First Adventure Advice, given to me from my dad:

[Wik]

My father introduced me to D&D. I've been playing since I was six, and it's all his fault - he taught me the game because his regular gaming group had all moved away. While I don't game with my dad anymore (he basically dropped out of the hobby), I do have some fond memories growing up with the game.

My dad is a 1e player, and very much a "roll player" as opposed to a "role player", to use some old terminology. A long time ago, I was putting together a campaign for some friends, and was planning the first adventure, and my dad gave me some advice. I'm going to present it here (along with his rationale), without any comments, and let y'all discuss.

When preparing your first adventure in a campaign, you should do all of the following things:

1) Reward at least one magic item. Prefereably one item per player - even if it's a scroll, a healing potion, or something else like that.

2) Leave at least one mystery, even if it's just a locked door that the PCs couldn't open.

3) Kill one PC. If you do it now, when nobody's really emotionally tied to the PC, the players won't suspect you're fudging things when you bend stuff to keep a PC alive later. Also, it shows them that death will be a factor in the game.

4) All PCs should level up at the end of the session, provided they surprise. This will make new players eager to come back for more.

5) Have a villain escape. Preferably the one the players hate the most. Let the players know where he went to hide - and let them know that chasing him is definitely an option.

6) Have the PCs do something cool. Players are more likely to be emotionally invested if they start off doing something heroic, rather than getting their butts handed to them in the first few sessions.

7) Throw a fiendish trick at them. A rust monster, a cursed item, whatever. Throw something relatively minor at the group that will remind them, later on, to be careful.

8) Include stuff that the PCs might not be able to bypass. Throw in traps, even if there's no thief. Throw in a tracking challenge, even if they don't have a ranger. If you start off catering to your party, you will always cater to them. Let them suffer for those missing roles in the party. Because they conversely know that when their roles shine, these weren't "tailored" encounters, but their character being perfectly suited for an environment.

9) Put in something that will make your group fight. If everyone wears chain mail, put in a suit of magical chain mail - but just one. This one is just because it's fun for the GM to watch.

10) Introduce potential PCs early on. My dad likes this rule - basically, if you died in game, you got to play one of the pregenned characters in the GM's binder. So his idea was to introduce these pregenned characters, at least one or two, in the first adventure, even if they're just sitting at the tavern.

***

Those are his ten points, tabulated from a few different conversations we've had on the subject. Thoughts? Opinions?

 

[Mark CMG]

A lot of good stuff there. He certainly knew something about balancing a game between being challengnig and whetting player appetites, as well as keeping players on their toes.

 

[amnuxoll]

This is excellent advice clearly coming from an old-school gamer. Two thumbs up.

 

[Wik]

A few points to explain where this is coming from:

First, this was advice for someone started a game for a "mixed group" - ie, a mix of old friends, gaming buddies, and people who had never played before. The idea was to set the first adventure up to keep the attrition rate down.

Second, while I think most of it is great advice, I don't always follow all of it. I do keep it in mind every time I start a new campaign, though, and it's done me good.

Third, after rereading my post, I realized it could have come off as a bit sad or something. Just wanted to say now, before someone brings it up, that my dad is still kicking around and gaming - he's just moved on to CRPGs these days.

And finally, people that have gamed with my dad would be surprised to see this advice coming out of his mouth. I've seen his dungeon notes, and they were BRUTAL meat-grinders, oh my god. I think the few times he's run a game, it's been him running pre-bought modules that were "toughened up". I've never had the misfortune of having him actually GM a game for me, a fact that I thank God for every night.

 

[nedjer]

I feel such a D&D orphan now. I was left to chart my own way through the wilderness - and to this day - parental interest amounts to "I can't really get my head round that" and "playing wargames". So, they'd buy the books and arrange the lifts, but without a Scooby about what was going on. Respect to your Dad, and in a different way, to mine too

 

[Doug McCrae]

A lot of good stuff there. He certainly knew something about balancing a game between being challengnig and whetting player appetites, as well as keeping players on their toes.

I agree with your second two points but I would question whether the game as presented challenges the players. Each player gets a magic item irrespective of player skill. One PC dies no matter what the party do. A villain always escapes. The PCs always get to do something cool.

But, as you say, the advice wants the PCs to treat the game world with respect, to stay on their toes, to act as if the world threatens them and, by their actions, they can avoid or mitigate those threats - point #7. It looks like, not gamism, but the illusion of gamism, and I wonder how prevalent such play was in early rpg-ing.

That said, I suspect an actual game run according to this advice would be a mix of elements - some real gamism, and some illusion.

 

[IronWolf]

That looks like good advice for a first adventure that it bound to hook someone into the game. Pretty cool that those were given to you by your father! My folks never really got into gaming or wrapped their head around it!

 

[the Jester]

Third, after rereading my post, I realized it could have come off as a bit sad or something. Just wanted to say now, before someone brings it up, that my dad is still kicking around and gaming - he's just moved on to CRPGs these days.

That is sad. My condolences.

There's nothing like gaming with your folks... or so I imagine.

 

[Ariosto]

Replace
"You, the DM, should do this"
assumptions with
"You should give players the opportunity to do this"
and I would think the advice pretty good.

Give players plenty of interesting chances to win treasure and glory or have their PCs die trying, and the game should be exciting whatever the outcome.

Potions and scrolls can be plentiful because using them means using them up (which is strategically and dramatically more interesting than doing Optimal Plan A over and over).

 

[Wik]

I agree with your second two points but I would question whether the game as presented challenges the players. Each player gets a magic item irrespective of player skill. One PC dies no matter what the party do. A villain always escapes. The PCs always get to do something cool.

But, as you say, the advice wants the PCs to treat the game world with respect, to stay on their toes, to act as if the world threatens them and, by their actions, they can avoid or mitigate those threats - point #7. It looks like, not gamism, but the illusion of gamism, and I wonder how prevalent such play was in early rpg-ing.

That said, I suspect an actual game run according to this advice would be a mix of elements - some real gamism, and some illusion.

Honestly, I agree with this. But when I was younger, I was very much a "don't ever let PCs die" story-teller type GM. These days, I'm much closer to my dad's "Let the dice fall as they may" sort of guy.

To be honest, though, these rules only applied to the first session. He generally felt that after that session, you could kind of steer the game the way you wanted to play it, which for him were mega-dungeons with a bit of RP thrown in.