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@@theDMLair I actually don’t agree with you. I wrote a story, a campaign, and so far my campaign has been running for almost 2 and a half year. My players absolutely love my game. My game is about character development through playing out the story.
@@VaSoapman At the very least you need to have something for them to do during the game even if you are insisting on keeping them away from the rest of the party until the "Perfect" time.... (Though I think if I was going to do a delayed introduction, I'd save it for someone who wants to play a thief that way they can be getting chased while the other players are also doing stuff, and the path of said chase can be adjusted to get the party together and then have the players deal with the pursuers of the new party member before moving on with their main quest.)
@@VaSoapman I understand where you’re coming from. The problem is just that an experienced player joined my table with the flaw of *never* entering a city. Of course I talked with him about it, but he insisted. So when game night comes around I need to get the party out of the city to introduce the new character. If I just did it in 5 minutes or less then I would have either ret-conned (which I don’t like) or done something like destroy the city
@@lucastoftgaard2117 Have him get taken prisoner by brigands that want to sell him on the blackmarket within the city and the character notice some sketchy people moving someone against their will. Done.
That's why our GM does one on one sessions with new characters, to get them to where the party is atm and then it takes about half an hour to add them to the party. Oftentimes she will also try to link them to one party member beforehand as well so you can say: 'Hey I know this guy, he's legit, he can travel with us.'
I normally just give a rundown of where the party is and ask, “how would you like your character to join the adventuring party?” Gives new players a small amount of buy in right from the start. Sure, it usually makes no sense at all, but it’s fun.
You must be playing with some very creative players. I used to do that but players took forever to figure something out... I simply go over the backstory and find a way for the players to "start the conversation"
@@peleg6748 yes and no, I’ve had everything from a bard who was announcing an underground fight ring that the rest of the party joined in on to a fighter who said, “I don’t know I’m, like, already in the dungeon.” And we just rolled with it.
My favourite solution to introducing new players is having them randomly teleport to wherever the other PCs happen to be. Preferably at a particularly dramatic, or, even better, comedic moment. One new PC randomly appeared in the air over a combat the other PCs were in and fell right on to a bugbear killing it.
This exact thing happened to me. Over six hours of waiting. DM never spoke to me at all though. I sat on mute, listening to everyone else play. That was the entire session.
I mean, that's why you make the amazing twist happen right at the beginning of the game. lol Like, that's your job: Make things work and roll with stuff. Hell, in this case you even get to prep ahead of time to weave them in just right.
I remember doing this as a DM. Thankfully, it was my brother and he was very forgiving because I was just starting out and his character had died. It literally took one of my other players saying, "Not to interrupt, but, is he going to be playing tonight?", and I explained that I was waiting for a certain time (he was a captured hero with the boss wanting to use him as a negotiation tactic (totally brain dead, tone deaf idea)). I introduced him as a character hiding from some psychotic redcaps two minutes later after my ForeverDM said that it was a bad idea. There is some justification behind the idea, but I think the problem is the lack of convenience. They can't find a way to creatively and immersively to introduce the character because they see the whole scope. So, lack of convenience and perspective.
So when I 1st started playing I made a barbarian since the group I joined didn't have a tank. I got introduced by like I was out and about and ended up in dwarven capital and got attacked by the dwarfs that were possessed that were guarding the entrance to city I had 2 rounds of combat before the team could get down to the commotion they heard in the street. They get there and well dice were in my favor cause I wiped the floor and killed all the possessed dwarfs then team showed up and was like, "umm you wanna join cause we do not want to fight you" as they look at the literal blood bath around them
Yikes. A story of my nightmares. I feel so sorry for that player. :( Inviting someone to just watch others play works only if that person has no idea about D&D and is on the fence of trying it out. Not when there's definitive yes and filled character sheet involved. And you can do surprise introductions in a way that make everything awesome! When I had new player last time, we started the game with non-character introduction and social time, quick recap for everybody, and then I joined his character in the first five minutes of actual game IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIGHT. He literally woke up from long paralysis, in spider cocoon, hearing fight noises (he consented to this before game session), and others helped him out while dodjing those spiders. Needless to say, we finished that campaign with a blast, and started a new one without losing any players.
That's typically my go to for character introductions too. Whatever room of a dungeon the pcs left off in the previous session, the new player is only 1 or 2 rooms away.
The lazier and more contrived the introduction, the better. Especially if you're running a more serious campaign, having some levity mixed in with party management can lighten the table up.
last week we started a minicampaign. DM is a personal friend, and 3 of the 4 party members are from our main group. the DM brought a 4th player to the game, and decided our first quest was to find the player & save them. We didnt know that was the quest at first so i did usual exploration stuff. its finally revealed that we need to find her so we head straight to the obvious plot hook. we get there & because time is apparently of the essence, i burn a bunch of ki & end up killing all the enemies because the party has a monk(me) a rogue with only some throwing knives & a bard. we save this player and all thats left is "get back to base" which ... was a safe walk home. I was then told that i was selfish for making the combat end so quickly. even though no one else (including the 4th player) did anything for the first round.
@@Ambers128 I meant the newbies character getting killed in a TPK so I doubt they'd want to make a new character even if the previous parties stuff was up for grabs.
I wouldn't come to the second session if the DM won't introduce me at first one or at least don't have told me before session that they are in a dungeon and he can introduce my character in the next session, so I don't have to come to that one.
Had this sort of happen to me once, waited about 2 hours before I was introduced. In fairness, the DM apologized and said he didn't expect the players to take so long. I'm very patient, but not sure I would do that again haha.
I can see something like this happening in an acceptable manner if, say, the last session ended halfway through a big boss fight and it is neither practical to introduce the newbie into that nor fair to throw them immediately into a confusing potential meat grinder. There might even be some argument for letting a super-noob watch for part of a session before they start making decisions so they understand how this works and what to do. But if it's not convenient to introduce their character for four more sessions... invite them to the fourth session.
The big fight I agree with. But 4 sessions is too much!!! I nearly had a player wait for a game once cause another player had to quit the game and I started looking for a replacement (and found one way quicker then I thought). Ended up running 7 players instead of 6 for 2 sessions but everyone was cool with that
I once was in a game where I waited until the end of the game session for the DM to introduce my pc to the game. We started at 9pm and played until 12:00-12:30pm knowing that I had worked at 4am morning. I never felt my time so wasted and insulted before and still haven't experienced anything like that again so far thankfully.
The one session I was in, a player somehow succeeded in perma-killing his PC even though my cleric had the necessary spells and diamonds for both revivify and raise dead. Yet even with that unexpected hiccup, the DM was still able to fit the players backup character into the group before he was even finished writing up the charater sheet.
Top Tip: Create a "Guild of Adventurers" for your world, give them an identifying mark or badge or special handshake or whatever, so they can recognise each other.. Now when you need to get PCs or NPCs together in a party they already have a means to identify each other, and know they may have goals in common: e.g. "swinging swords, slinging spells & getting paid".. (Backstory lore for that Guild optional, but it can be a fun bit of world-building, especially if you give it different status in different areas).. Especially useful if (like me) you're running a persistent world, but with players not able to dedicate time to long over-arching campaign(s) - it works well for framing & stitching together Monster-of-the-Weeks / short missions / Mini-Dungeons and One-Shots.. With minimal "waiting-to-be-introduced" time.. :)
We have salvage crews in our Oracle of war campaign. It's easy to insert a new player as wanting to sign up with the crew for work or if mid module somewhere, arriving in a different crew or one that only had them left as a survivor. Because crews can turn up anywhere in the Mournland there's plenty of places to drop players right in (even if you're modifying the AL play to normal sessions)
I can understand the need to make a great intro, something standing out this new PC from the NPC to get the players to interact with them... But even with that need, no need to make it into the story. You can do many cool intros quickly by forgettig the story a bit, it's like the DM use of Rule Of Cool ! You get to do your badass intro and the new player to get into the game quickly (and the old character to want to get to know the new guy). All Win
The two newest players in my current campaign (first time players as well) both joined the party in less than 10 minutes after the session started. The first one was a "fish out of water" character who overheard the party asking for directions to the same mage he was looking for, so he tagged along with them. The second just happened to be standing in a line alongside the party, and then decided to join them after a brief battle happened with some mages in the line. Both players' characters initially felt not tied to the party in any way, but in the first session I already gave them opportunities to show their value to the party (and the value of being in the party to them) Both introductions were also largely left to the players, since it's their character, not mine
Four seesions? Jow! How did you keep your cool during that time? I might would forgive him the first session, but then tell him that I at least want to join my chara the next session or am not returning. One session, okay. It's not a great experience, but it's forgivable. But not two or more sessions. >
@@theDMLair My toleration for being sidelined would have been between 10 and 15 minutes. Tops... Ok 30 minutes if it was the OGGM Jim Ward creator of Metamorphisis Alpha and Gamma World.
So my players found evil cultists' base and killed some guards outside. End of the session. New session = new player. So I introduced him like this: you see a cultist hunting party returns from a raid, they have an unconscious prisoner with them. Prisoner (new player) - tell them how do you look like. My plan was simple - they'll fight new cultists (they had no time to hide the bodies, so they'll be forced to anyway), they'll try to heal a prisoner asap so he could help them. Sadly a new player skipped the whole battle. As they had no magic to heal him from distance, and they found a great defence position quite away from a prisoner. It did not took too long, maybe 30 min or something, and they finished a small dungeon together in that session. But still a totally "I did not expect this" moment. And I had no idea how to fix this on the fly.
If a new player is joining, but you're in the middle of a dungeon where it really doesn't make sense for this player to randomly show up (though honestly, it shouldn't be too hard to find a way), then just tell the player they can join once the group is past that point, don't have them sit in without being able to do anything - or at the very least offer them the option of sitting in but tell them they won't be doing much until the group is out of the dungeon (and give them an indication of the amount of sessions that would more or less last).
I'm gobsmacked that any DM's actually do this! :O .. *facepalm* .. Just come up with a halfway ok excuse and *crowbar that new player in there*, and get them playing as soon as possible! XD
This hit me closer to home. My DM would pull this, but for the opposite reason. Not because it would be the 'perfect moment', but because introducing characters in an expedient fashion, such as in the middle of combat, would give new characters the opportunity to immediately ingratiate themselves into the party by playing on the sense of gratitude.
Every new piece of content you release makes me know that I need to be around for twitch time. The content has grown to be so helpful over this channels life
What the hell. As a DM, I couldn't imagine having someone just sit in, unless if that's what they wanted. ESPECIALLY when you have TWO WEEKS to figure it out. I'm sorry. If in two weeks, you can't think of a good introduction for a character to do within the first 20 min, you're a shit DM.
I had something similar happen in my game by accident. I tried having the new player show up imprisoned in the next room.... but the players just would not go in. They were sneaking around in a hole in the walls, overcome by analysis paralysis and spent two hours over-planning how to break into the next room to rescue them. Luckily it was an online game so we didn’t waste so much of the new guy’s time, but geez that was ridiculous and I felt like I had to go apologize to him after the game was over.
My fav Fast-Intro: My character died in the wilderness. I stepped out and made a wild mage (2e), DM looked over the character quick, turned back to the players and said, "as you are traveling you hear a distant "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" as somebody falls towards the ground. A cloud of feathers burst out of 20 feet ahead of the party, {MyCharacter} steps out - You surged while casting feather fall. You are here now.
The longest I have had a character intro wait is about an hour, and we play for 5-8 hours weekly. Making a player wait multiple sessions? That's how a DM loses players, and possibly gets their tires slashed!
I'm in the camp of: "This is the world's greatest roleplaying game" Yeah, roleplaying *GAME!* If you're sacrificing the game for the story, you have no business DMing. I half-fell into this pitfall my first campaign where I was gonna introduce the new player in the first fight, which I thought was gonna come in the first 10-15 minutes max. Problem is I didn't expect how much one player was gonna beat around the bush before getting on with the quest, to the point he was gonna go to an entirely different town for no good reason. I had to just say "Okay, but don't, because we have a player waiting to be introduced" The first time I introduced a new player tho, I just pulled some bullcrap, basically: "You wake up, the guy you remember adventuring with isn't there, it's this tiefling instead. Why do you even remember that guy, you've always adventured with this tiefling? Eh who cares. Anyway, let's go"
Sometimes you have to sacrifice a smooth story for pacing. You're not writing a book and it really stinks for a player to get stuck waiting when they should be playing. No one is going to sweat it because they're going to be too busy freaking out about how the big bad evil guy has placed them into another bad situation. And they can always use more help against the evil doers 😀
I had something similar happen. I had been out of a game for months due to schedule conflicts. About the same time my schedule cleared up, another player took over as GM. My character had connections to a couple of characters still in the party, so I thought bringing me back in was a snap. Instead, we were treated to four hours of role-playing how awesome the new GM's former PCs were. My scheduling conflicts returned.
I agree to a point. I think for NEW players its essential to introduce ASAP and get to the GAME. But for a story heavy group of long time friends who play every week and a PC is coming in with a new character finding a logical and good introduction that fits the verisimilitude of the story is a bit more important. Always talk to the player ensure they are ok sitting out and just watching a session for the sake of the story or if they would rather get in the game ASAP. I think this is another case of clear communication solving potential issues. Long time players might prefer a more in-depth and story rich/logical introduction to getting into playing ASAP. So I say ask!
If I have a new player, I need to be 100% sure the charakter can be included in the first half hour. If I can't promise that, I will tell the player "next session could be tricky to get you in. If you are fine with watching, you can come watch and maybe get to play, or you join the session after that one and i will definitly get you in early". I love story, but I hate betraying players. Yes, I consider it betraying when I invite someone to play and they only get to watch, or to only play the last few minutes. Betraying charakters is a different story.
In my group I told my players to draw up a backup character in case they die so that I can throw them in somewhere because if they die at the beginning of the session and then have to sit there for hours that would suck.
Truth bomb here. I’ve learned a ton from the DM Lair, but anytime a video like this come out it makes me cringe because I know he’s going to talk about something I’ve done in the past. Thanks for all the helpful tips!
This is what happened to Taliesin Jaffe in Season 2 of Critical Role after his first character Mollymauk died and he sat out for about three sessions before his new character was introduced to the story.
This literally happened the last session I played to our newest player. As another player, I constantly broke the 4th wall trying to get him introduced. *You see a smokey battlefield with fighting and-* "I jump into the fray, searching hard for Brian!"
"You guys open the door and there's somebody tied up in that room" - Literally how I intro'd the last player to join my group! xD Who then went on to ask "Is my stuff in that box?" "Nope." "I look around the room, is ANY of my stuff there?" "Nope. Sorry, the orcs must have fled town with it." "Okay. I scavenge some weapons and armor from the dead orcs." "Okay!" (Welcome to the game)
Funny thing. I once introduced some new players in exactly the way you suggested. Had them in the next room as prisoners with their gear nearby. It still took my current players nearly an hour to get to them. One of the new "prisoner" PCs started kicking the door. Current players didn't even make the connection when I told them they hear a crash and see a nearby door shake in its frame. They thought there were monsters incoming and started barricading the door. Sometimes you can only lead a horse to water.
^ This is why if really want my players to get to a place, or get a thing, I try to give them the means to *see* it.. "The door has collapsed with age and rot and hangs open.." .. "There's an iron grill you can see through set in the top part of the door.." or whatever..
Yeah, you have to be careful not only when but how you give the players info. One time our group explored some half flooded sea tunnels on an island and the dm described the mining equipment scattered all over. In reality their was nothing in that area, but the description made us wanna dig to see what was there. Our correctness was only reaffirmed when the gm sent a flood and a bunch of monsters our way to “stop us”.(Actually just wanted us to flee out of the tunnels that had nothing). Anyhow we wasted a whole session from a iffy description. When it comes to them, don’t try to be to cute. You don’t know what the players may focus on so just be direct. Same goes with new player stuff. Just get it out of the way quick.
@@nature_laughslast6438 I try to reward players for searching stuff even if it's only with incidental flavour / info.. e.g. in a recent session one PC in a party decided to search an old desk (that I'd last minute improv'd, thinking the party might use it to barricade a door - they didn't).. Player rolled high on investigation, so I improv'd some crumbling old papers that gave further clues as to original use of the place, and a bunch of keys.. I'd've probably had your party find "a small gold nugget and a scrap of an old map (of part of the mine)" directing the Party to a more interesting area..
@@preacherjohn Well it’s not that the encounters were bad, it’s just at the end when we figured out there was nothing there and it was just the gm trying to make us leave the area. So we literally wasted a session(progress wise) and got no in game rewards.. she could have fixed it by making things up and adding some flavor or a little coincidental treasure.
I get so bored when the "talky talky" bits go on for too long lol! Thankfully my DM has come to understand this after having a friendly chat with him about it, and he gave us some good combat during the session last night!
Something similar happened to me, though not as a new player. We were an already established group starting a new campaign. For whatever reason the DM did not have my character start with the group. They played. Had a combat that lasted about an hour or so. After the combat they played a little more. When they were about to start another combat and I wasn't introduced yet I left. I would get a phone call from another player saying how the DM was upset I left because he had plans and am now removed from the group. Sure, my fault for not wanting to sit there doing nothing. Whatever.
@@ZarHakkar yeah, it doesn’t have to be completely natural, but there should be some effort into it. They should be introduced at most 20 minutes into the session though
that's insane there is no way I would wait that long, nor would I make anyone wait that long. hell I had a guest who was just there to watch who never asked me to play and so last session I asked them if they wanted to join and they will be in my next session
Work with the new player and see if there's a way you can work their backstory into what's happening in that moment. I introduced a Fairy Druid 🧚♀️ to the party by her being exiled from the Summer Court, banished to the Material, and appearing during a fight with some Ogres the party had been asked to clear out to protect local livestock. I knew she was coming this week, so I built the session before to end at the mouth of the Ogre cave. Plan ahead, but DON'T overcomplicate it.
Lol, this exact things happen to me, the party was going from a city to another, got kidnapped by some bbeg's goons and at the end of the session they wake up all chained to a wall with me there, chained as well, the only thing i was able to do was try to escape with a strength check ( that i failed) and then the dm ended the session.
That sounds like a fun Cliffhanger though. Two weeks to crap your pants wondering what's going to happen. Lol. There's of course the issue of not being introduced into the game which totally sucks and was horrible. But Cliffhangers like that are cool.
Good idea, had you not had to sit through their session. So simple to fix its infuriating. End their last session being captured. Start YOUR first session with everyone waking up in prison.
Also i want to add that , that was my FIRTS session ever, i started playing dnd that day, and all i did was waiting, i know better now tho, i dm my own campaing and my friends seem to enjoy it.
New player, pc name atar ashi. The main party ended the previous session in the middle of combat, introduces new player by having their character fall out of a tree into the combat.
A bit of waiting is fine, it is important to have it make sense in your story & world to have weight, but there's an easy balance. Either get there quickly or change scenes over to the new player to give them something to do. I had a player (who was an ass) join & the players made 2 stops before going to the tavern to recruit him (where he sat like a log during about 4 ques for him to talk).
Yes, get the player that us new to the party involved quickly and if you have to creatively. I'm a forever DM (as in decades) and my general rule is "as soon as possible" like 20 minutes or less, and much less is preferred. In my opinion, if someone reading this actually experienced what happened to the player in this example, the DM is a failure (I might forgive someone brand new to the DM role, but not a DM with any considerable time behind the screen). You might have to be creative or "go against the story" in order to introduce the new player but that is forgiven, because that introduction becomes part of the story. The DM''s job is to get folks involved in the game, in all it's aspects (story, role play, mechanics, etc) and to do that, all the players have to be in the storyline and participating in the game, not watching it. Example: One night I was a bit at a loss as to how to introduce a new PC. When the player finished their character sheet, I checked it quickly (Fighter, easy to check) and handed it back. The party was in a room at the start of a dungeon that happened to have a huge statue in it. They heard a huge banging and grinding sound and the new character fell through the statue's mouth, after falling in a pit trap in a room above and zipping down a slide ("strangely", the new PC only took 4 points of non-lethal damage from my improvised introduction, which heals in minutes). It was all I could come up with at that time but everyone loved it. Be creative and get new players in the game, not on the sidelines!
There is no perfect moment to add a PC. I mean, I suppose there are, but they're few and far between. Sometimes it works out perfectly and it's a great intro...sometimes you just gotta find them tied up in the next room lol
the start of a session with a new player should be simple. 1 or 2 minute synopsis to set the mood, then the new character is added... game on! where's the problem?
in a lot of scenarios, a new charakter showing up within the next two minutes doesn't make sense. a dungeon that has been sealed off for houndreds of years, guarded by powerful elementals... you find a solo bard. yeah no that doesn't work. though if you can't get the new charakter in within the first half hour, the player should know that beforehand.
Than wait, and say that to the players a time before. Hey I don't think we wrap it up. Is it ok if you join us next week. So the player can plan something different
@@ROARlikeDoggysDo I would say that's a 1 in a million case. There are so many things you can do with that one it's incredible! But one way you can always go is the Frozen Han Solo thing in return of the Jedi
Okay, I've been doing this (GM'ing) for 30 years or more, BUT I do remember whenever I was "the new Player" at other Tables, too... I hated sitting around to waste a session. In some instances, I could sort-of understand it, as it's often customary to let a new Player "sit in" a little while to learn how the Table generally functions, and different Tables have a little different style from others... so be it... BUT there's a limit. I set a quick and dirty limit to around a half-hour. That's enough time (depending on pace) for the New Player to get a fair view of our general habits and style of Play, and then somehow, I'm GOING to have them IN THE GAME and MAKING A DECISIVE ACTION... It's a matter of "ready or not... you're GOING to Play". After all, as Luke pointed out, THAT'S WHAT THEY CAME FOR... Now, yes... I do have to mix "noob's" with relative Veterans of the Game and Table. It happens... It's not something to be avoided. Aside from the noob', I'll have a talk with my Veterans, set (or reset) expectations a little bit, and we can have a slightly gentler than average "bad joke style" of D&D Adventure or Campaign Arc... This lets the New Player get their feet wet and go through the usual cliche "noob stuff" without too much hell to play. It's a chance to give comfort and reasonable coaching without so serious a tone that anyone feels "robbed" of their RPG experience. Then we can gear it up as they return and want to build... BUT for that first Campaign or Adventure Arc, it's okay if all they can think of in a crunch is to throw a D20 and shout "Kill it with fire!!!" give or take obscenities... ;o)
I HAVE met some players, however, who would ABSOLUTELY spend 3 to 4 hours complaining that their introduction was lame and everyone else got a better one. 😕 That's a fun experience... 😔
I'm doing something similar but the difference for my campaign is I don't make my players come to the table and wait. I tell them their character will be introduced later on in the campaign and if they want to know the context they can go back and watch the vods
The best introduction is the one that actually happens. You can add circumstances and sense to it later. Years ago, in my Curse of Strahd game, a new player was joining, when the group was inside of the Death House. So he woke up in the basement in one of those empty rooms, without knowing how he got there. Then he and the other players kind of stumbled upon each other.
Played a game where I didn’t play for the whole first session. I played animal crossing for four hours while they killed goblins. The dm said “it’s because the other players found your camp in their session zero” they weren’t even at the table that night. The game became a railroad. The last session I played with that group we climbed a mountain and did some talking to appease a being. The options were win a test of strength or serve this being. One player won the test of strength and ended up having to serve the thing anyway.
It's like if someone hosted a board game night with 5 people and insisted on starting with a game that can only go up to 4 players.... and the game took 4 hours to play
I had 2 new party members joining my group and in our world there is an adventurers guild. I just had the guild master tell the existing group they needed help for any of the available missions, then called out to the room asking if anyone was looking for work. New members said yes, I made introductions, boom, new party composition. Lamest intro ever, but it got everyone involved in less then 15 minutes.
So I am quite new to this DM hobby. I have watched a LOT of content to better my DM skills and roleplaying but I haven't seen someone giving such amazing advice in their videos like you do. Thanks for the hours upon hours of amazing content! I have probably binge watched most of your videos in a week! Keep it up! ❤️
What the hell?! No! That could have been worked in day 1! But no, 2 months later, you’re finally playing? Unacceptable! The other PC’s could walk into a simple combat or social encounter one or two rounds/minutes in. You find out a lot about a character in how he/she fights or otherwise engages others. Simple, dynamic, and memorable.
For a quick introduction idea if no other seamless transition, use the planes of travel. The person is dumped through a crack in the shadow/ethereal plane after being sent there by fae. There could be ethereal filchers that had heard of loot in the vicinity thinking the new player had it.
*Yeah waiting a hour or more while the new player is already to play is ridiculous .* *If the player is ready .* *Find a spot as soon as possible to introduce the character .* *The player should not wait any longer then 30 to 45 minutes at max .* *The only reason to delay is due to the party being delayed or occupied with something complicated .* *An even then the party & DM/GM should speed it up to get the new player into the game sooner .*
Dude, combine this with the fact that a common pre-dnd experience is being told "sure we'll get you involved in our next campaign" and then they forget to invite you when that happens I would never talk to those people again, I'd be so angry
This is like the time I will outright encourage metagaming. My regular group was gonna have a mutual friend of all of us join for two sessions to play as an “npc”. I just outright told them that friend was gonna be X npc so we wouldn’t do the weird dance of trying to get them to where the npc-pc was. It was a weird and bold choice to make, but I think we were all glad to get us all playing quickly together without having to change the npc-pc character to fit wherever the players happened to go.
My players are flexible so they made their plans so that they visited where the npc-pc was first thing in the session because they were excited to meet them.
I recently took over a campaign, I needed to introduce the previous DM’s character, a new character for a player who wanted to switch and the character for a new player. I told them I wanted to introduce everyone as fast as possible within the first 3min. First session arrived and everyone was playing right away and they loved it.
I find the timing of PC introductions sometimes quite difficult. Somehow the problem is you never know, where you players are going. The group could just decide to go in the other direction or if you describe it from the new players perspective, he could decide to get his character killed before he meets the party. Therefore, I started to figure out something to tie in the new players appearance in the end of the session recap from the last session. So, there is visual contact before any PC makes any decision, new PC does not get killed before he meets the party (never split the party) and other PCs does not wander off somethere and I get a headache how to introduce the new PC there.
Literally just introduced a new PC in my last session and basically used the opposite approach lol Two out of three were turned to stone by cockatrice in the middle of the woods... Leaving our gnome wizard to watch over the statues of his friends for a full 24 hours! Luckily, I had another friend looking to join my campaign for the very next session. So I had a bear enter to attack the defenseless party right at the start of the session and the new player showed up three rounds into the combat to save the day! Not only was it the perfect way to introduce him and have him bond with the party right away.... It also gave him a chance to shine and show off his character's skills immediately! Just to make sure the statues weren't getting bored, I said that after 12 hours they could start to see and talk again. So the first 30 mins was dedicated to his entrance. I felt a little bad for having the statues do nothing for the first 30 mins, but they actually enjoyed this combat as much as any! One big thing I've learned from DMing so far is, as long as they are actually playing, rolling, planning, or laughing... You're running a great session! The worst thing to do is to overthink and over plan everything!
I literally set a 10 minute timer at the start when a new player is joining a session I'm running. If the timer runs out, I jump right to the introduction.
As DM it is critical to remember that the world may be yours, but 'the story' is the players to create. So if the king tells the PCs to go kill the vampire and they go hide in another country, that's the story.
Im a pretty new DM and I did this in the beginning to one of my players who missed the first session. I thought ok he missed session one, well give him a good introduction. It took just over an hour of playtime before I finally had a chance to bring him in. After that I decided never again, idc how cool or corny or cheesy, my players are going to play. That's why when I had another player join later on I had a couple of players in the middle of some roleplay. I gave them 5 minutes to finish their roleplay at the start of session then described how while their walking and talking they took notice of a pc who had the look of someone looking for work around the docks and that perfectly segwayed to him joining the group. It was awesome or spectacular, but it was fast, it got my player in the game, and it actually got right to the point of his joining the group.
I did reverse, I spend the start of the session with the perspective of the new player's character, although, since half the party had died, they had the company of an existing placers replacement character. Eventully they run into the rest of the party, with only some OOC nudges. Don't think it took more than 30-60 minutes, and they found a couple of loctations the party hadn't explored before (location based adventure at the moment), exploring one, and noting a couple more down that they then went to after they met the survivers of the original party.
I remember I had a similar issue. I was going to be gone from my game for 4 weeks, so we left my PC in a place where we had some NPCs doing some dangerous setup work for us that we planned to come back later; basically the prep work for trying to take over a large empire. I ended up coming back a week early, which I didn't actually get to play that session, fair enough. But ultimately, it took another 1 and a half sessions before my character ended up appearing, because the plot involved my character getting captured while alone. At least this was a virtual game, so I could just log into the call and play other games while listening
This is why I always do one on one sessions with new characters/players joining an existing campaign prior to introducing them to the party and they know in advance where their character is going to be when they meet the party. This also serves as a way for new players to get used to roleplaying and/or my DMing style as well. After the one on one there is virtually no waiting for their introduction to the party once everyone gathers for the group game, like maybe 5-10 minutes at most. Hell I do one on ones with all players/characters prior to them even forming a party usually anyway since no one likes "You all meet in a tavern by chance and after a few drinks you decide to adventure together".
We play it as "Magic Hand drops the new player in here". Same thing if a player missed the last session, at the start of the session the DM drops in that player with a brief explanation if needed. Most players just roll with it so we can get to playing the game.
My current campaign has my players exploring a mega-dungeon, where they can swap out characters whenever they return to base camp. Whenever they introduce a new character, I ask them to briefly explain a bit of their backstory, how they have arrived at the camp, and why. Just a couple sentences is all we usually need.
As a DM, player introductions are best handled by 'player fiat'. Because it's their side of the table, the band-aid needs to be ripped off immediately by any contrivance as is convenient. I've literally had newbies shipped in boxes along with the party and casually informed them that it contained, and I quote, "the newbie's character for next session." Casual ret-conning can also be used to similar effect. First thing they do? Open the box, voila! New addition to the party!
my favorite thing to do to introduce new characters is rival adventuring party that didn't make it. last time i used it was told i am "so creative" laughed a little in lazy.
I am shocked and appalled that the player came back for a second session, let alone FOUR!!! Seriously, I wouldn't play with such a DM. If he puts you through that just to have the "privilege" of playing with him, what will he do to you, once he has you under his power as an actual player in the game?
I had it where the session ended and they were being followed by a mysterious cloaked figure. Then a new player wanted to join. One of the players had a backstory that they are being hunted by bounty hunters. The new players backstory was that they were a bounty hunter So the first session the player had, instead of having the hooded figure be this NPC I had planned it to be from the beginning, I made them be the new player :)
I agree. Get new players in the game as fast as possible. Also, when a character dies, get that player back in the game with a new character as quickly as you can. It doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to fit the story. The important thing is that player is in the game.
Yeah, if a new PC is joining the party, work out a way they can show up right away with them. Middle of the dungeon, when they're creating their character, work out why they would bump into the party right at the start. The one time I fell into this trap was my first session DMing. Was running the Sunless Citadel and one of the players wanted to play someone who lived in the dungeon so cool. I started the players right outside of the door. One rule of character creation was "have a reason to want to go there, here's what's going on in town." So cool. They open the door and run into the other player... or so I thought that was what was going to happen. Party spends an hour arguing about whether or not to go into the front door of the dungeon.
TL:DR, First time ever playing a p&p rpg, early 2000s, a class mate from a drawing class I attended invited me and other classmates to play (GM + his 3 regulars and us the noobs 2 girls and me)... we spend about 9 hours of absolute boredom waiting for our characters to be introduced into the story and play, but the session ended before that ever happened. Fullstory Early 2000s, I was 14 maybe 15 years old, a group of friends from a drawing class I attended and me were invited to play to play a P&P RPG which I can't even remember the name (it wasn't D&D and PF didn't existed yet), soooo... Saturday evening we go to this guy's house and we make our characters (roughly 10 minutes of writting stuff on a character sheet) I got a lucky roll and got to choose from the rare races (Angels, Demons, etc...) of the game but choose a more common one that I liked better (some furry/were-something humanoid) and right after that the game started... 5 hours later our characters were still not introduced into the story, me and the other noobs at the table were bored out of our collective skulls, the GM and the other players were RPing some sort of Trial, like a legal trial, and presenting arguments and evidence but made no progress at all, our character were supposed to be introduced right after that , 1 hour later I've got enough and ask one of the players to see his CS and check if they could roll cross-skills (i.g. nature with/or instead of arcana to determine the origin of an alchemical ingredient) 'cause whatever this "case" was about had something to do with a poison or a curse... and even if rolling cross-skills wasn't in the rules that''s what the GM had planed as the solution rolling Arcana+Poison(or whatever it was I can't remember, the poison was cursed or something) so that was all they had to do... so our characters were finally introduced to play? No, they were not, the DM and the other players spend another 2 hours RPing and the session was over just as the GM ended his unending monologue, and we the noobs had to go home... 9 hours wasted, but the worst part was that that GM was boring as hell, one of the two girls that joined us fell asleep mid session and the other girl and I started to draw in our notepads and keep drawing almost the entire time we were there.
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you are the DM. you can shove the "perfect time" anywhere you want.
Yes!
“You’re not writing a story; you’re creating scenarios.”
That's exactly how I describe it. Literally. Lol
Yep, your players are the ones writing the story, you are the narrator of what they see and interact.
Those are not mutually exclusive
@@theDMLair I actually don’t agree with you. I wrote a story, a campaign, and so far my campaign has been running for almost 2 and a half year. My players absolutely love my game. My game is about character development through playing out the story.
If you are going to introduce the player at the “perfect” time then you have to find it in half an hour or less.
Not good enough. 5 minutes or less.
It has to be the FIRST thing that happens.
@@VaSoapman At the very least you need to have something for them to do during the game even if you are insisting on keeping them away from the rest of the party until the "Perfect" time.... (Though I think if I was going to do a delayed introduction, I'd save it for someone who wants to play a thief that way they can be getting chased while the other players are also doing stuff, and the path of said chase can be adjusted to get the party together and then have the players deal with the pursuers of the new party member before moving on with their main quest.)
@@VaSoapman I understand where you’re coming from. The problem is just that an experienced player joined my table with the flaw of *never* entering a city. Of course I talked with him about it, but he insisted. So when game night comes around I need to get the party out of the city to introduce the new character. If I just did it in 5 minutes or less then I would have either ret-conned (which I don’t like) or done something like destroy the city
Instantly unless major combat is going on. If regular combat, they go last after they sign the dm cheat sheet.
@@lucastoftgaard2117 Have him get taken prisoner by brigands that want to sell him on the blackmarket within the city and the character notice some sketchy people moving someone against their will. Done.
That's why our GM does one on one sessions with new characters, to get them to where the party is atm and then it takes about half an hour to add them to the party. Oftentimes she will also try to link them to one party member beforehand as well so you can say: 'Hey I know this guy, he's legit, he can travel with us.'
that’s dope as heck and ima steal that
me too lol
Go ahead, it's been working well for us, so I'm happy to help :)
One on One Sessions are Tge greatest
I normally just give a rundown of where the party is and ask, “how would you like your character to join the adventuring party?” Gives new players a small amount of buy in right from the start. Sure, it usually makes no sense at all, but it’s fun.
The best DND is bad DND, lol. Nobody cares if it is likely as long as it’s possible
You must be playing with some very creative players. I used to do that but players took forever to figure something out... I simply go over the backstory and find a way for the players to "start the conversation"
@@peleg6748 yes and no, I’ve had everything from a bard who was announcing an underground fight ring that the rest of the party joined in on to a fighter who said, “I don’t know I’m, like, already in the dungeon.” And we just rolled with it.
heres another good one: party gets attacked from behind by extra dungeon monsters, chasing new pc to party. feels more real. can even do mid battle.
My favourite solution to introducing new players is having them randomly teleport to wherever the other PCs happen to be. Preferably at a particularly dramatic, or, even better, comedic moment. One new PC randomly appeared in the air over a combat the other PCs were in and fell right on to a bugbear killing it.
This exact thing happened to me. Over six hours of waiting. DM never spoke to me at all though. I sat on mute, listening to everyone else play. That was the entire session.
I mean, that's why you make the amazing twist happen right at the beginning of the game. lol
Like, that's your job: Make things work and roll with stuff. Hell, in this case you even get to prep ahead of time to weave them in just right.
I remember doing this as a DM. Thankfully, it was my brother and he was very forgiving because I was just starting out and his character had died. It literally took one of my other players saying, "Not to interrupt, but, is he going to be playing tonight?", and I explained that I was waiting for a certain time (he was a captured hero with the boss wanting to use him as a negotiation tactic (totally brain dead, tone deaf idea)).
I introduced him as a character hiding from some psychotic redcaps two minutes later after my ForeverDM said that it was a bad idea.
There is some justification behind the idea, but I think the problem is the lack of convenience. They can't find a way to creatively and immersively to introduce the character because they see the whole scope. So, lack of convenience and perspective.
So when I 1st started playing I made a barbarian since the group I joined didn't have a tank. I got introduced by like I was out and about and ended up in dwarven capital and got attacked by the dwarfs that were possessed that were guarding the entrance to city I had 2 rounds of combat before the team could get down to the commotion they heard in the street. They get there and well dice were in my favor cause I wiped the floor and killed all the possessed dwarfs then team showed up and was like, "umm you wanna join cause we do not want to fight you" as they look at the literal blood bath around them
Now *that's* a fun intro! :)
Yikes. A story of my nightmares. I feel so sorry for that player. :(
Inviting someone to just watch others play works only if that person has no idea about D&D and is on the fence of trying it out. Not when there's definitive yes and filled character sheet involved.
And you can do surprise introductions in a way that make everything awesome! When I had new player last time, we started the game with non-character introduction and social time, quick recap for everybody, and then I joined his character in the first five minutes of actual game IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIGHT. He literally woke up from long paralysis, in spider cocoon, hearing fight noises (he consented to this before game session), and others helped him out while dodjing those spiders.
Needless to say, we finished that campaign with a blast, and started a new one without losing any players.
8 weeks waiting to get introduced? I would not talk to that guy again...never ever...
I would have been pissed after an hour had gone by and after 2 hours i would have left and never gone back.
Worlds laziest introduction “
I love it, it gets them into the game.
That's typically my go to for character introductions too. Whatever room of a dungeon the pcs left off in the previous session, the new player is only 1 or 2 rooms away.
I normally do the "you find a dwarf/orc whatever tied up in the room with some weapons and armor next to them
The lazier and more contrived the introduction, the better. Especially if you're running a more serious campaign, having some levity mixed in with party management can lighten the table up.
last week we started a minicampaign. DM is a personal friend, and 3 of the 4 party members are from our main group. the DM brought a 4th player to the game, and decided our first quest was to find the player & save them. We didnt know that was the quest at first so i did usual exploration stuff. its finally revealed that we need to find her so we head straight to the obvious plot hook. we get there & because time is apparently of the essence, i burn a bunch of ki & end up killing all the enemies because the party has a monk(me) a rogue with only some throwing knives & a bard. we save this player and all thats left is "get back to base" which ... was a safe walk home. I was then told that i was selfish for making the combat end so quickly. even though no one else (including the 4th player) did anything for the first round.
four sessions??? good god why keep coming
I know god why
Imagine if after waiting four sessions and their first combat ends up a TPK? Yeah they aren't ever playing again!
@@mainepants or a great looting opportunity...
@@Ambers128 I meant the newbies character getting killed in a TPK so I doubt they'd want to make a new character even if the previous parties stuff was up for grabs.
I wouldn't come to the second session if the DM won't introduce me at first one or at least don't have told me before session that they are in a dungeon and he can introduce my character in the next session, so I don't have to come to that one.
If you wanna somewhat fancily introduce them, you can have them do a little solo play to get the party and them to meet up
Had this sort of happen to me once, waited about 2 hours before I was introduced. In fairness, the DM apologized and said he didn't expect the players to take so long. I'm very patient, but not sure I would do that again haha.
I can see something like this happening in an acceptable manner if, say, the last session ended halfway through a big boss fight and it is neither practical to introduce the newbie into that nor fair to throw them immediately into a confusing potential meat grinder. There might even be some argument for letting a super-noob watch for part of a session before they start making decisions so they understand how this works and what to do. But if it's not convenient to introduce their character for four more sessions... invite them to the fourth session.
The big fight I agree with. But 4 sessions is too much!!!
I nearly had a player wait for a game once cause another player had to quit the game and I started looking for a replacement (and found one way quicker then I thought). Ended up running 7 players instead of 6 for 2 sessions but everyone was cool with that
I once was in a game where I waited until the end of the game session for the DM to introduce my pc to the game. We started at 9pm and played until 12:00-12:30pm knowing that I had worked at 4am morning. I never felt my time so wasted and insulted before and still haven't experienced anything like that again so far thankfully.
The one session I was in, a player somehow succeeded in perma-killing his PC even though my cleric had the necessary spells and diamonds for both revivify and raise dead. Yet even with that unexpected hiccup, the DM was still able to fit the players backup character into the group before he was even finished writing up the charater sheet.
Top Tip: Create a "Guild of Adventurers" for your world, give them an identifying mark or badge or special handshake or whatever, so they can recognise each other.. Now when you need to get PCs or NPCs together in a party they already have a means to identify each other, and know they may have goals in common: e.g. "swinging swords, slinging spells & getting paid".. (Backstory lore for that Guild optional, but it can be a fun bit of world-building, especially if you give it different status in different areas).. Especially useful if (like me) you're running a persistent world, but with players not able to dedicate time to long over-arching campaign(s) - it works well for framing & stitching together Monster-of-the-Weeks / short missions / Mini-Dungeons and One-Shots.. With minimal "waiting-to-be-introduced" time.. :)
We have salvage crews in our Oracle of war campaign. It's easy to insert a new player as wanting to sign up with the crew for work or if mid module somewhere, arriving in a different crew or one that only had them left as a survivor. Because crews can turn up anywhere in the Mournland there's plenty of places to drop players right in (even if you're modifying the AL play to normal sessions)
I can understand the need to make a great intro, something standing out this new PC from the NPC to get the players to interact with them... But even with that need, no need to make it into the story. You can do many cool intros quickly by forgettig the story a bit, it's like the DM use of Rule Of Cool ! You get to do your badass intro and the new player to get into the game quickly (and the old character to want to get to know the new guy). All Win
The two newest players in my current campaign (first time players as well) both joined the party in less than 10 minutes after the session started. The first one was a "fish out of water" character who overheard the party asking for directions to the same mage he was looking for, so he tagged along with them. The second just happened to be standing in a line alongside the party, and then decided to join them after a brief battle happened with some mages in the line. Both players' characters initially felt not tied to the party in any way, but in the first session I already gave them opportunities to show their value to the party (and the value of being in the party to them)
Both introductions were also largely left to the players, since it's their character, not mine
Four seesions? Jow! How did you keep your cool during that time? I might would forgive him the first session, but then tell him that I at least want to join my chara the next session or am not returning.
One session, okay. It's not a great experience, but it's forgivable. But not two or more sessions. >
Blame distribution goes 50% GM, 40% Fellow Players and 10% to self for tolerating it.
That's fair. I certainly would not have tolerated it as a player.
@@theDMLair My toleration for being sidelined would have been between 10 and 15 minutes. Tops... Ok 30 minutes if it was the OGGM Jim Ward creator of Metamorphisis Alpha and Gamma World.
So my players found evil cultists' base and killed some guards outside.
End of the session. New session = new player.
So I introduced him like this: you see a cultist hunting party returns from a raid, they have an unconscious prisoner with them. Prisoner (new player) - tell them how do you look like.
My plan was simple - they'll fight new cultists (they had no time to hide the bodies, so they'll be forced to anyway), they'll try to heal a prisoner asap so he could help them.
Sadly a new player skipped the whole battle. As they had no magic to heal him from distance, and they found a great defence position quite away from a prisoner. It did not took too long, maybe 30 min or something, and they finished a small dungeon together in that session. But still a totally "I did not expect this" moment. And I had no idea how to fix this on the fly.
If a new player is joining, but you're in the middle of a dungeon where it really doesn't make sense for this player to randomly show up (though honestly, it shouldn't be too hard to find a way), then just tell the player they can join once the group is past that point, don't have them sit in without being able to do anything - or at the very least offer them the option of sitting in but tell them they won't be doing much until the group is out of the dungeon (and give them an indication of the amount of sessions that would more or less last).
I'm gobsmacked that any DM's actually do this! :O .. *facepalm* .. Just come up with a halfway ok excuse and *crowbar that new player in there*, and get them playing as soon as possible! XD
This hit me closer to home. My DM would pull this, but for the opposite reason. Not because it would be the 'perfect moment', but because introducing characters in an expedient fashion, such as in the middle of combat, would give new characters the opportunity to immediately ingratiate themselves into the party by playing on the sense of gratitude.
Every new piece of content you release makes me know that I need to be around for twitch time. The content has grown to be so helpful over this channels life
My favorite one to use is "And your best friend [new character] who was totally here the whole time shows up"
What the hell. As a DM, I couldn't imagine having someone just sit in, unless if that's what they wanted.
ESPECIALLY when you have TWO WEEKS to figure it out.
I'm sorry. If in two weeks, you can't think of a good introduction for a character to do within the first 20 min, you're a shit DM.
I had something similar happen in my game by accident. I tried having the new player show up imprisoned in the next room.... but the players just would not go in. They were sneaking around in a hole in the walls, overcome by analysis paralysis and spent two hours over-planning how to break into the next room to rescue them. Luckily it was an online game so we didn’t waste so much of the new guy’s time, but geez that was ridiculous and I felt like I had to go apologize to him after the game was over.
My fav Fast-Intro: My character died in the wilderness. I stepped out and made a wild mage (2e), DM looked over the character quick, turned back to the players and said, "as you are traveling you hear a distant "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" as somebody falls towards the ground. A cloud of feathers burst out of 20 feet ahead of the party, {MyCharacter} steps out - You surged while casting feather fall. You are here now.
The longest I have had a character intro wait is about an hour, and we play for 5-8 hours weekly.
Making a player wait multiple sessions? That's how a DM loses players, and possibly gets their tires slashed!
I'm in the camp of:
"This is the world's greatest roleplaying game"
Yeah, roleplaying *GAME!* If you're sacrificing the game for the story, you have no business DMing.
I half-fell into this pitfall my first campaign where I was gonna introduce the new player in the first fight, which I thought was gonna come in the first 10-15 minutes max. Problem is I didn't expect how much one player was gonna beat around the bush before getting on with the quest, to the point he was gonna go to an entirely different town for no good reason. I had to just say "Okay, but don't, because we have a player waiting to be introduced"
The first time I introduced a new player tho, I just pulled some bullcrap, basically: "You wake up, the guy you remember adventuring with isn't there, it's this tiefling instead. Why do you even remember that guy, you've always adventured with this tiefling? Eh who cares. Anyway, let's go"
100% agree. Id rather have a cheesy intro but get them in the game fast.
Sometimes you have to sacrifice a smooth story for pacing. You're not writing a book and it really stinks for a player to get stuck waiting when they should be playing. No one is going to sweat it because they're going to be too busy freaking out about how the big bad evil guy has placed them into another bad situation. And they can always use more help against the evil doers 😀
I don't know... That introduction is great!!! If I ever happen to introduce a new character and keep the same number of PCs I am totally doing this!!!
I had something similar happen. I had been out of a game for months due to schedule conflicts. About the same time my schedule cleared up, another player took over as GM. My character had connections to a couple of characters still in the party, so I thought bringing me back in was a snap. Instead, we were treated to four hours of role-playing how awesome the new GM's former PCs were.
My scheduling conflicts returned.
You don't need the perfect intro for the new character.
You need the first available opportunity that doesn't feel blatantly wrong.
That's all.
My DM always just introduces new characters by having us run into them on the street. It’s not my favorite, but it works.
I do wait for a good time to introduce new or returning players, but with one rule: it must happen within the first 10 minutes of the session.
I agree to a point. I think for NEW players its essential to introduce ASAP and get to the GAME. But for a story heavy group of long time friends who play every week and a PC is coming in with a new character finding a logical and good introduction that fits the verisimilitude of the story is a bit more important. Always talk to the player ensure they are ok sitting out and just watching a session for the sake of the story or if they would rather get in the game ASAP. I think this is another case of clear communication solving potential issues. Long time players might prefer a more in-depth and story rich/logical introduction to getting into playing ASAP. So I say ask!
If I have a new player, I need to be 100% sure the charakter can be included in the first half hour. If I can't promise that, I will tell the player "next session could be tricky to get you in. If you are fine with watching, you can come watch and maybe get to play, or you join the session after that one and i will definitly get you in early".
I love story, but I hate betraying players. Yes, I consider it betraying when I invite someone to play and they only get to watch, or to only play the last few minutes.
Betraying charakters is a different story.
In my group I told my players to draw up a backup character in case they die so that I can throw them in somewhere because if they die at the beginning of the session and then have to sit there for hours that would suck.
Truth bomb here. I’ve learned a ton from the DM Lair, but anytime a video like this come out it makes me cringe because I know he’s going to talk about something I’ve done in the past.
Thanks for all the helpful tips!
This is what happened to Taliesin Jaffe in Season 2 of Critical Role after his first character Mollymauk died and he sat out for about three sessions before his new character was introduced to the story.
This literally happened the last session I played to our newest player. As another player, I constantly broke the 4th wall trying to get him introduced.
*You see a smokey battlefield with fighting and-*
"I jump into the fray, searching hard for Brian!"
"You guys open the door and there's somebody tied up in that room" - Literally how I intro'd the last player to join my group! xD Who then went on to ask "Is my stuff in that box?" "Nope." "I look around the room, is ANY of my stuff there?" "Nope. Sorry, the orcs must have fled town with it." "Okay. I scavenge some weapons and armor from the dead orcs." "Okay!" (Welcome to the game)
Funny thing. I once introduced some new players in exactly the way you suggested. Had them in the next room as prisoners with their gear nearby. It still took my current players nearly an hour to get to them. One of the new "prisoner" PCs started kicking the door. Current players didn't even make the connection when I told them they hear a crash and see a nearby door shake in its frame. They thought there were monsters incoming and started barricading the door.
Sometimes you can only lead a horse to water.
^ This is why if really want my players to get to a place, or get a thing, I try to give them the means to *see* it.. "The door has collapsed with age and rot and hangs open.." .. "There's an iron grill you can see through set in the top part of the door.." or whatever..
Yeah, you have to be careful not only when but how you give the players info. One time our group explored some half flooded sea tunnels on an island and the dm described the mining equipment scattered all over. In reality their was nothing in that area, but the description made us wanna dig to see what was there. Our correctness was only reaffirmed when the gm sent a flood and a bunch of monsters our way to “stop us”.(Actually just wanted us to flee out of the tunnels that had nothing). Anyhow we wasted a whole session from a iffy description. When it comes to them, don’t try to be to cute. You don’t know what the players may focus on so just be direct. Same goes with new player stuff. Just get it out of the way quick.
@@nature_laughslast6438 I try to reward players for searching stuff even if it's only with incidental flavour / info.. e.g. in a recent session one PC in a party decided to search an old desk (that I'd last minute improv'd, thinking the party might use it to barricade a door - they didn't).. Player rolled high on investigation, so I improv'd some crumbling old papers that gave further clues as to original use of the place, and a bunch of keys.. I'd've probably had your party find "a small gold nugget and a scrap of an old map (of part of the mine)" directing the Party to a more interesting area..
@@nature_laughslast6438 that said, your party went through a combat encounter *and* a natural hazard encounter - which sounds fun anyway?
@@preacherjohn Well it’s not that the encounters were bad, it’s just at the end when we figured out there was nothing there and it was just the gm trying to make us leave the area. So we literally wasted a session(progress wise) and got no in game rewards.. she could have fixed it by making things up and adding some flavor or a little coincidental treasure.
IT'S BEEN 3 SESSIONS SINCE OUR LAST COMBAT!!! I was so bored last game, I almost used compelling duel on another player.
I get so bored when the "talky talky" bits go on for too long lol! Thankfully my DM has come to understand this after having a friendly chat with him about it, and he gave us some good combat during the session last night!
Something similar happened to me, though not as a new player. We were an already established group starting a new campaign. For whatever reason the DM did not have my character start with the group. They played. Had a combat that lasted about an hour or so. After the combat they played a little more. When they were about to start another combat and I wasn't introduced yet I left. I would get a phone call from another player saying how the DM was upset I left because he had plans and am now removed from the group. Sure, my fault for not wanting to sit there doing nothing. Whatever.
At the beginning of the game a portal in the ceiling opens and "PLOP" the new character falls out and joins the party. Done.
you find a wild magic zone, the wizard cast something, a portal in the floor opens...
I try to make it a bit less forced then that, but unlesss the new player joins mid combat, my goal is to spend the first 15 minutes to get it in.
Kinda fucks up immersion, if that's something the players are into.
@@ZarHakkar yeah, it doesn’t have to be completely natural, but there should be some effort into it. They should be introduced at most 20 minutes into the session though
That's the most crappy and unimaginative way to introduce a player.
that's insane there is no way I would wait that long, nor would I make anyone wait that long. hell I had a guest who was just there to watch who never asked me to play and so last session I asked them if they wanted to join and they will be in my next session
Work with the new player and see if there's a way you can work their backstory into what's happening in that moment. I introduced a Fairy Druid 🧚♀️ to the party by her being exiled from the Summer Court, banished to the Material, and appearing during a fight with some Ogres the party had been asked to clear out to protect local livestock.
I knew she was coming this week, so I built the session before to end at the mouth of the Ogre cave. Plan ahead, but DON'T overcomplicate it.
Lol, this exact things happen to me, the party was going from a city to another, got kidnapped by some bbeg's goons and at the end of the session they wake up all chained to a wall with me there, chained as well, the only thing i was able to do was try to escape with a strength check ( that i failed) and then the dm ended the session.
wuuuuuuuuutf!? That's terrible! :O
That sounds like a fun Cliffhanger though. Two weeks to crap your pants wondering what's going to happen. Lol. There's of course the issue of not being introduced into the game which totally sucks and was horrible. But Cliffhangers like that are cool.
Good idea, had you not had to sit through their session. So simple to fix its infuriating. End their last session being captured. Start YOUR first session with everyone waking up in prison.
Also i want to add that , that was my FIRTS session ever, i started playing dnd that day, and all i did was waiting, i know better now tho, i dm my own campaing and my friends seem to enjoy it.
tip from adventure league play: you're just there, it's up to you to figure out why...the onus of immersion is on YOU
New player, pc name atar ashi. The main party ended the previous session in the middle of combat, introduces new player by having their character fall out of a tree into the combat.
Nice! Though if it is an archer or glass cannon I might allow them to be hidden
A bit of waiting is fine, it is important to have it make sense in your story & world to have weight, but there's an easy balance. Either get there quickly or change scenes over to the new player to give them something to do.
I had a player (who was an ass) join & the players made 2 stops before going to the tavern to recruit him (where he sat like a log during about 4 ques for him to talk).
Yes, get the player that us new to the party involved quickly and if you have to creatively. I'm a forever DM (as in decades) and my general rule is "as soon as possible" like 20 minutes or less, and much less is preferred. In my opinion, if someone reading this actually experienced what happened to the player in this example, the DM is a failure (I might forgive someone brand new to the DM role, but not a DM with any considerable time behind the screen). You might have to be creative or "go against the story" in order to introduce the new player but that is forgiven, because that introduction becomes part of the story. The DM''s job is to get folks involved in the game, in all it's aspects (story, role play, mechanics, etc) and to do that, all the players have to be in the storyline and participating in the game, not watching it. Example: One night I was a bit at a loss as to how to introduce a new PC. When the player finished their character sheet, I checked it quickly (Fighter, easy to check) and handed it back. The party was in a room at the start of a dungeon that happened to have a huge statue in it. They heard a huge banging and grinding sound and the new character fell through the statue's mouth, after falling in a pit trap in a room above and zipping down a slide ("strangely", the new PC only took 4 points of non-lethal damage from my improvised introduction, which heals in minutes). It was all I could come up with at that time but everyone loved it. Be creative and get new players in the game, not on the sidelines!
There is no perfect moment to add a PC. I mean, I suppose there are, but they're few and far between. Sometimes it works out perfectly and it's a great intro...sometimes you just gotta find them tied up in the next room lol
the start of a session with a new player should be simple. 1 or 2 minute synopsis to set the mood, then the new character is added... game on! where's the problem?
I had a new player join near the beginning of the campaign. I just said he was there from the start, their character was just very quiet.
in a lot of scenarios, a new charakter showing up within the next two minutes doesn't make sense. a dungeon that has been sealed off for houndreds of years, guarded by powerful elementals... you find a solo bard. yeah no that doesn't work. though if you can't get the new charakter in within the first half hour, the player should know that beforehand.
Than wait, and say that to the players a time before. Hey I don't think we wrap it up. Is it ok if you join us next week. So the player can plan something different
@@plueschteddie8223 that's what I wrote xD
@@ROARlikeDoggysDo I would say that's a 1 in a million case. There are so many things you can do with that one it's incredible!
But one way you can always go is the Frozen Han Solo thing in return of the Jedi
Okay, I've been doing this (GM'ing) for 30 years or more, BUT I do remember whenever I was "the new Player" at other Tables, too... I hated sitting around to waste a session. In some instances, I could sort-of understand it, as it's often customary to let a new Player "sit in" a little while to learn how the Table generally functions, and different Tables have a little different style from others... so be it... BUT there's a limit.
I set a quick and dirty limit to around a half-hour. That's enough time (depending on pace) for the New Player to get a fair view of our general habits and style of Play, and then somehow, I'm GOING to have them IN THE GAME and MAKING A DECISIVE ACTION... It's a matter of "ready or not... you're GOING to Play".
After all, as Luke pointed out, THAT'S WHAT THEY CAME FOR...
Now, yes... I do have to mix "noob's" with relative Veterans of the Game and Table. It happens... It's not something to be avoided. Aside from the noob', I'll have a talk with my Veterans, set (or reset) expectations a little bit, and we can have a slightly gentler than average "bad joke style" of D&D Adventure or Campaign Arc... This lets the New Player get their feet wet and go through the usual cliche "noob stuff" without too much hell to play. It's a chance to give comfort and reasonable coaching without so serious a tone that anyone feels "robbed" of their RPG experience.
Then we can gear it up as they return and want to build... BUT for that first Campaign or Adventure Arc, it's okay if all they can think of in a crunch is to throw a D20 and shout "Kill it with fire!!!" give or take obscenities... ;o)
I HAVE met some players, however, who would ABSOLUTELY spend 3 to 4 hours complaining that their introduction was lame and everyone else got a better one. 😕
That's a fun experience... 😔
Love the cat cam.
I'm doing something similar but the difference for my campaign is I don't make my players come to the table and wait. I tell them their character will be introduced later on in the campaign and if they want to know the context they can go back and watch the vods
The best introduction is the one that actually happens. You can add circumstances and sense to it later.
Years ago, in my Curse of Strahd game, a new player was joining, when the group was inside of the Death House. So he woke up in the basement in one of those empty rooms, without knowing how he got there. Then he and the other players kind of stumbled upon each other.
I like to give new players a piece of lore that they know that is relevant to the quest the players are currently on.
I sometimes do this. It's really great!
We had a new player the second session we played. The first thing after the "last time on..." was me introducing his character in a little chase
Played a game where I didn’t play for the whole first session. I played animal crossing for four hours while they killed goblins. The dm said “it’s because the other players found your camp in their session zero” they weren’t even at the table that night. The game became a railroad. The last session I played with that group we climbed a mountain and did some talking to appease a being. The options were win a test of strength or serve this being. One player won the test of strength and ended up having to serve the thing anyway.
It's like if someone hosted a board game night with 5 people and insisted on starting with a game that can only go up to 4 players.... and the game took 4 hours to play
I had 2 new party members joining my group and in our world there is an adventurers guild. I just had the guild master tell the existing group they needed help for any of the available missions, then called out to the room asking if anyone was looking for work. New members said yes, I made introductions, boom, new party composition. Lamest intro ever, but it got everyone involved in less then 15 minutes.
So I am quite new to this DM hobby. I have watched a LOT of content to better my DM skills and roleplaying but I haven't seen someone giving such amazing advice in their videos like you do. Thanks for the hours upon hours of amazing content! I have probably binge watched most of your videos in a week! Keep it up! ❤️
What the hell?! No! That could have been worked in day 1! But no, 2 months later, you’re finally playing? Unacceptable!
The other PC’s could walk into a simple combat or social encounter one or two rounds/minutes in. You find out a lot about a character in how he/she fights or otherwise engages others. Simple, dynamic, and memorable.
For a quick introduction idea if no other seamless transition, use the planes of travel. The person is dumped through a crack in the shadow/ethereal plane after being sent there by fae. There could be ethereal filchers that had heard of loot in the vicinity thinking the new player had it.
*Yeah waiting a hour or more while the new player is already to play is ridiculous .*
*If the player is ready .*
*Find a spot as soon as possible to introduce the character .*
*The player should not wait any longer then 30 to 45 minutes at max .*
*The only reason to delay is due to the party being delayed or occupied with something complicated .*
*An even then the party & DM/GM should speed it up to get the new player into the game sooner .*
Dude, combine this with the fact that a common pre-dnd experience is being told "sure we'll get you involved in our next campaign" and then they forget to invite you when that happens
I would never talk to those people again, I'd be so angry
This is like the time I will outright encourage metagaming.
My regular group was gonna have a mutual friend of all of us join for two sessions to play as an “npc”. I just outright told them that friend was gonna be X npc so we wouldn’t do the weird dance of trying to get them to where the npc-pc was. It was a weird and bold choice to make, but I think we were all glad to get us all playing quickly together without having to change the npc-pc character to fit wherever the players happened to go.
My players are flexible so they made their plans so that they visited where the npc-pc was first thing in the session because they were excited to meet them.
I think I had a new player already role-playing accepting a quest with the party by the 30 minute mark.
I recently took over a campaign, I needed to introduce the previous DM’s character, a new character for a player who wanted to switch and the character for a new player. I told them I wanted to introduce everyone as fast as possible within the first 3min. First session arrived and everyone was playing right away and they loved it.
I find the timing of PC introductions sometimes quite difficult.
Somehow the problem is you never know, where you players are going. The group could just decide to go in the other direction or if you describe it from the new players perspective, he could decide to get his character killed before he meets the party. Therefore, I started to figure out something to tie in the new players appearance in the end of the session recap from the last session.
So, there is visual contact before any PC makes any decision, new PC does not get killed before he meets the party (never split the party) and other PCs does not wander off somethere and I get a headache how to introduce the new PC there.
Literally just introduced a new PC in my last session and basically used the opposite approach lol
Two out of three were turned to stone by cockatrice in the middle of the woods... Leaving our gnome wizard to watch over the statues of his friends for a full 24 hours! Luckily, I had another friend looking to join my campaign for the very next session.
So I had a bear enter to attack the defenseless party right at the start of the session and the new player showed up three rounds into the combat to save the day! Not only was it the perfect way to introduce him and have him bond with the party right away.... It also gave him a chance to shine and show off his character's skills immediately!
Just to make sure the statues weren't getting bored, I said that after 12 hours they could start to see and talk again. So the first 30 mins was dedicated to his entrance. I felt a little bad for having the statues do nothing for the first 30 mins, but they actually enjoyed this combat as much as any!
One big thing I've learned from DMing so far is, as long as they are actually playing, rolling, planning, or laughing... You're running a great session! The worst thing to do is to overthink and over plan everything!
I literally set a 10 minute timer at the start when a new player is joining a session I'm running. If the timer runs out, I jump right to the introduction.
As DM it is critical to remember that the world may be yours, but 'the story' is the players to create.
So if the king tells the PCs to go kill the vampire and they go hide in another country, that's the story.
Im a pretty new DM and I did this in the beginning to one of my players who missed the first session. I thought ok he missed session one, well give him a good introduction. It took just over an hour of playtime before I finally had a chance to bring him in. After that I decided never again, idc how cool or corny or cheesy, my players are going to play. That's why when I had another player join later on I had a couple of players in the middle of some roleplay. I gave them 5 minutes to finish their roleplay at the start of session then described how while their walking and talking they took notice of a pc who had the look of someone looking for work around the docks and that perfectly segwayed to him joining the group. It was awesome or spectacular, but it was fast, it got my player in the game, and it actually got right to the point of his joining the group.
I did reverse, I spend the start of the session with the perspective of the new player's character, although, since half the party had died, they had the company of an existing placers replacement character. Eventully they run into the rest of the party, with only some OOC nudges. Don't think it took more than 30-60 minutes, and they found a couple of loctations the party hadn't explored before (location based adventure at the moment), exploring one, and noting a couple more down that they then went to after they met the survivers of the original party.
I remember I had a similar issue. I was going to be gone from my game for 4 weeks, so we left my PC in a place where we had some NPCs doing some dangerous setup work for us that we planned to come back later; basically the prep work for trying to take over a large empire. I ended up coming back a week early, which I didn't actually get to play that session, fair enough. But ultimately, it took another 1 and a half sessions before my character ended up appearing, because the plot involved my character getting captured while alone.
At least this was a virtual game, so I could just log into the call and play other games while listening
This is why I always do one on one sessions with new characters/players joining an existing campaign prior to introducing them to the party and they know in advance where their character is going to be when they meet the party. This also serves as a way for new players to get used to roleplaying and/or my DMing style as well. After the one on one there is virtually no waiting for their introduction to the party once everyone gathers for the group game, like maybe 5-10 minutes at most. Hell I do one on ones with all players/characters prior to them even forming a party usually anyway since no one likes "You all meet in a tavern by chance and after a few drinks you decide to adventure together".
We play it as "Magic Hand drops the new player in here". Same thing if a player missed the last session, at the start of the session the DM drops in that player with a brief explanation if needed. Most players just roll with it so we can get to playing the game.
My current campaign has my players exploring a mega-dungeon, where they can swap out characters whenever they return to base camp. Whenever they introduce a new character, I ask them to briefly explain a bit of their backstory, how they have arrived at the camp, and why. Just a couple sentences is all we usually need.
I didn't realize that was a thing anyone even did... That really sucks.
As a DM, player introductions are best handled by 'player fiat'. Because it's their side of the table, the band-aid needs to be ripped off immediately by any contrivance as is convenient. I've literally had newbies shipped in boxes along with the party and casually informed them that it contained, and I quote, "the newbie's character for next session." Casual ret-conning can also be used to similar effect. First thing they do? Open the box, voila! New addition to the party!
my favorite thing to do to introduce new characters is rival adventuring party that didn't make it. last time i used it was told i am "so creative" laughed a little in lazy.
I am shocked and appalled that the player came back for a second session, let alone FOUR!!!
Seriously, I wouldn't play with such a DM. If he puts you through that just to have the "privilege" of playing with him, what will he do to you, once he has you under his power as an actual player in the game?
This happened to me. I stayed there for a couple sesions because i was "playing" with a friend, but I ultimately left. It sucked
I had it where the session ended and they were being followed by a mysterious cloaked figure. Then a new player wanted to join.
One of the players had a backstory that they are being hunted by bounty hunters. The new players backstory was that they were a bounty hunter
So the first session the player had, instead of having the hooded figure be this NPC I had planned it to be from the beginning, I made them be the new player :)
I agree. Get new players in the game as fast as possible. Also, when a character dies, get that player back in the game with a new character as quickly as you can. It doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to fit the story. The important thing is that player is in the game.
I had an new player came in. It took maybe 5 minutes before he got into the group.
Yeah, if a new PC is joining the party, work out a way they can show up right away with them. Middle of the dungeon, when they're creating their character, work out why they would bump into the party right at the start.
The one time I fell into this trap was my first session DMing. Was running the Sunless Citadel and one of the players wanted to play someone who lived in the dungeon so cool. I started the players right outside of the door. One rule of character creation was "have a reason to want to go there, here's what's going on in town." So cool. They open the door and run into the other player... or so I thought that was what was going to happen.
Party spends an hour arguing about whether or not to go into the front door of the dungeon.
TL:DR,
First time ever playing a p&p rpg, early 2000s, a class mate from a drawing class I attended invited me and other classmates to play (GM + his 3 regulars and us the noobs 2 girls and me)... we spend about 9 hours of absolute boredom waiting for our characters to be introduced into the story and play, but the session ended before that ever happened.
Fullstory
Early 2000s, I was 14 maybe 15 years old, a group of friends from a drawing class I attended and me were invited to play to play a P&P RPG which I can't even remember the name (it wasn't D&D and PF didn't existed yet), soooo... Saturday evening we go to this guy's house and we make our characters (roughly 10 minutes of writting stuff on a character sheet) I got a lucky roll and got to choose from the rare races (Angels, Demons, etc...) of the game but choose a more common one that I liked better (some furry/were-something humanoid) and right after that the game started... 5 hours later our characters were still not introduced into the story, me and the other noobs at the table were bored out of our collective skulls, the GM and the other players were RPing some sort of Trial, like a legal trial, and presenting arguments and evidence but made no progress at all, our character were supposed to be introduced right after that , 1 hour later I've got enough and ask one of the players to see his CS and check if they could roll cross-skills (i.g. nature with/or instead of arcana to determine the origin of an alchemical ingredient) 'cause whatever this "case" was about had something to do with a poison or a curse... and even if rolling cross-skills wasn't in the rules that''s what the GM had planed as the solution rolling Arcana+Poison(or whatever it was I can't remember, the poison was cursed or something) so that was all they had to do... so our characters were finally introduced to play? No, they were not, the DM and the other players spend another 2 hours RPing and the session was over just as the GM ended his unending monologue, and we the noobs had to go home... 9 hours wasted, but the worst part was that that GM was boring as hell, one of the two girls that joined us fell asleep mid session and the other girl and I started to draw in our notepads and keep drawing almost the entire time we were there.