DMing with Charisma

I think the hardest part of anything is the ending, but the second hardest part is the beginning. The first episode of a TV show, the first chapter of a book, and the first issue of a comic are what’s supposed to hook the viewer or reader and make them want to keep going.

The beginning of a campaign isn’t very different. A lot of campaigns have a reasonably stable player base, but I’ve left enough campaigns (and had enough players leave my campaigns) in the first few sessions to know how important it is to hook people, set the stage for the plot, and let the players know what they can expect for the rest of the campaign. A great Session One can go a long way toward a great overall campaign.

I think I’ve come up with a solution for problematic Sessions One: have a Session Zero. Before a campaign starts, I have a session with no plot, no role-playing, no actual dice hitting the table unless it’s to roll character abilities. The whole point is to have everybody gather and get a feel for each other, their characters, and the setting.

There are a couple of things I like to go over:

• Character Generation – I prefer to roll character abilities, build characters, and discuss the party dynamic as part of Session Zero. It turns out a lot of players don’t like this, preferring to build character by themselves rather than by committee, but I still think it’s important to have everybody somewhat aware of what roles they’re filling in the party. It also lets players ask me or each other questions about things they’re having trouble with, like picking languages or figuring out how to spend their starting equipment budget.
• Setting Discussion – Session Zero is a great chance for players to ask questions about the setting of the campaign and add their own notes to it. “I figure I was in a war ten years ago. Who would it have been with?” “Is there a problem with me playing a goblin?” “Are Eastern weapons or firearms available?” And so forth.
• Survey Results – I have a campaign survey that I like to send out to players while I’m designing the campaign, and Session Zero is a good time to go over the results. I’ll go over my survey in a future post, but I’ve also tried the Same Page Tool that Left Oblique gushed over a while back.
• Player Meeting – It’s nice to have everybody meet face-to-face before the campaign starts. I’m not worried (any more) that two players are actually mortal enemies that I won’t learn until they see each other across the table, but it makes everybody a little more familiar with each other.

One of the most important things I’ve learned about Session Zero is that the players have to treat it like a real session. My first Session Zero was optional, and half the party didn’t show, which sort of defeated the point. My second had players come in and out at different times, so while I was there for five hours, I never had more than three players there at once, and I ended up explaining things three or four times. When I started making it as mandatory as a real session, it finally had the impact I’d always wanted. The Session Zero for my current campaign was almost perfect.

The whole point of a Session Zero is to get the players interested, unified, and ready to dive right in for Session One. A good one can all but eliminate the mechanical, table-based problems with a first session (which leaves the DM with only the in-character, story-based problems, but every little bit helps). It’s kind of like giving your campaign a trailer, letting everybody know what they can expect coming in far better than you can by giving the same campaign pitch four or five times.

I’ve received a startling number of requests for this.

There are some actions a player can take during a D&D session that cause me to roll on a DM Wrath list. Most often, I roll because a player (or DM) has made a sufficiently bad pun, but it’s generally for whenever somebody has irritated me in a comedic way. The only wraths that are permanent are the ones that are funny, and every once in a while I change up the list to keep it fresh.

The original list is here, but here’s the one I’m currently using:

1 – You develop a phobia of the DM’s choice.
2 – You may only speak in song titles.
3 – You are convinced that a powerful magician is out to get you personally.
4 – You start each day covered in moss.
5 – Your heartbeat is audible to everybody within ten yards.
6 – You think you’ve had geas/quest cast on you by a high-level cleric.
7 – A pool of lava opens beneath you.
8 – Your weapon develops your personality.
9 – You think you are from the distant future.
10 – Your arms become tree branches.
11 – You think you can communicate with inanimate objects.
12 – You insist your name is something else.
13 – You believe everything is a CCG.
14 – You are followed by four skeletons with no combat ability.
15 – You become convinced that you invented magic.
16 – You are convinced that you’re a monstrous race (roll randomly)
17 – You only speak one random language.
18 – Your skin turns matte black.
19 – You become monosyllabic.
20 – Your tongue leaps from your mouth and scurries away.
21 – You believe that you are 5 feet taller than you are and behave accordingly.
22 – You perceive all art to portray only horrifying images.
23 – Gender switch. This is permanent and can only be undone by limited wish, wish, miracle, or another DM Wrath.
24 – You think the last d20 days were just a dream.
25 – You become magnetized.
26 – You can only walk backwards (can still fight forwards, just can’t advance forwards).
27 – Your tongue becomes twelve inches longer.
28 – You may no longer use the letter E.
29 – Shadows make obscene gestures at you.
30 – You forget everything since yesterday morning.
31 – You become cloned.
32 – You act like the campaign is a first-person shooter.
33 – You cannot touch anything of a certain color without unbearable pain.
34 – You sing in your sleep.
35 – Your nose floats six inches in front of your face.
36 – You have a wooden cat that you carry with you wherever you go and talk to it as if it were your best friend. You must narrate everything that happens to it.
37 – You become obsessed with cell phone reception in your adventuring locations.
38 – You are covered in whipped cream.
39 – Your touch robs objects of color.
40 – You become surrounded by a swarm of hornets.
41 – You think you are an iron golem.
42 – You are suddenly hated by townspeople.
43 – You can only talk in shrieks.
44 – You become tarred and feathered.
45 – You are invisible, but only when you speak.
46 – Every stick you find you must point north.
47 – You think you were recently murdered.
48 – Your shadow falls in the opposite direction.
49 – You talk in 3rd person.
50 – You fill with straw rather than blood, organs, or other functional parts.
51 – You feel other people consider you a coward and will go to great lengths to disprove them.
52 – You cannot remember your name.
53 – You feel ecstasy when wounded.
54 – You think you’re dead.
55 – You are terrified that your mother will find out what you’re doing, regardless of what it is.
56 – You are reduced to half Strength when in sunlight.
57 – You think cowardice and stupidity are virtues.
58 – You have chronic incandescence for one week.
59 – You become invisible and silenced, but only to yourself.
60 – You think you are a mind flayer.
61 – Half of your body is slowed.
62 – You think you are immune to a random energy type.
63 – You realize you haven’t slept in three weeks.
64 – You become bored stiff with the passage of time.
65 – A giant, translucent hand appears nearby and gestures whenever you speak.
66 – You believe a random deity to be a party member.
67 – You teleport one mile; stone replica appears in your place.
68 – You must be within thirty feet of a life-size iron statue of you, which suddenly appears, at all times.
69 – You become nocturnal.
70 – You weigh two hundred pounds more than usual, and your body changes accordingly.
71 – You must enforce happiness.
72 – Everything that anyone says to you counts as the spell suggestion (Will DC 13).
73 – All metal becomes toxic to you.
74 – Your hair turns to ice.
75 – You think that your body will rust if it gets wet.
76 – You ignite.
77 – You have the voice of a young child.
78 – You cannot leave a room when observed.
79 – Your hair and eye colors change with the color of the sky.
80 – You gain a remarkably quick temper.
81 – Your alignment changes randomly each hour.
82 – Everybody within ten miles forgets your name.
83 – You teleport whenever you hear or speak your name.
84 – Your eyes merge like a Cyclops’.
85 – Your face becomes an emoticon.
86 – Every time you answer a question, you must begin with “Back in my day…”
87 – You believe animals are out to get you.
88 – You think your weapon is cursed.
89 – You become convinced that an artifact is buried somewhere nearby.
90 – You may not speak when another person is within sixty feet.
91 – Your voice makes people want to be elsewhere.
92 – You and one or more friends switch bodies.
93 – You begin remembering things that never happened.
94 – You refuse to admit that anything occurred before your birth.
95 – You become convinced that people aren’t taking you seriously.
96 – You must finish every sentence with the phrase “if you know what I mean.”
97 – You are convinced your enemies are immortal.
98 – You may no longer walk on your feet.
99 – You aren’t entirely sure you exist.
100 – You gain Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.