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Running the First Session
1 Playsin 23 hours
In this session, Mark and Ben talk about a recent campaign they've just started, and how to start that first session well. Whether it's getting players into the action or setting up the story threads that bring the characters together beyond the initial moments of adventure, we'll discuss how to make the first session one that gets your players interested in a second one after it. Join us and we'll help you start your next game well!
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Transcript
Birthday Memories and RPG Beginnings
00:00:00
Speaker
And then sometimes he would come through with the money. I remember for my 11th birthday, he got me all the books for Dungeons and Dragons and the expert playing set, which came with like nine different types of dice.
00:00:16
Speaker
But unfortunately, and nobody could have foreseen this, it didn't come with any friends.
00:00:23
Speaker
Tune up, level up your fun.
00:00:28
Speaker
Tune up, your quest has now begun.
00:00:33
Speaker
Tune up, we'll show you how it's done. Tune up, tune up, tune up, tune up. RPGs dragging lost in the same old scene. But these two roll up... Hey, welcome back to the Tabletop Tune Up. You know, we we came with friends.
00:00:50
Speaker
We do. We are your friends. We are your friends. Ben, how you doing? I'm good, man. It's been a couple weeks. I'm excited about this episode because I'm going to get some good DMing advice from you. I love that intro because that was exactly my experience. I got my first RPG book at the age of 13. I wanted to play it, had knew nothing about it. Didn't even have the dice when I got the books. had to go back to the shop later and get those. But then the next thing I know, I'm like, oh, and you got to find people to do this.
00:01:18
Speaker
tried did not find the guys in my local crew were into it like forcing your little brother to play yeah he's still got the scars you know my first was a little bit like that but my my friend was just the two of us and we would just play we'd run games for each other because we didn't nobody else wanted to play uh these games with us so you know what are you gonna do you know Well, we eventually ah found each other around high school age somewhere, I think. And then we're like, oh, good. This is my kind of nerd. Let's play some games.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yes. And then made all new mistakes. Yeah. all sort so All sorts of mistakes have been made. But you know what? We just recently, Ben, you started up a new game.
Launching New D&D Sessions
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah. This was via Dungeons and Dragons. The newest version, 2024. That's Yeah. that's right what do they call this, 5.24? What do they call this? They're calling it 5.5e now, I think. That's like the official D&D people are calling it that now.
00:02:18
Speaker
Yes. Okay, so we're playing this this game, and you started up just this last week. And so we thought, you know what? It's kind of fresh in our mind. Let's talk a little bit about starting new sessions. And since you had been, you know, this was your task, is to start up a new session. Tell me a little bit about, i want to hear a little bit how you...
00:02:40
Speaker
prepared for this? and Because you've been kind of working on this realm for quite a while, but actually sitting down and starting a session is different, right? Oh, you're right.
00:02:50
Speaker
Boy, I'll tell you what, it's one of these things where you can spend all this time on the campaign stuff. You can spend all this time doing world building. I was doing all that stuff. And really, it was ah it's been challenging for me because this is very much a a new kind of setting too. This is not like standard medieval fantasy. I got really inspired by the idea of trying to tell a kind of primeval story with this game in our homebrewed world. And the idea was I wanted to draw inspiration from like the Bronze Age, from the the cultures around the Mediterranean prior to, you know, kind of during Homer's time, let's say. So ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, ancient Sumeria, these are kind of the cultural touchstones. And then I wanted to give them them some fantasy turns. So we have the Archean League, we have the the world of Khem Sekhet on the river Otero that's kind of standing in for Egypt. And then we have the ziggurats and the ancient culture of the first civilization, Buruk Kishar. And how am I going to bring all of these characters together? well
00:03:51
Speaker
um I think the the thing to start with is is something that would bring
Creating Campaign Settings from Ancient Cultures
00:03:55
Speaker
that culture together. And so I devised this idea of having the erosion games, O-R-O-S. The erosion games are kind of like the ancient Olympics. And you'd find that in Greek mythology. We've discussed that that kind of a common competition or a a local something like that is a great place to kind of bring characters together and put them all in the same place. But gosh, it is still challenging even with that context because you're going...
00:04:19
Speaker
What is it that's going to connect these characters to each other? And that was actually what I spent most of the last session doing. So Mark, i'm going to ask you now in turn, what did you notice about that effort? And do you think it kind of came together or do you think it stumbled a bit? um No, I don't. I think it was coming together, but I think it's a little slow coming together because we're all kind of spread out a little bit.
00:04:40
Speaker
um kind of starting with their own, our characters have their own little like side quests and reasons to be there and this and that. ah And we're kind of all looking for reasons to get together.
00:04:53
Speaker
Yeah. And um that can take a while. In fact, this might take a few sessions, I would imagine to kind of solidify to the point where we're actually partying together. That's one thing to be introduced.
00:05:05
Speaker
It's another thing to adventure together. Yeah, that's right. That's that's kind of where we're at. Yeah, I definitely think that that I'm trying to bring the character's motivations and intentions together, but it's very different from, hey you've all been employed by some guy who's got a contract and he wants all of you to work together to go do whatever he asked you to do.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah. So let me let me ask you this. When
Setting Session Goals and Party Dynamics
00:05:28
Speaker
you look at that first session, what would you say are your objectives? When you're done with that session, what would you say? Like, I met my objectives. What are those objectives for that first session?
00:05:41
Speaker
So the first thing is I want the characters, i want the players to feel like their characters had a moment when something about their character that was important to them came out and the rest of the party could see it. And we now have a first impression for that character.
00:05:53
Speaker
So as an example, the sort of the face character, the character who's got high charisma, he's a paladin. He is from a city that is constantly beset by monsters. And part of the reason he's gone to the games is that he's trying to recruit warriors to help defend the city.
00:06:11
Speaker
And he rolled like a natural 20 on his persuasion roll at this feast where he was trying to make the case that people should seek glory there with with him. he's He's part of the Arcane League. He's part of this kind of you know Greek-ish, ancient Greek-ish civilization. And boy, when you get a 20 like that, that's a moment where your character can be just, you can give him a blank check. You can be like, you are the guy who who yeah carried off this great moment.
00:06:37
Speaker
Yeah, and you really have to kind of, as a player, you really have to kind of look at that and kind of honor it in a certain amount and, you know, make sure you're playing off it, not like ignoring it like it like you would normally, you know, deep into a campaign when somebody he rolls a 20. You're probably not even blanking a little bit. but Yeah, it's the first 20 for him.
00:06:57
Speaker
Yeah, and you really want to kind of like make that moment count. um I'll say, ah you know, that's... one of the things when I think about objectives for a first session, I have a few objectives that I always try to think of when I'm running that first session.
00:07:16
Speaker
One is, of course, bringing the characters together. Right. Number two, though, um I like to have people rolling together as a party in some capacity. And I want that happening in the first session.
00:07:30
Speaker
The reason why is because I i like to have that. There's a community that's kind of built when you're rolling dice together. So in this particular session, we were rolling a little bit individually. We weren't doing too much as a unit. I um i would imagine maybe the next session we'll hopefully get a little chance to do some of that.
00:07:47
Speaker
But that's one of the things i like to I like to rush toward is can I get these players rolling together in in some capacity helping each other out while they're being formed?
00:07:59
Speaker
And number two, my other big objective is i want a cliffhanger. I need to leave them
Crafting Engaging Cliffhangers for Players
00:08:07
Speaker
with something really… Wanting a session too. Yeah, wanting a session too. And so those are kind of the the things I'm always looking at. Can I a bring them to you know bring together, have them rolling dice together and have a cliffhanger making them want that next session?
00:08:25
Speaker
Yeah. I'm not sure I succeeded at either of those things in this last game. Well, i'll tell you what, we do want another session. That's good. And I will say, ah we did we roll together? No, but I think it's coming.
00:08:37
Speaker
um We just, like I said, because we were spread out, so to speak, um we we wouldn' didn't get really too much of a chance to do that.
00:08:50
Speaker
And also another thing I think of is I want that those first characters to feel heroic. I want them to, because you can keep in mind, they've been They've been dreaming about these characters for like weeks.
00:09:03
Speaker
They've made them probably a month ago, maybe two months ago. It's been in their mind for a while before
Introducing Key Characters and Their Backgrounds
00:09:10
Speaker
this game starts, right? You want to make sure that they shine. I will say like one of the things that you did really well, while Neil, who plays one of our fantastic warriors, or he didn't do quite as well in the javelin throwing, but he did, like you say, he nailed the charisma thing, which is his bread and butter.
00:09:28
Speaker
This is the face man of the A-team. And man, you really played that up well and rewarded him well. And I think that scene made up for the fact that he missed with the javelin earlier. Yeah, well, okay, so friends for reference here, our four characters are Uzzer, played by Mike,
00:09:47
Speaker
There's Asher, played by Randy. Usher is from Kem Sekhet. He's kind of this proto-Egyptian thing, and he's's he's a grave cleric. Randy is playing Asher, who is a kind of a rogue who I think will eventually turn into, a well, we've got other destinies for him, but he's he's going to multiclass eventually. But right now, he's kind of ah ah a rogue archaeologist, antiquarian kind of thing.
00:10:11
Speaker
We have Nils playing Tarkas, he's a paladin of the House of Theracon, defender of the Red City of Aymara. And then we have Cleidus, that's your character. Nils playing Tarkas did not did not succeed in the javelin throwing event.
00:10:27
Speaker
But like I said, he more than made up for it with the or rally and speech later in the game, which I'm glad he had it. I'm and glad he rolled a 20. But these are the moments like in those when we're talking about like, you know, these games, we're kind of looking forward to these moments.
00:10:45
Speaker
And so you want to make sure you give them enough opportunity to have them. With Neil's character, though, what's interesting is that the there was a kind of a feast where he has that speech, he rolls that 20. That's actually prior to the games and the javelin throws. So what was sort what was cool about that was that even though he came in second to another competitor, an NPC, and that was just up to the dice, right? And as we said, the dice have their own story to tell. But even though he came in second, I wanted to like still give him something out of that. And so the winner, actually, who was at the feast in the prior evening, is like, you know what? Actually, I will join your cause. you know i think you've comp competed here honorably today and I can see that you're somebody who's not just a guy who sits in the sidelines and says smooth words, right?
00:11:26
Speaker
that was That was fantastic. Well done. I think one of the things that I i want to do to help people get into it, right? To your point about people feeling heroic or feeling they' they're...
00:11:37
Speaker
in the center of their character's strong points, right? Is I want to bring them into this whole thing with some kind of backstory motivation, something that brings them all to the same place. And they don't have to have all the same problem, but they do need to all be really motivated to come and into to find what they need.
00:11:57
Speaker
So for our grave cleric, you know, he had a vision that brought him to the erosion games where he expects to find the answer to his riddles. For Randy's character, the Asher, the rogue tomb robber, he's here in search of information about an old artifact.
00:12:18
Speaker
Tarkas is here, as we've said, to, this is the paladin, he's here to recruit. And Kleidas, well, he seeks glory. So I think in the next few sessions, we're gonna see if we can align all those motivations into a sort of complete party identity, but that's a tough task. So I wanna ask you, what do you do? How do you,
Bonding Players with Forced Scenarios
00:12:37
Speaker
if you're not gonna do that, hey, everybody's got a 10 gold contract to go fetch this thing, like what are some of your tips and tricks to kind of helping meld and catalyze a party?
00:12:47
Speaker
Well, you know um one of my old GMs had this intro for a game and long time ago, and I i loved it, and I liked the concept of it, so I've kind of used and abused the concept of it ae over the years.
00:13:03
Speaker
um The idea was that the players are kind of forced into party-ness. This intro, I'll give you the example of his intro, how it started. We're the classic adventurers all meeting at the tavern. We're at the tavern for whatever reasons we are.
00:13:18
Speaker
Didn't matter. We didn't care about each other's backstories. None of that mattered. We were at the tavern together and there was a big earthquake splitting the tavern and dumping the contents into a chasm.
00:13:31
Speaker
By the contents, you mean the patrons like you guys? Yes. We were the players who got dumped into this chasm to which we couldn't get out. And there was a lot of chaos going up above, and we had to escape through the sewers of the undercity.
00:13:44
Speaker
And during that time, we, trying to get out, we, of course, had a moment of bonding, get get a sense of each other's, what they can do. And then the adventure kind of takes fold from there.
00:13:58
Speaker
The idea was the first level or two, we are spent in a situation together. And I've done that with a situation where All these people were chosen from a competition into a into a dungeon.
00:14:13
Speaker
I've done ones where there was a fire and everybody was chosen was to be chosen to be in the fire line. And those who were in that fire line together just happened to be the player characters.
00:14:24
Speaker
And of course, they go on some sort of adventure done by the fire. so I've done the random emergency gathering, which I think is really good because to your point, that gets all of the people rolling dice together. It gets everybody kind of aligned around a common problem.
00:14:38
Speaker
And you're rolling dice like yeah excitement right out the gate. we're not We're barely even doing an introduction of like, hey, here we are. Welcome to the city. Blah, blah, blah. No, we're rolling dice. We're going. It's on.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yeah. Pedal to the metal. And I really like that a lot. um But, you know, all all sorts of games have their own different types of starts. And some of them start a little slowly.
00:15:02
Speaker
um i will say one thing we we we have learned, folks. Yes. Do not have your session zero a month or two ahead of your first session. Okay, listen, I'm going to come clean on this one. i did the session zero well in advance of session one. And I think by the time we got to session one, people had forgotten some of the details and logistics and things.
00:15:24
Speaker
I mean, life just kind of caught us by. And then by the time we got to the session, like, boy, that session zero seemed like a long time ago, didn't it?
Timing and Structure of Session Zero
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't typically do a session zero. I think my first... think my first session zero was my last game.
00:15:37
Speaker
yeah And then what those do is it's kind of like you sets, sets up a lot of stuff so you don't have to do a lot of preamble at the beginning of your first session, which, you know, unfortunately happens a lot when, when I run games, a lot of preamble.
00:15:52
Speaker
Um, what we want to, we want to limit that so the players can get to what they like doing and being, being the stars. Yeah. Well, and that's a good question because in the course of this game, you know as you know, I've generated a lot of sort of world information and story and all these kinds of things.
00:16:09
Speaker
And so i'm trying to find good ways to layer it in there. What would be some tips to making sure that like sharing info doesn't become an info dump that then drops the energy out of the game? Well, I would just be patient. I would just urge people, to you know GMs to be patient with their information. we don't need to If we don't need to know all that information,
00:16:29
Speaker
we Don't give it to us. Let us slowly learn that stuff throughout the course of the game. And also, like, maybe that stuff, if you got a lot of it, maybe you could just have some written material that people can look at in between game sessions. Or maybe just have one a little write-up in between each session, a little micro info dump that they can read in between sessions. Don't overwhelm them.
00:16:58
Speaker
Because they're not going to remember it all. but you know They're just not. But if you kind of slowly parse it out and reinforce it throughout the the game, yeah it's a long process.
00:17:09
Speaker
That's all I'm saying. Yeah, i I definitely think that it's a real
Gradual Introduction to World Building
00:17:14
Speaker
prioritization question. Your point about saying like, don't share more than you have to. As a GM, your temptation is be like, well, it's all relevant. It's all interesting stuff, right? Like, yeah what about the city that Asher came from? And what about the, you know, what is this city of Amara that Tarkas defends and all that kind of stuff, right? And I could be like, well, let me just throw all that stuff at you. But, you know, thinking on it, I'm thinking like, probably the only thing I really need people to know
00:17:40
Speaker
is, you know, if I kind of do a little bit of a recap or some notes and I drop that, let's say into our discord community where people can kind of check that out, I can then put in like the occasional thing to kind of give people a little bit of extra depth around that.
00:17:53
Speaker
But doesn't have to everything. All of our characters are coming from different cities and different places. I want to hear about those places from them. I don't want to hear it from the GM. I want to hear them talk about their city.
00:18:05
Speaker
I want them to tell tell me about the the red sands of this and that. And I want to hear their voice. Yeah. Talk about their beloved, you know, the places that they, they know. are theyre that's That's a good note friends. Cause I've been doing jamming for a long time, but that temptation is real. And that's still very active in your ears. You're like, I've did all this stuff. I want to share all this stuff with you. But, uh, you know, giving that to the players to then give to each other is I think a way more effective strategy of bringing the group together.
00:18:35
Speaker
It also like, it gives them time to let that, percolate in their mind a little bit. We talk about in in earlier episodes about trail talk where players, you know, get a chance to kind of tell a little bit about themselves.
00:18:50
Speaker
These are great moments where they can tell you a little bit about, you golden city on the hill, you know, and yeah can kind of talk about it romantically, you know, or or maybe it's just a place that they don't like. They'd have a place they never liked.
00:19:03
Speaker
And they've been looking forward to getting out of there. And you get to learn about it from them in their voice. Whether that's the reality, the GM will soon tell when they get to that city.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah.
Enriching Campaigns with Player Narratives
00:19:15
Speaker
Well, something else I like too, right, is the more you let the players kind of tell their own stories in that way, the more you can take notes and weave that into future story threads and other things like that, right? Like yeah as a GM, one of the best things you can do is get the players to start talking about the world or start talking about what their intentions are and then just be a very good listener and try to find the things in that that will let you make the connections you need later. And that doesn't mean you do what they say. It means you're going to sort of go, oh, well, I know now that they feel this way about the city or they feel that way about that king. And you can subvert that expectation. You can flip things. You can try all kinds of stuff to really play with what they give you.
00:19:58
Speaker
Well, I'll tell you what, I'm excited to keep playing in this game. I'm looking forward to next Wednesday. and I'm like just counting down the days. So as far as that's the test of a good session yeah yeah as far as I'm concerned, that's that's ah that's a good session.
00:20:15
Speaker
so ah keep it keep it up and look forward to the goodportive but what's to come
00:20:27
Speaker
All right, well, this week I have a tune-up question for you, and that is about finding
Developing Character Voices with AI Assistance
00:20:32
Speaker
your character's voice. Now, this is something that you've done recently in a game, in in our game, is you've spent some time with ah ah coming up with a model and a way of thinking about your character Cleitis and how to bring his voice together. But just to kind of refresh your memories, when we talk about voice, because my question for you is how do i develop the character's voice for a character you and I have been playing with for a while. He's an Air Ganassi wizard. I feel like I know where he's from and what's happened to him, but I don't really feel like I know his voice very well. So tell people what you mean by a character's voice and how did you find the voice for Cleaitis?
00:21:04
Speaker
Yeah, I was struggling with this one. I'm thinking of Cleaitis as basically like a big jock. Originally I was thinking like, okay, this is a modern day boxer. You know, these are guys who are quick with, you know, boxers tend to be pretty quick with wit.
00:21:18
Speaker
They're kind of pithy. they they say short things and they kind of sometimes leave it at that, which reminds me of Spartans and how, uh, what do they call it? Laconic.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. They speak in this laconic and it's very short, you know, when they say, uh, We're going to darken the sky with arrows. They'll say, well, we'll fight the shame. It's very quick.
00:21:40
Speaker
Witty. um That's not necessarily me all the time. So, however, i wanted that kind of voice where he was very kind of like hyper-masculine, you know, so to speak. So, so to clarify, right? Like when you're saying a character's voice, when we're asking like, what is a character's voice like? What we're saying is like, what's their personality like and how is that expressed in the things they say or the choices they make?
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, we're not talking about the literal sound of their voice. We're talking about their speech, how they would talk and how they would how they would speak to things that come across their way. So what I did is I had this in my mind. I had this description.
00:22:17
Speaker
I had all this information about what I thought he might sound like. I typed it all up, had a good good long, almost near a sheet of description, physical and how he sounds.
00:22:29
Speaker
And then I dumped in a whole bunch of boxing quotes. for inspiration. And I threw it all into AI. and Not even kidding. I threw it into that GPT and I had a conversation with him. Sorry, when you say boxing quotes, you're talking like prize fighters, like exactly. prize fighters. Like Mike Tyson would say, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face.
00:22:51
Speaker
Right. That's what I'm talking about. these kind of like These insights into fighting. It's like the fighter's wisdom. Yeah. um So I basically came up with this model. I told him that, like, how he's not the tell-by-the-brightest person.
00:23:05
Speaker
um But I gave him this entire description, put in the AI, and now I can have, like, a conversation with him, and think I can ask him questions. Hey, Cladis, what are your thoughts on this?
00:23:18
Speaker
And he might respond back with some some comments, but it gives me some inspiration about where i how I might speak and how I might use my voice. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm reading the AI.
00:23:30
Speaker
I get inspired by it. And it helped me break what I was having, ah was a mental block about how he was going to speak. And now that I've kind of like read some of this, it's allowed my mind to kind of think of it a little bit more proactively.
00:23:44
Speaker
And as I play, I can draw a little bit about what I learned from it. How did you come up with the boxer thing though? I mean, I think that was kind of the seed of it. And then you, you started going from there. Did that fit in somehow with how you saw Cleaitis as a lion, as an athlete? Like how did you get, how did you make that starting part work?
00:24:05
Speaker
I think i was originally thinking of a Spartans. And of course we don't have a lot of quotes from Spartans. Maybe we have some, but not like a huge amount. But we do have a lot of quotes about people like boxers. There are entire, you know, Reddit threads and websites that talk about quotes from athletes.
00:24:25
Speaker
And, you know, they're just they're not that different. They really aren't. ah Well, all right. So so you found kind of an interesting modern parallel did on that and then started building up from there.
00:24:40
Speaker
Yeah. So I would say find your inspiration. Think about how you've you like in the sound. if you If you wanted to sound like Laurence Olivier, go listen to Laurence Olivier.
00:24:51
Speaker
You know, figure out, put in some quotes from his movies into your thing. And in it'll start figuring out that voice a little bit for you. It'll help you find that voice.
00:25:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's an interesting idea. Like one of the things AI can do is it can actually help you see themes that maybe are hard for you to see. So, you know, if you know you want your character to sound like somebody from a piece of literature, from a book, or maybe someone from history, you know, you can point an AI at that and say, hey, can you just summarize for me what would be the the kind of the key ways of this person's thinking and speaking and and give me some suggested things i could I could build into my character? And it'll probably do a pretty good job of that.
00:25:33
Speaker
Yeah, and we're talking about just getting your imagination running. It's not going to solve every problem you have. it's not going to You're not going to sit there be typing up in game sessions you're going to get spit out information. But it will give you that nudge in the right direction.
00:25:48
Speaker
And hopefully that that's – at least that's what I tried this time because I just had a block. And I don't usually have a but mental block about characters. But this one I i certainly did. Well, you guys, I think that's a – a great start to this campaign and a fun episode. ah We'll probably check in on this campaign from time to time as we're doing it again, learning things, relearning things. I know it's certainly ah forcing me to put all of the fine advice we've offered in this podcast to the test. So any other notes, Mark, before we sign off?
00:26:19
Speaker
ah You know, don't do drugs. Well, there's that. Well, I'll tell you what, friends, we'll have ah more on this and other topics in Tabletop Tune-Up. Please email us at tabletoptuneup at gmail.com or leave a comment in the YouTube section of our videos and stuff. And we'd be happy to respond to you and to tune up your ideas if you've got things you'd like to share with us.
00:26:44
Speaker
Thanks again. we'll see you a few weeks. And until then, keep those dice rolling.
00:27:04
Speaker
Level up your fun Tune up, your quest has now begun Tune up, we'll show you how it's done Tune up, tune up, tune up, tune up RPGs dragging lost in the same old scene But these two roll up bringing power unforeseen No tired tropes, no predictable line They craft realms with a depth that'll blow your mind Toot up, toot up Legends in the game call them sages of the board When they're setting the scene, you'd never
00:27:49
Speaker
One's a storyteller, worth so rich and refined The other's the rule keeper, precise on the grind Together they're a force, a perfectly balanced scheme Every session they run feels like a living dream Tune up, tune up!
00:28:00
Speaker
Heroes rise, villains plot, epic battles ignite We're twistin' turns that last deep into the night They're the kings of narrative, masters of the art Guiding each game from the spark to the dark So if your game's feelin' flat, lost and unfixed These two will rebuild it with the slickest tricks Call them up when your world's ready to fall They'll turn it to greatness, the best game of all Tune up, level up your fun Tune up, your quest has now begun up, we'll show you how it's done Tune up, tune up, tune up, tune up, tune up
00:28:49
Speaker
Bye.