Zero Prep 5e “Lume Campaign” Prep, Session 1 Write-up and Retrospective

The start of a ttrpg blog?

First of all, as this is the initial entry in this blog, Hello! I’ll be doing a more proper introduction in a separate entry, but I’ll be leading with this session write-up, as it is already written up, and gives a pretty good idea of the sort of content I want to be publishing on this blog. Goals, thought processes, specifics, receipts, and retrospectives. Yesterday I started a new campaign with some good friends of mine, and here I will describe my goals, the development of the campaign, and how things played at the table. I will likely make a separate post delving deeper into the thought process for picking these specific campaign rules, for now it is enough to know that they are inspired by 1st edition D&D and strongly align with the “o5r spirit”. For now I expect to update this blog no more frequently than once a month, with updates regarding the campaign.

Goal

My goal is to run a campaign with minimal prep, no storytelling, less focus on character builds, faster combat, and minor tweaks to restore the necessity of adventure prep. I am trying for concise homebrew rules, deferring to official rules variations where possible. Players are limited to options in the PHB, with some character creation stipulations listed below. As DM I am referring first to 5e PHB, DMG, MM as resources, XGE for random encounter tables, plus Arcana of the Ancients for fantasy sci-fi content and Veins of the Earth as an Underdark alternative. 1e DMG is referenced as a backup for whatever random tables the 5e DMG lacks, which is less than one might expect.

I will be including Campaign Rules, Prep, and other details about the playstyle and context, so that the resulting experience can be accurately analyzed.

Campaign Rules

-Gritty Realism rest variant

-All darkvision for player races requires at least dim light, except Drow

-Cantrips, except Eldritch Blast, can be cast a combined number of times per day equal to spellcasting modifier, min 1/day

-Gain 4 XP for every GP gained from adventuring (this roughly matches the coins gained from the # of hoards a party is expected to encounter at each tier of play according to the DMG)

-The Identify spell functions as a 1st level variant of the (5th level) Legend Lore spell, for an item the caster must be holding or wearing, as though you knew nothing about it.

-No feats

-Roll HP at level 1

-Falling to 0 HP causes exhaustion

-Side initiative: declare actions at the start of a combat round, then each side rolls d6, highest roll acts first (sides act simultaneously on ties)

-Characters must train for a week with a mentor, or pay 1,000 gold in self-training, in order to level up (as players will prefer the former, this encourages character ties to world factions at early levels)

-No Folk Hero background (implies too much adventuring background/backstory)

-Game time passes 1:1 with realtime between sessions of play

As DM, I am rolling monster HP from the Hit Dice listed in their HP block, ignoring bonuses to that (thanks Crossface!) I am also using 2d6 for reaction rolls for encounters, and 1 in 6 chance of encounters with frequency from every 10 minutes to 4 hours of adventuring depending on context.

Character creation is RAW, but with Class-Race-Alignment restrictions inspired by 1e, and characters may only be humans and half-humans initially, unlocking other races as their settlements are located by players within the game.

(Race, Class, and Alignment table)

Players are asked to tie their background to a faction in the campaign (inventing one if necessary), and/or can tie them to a location on the map (again inventing one if necessary). Soldier’s Military Rank allows requesting soldiers from your faction if you can make a case for it, and Hermit’s Discovery gives you the location of a cool dungeon or magic item that you can seek out.

Campaign Prep

I generated two hex maps with Hex Kit, one for a surface map and one for an underground map (30 mile hexes, so each one can contain one settlement the size of a town or larger). The surface map was touched up to include an arctic mountain range, a desert, and a sea in one corner with some islands. A few settlements icons were added in reasonable areas, and I used the DMG to roll up some government types, for the loosest of domain planning and stage setting:

(Player's view of the Surface Map)

The human Empire of Lume in the center stage (1415 through 2411), the classic feudal setting, with a king who ended a war with the desert kingdom and has recently passed away. (Other details pending discovery)

The human Coalition of Ahriman in the North West.

The gnome villages around the arctic mountain range to the North.

The desert Kingdom of Iskander to the East.

The barbarians to the South East.

An Elven Court in the forest in the West, which would be opposed by a Winter Fey court in the arctic mountains to the North.

The underground map correlates with the surface map, marking regions of Underdark, normal caverns (dwarves), and vaults. I want to include Arcana of the Ancients (thanks KraftyMatt!), so loot from the AotA treasure tables will be used with a 1 in 6 chance in most areas, or a 3+ in 6 chance in areas near vaults. The stuff underground will bias events and content which are generated on the surface.

Players, Char Gen, and Pre-Game Play

There were two players, both old friends, one with prior conventional 5e experience (as a player), and the other one with very limited 5e experience. We played through discord, everyone on camera, all theater of the mind.

One player went all in on quickly generating characters prior to the session, making tables so that even starting spells could be rolled up. He came to the table with 11 characters to pick from, and chose two of them (a nature cleric acolyte and a druid sage, who worshiped in the same grove). We helped the other player roll up two characters at the start of the session (a ranger soldier and a barbarian hermit). For both, we attached those characters to the world: the Grove of Rhythms (1714), an outpost on the Eastern wall of Lume (2411), and an expat from the barbarian lands of the South.

The Hermit's Discovery was the location of a time traveling wizard’s mansion on the peak of a mountain (1708, above the map!)

Coming up with explanations for why characters knew certain languages/incorporating their background helped with building the world as well. For instance, the Hermit’s knowledge of undercommon and dwarven tied in to their discovery, in that the time traveling wizard’s research notes involved mind flayers and related beings.

In the meantime, Q&A from the Cleric+Druid's player revealed bandit activity from a neighboring hex (1815) intruding on the Grove's hex. Pre-game scouting of the area (a survival check, while the other player was making their chars) located an unclear number of tracks leading into the ruins of an ancient giant’s settlement. Within the ruins they spotted many hobgoblins that had been turned to stone. Returning to the Grove to consult with the elder, the elder confirms lore that hobgoblins once had a lair in those ruins, but hundreds of years ago the druids banished them and turned many hobgoblins into stone at that time.

The second player finished making their characters, and we looped him into the Grove (which maintains good relations with the Empire) to begin the session proper.

Session 1, Game Time

Characters: Nature Cleric/Acolyte of the Grove (10 HP), Druid/Sage of the Grove (2 HP), Ranger/Soldier from the wall (6 HP), Barbarian/Hermit from the South (3 HP)

After brief prep the 4 returned to the ruins, where the ranger quickly picked up on the trail (it was established that it was a small group of persons earlier, so a d6 now determined 6 sets of tracks: 1 human, 1 hobgoblin, and 4 goblins), which they followed carefully through the ruins.

The ranger could read Giant, and so learned some lore about the settlement, including the presence of a great temple, and signage which would lead them to it if desired. The druid spotted "Warden Vines" growing along the tops of many of the ruins, noting that their unique growth pattern made them useful for anyone able to speak with plants.

At this time, 3 sprites (from the Winter Court) found the party and rolled neutral reactions, so they stayed hidden to follow the party. The ranger checked the weather, and determined it to be quite clear, in case they wanted to check out the temple and return to the intact tracks later. The distraction was decided against, the tracks would continue to guide their way.

The tracks led the party to the entrance of the hobgoblin lair (which they were all very loath to enter at this point, feeling quite unprepared), where they all happened to glimpse one of the sprites who fumbled in their flight. Introductions went very well, and the sprites agreed to help the party with scouting the lair in exchange for a favor.

Around this time there was a random encounter with a giant poisonous snake. Fortune was on the party's side, as they spotted it from 80 feet away. While the party did think they could kill it if they engaged, they decided not to reveal their presence, and instead they backtracked slightly and routed themselves all the way around it, preferring to avoid it entirely as it offered no real reward for the risk, would delay their scouting, and perhaps draw unwanted attention. Related player quote: "Also, you have us scared for our lives [...] we know what kind of campaign you want to run"

The sprites wanted to locate the aforementioned temple, which had also seemed increasingly linked to the ubiquitous stone statues of fleeing hobgoblins seen throughout the ruins. With the party’s help reading the language of Giants, the temple is located, and the sprites deliver a “special relic” “Winter Leaf” offering into a certain offering bowl. The fey are quite pleased at accomplishing their goal, and reveal to the party the presence of a hobgoblin head that is also in the offering bowl. (The party was too scared to climb and look into any of the bowls, especially after learning that.) This information also contradicted an earlier suspicion that the hobgoblins were turned to stone by something from inside the lair, away from which all the stone hobgoblins appeared to be running.

The fey revealed the number of beings in the lair at this point (16, a detail which they had held hostage from the party earlier, in order to help make the deal), and that the hobgoblins only traveled outside the lair when the human was with them. (Cue more theorizing from the players about plans of action). The fey upheld the remainder of their end of the deal: mapping out the inside of the lair. The sprites map most of the top floor, including a stairway down labeled “more darkness”, which I will roll up and provide to the players in the next session. Having successfully scouted the bandits as per their original goal, the party withdrew to the Grove, and the session ended there.

The ranger wants to use this information to request support from the army (more soldiers, which he could command), and perhaps the cleric and druid will be able to get support from the Grove as well, to eliminate the new residents of the local lair. If they succeed, they will have easier access to the (still trapped and perhaps further defended) lair and its treasures. Also discovered in the ruins was a (giant) pawn shop, which may contain remnants of treasure, but the players opted not to get distracted from their scouting goal.

DM Retrospective

Holy crap was I anxious going into this with so little prepared in the way of actual session content! But before we actually got to playing I already had multiple hooks the players were interested in exploring, and the one player was already doing some scouting prep on the side before the other player was ready. Listening to the players and using the DMG tables on the fly does actually work, just like with RAW solo play.

The players really liked being the leaders of the exploration process and of the party (as each brought a henchman/hireling/sidekick/backup npc), making decisions regarding even scouting and prep from the very start; the initiative to investigate the local bandit activities came entirely from the players, and them setting the terms of their scouting from the start got them immediately invested in the success of the undertaking, and so invested in the entire rest of the session as a result.

Naming the settlements also seemed to instantly invest players in those places, despite nothing else being know about those places except their name and hex position on the map. Being quick to generate details about settlements (using the tables in the DMG) instantly helped them to seem like they had always been real places on the map.

More encounters would have meant more chances for social opportunities in addition to combat. I think I should roll more often for encounters in the future. I believe I rolled them quite frequently today, but the 1's were more elusive than they should have been.

Exploring the ruins would have been enhanced with more points of interest, I should have rolled more on the DMG’s settlement tables.

Theater of the mind made exploration more difficult than it needed to be. A VTT will be helpful in the future, even if I only use it in a whiteboard capacity (as I don’t intend on making battle maps for this campaign)

There was a lot of free time for me while players were theorizing and discussing plans, as they explored the city ruins. Rolling on tables (in anticipation for upcoming questions and details, should they become relevant) was always very helpful at these times. I should do this more in the future. I could also use these opportunities to read more into the lore blocks in the monster manual, for randomly encountered monsters I am not familiar with (such as the Sprite).

I had made it clear beforehand to the players that this campaign would be so player-driven that I was going to be sticking to a “zero prep” ethos. Feedback after the session from each of the players: “Even though I know you were making stuff up as you went, it really didn't feel that way” and “it was freeing to know that no matter what direction we tried to go, you were equally unprepared [...] so we weren't like, dodging ideas”

I answered “whatever’s in the book” while grabbing the book to look up the answers to rules questions from players, often enough that players quickly learned to grab the book and look it up themselves, racing me for the answer.

Reading the PHB and DMG the week before the game was an excellent idea.

I need to take the time and bookmark all of the random tables in the DMG and XGE, including the names at the end of the XGE which came in quite handy throughout the session.