SESSION ZERO AND PLAYER CHARACTERS
Previous Article…Campaign Chronicles #3 – Sketching the Setting
In the previous article we presented the setting, or at least the sketch of one.
The first game session lasted 3 hour and was played wednesday 5th of April.
Now it’s time to talk briefly about the player characters.
Forewords
We said that both players have never played a roleplaying game.
So I decided to skip the character creation and I pre-generated four player characters. The players had to choose two among the four presented.
I let them choose the names.
Character creation
I rolled 4d6 and then assigned the higher score to charisma, which is the witch’s main prerequisite. Then I assigned randomly the remaining five rolls.
I gave a a quick explanation of what each race is. Players’s names are Grecia and Montserrat, 21 and 41 years old respectively.
Grecia knew something about dungeons and dragons because she watched Stranger Things and Big Bang Theory. She picked the drow.
Montserrat picked the tiefling, but before I had to explain her some stuff. I ended up comparing the tiefling – physically speaking – to Malefica played by Angelina Jolie. However she demands the tiefling to be without tail.
Uh, I almost forget the spells. I picked randomly every spell known by the player characters, both cantrips and 1st level spells.
Drow (Maeve): dancing lights (drow heritage), prestidigitation, poison spray, protection from evil/good, comprehend languages.
Tiefling (Alegra): thaumaturgy (tiefling heritage), blade ward, chill touch, hex, expeditious retreat.
Introduction
…or Session Zero as people love to say now
Now, here comes the first obstacle. I know for experience that if I start to explain all the rules in advance to a player who has never played, then the explanation will be useless, or at best not very effective.
I employ a method to introduce new players to the game, and it works fine most of the time, I’d say 90% success ratio, which is good enough.
Oh…as you can guess the basic step when you introduce a fresh player to a roleplaying games is having pre-rolled characters ready!
First step – Describe.
Let the players know who their characters are, why they are here, who they live with (or lived with) and what you want from them.
Give them some background and let them add pepper, salt and spices…but only if they want so, do not force them. And so I did.
I explain them they grew with Meg Mucklebones since they have memories and in their eyes Meg is their mother. (you can read more about Meg in Campaign Chronicles #2 – Creating the Villain and more details).
Then I present some of the non-player characters that have lived with both up to this day – Kirk the Orc, Sticky the Mimic and Ojolojo the Spectator (Beholder). Don’t blame me for the orc’s name, the players picked it, not me.
I describe, they ask questions, I answer and so on. This part requires no more than one hour.
Second Step – Simulation
In this step I want the players to understand how turns work, what an attack roll is, what is a hit, what damage and hit points are.
However I have to accomplish this without opening the book or start a tedious explaination of what is written inside. I have to put them in the arena if you pass me the term.
I tell the players that Meg, their mother, is waiting both at the courtyard. Kirk the Orc is assigned to this task, so I describe the bulky orc entering their room and delivering the message. I do not mimic voices, I just describe.
In this very moment the players are having the first roleplay experience.
Both answers yes, and they “move” to the courtyard.
We are not using miniatures, just paper and pencil.
Now it’s time to have the players make a choice.
I tell them that their two sisters – the ones who they didn’t pick as player characters – are tied with ropes on two poles.
I describe Meg sitting on a “throne” – the throne is actually Stick the Mimic shapeshifted into a furniture – and Ojolojo the Spectator (beholder) floating behind their sisters with a bored expression.
Now, that’s the first scene I present to the players.
Two things could happen.
1) The players don’t say nothing, listen and wait for the dungeon master to go on with the description. BAD.
2) The players react and ask something. It doesn’t matter what they ask. GOOD.
Event 2 occured. It means that in some way they are starting to “feel” their characters because the introduction hit the blank.
So they ask a simple question. Why their sisters are tied and are scared.
Meg draw two curved dagger and give the weapons to each one of the player.
Then she says “You know what to do, don’t you?”.
In my mental simulation I thought about two possible outcomes.
a) One or both players decide to kill their sisters.
b) One or both players drop their weapon and refuse to harm their sisters.
I almost got it because both players refused to kill their sisters. However something unexpected happened.
Maeve the Drow – played by Grecia – take the initiative and declares that she wants to stick the curved dagger into Meg’s neck. In other words she decides that if their mother want her to kill her sisters, than her mother is going to die.
Alegra the Tiefling follows. She declares that while Maeve go for her mother’s neck, she want to untie her sisters.
I must admit that I was surprised. Which is fine after all. My mistake was assuming that the players would have never attacked the hag because she is obviously stronger, however I forgot that both players are not able to “quantify” an enemy strenght, not yet at least.
I take this chance to introduce the concept of initiative. Who plays first?
This is the order of combat: Maeve the Drow, Alegra the Tiefling and then Meg.
So, Maeva enters the fight first. I ask Maeve to roll a D20 sided dice and add the proper modifer. She rolls and fails.
However I prefer to describe the attack not just as a miss. I tell the player that Meg catch the blade of the dagger with her left hand and hold the grip without feeling pain.
Alegra changes her mind. At the beginning she wanted to set their sisters free, but now she wants to cast a spell.
I did not plan to explain spells so early in the game, but I have to.
As I said I can’t explain what the spells do just by using a straight description, because the players wouldn’t understand all stats and parameters.
Honestly, I was thinking something different to explain the spells, so now I have to move up that scene.
So, instead of describing the players what each spell does, I describe the players what kind of feelings/emotions she feels for each spell.
In my mind I imagine a witch that has just received the gift of magic from her patron, but she never used any spell.
I employed two adjectives, one to symbolize the cause, and the other the effect.
Example: Hellish Rebuke (fear and wrath); Chill Touch (anger and cold); Expeditious Retreat (fear and safety) and so on. I focus on those spells that, in this unexpected battle, could prove to be useful. I admit that I was about to run short of adjectives.
Alegra “decides” to cast chill touch. I take the opportunity to show the players how to use a spell that requires a range attack. The attack misses, but at least now they are aware of the following things:
- They can use spells and each spell produces a specific and predictable effect.
- Spells are not something automatic.
- Spells are not something that they can shape at their will.
These details could appear banals to an experienced player, but they are not for someone who has never played. The mere fact that a spell is a specific and detailed “thing” requires a proper explanation.
A fresh player needs to understand that she can’t turn a person into a pig just because she is a magic user.
She needs to understand that not everyone is Circe the sorceress. She can produce such effects because she knows and masters a specific spell written on her character sheet.
Let’s go on with the chronicle.
Now it’s Meg’s turn.
The players have just discovered
- how to roll a basic melee attack
- how to cast a spell
- they have to act according to an initiative roll and their actions are limited (standard action, move action).
Now they are about to discover that their adversaries can do the same and can retaliate.
As I said, players realize that Meg is strong, too strong for their characters. So Alegra – the tiefling – decides to set both her sisters free.
I explain her that she has to make a choice. She can set free only one of them, not both, because she can move and then take an action to untie one of the two.
The concept of action economy is not always easy to assimilate.
So, patience is a must! Keep in mind that you’ll have to repeat how actions work more than once. It’s perfectly normal.
The tiefling eventually reaches one of her sisters and she easily sets her free.
Now it’s time to teach the players the difference between expectation and outcome.
In such a situation the tiefling expectation is that by setting her sister free she will surely join the battle at her side.
I don’t want that to be so easy. I imagine that the npc is scared as hell and she probably doesn’t care about her sisters as the tiefling cares about her. In this moment I’m secretly introducing the concept of alignment.
I have not spent a single word about alignment, both players are unaware of its existence.
I have the npc roll a will saving throw to overcome the fear. She fails. The npc runs toward the wooden wall that sorrounds the courtyard and attempt to climb it.
I take the opportunity to show the players that they can perform other actions than casting spells and attack enemies.
The npc go for an athletic check and…I roll 1!
I know, as a general rule, in 5th edition a skill checks does not admit critical failure or success. However, I state that it depends.
If a skill check implies a potentially dangerous outcome, than I consider a natural 1 as a critical failure. If you are climbing a wall (with spikes on the top) and you fail the check, you just fall to the ground. However, if you roll one, you fail and you probably end up with your guts impaled on the spikes.
And that is exactly what happened. Both players see their sister trying to run away from the battle – instead of joining them – and get her guts impaled due to her clumsiness.
In this way I made the players aware that they can succeed, they can fail and they can also screw it badly.
One more detail to keep in mind. New players tend to take in-game outcome personally. If they are mexicans, then it’s even worst. And that is exactly what happened :).
First, the player playing the tiefling get pissed off because the sister ran instead of helping. Second, she feels joy when her sister gets impaled like a hot dog.
I defend myself stating that I rolled a dice to see if she could keep her nerves calm. Problem solved, the player understand the reason of my decision. Lucky.
The combat and the session come to an end. The players have learned by doing, which is fine. I don’t know if they’ll want to keep fighting against Meg or they want to reconsider their decision.
I just have Meg saying “Is it enough for you?”.
The session is over.
The next session will be played April the 19th. I hope you enjoyed this article adespite my grammar.
Next Article…Campaign Chronicle #5 – Session One and more details
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