Category Archives: session planning

D&D Grp 2 Session 1 Planning #1

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

I’ve used the following with the other session planning posts. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m using it here as well.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Next Saturday is the first session of actual play for the new group.

So far I have only had one character sheet sent to me. I was going to summarise the party here. But at mo until I get the others I see little point in doing so.

However with the campaign being set in and around the City of Arches. The arches/portals do allow for a variety of adventure opportunities whether visitors to the city from other realms, or with a key the chance to visit other realms.

Earlier in the week Seth Skorkowsky posted a review of the classic D&D adventure Isle of Dread.

Which reminded me I had the Goodman Original Adventures Reincarnated #2: The Isle of Dread version of the original. Which reprints in a single hefty volume the 1e edition of the adventure, a 5e conversion and an expansion. I think there might be more than one version of the 1e edition included.

It also got me thinking I could run this with both D&D groups.

In the video review Seth recommends running The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh adventure first, as that gives the party the chance to get a boat at the end of it. This adventure was updated by WotC in The Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure book.

However that isn’t an issue for this new campaign as I can have the party getting to the island via an arch. Plus the other group have a boat already.

I did order The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh from DriveThruRPG as it is a much cheaper than eBay way to get a physical copy of the original 1e version of the adventure. Sadly that isn’t an option for The Isle of Dread (it’s digital only for some reason). So I had to pay the eBay rate for a copy.

But running this with the new group is a few sessions off in the future.

I know in a recent YouTube video Mike Shea said he had been working on a version of the core adventure generator from the Lazy DM Companion for the City of Arches. But I don’t think that will be ready for me by Wednesday when I start prepping for Saturday. So it looks like I’ll be using the core adventure generator to inspire ideas for our first session.

One of the characters only has 3 hit points! Life is going to be very hard for that character or very short! So I need to probably use the advice from Mike Shea in this post Building First Level Encounters and cast aid on the party. I like the idea of giving them a single use relic that their patron could give them as part of doing some task for them.

Right I’m off to re-read the guide to the City of Arches.

D&D Grp 2 Session Zero Planning #2

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

Tomorrow is the “big” day for this new group.

It’s our first time meeting up for starters.

So a little nervous.

But the point of this post is to share what D&D books I’ll be taking with me.

You’ll notice in the photo below showing the books I’m taking there are none of the monster manuals. They are not needed for a session zero, they are a session prep thing. So they stay on the bookshelf.

But what I am taking covers most of the settings I can run a campaign in.

The books inside my DM bag for the session zero

I’m deliberately not taking the adventure books I have incase that puts the idea of running the written adventure into their heads! Although I would use them as material about the setting if they wanted to have the campaign set in say Avernus or Ten Towns.

I’ll also have these two MtG/D&D books that won’t fit inside the bag.

The two MtG/D&D books I’m taking

If the party are happy to be based in the City of Arches then all the books come into play!

Whilst we are looking inside my DM bag here is the top compartment that is meant for minis.

Inside the top compartment

But I’m using it to keep my dice, quest decks, dungeon geomorphs, dungeon decks, status cards, spare initiative cards, and inspiration tokens. To be added a dice tray.

Right next time I talk D&D it’ll be the post mortem of the session zero. See you then.

D&D Grp 2 Session Zero Planning #1

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

Next weekend is the session zero for a second D&D group starting up.

I’ve never met any of the players. Although one or two of them are friends.

So this session zero is going to be interesting.

Naturally I’m leaning towards running a homebrew campaign. Although I’m not averse to running a published adventure. Heck I’m bound to repurpose a map or two from a published adventure to my own needs.

However this session zero is going to be so important.

It’s a chance for me to find out what sort of campaign the players want, the tone of the campaign, setting (Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Realms of Dread, Avernus, Eberron or maybe Ravnica or Theros!).

Without knowing this stuff it’s not possible to write a one-page campaign document. I’ll write one up afterwards and share it with everyone afterwards. It’ll work more as a summary/reminder of what was decided.

But I’m hoping that a group discussion will hammer out those details, and allow the players to create characters whilst we are there.

I’m not planning on running a short adventure. I’m not sure how long all of the rest will take. I’m expecting a couple of hours. Which doesn’t leave much if any time for a short adventure.

Finally hoping that we can agree on the day a regular time for the session to happen.

This will be an interesting experience when it happens.

Vaesen One-Shot Session Planning #3

RPG, session planning, vaesen

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming Vaesen One-Shot. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Yesterday was meant to have been the one-shot.

I’d spent the morning printing out what I needed for the session, such as the pages from the rulebook for the intro mystery The Dance of Dreams. Along with the pregens I did, some blank character sheets (just incase), cheat sheets for the players, and the handouts for the intro mystery.

I’d made one or two notes on the printed copy of the intro mystery as I read it. Which was highlighting where the countdowns triggered, what to skip so it fitted into a single session, plus a couple of notes on a couple mechanics I didn’t want to forget.

One thing I didn’t think to do was print the page for the Revenant Vaesen so it was easy to reference during play. Especially if the players were using the rulebook at the time I need the page.

But sadly this was all for nought.

It was only going to be two players plus me today. But when just after midday one of them drops out ill. The only sensible thing to do was postpone the session. A new date has been suggested that is mid March.

So hopefully we’ll get to run this one-shot or even our D&D campaign. But our group does seem to be cursed never to meet again!

Thursday’s Child aka Vaesen One-Shot Session Planning #2

RPG, session planning, vaesen

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming Vaesen One-Shot. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

In the initial post I pointed out that Free League do not provide any pregenerated characters to use with the introductory mystery The Dance of Dreams in the Vaesen Rulebook.

Which does put a bit of extra work on me if I want to run this as a single session one-shot, maximising our time playing Vaesen and not spending a large part of the session creating characters.

“There should not be more than one player character of the same archetype in the group.” Page 18, Vaesen Rulebook.

The ten archetypes in Vaesen are:

  • ACADEMIC
  • DOCTOR
  • HUNTER
  • OCCULTIST
  • OFFICER
  • PRIEST
  • PRIVATE DETECTIVE
  • SERVANT
  • VAGABOND
  • WRITER

Sadly in the rulebook there is no suggested party make up for The Dance of Dreams. In an ideal world I’d create all ten archetypes for the players to choose from. And in the long term this is something I can aim for. However with current time restraints I’m creating just a subset.

Each precon character will have a couple of areas on the character sheet, character name, and relationship to the other player characters, left blank. These will be filled in by the player on the day. It will help personalise and make the precon character feel a little like their own.

Steps for creating a character in Vaesen, page 18, Vaesen Rulebook

Following the steps above were pretty easy. I was able to create an academic, doctor, hunter, and occultist relatively quickly compared to say creating a D&D character.

Having what is basically a template for each archetype, tied in with a simplified character sheet makes such a big difference. I think the hardest choice was deciding the age of the character! The age chosen decides how many points you get to spend on attributes and skills.

I dare say that if there were enough copies of the rulebook that you could almost have players creating characters in less that half an hour! Which would make it “feasible” to run a single session one-shot with the players creating characters on the day.

I’m hoping interested folks can access this link. My Vaesen Precons. It should be setup so that anyone with the link can view them.

Vaesen One-Shot Session Planning #1

RPG, session planning, vaesen

Just like my D&D session planning posts there has to be some house keeping.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming Vaesen One-Shot. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

As I said in the short (for me) post about where our D&D campaign currently is, the current plan is to run the introductory mystery from the Vaesen RPG, The Dance of Dreams.

This will be an interesting first for me as a novice GM as I haven’t run a published adventure before, nor run a none D&D game either.

There is also the added pressure of this is a completely new system not just to me but also to those playing.

I have the Vaesen bundle that Free League sell. Which is the rulebook (plus a digital copy), GM screen (it finally arrived yesterday), initiative and Vaesen cards, 6 d6 dice, and a map.

It’s going to be a safe bet that I will have the only copy of the rules. So I will need to teach the basics of the version of the Year Zero system that Vaesen uses. I have found some cheat sheets to give to the players to aid them. I also plan to print out the pages of the mystery so that the rulebook is freed up for reference by everyone.

Unlike the starter kits for D&D, Alien RPG, The One Ring or many other systems Free League have not put together any pre-generated characters to be used with this introductory mystery.

The only stuff Free League have for downloading on their website are blank character and HQ sheets, handouts for the introductory mystery and one other mystery (you can get them here).

So my first task for this one-shot other than reading the rules is to create some pre-generated characters for use with the one-shot.

We can visit character creation as a group if we decide to run a campaign or further one-shots at a future date. Using pre-generated characters also means that more time of the session will be spent playing.

I’m planning on our session being about three hours in length, and aiming for us to wrap the mystery up in a single session.

Free League suggest at the start of The Dance of Dreams that it “…should take approximately two to three sessions to complete.” However “If you would rather finish the mystery in a single session, you may skip the first steps and start with the journey to the location. Simply recount how the player characters got the Invitation instead of playing it as a scene. You can also skip the part where each character gains an Advantage.”

Which is great advice. Although I’d love to know what duration they are using for a session. I have an idea for the Advantages which I’ll expand on in another post if after reading the rules I think it’s do able!

I think that’s enough for the first session planning post. I’ll leave you with the official Vaesen teaser.

Update on planning session 8 #8

D&D, RPG, session planning

Let’s get this next bit out of the way.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

As you will recall one of our group is now recuperating from a pretty major life event and March is most likely the earliest they will be able to make it back to the table.

So basically our campaign is still on hiatus until then.

However in the meantime we will still meet up but play a one-shot instead.

A none D&D one-shot!

The plan (at the moment) is to meet up in February and play the introductory mystery, The Dance of Dreams from the Vaesen RPG rulebook. I’ll warn you now there will be a separate series of planning session posts for that.

The following weekend will see a new D&D group starting up that I’m going to DM. That first “session” will be a getting to know you sort of thing and finding out what sort of campaign people want. And yes this too will have its own series of session planning posts.

That’s where we are at the moment see you in the next session planning post for whichever session it’s for!

Update on planning session 8 #7

D&D, RPG, session planning

As is customary with these session planning posts here is the obligatory bit of house keeping I need to do.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Will we ever start up our campaign again? That’s the thought going through my head at the moment.

After an attempt to get everyone to agree and commit to the 5th January, we finally settled on the following weekend of the 15th January.

However! Yeah you knew that was coming. That date is looking very unlikely. But the reason would fall very easily into the “no one saw this coming” category. Sadly life threw a pretty major curve ball at a member of our party which means they may not be able to make this date or any other for a while. It’s more important that my friend takes the time (however long) to recover. The campaign and gaming will be there waiting for when they are able to join us again at the table.

In the meantime using the medium of our messenger group I have warned everyone (without going into details) that the 15th is unlikely to go ahead. However. Yep I used a however with them too. Those of us that could should still meet up on the 15th and do a one shot. Which could still be D&D based. Or as I suggested in another system such as (and I just listed two or three that I own) Paranoia, and Twilight 2000.

In the last day or so Matt Colville and his awesome band of merry people that are collectively known as MCDM have released a new pdf for a beastheart class and monstrous pets!

It has amazing cover art. Very old school in style and feel. I love it.

The whole premise of having monsters as pets and rules to use them sound cool and something I could use straight away in our campaign (if we were actually playing again).

The new class I can take or leave. It will be an option in a future campaign if a player wants to use it. My imagination wasn’t sparked into life by it as the illrigger class had done.

But what did get me excited was when Matt talked about the sporeling companion and showed a render of the mini they had done for it.

A mini you could order from them along with five others they had done.

Immediately I thought “the party are going to get a pet and not know it”. I liked the idea of them coming across Mot the sporeling while they are in the lost Ironstar mine. I just have this image of him following them around the mine just out of sight. Or hiding very badly when they look his way.

And yes I ordered the mini.

That’s all for now on session planning. No real progress at the mo for getting back to the table, and yet more ideas to use!

Update on planning session 8 #6

D&D, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

So this weekends planned session has been cancelled due to lack consensus as to which day it should be. At the moment no new date has been suggested or agreed on. Which is very frustrating.

I’ve not so subtly prodded the group in our Messenger group about this. So it’s wait and see to whether anyone or all of them will come to a date they all agree on.

I think I’m ready. I just need to go through the Lazy DM steps before hand.

I’m still dithering over whether Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons will be added to my library of D&D books. I know the adventurers have met the Red Rage of Mintarn. But do I plan for them to meet more dragons in the future? I certainly think they might have an encounter with a dragon turtle whilst at sea. And there is the germ of a plan for running the Jim Murphy Undead trap. Which will involve, possibly, an undead dragon skeleton. Just to make things interesting.

But do I need Fizban’s? Need? No. Would like? Possibly.

I’m sure I’ll get it. The question is just when.

In the meantime I’m left wondering if our campaign will manage to start again. I think it’ll be lucky if we do get a session before Christmas now. Then obviously the seasonal event kicks in which takes us into next year. Maybe I’m being too pessimistic and need to be more optimistic.

Update on planning session 8 #4

D&D, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

It’s been a long long time since the previous session planning post for our campaigns next session. And we all know why that is. But we have a date now for the resumption of the campaign. Which means I need to refresh my memory (using these great notes I have on here) and also actually finalising the ideas and thoughts I’ve had in the intervening time.

I recently got hold of a copy of the Tome of Beasts 2 Pocket Edition (it’s cheaper than the regular version). Sly Flourish mentions this all the time.

I got a chance to browse the pages of this “alternate monster manual” this morning whilst waiting for Mum to get some blood samples taken. Within the first 5 or 6 pages I hit a creature that would be ideal for the campaign.

That creature is an Akhlut.

Akhlut (taken off a Google image search)

The Akhlut has the body, head and tail of a killer whale, and the legs of a large wolf. A true “seawolf”! But it looks sooo cool. The Akhlut has a challenge rating of 6. Might be a tad high for the party if more than one attacked at once. But that’s something I can tinker with at the table.

I just think the Akhlut has so much potential for my campaign. I like that they can also be used as a steed. So while I have the Sahuagin using sharks. I’m thinking that maybe merfolk or another aquatic life form could use the Akhlut or even a more Northern based tribe of Sahuagin. I think even some of the northern human tribes could use them as well.

I had a strong start all planned. Well at least in my head. It’s been bouncing around up there for a while.

The plan was to have pirates come rushing out of the tree line attacking the party who are camping on the beach. They would be unable to return to their ship because row boats would be coming towards the shore. Pirate ships anchored off shore.

However now I know about the Akhlut I think this is going to change. I think the fish the party have been cooking/preserving have attracted a pod of Akhlut. The look of surprise on the parties faces as they go from wonder at the majestic sea beasts swimming to “OMG! They are coming out of the water towards us!”

Back to having a date to aim for I also need to spend some time finishing off painting the 3D scatter terrain that Duncan did for me nearly a year ago. This will mainly be for the lost Ironstar dwarf mine the party are trying to find.