Session 0

Questionnaires:

General Questionnaire Results:

Question 1: Please rank your favorite pillars of DND in order: Combat, Exploration, Role Play, Puzzles

TLDR- very different favorites but exploration is generally on the lower end of favorites. 

1. Combat, Role Play, Exploration, Puzzles (I like all of them though)
2. Puzzles, Role Play, Exploration, Combat
3. Role play, combat, exploration, puzzles
4. Puzzles in Combat, Puzzles, Combat, Exploration, Role Play

Combat 11,  Role play 11, Puzzles 10 , Exploration 8

Question 2: What is one of your most favorite memories from playing DND?

Overall responses reported highs of their campaigns were actually cool roleplaying and making campaign-defining important choices. However, many remarked that combat is consistently fun. 

Question 3: What's at least one strength you (as a player, not your character) brings to the table?

General strengths of the group involve creativity and interacting with NPCs, acting as a voice for indecisive parties, and a good grasp on the rules. From my experience playing with all of you, I would say your strengths are respect for the rules and avoiding metagaming, turning failures into story points instead of getting mad (something I need to work on as a player), rules experience. I also appreciate how you all delve deep into the world and characters even if it is a silly non-serious campaign or 1 shot. 

Question 4: What are your values?

• I think everybody should have a spotlight for some of the campaign, but also have time to come together and solve problems as a group. I like being able to laugh and enjoy our company.
• I value story and discovery. I don’t want to know everything and want to either figure things out or be surprised by things including things like backstory and things in the world. I really enjoy playing characters with a flawed view of the world.
• Player trust is critical. If we all agree that having the most fun is the most important, then the DM should trust us to homebrew on the fly for rule of cool.
• Rule of cool can be more than "I slide down the monster's back and stab it!"; creativity should be rewarded: "DM, if I pass an athletics check to slide down the monster's back, can I get an extra 1d6 to damage?" Gambles can increase the stakes, but they need to have risk, reward, and creativity, and the DM needs to be able to trust the players
• I value character immersion. This can be from players not metagaming what their character wouldn't know or interacting with NPCs in a way that wouldn't reflect the personality of their character. This can also come from players sticking to describing their actions/intent and allowing the DM to determine the outcome kind of like in a videogame where you perform an action and the computer does behind the scene calculations and you see everything unfold.

Question 5: What are your expectations?

• To have fun! Have some fun combat, make some good memories with my wife and friends, and just overall have a good time.
• I’m playing a naive character in a dark world so I expect her to be wrong and about a lot of things and face consequences for it. I’m pretty flexible on most of my answers here. Ex: if you want saving throws to be secret from the party because the pc will turn into a secret zombie if failed then I won’t bat an eye. If you need to change up how we do certain things to have an interesting pay off then I’m all for it.
• I'm hoping for a sort of serialized adventure that contains an overarching plot, like Adventure Time: at the start, each adventure was self-contained, but over time, as we saw the characters develop, so did the world and the adventures.

Meeting Logistics:

Meeting every other week looks like it works best for most people. Starting after 7 seems like it could be a good compromise considering time zones. To accommodate Ben who is further away, playing on Saturday would be best since he is two hours ahead since everyone seems pretty flexible on the day. Three hours could a good compromise given varied responses?

Pet Peeves:

1. People not paying attention at pivotal moments. 

2. People not being ready on their turns (if you are asked "what does your character do?", you should be either answering or deciding, not pulling up your character sheet or calculating what your attack modifier is).

3. Being told no when something is “not realistic”. Not being told no if it breaks the rules or is ridiculous, but being dismissed if it’s not completely logical

4. When a DM shuts down a creative idea because it's not what they had envisioned

Video:

50/50 split. You can have your camera on to be more immersed, but it won't be required. If it slows down connection we might switch to just audio.

Leveling Up:

Leveling up will be done based on milestones and over a long rest.

DM Rolling Behind the Screen:

Most players want GM to roll for the players perception checks to identify hidden enemies and secret doors. For the latter, if you feel there is something secret in the room you can definitely try. How do you feel about the DM rolling behind the screen on other occasions? Pros: For me (Steven), I often use physical dice because I can roll/calculate faster than I can find the dice option in Roll20 or open character sheets and find the right button with multiple enemies. It also prevents metagaming (he rolled a 10 on the dice, but the outcome was enough to hit my AC of 18 meaning they have a +8 to hit so a proficiency bonus of +4 means they have a strength mod of +4). Cons: If the fight feels easier/harder than it should, it makes you wonder if the DM is trying to railroad the encounter or make your win feel less deserved. A proposal would be the DM makes saving throws in front of the screen because that's typically where I as a player have felt most cheated when the DM just happens to succeed on every save. Thoughts?

As for rolling death saving throws, this was an equally mixed response so we can do it based on the players preference who is in deaths throws.

Sensitive Topics Questionnaire:

TLDR: Hard line topics include child harm, rape/sexual assault, substance use/addiction. Veils are sex/intimacy, and real-world politics.

Theme:

Decision ambiguity. Often, you will be presented multiple choices that do not provide an obvious "best" answer. For example, choosing a specific course of action will inevitably strengthen a bond with one ally while creating animosity between another who could have been an ally. Moral dilemmas make the game feel more realistic and provide opportunities for players to feel that their decisions matter.

Cosmic Horror, Mystery, Dramatic Themes. While fun/jokes are a part of any DND, try to identify/respect when moments are serious and save the jokes for after the encounter.

PC Secrets: Each of you has undiscovered secrets about your characters whether you know it or not. If you do have a secret that you want kept from the rest of the table, please let me know ahead of time so I don't spoil it. Also, we will work 1 on 1 to determine how much influence you would like me to have in your characters background/story.

House Rules and Combat

Spellcasters: If you cast a leveled spell within 5 seconds of the start of your turn, you gain +1 to attack or the spell save DC.

Fighters: If you creatively describe how your character behaves in combat (for example, the sounds of the attack, how the sweat dribbling down your face is salty, how your sword catches a rougue beam of light immediately before plunging through the enemy's shield, etc) looks like, add +1 to attack and damage. Regain all HP when you drink a potion as an action, roll dice when you do so as a bonus action. Roll dice when giving a potion as an action to an ally.

When you are brought back from 0 hp with a potion or spell, if the amount of health regained was less than 10 on your turn you may choose to either perform an action, bonus action, or move. You may not perform reactions until the start of your next turn. For reference, a potion of healing gives 2d4+2 back. This makes falling in combat more dangerous.

Many monsters are given a guide how to run them which I will follow. Many Drakkenheim monsters also reward players who take the investigate action during combat to discover more about their abilities, weakness, or strengths depending on how well you roll. If you don't know what to do on your turn, it could be worthwhile to investigate. When initiative is tied, the creature with highest base dexterity goes first. Crits are normal rules by rolling double the dice but re-roll 1's.

Crafting Overview explains how to make magic items from certain Drakkenheim monster parts. If you want more granular details on how it works I can provide it. You will be expected to track what items/recipes you have.

The first time you remember an NPC or city name unprompted by the DM, you get inspiration. Nat 1 always fails. I won't ask your characters to make a check they either would always succeed or would automatically fail. Inspiration could also be given out for a solid roleplaying moment (playing into a character trait, advancing their storyline, etc.).

We will use the expanded rules from Drakkenheim. There are additional Drakkenheim specific rules that will pop up including Contamination Rules and Haze . There are also additional Drakkenheim-Specific Spells you can use as a spell-caster.

Flanking will be as listed in the DMG. If you are on opposite sides of an enemy that is not huge or larger. This will encourage not just one character getting beat up on considering you all are relatively squishy.

Etiquette

A successful game is built on DM-player trust.

Here are examples how to use trust to enhance the game Instead of asking "can my character do this?" Just say what that your character attempts to do something. 95% of the time, what you want to do can be done. Only part of the time will it require a skill check. You are more likely to be able to do what you want if you just say "NAME does 'X' ". If something is not possible, I will stop it from happening. However, please no unannounced dice rolls unless it is asked for. You only hurt your chances of succeeding if I was planning on just letting it happen anyways.

Everyone playing in this campaign is an experienced player and can be trusted to use their own abilities how they see fit. Don't micromanage another persons turn except in cases where they are forgetting a key part of their rules that would drastically change the combat.

Metagaming: To a certain degree, metagaming can be helpful in that everyone in game knows that many trolls are susceptible to fire, that vampires are killed with a stake through the heart, etc. What you should not know is the AC, HP, of monsters etc. Another big issue is perception checks. When the DM suddenly calls for a perception check and everyone fails, it automatically makes the players more alert on their feet. To counteract this, I propose allowing the DM to roll for perception checks to detect hidden enemies or traps instead. Please wait until after a description/explanation is finished to ask clarifying questions. If my descriptions get too long or hard to pay attention to, please let me know so I can improve.

ETC.

XP versus milestones? Plan on leveling up after a long rest.

Downtime activities.

Linear storytelling (more like a videogame, most paths lead to a certain outcome like the Zargothrax campaign, Curse of Strahd), or Collaborative Storytelling (Would require more on your part to decide what to do. I as DM would be more responding to what you as a party would like to do. This would require more independence on your part to think what your character hopes to gain. For example, deciding to act on your characters specific goals without a prompt from the DM. I would still give adventure hooks when you don't have an idea what to do, but you would be more encouraged to come up with story hooks yourselves). In addition, players can provide on-the-fly descriptions of a scene to assist the DM as appropriate (remember this is built on trust).

We will use the expanded Drakkenheim Conditions in addition to regular conditions.

The approved sourcebooks that will primarily be used include 2024 Core rules ( Players handbook, monster manual, and dungeon masters guide), Dungeons of Drakkenheim Books (Sebastian Crowes Guide to Drakkenheim and Pluto Jackson's Monsters of Drakkenheim). Occasionally, l might use other select official material (Dungeons of Drakkenheim, Tasha's guide, Fizban's Treasury, and 2014 players handbook) as needed.

Earning Hero Points?: The DM awards Hero Points for noteworthy behavior, such as exceptional creativity, heroic acts, or roleplaying challenges effectively. Spending Hero Points: Players can spend a Hero Point to: In the DMG it states adding 1d6 to a d20. Alternatives on the internet are to reroll a d20 roll and take the second result. Take an extra action in a turn. Influence the narrative in useful ways, such as adding details to describe a character's success.

How do you feel about guest characters? (Like Krissy, Anna (Ben's wife), or other friends who otherwise wouldn't be able to join every week but might have fun playing the role of an NPC.) If you don't feel comfortable with that, it's totally fine to say no.

Character Creation

Character stat generation: Point buy or standard array. In addition, for each point of intelligence, you may choose an additional language or tool proficiency. In addition, if you (as a player, not character) have shown that you have read material beyond what was expected, you may be provided additional skill proficiencies as a thank you.

Starting gold is: 650gp (can use to upgrade armor/weapons/but items or have free gold to use for later), 3 potions of healing, starting equipment.

In addition:

Ormk will start with (Shadowfell Brand Tattoo), and (Coiling grasp tattoo ) and (dust of disappearance )

• (Devero) will start with a (Manual of Occult Anatomy (rare level) OR Blessed Thurible) and (alchemy jug) and (perfume of bewitching)
• Nox will start with (wraps of unarmed prowess) and (portable hole) and (potion of pugilism or potion of resistance)

For backgrounds, your ability modifiers and first level feats will not be restricted by the background.

In addition, don't forget to consider Tools and Tool Feats . Don't forget about the tool proficiency abilities listed in Tasha's Cauldron of everything. If you don't have access, I can take pictures of whatever tool proficiencies you choose.

Hopefully, the majority of the session 0 stuff will have been figured out ahead of time and we can use the majority of the time to discuss how your players know each other and how they fit in the world. If we have the time, we can do a short session to introduce your characters to the world.

Important Talk Points:

Rule of Cool: Remember that a round is only 6 seconds. A recent example came from a game where the player wanted to take a flask of booze, strap it to the arrow, light the tip, shoot it into the air. We let it happen once with some extra effects which essentially resulted in ending the encounter. It was cool, but not super realistic and now they attempt to do something like this every turn to gain an advantage. Rule of cool rewards the players who are more willing to speak up to ask for extra things. I as a DM don't like saying no, but adjudicating whether or not something can happen can increase mental load to find balance with the situation while making it fair for all players. I like precedent and establishing expectations (hence the lengthy session 0). I do agree that if you were to attempt something cool to gain a benefit, there should be a risk should you fail. Would it be ok if I as the DM proposed the rewards and benefits? Like you say " my character attempts to (insert creative" task" that would be feasible for a highly skilled hero in 6 seconds) to (state intent: i.e inflict more damage, provide a benefit for allies, disrupt environment). Then DM would determine what would be appropriate. Hero Points?

Extra Drakkenheim Rules

Storytelling Approach

Roleplaying as a puzzle