Campaign Kickoff
My group is starting a new Iskandar campaign, so last week we had a campaign kickoff meeting - known by some as Session 0. These have gotten a bad rap in some circles, but the angst is unwarranted. The purpose of the meeting is to make sure everyone is on the same page before committing to the game. The sort of issues raised in the meeting are going to get addressed one way or another, so you may as well address them early on. Here are the specific questions I discussed with my players:
What tone do you want the game to have? (epic fantasy, dark fantasy, whimsical, etc)
Are there any topics or themes that should be avoided?
What is the desired mix of combat, social, and exploration?
What level should we go to?
How lethal should the campaign be?
How open is the campaign to player-driven narrative?
How will leveling be handled?
How will absences be handled?
What house rules do you want to apply?
It took about an hour to work through the questions and by the end we were pretty well aligned. There were some surprises. For example, the players told me that they wanted leveling up to feel a bit more significant, rather than just something that happens invisibly. We discussed a few options, and finally agreed that players would record the leveling process offline in journals. So the monk might mention some sessions spent training with her master, while the cleric might record spending time at a holy site in prayer and meditation.
The players had already created their characters and written up backstories before the session 0. The party consists of:
Camellia "Cammie" Sweetberry, a vila monk
Jarrah Wattlewind, a rohata druid
Tiril the Benevolent, a jotunkin cleric
Two-Fry, a human fighter
Whip, a fiendspawn monk
There are some fun backstories. For example, Cammie fled a bad relationship in the Summer Court and now works as a messenger for the Merchant Adventurers Guild, racing around Iskandar on her pet cat. Two-Fry is a tomb raider by profession and wields a magitech pistol he found somewhere. And so on. We spent the last half of the session creating relationship links between the characters, enough to ensure everyone was connected to everyone else within a few steps.
It was a fun session and I'm hyped for the game!