TL;DR I made this as an intro to a low combat, high RP Murder Mystery Session 0 of my own creation populated by Robots that could be adapted to fit other settings easily. The actual character creation meant to be a Rick and Morty character creation bit of my own design, to go with this I included both the method and the actual RP I used in separate sections in case people want to use it but don't want to use it as Rick, Morty and Summer.
Overview
Running both the character creation and the session I prepped to completion took me about 4 and a half hours. I tried to be as clear as possible in this post so its going to be a little long, I was going to put the session and character creation both into the thread but its waaaay too long that way, I can add the session itself later if anyone is interested but to manage thread size I've formatted this to just, why I chose a low combat, highly social style game, where the Idea came from, The actual method that I used, and the RP I did with the PC's to help kick off the session 0.
On top of adding the session I ran, if people are interested I also made a series of tables to generate random sessions since this is planned to be a plane hopping game, the idea is that each player at the table will roll a die and they will each give me some part of the theme of the next session (High Fantasy, Low Fantasy, Eldritch setting, 50's Setting, the people who populate it etc etc etc) and together we all generate a random plane that PC's go to, I can add these tables too if anyone wants to see them
Why highly social, low combat?
I chose to use a low combat, high RP session following the character creation to help me get my PC's out of their own, over the table mindsets that I find can sometimes take center stage in a session 0 and into their characters heads and RPing more fully.
Where did the idea come from?
With the recent release of the Rick and Morty book my group was pretty excited for a Rick and Morty game to kick off, hoping for some whacky magic items and creatures to come we set the date for a brand new game and session 0 where we used an older method of character creation to really mix things up for Rick and Morty style fun. Unfortunately the book wasn't what we expected but the game went ahead so here's what I worked up as a way to bring RP to character creation that can be run through for anyone who wants to use it.
Character Creation Method
The idea for this originally came from an article I read about how games used to be played by some groups in older editions.
Firstly, players don't show up with a class in mind, this is purely to manage expectations.
Secondly, they don't do anything for character before being specifically prompted to by the DM(I had them show up with a HUMAN NAME in mind and no other character stuff. The human name had to be something simple like John Smith as we were starting in the Rick and Morty world they live in at the end of Season 3).
Third, the Character creation process goes Roll Stats (for this I used a 2d6 + 6 method so highest possible was 18 and lowest possible was 8, why will be clear later), pick Class, pick Race, pick Background and then pick a Feat (feat was just to reward them for going along with such a 'set in stone' character creation, again you'll get why later).
Fourth and finally, stat rolls are final (no 'I only got a 14 for my highest, can I just point buy?') and in this order Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis then Cha, they are rolled and locked in which is why class is picked after and players shouldn't show up with a class in mind.
RPing the Character Creation for Rick and Morty style adventures *some Rick and Morty Spoilers from Season 1,2 or 3 ahead*
So, with such a different way of creating characters for the group (we usually set up characters any way we want, nothing we don't have on beyond is out of the question, and stat generation is open to however the player wants, the DM usually dictates the rolling method used but whether they roll or point buy or go standard array is up to the player) I decided to RP through it, so I had my PC's to be show up with just a human name in mind and the knowledge that they were starting in the Rick and Morty universe circa the end of season 3.
I opened the session by describing a school gymnasium type area with happy copyright free mickey mouse and Bugs bunny drawings on the beige walls, basketball hoops at either end and a waxed wooden floor that stank of sweat. There was also slightly stale donuts and burnt coffee in the corner for them to partake in. They are then greeted by Neil, a tall-ish human male wearing a slightly faded yellow polo shirt, jeans that are about to go past their expiration date and too-worn shoes that were probably very good 5 years ago who says something along these lines to them: "Hi guys, I'm Neil, I'm the one who set up these group sessions for us when I found I wasn't alone in what I went through. So, since its our first session why don't I start. I was having a rough day at the office about a year ago and was very stressed and very frustrated. I was on my way home and just as I rounded the corner to the bus stop I saw my bus that I get everyday pulling away and it didn't stop when I tried to flag it down. 20 minutes before the next one and I was hungry, so I went and bought a hot-dog at the vendor nearby who overcharged me and I just lost it. I started raving at him like a madman, calling him every name under the sun when out of nowhere this really muscled old guy and a jacked teenage girl appeared and beat me up then spit on me and leave. I went to the internet to vent about it and I found a few accounts similar to mine of, not bad people having momentary lapses in judgement. You are the ones I found local to me so I set up this group to see if we could help each other"
I then gestured the nearest player to me and asked him to tell me his story of how he got beaten up by jacked Rick and Summer at the end of that one episode of the show. We went around the whole table giving every PC a chance when (right as the last PC finished up) a green shimmering portal opened up and out stepped Rick dressed as depicted on the cover of the R+M book. He tells them he needs them to take on an adventure to "Save the multiverse or whatever" (burps thrown in every once in a while) and opens a portal telling them to step through to "meet your destiny or something". If any PC's (rightly so) show misgivings or seem hesitant to step into it then Neil makes a display of telling Rick off and gets promptly sent to the Blender dimension, this should provide PC's with the inspiration to step through. Remember the order in which they step through
This parts a bit tricky as it can feel like a lot of balls in the air. Turn to the first player and tell them they find themselves in a very dingy concrete walled tunnel, sort of like one built into a garage basement, and they are standing on a conveyor belt like they'd expect to see on an assembly line. Directly in front of them at face value is a screen displaying their stats, this is the prompt for that player to roll stats. Once they've rolled they are moved on, you can describe the conveyor belt moving slowly and squeakily in short bursts of motion. They are moved to the second screen Class Selection and the second player is now prompted to roll stats while the first picks a class, once both players are ready to move on the first player moves to another screen Race Selection, the second player is on class selection and the third is prompted to roll stats. Continue in this manner until all players are moved through the entire character creation process adding flavor as you see fit (I had them wheeled through a wardrobe for starting equipment for example).
Once at the end they go through a long transition into the final room of the character creation process where Summer has been using a hand crank to move the conveyor belt the whole time, she is thusly exhausted. Morty dressed as he is on the R+M book cover is also there, he greets the characters playing into the bit that they are going to go on a grand adventure across the multiverse and save countless lives and see countless sights beyond imagining. In his speech he is interrupted by Summer who lets PC's know that Morty traded in his 1/10 adventures stamp card to force Rick and Summer to apologize to the people they assaulted.
The character creation finishes up with Morty asking them "a really important question. What do you intend to contribute to your fellow adventurers?" This is actually to kind of put PC's on their toes, I didn't expect mine to answer, some gave vague answers, one or two gave a little more detail and 1 didn't answer at all. Whatever they do is fine, if they hesitate they are cut off by Wizard Rick showing back up having lost much of his dedication to the bit and letting slip that this was all his way of jazzing up apologizing, before giving them a magic item for the group. A platform that functions kind of like his portal gun that all the PC's are prompted to stand on to "start adventuring".
Since I was continuing on to the session I had my PC's next blinded by a flash of green light, hear a metal tearing sound and then fall unconscious the last thing they heard was a woman screaming and a man yelling orders to "get them inside"
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TL;DR I made this as an intro to a low combat, high RP Murder Mystery Session 0 of my own creation populated by Robots that could be adapted to fit other settings easily. The actual character creation meant to be a Rick and Morty character creation bit of my own design, to go with this I included both the method and the actual RP I used in separate sections in case people want to use it but don't want to use it as Rick, Morty and Summer.
Overview
Running both the character creation and the session I prepped to completion took me about 4 and a half hours. I tried to be as clear as possible in this post so its going to be a little long, I was going to put the session and character creation both into the thread but its waaaay too long that way, I can add the session itself later if anyone is interested but to manage thread size I've formatted this to just, why I chose a low combat, highly social style game, where the Idea came from, The actual method that I used, and the RP I did with the PC's to help kick off the session 0.
On top of adding the session I ran, if people are interested I also made a series of tables to generate random sessions since this is planned to be a plane hopping game, the idea is that each player at the table will roll a die and they will each give me some part of the theme of the next session (High Fantasy, Low Fantasy, Eldritch setting, 50's Setting, the people who populate it etc etc etc) and together we all generate a random plane that PC's go to, I can add these tables too if anyone wants to see them
Why highly social, low combat?
I chose to use a low combat, high RP session following the character creation to help me get my PC's out of their own, over the table mindsets that I find can sometimes take center stage in a session 0 and into their characters heads and RPing more fully.
Where did the idea come from?
With the recent release of the Rick and Morty book my group was pretty excited for a Rick and Morty game to kick off, hoping for some whacky magic items and creatures to come we set the date for a brand new game and session 0 where we used an older method of character creation to really mix things up for Rick and Morty style fun. Unfortunately the book wasn't what we expected but the game went ahead so here's what I worked up as a way to bring RP to character creation that can be run through for anyone who wants to use it.
Character Creation Method
The idea for this originally came from an article I read about how games used to be played by some groups in older editions.
Firstly, players don't show up with a class in mind, this is purely to manage expectations.
Secondly, they don't do anything for character before being specifically prompted to by the DM(I had them show up with a HUMAN NAME in mind and no other character stuff. The human name had to be something simple like John Smith as we were starting in the Rick and Morty world they live in at the end of Season 3).
Third, the Character creation process goes Roll Stats (for this I used a 2d6 + 6 method so highest possible was 18 and lowest possible was 8, why will be clear later), pick Class, pick Race, pick Background and then pick a Feat (feat was just to reward them for going along with such a 'set in stone' character creation, again you'll get why later).
Fourth and finally, stat rolls are final (no 'I only got a 14 for my highest, can I just point buy?') and in this order Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis then Cha, they are rolled and locked in which is why class is picked after and players shouldn't show up with a class in mind.
RPing the Character Creation for Rick and Morty style adventures *some Rick and Morty Spoilers from Season 1,2 or 3 ahead*
So, with such a different way of creating characters for the group (we usually set up characters any way we want, nothing we don't have on beyond is out of the question, and stat generation is open to however the player wants, the DM usually dictates the rolling method used but whether they roll or point buy or go standard array is up to the player) I decided to RP through it, so I had my PC's to be show up with just a human name in mind and the knowledge that they were starting in the Rick and Morty universe circa the end of season 3.
I opened the session by describing a school gymnasium type area with happy copyright free mickey mouse and Bugs bunny drawings on the beige walls, basketball hoops at either end and a waxed wooden floor that stank of sweat. There was also slightly stale donuts and burnt coffee in the corner for them to partake in. They are then greeted by Neil, a tall-ish human male wearing a slightly faded yellow polo shirt, jeans that are about to go past their expiration date and too-worn shoes that were probably very good 5 years ago who says something along these lines to them:
"Hi guys, I'm Neil, I'm the one who set up these group sessions for us when I found I wasn't alone in what I went through. So, since its our first session why don't I start. I was having a rough day at the office about a year ago and was very stressed and very frustrated. I was on my way home and just as I rounded the corner to the bus stop I saw my bus that I get everyday pulling away and it didn't stop when I tried to flag it down. 20 minutes before the next one and I was hungry, so I went and bought a hot-dog at the vendor nearby who overcharged me and I just lost it. I started raving at him like a madman, calling him every name under the sun when out of nowhere this really muscled old guy and a jacked teenage girl appeared and beat me up then spit on me and leave. I went to the internet to vent about it and I found a few accounts similar to mine of, not bad people having momentary lapses in judgement. You are the ones I found local to me so I set up this group to see if we could help each other"
I then gestured the nearest player to me and asked him to tell me his story of how he got beaten up by jacked Rick and Summer at the end of that one episode of the show. We went around the whole table giving every PC a chance when (right as the last PC finished up) a green shimmering portal opened up and out stepped Rick dressed as depicted on the cover of the R+M book. He tells them he needs them to take on an adventure to "Save the multiverse or whatever" (burps thrown in every once in a while) and opens a portal telling them to step through to "meet your destiny or something". If any PC's (rightly so) show misgivings or seem hesitant to step into it then Neil makes a display of telling Rick off and gets promptly sent to the Blender dimension, this should provide PC's with the inspiration to step through. Remember the order in which they step through
This parts a bit tricky as it can feel like a lot of balls in the air. Turn to the first player and tell them they find themselves in a very dingy concrete walled tunnel, sort of like one built into a garage basement, and they are standing on a conveyor belt like they'd expect to see on an assembly line. Directly in front of them at face value is a screen displaying their stats, this is the prompt for that player to roll stats. Once they've rolled they are moved on, you can describe the conveyor belt moving slowly and squeakily in short bursts of motion. They are moved to the second screen Class Selection and the second player is now prompted to roll stats while the first picks a class, once both players are ready to move on the first player moves to another screen Race Selection, the second player is on class selection and the third is prompted to roll stats. Continue in this manner until all players are moved through the entire character creation process adding flavor as you see fit (I had them wheeled through a wardrobe for starting equipment for example).
Once at the end they go through a long transition into the final room of the character creation process where Summer has been using a hand crank to move the conveyor belt the whole time, she is thusly exhausted. Morty dressed as he is on the R+M book cover is also there, he greets the characters playing into the bit that they are going to go on a grand adventure across the multiverse and save countless lives and see countless sights beyond imagining. In his speech he is interrupted by Summer who lets PC's know that Morty traded in his 1/10 adventures stamp card to force Rick and Summer to apologize to the people they assaulted.
The character creation finishes up with Morty asking them "a really important question. What do you intend to contribute to your fellow adventurers?" This is actually to kind of put PC's on their toes, I didn't expect mine to answer, some gave vague answers, one or two gave a little more detail and 1 didn't answer at all. Whatever they do is fine, if they hesitate they are cut off by Wizard Rick showing back up having lost much of his dedication to the bit and letting slip that this was all his way of jazzing up apologizing, before giving them a magic item for the group. A platform that functions kind of like his portal gun that all the PC's are prompted to stand on to "start adventuring".
Since I was continuing on to the session I had my PC's next blinded by a flash of green light, hear a metal tearing sound and then fall unconscious the last thing they heard was a woman screaming and a man yelling orders to "get them inside"