D&D 5E Help with new DM

[pemerton]

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.

I'm not sure where this "tailoring" idea is coming from.

In my posts I haven't said anything about tailoring the world.

I have talked about how to frame situations: that's about adventure prep/design, not world building.

 

[pemerton]

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

I'm sorry to hear that.

 

[AmandaBarbarian]

Don't keep it secret from them - let them pick it up and run with it!

okay so back to my initail ask... can you help me write a pitch. I already took a bunch out to get the bullet points someone else suggested. I need to find a way to pitch this so they know what I am doing and buy in.

I literally think maybe I should copy/paste my inital thoughts here.

or maybe just say "I want to set a D&D game inside a world based on the evil god ghoul form stargate. The pantheon you live under are keeping you as cattle and soldier and it is a hard life. Like the show there is other pantheons that is a bit better that you may be able to find but there will always be a reason they can't just beat the bad guys for you."

 

[greg kaye]

I'm not sure where this "tailoring" idea is coming from.

Maybe I've over-interpreted but that's what struck me from ideas like:

, 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.

A world built by a GM with his/her energies may not always fit the central drives of the players' energies at every stage in the same way as the energies of one player may not perfectly fit the energies of another.

 

[AmandaBarbarian]

so first pitch looks like this:

"I want to set a D&D game inside a world based on the evil god ghoul form stargate. The pantheon you live under are keeping you as cattle and soldier and it is a hard life. Like the show there is other pantheons that is a bit better that you may be able to find but there will always be a reason they can't just beat the bad guys for you."
"the god who's domain we will start in is Hextor, the overgod/ king of kings is Bacoob, and you are near another rival god of Hextor Kord"

my bullet points are:

• The Gods have sent Avatars to ‘earth’ to create a great kingdom, and Boccob is the king of kings, with each lord under him controlling small territory.
• The whole world has not yet been shown the light, but slowly you and others are expanding to bring peace and prosperity to the world
• You live in Eastern Edge of The Great and Honorable Hextor’s domain, in the small town of Alamouda
• Alamouda is 2 hours north of the mines that supply Hextor’s army with Adamantine, and Hextor himself with diamonds
• Alamouda is a few hours east of the monastery and training grounds where Hextor’s soldiers and Holy people are trained (at least 1 of them)
• Kord is another god, and he and Hextor have had wars for domain control… and his domain is only a bit (one walled city) away.
• Growing up in Alamouda was hard. You knew you only had a few options. You could be a soldier, especially a paladin or you could work a farm where you will be paid in just enough food for you not to starve, or at the mine where you will make enough money that you can almost buy food for yourself. The idea of “getting ahead” isn’t really a thing you thought of

My character creation rules will be:
Game will begin 1st level... WotC products only characters will be made at session 0 with 4d6 drop the lowest place as you get them.
-no tasha upgrades, no monster races
-subclasses will be PHB and Xanathar's unless you ask ahead of time, and even then WotC only
- Religions are restricted to gods mentioned, but if your not Hextor you need a GREAT reason, and by religion I am including Druidic here
-we are skipping alignments they are dumb.

 

[greg kaye]

My character creation rules will be:
... characters will be made at session 0 with 4d6 drop the lowest place as you get them.

Love this, as long as players are happy. I'd just have fears that, is scores are falling in S,D,C,I,W,Ch order, a player, who say, was or wasn't happy to play a high or low charisma character might not be happy with their lot. I was thinking to let players either swap two of their scores around or to add an ASI (or perhaps a feat). A harsher option could be to let two scores be swapped around but at the cost of one ability score point being dropped from somewhere for each time this is done.

 

[HammerMan]

"I want to set a D&D game inside a world based on the evil god ghoul form stargate. The pantheon you live under are keeping you as cattle and soldier and it is a hard life. Like the show there is other pantheons that is a bit better that you may be able to find but there will always be a reason they can't just beat the bad guys for you."
"the god who's domain we will start in is Hextor, the overgod/ king of kings is Bacoob, and you are near another rival god of Hextor Kord"

That sounds good but you can spruce it up. You already said in this post you want them to be the SG1 equivalent who wants to over throw the evil pantheon. So maybe something like “I want you to know that the gods you wireship and that control your lives are more or less evil but up until now you have had no way to stop or interact with that. If you go through with my first plot hook that may change”
Or something like that

my bullet points are:

• The Gods have sent Avatars to ‘earth’ to create a great kingdom, and Boccob is the king of kings, with each lord under him controlling small territory.
• The whole world has not yet been shown the light, but slowly you and others are expanding to bring peace and prosperity to the world
• You live in Eastern Edge of The Great and Honorable Hextor’s domain, in the small town of Alamouda
• Alamouda is 2 hours north of the mines that supply Hextor’s army with Adamantine, and Hextor himself with diamonds
• Alamouda is a few hours east of the monastery and training grounds where Hextor’s soldiers and Holy people are trained (at least 1 of them)
• Kord is another god, and he and Hextor have had wars for domain control… and his domain is only a bit (one walled city) away.
• Growing up in Alamouda was hard. You knew you only had a few options. You could be a soldier, especially a paladin or you could work a farm where you will be paid in just enough food for you not to starve, or at the mine where you will make enough money that you can almost buy food for yourself. The idea of “getting ahead” isn’t really a thing you thought of

Okay if I were a player I would ask for a list of the gods in the pantheon on how Hextor feels about them plus at least a little in the way of misunderstood myths about the world not controlled by the pantheon

I would also ask over and over agin “you don’t plan on us killing gods right?”

My character creation rules will be:
Game will begin 1st level... WotC products only characters will be made at session 0 with 4d6 drop the lowest place as you get them.
-no tasha upgrades, no monster races
-subclasses will be PHB and Xanathar's unless you ask ahead of time, and even then WotC only
- Religions are restricted to gods mentioned, but if your not Hextor you need a GREAT reason, and by religion I am including Druidic here
-we are skipping alignments they are dumb.

Okay. That is super restrictive from what I am used to so I will just ask, the last two campaigns your forever DM ran was it like this? And Do these guys kind starting at 1st level?

 

[pemerton]

okay so back to my initail ask... can you help me write a pitch. I already took a bunch out to get the bullet points someone else suggested. I need to find a way to pitch this so they know what I am doing and buy in.

I literally think maybe I should copy/paste my inital thoughts here.

or maybe just say "I want to set a D&D game inside a world based on the evil god ghoul form stargate. The pantheon you live under are keeping you as cattle and soldier and it is a hard life. Like the show there is other pantheons that is a bit better that you may be able to find but there will always be a reason they can't just beat the bad guys for you."

I don't know your players or their experiences or what they love and hate, so it's a bit tricky. Basically what I've done here is go through your posts and pull it out in a way that would speak to me.

The first list is the stuff the players need to know:

• Post-apocalyptic fantasy. Once upon a time there was a greater set of gods, a pantheon now long since gone. These were the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos. The magic items they made are sought by everyone: they are the most powerful artefacts.
• There is a present-day pantheon of gods that are at war. They cannot enter each other's domains, so they make Avatars that war with each other on the prime material and other "inner" planes.
• The Gods have sent Avatars to ‘earth’ to create a great kingdom, and they have paladins as their champions. Each lord, each god has there own army and area.
• Boccob is the king of kings, with each lord under him controlling small territory. These other lords include Hextor, Bane, Raven Queen, Wee Jas, and Kord. These avatars rule most of the world, but not all of it. The whole world has not yet been "shown the light", but slowly the lords are expanding their territory, to bring peace and prosperity to the world
• You live in Eastern Edge of Hextor’s domain, in the small town of Alamouda. Alamouda is 2 hours north of the mines that supply Hextor’s army with Adamantine, and Hextor himself with diamonds. The farmlands and orchards that feed the city, and its army, begin less than half-an-hour to the north. And Alamouda is a few hours east of a mountain that has been cut in half both vertically and horizontally; on top of the mesas made from that mountain is a monastery where Hextor’s soldiers and holy people are trained. The two mesas are connected by a bridge made of strange gold metal.
• In his domain, Hextor is referred to as The Great and Honorable Hextor; and those who disrespect him are punished by his paladins. Legends say Hextor has grown 6 arms and can wield 6 weapons. Rumours say he will appear before his people any day now, and then the war with Kord will begin!
• Kord is another god, and he and Hextor have had wars in the past for domain control. Kord's domain is only one walled city away: in the walled city of Testaur Kord is ALSO amassing troops, waiting for the day that the war will heat up once more. From Alamouda you can't quite see the border line (which will be the front in the coming war) . . . but you know that Hextor's generals can watch it with their spyglasses.
• Alamouda is governed by 3 "high priests and priestesses" that are in charge of tax collecting and keeping the streets safe. Taxes are extortionate, and as a result so are prices for goods. The town has almost no militia, because everyone that can fight is conscripted, except the nobles' children of course. But soldiers come into town during 'down time', and on there way to the front. And clerics and paladins with time off from their training often leave their monastery to come into Alamouda and blow off steam.
• Growing up in Alamouda was hard. You knew you only had a few options, and the idea of “getting ahead” isn’t really a thing you thought of. You could be a soldier, especially a paladin, or you could work a farm where you will be paid in just enough food for you not to starve, or at the mine where you will make enough money that you can almost buy food for yourself.
• You have heard stories of 'protected freeholds' but have never been to one these settlements. You don't know what gods are prayed to in these places.

And then here are the bits that are secret at first - but if players have PC build ideas that interact with these, that would be a good reason to reveal some of the secrets(!):

• The second pantheon that protects the free settlements is at war with a demon host.
• The Demon host has two ways to corrupt people on the prime (see warlocks) that allow them to create spawn like creatures to fight the war with the second pantheon.
• There is a third pantheon of neutral fey gods that just want to be spiritual advisors and avoid the war… but they may be more powerful than the others.
• The lords of order stayed on prime realm; some artefacts have the essence of one of these gods in them.
• The lords of chaos went to the fey wild where they made a gem world (fey pact warlocks deal with these beings).
• There is also ANOTHER realm, the shadowfell, ruled by mushroom-like parasites that are basically flesh crafting vampires, that have there own empire there in the shadows.
• There is a secret conspiracy to overthrow the gods, but it is a dark psychic cult of psi warriors that wants to rule the universe.

I think obvious class options here are paladins, clerics, warlocks, sorcerers, rogues, bards, fighters, monks. There's no special place for wizards or rangers but they can probably fit in easily enough. Barbarians and druids are odd ducks - I'd probably have them come from the free settlements, which might mean you have to reveal a bit about those if a player wants one of these classes, and then work with the player for an explanation of how that character has ended up in Alamouda.

 

[AmandaBarbarian]

That sounds good but you can spruce it up. You already said in this post you want them to be the SG1 equivalent who wants to over throw the evil pantheon. So maybe something like “I want you to know that the gods you wireship and that control your lives are more or less evil but up until now you have had no way to stop or interact with that. If you go through with my first plot hook that may change”
Or something like that

Okay good idea, more of the pitch not just of the world but how the game is being imagined.

Okay if I were a player I would ask for a list of the gods in the pantheon on how Hextor feels about them plus at least a little in the way of misunderstood myths about the world not controlled by the pantheon

okay I need to think that out, like how many villains I want

I would also ask over and over agin “you don’t plan on us killing gods right?”

lol my answer will be yes at 1st level, and I will hope they realize my tongue is firmly in my cheek.
but seriously, no, not unless I give them a god killing McGuffin

Okay. That is super restrictive from what I am used to so I will just ask, the last two campaigns your forever DM ran was it like this? And Do these guys kind starting at 1st level?

Love this, as long as players are happy. I'd just have fears that, is scores are falling in S,D,C,I,W,Ch order, a player, who say, was or wasn't happy to play a high or low charisma character might not be happy with their lot. I was thinking to let players either swap two of their scores around or to add an ASI (or perhaps a feat). A harsher option could be to let two scores be swapped around but at the cost of one ability score point being dropped from somewhere for each time this is done.

In this group I have only known this rolling style. In previous experience I have always used stat arrays, but I know that some of these players don't like using point buy or array.
The 1st campaign I played with this DM used exactly this, but the current one winding down was 3d6 roll in order 6 times but then roll 2 more times of 3d6 and you can replace 1 of your choice of stats with 1 of those 2 extra rolls, or if your luck is the worst a 10. I guess they had done both before, but none of us rolled 3 numbers below 10.

 

[AmandaBarbarian]

I don't know your players or their experiences or what they love and hate, so it's a bit tricky. Basically what I've done here is go through your posts and pull it out in a way that would speak to me.

thank you, this is a good rewrite and I love how you added "Post Apocalyptic Fantasy" bullet point

The first list is the stuff the players need to know:

• Post-apocalyptic fantasy. Once upon a time there was a greater set of gods, a pantheon now long since gone. These were the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos. The magic items they made are sought by everyone: they are the most powerful artefacts.
• There is a present-day pantheon of gods that are at war. They cannot enter each other's domains, so they make Avatars that war with each other on the prime material and other "inner" planes.
• The Gods have sent Avatars to ‘earth’ to create a great kingdom, and they have paladins as their champions. Each lord, each god has there own army and area.
• Boccob is the king of kings, with each lord under him controlling small territory. These other lords include Hextor, Bane, Raven Queen, Wee Jas, and Kord. These avatars rule most of the world, but not all of it. The whole world has not yet been "shown the light", but slowly the lords are expanding their territory, to bring peace and prosperity to the world
• You live in Eastern Edge of Hextor’s domain, in the small town of Alamouda. Alamouda is 2 hours north of the mines that supply Hextor’s army with Adamantine, and Hextor himself with diamonds. The farmlands and orchards that feed the city, and its army, begin less than half-an-hour to the north. And Alamouda is a few hours east of a mountain that has been cut in half both vertically and horizontally; on top of the mesas made from that mountain is a monastery where Hextor’s soldiers and holy people are trained. The two mesas are connected by a bridge made of strange gold metal.
• In his domain, Hextor is referred to as The Great and Honorable Hextor; and those who disrespect him are punished by his paladins. Legends say Hextor has grown 6 arms and can wield 6 weapons. Rumours say he will appear before his people any day now, and then the war with Kord will begin!
• Kord is another god, and he and Hextor have had wars in the past for domain control. Kord's domain is only one walled city away: in the walled city of Testaur Kord is ALSO amassing troops, waiting for the day that the war will heat up once more. From Alamouda you can't quite see the border line (which will be the front in the coming war) . . . but you know that Hextor's generals can watch it with their spyglasses.
• Alamouda is governed by 3 "high priests and priestesses" that are in charge of tax collecting and keeping the streets safe. Taxes are extortionate, and as a result so are prices for goods. The town has almost no militia, because everyone that can fight is conscripted, except the nobles' children of course. But soldiers come into town during 'down time', and on there way to the front. And clerics and paladins with time off from their training often leave their monastery to come into Alamouda and blow off steam.
• Growing up in Alamouda was hard. You knew you only had a few options, and the idea of “getting ahead” isn’t really a thing you thought of. You could be a soldier, especially a paladin, or you could work a farm where you will be paid in just enough food for you not to starve, or at the mine where you will make enough money that you can almost buy food for yourself.
• You have heard stories of 'protected freeholds' but have never been to one these settlements. You don't know what gods are prayed to in these places.

And then here are the bits that are secret at first - but if players have PC build ideas that interact with these, that would be a good reason to reveal some of the secrets(!):

• The second pantheon that protects the free settlements is at war with a demon host.
• The Demon host has two ways to corrupt people on the prime (see warlocks) that allow them to create spawn like creatures to fight the war with the second pantheon.
• There is a third pantheon of neutral fey gods that just want to be spiritual advisors and avoid the war… but they may be more powerful than the others.
• The lords of order stayed on prime realm; some artefacts have the essence of one of these gods in them.
• The lords of chaos went to the fey wild where they made a gem world (fey pact warlocks deal with these beings).
• There is also ANOTHER realm, the shadowfell, ruled by mushroom-like parasites that are basically flesh crafting vampires, that have there own empire there in the shadows.
• There is a secret conspiracy to overthrow the gods, but it is a dark psychic cult of psi warriors that wants to rule the universe.

I think obvious class options here are paladins, clerics, warlocks, sorcerers, rogues, bards, fighters, monks. There's no special place for wizards or rangers but they can probably fit in easily enough. Barbarians and druids are odd ducks - I'd probably have them come from the free settlements, which might mean you have to reveal a bit about those if a player wants one of these classes, and then work with the player for an explanation of how that character has ended up in Alamouda.