Thank you again to everyone who has contributed so far — this is going to be a fun project, and hopefully a useful freebie.

Once I get them to the same place and we begin the first group session I start off with a quest that groups a bunch of people together by chance. An example of this is what I’m going in a current campaign set in a custom world.

Lions have come into the city and carried a child off, the council is gathering people together to make search parties to find and rescue or bring back the remains of the child.

This lets them meet under the pretense of chance and gives them a chance to interact as they try to help each other or follow along grudgingly just so the city doesn’t turn on them.

Topic: As for the topic, I’m thirding Walt and VV_GM’s comments and approach. I think the comments made by Jennifer Snow are also very important.

In my most recent first session (check the blog for more details), I made the three unrelated characters the victims of an attack in an inn. Unsure of how to react, they began to bond together out of sheer confusion (The attackers were mistaken as to their identities).

In your first session, your players are not ready to *act*, they are only ready to *react* to what happens around and to them. Give them some things to react to. In one of the best games I ever ran, I actually went so far as to print out first-session objectives for each of the characters. They were vague enough that they didn’t give the events away, but they told the players what things I expected them to react to.

In this game, for example, the characters were a middle-aged gypsy rogue, a mercenary scout, an old drunk fighter, the young son of a noble, and an incredibly ugly ranger. Their objectives were thus:

Gypsy: Find someone to help recover the wagon that broke down on the road.

Scout: Rescue a damsel in distress.

Fighter: Find work.

Young Noble: find something to do.

Ranger: Get out of this horrible town for a day.

Now, that’s a little simplistic and obvious and I’m sure others can do better. The best things you can get your players to react to is each other, but this isn’t going to happen spontaneously. You have to spark that by having them react to something else first.

My advice is simply to do what good books, plays, TV shows, etc. do. Introduce conflict. Plot *is* conflict. It can go from having a big fight (which is, indeed, a conflict) to giving them all different instructions for retrieving the same item.

I’ve found with experience that it is not a good idea to set up a situation in which the characters must all work together: it kills roleplaying right off the bat and makes your party into a homogenous mass. Instead, give them something to argue about and 2/3 of your session takes care of itself.

Because the world’s backstory gives no reason for the PCs to know each other before the game starts, I will use this style to have them fight crime in the streets (and maybe see or hear about each other) while I build up to the larger threat that will cause them to have to work together.

It’s a relatively short article– even shorter if you discount the parts about picking a recurring game day, etc.

If the players expect to see some action (i.e.: those gernes where “weapons” are the first consideration of inventory…) then I absolutely open with a fight. It’s action-flick canon for a reason.

Say what you will, but a combat is a great place to establish your character-under-fire.

It also earns you a good rep as a GM since even if the campaign fizzles at least the players got in on a good fight and didn’t have to sit through copious backstory on day 1. Save it for session 2 when people are interested in returning.

The big reason, of course, is to showcase the setting, and to get the players in the right frame of mind. If you’re running a gothic horror game, and the first session involves fighting goblins, well, you’ve pretty much set the players in a typical “let’s play D&D!” mindset, as opposed to “scary things from beyond are trying to chew my face off!”.

You can’t just slop the elements on, though. If you were playing Eberron, and in the first adventure I fought a warforged artificer, dodged some living spells, had to escape from an airship that was on fire, and get into a crazy swordfight on the towers of Sharn (all the while getting involved in the draconic prophecy and accumulating Dragonshards), I think it might be a bit much. But then again, maybe not.

Really, I think it’s safer to just pick about three unique things to the setting to showcase in the first adventure – if we’re playing Dark Sun, I might throw the fact that wizards are outlawed at the party, along with maybe a mul or a half-giant, and, say, some Templars. Or severe dehydration.

My dad (not a great GM, but I liked this piece of advice) told me once that every first session, you should: a) Kill off a PC, b) Give another PC a +1 sword, and c) Make sure everyone that survives gains a level (and let the guy who lost a PC start there, too).

The reasoning?

a) If you kill off a guy in the first session, you show the group that you mean business. It means they’re less likely to think that you’re fudging die rolls. And, by doing it now, when they’re not all that attached to the characters, you’re not risking having a player angry at you. In fact, if you play it right, you’ll have some laughter.

b) giving a PERMANENT magical item that has only limited value (a +1 longsword, while nifty, isn’t going to break the game) whets the players’ appetite for more. If you give away a bit of treasure in the first few encounters, you can be stingy later on – they know you’re willing to give out the goods, even if it turns out that you’re actually giving them far less than the DMG says you’re “supposed” to (I typically have the PCs meet those wealth requirements, but with a lot of one-use magical items).

c) If everyone gains a level at the end of a session, it ties them to the setting. Once you gain a level, you become more interested in that character, and you’re more likely to remain in the campaign.

- Definitely run group character creation, with the players giving me ideas about any particular niches that they want to fill.
- There’s a dream sequence that will lead into a major fight scene with all but one of the players temporarily playing bad guys.
- The (foreordained) result of the dream sequence leads to actions involving one of the other cast members
- And, from there, the cast members get tied together.

The theme of the first season for the show would be along the lines of learning about the supernatural and coming to terms with it — which the players would know up front.

Get the characters somewhat defined: personality, history, and relationships should all be addressed, if only superficially. I also like the suggestion I read here: “Give me a reason your character would be at location X at time Y.”

Nail down the themes early. If the campaign’s going to be combat-heavy, have lots of combat in the first session. This doesn’t mean that the Big Story Arc is presented, just that the “feel” of the campaign is. Frankly, you might be better off getting a few minor adventures under your collective belts before the Big Story Arc shows up.

Use the first adventure(s) to fill in any weak spots. If the characters are all loners, try to give them a reason to work together. If they’re all very different kinds of people, try to present a situation where all of their skills will be needed. If they need a good GMPC, introduce him or her. If they aren’t familiar with the game or setting, create situations to familiarize them.

My goal is not to hook my players into a multi-year campaign on the first session. They just have to want to play again next week.

I do a few things before the first session that give me an idea of how I am going to write the first session.

First, I do a 20 questions with my characters so that I have a pretty good feel for who they are. This allows me to open their first scenes with them, doing something personal with their character. If a characters indicated they like to start the day with a horse ride, then that is a good start for their opening scene.

Second, I have the party agree if they know each other before the game starts. If they do, then I can start from there, if not I need to write how and why they meet.

The last thing I factor in, is how experienced we are with the rules. If we are playing another D&D game, then I can get right into some detailed encounters. But if this is our first game of Burning Empires, then I want the session pretty light, because we will be looking up rules and having to explain a lot of things during the session.

Taking all of that I have only a few objectives in the first session:

1. Introduce each player.
2. All players must have met each other by the end of the session.
3. The first story arc is started.
4. There is a combat.

The first two is to establish the players and get them comfortable with each other and into character.

The third is designed to get them excited about what is coming in future sessions.

The fourth is because combats are great places to work through the rules for newer games and, nothing like Combat focuses the players attention to the game.

If I can achieve those 4 things on the first session, then I can build from there.

(Amaril) Roleplaying Tips covered this very same topic in a downloadable supplement.

I hadn’t seen that before — thanks for the link! I’m aiming for something shorter and more unified with this PDF. As many great tips as there are in the RPT download, it’s long enough to keep some folks from reading it, IMO — and to be daunting to new GMs. I definitely see room for a different, TT-flavored take on this topic.