New game starting in two weeks...questions.

[Broken Fang]

Hello All,

I have a new game starting on the 9th of March. Our group has been decimated down to myself and one other guy...the rest have moved or are no longer capable of making the game. I recently found a group who is looking for a GM (that would be me) as they are hacked at their current one.
I have yet to plan anything for day one as we will be discussing rules, changes, making characters etc. They will be stating at 3rd level...most of them have been playing for sometime.
What questions should I ask? What discussions should go on before we start playing? I have a few ideas but was wondering if you all have anything you cover when starting up a campaign.

Thanks.

 

[Reynard]

Don't make the same mistake I did and wait until *after* you have started the new campaign to find out what your players are interested. Especially if you are gaming with a new group, I would suggest putting together a "survey" and handing it out (or emailing it, so you have the asnwers by the time you meet).

In it, you could ask them to rate Style elements (Combat, Exploration, Intrigue, etc...), Continuity elements (Recurring villains, home base, suplots) and "fantastical elements" (divine involvement, legendary monsters, magical weirdness), on, say, a scale from 1 to 5 for interest. this way, you have a clue as to what they want to do and you can work what you want to do (and doesn't every DM have an image in his/her mind of the campaign as a whole?). Having this information will also allow you to guide char gen as well.

My mistake was coming up with the idea after I realised that there was something of a lack of enthusiasm for my new Dragonstar campaign. It is sort of a "cop drama" and I was getting the feeling that the players might not care much (though none of them put up a fight in the beginning -- more like a lot of ho-humming...) I just sent out the above, hoping to get a view of what everyone wants. And I am with a group I have run many games for in the past.

Hope this helps.

 

[KarinsDad]

Check out this link BF:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/bs/bs20020222a

 

[Broken Fang]

Read the article...thought it was pretty good. I think I'm going to email them all a list of questions. That should give us more time to play on the first day.