Sunday, February 27, 2022

5E Campaign Session One

 Hello everyone,

 Last night we played our first session of our new 5E Campaign.  


     Everyone agreed that having had a Session Zero really helped them get into the scope and intent of the Campaign, as well as, have solid character concepts and builds prior to last night.  Part of our Session Zero involved me asking the players their preferences in game play. I realized while I like a lot of combat in my games, my players were more of a mixture of role play, puzzles, exploration and some combat. In my preparations for Session One, I factored all of these into the session and I think it worked out well.  

     I let the player's know that this was not an adventure path type of campaign, instead their characters would be driving the story, in a sandbox type of setting.  In our Session Zero the players had helped develop the starting region, the small Kingdom of Valorn, in the small human (mostly) town of Bastion right on the edge of the kingdom near the dangerous Borderlands.  I provided several different potential adventure leads to the characters prior to them leaving town, and they got a lot more accomplished in the 4.5 hours of play than I expected. Fortunately I had done a good bit of prep and was prepared. 

I present our party "The Humble Travelers"    back row from L to R  Orreg "Bearkiller" Thuliaga - Goliath Fighter, Adria- Aasimar Druid,  Sallouisa "Sally"- Human Cleric of the Raven Queen, and on front row, the mysterious Aldebaran- a half-elf..that claims to be a simple woodsman, but has shown some spell casting abilities...

     We play again in two weeks and everyone seems to be excited!   It felt fantastic to be doing in person gaming again!

Good Gaming - B.B.


Friday, February 18, 2022

5E Session Zero!

                 Yeah, my DM Dice box has gotten out of hand....

 
 This last Saturday was interesting on the gaming front for several reasons.  First and foremost a return to face to face gaming after a long hiatus. Second, I was asked to run a 5E game for a group of good friends.  I'm an OSR guy, but after discussion and thought I agreed to run 5E.  For me the most important thing is the people at the table, and this was a chance to run for a great group of folks.  The last, but not least item of interest was we met but did not actually play per se. Instead I had an official Session Zero. I've never actually organized or done a true Session Zero before.  I've done group campaign building, and variations of that, but we followed a pre-worked agenda/outline I worked up, asking players key questions about their gaming styles, preferences, likes and dislikes.  Even learned some new things about people I've known for years.  Then we worked in broad strokes on the starting campaign area, then we did character creation. Gaming schedules were hashed out, house rules, what to do in event of character death or player absence. Etc...

Bit of organized character creation

My Dice of Death & Dismemberment arrived that day, so we had a serious chat about using them or not...we worked out a compromise.

     By the end of the evening, everyone was excited about their characters and the campaign. Since Saturday,  I've received multiple messages from the players saying how much they enjoyed having a Session Zero and how it helped them better formulate their character and how to come together as a group.  Looking forward to this campaign!


- Good Gaming! B.B.