D&D 5E Help with new DM

[greg kaye]

I'm mainly a returning to ttrpg player (very occasional but returning GM) and what you seem to be taking on would terrify me.

I can't think of a campaign setting that I have seen that has started from a having had a recent history of war context. Most campaigns start in a contexts like Hobbiton of Phandelver where a far-less-than-able population are generally reluctant to engage in conflict and may be fawningly grateful to the heroic PCs standing alone to brave the ~fights.

It seems to me that one of the reasons that this works is that you can present x, y and z dire needs but, if there is a delay in the addressing of any of those needs, there is a reason why no one else has stepped in. Having a less able world may provide a firmer foundation for rigidity and a better chance to plan encounters ahead of time as there would be less NPCs that might logically shake things up between times.

Maybe your group have high expectations in which case, I admire you for rising to the challenge to meet them. For most off-the-peg adventures players and GMs tend, to some extent, to opt into the conceit that the format foists on them, that is if the campaign is to stay "on track". That, I confess, is my level.

 

[AmandaBarbarian]

Most campaigns start in a contexts like Hobbiton of Phandelver where a far-less-than-able population are generally reluctant to engage in conflict and may be fawningly grateful to the heroic PCs standing alone to brave the ~fights.

I would love to hear more insight into this. SHould the players (even at 1st level) be that important?

 

[greg kaye]

... SHould the players (even at 1st level) be that important?

Baring tropes of characters being foreseen to (potentially) have great destinies and similar, in a world of able actors, not realistically.

On start-up level, my thoughts is to begin at least at 2nd level but that's mainly to allow potentially multiclassing players to start with both that class they want as a base and the class that best represents their identity/future progression. (I'd also consider letting characters swap one level of class progression for a couple of feats, but that's another issue). 2nd+ level gives more flexibility than 1st and may fit in better in contexts of able NPCs.

Of the MMO video games I've played, most start with characters in one area (where they are the heroes) who then transfer to other areas where increasing threats are apparent and increasingly strong forces of law and order can keep the party in line.

I rate the fantastic Humblewood campaign as handling this kind of thing well. The characters start in a devastated area and tackle problems thereabouts. It's on route to the capital that they have the opportunity to aid two NPCs who can either be escorted or who otherwise journey themselves to the same destination. Any number of NPCs could follow parallel paths and this seems to me to be a great way in which characters could establish their importance while allowing them to build enduring relationships with NPCs.

 

[pemerton]

SHould the players (even at 1st level) be that important?

I would suggest: think about importance not by reference to the setting, but by reference to the situation that you will use for those 1st level PCs. Make it personal to them in some way. (Unless you're deliberately looking for an ironic or detached tone.)

 

[AmandaBarbarian]

I would suggest: think about importance not by reference to the setting, but by reference to the situation that you will use for those 1st level PCs. Make it personal to them in some way. (Unless you're deliberately looking for an ironic or detached tone.)

I mean in my mind the thing that will make them important and unique isn't power it's careing. The want to change things, the want to do things other then follow the god to do what they are told.

 

[darkbard]

I mean in my mind the thing that will make them important and unique isn't power it's careing. The want to change things, the want to do things other then follow the god to do what they are told.

If this is so, then wouldn't it make sense to frame your game around the things the players explicitly tell you they care about for their characters from the beginning, as @pemerton suggests, rather than crafting an elaborate story in advance for them to choose how or why they care about?

 

[AmandaBarbarian]

If this is so, then wouldn't it make sense to frame your game around the things the players explicitly tell you they care about for their characters from the beginning, as @pemerton suggests, rather than crafting an elaborate story in advance for them to choose how or why they care about?

how do I create a world with no story and no setting for them to make characters in? I am really confused here. I am used to DMs coming to the table with anywhere from 1/2 page to a small note book of world details and a basic pitch for the world and plot. If I wait for them to make characters how do they know what to make, and if they don't know what to make how do I make the world?
Can you give me an example maybe?

 

[HammerMan]

how do I create a world with no story and no setting for them to make characters in? I am really confused here. I am used to DMs coming to the table with anywhere from 1/2 page to a small note book of world details and a basic pitch for the world and plot. If I wait for them to make characters how do they know what to make, and if they don't know what to make how do I make the world?
Can you give me an example maybe?

There is no one right answer.
I think you are doing well with your bullet points and lomits

However if you want an example of the other way I will tell you about the Kobold Kill Squad
My buddy pitched it to us not as a DM but as a player “I want to play a kobold fighter but what if we ALL played like a kobold mercenary group” and another friend was like “I can work with this and she made a world around the kobold kill squad.

 

[pemerton]

I mean in my mind the thing that will make them important and unique isn't power it's careing. The want to change things, the want to do things other then follow the god to do what they are told.

You could ask yourself - what are the players bringing to this situation?

If you share your ideas with them - these different gods, with their weird cults and armies and stuff - there should be some bit of it that they pick up on. Lean into that. Think up a situation in which that thing matters.

A really basic example: if they like the idea of Kord, set up a situation that allows them to strike a blow for Kord against Hextor. In terms of the setting, the stakes might be small (1st level PCs aren't going to beat up on an avatar); but in terms of the situation, and what prompts the players and their PCs to care about it, the stakes might be really big. Another really basic illustration: a templar of Hextor is being cruel to a vendor at the bazaar. And the PCs, who are into Kord rather than Hextor, happen to be there looking for <whatever the players have told you they care about>; and the vendor happens to be the seller of <that stuff>. This situation is pretty simple if the <stuff> is stuff the players want their PCs to buy. It's more intricate if <the stuff> is stuff the players don't think should be on sale, because now the players have a choice - help the templar they're opposed to shut down the vendor of the stuff they don't like; or oppose the templar but then have to work out how to deal with the vendor whom they've helped.

In my experience, it doesn't take much to prompt players to action and get things moving!

 

[darkbard]

I understand your previous experiences presented D&D from such a set up: what gets termed "traditional" (or trad) gaming in conversations about this topic. But there are other approaches, like "story now" gaming, which centers the PCs and their concerns as the starting point of play, not secondary to GM world building. @pemerton just started a new thread on this very topic here.

If you have some time, read through a few pages of a Play-by-Post game in which I play that lays out this process explicitly, from initial PC concepts and collaboration between players and GM about thematic concerns for play to actual instantiations of how players direct play and add to the shared fiction and how the GM does so. You can find that game here.