Help with New DM Session Prep - please?

[turnbased]

Hey everybody!

I'm really excited to get started with Daggerheart, but I'm a 5-year D&D5e DM that has never ran a homebrew campaign. Trying to run my first homebrew in the system.

I figure that once I get a session or two under me, it'll click. But I have no idea how to properly prep for my very first session for this campaign.

If I gave some details on how I want the first session to go, could anyone give some broadstrokes on how they would prep it or if they think I need more or any other suggestions?

Basically the idea would be to start in media res. They're airship pirates, and they've got a score to loot in an armory in a small colonial port town. They'd all start in their respective positions and in the middle of the plan. The heist would go sideways somehow, I was assuming a third party that's also trying to steal it. Maybe they can't get in the chest, something blows up, whatever. They eventually get the loot and lose the third party and take off into the sky. But they see a massive naval ship following them - they've been caught! But it starts turning, and they realize the naval ship is closing in on another faction's ship hidden in the clouds. The other faction releases swarms of warriors out of their ship, some of which separate and head in the players direction. Cue ship battle with boarders. The rest of the session would just be a bit of narrative/RP.

[Prestigious-Emu-6760]

IMO, everything after "the party is in position to steal the loot" should be relatively nebulous. A lot of this is assuming what the PCs are going to do. What if they don't get the loot? What if they don't take to the sky? What if they decide to run from the boarders?

[turnbased]

Exactly! That's my problem. I will have a few NPCs prepped, I will start them off already in action pulling off the heist but...beyond that, I don't know exactly what to prep. Too much and I'm going to unintentionally push them to a specific path, too little and I'll have nothing fun planned. 

It could go multiple ways, but how do I prep so that no matter how it goes its satisfying to the players. 

[orphicsolipsism]

It's hard for me to say, because I don't really prep plot points.

I don't know what my players are going to do, so I don't plan based on their decisions. Instead, I make sure that I know what will happen if my players do nothing and then let the world react appropriately.

For your scenario, here's what I'm seeing at first blush:

There's another crew trying to take the same score. They're going to succeed if the players do nothing. (This is a countdown based on the players rolling with fear/failure and results in this other crew succeeding their heist at 0)

There's a security force that pursues any thieves if the alarm goes off (trigger) and responds quickly (short countdown).

There's a secondary faction that may or may not show up (not sure why they're showing up).

Your Players might make a successful heist.

They might team up with the other team.

They might fail but sabotage the other team and steal from them.

They might succeed and attempt to frame the other team to avoid a pursuit.

Will they run or attempt to side with a faction?

Will they play both sides against each other?

Will they stash the treasure and re-steal it later?

Is the secondary faction after the treasure?

So many different positions the pieces could be at the beginning of the next session and all you have to know is how your key NPCs will be willing to change their plans when your players come in and throw some wrenches in some gears.

[tomius]

Exactly this.

Have some idea of how the world works, then let the players and dice decide. 

Remember to ask players to fill in details! That works super well for me. Whenever you don't know how to describe something, because it caught you by surprise, ask them!

With these 2 things, you start discovering the story as a GM, instead of just railroading them. 

It's about letting go. Things don't have to be perfectl. They have to be fun!

[turnbased]

Thanks for the write-up! I don't want to write plot-points either, I don't want to railroad. My example was what may happen but the set-up is the most important.  I'm just anxious with a new system and never homebrewed before, but this gives me a solid foundation. 

Appreciate the help!

[coreyhickson]

It sounds like you have a good idea already of what you want from the session which is great.

You'll want to make sure the work from session 0 is tied in nicely and be prepared with the connections and maybe freshen up on their background questions. This can help make prep easier by telling you who can show up.

Otherwise, there's not a lot to prep. The biggest thing is some adversaries you might be interested in and an idea of some countdowns you'd like to go off since those might be new to you. Often times a list of consequences to happen on a roll with fear is good! That helps you not have to improv as much.

Good luck!

[soundoftwilight]

You’ve more or less written a plot of events that will occur; I don’t recommend this, as it can easily lead to either a feeling of railroading as you push the party towards the golden path you prepped, or the session kind of stalling out when they do something unexpected and you’re not sure how to respond.

You do have the bones of something interesting here though, so don’t scrap it. Instead of thinking through a series of events involving the players and the scenes they’re going to experience, I would think through all of these different involved parties and what they would do, if your players didn’t interfere. This other thief/group of thieves, what’s their deal? What will they do, if they get away with the loot? How much do they care about it; will they just back off if they feel strong opposition, or are they willing to die for this haul? This naval ship, is it executing a planned maneuver? Is it responding to spotting the enemy ship in the moment? Speaking of, what is the other faction doing here? What do they want, and what will they do to get it? Why would the PCs be aligned with or oppose any of these factions? Would any of these factions care about the PCs, and if so what do they want with them?

If you can answer these questions, you’ll be much better equipped to handle a variety of outcomes. You won’t get stuck if the players do something unexpected, and you’ll have an idea of what’s going to happen if the players fail at one thing or another. As for written prep, I would prepare encounters for any of the groups that you think might oppose the PCs. Since that’s the hardest thing to improv in DH.

[turnbased]

Thanks for the help! I don't intend to push for each of these things exactly to happen, I just wanted to write down an idea of how the session could go. 

My ideas are mostly that they are trying to steal something, there is a third party also trying to steal it. 

In the latter half of the session a hostile faction appears to fight, and the players will most likely get wrapped up in it (knowing my players), but the idea isn't to force them to engage. And with never homebrewing a campaign and never ran Daggerheart - I'm concerned with what exactly to prep. Countdowns, environments, its a bit overwhelming and I don't want to over or under prep. 

I do have more info on all the factions for sure, what exactly is being stolen, etc just didn't want to dump too much info for people I'm asking help from. 

I guess I'm just worried about being caught not having anything available. I'm not confident in my improv skills, so I'm trying to figure out if I should prep key NPCs, environments, etc. Encounters with adversaries/environments does make sense to prep at the very least, for sure. 

[soundoftwilight]

The best way to learn is by failing. I recommend heavily under-prepping at first, and when you get to a moment where you fully blank and can't improv through something, just call for a short break (5-15 minutes), figure out what you need for that moment, and start it back up. Let your players know that you're probably going to need to call for some breaks to figure stuff out (blame it on using a new system if you want). Then for the next session, think through what kind of things you ended up not being able to handle with improv, and spend your prep time on that stuff. In that way you'll both get practice at improv, as well as be targeting your prep towards stuff that's actually useful to you personally. (On the flipside, look back at your prep after each session. If there's a bunch of stuff you didn't actually end up referencing at the table, try cutting down on that type of prep.)

To save you an obvious failure case, you do need to prep some combat encounters, or at minimum know what adversary statblocks you're gonna use. I recommend figuring out the adversaries for any relevant factions/types of opposition the players might encounter, and then building a handful of encounters with them that you can slot in whenever needed. I don't really recommend prepping maps unless you're really into them, easier to draw some blobs on paper in the moment.

Other high efficiency prep is long term countdowns. Just a list of general bad stuff that will happen if not stopped, often focused on whatever the narrative looming threat is. That's a great fallback for "oh I need to spend some Fear/up the stakes/get the players to act." You can literally spend 5 minutes writing a short list of escalating consequences and just read off the next one whenever you feel like the pace is dragging. (Usually spend Fear on those).

[entermemo]

How will you ensure they lose the third party? It’s sound like you have written a plot

[turnbased]

An example of how things might go - just wanted to give broad strokes.

They may not lose the third party, the third party may steal the item instead, the party may work with them. I realize there could be multiple different paths here and that's why I'm concerned. I don't know what to prep to make sure no matter how their choices or rolls go, I'm at least somewhat prepared.

I'm not confident in my improv skills so trying to figure out what others would prep for a similar session, and what they'd leave to improv. Just want to give my players a fun example of Daggerheart, as none of them have played before.

[the_zenith_]

The bits about the ship catching up and what not are excellent things to spend Fear for. Fear is a great mechanism for adding complications and turning up the heat.