D&D 5E Help with new DM

[pemerton]

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?

@darkbard is alluding to techniques for RPGing that go under labels like "no myth" or "story now" or "player protagonism".

One way to look at it is like this: you can share your dot points and your "big picture" ideas with your players, and then as they build their PCs, you talk to them and get them to talk to one another, and see which bits of your big picture excite them. And then work from there. Let them tell you what they care about, and then work around that.

This might mean that, down the track, your Hextor stuff becomes central, but your psychic Sith conspiracy never really becomes a big part of the game. That's OK! Keep that one up your sleeve for another time.

 

[AmandaBarbarian]

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

okay, but how do I ask that before they make characters?
if I get 2 palidens a sorcerer and 3 rogues they will bring very diffrent things then a ranger and 5 fighters

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.

right I am trying to get my idea down to a pitch, I guess an elevator pitch that is the first part of help I am asking for, did you see my bullet points after a suggestion?

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.

I mean that seems to be the reverse of other advise here. If I let them pick where they are from and what god they work with that opens up way MORE options not less. I thought creating the small town of Hextor area was a good start. You do realize in this world Kord is not better then Hextor though right? They are both tyrants just different types.
Based on Stargate the whole pantheon are "The bad guys" so striking a blow for Hextor or for Kord they are still all part of the same system overall.

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

I am hopeing not that is why I thought the food/rat thing

 

[AmandaBarbarian]

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.

this sounds interesting, but not something I want to try to run.
Thank you, I think I am looking for more of a "Traditional" game to try to run first.

Yours sounds more like a round robin or cooperative build world and part of what gave me the push to try to run was making the world as a mash up of these crazy ideas.

 

[HammerMan]

@darkbard is alluding to techniques for RPGing that go under labels like "no myth" or "story now" or "player protagonism".

This is great advice if that is what the players are looking for but she is doing this for an “always DM” and no one else wanted to step up so I doubt they want to work that much on this.

 

[HammerMan]

I am hopeing not that is why I thought the food/rat thing

Focus on your initial plot hook and come up with 1 or 2 more. Then worry about what your players say BUT be ready to improvise and switch if you need to.

 

[greg kaye]

this sounds interesting, but not something I want to try to run.
Thank you, I think I am looking for more of a "Traditional" game to try to run first.

Yours sounds more like a round robin or cooperative build world and part of what gave me the push to try to run was making the world as a mash up of these crazy ideas.

I agree. A lot of the views presented here seem to me to smack of GM metagaming. The idea, of building worlds around the characters, isn't bad but it isn't, even by D&D standards, so realistic. Normally you find yourself in a situation and make the best of it in line with your personal characteristics.

 

[pemerton]

okay, but how do I ask that before they make characters?
if I get 2 palidens a sorcerer and 3 rogues they will bring very diffrent things then a ranger and 5 fighters

Upthread I think you talked about a session zero. I would say this is the time to bring along your ideas, and then see how the players respond to those ideas in building their PCs.

And then you work out how you want to open the game. I don't know if you like to start your game in session zero - if that's the case, you might need at least a short break to work out some sort of opening that fits the PCs your players have come up with. Or if you like to start the game in the next session, in which case you've got a week or two to do some prep!

right I am trying to get my idea down to a pitch, I guess an elevator pitch that is the first part of help I am asking for, did you see my bullet points after a suggestion?

I've looked over your posts setting out your ideas, and your bullet points, and some replies.

My view is, if you're passionate about it, go for it! Hopefully your players will pick up on your passion, and so they'll go with it too! Personally I've enjoyed running "cosmological" campaigns - I ran a 10+ year one using Rolemaster quite a while ago now, and a 4e D&D one from 2009 to 2016. And when I read your ideas, that's the vibe I get - a cosmological campaign, but with the "mundane" world as the place where it plays out. So for me, that works as a pitch. I'd focus on those ideas about pantheons, avatars, and relationships between them, rather than particular ideas about how it might all turn out. And I'd share that stuff with your players! Let them enjoy and build on your enthusiasm.

If I let them pick where they are from and what god they work with that opens up way MORE options not less. I thought creating the small town of Hextor area was a good start. You do realize in this world Kord is not better then Hextor though right? They are both tyrants just different types.

I've got two thoughts here.

(1) I would suggest that you as GM take control of the geography. Because D&D works best when all the PCs are in the same place together.

(2) But I would suggest that you let the players take control of their attitudes towards the different gods and so on. So if they think that Kord is better than Hextor, let play start from that. At least in my experience, the GM telling the players how they should feel about the different players in the cosmology makes it harder to get the players engaged in a cosmological campaign. From the player side, part of the fun of a cosmological campaign is getting to pick your side - or maybe, like some of the players in my cosmological campaigns, to reject all sides.

If they agree with you that Kord and Hextor are both tyrants, then that's fine: find out what they do care about, and put that into play.

I am hopeing not that is why I thought the food/rat thing

I like your big picture - gods, avatars, walled cities with massed troops - more than your rats scenario. The big picture makes me want to play a templar and see if I can make my mark on the world; or play a farmer who leads a small resistance cell, who meet in a cave above the nearly-dry stream bed and say their prayers over the helmet of the templar of Hextor that the cell's founder once defeated. This is vivid, compelling stuff. If I was one of your players you'd get my buy in easily.

Your scenario seems to be all about secrets the GM knows but the players don't, that may or may not come out, with stakes that may or may not matter to the players and their PCs. It doesn't really seem to draw on, or feed into, the big picture.

If it was me in your situation, having thought up your big picture, I'd see how the players respond and what PCs they build, and then look for an opening scenario or situation that feeds on their energy in the same way that (hopefully) their PC building feeds on your energy.

 

[pemerton]

Yours sounds more like a round robin or cooperative build world and part of what gave me the push to try to run was making the world as a mash up of these crazy ideas.

This is great advice if that is what the players are looking for but she is doing this for an “always DM” and no one else wanted to step up so I doubt they want to work that much on this.

I don't know the players. I know that I am the "always GM" in my groups (for about 35 years).

I'm not suggesting cooperative world building. But I do think the world build will pay off better if the players are invited to buy into it. Don't keep it secret from them - let them pick it up and run with it!

 

[greg kaye]

...
If it was me in your situation, having thought up your big picture, I'd see how the players respond and what PCs they build, and then look for an opening scenario or situation that feeds on their energy in the same way that (hopefully) their PC building feeds on your energy.

But, for each GM, you are you. I guess that there may be a spectrum of possibilities (if there is any difference in views) between you presenting your world in your naturally preferred way and you tailoring it in accordance with your players' desires. You also need to have fun and, as long as there is a fit, things should work. You will have energy in the best way that you find it (with player engagement typically being a substantial part) and players will be able to consider how this, and their energy, will work for them. As needed, there could be compromise on both sides.

 

[AmandaBarbarian]

Upthread I think you talked about a session zero. I would say this is the time to bring along your ideas, and then see how the players respond to those ideas in building their PCs.

And then you work out how you want to open the game. I don't know if you like to start your game in session zero - if that's the case, you might need at least a short break to work out some sort of opening that fits the PCs your players have come up with. Or if you like to start the game in the next session, in which case you've got a week or two to do some prep!

in the past I have had to run without a session 0 once and with one once. However both games flopped

The Standard for the group I am in now is to say we will DM, then give a quick 5 minute pitch, then schedule a session 0 for a game night when we would be playing our current campaign but instead do this make characters get more info. Then go back to current campaign for anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months depending on how long it takes to end the game.

I know we are already wrapping up this campaign so It will most likely be pitch, then session 0 in a week or 2 then game 1 a week or two later.

I've got two thoughts here.

(1) I would suggest that you as GM take control of the geography. Because D&D works best when all the PCs are in the same place together.

okay, like I said I made a town in Hextor's domain.

(2) But I would suggest that you let the players take control of their attitudes towards the different gods and so on. So if they think that Kord is better than Hextor, let play start from that. At least in my experience, the GM telling the players how they should feel about the different players in the cosmology makes it harder to get the players engaged in a cosmological campaign. From the player side, part of the fun of a cosmological campaign is getting to pick your side - or maybe, like some of the players in my cosmological campaigns, to reject all sides.

again I am working off a Stargate gods idea here, so all the gods in the current pantheon are pretty much keeping slaves and useing lives to win petty bs wars. So as much as kord or bacob may be slightly better then Hextor, they are all keeping people as cattle.

If they agree with you that Kord and Hextor are both tyrants, then that's fine: find out what they do care about, and put that into play.

again it would not make sense with my idea if Kord was a 'good guy' unless he was in the good guy pantheon.

I like your big picture - gods, avatars, walled cities with massed troops - more than your rats scenario. The big picture makes me want to play a templar and see if I can make my mark on the world; or play a farmer who leads a small resistance cell, who meet in a cave above the nearly-dry stream bed and say their prayers over the helmet of the templar of Hextor that the cell's founder once defeated. This is vivid, compelling stuff. If I was one of your players you'd get my buy in easily.

cool ideas

Your scenario seems to be all about secrets the GM knows but the players don't, that may or may not come out, with stakes that may or may not matter to the players and their PCs. It doesn't really seem to draw on, or feed into, the big picture.

again that is why I need to give an out of game pitch so they know enough to understand out of game while keeping the characters in game in the dark. I plan on letting them know out of game upfront the idea.

If it was me in your situation, having thought up your big picture, I'd see how the players respond and what PCs they build, and then look for an opening scenario or situation that feeds on their energy in the same way that (hopefully) their PC building feeds on your energy.