🌟 FREE Checklist PDF available on Patreon! www.patreon.com/posts/39281630 ▶️ Tasha's Cauldron OFFICIAL Session 0 Guidelines! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-l6ZV8bjTYZ8.html
"Encourage players to privately share any topics they don't want to occur in the game." Very well said. Sensitive, without having to go through a checklist. Also, you get +100xp for Bardy McFly.
Yep, this checklist isn’t that kind of checklist. Both Bardy and I are grateful for the XP! Very cool to see you commenting on one of my videos! Thanks, professor!
I like to have a quick, non canon dungeon crawl ready at the end of session 0. That way, if we have time and everyone's ready to go, we can try out our characters and get a chance to get to know each playstyle.
I've just had a thought, You could Pseudo-cannon that crawl by having it be a weird shared dream that all the pc's had! Then they can act on that stuff in character (if you'd like) and gives a fun moment when they meet of "I think we've met" "Nah" "Can't remember where though" or something ^^
This is a great idea but in the "session 0" I just went to...that was almost all there was...some of us came with characters, some were new and needed help...I had a character half done, figured I would finish it there, but I spent the entire time helping a newbie make theirs and then the DM was like..."Everyone have a character? Okay let's do it" and went into the short dungeon. No talk about expectations, setting, plans, anything like that. It was fun but looking back I realize it was really a poor session 0.
I usually meet up with my friends (we are all newbies) for 7 hours. We play a bit of dnd, make a break where we cook some awesome food together, eat it and then keep playing. Makes those 7 hours go by like its nothing.
@@BobWorldBuilderThis is so true I put this on to prepare for my session zero today and I'm in great mood now you've got some kind of magical aura my man.
We used to use this rule for our games. However, a big flaw we found with it was it doesn't just affect the one PC who went down but the *whole* party since that PC will likely want to long rest immediately to clear the exhaustion. And because the other players are good sports, they'll say "yeah sure we should long rest" so the whole game has to stop just because one person went down. Another factor is that it inadvertently makes the game a lot easier because if the party keeps long resting as soon as someone drops to 0, then the party will be at full HP and resources a lot more. And lastly, I've tried to avoid those issues by putting the party in more situations where long resting wasn't always an option like with time-critical quests or environmental hazards. However, this just made the player resign and not want to try anything because they had the attitude "no point, I have disadvantage". But yeah, if it works for your table then ignore me lmao.
I do the same! Except mine is 2 Lv of exhaustion, so if you go down to 0 3 time you died. I also let my players know when they can long rest. Which is usually when they're in a safe environment, like a town.
Wait, people don't think about D and D all the time? Like when I'm driving around for work thinking about how I would DM a Beholder as a main Villain behind an epic adventure. Isn't that normal?
@@BobWorldBuilder I believe I slept through most of the day haha but my group are hardcore dnd players and they love to have the long sessions so I get used to it. I actually watched all your dragon of icespire peak and lost mines of phandelver for prep for the campaign, so thank you for all your hard work with those videos!
Yeah, in my first campaign, we played some early sessions that went most of the day, but if we start in the afternoon or evening, I'm pretty beat after ~4 hours if I'm DMing
@@BobWorldBuilder I do voices and acting during my sessions as a DM. Afterwards I feel spent. It's a lot to keep up with. I do 2 hour weekly sessions online (due to Covid) now and it's more manageable.
we have a house rule i find very helpful: should you roll a nat 20 in initiative, you get advantage on your first attack and should you roll nat 1, you get disadvantage. We have found this rule working both for us and against us in many case but what do you guys think?
I like the nat 20 part. I don't like the idea of sitting through an entire round of combat only to have a bad turn when it finally gets round to me. It's particularly harsh on rogues, as you only get 1 attack and you can't sneak attack if you have disadvantage.
@@charleybrett1663 true, the rule can be pretty punishing to melee fighters and spellcasters with spells that requires spell attack rolls. However, this is only for the first round of combat. Now for the rogue, I would perhaps rule that should they be able to nullify the disadvantage, they would be able to roll their sneak attack should they be able to hit.
My group (playing Pathfinder 1e) have a house rule for a nat 20 and a nat 1 on initiatives. If you roll a nat 20, you get an extra standard action, a nat 1 you lose your move action.
I think an important point you mentioned that isn't often considered is "you can have a session 0 at any point in your campaign". I hadn't ever really thought of that, and might try to schedule a half-session for a check in every few months
The "ice breaker" portion of a session zero is severely underrated. If the players aren't comfortable with each other as people, it'll most certainly crossover into the game. I also personally like my players to include what is there character's personal goal. It helps the DM build encounters specifically for that goal and helps the players get excited and invested in their other party members. Solid video!
The first point about asking what players are interested in or want only works if they players actually know what they want. Consistently, I ask my players stuff like “hey, what’s something you want to see in this campaign? What’s something you’ve never faced/seen before and would like to see? How much role play vs how much strategy?” And consistently I get “I don’t know,” as a response. They keep coming back to play every week though, so I guess I’m doing something right, but getting feedback can be like pulling teeth sometimes
We have a house rule where each axis of alignment comes in "capital" and "lower-case" intensity. A capital letter alignment means your character values that alignment affiliation and actively pursues it. A lower-case alignment means the character is predisposed toward acts and behaviour consistent with that alignment, but does not consider that predisposition part of its identity. This effectively quadruples the granularity of an alignment description and helps explain how, say, cg, cG, Cg, and CG characters are all the "same alignment". While DMing, I also tend to house rule that players have two alignments--their "detectable" alignment, which is the one written on their sheet, and their "smitable" alignment, which is my assessment of what that character's alignment should read after taking into account all of the smitten character's actions. We like to call this smite evaluation an "hard alignment credit check".
@@ronanmcauley "Smitten" is the past-participle of "to smite". It's an irregular conjugation. The word you might have expected to see would be "smited", but "smited" is empirically non-standard. But it does also have the meaning you indicated.
@@ms.aelanwyr.ilaicos sorry I don't know what any of that means, could you explain it to me like I'm five please? I know smite also means "strike with a firm blow" but I still don't understand what you mean by "smitable alignment"
@@ronanmcauley If you are using a "smite evil" ability, the "smitable" alignments--the alignments that the smite will work on--are Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil (and, in my system, the lower-case permutations like Le, lE, le, Ne, etc.). The point of specifying between "smitable" and "detectable" is just to illustrate that smite evil might work on a creature that would not be detected by detect evil, and smite evil might not work on a creature that would be detected by detect evil.
the best way I've seen to handle a session that 1 player can't make is to run a simple oneshot with new characters (made by Dm) that delves into the backstory of that missing player. This makes the game world richer, lets players try a class they otherwise wouldn't choose and gives them some knowledge to be invested in the missing player (even to know more about things that player is trying to find in the campaign). Not my idea but it was done by our DM and I have done it since.
I have a list of feats that I call my Background Feats, and everyone gets to start with one. They're the mostly the racials and the non-combats... It's nice to see people think about taking Chef.
Because I run a very tactically complex game (often at a level my players find extremely challenging), I have Healing potions alway heal for max, but they still take an action to use. This gives my players assurance they well recover a good chunk of HP, but requires them to decide if it’s worth giving up their action for.
One thing I like to do is ask my players what is one cool thing you want to accomplish within the campaign. Maybe its slay a dragon, kill a king (or save a king), find a cool magic item, etc etc. I liked the video a lot Bob, I think I will use some of the things from the checklist the next time I start the campaign
Yeah, that definitely falls under the campaign framework section! I agree it’s important for characters to have personal goals as well as party goals. It creates interesting choices!
I like to ask this question in a more general way: "What would you be disappointed to not experience during the campaign? - any particular setting, theme, fantasy trope, type of character or item or spell?"
Bardy has become a running gag on the channel, haha 😆 I always take an opportunity to plug him. And one day when I make some merch, that guy’s gonna be on a tshirt or something
Went from scared to stoked for my Session Zero tonight. What a kick-ass video. Your editing, your casual conversational style, the info itself, all phenomenal.
With a new group we usually do two presession. The first one determines rules, how to build characters etc, basically the mechanics parts of the game and also things like narrative tone, genre and setting, so that we have the most basic narative framework laid out. In the second presession everyone brings their character (or multiple to chose from) and we determine narrative things like if and how the characters know each other, what their relationships are like, why they decided to go on the same adventure or how they ended up at the same place, their goals, motivations etc. We also get to know each other's characters and determine how much the characters know about each other vs how much the players know about the characters. It might seem like overkill to have two pressessions, but with an entirely new group things like how to build a character might be points of discussion. We also sometimes play with an alternating DM system as we are usually short on people, who want to only DM and not play and that needs some serious planning ahead.
Though you say it may be overkill, I can totally see where you're going here. As Bob rightly pointed out, players need to know the world and campaign (or at least the beginnings) to really create their character (or at least flesh out a concept) Like where did your character grow up? How would they feel about the different factions and stuff like that. The space between the two presessions is the perfect time to actually sit down and create/finalise said character. Also a good time for the GM to make some final prep including any decisions the player mentioned like where they grew up or any background NPCs the GM can weave into the story.
House Rule: Max HP thru level 3. Adventuring is difficult enough without dying from a sneeze. Each class already has a different die and each character a different Con Modifier to allow for Raistlin and Caramon to exist but each will still be different.
I got broken up with two days ago, and this video is the first time I've genuinely smiled since. Thanks for that, Bob. Your soothing voice settled my anger and distracted me enough to calm down
One house rule I have heard/seen and really liked is the "Everyone gets one" rule...where, in the face of impending death, everyone gets the option to not die, and have something miraculous happen to save their character's life...divine intervention, a burst of heroism, something like that. Everyone gets one of those per campaign.
My dm has a lot of house rules and optional rules players can choose from. My favourite house rule is, when flanking with an ally you gain +2 to your attack roll instead of advantage. And his inspiration rules, you can have up to three inspirations at a time, the dm can grant you inspiration for doing something cool or your ally’s can give you their comradely giving you an inspiration. And finely, the number of magic items you can attune to equals your proficiency bonus.
@@santiagonutter8052 We finished after about 9 months, went really well overall! Had so many wild scenarios that we started keeping an “Out-of-Context Quotebook” that we all typed into (sessions were held online). Definitely a hoot to go back and read the quotes and remember what was happening.
We have a rule we like for critical hits. Instead of doubling the dice roll or rolling twice the dice, we roll normally and then add whatever a max damage roll would be.
We just auto max the damage and double all numbers. We enjoy both the protagonists and antagonists being able to land truly devastating blows more often than not since critting and rolling badly feels like trash sometimes.
This is fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing this. I'm DMing for the first time, and this has made things so much easier to prep for my upcoming session! Fingers crossed!!
This is very much me - I made 4 characters within a week from scratch just because one of my friends said he's gonna start a campaign... Even though the campaign doesn't start for weeks...
Just had my first session zero last Saturday. Went well, though we some miscommunication over what "criminal strongholds" ment and two players created assassin charcters thinking there were cartels in my world, interesting idea, but as this is my first time DMing and I've only played 6 times before this, that felt a little more complicated than I'm ready for. Fortunately everyone else in my group are seasoned players, so after a little clarification and discussion We're all on the same page. Communication (actually getting the same idea in everyone's head) is important. Thank you for your tips.
My favorite house rule was the ability to infuse an item with a single cast of a spell that could be released on command. (Or impact, if you asked nicely) The attempt would take the same number of days as the level of the spell, and had both a wis and int check of 10+the spell level, making cantrip earrings a half day project, but a thunderwave cherry bomb a time commitment project. Both checks had to pass for it to be a success, and if both failed, even if not critically, the item was destroyed. It was never clarified, but depending on the circumstances and the DM’s choice, the item was often destroyed by the sudden flow of magic for which it was not designed.
I tried something very interesting with my last game. It was a new system my players weren't familiar with at all. So I created a whole tutorial game for our session 0. I started them as children in a village during a festival let them play games that taught them the checks, sent them on a short little quest and had them fight the elements and a few weak creatures. It turned into a way for them to see what kind of game was going to be played how they could interact with eachother and the world, it helped establish relationships with npcs and connected them to the world, while teaching them the game. They liked it so much that we are just continuing from there the wanted to play more as children and watch the world build their character. It might not work for everybody or every setting but it was definitely an easy way to pull them into the world.
One of my favorite house rules is Feats on ASI! Everytime a player takes an ASI, they take that AND a Feat of their choice; however, if the Feat would increase an Ability Score, such as Actor's +1 Charisma, you would ignore that particular feature of the Feat.
It should be possible to allow a player to take a +1 ASI together with any half-feat that gives a +1 stat increase with feat special ability. But your way allows people to add the ASI to any ability score (personal choice) instead of the one defined with the half-feat. It makes for faster and bigger increases in the PCs' powers and features.
@@theuncalledfor yeah, generally feats with that bonus aren't very good mechanically. That bonus is what makes them worth taking, some even suck with that bonus. I think I'd alter it slightly so that if you take a very powerful feat I'd lower your ASI to 1 instead of 2. Then it you pick a weaker fest you still get that little bump up.
A house rule that my DM uses is what I like to call the "sportsmanship bonus". If you are being a good sport about the game, (i.e. fist bumps and high fives after battles, hyping eachother up, etc) than you get a little bit of xp. It's a fun little bonus that allows for quicker level ups. Which has been nice for us newer players who are excited to experience more about the game. It's basically just a faster way to get through the first few levels and unlock some abilities if you start at level 1.
I love that idea. A similar idea I heard recently is having the players all choose an MVP at the end of the session and that player gets some kind of bonus in the next one
The 5e resources may not refer to the specific term “session 0”, but the Starter Set and core books DO offer plenty of ways to begin a game. A session 0 is all about how the party plans out their game ahead of time. Preferences dictate requirements.
my players will affect, but not build my world if they want to build worlds then they can go and build worlds. i decide where they start but they will choose where it will end up i love the reaction the world will take from these players existing but i respectfully disagree they have no part in world building unless they plan on running a game or just want to do so for fun
Fair enough, there's a whole spectrum to world building. Sure they may not get to decide who the leaders of their home nation are, but maybe they can decide what the weapons shop looks like inside
My favorite house rule is starting everyone’s character at a “level 0” and naturally let the story and choices that the characters make determine their class. I believe this helps from a story aspect transition them from there background to there new life as a an adventurer.
This makes me remember of campaign where the characters we're designed by making a quiz of the players' personality. Like, if someone is very athletic, they get a lot of DEX, if they are religious, their class would probably be cleric, things like that. To this day, I want to try this someday.
Yeah I am a big fan of starting at level 0 because actually level 1 is insanely strong. I do however have them select classes already, the biggest issue with not doing that is it is hard to "stumble" into being a wizard. Should take at least a year of study to even be a 1st level wizard and that's being generous!
@@andrellnogueiraThat could be cool, but what about the players that DON'T want to play a character that is like them (aka, the majority of players -- especially any character after their 1st). You would have to do it another way.
Thank you so much for this video. I've been running a campaign for 2 years which was running stale and everyone decided to give it one more shot with a reset and a new session 0. Back when I started, I never played DnD before and now I have, but the problems of a newbie homebrew campaign showed and those video really helped me find out some pointers to get my campaign with my buddies back on track! Thank you again!
At my session 0, I was running DOIP. So I just told them to make an adventuror, tell me their backstory, and decided to world build from there. Also I house ruled that I roll their death saves and don't tell them the results, and i told them that they can take a bonus action to use a potion or cast a low level healing spell.
This method is how my groups usually do it too. I mostly play with people I know well, and we've mostly been running modules, so it works! This list is meant to cover all the bases for new groups!
This is exactly how I ran DOIP, except the potion rule. This is the first time I am running Dnd and a lot of fun, learning and 2 players deaths and they are now ready to take on Cryovain.
When i was new to DND, my DM at the time would ask me what I knew and I as the player didn't know anything from the get go. So I'd be like "idk if I know this." So I'd ask for guidance. Especially since i dont have literally everything in DND memorized. When i asked what my character knew, he told me I was metagaming. Like he'd say because I didnt know something irl, my character couldnt possibly know it. It was so frustrating being new like that and my character being dumb as a box of rocks because of it.
About to start a new homebrew campaign as a new dm. Session zero starts after my wife and I get back from vacation. It will be a cocktail night and after going over session 0 information we will be spending the rest of the time bonding while painting figures and drinking. 😂😁
I wrote up a google survey that listed out various themes and subjects and asked players to rate their comfort levels in engaging with these topics in the campaign. It included everything form common phobias to their “character horniness” level. It also had world themes they may not want to deal with like classism/bigotry/racism etc. It allows me to have essentially a cheat sheet for any triggers or just uncomfy situations so I can avoid them outright if need be.
A couple of house rules for me are: 1. When rolling HP for level up, roll with advantage, and reroll 1's 2. Healing potions heal max HP when used as an action, but can be used as a bonus action where you roll for the healing.
My favorite house rule for combat is on a Nat. 20 we do max damage plus the roll and modifier. (Makes them feel like a real success) But on a Nat. 1 we have critical failures (hurt a party member or yourself, loose or break your weapon etc.) Now all the bests stories from our group comes out of these rolls.
The very first questions should be about the use of the rules. Will it be predominantly Rules as written, Rules as intended or the Rule of cool? Will optional rules (such as feats and multiclassing) be allowed? Campaign or series of adventures? What can be changed to suit the table and what is inflexible (i.e Bardy McFly)?
I appreciate your reference to Bardy haha, and yeah, I sorted the sections with the default being a group of people who haven’t played together. If you already know everyone, or you’ve played enough D&D to know general table expectations, jumping to house rules is probably fine
8:00 Look I don't mind players having input but being dungeonmaster is a lot more work and being allowed some more creative licence is really not that much to ask for in return.
The first casualty of war is the plan or the first casualty of the DM. We only play once a month and our campaign has been going for years we’ve even had to go online totally for awhile. With 11 players scheduling is tough
That’s why our group uses experience-based leveling (with xp for rp, not just combat), so people are incentivized to come, if they can’t make the exact time, then oh well.
Most people know my game style within the local community so I rarely have a session 0. There is no stealing from the group, magic items and money is divided fairly and equally. My 3.5 campaign was filled with house rules and was fortnightly ranging from minimally 8 hours up to 12 hours per session. I’ve recently finally succumbed to 5th and started running it for my wife and 13 year old son. I’ve been playing and DM’ing for over 36 years and I can hands down say this is the best experience I’ve had in the hobby. Phandalin is what brings joy to the campaign. All the villagers are now stat carded with tonnes of detail thrown in and my wife especially loves going about the village interacting with the npc’s making friends and new allies. I’ve made a point of not home brewing any of the rules, playing them as errata and I’ve combined both starter box sets into one large campaign which will lead into an adapted version of princes of the apocalypse, which will introduce their neighbours to the east. In the time of writing this the campaign has been going for 3 weeks and we’ve had 11 sessions totalling around 33 hours 🤣🤣🤣 they are mid way though 3rd level and are really starting to understand their characters (my wife is a devotion paladin of Helm, son is a champion fighter, and there are 3 npc’s in the party, they both insisted on npc’s to fill the group out and for me to have a voice in the group to lend advice etc as they are both new to the hobby. The first npc is a female life priestess of Sune and my wife’s best friend the next is a kind invoker wizard who actually hates hurting people and what his magic can do to them, and the last is a rough and tumble rogue (thief) who lived in the same orphanage as my sons fighter, in Waterdeep. I was hoping to drop an npc or two down the line but they have grown really attached to them. The main thing with doing it with the family is the ease of access to play (they prefer playing their characters to tv flicking) the fact that they have similar ethics to myself so try to do good in the world. I’ve made her cry so far (the ranch hand breaking down sobbing saying he’s a coward for leaving his friend to die at butterskull ranch) and I’ve brought a rage upon her when returning from the wyvern tor, old own well quests the redbrands had beaten their friend Gareale almost to death, leaving her in a coma (god help the redbrands in the next few sessions) my son is also emotionally invested loving the owner of the Stonehill Inn and his dog Rex, and the village in genaral. So it’s made it such a pleasure Gm’ing for them.
Love the content and the energy, you deserve way more subscribers. Thanks for all the tips, thinking of running the dragon of icespire peak with friends and your videos are such a big help
Thanks for the checklist bob! I'm about to DM a campaign after shaking off almost a decade of rust DMing, it's nice to have this checklist to use to help jump start the campaign so that I don't have to think of all this on my own. Made me even more excited for my campaign, knowing I'd have this to refer to
Ran my first Session Zero as a new DM yesterday and used your list as a guide, really helped stremaline the convo and help iron out some of the finer details. Really hipped to start playing officially in 3 weeks!
My house rules (AKA THIS is SP...uh THE OSR!!) 1. No Evil Characters 2. 1D10 Initiative 3. With rare exceptions (Gamma World, Mutant Future, certain other RPGs, etc.), all 1st Level characters start with max HP 4. New characters get one-time free equipment (within reason) 5. Stats are rolled 4D6 drop the lowest and assign to taste 6. 2 minute maximum on rules look-up during encounters 7. NO psionics!
@@BobWorldBuilder Nope, unless the system/edition gives init bonuses for higher stats (I know BX gives bonuses and penalties for initiative and 1E has a "reaction adjustment" which I always used for initiative bumps/dings). Players roll 1D10 (for small groups I use 1D6) +/- bonuses/penalties as does the DM for the NPCs/monsters. Then I call out from 10 to 1 and combat commences, rerolling initiative for every turn.
... the average amount of session time is 3 hours? My group usually does 8 hour weekly sessions... And if none of us have anything to do on weekends, we go even longer. We once did a 26-hour session in one of our friend's garage. We went on until I couldn't speak anything comprehensible and then passed out.
Hi Bob. With a group of entirely new players (some have consumed some DND media like Dungeons & Daddies or Roll20 and maybe played a one shot or two but never a campaign), how would you go about session 0? We are looking for a rather relaxed atmosphere where meeting friends and rolling dice for fun is the main focus and not an epic story we all immersive ourselves in (they're not ready for that commitment). I still want to make sure we have a proper session 0 but don't want to scare my new green-behind-the-ears players away by pulling out a checklist as if it's a contract. Managing expectations and being on the same page is still insanely important. I will have to lead my new players through character creation. So I'll bring two PHBs and do it with them together. Would you do character creation before the checklist or after? I fear they might get the idea that it's all too rigid and serious and too much of a commitment if I begin with a session 0 checklist. For example, if I'd ask "What's one strength you bring to the group?" one of my players might just flee the scene immediately. I imagine most will not know what they bring to the table as they're entirely new and don't know their own playstyle yet, and don't know each other's playstyle yet either.
Hi, Bob! What are examples of strengths that players can bring to the group? I'm not sure what you mean by it. The characters? or the players themselves?
Yeah I actually really like how they can be halfway between Combat (being a dice challenge) and roleplay (a freeform thing). I never even played 4e but have enjoyed a skill challenge my GM put in 5e.
My favorite House Rule is that a caster can cast a number of Levels of spells per round equal to their highest spell level. 1st level Cleric casts Healing Word, they can only do a Cantrip. But by 3rd level, they can follow that 1st level Healing Word with a 1st level Cure Wounds. And by 17th Level, the Sorcerer can follow up a 6th level Chain Lightening with a Quickened 3rd level Fireball.
my favorite house rules that I'm gonna take from my dm and use in my own games are on crits. on a nat 20 attack you roll regular damage dice and add full damage, that way it feels more like a crit. on a nat 1 you roll it again and if you hit another player's ac you accidentally hit them (or if you're not near them you just drop/damage your weapon)
Maybe some dabbling in the arts of the many realms of dnd. I have a campaign idea for this pirate-themed sky adventure starting in the plane of air, mystical forces w/ power beyond imagination forces the players in the plane of water, then to the plane of earth, then fire. Finally coming full circle back to air, confronting the power that forced them out. Of course there would be encounters along frostfell and the lands between the elemental planes where forces collide, and destinations like city o jewels, cinder wastes etc. Also with a healthy blend of the material plane, shadowfell and feywild. Take that in any way you like, but I think I know what I’m doing come the weekend.
Haha, nothing serious. In fact I used to go full teacher mode and try to walk them through a lot of rules, but I've found it easier to just go with the flow. Try to learn their character very well, so when they want to do some and have a special ability for it, you can remind them. Dedicated players will catch on quick and learn their abilities, other players won't so they'll continue to need help from the group, but they'll tend to drop out since they weren't very interested
Dude, awesome video! Really well put together. I've recently started up a tabletop RU-vid channel as well, and you present a lot of awesome ideas here.
In all of the games I've played recently, session 0 was a series of 5 min conversations over the course of 3 to 4 weeks. But this is the advantage of being roommates with the other players.
I have 4 big rules I put in as a super package. They each feed into each other. Players and Enemies are under all the same rules. Crits are crunchier, so instead of rolling an extra die, I just add the maximum value of that die to the roll. Also uses less dice. Potions restore a fixed amount of HP by type. The average of rolls rounded up. Falling to 0 health and going unconscious causes 1 point of exhaustion. Critical fails in combat have a 2d6 table (but I am likely going to change this to 2d4 after watching your vids). 678 have no effect. Lower than 6 causes defense drops and missteps. Greater than 8 causes weapon damage and fumbles. I like some of the suggestions here. Like the hidden death save rolls by the DM instead of player. Players might not like the loss of agency in rolling though.
I want you as my DM. What do I need to do to make that happen? My last campaign lasted 13 years. We played every Sunday, from noon to eight. The campaign only ended because of DM died. Finally, I prefer a murder hobos campaign! j/k
Just found your channel; 57yo that just got back into D&D - Used to play when it was in a blue box! Love your content, thanks for all the great videos! SUBBED!
Here are my house rules for character creation: Players do not create characters until _after_ we start playing. We can discuss concepts and what would be good choices for a fun, well-balanced party, but all that the players need is a name, race, gender, and approximate age; and we are good to go to start roleplaying and experiencing the game world. Details like ability scores and equipment can be determined as needed when they become relevant for an encounter. (And I contrive the encounters in such a way to generate these details organically in an order that makes sense.) I do this even for higher-level adventures. After the players complete around ten 0th-level encounters (a variety of different roleplay, skill use, expository exploration scenes to get used to the setting and how the rules work) they fill in details for a 1st-level character. Then, we brainstorm as a group a montage of "flashback scenes" that explain how they got from level 1 to level 3/5/10/whatever. Important point: No character backstories allowed until after after playing as that character for at least two sessions. That's right, players _are not allowed_ to make up backstories for their characters until they actually know what it is like to be in the game world and have learned what their characters are like by actually roleplaying in encounters. This is called "backfilling the backstory," and is another important element of quick PC generation. Creating a new PC - especially at 0th or 1st level - should never take more than 5, 10 minutes maximum. (Character _backgrounds_ are okay - "I used to be a soldier." "My character recently traveled here from a faraway land." "Ragnar used to be a bandit, but wants to reform and help people from now on." are examples. One sentence maximum.)
To that part to prepare stuff... is it railroad, when my players get on my story so emotional that they attack a hostile that isnt a threat? 3.Krytos 1372 DR, started in a small village between Longsaddle and Triboar.1 Rouge that want to be a Druid, 1 Warlock that will disapear later session, 1Warrior that goes for Monk and a Dwarf brewmaster that goes later Samurai. Had a group where 3/4 of the group decide to be in milita and i send them on a Patrol; the 4th Player (Rouge) i convinced with a 200gp Obsidian; after a really awful day in the hills western of Neverwinter Forest they came back and all the background chars of the now burned village are dead and a Hillgiant "baby" sit on there corpses and eat them, after our warrior go full rage because her father lay down in the corpses, the stuff going wild. The "Baby" i call him Grom, do not attack , instead he knuddle a dead Blackbear and dancing around. That maked my Warrior really sick and they start the fight... They killed Grom, wasnt that hard for 4 smart players to ground and pound that helpless giant baby; after killing him the Parents show up and they destroy the entire village with some rocks in rage and my Level 1 Heroes must leave or die. Pretty sure that they hunted by the Giants they start there Adventure to West; after running into a convoy of the Callum and the Greycloacks that ahead to Greypeak Mountains, tell the group over the howling death and that Neverwinter search for Heroes. In Session 2 they found a Hafener gnome scintist that convince the party to go for a quest, they have to bring the gnome a young Kobold of a smart clan in the near... after they doing so after some ethic discussion about that; as the Gnome left he sayed something like; now let us try to manipulate a Dragon named Tymofarrar... After that they sneak threw a Orc Camp with a drunk Ogre in it and reached a monk in front of the forest that lead them as thanks for rescue a rare helpless bear(yes they carry her in there bagpacks around) to a hidden elvish village, now near one of the points from where the real mainplot starts. Needed 4 weeks that some one checked that "Grom" cant burn an entire village by his own ;)
My favorite house rule is: you can substitute levels of exhaustion for spare spell slots. No higher than your available spell levels, and only using spells you have.
On a nat20, no matter what stupid thing they try, if there is a physical possibility for them to pull it off, it succeeds. One of my pc's shouted "are we gonna kiss now, big boy?" to one of the mini bosses, and rolled a 20. They kissed and the boss gets disadvantage on his first turn because he's shy now. Makes everything more fun and unpredictable. Also, I decided that my players get to reroll their hit die if they roll a 1. However, they must go with the second result, even if they get a 1 again (alternatively, they may choose to just go with the average), because I've noticed people slump over their 1HP roll and it takes them 15ish minutes to forget about it and have fun in the game.
My favorite house rule: lvl 1 feat. It's due to backgrounds being really lackluster in my opinion and it gives a sense of multi level depth to the backstory of a character. "Yes im go' ol" McGee, I have the sailor background and swore revenge on thr Kraken, I am a palladin lvl 1. And I have the actor feat because I used to be in a theater group before going settling out to see" or something like that.
I really do miss having a reasonably in-depth history of the world our characters would live in in most all campaigns I played in. Especially if you pick a long life race like elf's and dwarfs. You would know a thing or 2 about the area and the world as travelers would spread news. If not for having some semblance to a news paper or town crier to inform everyone of the state of the country/world. Even if that news would be days-weeks-months old by the time it gets to your town. Your character would know what races live near. What gangs and monsters are about. And might have had reason to learn their language or how best to fight them. Or know some of the npc's in the area, like a trader, bard troupe etc. This is often under utelised.
It's been a while. I'm starting a new campaign and thought I would refresh myself on a good session 0. Now it has been 3 years since this came out, my question is, has anything changed on how you do things now in 2024 compared to when this video came out?
I had a question, kind of generally for any DMs who want to respond. With experienced players, these can be pretty smooth, but with brand new players who have never created a character, I've experienced an overwhelmed response at the creation stage. That likely partially on me for presentation, but I've been debating the idea of just doing a free flowing mini fight to learn what the person wants to play. Basically a series of multiple choice or binary questions in the guise of combat, ie The goblin attacks you, would you block with a shield, dodge deftly aside, raise a magic barrier etc, until the person's choices make clear what the best class for them would be. Has anyone tried such a thing or am I trying to reinvent the wheel for no reason here?
House Rule : If you die ( Or Assumed Death) then death music plays and the dead player recieves 1 inspiration to give to another creature at anytime by "possession" or "Dying Will" or "Patron's Wrath" They can also choose to keep this point until they create a new character at the same level -1 as the character they died with when then the inspiration point vanishes.
It's not really relevant to a session 0 preplist, but a house rule of mine is that mindless undead don't get reflex saving throws. They can't matrix dodge because they don't have a sense of self preservation. So they just terminator walk through burning hands (taking a lot of damage) or they die. :)
TIME TOKENS. when a player misses a session, their character is idle in a safe area. once the player returns the next session, they gain a time token. it could be used to gain exp (at your discresion), increase their next loot roll or give them advantage on the roll, did they do something stupid and are facing a hard encounter? time token will reduce the difficulty.
"There's no session zero in the book"... What, you have to have it in "official" writing in order to use it in your game? I respect you Bob, but that notion is absurd. Right up there with saying all Dark Elves had to be evil because the earlier edition books said so.
Critical hits give an automatic max on points for one of the two rolls, the other is rolled out and added. Too many times I've seen a critical hit get nerfed by the dice and there is nothing more frustrating than getting excited about 6d10 possible damage and rolling 6 total dice points on a critical to be doubled to 12. Makes more sense that a critical hit be: 60 + 6.
