As The DM
As the DM you have to be careful about what your first session focuses on. Even if your starting the party with level 20 veteran characters session one should never be about introducing a big bad threat to the land. It should be about one thing, exploration. When planning ask yourself the following questions:
1. Where Are The Players Going And Why?
It only poses questions to simply say "You have been travelling together" so give them details; tell them where they met, where there going and why they decided to travel together. If there characters who's alignments normally wouldn't mix then push the group together, telling them the reason there a group is because there have been trolls roaming nearby and there's safety in numbers. Another good question is where are they headed towards and why are they going? Keep this simple. Each of your players want something in the next town over but the path is dangerous or they have been charged with protecting a cart and its stopped off for a few days in this town. Regardless of what you decide it should always leave your players having a goal - no matter how off the rails they go in session one.
2. How Does The Party Interact With The World?
Every party is different. The way they will play will always be changing with both the way the players are and the classes that form the group. If you give the party a quest to help a local farmer run some goblins from his lands, some party's will simply kill the goblins. Some will research and try and maybe sneak in the goblins camp. Others will think the job is below them and some might just kill the farmer and try to tame the goblins. As a DM, its your job to work out likely ways your party will interact with the world. There's no point writing a dungeon crawl to recover a family heirloom when the party would rather just kill the guy and loot his house. Session one is all about learning how the party will act and how to write a story that will both play to there strengths and challenge there weaknesses, stopping every session from being: kill monster X, find Item Y. A DM that can masters their players style will always make the most fun quests.
3. How Does The Party Interact With Each Other?
Like I said, every party is different and its your job to know just how different. But the way they hack and slash through the enemies you put before them isn't the most important part of your games, especially in your first session. In session one players will make jokes about each other, dick around and experiment with there abilities. Though not immediately useful to you as a DM, after session one the bonds and grudges they form will be a valuable tool to play on later in your story. It will also allow you to steer the story in ways your party are more likely to enjoy, as it may fulfil a need or goal shared between several members of the group. In session one there is one thing you need to do in regards to this, just listen. Introduce the situation, then shut up and listen until the players stop talking. Taking notes on player interactions is also useful. Even now over a year into my campaign, my players still talk about things that happened in session one that began to define who they are.
4. What Do You Want The Party To Leave the Session Thinking?
This is something you should think about when planning anything but with session one, its more important than ever. You want the players to feel cool. This isn't about challenging them and giving them gripping, compelling story lines, its about getting them comfortable in there characters skin; killing something; getting some loot and leaving the session thinking "Woah my character is so cool! I can't wait to see what happens next week!" If you can accomplish that, they you have done your job well.
As The Players
Now think about your players and more importantly, what does a player think is going to happen when they come to session one? Lets have a look at what players expect and why its important to give them what they want.
1. Whos This Guy?
So our party has met. It's had its giggles and diggs, now its time to get down to business - the quest. As the DM, it's time for one of your most important tools, the Quest Giver, He/She/It will give the party their first quest and that quest should always follow these rules; It should be short, simple, rewarding, important to someone and the party should never be alone in the quest. So lets look at these.
Why should it be simple and short? The answer is, you want it to be over by the end of the session. Don't send the party down into a trap-filled dungeon and don't have them do a tone of searching for a missing boy who no one seems to know anything about. Keep is short, sweet and to the point.
Why should it be rewarding and important to sum one? Well to put it simply, its an incentive. It stops your players from saying "There may be fish men coming out of your well but why is it my problem?" Give them a reason to want to undergo the challenge and more than just material gain. Tell them about the man's youngest daughter who was dragged down the well and how desperate he is for her return. This brings some reality to the story. Had the Quest giver simply gone "The fishmen came up the well, stole some stuff and ran away." The party isn't compelled to complete the quest. Were that me I'd tell the man to get over it, and seal the well over for a bit. But with the image of that lost little girl down there afraid, cold and missing her daddy its hard for the party to say no. The players should always leave session one knowing they have made someones life better.
Finally, why should the party never be alone? Well, when I say never alone, I don't mean have the NPC follow them all the way to the monsters lair, but that they should have someone to talk to.There should be information to be gathered if they look for it or someone to give them a hint if they get lost. This leaves the party always thinking what to try next, not stuck not knowing what to do.
2. What Can I Kill?
A lot of players come to the session with images of slaying a troll and mounting its head on their wall or sending waves of fire soaring across a field of Goblins . Why not? They're heroes after all. Your first session should have one fight and only one fight (presuming your playing for around 2-3 hours). Why is this important? Well firstly it will teach your players how to fight and what their bonuses and damages are. For spell casters it might teach them just what a spell does and for a thief they might learn not to run right up to the ogre. Fight one is the time to make mistakes and learn the rules but more importantly its time to make them feel awesome. They should leave the fight feeling like they can take on the world. Think about tutorials in computer games. Ever wondered why the mini boss at the end of the level is so big when he's so easy to kill? Simple, because killing it makes you feel awesome. This is exactly what you want to do with your first fight.
Choosing the enemy and how you introduce it is also very important. The party should know a lot about what there up against. They should know what to expect of the creature and with more research where to find it and what its weaknesses are. Things like Ogres are great for this. They are common place in most terrains, they're dumb and they're Huge. Taking down one of these shouldn't be too challenging for even a lv1 party and will make them feel great. My party even made there own quest to sell the beasts head. Make sure to be extremely descriptive during the first fight, no "ok roll to hit, Ok now D6 damage" BAD DM! BAD! Tell the player, look into there eyes and explain how their sword sings as it cleaves through the air and into the beasts hide then the satisfying crunch and groan as it draws its final breath. All of this builds to the atmosphere of the fight and all you are trying to do is make them feel powerful. Remember rule one of the first fight. Make it big, make it scary, keep it simple and make it awesome.
3. Wheres the Loot?
So They killed the big bad monster with a few cuts and bruises to show for it. They're feeling like the kings of the world. So is it time to spring the trap, take away their sense of victory and drink their sweet sweet tears? No. This is session one its time to reward them and the only way to make them feel even more awesome after killing the big boss monster is for them to loot his lair (and or pants). Give them loot, not too much but enough to make them feel special. Semi precious gems are great for this. it gives the players something nice and shiny and they will be left thinking "How much is this thing even worth?!" and "Oh my god we're rich!" Sticking in a small magical item is also great and will be very useful later on teaching the party about item identification, as well as how magic items work within your world. Be careful though! There is no point giving the lv1 party a +10 longsword and a billion gold. Yes it will make them feel awesome but it will make future finds less meaningful. Give them something mysterious, give them something to spend and the players will leave satisfied.
4. Whats Next?
With the quest completed, foe overcome and loot discovered, its time for the session to end. Remember at the beginning we asked the question "Where are they going?" Well that's where session two will be headed and that's all the party should know. They leave session one thinking back on their experience, their funny mistakes and that epic final blow. They're also left curious at what this magic item does and how much these gemstones are worth. They are left fantasising about where they go from here, about what lies ahead of them and they know they are more than capable of taking on the world.
Stick to these ideals and no mater what system or setting you play in, you will have an amazing first session. Next time I'm going to be analysing my first session with the group and about how the things I planned followed a lot of the rules outlined above.
Here are the links to my first session with the group. I was still working out the rules set and I make the Newb Dm mistake of calling the characters by player names, but we all have to start somewhere.
Part 1
Part 2
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