How the beginning of a session goes will frequently set the tone for the entire session, so it’s important to get off on the right footing. Here are a few simple suggestions for things to do right before you really get down to play and right after everyone in your group is ready to go.
Before The Dice Start Rolling:
Chatter: Sometimes the hardest part of getting a session started is actually getting started. Most people play D&D with their friends and a certain amount of chatter time at the beginning of the session about the latest episode of Heroes, so and so’s new girlfriend/boyfriend or how drunk you were at Ted’s birthday party last Friday is natural and to be expected. The trick is to simply plan for this to occur. The simple way is to start the 'game' roughly an hour earlier then you had planed to originally. If your the kind of person that like to start the game at 6pm, then simply move it to 5pm.
The Game Day:A simple trick to avoid chatter is to make it a game day. A typical game will 'start' at 5pm, or more like 7pm once everyone is done chatting away and shows up. A game day can fix this. Simply start the game, as early as you can wake up. Have people come over at noon, or even 10am. Then it's simple, from noon to 5pm, let everyone just hang out.
The Meet Up:This is yet another simple trick. Typically the people that show up for the game are friends that have not seen each other in at least a week or more. Naturally, everyone has stories to tell about their time apart, current events and gossip. This is what friends do, after all. The simple way around this is: don't make the game the only chance all the people have to get together. Have at least one or two meetings during the week with the group. Anything will do, a night out to get pizza, for example. And they don't need to be too long, three hours is plenty of time. All you need to is get the whole group together for a bit so they can socialize. Then when the game day comes along, they have nothing left to say to each other.
Food: Let’s face it; everyone eats when they play D&D. Having a bag of Doritos is almost as important as having dice to many a player and that’s perfectly fine. However, sometimes this gets out of hand and can delay the start of a session significantly. I have seen more than one session delayed hours as people order Pizza or Chinese, wait for it to be delivered, and then eat it before starting. Ask your players either to have their food with them when they arrive or plan for breaks to eat. If you are ordering a Pizza, ask the delivery place to bring it an hour or two into the session so that it will arrive at when you would normally take a little break anyway. That way, you can have your pizza and adventure too.
When the Game Actually Starts:
The Recap/Intro: At the beginning of each session it’s generally a good idea for there to be a quick recap of what happened in the last session or even last few sessions. If it’s the very first session ever, instead of recapping what happened in the last session, give a little of the backstory of how the party formed or if it hasn’t yet, how each of the characters got to the inn or wherever the opening scene takes place. If it’s a later session you can do the recap yourself or if you have an enthusiastic player let them handle it. It’s important to give the players a sense of continuity from the last session, remind them of things they might have forgotten over the week/month between sessions, and for the sneaky DM it provides a way to subtly prod the party in particular directions. If you want the party to go after the Vampire Lord this session rather than the Beholder, mention a few more details about the Vampire Lord in your recap. The players will frequently take the bait, intentionally or unintentionally.
Roll Initiative: I’m not saying start every session with an encounter, although sometimes it is good to do so, but to have the players roll initiative for whenever the first encounter is going to be later in the session and jot it down. If you are using index cards or post-its to keep track of initiative order and you have prerolled your monsters you can even slide the PC’s cards into their proper place in the stack. This may seem a bit unorthodox, but it really does improve the flow of the game as you can now go directly into PC actions the moment combat starts rather than having to pause, roll dice, and set up the order. After the first combat, when people are scribbling down the loot they acquired, have them roll for initiative the next one. Looting the bodies does not have any dramatic tension to break, seeing if the orc that just leapt from the bushes gets to stab you in the face does.
Before The Dice Start Rolling:
Chatter: Sometimes the hardest part of getting a session started is actually getting started. Most people play D&D with their friends and a certain amount of chatter time at the beginning of the session about the latest episode of Heroes, so and so’s new girlfriend/boyfriend or how drunk you were at Ted’s birthday party last Friday is natural and to be expected. The trick is to simply plan for this to occur. The simple way is to start the 'game' roughly an hour earlier then you had planed to originally. If your the kind of person that like to start the game at 6pm, then simply move it to 5pm.
The Game Day:A simple trick to avoid chatter is to make it a game day. A typical game will 'start' at 5pm, or more like 7pm once everyone is done chatting away and shows up. A game day can fix this. Simply start the game, as early as you can wake up. Have people come over at noon, or even 10am. Then it's simple, from noon to 5pm, let everyone just hang out.
The Meet Up:This is yet another simple trick. Typically the people that show up for the game are friends that have not seen each other in at least a week or more. Naturally, everyone has stories to tell about their time apart, current events and gossip. This is what friends do, after all. The simple way around this is: don't make the game the only chance all the people have to get together. Have at least one or two meetings during the week with the group. Anything will do, a night out to get pizza, for example. And they don't need to be too long, three hours is plenty of time. All you need to is get the whole group together for a bit so they can socialize. Then when the game day comes along, they have nothing left to say to each other.
Food: Let’s face it; everyone eats when they play D&D. Having a bag of Doritos is almost as important as having dice to many a player and that’s perfectly fine. However, sometimes this gets out of hand and can delay the start of a session significantly. I have seen more than one session delayed hours as people order Pizza or Chinese, wait for it to be delivered, and then eat it before starting. Ask your players either to have their food with them when they arrive or plan for breaks to eat. If you are ordering a Pizza, ask the delivery place to bring it an hour or two into the session so that it will arrive at when you would normally take a little break anyway. That way, you can have your pizza and adventure too.
When the Game Actually Starts:
The Recap/Intro: At the beginning of each session it’s generally a good idea for there to be a quick recap of what happened in the last session or even last few sessions. If it’s the very first session ever, instead of recapping what happened in the last session, give a little of the backstory of how the party formed or if it hasn’t yet, how each of the characters got to the inn or wherever the opening scene takes place. If it’s a later session you can do the recap yourself or if you have an enthusiastic player let them handle it. It’s important to give the players a sense of continuity from the last session, remind them of things they might have forgotten over the week/month between sessions, and for the sneaky DM it provides a way to subtly prod the party in particular directions. If you want the party to go after the Vampire Lord this session rather than the Beholder, mention a few more details about the Vampire Lord in your recap. The players will frequently take the bait, intentionally or unintentionally.
Roll Initiative: I’m not saying start every session with an encounter, although sometimes it is good to do so, but to have the players roll initiative for whenever the first encounter is going to be later in the session and jot it down. If you are using index cards or post-its to keep track of initiative order and you have prerolled your monsters you can even slide the PC’s cards into their proper place in the stack. This may seem a bit unorthodox, but it really does improve the flow of the game as you can now go directly into PC actions the moment combat starts rather than having to pause, roll dice, and set up the order. After the first combat, when people are scribbling down the loot they acquired, have them roll for initiative the next one. Looting the bodies does not have any dramatic tension to break, seeing if the orc that just leapt from the bushes gets to stab you in the face does.
