Session 0.5 :: YA Birthday Campaign

Previously...

I mean... there was no previously. This was the first "session" that we played, and the first that I'm writing about. It's the first time I'd been DM in four years, our first game in the new 5e release, and the first TTRPG for the young adult herself. We had players, materials, and the time set aside to muddle our way through things. I had read through the PHB and the majority of the DMG beforehand, so while I had a little forewarning, I also had little recent experience. But that wasn't an excuse: we all have to start sometime, and if you want it bad enough, there's no better time to start than now... or then... whatever, I'm mixing tenses. You get the idea.

For a little more of an idea of what I’m talking about, read this.

The Setup

We ultimately had three characters for this session, and little time to dive in. We had fewer than three hours to do character creation, a quick session zero, and as much of a taste of the system that I could cram into the time left. This was basically the sloppiest 5e speed run.

It being my daughter‘s (the young adult’s) birthday, finding a group was as easy as canvassing the attendees to her party. I'm fortunate to have a pretty strong family group that lives near me, and of the six adults present, I had two adults interested in playing, one of which I had DM'd in my most recent campaign. The other had some previous experience with TTRPGs, was an avid TCG player, and had a strong video game sense as well.

I gifted a PHB to the birthday girl and I had one for myself. In addition to the D&D Beyond Master subscription, we had more than enough copies to get us through. With one of the adults there at 3:30, an end time around 7:00, and the young adult living with me, we had enough to start character generation.

Character Creation

I’m on record as being pro-new character creation process on first read, and in practice I still very much am enjoying it. It’s laid out in an easy to follow and easy to digest way, so it was great to be able to step the new players through. I decided we should stick to rolling level one characters for sake of expediency and in the interest of mechanics understanding. I also preferred, at least in the beginning, that we rolled them up without the use of D&D Beyond. Just so that we had an understanding of the process before we relied on tools to do our math for us. In this vein, I also chose to stick with the starting points array instead of rolling for ability scores.

The birthday girl chose a Tiefling rogue with the Wayfarer background, playing up her penchant for Helluva Boss and demons. We rolled her personality, which in retrospect we should not have done, and she ended up with disinterested and self involved. In the future, I will likely not suggest the usage of the character personality tables. Filling out the character sheet was intuitive and simple.

My next player chose a Gnomish paladin with the Noble background. This made for a shocking number of skill proficiencies available to a paladin (which will be something for me to get used to), but the player is crafty enough that he will absolutely find ways to use them. He started creating the character by hand, but switched back to using D&D Beyond shortly after our third player arrived and needed a PHB. We didn’t roll him any personality traits, and I would have liked to explore his characters personality more in game, but I think that will come in time.

My final player ended up choosing an Elven wizard, also with the Noble background. The 5e refresh is just similar enough that he was able to get himself in trouble using the same character building recipes he had in the past: he took a look at the species first, skipped the backgrounds altogether, and struggled to build a character in the new system as a result. We ended up needing to backtrack a bit to get him back on course, but we got it all resolved. It was an interesting note for me that, absent being lead, a veteran player can absolutely end up with a broken incomplete build using this new system if they make assumptions based on the 2014 release.

It took us nearly ninety minutes just to create characters. Don’t get me wrong, this is an entirely new system to half of the table. The rogue has never even played before, so all of this is very new. I definitely underestimated just how long it would take to roll characters, and should have pre-rolled them if I had any hope of getting through the adventure. The new system is very approachable, however, so I think it will just take a bit to get used to. Do yourself the favour of following the steps to the letter for the first few until the process really sinks in.

Campaign Choices

World-building is my jam. I love creating conflicts and settings that support them, and I really look forward to using Tilting the Tabletop as a platform to do that alongside all of you. Stay tuned for more on that as plans come to fruition.

In creating worlds, however, I had never played in Greyhawk. This is the world that gave us Mordenkainen, Bigby, and Tasha. This is the OG setting. I’ve always wanted to play in this world as it’s a classic, and the new Dungeon Master‘s Guide does a refresh on it as well.

The setting as Gygax designed it lacked an inclusive stance so WOTC retconned a few things in this release: changed up a few of the old human rulers in favour of other species and Queens for Kings. I know a lot of Grognards are binding at the thought of changes to the history of their worlds, but I frankly don’t know any different at this point, so I see any changes for the sake of inclusivity as positive.

I chose to run The Fouled Stream basically as written in the DMG (saves prep time!), and the adventure itself is light on details aside from the High Ery mention in the hook, so can be easily adapted anyway.

Normally, a Session Zero would include discussions as a group about the kind of game that we want to play: the tone, magic availability, if there are active wars, etc etc. We simply didn’t have time, so I set the story in Greyhawk for now, giving them a quick primer on the setting.

Session Notes

In the interest of saving time, I didn’t have the characters starting in a tavern, but instead informed them that they had been contracted by Mayor Bernard Fairheight (long time listeners will recognize Bernard the Bard, human DMPC extraordinaire) to help with cleaning the river for a wedding that they were there to be a part of. I had each of them choose if they were on the Bride or Grooms side of the aisle, and came up with their names quickly: Jackie-Lynn Fairheight (a niece of the Mayor) and a human whose name is inconsequential at the moment. The river had been fouled somehow, and the PCs were hired to investigate and rectify the situation before the wedding. The smell from the scum and fungi along the river bank was unpleasant, but Jackie-Lynn‘s reaction would be far worse. So off they went!

Upon getting to the river, they all began investigation checks. The rogue decided to dip her tail in instead of using a stick like everyone else. I had her roll a constitution saving throw to see if her tail stank for a period of time, and she succeeded, saving from the lingering effects.

The paladin figured out that they needed to go up-river to find the source of the corruption, and lead the party to a polluted stream that was emptying into the river.

Further up the stream, the met the Treant as described in the adventure breakdown, giving them a quick taste of the RP aspect of the game. They were able to gain the restorative acorn as described, and were about to progress when cake was served.

The rogue decided to punch a tree after it being described as dry and colourless and looking like deadfall, to which she decided that she had dendrophobia. Players, if you make choices like this at a table, you can’t be surprised if the DM uses them to sow a little misery. You will find that this is precisely the sort of thing that crafters of conflict and stewards of strife like to use. At this point, the wizard player had to leave to tend to his family.

We returned to the adventure long enough to experience combat with a stand in player as the wizard. The players got to face off against six Twig Blights at the entrance to the cave mouth the corrupted stream springs from. The rogue was able to use her Sneak Attack feature, the wizard executed a few well timed magic missiles and thunderclaps, but the paladin was relegated to effectively just using his longsword in battle. After the fight, the characters took a short rest to lick their wounds, and we had to wrap up for the night.

All in all, while the session felt short and rushed, we were able to hit the three pillars of the game: exploration/investigation, role-playing/social interaction, and combat. Only the briefest of tastes, but there’s a little something for everyone.

Dangling Threads

A long time ago, I read an article on Knife Theory. The basic idea is that, during character creation, you give your DM things that they can use to pull your characters strings a bit. Over time, I began applying this to how I plan my sessions: I take little things that people have forgotten, small dangling threads, and use them to weave stories. It makes for impactful story telling, and only requires paying attention and decent note taking.

Ideally, the process of listing the dangling threads from a session is done as a post session retro; something the DM does after the session with a dram of scotch and an open mind. Eventually, I would love for this to be something that I do on a livestream with other people. For now, I’ll just list a few that we can take from this brief session alone.

• The tieflings tail, having been dipped into the scum in the river, doesn’t stink. She also didn’t wash the scum off of the tail, though, so perhaps it’s stained now.
• I will use the dendrophobia. That’s mine now. You can’t take it back.
  • The treant Borogrove doesn’t trust these adventurers, and is the warden and protector of this forest. How does he feel about the destruction of the tree that was only magically dead?
• The gnome paladin is the only character that doesn’t speak Gnomish. Gnoted.
• The gnome paladin also didn’t call upon his God at all. I’ll need to talk to him about that.
• I can’t remember what side of the of the aisle each character was sat for the wedding. I would love to be able to play one of them off of one of the other guests: perhaps a face from the past? I’ll try to get more backstories about the characters.

Next Session

I’ve reached out to the two adults and invited them back to play. This is a bad season to try to get anything up and going, what with family obligations and the like, but I will keep the pressure on them to start something new. I have pokers in the fire for new players starting in the new year as well.

We’ll pick up right where we left off. I think I can roll right into the second adventure path in the DMG as well, with a little massaging. Half of story telling is adjusting just enough of the story you’re stealing to not be accused of outright plagiarism anyway.