Stop everything you're doing. Stop. Did you stop? Okay, now stop for real.
Talk to your players about this. Do they want to do this? There is literally nothing gained from "pulling a fast one" over on your players. One minute of feeling like shit because they failed in the literal first moments of the game. Or worse, they recognize it's a ruse because it's not even a very good ruse. It's an extremely overused and trite ruse that borders on ineptitude.
Dungeons and Dragons is collaborative. If you want to tell a collaborative story with your table about a necromancer who revived some heroes from a century ago... **fucking collaborate with your players**. Talk to them about the idea, discuss what it means for their characters, encourage them to make backstories for which the 100 year revival would matter.
Now, if everyone is onboard with this campaign premise and everyone is excited with the 100-year revival, then move forward with your idea. Now, everyone knows the first fight is the "prologue," an exercise in roleplaying, no true consequences because the fight is preordained. No one loses agency because everyone goes into the prologue knowing how it ends, *and that's the point.*
I also think the fight itself may be not worth the effort. You don’t get into the teamwork and the DM has to juggle all of it. There’s not much consequence. It really just seems like exposition.
I would just pitch the campaign as “Your characters have died. You find yourselves together as strangers in an unfamiliar place.” I would also give a summary of what kind of adventures the players can expect. For backgrounds, I would request a few sentences discussing who they were and how they died. I can work with the players on any changes to fit things into the campaign. I would want 1 or 2 connections to NPCs, that they would mostly come up with. I would keep secret how long each of them have been dead. In the first session, I would give all the fish out of water set-ups and give clues about how long they had been dead.
I would also ask how they might have a connection to another PC in general terms. Then, set up those connections as they play.
Main thing for me is that I want them to get to a point where they do something meaningful as quickly as possible. I do very little exposition. Then I give those bits as the PCs express interest.
Rolls 3d100 per player to determine how long each of them have been dead. Maybe characters are related - grandchild or young protégé who when on to outlive their elder only to end up animated right next to them a 150 years down the road.
I was originally thinking of doing dice rolls for how long they have been dead but I think some of the subplots that will come from their are sort of time dependent. For example one is the leader of an army of brainwashed soldiers, who, in their backstory, expressed that their second in command would take over if anything were to happen to them, so I kinda want to explore that, and so would need the character to have died only like 50-ish years ago.
So I obviously agree that this is probably a bad idea. However if you were playing with a group where there was a lot of mutual trust and who you think would appreciate the twist start sort of thing I think it could potentially work but I think the necessary point is that it CANNOT involve taking away their agency.
I think what I would do is before the campaign have each of the players answer a couple of character defining questions about their character most important among these being: "what is would your character most be willing to give their life for?" Could be a loved one, to save their king, to find their families long lost treasure, to help the sick etc.
Then have the opening scenes or session be about them having these deaths (and imo generally succeeding in these goals but I guess that's negotiable). Might not be possible to have them all happen in the same place and situation depending on stated goals but regardless I could see either introducing each character and describing them in the moments before their individual deaths or moving between them in the build up to each with ideally ending by presenting them each with the decision from their little backstory questions, maybe reminding them of the answer they gave and ask them, in the knowledge that this is the only way to "x" what does your character do?
Making it more narrative, an intro, as opposed to a combat that can't be won. Making it clear in the moment, if not before, that death is the story's intention and i think a lot of players would happily buy in with the expectation there is therefore something to follow that this was the intention. Especially if you choose the player and or character that would most likely go along I think a lot of roleplay heavy tables would take the hook.
I think if the shock of the first characters death and the unexpected transition and twist into starting the story proper having died, I think that would be the way I would try it.
But like I said this would only work for a group of people where there is a lot of trust both ways that we both want to make the best and most enjoyable story we can and where you know the players. I can also think of a lot of ways it could go wrong or be awkward if a players backstory is all about trying to win the affection of a love interest will be a bit awkward if you force them to 100 year time jump or if they come up with some great idea that should achieve their goal without dying and now you either have to do the bullshit rocks fall anyway or something. So yeah obviously agree that the best way is probably just to set it up in a session 0 where they all have at least an idea that this is what's going to happen but just to play devil's advocate for what could be a fun campaign idea.
Kinda rude iibh, but I get what you're saying. I didn't intend for it to be pulling a fast one or anything, just to sort of be a surprise, but I wanted to check before I did anything cause I was very unsure as a new DM. I like the idea of doing it as sort of a practice thing with their knowledge though, in an exercise for RPing, especially cause they too are fairly new players. Cheers.
I get where the guy is going. its not the first time one of these have been posted, and OP usually ignores the advice, and then posts it as a tabletop drama post "what did i do wrong"
he is just trying to shock you into realising its a mistake
Thanks, I get that. I suppose a lot of DMs would just ignore all of this. I'm glad to say that I will be changing my idea because of the comments, and be creating the best experience for my players that I can.
I made a similar mistake when I was a brand new DM. It may seem like a cool idea to run, but that idea is definitely something to run by the players. The things I've learned is if there is a specific story you want to tell you should write a book. This game is too improvised to make it easy to tell a whatever story you want to tell as a DM and kinda forgets one major thing. The DM doesn't actually drive the story. The players do.
If I'm being honest, I could be a lot ruder. A surprise is a fast one. You're intentionally trying to trick them into something happening that they have no control over. That's a fast one.
Honestly, if you're a new DM and you're playing with new players, you should pocket this campaign and go way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way simpler. Add about a thousand more "way" to that. This is too complicated and it's not a good idea. It will be very frustrating trying to collaborate this story while also figuring out how to play the game.
Go simple, at the very least for like five sessions.
Instead of taking away agency and railroading them literally to death, why not just start with them being dead? Part of your character creation prompt should be "how did you die?" Then just start the real adventure at the actual beginning.
This is the correct answer. If you start the session with all the players being dead and then revive them, thats a fun start. If you force the players to die in a combat they have control of, they're not going to have fun.
I didn't think it would be major but I get how it would feel. I like making it a question in character creation. Or maybe it could be an exhibition of the players to each other in a sense. Everyone knows that everyone is going to die. Let's see how that is for this character, and this character, taking it in turns as they get into RPing the characters. Thanks :)
I definitely think this is the way to go. Session zero is the time to say, "This campaign will begin with you being raised from the dead. How did you die? Who might you know still alive (elves or other long-lived races)? Why was your soul willing to return to your body?"
For me personally, this type of campaign makes it very hard to build a motivated character around. If I was brought back from the dead to be a puppet, I would spend all my energy to break free from whatever control the necromancer has over me.
Thanks, my planned BBEG is the god that ordered them brought back from the dead, with a fight with the necromancy occurring some time a few sessions before that, although that depends on what the players want to do, and I don’t want to play specifics too far ahead
It's a good idea to avoid [over-preparation of plots](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots) which includes [movie villains](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36383/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots-you-will-rue-this-day-heroes-the-principles-of-rpg-villainy).
“I didn’t think it would be major but I get how it would feel.”
For a moment, let’s take a serious look at how the group has prepped. How long have they been building characters? Did you give any other restrictions on character creation? Have they come up with backstories for themselves and maybe amongst the group?
Now imagine you took weeks to perfect your vision of a battle. And when the time comes, the group just ignores it. Or you. Your job as a dm is to give a fun and engaging story. Not to ‘level set and upend everything’ from the get go.
I will be honest, if my DM did this without prior warning, I might not come back for session 2.
Listen to the DMs here. They're trying to help you. You might think your idea is "oh so cool!" But your players might not find it cool.
It's a risky approach, for sure. I remember a game that had something similar happen. The group never recovered. We kept playing for a little longer, but our hearts weren't in it anymore. Is that a risk you want to take?
Don’t play through a pointless, pre-determined fight they can’t win. Just give them a smartened up version of what you’ve written above as the campaign intro pre character creation. Ask them to include in their backstory the moment of their deaths, let them get creative & imaginative.
Then start the game when they ‘wake up’ I.e. start playing at the point they have agency, not before.
If they need to die for the campaign to work, then you are removing agency. What you need to do then is make sure they are on board with the premise of this campaign so they aren't totally blindsided by it. I would just tell them the broad strokes of what you have planned for the first session, and ask that they think of session 1 as more like the prologue to the campaign than its start.
I still want to retain the surprise that their revival is the start of the campaign if that's possible, but I get what you're saying. And session 1 wouldn't be a prologue wholly, it would more just be the first 10 minutes. Would that still work? Would it work better in like a Session 0 type of thing. Like finalising and going through characters, and then we just do like 10 minutes of gameplay before the proper start? What do you think? What do you also think of the premise of the campaign as a whole? I'd appreciate all the feedback I can get :)
Surprise is fun for YOU not for the players who are designing their characters with something in mind. You can flash back to something, but surprise in D&D is overrated by new DMs especially .
Players want to make choices that lead to different outcomes. It's the entire game loop.
If you want to flash back, tell each player where their last stand was, and against who, and narrate a few minutes of each, knowing it is a death scene. This way each player gets to talk about how they see themselves being a badass against impossible odds...which should be interesting to all the other players at the table.
Thanks, I think this all helped me pull my head out my new DMs arse a bit. I'm now really into the idea of it being a character intro as well as a badass last stand type of thing.
Combats that are doomed to fail aren't fun. Do it via narration and storytelling. A 90 minute combat slog isn't the move. Because, again, doomed combat removes agency.
Oh yeah no of course, I definitely wouldn’t have suggested it if it were 90 minutes long, as stated my initial plan was just a few turns, but I’ve since changed my idea because of these comments. Thanks
Part of writing surprises is remembering whose fate you control. As DM, the world and all the NPCs are yours. PCs are not; they belong to their player. Any twist or surprise you write that requires a PC to do a particular thing (or suffer a specific fate, such as death) should flag you to consider if that twist will be taking your player's agency away because the PC is theirs, not yours.
If you want to have a surprise that involves a PC but still have be a surprise to the party, you could consider collaborating with that PC's player to plan it, preserving the surprise for everyone else but also preserving the agency of the player affected.
Keep in mind that you may be completely invalidating a player's backstory for their character with that surprise and remove all desire to play the character. If they were a human with ties to a wife or other family, that family is now dead. If they have friends, those friends are dead. If they had a quest for revenge, then their target is likely dead. Any ties to the world are upended, and any time put in is wasted.
But! If you tell them that their characters are going to be dead and raised 200 years later (or whatever) they can carefully craft backstories that leave room to enjoy those characters. Maybe they cared for a specific place, and they will want to return there to ensure its safety in the future. Or they have an magical and dangerous/cursed lineage, and now they must find their descendents.
Your campaign will hopefully last many sessions to come. Those sessions being fun for the players over the course of the campaign is way more important than a surprise in Session 1 that will be over in 10 minutes.
I find a useful way to determine what players should know going into character creation is to think of it like a movie teaser - you get to see the tone of the plot (action? Drama? Thriller? Romance? Mystery?) a glimpse of the setting (wilderness? Castles? Urban? Bronze Age? Late medieval?) and enough of the early plot beats to get you hooked.
Nothing irritates players more than investing energy into something and finding out it was entirely useless from the start. Who wants to craft the ultimate forest combat ranger when they’re playing entirely in a desert city doing political intrigue RP?
From your description, it sounds like the death-and-resurrection idea should be a core theme that is disclosed, alongside any evil/good tilt for the party and intended terrain and play-style focus.
Based on your edit, I think you may have found a way forward for this campaign, but I still feel that offering you this tool as a perspective option might help you and others in the future.
Tell them the hook. Let them craft their own deaths. Session 1 should empower them to act and realize their characters. Give them the info. They might surprise you.
Tell your players that this is the campaign setup. Coming to the table to play, only for none of their actions to matter, is not a fun surprise and can, at worst, be frustrating.
You can then play it out with your players, letting the PCs die as the dice fall. However, I would not play this part. I would narrate it, letting each player come up with their own death, so they can get in on the fun of their death battle and don't have to wait for it to end. I also wouldn't set this up as a whole session. Maybe 10-20 minutes, so the players get to actually play asap.
As a side note, with new players I wouldn't recommend starting at a higher level, since there is a learning curve to effectively using class features, and getting all of that dropped on you can be overwhelnming.
Yeah, I think I'll drop the high level character sheet stuff and just have them RP it, sort of based off of their character sheet. I still want to have some actual combat elements, maybe so they can get used to them, but I'll work that out. I appreciate the feedback. I was also only planning this to be a 10 minute sort of prologue at the start of the session.
Hey! Just want to saw that you've gotten some pretty heated feedback, but the mistake you've made (prioritize surprise over the player perspective) is one that MANY new DMs make, so don't take any of this too harshly.
I think the idea is fun, and your edit is the right way to go. The only caveat I'd say, is I'd float this idea with your players first to make sure they're as into it as you are. Instead of saying "Tell me how you died," during character creation, lay out the idea in full, explain why you think it's cool, and see how they react before you go in. If you take the time to get everyone else excited and on board, this idea could really sing. BUT, if even one player isn't into it, it's going to sour the whole experience, for them and for the rest of the table.
If you take that initial step to bring them behind the curtain and they're all super enthusiastic about it, I think it sounds like a super fun premise for a game. Good luck!
Hey Thanks, I think I need some time to think about how exactly I’m going to do it, but once I get some more specifics it is definitely going to be with the help of my players
Title: "How to I remove my players' agency without removing their agency?"
Fix: Any part of your story that you *need* to happen happens *before* the first session. As soon as the other players get involved, it's up to them and the dice.
So I will add my own experience with this. My first game of D&D I played, the opening mission started with our party stumbling upon a ritual site with a high level mage who one shot us with Cloudkill. We immediately woke up in our school dorm having been rescued by an agent of the Raven Queen who kicked off the main quest line.
I thought it was an amazing opening because it created intrigue, gave us personal stakes in the main quest line (collect the 5 McGuffins Amulets to prevent an eldrich evil from awakening) and gave us motivation (kill the bastard that tried to kill us).
It comes down to your friends. You should know if they'd find that kind of "kill them in session 1" hook exciting or frustrating.
I think they'd be alright with it knowing them, but I think what other people have suggested and what I will end up going with will work out better than my original idea. But thanks for your perspective :)
Man, you would a set of land speed record for D&D horror stories.
Donot do this. You will piss off everyone, I know it looks cool for like movies and stories but doing this to your players will just make them mad.
It's a common mistake to assume that ttRPGs should work like novels, plays, movies, etc.
However, there's a very fundermental difference. Someone playing a ttRPG is **participating** in the present events of a fictional world via role-playing an individual. Someone reading a book or watching a movie is **spectating** events from the past of a fictional world.
I vote just start with "Gang, one of the things I'd like to do is to start out with you all being dead, and are now being revived by a Necromancer. Is this something you'd be interested in? Cool. Describe your character."
that's it. don't make them fight each other, don't worry about how they died. If you want, let the characters tell you that info.
Man, people are heated over this one. I'll give another perspective from a campaign where I was a player.
We all made characters like normal and after a few sessions were trying to take out a death cult in our city. We got in over our heads, a couple died in the fight, and the rest of us died when trying to retreat. Whoops.
Turns out that was supposed to happen with the swerve being that we were recruited into the service of the god of death because he doesn't like what the cult is doing to subvert the natural order. We all turned into different types of undead with new powers and armor and weapons made of things scavenged from the land of the dead.
It was awesome, very fun campaign that started fairly run-of-the-mill but turned into something unique to us. We had no idea the deaths were essentially scripted, we just dove in too far because we thought we could take them.
I don't get all this ranting about "player agency" as the players already don't have a lot of agency over the broader story strokes, they're already agreeing to play in your world and story and things are going to happen in the world no matter what they do. It isn't like you're taking their character away, it's a plot setup to get them to the point the real story starts.
Your players are (presumably) adults and should be able to handle a mild twist like that without crying about their agency being taken away and not every plot point can be discussed with the players beforehand without ruining it. Do people not like surprises in their games?
Also, you know your players better than anyone else does here. If you think they'd like it, go for it, doesn't matter how many people here tell you they'll hate it.
Just ask the players to write a paragraph how they imagine their high level character will die in battle. Basically, make this part of the backstory. I appreciate your edit and your willingness to listen.
So, here's what i would do that keeps the theme of this. Have them build two sets of characters, one is the sacrificial lamb party. Run the lamb party through a dungeon, any kind, but let them be successful. As they clear the dungeon, that's when you take those sheets and put their evil tokens on the map. At the start of the dungeon. Have them go through their dungeon, describe how they were coming back to their base, describe how they beat the enemies. Their once loyal minions now dead or gravely injured. Set the characters they just played up as the good/bad guys. Then when they get to the final room, you turn their tokens to face them. Describe how these adventurers were cheering and splitting up their hard earned loot.
Then roll initiative. The players can be give the choice to spare their character or not. Setting them into the theme.
Setup talk: Do a session 0, all the normal talk you've have about an evil campaign but explain that they will need to make 2 characters, a weaker one that they shouldn't get greatly attached to, and then their actual characters. That way they know at the least not to invest to much into a character that will possibly die. This gives them the agency to choose at the least if their character dies or runs. If they run, you can then make that character an enemy down the line, wanting revenge on the party.
You've picked an insanely interesting idea, but it needed refinement. The goal should never be to kill the party. BUT every party i've ever had as a gm has attempted to do it to themselves at least once. (I'll never forget you party who decided to shimmy along a cliff tied together with no skills to do so when the door to where they were going to much easier to get to if they back tracked).
This just makes it more direct.
I know that it sounds cool to kill the players for the narrative in they very first combat, but its only cool in your POV. If you dont tell your players then you risk antagonazing yourself to the players from the very get go.
If you plan to kill them anyway, there is no agency, because the hook requires the players to die. There is nothing they can do to change this outcome, so no agency.
So you are basically just wasting everyone’s time. You could just tell the story, the hook and all. Without any of the fake combat. Or like someone here already suggested: have the players make their characters and once they are all done and ready to go. Ask them ”…how did your character die?” NOW that is intriguing.
Also now the players have no idea who this mysterious necromancer is. Is he bad guy? A good guy? They dont know yet. ”He revived us so he must be good right?”
Of course this doesnt quite align with your premise of them dying to this guy in the past in ’cool and edgy’ fashion if the player says that he got ”ran over by a cart and died”, but all you really have to do is insert the necromancer driving the cart and deliberately running over the player. It doesnt have to be super serious. Regardless what the players way of dying is, you could easily insert the Necromancer of being the root cause of the characters death. The intricate details of their death/murder and revival should remain a mystery for the players to discover.
Rather than wasting time with a scripted death, id rather make death part of the backstory. that way 0 time is wasted, player agency is even given instead of taken, and the characters can have more personal goals to make them more alive in the way of possible revenge against whatever killed them. I know i would just not interact with a first session where i am just waiting to die while watching the other party members die.
So, I agree with everyone else that you shouldn’t kill the PCs in session 1. That said, I ran a campaign where, unbeknownst to the players, their characters started off as having died the night before and awoke in this new place.
That method was received well as it didn’t start with a loss.
That sounds really cool. I'm not quite sure that would work with what I'm doing, but I think the new idea in my edit should work pretty well, especially knowing the players
> The campaign begins with the players being revived by a powerful necromancer.
Lol no it doesn’t.
It *ought* to though. Instead of doing this in a session, let the players write a backstory that ends in their defeat, then have the first session simply be their resurrection.
It has long been a desire of mine to run a campaign where the standard 'your backstory must answer these key points which tie them into the campaign' includes "how did you die?"
That sounds like the only way to make this work.
Do not let them fight, if you want them to “have a fight and die” you make up this part yourself and describe it to them as exposition. “Bob, you fight against a rabbit, with fangs like this, and as it sinks its teeth into your neck your world goes black” (everyone else’s back story) “as the blackness fades for all of you, you awaken looking at an old man, not sure if what you just saw was real or a dream… blah blah blah” start story here
What if the death scenes for each character were 'played out' at a later part of the campaign? They could maybe each reveal something new about the greater campaign?
This is the type of situation where you start on day two. “You suddenly wake up, revived by a Necromancer. Your memories slowly start coming back, there was a battle, you died” . But also, this is something you might wanna run by your players first.
So I get all the negative reactions, but I see the vision of this idea. I think you just need to realize that this game is a collaborative storytelling game.
The very existence of this idea is purely narrative and does not give any agency to your players, Which as the DM is your main job. And currently it seems like you want to facilitate something that would be fun for you, but it takes a TON of agency away from those players.
The goal is to have fun by letting your players make choices that allow them agency. That’s what separates D&D from a video game or a movie and I think if you ignore that part then you are losing out on a lot of why D&D is such a fun and unique experience.
I’d be happy to talk more to try and create a happy middle for this idea because I think it’s really cool and could totally be a really exciting experience if you do it the right way!
What do you think of the idea in my edit? And thanks for your feedback, I think it's a matter of putting on a different writers hat for DMing than for stories or scripts I like to do. Thanks
I think It is 100% a step in the right direction it’s going to come down to how your players like it, I would make sure to loosely plan a back up storyline that you can use in case they don’t go for the one you originally wanted.
Sorry had more ideas about it after re-reading.
I also think the idea of all the players dying and then being brought together through their deaths (like Vikings going to Valhalla but as a means of giving the PCs a reason to collaborate.) IS AWESOME!
I really think this is the kind of Idea you should try to do for your 2nd or 3rd game with a tight group that you know well. Because it brings in a LOT of logistical issues that could cause the game to explode before it even gets off the ground. But man, I LOVE this concept.
Don’t get discouraged by people saying you can’t/shouldn’t do it. Being creative and breaking molds is the whole point of D&D, you just need to do it right and spend time planning for the potential problems if you really want to do it. I’m fully on the kill your PC to bring them together hype train down the road though!
I already 100% with some of the answers you've received, but I'll chime in just to dogpile a little, for emphasis.
I deeply recommend starting your story where it *actually* starts, and not in some four-way prologue that they can't really interact with or affect the outcome of. **So, TLDR, "just start with them dead"**, and just include "you have recently been killed. But wait, it seems someone has brought you back..." as part of the pitch.
Feel free to work with them, independently, to determine the circumstances of their deaths. It can be a fun way for everyone to introduce their characters to one another, too, with a little "the last things I remember seeing" or "how my character responds to knowing they've died" spiel in their introductory blurb.
Here’s my thoughts. Tell your players to describe their character, as a character intro, by providing them a scene before hand and having them describe how their character would react in the situation and how they would have been killed.
Does the barbarian rush into the horde to buy time for the party to escape?
Does the rogue attempt to pick off the enemy captain by sneaking into the bell tower only to be met with a patrol?
Let them describe the way they look, and provide insight into how their character would face down a no win scenario.
Tell them “don’t worry I have a plan for your characters”
No one wants their character to be surprise-killed in the first minutes of gameplay by being railroaded. It’s not fun. But describing their character in an interesting way gives them agency and allows *them* to determine what those moments look like.
If your scenario starts with all the PCs dead, then have them die off camera before the game starts. Instead of meeting in a tavern they meet in the Necromacer’s place. The players don’t get any agency to loose until you press the start button
Going along with some of the excellent comments here, after finding out how they died why not make that a bit of roleplay? Instead of the few rounds of combat, you can instead roleplay out their deaths at the start of the game. This serves not only to help ‘get in sync’ with their characters, but also introduces their deaths to the other players in the game.
One character was a spiteful barbarian king, and died because he was poisoned by a subordinate? Narrate their final meal—sitting alone in a banquet hall, eating a solitary meal to celebrate some triumph, only to clutch at his throat and suffocate, none of his ‘allies’ around to help.
One character went out in a final blaze of glory against some Paladin? Work with the player to narrate the combat, with both of you knowing that the outcome will be the glorious death of the PC. Perhaps the PC gets one final blow on the paladin before they meet their own fate and they both mortally wound one another, or perhaps the paladin is blinded by a splash of scalding acid.
These ‘predetermined’ deaths can really help develop these characters, but only because the players were given full control over it as part of their backstory. Not something that was roleplayed out.
Do this as narrative - don't run it with dice. And start with your most resilient player with the strongest roleplaying skills - with everyone in the room:
For example, for a tribal barbarian, read their backstory and introduce "This campaign begins after your first death. Your home is invaded by \[monster\], and you have the opportunity to flee, but that would be cowardly and by dying gloriously you can build a legend and perhaps buy time for a loved one to flee. How do you die?"
Even if they are evil - that doesn't mean they're not heroic - or they can decide that they become evil when raised by necromantic magic.
Then let the player shine with their glorious death exposition and with fully agency as to how it goes.
Do this for each player, and help the players with more modest roleplaying skills with prompts about their potential heroics.
In reference to your edit (smart move btw) the battle shows how they die. Once the characters are revived at lower level, then can use this information to try to build a character that will survive that battle.
For example, the fighter gets killed by dragon breath. Now the PC has a goal to become resistant/immune to that dragon breath.
The wizard got counterspelled when trying to cast a big spell. Now that wizard ensures they learn Counterspell to counter the first counter.
The barbarian, normally resistant to damage, dies by failing a saving throw. The barbarian ensures some ASI points or a magic item can help them with that saving throw in the future.
Instead of a "gotcha" scenario, tell your players they will get a free look into the future and can use that information as they level up. They can change their future.
I see you already reconsidered the idea, but just in case. The answer to the title: you can't. The moment you decide something is happening and player input will not matter, agency is by definition, gone.
I just want to chime in to say that this is a very cool and creative idea. Its true that its not exactly original, but then what is? Was Monet the first person to paint a flower? You clearly put creative thought and excitement into the concept and thats a great start for a new DM. Everyone telling you this is a dangerous and risky idea is right though… because they all did it or watched someone do it (myself included). So don’t think that they just intrinsically know better or that this was some obvious misstep. The reason this seems like such a good plan to a DM is because weve seen this movie or played this game and had a great experience (Souls, Cyberpunk, Fallout, Matrix, etc)- so it makes sense to share that with your players. The misapprehension though, is that in those media we didnt spend hours crafting and defining the main character only to have that rug pulled out from under us. Even video games are a significantly more passive experience to the table top. Even so, some players would relish this idea and roll with it… but some will be very attached to their character concept and will bristle at the sudden shift. The only way to know is to ask- and if that means ruining the surprise… than it shouldn't be a surprise. I think youll find the type of player that likes that kind of thing will still like it and play along- and the ones that dont are likely to accept it IF they are able to plan it into their characters from the start. Good luck.
Two weeks ago, we all sat down for the beginning of our new campaign. The GM had us make level 7 characters with connected backstories to each other. It was an amazing session marred only by the fact that I had been out on a Search and Rescue mission for 8 hours prior to our session. The session ended with all of us dying. My character played the tank and attempted to make a final stand while the rest of the party attempted a retreat. Another party member committed suicide, and the rest were swarmed over. Our next session begins with the actual campaign using the setup and knowledge that we got from the prior session.
The point of the session was to introduce the setting and situation to the players. A "how we got here" type deal. Our actual characters are going to show up 2 years later. But the main takeaway is this. We were all in the know that we weren't going to survive. Talk to your players. If they want to do this, then do it. This session was a blast (accept me falling asleep multiple times, but I got to eat the food that was thrown at me so I'm not going to complain).
Give them a heads-up of some sort that the TPK you've got in mind isn't a real TPK so they know to roll with it. This is a situation where it's gonna be way, way more fun with spoilers than without. Just straight-up inform them, beforehand, that their characters' lives as they know them are gonna be a prologue to the real adventure you have in mind.
"Session one is going to be an impossible task where the PCs die. They'll come back at the end, so don't sweat it when you start dropping" or something like that.
With expectations set, just be ready for teleportig escapees, intentionally suicidal play to accelerate the plot, and a hardcore battlegamer who conspires with the players ahead of time to make the TPK really, really hard.
This is a joke post as a reaction to [this ](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1cg1xsu/why_do_so_many_dms_want_to_start_their_campaigns/)post right?
If you ***need*** something to happen ***before*** the actual campaign starts, DO NOT TRY TO FORCE THE DESIRED OUTCOME. Just be honest and straightforward with your players. Tell them "Hey, I have this cool idea for a campaign. You all died in a cool, epic way and are brought back to do *x*."
Taking away player agency like that is a great way to get written up in r/rpghorrorstories
Also, in D&D, necromancers use dead creatures to make undead creatures. If you want the heroes brought back to the land of the living, then a cleric with Raise Dead or Resurrection is what you are looking for.
>The necromancer would then sort of give exposition as their boat reaches shores on a continent that PCs are unfamiliar with.
This is where your campaign should start, right there.
Stop everything you're doing. Stop. Did you stop? Okay, now stop for real. Talk to your players about this. Do they want to do this? There is literally nothing gained from "pulling a fast one" over on your players. One minute of feeling like shit because they failed in the literal first moments of the game. Or worse, they recognize it's a ruse because it's not even a very good ruse. It's an extremely overused and trite ruse that borders on ineptitude. Dungeons and Dragons is collaborative. If you want to tell a collaborative story with your table about a necromancer who revived some heroes from a century ago... **fucking collaborate with your players**. Talk to them about the idea, discuss what it means for their characters, encourage them to make backstories for which the 100 year revival would matter. Now, if everyone is onboard with this campaign premise and everyone is excited with the 100-year revival, then move forward with your idea. Now, everyone knows the first fight is the "prologue," an exercise in roleplaying, no true consequences because the fight is preordained. No one loses agency because everyone goes into the prologue knowing how it ends, *and that's the point.*
I also think the fight itself may be not worth the effort. You don’t get into the teamwork and the DM has to juggle all of it. There’s not much consequence. It really just seems like exposition. I would just pitch the campaign as “Your characters have died. You find yourselves together as strangers in an unfamiliar place.” I would also give a summary of what kind of adventures the players can expect. For backgrounds, I would request a few sentences discussing who they were and how they died. I can work with the players on any changes to fit things into the campaign. I would want 1 or 2 connections to NPCs, that they would mostly come up with. I would keep secret how long each of them have been dead. In the first session, I would give all the fish out of water set-ups and give clues about how long they had been dead. I would also ask how they might have a connection to another PC in general terms. Then, set up those connections as they play. Main thing for me is that I want them to get to a point where they do something meaningful as quickly as possible. I do very little exposition. Then I give those bits as the PCs express interest.
Rolls 3d100 per player to determine how long each of them have been dead. Maybe characters are related - grandchild or young protégé who when on to outlive their elder only to end up animated right next to them a 150 years down the road.
There are a ton of good ideas for how to collaborate on this story, but "surprise, you're dead for 100 years" isn't one of them lol
I was originally thinking of doing dice rolls for how long they have been dead but I think some of the subplots that will come from their are sort of time dependent. For example one is the leader of an army of brainwashed soldiers, who, in their backstory, expressed that their second in command would take over if anything were to happen to them, so I kinda want to explore that, and so would need the character to have died only like 50-ish years ago.
So I obviously agree that this is probably a bad idea. However if you were playing with a group where there was a lot of mutual trust and who you think would appreciate the twist start sort of thing I think it could potentially work but I think the necessary point is that it CANNOT involve taking away their agency. I think what I would do is before the campaign have each of the players answer a couple of character defining questions about their character most important among these being: "what is would your character most be willing to give their life for?" Could be a loved one, to save their king, to find their families long lost treasure, to help the sick etc. Then have the opening scenes or session be about them having these deaths (and imo generally succeeding in these goals but I guess that's negotiable). Might not be possible to have them all happen in the same place and situation depending on stated goals but regardless I could see either introducing each character and describing them in the moments before their individual deaths or moving between them in the build up to each with ideally ending by presenting them each with the decision from their little backstory questions, maybe reminding them of the answer they gave and ask them, in the knowledge that this is the only way to "x" what does your character do? Making it more narrative, an intro, as opposed to a combat that can't be won. Making it clear in the moment, if not before, that death is the story's intention and i think a lot of players would happily buy in with the expectation there is therefore something to follow that this was the intention. Especially if you choose the player and or character that would most likely go along I think a lot of roleplay heavy tables would take the hook. I think if the shock of the first characters death and the unexpected transition and twist into starting the story proper having died, I think that would be the way I would try it. But like I said this would only work for a group of people where there is a lot of trust both ways that we both want to make the best and most enjoyable story we can and where you know the players. I can also think of a lot of ways it could go wrong or be awkward if a players backstory is all about trying to win the affection of a love interest will be a bit awkward if you force them to 100 year time jump or if they come up with some great idea that should achieve their goal without dying and now you either have to do the bullshit rocks fall anyway or something. So yeah obviously agree that the best way is probably just to set it up in a session 0 where they all have at least an idea that this is what's going to happen but just to play devil's advocate for what could be a fun campaign idea.
Kinda rude iibh, but I get what you're saying. I didn't intend for it to be pulling a fast one or anything, just to sort of be a surprise, but I wanted to check before I did anything cause I was very unsure as a new DM. I like the idea of doing it as sort of a practice thing with their knowledge though, in an exercise for RPing, especially cause they too are fairly new players. Cheers.
I get where the guy is going. its not the first time one of these have been posted, and OP usually ignores the advice, and then posts it as a tabletop drama post "what did i do wrong" he is just trying to shock you into realising its a mistake
Thanks, I get that. I suppose a lot of DMs would just ignore all of this. I'm glad to say that I will be changing my idea because of the comments, and be creating the best experience for my players that I can.
I made a similar mistake when I was a brand new DM. It may seem like a cool idea to run, but that idea is definitely something to run by the players. The things I've learned is if there is a specific story you want to tell you should write a book. This game is too improvised to make it easy to tell a whatever story you want to tell as a DM and kinda forgets one major thing. The DM doesn't actually drive the story. The players do.
If I'm being honest, I could be a lot ruder. A surprise is a fast one. You're intentionally trying to trick them into something happening that they have no control over. That's a fast one. Honestly, if you're a new DM and you're playing with new players, you should pocket this campaign and go way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way simpler. Add about a thousand more "way" to that. This is too complicated and it's not a good idea. It will be very frustrating trying to collaborate this story while also figuring out how to play the game. Go simple, at the very least for like five sessions.
bruh
Instead of taking away agency and railroading them literally to death, why not just start with them being dead? Part of your character creation prompt should be "how did you die?" Then just start the real adventure at the actual beginning.
This is the correct answer. If you start the session with all the players being dead and then revive them, thats a fun start. If you force the players to die in a combat they have control of, they're not going to have fun.
I didn't think it would be major but I get how it would feel. I like making it a question in character creation. Or maybe it could be an exhibition of the players to each other in a sense. Everyone knows that everyone is going to die. Let's see how that is for this character, and this character, taking it in turns as they get into RPing the characters. Thanks :)
I definitely think this is the way to go. Session zero is the time to say, "This campaign will begin with you being raised from the dead. How did you die? Who might you know still alive (elves or other long-lived races)? Why was your soul willing to return to your body?" For me personally, this type of campaign makes it very hard to build a motivated character around. If I was brought back from the dead to be a puppet, I would spend all my energy to break free from whatever control the necromancer has over me.
Thanks, my planned BBEG is the god that ordered them brought back from the dead, with a fight with the necromancy occurring some time a few sessions before that, although that depends on what the players want to do, and I don’t want to play specifics too far ahead
It's a good idea to avoid [over-preparation of plots](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots) which includes [movie villains](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36383/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots-you-will-rue-this-day-heroes-the-principles-of-rpg-villainy).
“I didn’t think it would be major but I get how it would feel.” For a moment, let’s take a serious look at how the group has prepped. How long have they been building characters? Did you give any other restrictions on character creation? Have they come up with backstories for themselves and maybe amongst the group? Now imagine you took weeks to perfect your vision of a battle. And when the time comes, the group just ignores it. Or you. Your job as a dm is to give a fun and engaging story. Not to ‘level set and upend everything’ from the get go. I will be honest, if my DM did this without prior warning, I might not come back for session 2.
Listen to the DMs here. They're trying to help you. You might think your idea is "oh so cool!" But your players might not find it cool. It's a risky approach, for sure. I remember a game that had something similar happen. The group never recovered. We kept playing for a little longer, but our hearts weren't in it anymore. Is that a risk you want to take?
Don’t play through a pointless, pre-determined fight they can’t win. Just give them a smartened up version of what you’ve written above as the campaign intro pre character creation. Ask them to include in their backstory the moment of their deaths, let them get creative & imaginative. Then start the game when they ‘wake up’ I.e. start playing at the point they have agency, not before.
Gotcha, thanks, I think everythings sort of clicked for me now. What do you think of the campaign idea as a whole?
I can see it being a good setup for a campaign, yeah
Thanks man
If they need to die for the campaign to work, then you are removing agency. What you need to do then is make sure they are on board with the premise of this campaign so they aren't totally blindsided by it. I would just tell them the broad strokes of what you have planned for the first session, and ask that they think of session 1 as more like the prologue to the campaign than its start.
I still want to retain the surprise that their revival is the start of the campaign if that's possible, but I get what you're saying. And session 1 wouldn't be a prologue wholly, it would more just be the first 10 minutes. Would that still work? Would it work better in like a Session 0 type of thing. Like finalising and going through characters, and then we just do like 10 minutes of gameplay before the proper start? What do you think? What do you also think of the premise of the campaign as a whole? I'd appreciate all the feedback I can get :)
Surprise is fun for YOU not for the players who are designing their characters with something in mind. You can flash back to something, but surprise in D&D is overrated by new DMs especially . Players want to make choices that lead to different outcomes. It's the entire game loop. If you want to flash back, tell each player where their last stand was, and against who, and narrate a few minutes of each, knowing it is a death scene. This way each player gets to talk about how they see themselves being a badass against impossible odds...which should be interesting to all the other players at the table.
Thanks, I think this all helped me pull my head out my new DMs arse a bit. I'm now really into the idea of it being a character intro as well as a badass last stand type of thing.
Good on you for not digging in your heels! Your players will appreciate that trait in the future.
Combats that are doomed to fail aren't fun. Do it via narration and storytelling. A 90 minute combat slog isn't the move. Because, again, doomed combat removes agency.
Oh yeah no of course, I definitely wouldn’t have suggested it if it were 90 minutes long, as stated my initial plan was just a few turns, but I’ve since changed my idea because of these comments. Thanks
Part of writing surprises is remembering whose fate you control. As DM, the world and all the NPCs are yours. PCs are not; they belong to their player. Any twist or surprise you write that requires a PC to do a particular thing (or suffer a specific fate, such as death) should flag you to consider if that twist will be taking your player's agency away because the PC is theirs, not yours. If you want to have a surprise that involves a PC but still have be a surprise to the party, you could consider collaborating with that PC's player to plan it, preserving the surprise for everyone else but also preserving the agency of the player affected.
Yeah no it certainly flagged me, hence my wanting to check. I'm thankful people have now pointed me in the right direction.
Keep in mind that you may be completely invalidating a player's backstory for their character with that surprise and remove all desire to play the character. If they were a human with ties to a wife or other family, that family is now dead. If they have friends, those friends are dead. If they had a quest for revenge, then their target is likely dead. Any ties to the world are upended, and any time put in is wasted. But! If you tell them that their characters are going to be dead and raised 200 years later (or whatever) they can carefully craft backstories that leave room to enjoy those characters. Maybe they cared for a specific place, and they will want to return there to ensure its safety in the future. Or they have an magical and dangerous/cursed lineage, and now they must find their descendents. Your campaign will hopefully last many sessions to come. Those sessions being fun for the players over the course of the campaign is way more important than a surprise in Session 1 that will be over in 10 minutes.
I find a useful way to determine what players should know going into character creation is to think of it like a movie teaser - you get to see the tone of the plot (action? Drama? Thriller? Romance? Mystery?) a glimpse of the setting (wilderness? Castles? Urban? Bronze Age? Late medieval?) and enough of the early plot beats to get you hooked. Nothing irritates players more than investing energy into something and finding out it was entirely useless from the start. Who wants to craft the ultimate forest combat ranger when they’re playing entirely in a desert city doing political intrigue RP? From your description, it sounds like the death-and-resurrection idea should be a core theme that is disclosed, alongside any evil/good tilt for the party and intended terrain and play-style focus. Based on your edit, I think you may have found a way forward for this campaign, but I still feel that offering you this tool as a perspective option might help you and others in the future.
Hey thanks, I'll certainly keep that in mind and inform my players accordingly. Cheers :)
Tell them the hook. Let them craft their own deaths. Session 1 should empower them to act and realize their characters. Give them the info. They might surprise you.
Oh knowing some of them, based on the new idea, they'll definitely come up with some cool stuff
Tell your players that this is the campaign setup. Coming to the table to play, only for none of their actions to matter, is not a fun surprise and can, at worst, be frustrating. You can then play it out with your players, letting the PCs die as the dice fall. However, I would not play this part. I would narrate it, letting each player come up with their own death, so they can get in on the fun of their death battle and don't have to wait for it to end. I also wouldn't set this up as a whole session. Maybe 10-20 minutes, so the players get to actually play asap. As a side note, with new players I wouldn't recommend starting at a higher level, since there is a learning curve to effectively using class features, and getting all of that dropped on you can be overwhelnming.
Yeah, I think I'll drop the high level character sheet stuff and just have them RP it, sort of based off of their character sheet. I still want to have some actual combat elements, maybe so they can get used to them, but I'll work that out. I appreciate the feedback. I was also only planning this to be a 10 minute sort of prologue at the start of the session.
Hey! Just want to saw that you've gotten some pretty heated feedback, but the mistake you've made (prioritize surprise over the player perspective) is one that MANY new DMs make, so don't take any of this too harshly. I think the idea is fun, and your edit is the right way to go. The only caveat I'd say, is I'd float this idea with your players first to make sure they're as into it as you are. Instead of saying "Tell me how you died," during character creation, lay out the idea in full, explain why you think it's cool, and see how they react before you go in. If you take the time to get everyone else excited and on board, this idea could really sing. BUT, if even one player isn't into it, it's going to sour the whole experience, for them and for the rest of the table. If you take that initial step to bring them behind the curtain and they're all super enthusiastic about it, I think it sounds like a super fun premise for a game. Good luck!
Hey Thanks, I think I need some time to think about how exactly I’m going to do it, but once I get some more specifics it is definitely going to be with the help of my players
Glad to hear it - let us know how it goes, and don't hesitate to reach out if you need a second pair of eyes/want to brainstorm!
Title: "How to I remove my players' agency without removing their agency?" Fix: Any part of your story that you *need* to happen happens *before* the first session. As soon as the other players get involved, it's up to them and the dice.
So I will add my own experience with this. My first game of D&D I played, the opening mission started with our party stumbling upon a ritual site with a high level mage who one shot us with Cloudkill. We immediately woke up in our school dorm having been rescued by an agent of the Raven Queen who kicked off the main quest line. I thought it was an amazing opening because it created intrigue, gave us personal stakes in the main quest line (collect the 5 McGuffins Amulets to prevent an eldrich evil from awakening) and gave us motivation (kill the bastard that tried to kill us). It comes down to your friends. You should know if they'd find that kind of "kill them in session 1" hook exciting or frustrating.
I think they'd be alright with it knowing them, but I think what other people have suggested and what I will end up going with will work out better than my original idea. But thanks for your perspective :)
Man, you would a set of land speed record for D&D horror stories. Donot do this. You will piss off everyone, I know it looks cool for like movies and stories but doing this to your players will just make them mad.
It's a common mistake to assume that ttRPGs should work like novels, plays, movies, etc. However, there's a very fundermental difference. Someone playing a ttRPG is **participating** in the present events of a fictional world via role-playing an individual. Someone reading a book or watching a movie is **spectating** events from the past of a fictional world.
I vote just start with "Gang, one of the things I'd like to do is to start out with you all being dead, and are now being revived by a Necromancer. Is this something you'd be interested in? Cool. Describe your character." that's it. don't make them fight each other, don't worry about how they died. If you want, let the characters tell you that info.
Man, people are heated over this one. I'll give another perspective from a campaign where I was a player. We all made characters like normal and after a few sessions were trying to take out a death cult in our city. We got in over our heads, a couple died in the fight, and the rest of us died when trying to retreat. Whoops. Turns out that was supposed to happen with the swerve being that we were recruited into the service of the god of death because he doesn't like what the cult is doing to subvert the natural order. We all turned into different types of undead with new powers and armor and weapons made of things scavenged from the land of the dead. It was awesome, very fun campaign that started fairly run-of-the-mill but turned into something unique to us. We had no idea the deaths were essentially scripted, we just dove in too far because we thought we could take them. I don't get all this ranting about "player agency" as the players already don't have a lot of agency over the broader story strokes, they're already agreeing to play in your world and story and things are going to happen in the world no matter what they do. It isn't like you're taking their character away, it's a plot setup to get them to the point the real story starts. Your players are (presumably) adults and should be able to handle a mild twist like that without crying about their agency being taken away and not every plot point can be discussed with the players beforehand without ruining it. Do people not like surprises in their games? Also, you know your players better than anyone else does here. If you think they'd like it, go for it, doesn't matter how many people here tell you they'll hate it.
You could poison the snacks at game night, that should kill your players.
Just ask the players to write a paragraph how they imagine their high level character will die in battle. Basically, make this part of the backstory. I appreciate your edit and your willingness to listen.
So, here's what i would do that keeps the theme of this. Have them build two sets of characters, one is the sacrificial lamb party. Run the lamb party through a dungeon, any kind, but let them be successful. As they clear the dungeon, that's when you take those sheets and put their evil tokens on the map. At the start of the dungeon. Have them go through their dungeon, describe how they were coming back to their base, describe how they beat the enemies. Their once loyal minions now dead or gravely injured. Set the characters they just played up as the good/bad guys. Then when they get to the final room, you turn their tokens to face them. Describe how these adventurers were cheering and splitting up their hard earned loot. Then roll initiative. The players can be give the choice to spare their character or not. Setting them into the theme. Setup talk: Do a session 0, all the normal talk you've have about an evil campaign but explain that they will need to make 2 characters, a weaker one that they shouldn't get greatly attached to, and then their actual characters. That way they know at the least not to invest to much into a character that will possibly die. This gives them the agency to choose at the least if their character dies or runs. If they run, you can then make that character an enemy down the line, wanting revenge on the party. You've picked an insanely interesting idea, but it needed refinement. The goal should never be to kill the party. BUT every party i've ever had as a gm has attempted to do it to themselves at least once. (I'll never forget you party who decided to shimmy along a cliff tied together with no skills to do so when the door to where they were going to much easier to get to if they back tracked). This just makes it more direct.
I know that it sounds cool to kill the players for the narrative in they very first combat, but its only cool in your POV. If you dont tell your players then you risk antagonazing yourself to the players from the very get go. If you plan to kill them anyway, there is no agency, because the hook requires the players to die. There is nothing they can do to change this outcome, so no agency. So you are basically just wasting everyone’s time. You could just tell the story, the hook and all. Without any of the fake combat. Or like someone here already suggested: have the players make their characters and once they are all done and ready to go. Ask them ”…how did your character die?” NOW that is intriguing. Also now the players have no idea who this mysterious necromancer is. Is he bad guy? A good guy? They dont know yet. ”He revived us so he must be good right?” Of course this doesnt quite align with your premise of them dying to this guy in the past in ’cool and edgy’ fashion if the player says that he got ”ran over by a cart and died”, but all you really have to do is insert the necromancer driving the cart and deliberately running over the player. It doesnt have to be super serious. Regardless what the players way of dying is, you could easily insert the Necromancer of being the root cause of the characters death. The intricate details of their death/murder and revival should remain a mystery for the players to discover.
With the players dead, session one is going to be lonely.
Rather than wasting time with a scripted death, id rather make death part of the backstory. that way 0 time is wasted, player agency is even given instead of taken, and the characters can have more personal goals to make them more alive in the way of possible revenge against whatever killed them. I know i would just not interact with a first session where i am just waiting to die while watching the other party members die.
So, I agree with everyone else that you shouldn’t kill the PCs in session 1. That said, I ran a campaign where, unbeknownst to the players, their characters started off as having died the night before and awoke in this new place. That method was received well as it didn’t start with a loss.
That sounds really cool. I'm not quite sure that would work with what I'm doing, but I think the new idea in my edit should work pretty well, especially knowing the players
> The campaign begins with the players being revived by a powerful necromancer. Lol no it doesn’t. It *ought* to though. Instead of doing this in a session, let the players write a backstory that ends in their defeat, then have the first session simply be their resurrection.
It has long been a desire of mine to run a campaign where the standard 'your backstory must answer these key points which tie them into the campaign' includes "how did you die?" That sounds like the only way to make this work.
Do not let them fight, if you want them to “have a fight and die” you make up this part yourself and describe it to them as exposition. “Bob, you fight against a rabbit, with fangs like this, and as it sinks its teeth into your neck your world goes black” (everyone else’s back story) “as the blackness fades for all of you, you awaken looking at an old man, not sure if what you just saw was real or a dream… blah blah blah” start story here
What if the death scenes for each character were 'played out' at a later part of the campaign? They could maybe each reveal something new about the greater campaign?
This is the type of situation where you start on day two. “You suddenly wake up, revived by a Necromancer. Your memories slowly start coming back, there was a battle, you died” . But also, this is something you might wanna run by your players first.
Yet another fun idea died to “a player agency”
So I get all the negative reactions, but I see the vision of this idea. I think you just need to realize that this game is a collaborative storytelling game. The very existence of this idea is purely narrative and does not give any agency to your players, Which as the DM is your main job. And currently it seems like you want to facilitate something that would be fun for you, but it takes a TON of agency away from those players. The goal is to have fun by letting your players make choices that allow them agency. That’s what separates D&D from a video game or a movie and I think if you ignore that part then you are losing out on a lot of why D&D is such a fun and unique experience. I’d be happy to talk more to try and create a happy middle for this idea because I think it’s really cool and could totally be a really exciting experience if you do it the right way!
What do you think of the idea in my edit? And thanks for your feedback, I think it's a matter of putting on a different writers hat for DMing than for stories or scripts I like to do. Thanks
I think It is 100% a step in the right direction it’s going to come down to how your players like it, I would make sure to loosely plan a back up storyline that you can use in case they don’t go for the one you originally wanted.
Sorry had more ideas about it after re-reading. I also think the idea of all the players dying and then being brought together through their deaths (like Vikings going to Valhalla but as a means of giving the PCs a reason to collaborate.) IS AWESOME! I really think this is the kind of Idea you should try to do for your 2nd or 3rd game with a tight group that you know well. Because it brings in a LOT of logistical issues that could cause the game to explode before it even gets off the ground. But man, I LOVE this concept. Don’t get discouraged by people saying you can’t/shouldn’t do it. Being creative and breaking molds is the whole point of D&D, you just need to do it right and spend time planning for the potential problems if you really want to do it. I’m fully on the kill your PC to bring them together hype train down the road though!
I already 100% with some of the answers you've received, but I'll chime in just to dogpile a little, for emphasis. I deeply recommend starting your story where it *actually* starts, and not in some four-way prologue that they can't really interact with or affect the outcome of. **So, TLDR, "just start with them dead"**, and just include "you have recently been killed. But wait, it seems someone has brought you back..." as part of the pitch. Feel free to work with them, independently, to determine the circumstances of their deaths. It can be a fun way for everyone to introduce their characters to one another, too, with a little "the last things I remember seeing" or "how my character responds to knowing they've died" spiel in their introductory blurb.
Here’s my thoughts. Tell your players to describe their character, as a character intro, by providing them a scene before hand and having them describe how their character would react in the situation and how they would have been killed. Does the barbarian rush into the horde to buy time for the party to escape? Does the rogue attempt to pick off the enemy captain by sneaking into the bell tower only to be met with a patrol? Let them describe the way they look, and provide insight into how their character would face down a no win scenario. Tell them “don’t worry I have a plan for your characters” No one wants their character to be surprise-killed in the first minutes of gameplay by being railroaded. It’s not fun. But describing their character in an interesting way gives them agency and allows *them* to determine what those moments look like.
If your scenario starts with all the PCs dead, then have them die off camera before the game starts. Instead of meeting in a tavern they meet in the Necromacer’s place. The players don’t get any agency to loose until you press the start button
Going along with some of the excellent comments here, after finding out how they died why not make that a bit of roleplay? Instead of the few rounds of combat, you can instead roleplay out their deaths at the start of the game. This serves not only to help ‘get in sync’ with their characters, but also introduces their deaths to the other players in the game. One character was a spiteful barbarian king, and died because he was poisoned by a subordinate? Narrate their final meal—sitting alone in a banquet hall, eating a solitary meal to celebrate some triumph, only to clutch at his throat and suffocate, none of his ‘allies’ around to help. One character went out in a final blaze of glory against some Paladin? Work with the player to narrate the combat, with both of you knowing that the outcome will be the glorious death of the PC. Perhaps the PC gets one final blow on the paladin before they meet their own fate and they both mortally wound one another, or perhaps the paladin is blinded by a splash of scalding acid. These ‘predetermined’ deaths can really help develop these characters, but only because the players were given full control over it as part of their backstory. Not something that was roleplayed out.
Do this as narrative - don't run it with dice. And start with your most resilient player with the strongest roleplaying skills - with everyone in the room: For example, for a tribal barbarian, read their backstory and introduce "This campaign begins after your first death. Your home is invaded by \[monster\], and you have the opportunity to flee, but that would be cowardly and by dying gloriously you can build a legend and perhaps buy time for a loved one to flee. How do you die?" Even if they are evil - that doesn't mean they're not heroic - or they can decide that they become evil when raised by necromantic magic. Then let the player shine with their glorious death exposition and with fully agency as to how it goes. Do this for each player, and help the players with more modest roleplaying skills with prompts about their potential heroics.
In reference to your edit (smart move btw) the battle shows how they die. Once the characters are revived at lower level, then can use this information to try to build a character that will survive that battle. For example, the fighter gets killed by dragon breath. Now the PC has a goal to become resistant/immune to that dragon breath. The wizard got counterspelled when trying to cast a big spell. Now that wizard ensures they learn Counterspell to counter the first counter. The barbarian, normally resistant to damage, dies by failing a saving throw. The barbarian ensures some ASI points or a magic item can help them with that saving throw in the future. Instead of a "gotcha" scenario, tell your players they will get a free look into the future and can use that information as they level up. They can change their future.
I see you already reconsidered the idea, but just in case. The answer to the title: you can't. The moment you decide something is happening and player input will not matter, agency is by definition, gone.
I just want to chime in to say that this is a very cool and creative idea. Its true that its not exactly original, but then what is? Was Monet the first person to paint a flower? You clearly put creative thought and excitement into the concept and thats a great start for a new DM. Everyone telling you this is a dangerous and risky idea is right though… because they all did it or watched someone do it (myself included). So don’t think that they just intrinsically know better or that this was some obvious misstep. The reason this seems like such a good plan to a DM is because weve seen this movie or played this game and had a great experience (Souls, Cyberpunk, Fallout, Matrix, etc)- so it makes sense to share that with your players. The misapprehension though, is that in those media we didnt spend hours crafting and defining the main character only to have that rug pulled out from under us. Even video games are a significantly more passive experience to the table top. Even so, some players would relish this idea and roll with it… but some will be very attached to their character concept and will bristle at the sudden shift. The only way to know is to ask- and if that means ruining the surprise… than it shouldn't be a surprise. I think youll find the type of player that likes that kind of thing will still like it and play along- and the ones that dont are likely to accept it IF they are able to plan it into their characters from the start. Good luck.
Two weeks ago, we all sat down for the beginning of our new campaign. The GM had us make level 7 characters with connected backstories to each other. It was an amazing session marred only by the fact that I had been out on a Search and Rescue mission for 8 hours prior to our session. The session ended with all of us dying. My character played the tank and attempted to make a final stand while the rest of the party attempted a retreat. Another party member committed suicide, and the rest were swarmed over. Our next session begins with the actual campaign using the setup and knowledge that we got from the prior session. The point of the session was to introduce the setting and situation to the players. A "how we got here" type deal. Our actual characters are going to show up 2 years later. But the main takeaway is this. We were all in the know that we weren't going to survive. Talk to your players. If they want to do this, then do it. This session was a blast (accept me falling asleep multiple times, but I got to eat the food that was thrown at me so I'm not going to complain).
Give them a heads-up of some sort that the TPK you've got in mind isn't a real TPK so they know to roll with it. This is a situation where it's gonna be way, way more fun with spoilers than without. Just straight-up inform them, beforehand, that their characters' lives as they know them are gonna be a prologue to the real adventure you have in mind. "Session one is going to be an impossible task where the PCs die. They'll come back at the end, so don't sweat it when you start dropping" or something like that. With expectations set, just be ready for teleportig escapees, intentionally suicidal play to accelerate the plot, and a hardcore battlegamer who conspires with the players ahead of time to make the TPK really, really hard.
This is a joke post as a reaction to [this ](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1cg1xsu/why_do_so_many_dms_want_to_start_their_campaigns/)post right? If you ***need*** something to happen ***before*** the actual campaign starts, DO NOT TRY TO FORCE THE DESIRED OUTCOME. Just be honest and straightforward with your players. Tell them "Hey, I have this cool idea for a campaign. You all died in a cool, epic way and are brought back to do *x*." Taking away player agency like that is a great way to get written up in r/rpghorrorstories Also, in D&D, necromancers use dead creatures to make undead creatures. If you want the heroes brought back to the land of the living, then a cleric with Raise Dead or Resurrection is what you are looking for. >The necromancer would then sort of give exposition as their boat reaches shores on a continent that PCs are unfamiliar with. This is where your campaign should start, right there.