Session 6: A New Campaign Begins!

Ah yes, that fresh smell of something new and exciting! A new campaign for me is on the horizon. It is a premade campaign called The Crooked Moon which is a folklore horror setting built around every type o

f folklore, horror-esque, stereotype that you can dream up.

I am v excited (to put it lightly) as I have been patiently waiting for my last campaign to wrap up so I can take over as DM again. I'm so excited in fact, that I decided I would take you all behind my DM screen to see what I have planned and what I hope to see from my players.

Be warned: this will likely include heavy spoilers for the campaign if any of you are playing along.

Where to start?

Some of you should have seen some of my prep regarding getting a session started in a previous post but how do I actually apply that to my players?

Give them a Lore Sheet

This is a sheet that should include as much information that you want your players to interact with as possible. It's up to you if you want to give them some insight on future events in the campaign or not. Personally, I like to keep a lot of that stuff close to the chest, at least for the first session or two till we figure out how the characters will interact within the world.

For Crooked Moon, it comes with a players guide and video that I'm easily able to share with my players for them to look through on their free time. I then also sent them a blurb on the premise of the campaign with some extra hot items for them to keep in mind:

Somewhere, lost in the shrouded realms of death, lies a land of endless night where long-forgotten horrors are revealed to those who travel through the mist.
There, in a crooked house lives a Crooked Man with a crooked grin.  He raises crooked arms to a Crooked Tree at the edge of midnight and hears the whispers of the Old Ones.
They speak of a beast that stalks the darkest woods and darkest hearts, a crown of horns upon its head.  If you lose your way and feel a warm breath that chills you to the bones, run.
Follow the sons of harvest time, and before long, you'll find revelry in the dancing shadows of blazing wicker.  No matter your story, these lonesome, misty rails will deliver you to where the hallowed cannot save you.
Now is the time to brave the dark wood, beware the witching hour, and weave your own dreadful folktale underneath the Crooked Moon.

Additional details:
- This will take your all's characters from level 1 to level 20.
- You will begin by each of you being picked up by a Ghost Train that appears out of the mist to take you to the land of Druskenvald.
- Majority of this will take place in a province called "Wickermoor Hollow" but I intend to expand out to the other provinces if you all choose to.
- I would recommend you all take advantage of all of the species, subclasses, backgrounds, feats + dark bargains within the guide to build out your character if you're feeling something particular that you can't find, just let me know.
- This is a very detective / investigation-heavy type of campaign where looking around and questioning people may take you farther than killing them dead.
- Of course...killing things deader is also a big part of this, especially at higher levels.

This lore sheet let's them know this is a horror campaign, that they need to lock in for high-level play, where they will be starting in the campaign, and how I'd recommend they set up as a group to take as much advantage of the campaign as they can.

What comes next?

Well, I have played with this particular party for (2) full campaigns now. We've been going for almost (3) years together and started with Curse of Strahd. Fortunately, that means that we know how we all play and what we've played as characters before, especially in regards to horror. That makes setting up a lot easier and the need for a formal Session 0 less necessary.

Session 0's are not optional for those of your starting with a new group.

But, one of the big things my players are not good at...is waiting for a Session 0 to start planning their characters. Which is fine with me. I want them to be thinking about it because it helps me get ready for introductions and the first real session. So, over the last few weeks and leading up to the first session, I have been getting peppered with "Hey, I think I want to play this," "I think I want to look into this mystery," and "I think I like this idea" via our discord server or email. Perfect for me.

Most of these conversations are lots of spit-balling back and forth where I'm primarily trying to understand how much interest they have in idea that they're thinking on. I personally enjoy character involvement within campaigns. Really threading the needle as best as I can no matter how long or short the campaign is. Some of you, may just want to focus on the campaign and your players may be okay with that. Mine aren't...and I'm not.

It's Time for Session 0.5

This is how I refer to our "session 0" to assure players that we aren't immediately starting the campaign as soon as the clock hits 7:15PM. Instead, this is where I set aside at least an hour for us to hit some mayor points to the start of the campaign:

1. Reiterating the campaign plot. Mostly used as a way to help remind what's going to be going on in this campaign at a very high-level.

2. Establishing the setting. I have not revealed much to my characters regarding specific setting points, so now is the time. It could be considered meta to cue them into rumors or locations of things, but I instead like to use this as a way for them to see if there are things unrelated to the campaign that they'd really like to dive into. Does the "Maze of Dreamers" sound like something you want to explore? Great because now I know I need to set aside time to build this.

3. Putting forth campaign expectations, themes, and triggers. This is important no matter if you're playing with a new group or a well-versed group. People's understandings of things are different (it's why ttrpgs can be so much fun). Also, people's triggers to things change and especially in a horror campaign it is important to keep those themes at the forefront.

4. Layout any game-specific rules. Give players a cheat sheet if you're using homebrew rules or rules specific to a campaign module. Crooked Moon uses a lot of exhaustion conditions so I'm providing my players with a tracker just to help them.

5. Walk through character building with them. As mentioned above, my players primarily are using this time just to show off the cool characters they have. I do also use this for people to roll their ability scores, ask questions, and modify character concepts if they have different ideas after hearing about the other characters. This is also the time I insist on setting for their existing relationships to characters or setting up expectations of "if your character is like this, then my character will act like this around them."

6. Bring up any other miscellaneous items. This is for the last of the questions or campaign specific notes I might not have gone over before. In the Crooked Moon's case I'll mention things about interesting new items they can find in the case players want to try and "find" things for their characters throughout the campaign.

Let us Finally Begin!

Within the same session, we will start with the character introductions. In the background, leading up to this, I have been plotting together the introductions for all of the characters so that once that hour is complete or when the players are ready...we can finally begin!

What Kind of Players I Have

I feel like I need to talk about this a little bit just so people understand why I work through things a particular way. Let me try to summarize things as best I can.

My Wife: She is a big fan of creating the "hero" of the story. She loves it, which makes complete sense. In general, she likes getting the spotlight, though frequently runs into the problem of not having the right opportunity for it. In this campaign, she wants to lean more on the villain-side so I'm planning to make room for clear spotlights so she can live her villainous spotlight dreams.

The Veteran: This is our other DM who's wrapping up our current campaign. He plays typically as the support character but also likes to lean on mechanics that could break the game. I'm here for it and we've already created some homebrew rules just for his character that I'm excited to twist and turn.

The Roleplayer: This player joined us with the "warning" that he primarily played Vampire of the Masquerade but it has only added to our table. He is the thinker, the conspiracy theorist, and the one that keeps me the most on my toes. But, I intend to do the same to him on this one...may the best chaos-bringer win!

The Good Guy: This is our puzzle solver at the table and the one that's generally the most sensible when it comes to making decisions (such as sneaking rather than running in). That being said, he loves Halloween and has warned me he plans to go full horror in this campaign. I intend to provide.

Miss Complicated: This is our over-complicator but also our most improved. She used to never roleplay, just talk above table as a "my character will do this" but she has greatly improved since. She also is pretty bad a building strategic characters (not that that matters) and will typically multiclass rather than pick the class she originally wanted. I'm mostly planning on just keeping my foot down with her sticking to one class and that should keep things smooth sailing.

What happens now?

Now we just wait. But, the extra time allows me to prepare print outs and music playlists and doodle out any random ideas I might have.

The hardest part of waiting is that when you haven't started a campaign you can't truly prepare beyond a certain point. Too much preparation leaves room for your hard work to be thrown in the trash when you players make a left instead of a right.

Either way, I'm very excited. What about you all? Are you starting any new campaigns? What sorts of things do you like do you at your session 0.5? What homebrew rules do you have for your tables? As a player, what do you wish happened during your session 0.5?

Looking forward to your sentiments.

See you next session.

Julia