D&D 5E Let's Have A Thread of Veteran GM Advice

[DEFCON 1]

Another technique I've used to bring members of the party together moreso than just all being hired for the same gig (for example)... has been to use Session Zero to run the character creation process of Fiasco to connect PCs to each other in the story. For my Curse of Strahd campaign I made up my own playset for it with a number of gothic ideas for relationships, needs, locations, and objects... and then we went through the whole Fiasco process of making connections between the various PCs. Upon completion, t his gave each player two other members of the group that they had a previous relationship with, and also gave them interesting character ideas, concepts and interactions already in mind leading into the first session.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Another technique I've used to bring members of the party together moreso than just all being hired for the same gig (for example)... has been to use Session Zero to run the character creation process of Fiasco to connect PCs to each other in the story. For my Curse of Strahd campaign I made up my own playset for it with a number of gothic ideas for relationships, needs, locations, and objects... and then we went through the whole Fiasco process of making connections between the various PCs. Upon completion, t his gave each player two other members of the group that they had a previous relationship with, and also gave them interesting character ideas, concepts and interactions already in mind leading into the first session.

That's a great idea. I recently came across this on Drivethru as well, but haven't tried it yet:

 

[Reynard]

Yes, and I said this before the list:

It wasn't a judgment on whether those were good or bad approaches, just what I have experienced, which is why I asked the question in the first place. It'd be nice if we didn't get overly pedantic in this thread for a change.

I misunderstood you. My bad.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Yeah, I am all for having a little backstory as part of the first adventure and railroading the party together, I'm just looking for ways to improve the stickyness of their attachment (apart from all playing at the same table). This isn't all on the referee either, I typically ask players to look for ways they can better bond too.

One thing I’ve seen in PbtA games that I like is that each character defines a bond with two other characters that occurred prior to the start of the campaign.

It allows the players to start role-playing before the adventure begins and gives them a reason to continue to adventure together.

 

[Reynard]

One thing I’ve seen in PbtA games that I like is that each character defines a bond with two other characters that occurred prior to the start of the campaign.

It allows the players to start role-playing before the adventure begins and gives them a reason to continue to adventure together.

The Fate character and campaign generation session is really good for this too.

 

[el-remmen]

I have had the players develop the details of their connections once we get buy-in of the premise.

So for example, in my Second Son of a Second Son campaign, all the PCs were low-birth rank children of low birth rank nobility who have been encouraged to take up the ancient custom of founding an adventurers’ lodge to go out as a group to raise money and gain glory for their houses.

The players then figured out (with my input) who were cousins, step-siblings, childhood rivals, etc.

In my current Republic of Makrinos campaigns all starting PC are exiles and fugitives who have fled the “Inchoate Empires” to seek new lives out in a distant frontier land with a weird system of government founded by such exiles. They meet on the long ship journey to where the game starts. In addition, in the current one the PCs all have prophetic apocalyptic dreams that seem connected.

 

[Distracted DM]

Another technique I've used to bring members of the party together moreso than just all being hired for the same gig (for example)... has been to use Session Zero to run the character creation process of Fiasco to connect PCs to each other in the story. For my Curse of Strahd campaign I made up my own playset for it with a number of gothic ideas for relationships, needs, locations, and objects... and then we went through the whole Fiasco process of making connections between the various PCs. Upon completion, t his gave each player two other members of the group that they had a previous relationship with, and also gave them interesting character ideas, concepts and interactions already in mind leading into the first session.

I swear I think Fantasy AGE did something like this, along with ?Titansgrave which was based on it?
Characters choosing how they're linked during character creation. I wish I could recall it better... does anyone know what I'm talking about and know it better than me?

 

[GuardianLurker]

@Paul Farquhar : These days a better take for Traveller would probably be "Think of Firefly crossed with the Expanse". If you have really active SciFi readers, you might try "The Liaden Universe would work well as a Traveller Campaign. So would Cherryh's Downbelow Station."

So one of the questions I always like to ask of vets is what things you do to make the initial meeting of the party feel smooth and natural? Everyone knows "you all meet in the inn" but I'm always looking for a good kick off for the party that automatically gets all the players to gel and feel like they know each other or drives them together in a way that will form long-lasting bonds?

So if you have a longstanding group where everyone's already played with/knows another, starting them all in the same village/unit works well. It needs to be reasonably small, so that everyone's character can be expected to know each other, at least in passing. If it's a city, you'd want to restrict things to the same neighborhood. This is what I used for my current campaign.

But if you have a new group, one of the best options for actual IC relations is something I cribbed from Diaspora (but I think has a wider heritage) that can be called "round-robin character histories". Each player picks another player to be connected to their childhood/apprenticeship/etc., and another to be connected to the "start of their career", one of those is a success, one is a "compilcation/failure". No player character can play the same role for two different players. I'd also recommend have each character provide an open "hook" for late arrivals.

A third option would be a technique I saw on this board, and will be using for my next campaign. It's aimed at a slightly different kind of player than the previous one, and works best if you're setting up a new homebrew campaign. Using Pathfinder terminology, and picking guaranteed choices as GM, let each player pick an Ancestry. Then let each player pick a Heritage for their chosen Ancestry, and for one other Ancestry. Then late each player pick some Backgrounds. Do the same for Classes and Archetypes/Subclasses. You may even want to extend things into variant rules. You might want to provide a "group choice" (or set of), instead of (or in addition to) the per-player choices. You can vary the ratios and picks but you want to encourage the players to make horsetrades with other players and you about their choices. At the very least it's a good wy to get them involved in the campaign if not with each other's characters.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

These days a better take for Traveller would probably be "Think of Firefly crossed with the Expanse".

I happened to know the person I was explaining to is into WH40K, and a little young for Firefly.

Warhammer, anime and JRPGs are what my players happen to be into.

 

[Voadam]

So one of the questions I always like to ask of vets is what things you do to make the initial meeting of the party feel smooth and natural? Everyone knows "you all meet in the inn" but I'm always looking for a good kick off for the party that automatically gets all the players to gel and feel like they know each other or drives them together in a way that will form long-lasting bonds?

I agree with tying character connections together as part of character creation and tying them into the campaign plot/theme.

In my Carrion Crown game everybody had to come up with a connection to the recently deceased archaeologist Professor Lorrimor Jones and a reason he would have them be a pallbearer at his funeral. This gave plenty of hooks into the plot and connections between PCs even if only indirectly. We had stuff like his Orc secretary at the University, a rival archaeologist, his butler, his on again off again love interest, his mentee young professor who was dating his daughter, and his handyman who journeyed with him and broke into graves and tombs. This provided lots of hooks for PCs to roleplay into, to connect between PCs some of who knew each other from before and some were meeting at the funeral, and plenty of character hooks for me as DM to riff off of as they did their investigations and tie into the scenes so they felt more a part of the world.

In my Death in Freeport campaign everybody had to come up with a reason they would agree to help out the Scholar Brother Egil when he asked for help on solving a mystery. This got different people together quickly with a reason to work together.