated is supposed to be mechanically more streamlined, but I found the campaign creation elements to be pretty anemic compared to the original game.

If character creation began at your session zero, then every player knows at least something about all the other characters. You can also have this happen before & after your actual session zero, via group chat on discord or wherever you want to chat between sessions. The point is that as players are dreaming up and then fleshing out their character ideas, they are doing so publicly. They might also work on secrets with the GM, but the other players at least should know some core information about them. I think this holds even if the _characters_ are going to start as complete strangers. To give you a concrete example: in my current Pathfinder 2e campaign everyone is from the same city - this was part of the campaign premise. Player 1 is playing a noble swashbuckler from a family that owns the city's main shipyard. Player 2 is a boxer fighter with a mechanic background. Once they knew that about each other, it was simple for one of them to propose, and the other agree, that the fighter works at the shipyard and knew the young noble to be ok, even if he was a 'toff'. Then player 3 says is a medic, so player 2 suggests that the doc attends boxing matches and fixes people up for some side income, while player 3 suggests that since he's thinking he's from a line of doctors, maybe his family is the family practice for the noble family. Done. We had a little more trouble with the halfling bard with a satirist background, but then the noble player remembered his PC's interest in the campaign premise (a revolution against a tyrannical regime that enslaves halflings) is that he is an anti-slavery abolitionist who has quietly been helping some of his family's slaves escape, and he's also a dandy so he loves a good time - so he suggested he's attended some of the bard's performances, and even anonymously donated money to her as a silent patron. She didn't know him, but her knew her. I also suggested she would likely have played in a tavern that the fighter frequented, that was burned to the ground about a week before the campaign began. The fighter had an emotionally strong connection to the tavern as a strong bond and campaign motivation for himself, with the player deciding his lover had died in the fire. So those two at least recognised each other by face, and the fighter certainly knew the bard's name, and that had something deep and meaningful to talk about straight away. In this way, every PC knew at least 1 other PC, and 3 of them even had a web of relationships (not all straightforwardly positive in this case, but it obviously works easier when they are). When things went down in act 1 of session 1, they thus all had at least some basis for acting together, and it wasn't a huge stretch to say they ran off in the same direction when the city guards came out in force. In that first combat, they mainly fought by themselves rather than as a true team (through a combo of not knowing their own abilities well yet, let alone each other's, but also some good roleplaying from my players). Then when another encounter was sprung upon them, they were already a group - and from there, trust was built.

Organized play is just a way of arranging one shots, not an actual campaign. So campaign advice for that doesn't matter in the slightest. But I strongly disagree that they represent the majority of such players. I would love to see any evidence of that. I don't know about pathfinder, but most players playing D&D and Runequest are NOT reporting in to their corporate overlords via organized play. I suspect Pathfinder is the same. DCC is an example of a game that already has a very narrow, specific group creation premise: the lvl 0 funnel. That level 0 funnel IS the session 0 being discussed. Paranoia already has your group premise inherent in it too, just like Blades in the Dark. Character creation produces troubleshooters for Alpha Complex. You aren't going to have to worry about someone showing up with a character that isn't a troubleshooter for Alpha Complex. But Call of Cthulhu and most mystery games certainly benefit from session 0. If you are expecting these characters to stick together over the long term, you should establish WHY they are doing so. And why they are at the starting position of the game, whether that is Uncle Jack's cabin in the woods or on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Why are they there? Why are they going to want to deal with the mystery that is about to unfold? And, most importantly, why would they trust the other players on this adventure and continue to associate with them in future adventures? Even if you are running a published adventure path, it makes a difference if you are doing Beyond the Mountains of Madness or Horror on the Orient Express. Different character types fit those two adventures. If you don't make a character that has any reason to get hired by (or accept a job from) Miskatonic University to go to the Antarctic, you are kind of screwed with Beyond the Mountains of Madness.

@@timothymallory6706 I mean, numbers for organized play exist but numbers for home games do not. Not sure what you are arguing there. Talk to your local game shop to get concrete numbers on organized play; there is no one collecting info on home games so maybe more, maybe less; who knows? Session 0's are for narrative based games. I did not go into an exhaustive list, but the OSR is a genre of games that does not use a session 0 because it is very likely you will not survive one game.

Yes, if you are playing an OSR kind of game, you don't need that much deeph for PCs. That's because OSR usually is high stakes and low level players tend to die. Organized play is also it's own kind of beast.

@@estebanrodriguez5409 you are cutting out call of cthulhu, the 3rd biggest play group of of your general rpg, and you are ignoring organized play that takes the majority of home play versus organized play... Either way, more people have played Curse of Straud in snow organized play where your background does not matter versus the DM who noted the number of your eyelashes of your original character *do not steal*. Most rpg's are generally purposed; it is strange for a dm yo actually care about your back story, which is Mt primary criticism of the video as this is is niche sub group of most rpg players that is divergent from the norm.

Organized play and dedicated campaigns are completely different beasts in terms of how they're organized and what the expectations of play are. But: 1. The claim that the majority of players are playing in organized play is just not true. There's no way to make those numbers add up for any of the games you mention (or the hobby as a whole). No publisher has ever claimed that. The numbers that we do have directly contradict it. 2. Session 0 is for, among other things, creating characters, introducing mechanics, and/or establishing safety tools. The idea that you don't need characters, rules, or safety tools for mystery, exploration, or horror games is... Well, let's just say it's a really weird claim.

I do! You can find a link on the Alexandrian: thealexandrian.net