Hello fellow DMs! I was just curious about the depth and scope of the opening campaign (or player) handouts that you give to the players.
What kind of information do you include? How much detail do you go in to? How many pages? Is is strictly in-character? Or does it have some out of character information as well? Do you even USE one? Basically, what is vital to get the players ready to play in your world; be they homebrew or published?
Just wanted to see how other DMs handle this. Always fun talking shop.
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It's more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules
I definitely use one. It details all the homebrew racial and class options (or at minimum all those being used in the campaign), a quick world primer regarding the things their character would know about, and the largest chunk of it is all the homebrew rules and systems being used, and an errata of the PHB with everything that's different from listed. The actual total page count has never been the same from one campaign to the other. The last one I did clocked in at 6 pages. It could have been less, but formatting and such matters, you want it to be pretty and legible. (1 pg racial options, 1 pg world primer, 3 pgs homebrew systems and customization options, 1 pg errata)
6 pages is pretty good. I know that I'm always trying to be careful about putting too much. As a DM I want to fill in all the players about ALL the backstory and world history that I have. I do have to restrain myself and make sure that I focus on just the important stuff from that start, like you mentioned. I've gotten better at doing that over the years and letting the players drive more of what kind/type of world history they want to know or have revealed. But I also definitely include the racial options, house roles and a little primer just to give a wee-bit of world knowledge so the players are not going in completely blind.
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It's more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules
For my current campaign I've only printed out two things to my players so far: A map, and a calendar. These are two of the most important things for a homebrew campaign, I think.
Map: It can be as elaborate you want, cover a city or local community, a nation or empire, a collection of nations, or a whole continent, for that matter. It has been written a lot of materials on starting small, or starting top-down that I won't detail here. The important thing for me is names of the areas and cities, as well as landscape and distance. And no matter how detailed or simple your map is, the landscape and names themselves set a certain tone. The players each have their own copy (originally just my horrible sketch, but one of my players made a pretty good digital version I might upload somewhere at some point). The players also have a large laminated version of the map for when they want to draw and plan.
Calendar: Tracking time is once more popular, or so I've heard. It is usually okay to track days and seasons, or convert our own calendar, but if you have the time, I personally enjoy creating a calendar - hard as it may be. The game-technical part of tracking days and travel times is one thing, but the other, more important thing is that a calendar represents the culture. What are the months significance? What are their names? What does the weekday names represent? When are the solstices, and do you track the moon(s)? What holidays are important in your setting? These things can tell you and your players a lot about your setting. Commemoration days, days of the faiths, etc. Which faiths that have left their marks, as well as what earthly (material plainy?) events are celebrated or remembered really says a lot about the culture of your world. The players have been given a calendar for our current year, and an explanation of the months, days, and holidays.
So, total printout count? Map is 1 page, calendar is 12 pages (for notes if they want, 1 for each month), The holidays 8 pages (due to bad formatting on my part, they would fit on 1), and a month and weekday explanation. That's a 22 page folder for each player, but given the content of those pages, there is not more than a page or two worth of text.
The campaign world info is so far presented to the players in tidbits in our group's Facebook group, but I have an unsorted Google doc I eventually might organize and print out excerpts from to them. Ideally I would've had a page or two of history at the ready (and through my online posts to the players, I guess I have), but as long as the dialogue with each player about how their character is tied to the world will suffice, I'm happy. As such, a lot of info has been delivered during character creation, and a lot is delivered via plot or as needed.
In a homebrew setting, part of the game is discovery. That way, when the characters get to a new place, I can tell them the common knowledge of the area, and ask for rolls or give extra information based on class, background and race, and have the players write down and categorize the area notes themselves without me handing every little detail to them. It also allows me to only flesh out the areas that become relevant (as I imagine a lot of DMs do...), only having bullet points of unvisited places.
If I were to write out a sort of gazetteer in addition to my campaign tools (as I would preferably refer to the map and calendar as), I would ideally keep it to maximum 2 pages of general information, and maybe one or two extra pages that would prove itself of importance to either the group or individual characters depending on backgrounds etc. My current playgroup is quite diverse, and not everybody would read more than a handful of pages, if that (which to begin with was why I dispersed information out during planning). Knowing this, my final introduction to the world in our first session was a point and tell on the map, and basically a Q&A before setting the intro scene.
My session 1 hand-out is all procedural. I explain how I run my game. I do make sure to remake it each time so I'm including anything I've changed.
The basics come down to this; I use DnDBeyond, make an account. All I really need from you is intent and procedure. What are you trying to accomplish and by what means? No, I don't give bonuses because you were in Drama in college, your In Character dialogue is one method of telling my how you're doing what you're doing. You will get bonuses to XP for the effort, not the quality, I don't penalize non-thesbians. I award XP at the end of sessions in which you complete what I define as an "adventure," which can vary. Advancement is slow, magic equipment is rare. etc.etc.
Then of course is the list of available races/classes etc.. I have a homebrew campaign that doesn't have warlock PCs (yet), it has 5th century technology levels (so no plate mail), it has somewhat stunted magic. I do make these things clear, but I try to be overall vague in world explanation because I'd rather that come through in the narrative.
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"The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible." - Mark Twain
I'm not giving my players a bunch of pages at the start of the campaign. During the first get together I briefly explain what I expect, what kind of game is run. We talk things through and after an hour we got it all sorted. If they want to write stuff down to remember better then its up to them.
As for handouts while playing. It depends. While roleplaying I've handed them an map of the area that is old and might be outdated. So they got a starting point, but its not an up to date version of the region. Its not like small villages have tons of maps laying around. Let alone any that are present day. Want one of those go to the capital and try your luck there.
Next to that a few small in character notes here and there, but most of it are just visuals projected on the wall. I'm not going to put time into obtaining/crafting a small wooden box that contains vials or scrolls or such. Don't have the time for that. Plus all that junk takes of storage space in my house.
I would say never hand out more than 1 page (if its a wall off text).
Tell them what they really need to know from the start, the rest can come later when needed. If they ask for more specifics then you can give them more.
A double-sided reference sheet with general information about the campaign setting.
A single page or less on house rules.
A map of the campaign world or starting region.
Anything more than that, and I find players may not read/use them, as there's just too much text to parse. That said, I'll usually have more detailed versions of all these things and more posted online in whatever place we're using as a group hub.
I do like the idea of the calendar though. Thanks JoJ88.
I always start my players with a small amount of info (and it isn't even written down). I tell them their links to the starting town and why they are traveling there, and I tell them about some of the gods (my worlds tend to have a max of ten gods), and I will work out before hand what each player knows about their own homeland or region. Later on you might find that there is info that you forgot to tell them regarding a certain ruin or something, if that happens tell it to them up front, or have them roll for History and tell them if they succeed.
Upon entering certain places I will tell them things that their character already knows (this correlates with their mental scores);
- A high Charisma character knows about the local people's attitudes.
- A high Intelligence character knows about local history.
- A high Wisdom character knows about local customs, or religion.
I have my own game setting (not Forgotten Realms/Eberron/etc.), so my starter package is a little heftier than most.
Introduction. The relevant background information for the campaign. Sets the stage for the area/world they'll be present in.
Local Area / Race Breakdown. Includes ALL of the viable races (everything officially published by D&D, along with 3 homebrew options unique to my world), particularly the local area humans, with a 3 sentence crash course on anything different on them in my world VS D&D world. Also includes a brief description of the local area they'll be starting in.
Limitations. Any campaign-specific limitations. For example I have a magic-only campaign, so no non-magical classes are allowed, as the characters are some of the first people to get magic and are being treated like they have thieved from the Gods, so they have to conceal it.
House Rules. Any specific house rules I have, or special house rules that apply to that campaign. For the same one mentioned above, survival is important, as they can easily be shunned. So we are tracking inventory (arrows/rations) and encumbrance using DDB's interface. There's never more than 5 houserules.
"Jump Off" points. Any interesting bits of lore that might be useful in building a character. Thieves' guilds, Paladin orders -- well known organizations.
Table of deities.
Map of the region.
Then during the game I also provide them with...
Calendar: A calendar which updates as time passes in game.
Tumblr Diary: A private Tumblr page where session events are entered so they can search by tag to supplement their own notes. For example, looking up the tag for the NPC named "Mist" bringing up what has happened with that NPC so far.
If I give them letters or written material in game I try to also provide them a real physical letter, since that's just plain fun.
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Hello fellow DMs! I was just curious about the depth and scope of the opening campaign (or player) handouts that you give to the players.
What kind of information do you include? How much detail do you go in to? How many pages? Is is strictly in-character? Or does it have some out of character information as well? Do you even USE one? Basically, what is vital to get the players ready to play in your world; be they homebrew or published?
Just wanted to see how other DMs handle this. Always fun talking shop.
It's more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules
Follow my Campaign!
Ardanian Calendar
I definitely use one. It details all the homebrew racial and class options (or at minimum all those being used in the campaign), a quick world primer regarding the things their character would know about, and the largest chunk of it is all the homebrew rules and systems being used, and an errata of the PHB with everything that's different from listed. The actual total page count has never been the same from one campaign to the other. The last one I did clocked in at 6 pages. It could have been less, but formatting and such matters, you want it to be pretty and legible. (1 pg racial options, 1 pg world primer, 3 pgs homebrew systems and customization options, 1 pg errata)
6 pages is pretty good. I know that I'm always trying to be careful about putting too much. As a DM I want to fill in all the players about ALL the backstory and world history that I have. I do have to restrain myself and make sure that I focus on just the important stuff from that start, like you mentioned. I've gotten better at doing that over the years and letting the players drive more of what kind/type of world history they want to know or have revealed. But I also definitely include the racial options, house roles and a little primer just to give a wee-bit of world knowledge so the players are not going in completely blind.
It's more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules
Follow my Campaign!
Ardanian Calendar
I try to do 1 page maximum or a powerpoint/video. Actually looking for an Eberron intro like this if anyone has one ... :)
For my current campaign I've only printed out two things to my players so far: A map, and a calendar. These are two of the most important things for a homebrew campaign, I think.
Map: It can be as elaborate you want, cover a city or local community, a nation or empire, a collection of nations, or a whole continent, for that matter. It has been written a lot of materials on starting small, or starting top-down that I won't detail here. The important thing for me is names of the areas and cities, as well as landscape and distance. And no matter how detailed or simple your map is, the landscape and names themselves set a certain tone. The players each have their own copy (originally just my horrible sketch, but one of my players made a pretty good digital version I might upload somewhere at some point). The players also have a large laminated version of the map for when they want to draw and plan.
Calendar: Tracking time is once more popular, or so I've heard. It is usually okay to track days and seasons, or convert our own calendar, but if you have the time, I personally enjoy creating a calendar - hard as it may be. The game-technical part of tracking days and travel times is one thing, but the other, more important thing is that a calendar represents the culture. What are the months significance? What are their names? What does the weekday names represent? When are the solstices, and do you track the moon(s)? What holidays are important in your setting? These things can tell you and your players a lot about your setting. Commemoration days, days of the faiths, etc. Which faiths that have left their marks, as well as what earthly (material plainy?) events are celebrated or remembered really says a lot about the culture of your world. The players have been given a calendar for our current year, and an explanation of the months, days, and holidays.
So, total printout count? Map is 1 page, calendar is 12 pages (for notes if they want, 1 for each month), The holidays 8 pages (due to bad formatting on my part, they would fit on 1), and a month and weekday explanation. That's a 22 page folder for each player, but given the content of those pages, there is not more than a page or two worth of text.
The campaign world info is so far presented to the players in tidbits in our group's Facebook group, but I have an unsorted Google doc I eventually might organize and print out excerpts from to them. Ideally I would've had a page or two of history at the ready (and through my online posts to the players, I guess I have), but as long as the dialogue with each player about how their character is tied to the world will suffice, I'm happy. As such, a lot of info has been delivered during character creation, and a lot is delivered via plot or as needed.
In a homebrew setting, part of the game is discovery. That way, when the characters get to a new place, I can tell them the common knowledge of the area, and ask for rolls or give extra information based on class, background and race, and have the players write down and categorize the area notes themselves without me handing every little detail to them. It also allows me to only flesh out the areas that become relevant (as I imagine a lot of DMs do...), only having bullet points of unvisited places.
If I were to write out a sort of gazetteer in addition to my campaign tools (as I would preferably refer to the map and calendar as), I would ideally keep it to maximum 2 pages of general information, and maybe one or two extra pages that would prove itself of importance to either the group or individual characters depending on backgrounds etc. My current playgroup is quite diverse, and not everybody would read more than a handful of pages, if that (which to begin with was why I dispersed information out during planning). Knowing this, my final introduction to the world in our first session was a point and tell on the map, and basically a Q&A before setting the intro scene.
My session 1 hand-out is all procedural. I explain how I run my game. I do make sure to remake it each time so I'm including anything I've changed.
The basics come down to this; I use DnDBeyond, make an account. All I really need from you is intent and procedure. What are you trying to accomplish and by what means? No, I don't give bonuses because you were in Drama in college, your In Character dialogue is one method of telling my how you're doing what you're doing. You will get bonuses to XP for the effort, not the quality, I don't penalize non-thesbians. I award XP at the end of sessions in which you complete what I define as an "adventure," which can vary. Advancement is slow, magic equipment is rare. etc.etc.
Then of course is the list of available races/classes etc.. I have a homebrew campaign that doesn't have warlock PCs (yet), it has 5th century technology levels (so no plate mail), it has somewhat stunted magic. I do make these things clear, but I try to be overall vague in world explanation because I'd rather that come through in the narrative.
"The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible."
- Mark Twain
I'm not giving my players a bunch of pages at the start of the campaign. During the first get together I briefly explain what I expect, what kind of game is run. We talk things through and after an hour we got it all sorted. If they want to write stuff down to remember better then its up to them.
As for handouts while playing. It depends. While roleplaying I've handed them an map of the area that is old and might be outdated. So they got a starting point, but its not an up to date version of the region. Its not like small villages have tons of maps laying around. Let alone any that are present day. Want one of those go to the capital and try your luck there.
Next to that a few small in character notes here and there, but most of it are just visuals projected on the wall. I'm not going to put time into obtaining/crafting a small wooden box that contains vials or scrolls or such. Don't have the time for that. Plus all that junk takes of storage space in my house.
I would say never hand out more than 1 page (if its a wall off text).
Tell them what they really need to know from the start, the rest can come later when needed. If they ask for more specifics then you can give them more.
I usually limit myself to the following.
Anything more than that, and I find players may not read/use them, as there's just too much text to parse. That said, I'll usually have more detailed versions of all these things and more posted online in whatever place we're using as a group hub.
I do like the idea of the calendar though. Thanks JoJ88.
I always start my players with a small amount of info (and it isn't even written down). I tell them their links to the starting town and why they are traveling there, and I tell them about some of the gods (my worlds tend to have a max of ten gods), and I will work out before hand what each player knows about their own homeland or region. Later on you might find that there is info that you forgot to tell them regarding a certain ruin or something, if that happens tell it to them up front, or have them roll for History and tell them if they succeed.
Upon entering certain places I will tell them things that their character already knows (this correlates with their mental scores);
- A high Charisma character knows about the local people's attitudes.
- A high Intelligence character knows about local history.
- A high Wisdom character knows about local customs, or religion.
I have my own game setting (not Forgotten Realms/Eberron/etc.), so my starter package is a little heftier than most.
Then during the game I also provide them with...
Calendar: A calendar which updates as time passes in game.
Tumblr Diary: A private Tumblr page where session events are entered so they can search by tag to supplement their own notes. For example, looking up the tag for the NPC named "Mist" bringing up what has happened with that NPC so far.
If I give them letters or written material in game I try to also provide them a real physical letter, since that's just plain fun.