Mastering

The one who commands the story is not the voice: it is the ear. (Italo Calvino)

To do what one wants, one must be born a king or a fool. (or Narrator, NdA) (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)

“It is not the job of the DM (Narrator) alone to entertain the players and make sure they have fun. Each person playing is responsible for the fun of the game for everyone. Everyone speeds up the game, increases the drama, helps establish how comfortable the group feels with role-playing, and brings the game world to life with their imagination. Everyone should also treat each other with respect and consideration: personal squabbles and character rivalries interfere with fun.

Different people have different ideas about what’ **s fun in D&D. Remember that the right way to play D&D is the way you and your players agree on and have fun with. If everyone comes to the table ready to contribute to the game, everyone has fun”. (Dungeon Master Guide, 4ed)

The Narrator

While the player plays a character in an adventure, the Narrator is the one who manages it. He certainly has much more work, but creating an entire world for his friends to explore can be very satisfying.

The role of the Narrator is not easy but grants enormous privileges. Seeing your friends play, have fun, go crazy over doubts, riddles, and situations created by you gives a lot of fun and moments of true conviviality.

Your role is that of the great orchestrator, planner, or even landscaper if you prefer, with a few simple brushstrokes you outline the structure and then the players will add details and situations.

Legends: OBSS wants to help you and the other players have fun. Always use common sense when applying a rule. Your purpose is not to kill the characters but to create worlds and campaigns that evolve around the characters and the world you create, their actions and decisions. Incorporate things that interest the players, keep them engaged, make them understand that the world is alive and they are part of it. If you are good, your adventures, the situations will echo in other sessions and outside the table.

Your work and fun is fundamental and very important, the quality of the game session also depends on you. Your purpose is first of all to have fun, be creative, improvise, act, create ingenious situations. As long as you are having fun, it is extremely likely that the players are having fun too!

Remember that you are not the protagonist nor the adventure, but the characters, don’ **t steal the scene but like a grand ball, be the conductor where the instruments are the possibilities offered by OBSS, the music is the adventure, and the dancers are the characters.

Experience Points

In OBSS, the Experience Points that characters take serve to determine the level and therefore the skills and abilities available to them.

Characters will take Experience Points based on monsters defeated but also on other factors such as objectives, ideas, particular actions, difficulties overcome… but also recovered treasures!

The main suggestion is to reward the characters who have committed themselves most to the group, those who have contributed most to the success of the adventure and the session. Experience Points measure not only success but also participation in the game. It is therefore possible to have characters with different Experience Points and potentially even different levels.

The Experience Points assigned for defeating a monster are indicated in the Monster Manual e.g. Challenge 13 (10000 XP). These Experience Points are divided among all the characters who participated in the encounter in any way.

The Experience Points per Level Table indicates the Experience Points needed to go from one level to the next.

Never exaggerate in the assignment of Experience Points otherwise you risk unbalancing the game and having to modify the adventure significantly. Be clear also with the players at the beginning of the campaign, in Session Zero, how the Experience Points will be calculated, distributed, and what is possible to do to get more.

However, you should not only consider the Experience Points granted by the challenges but also evaluate the characters and group during the session.

Whenever the character or the group:

Achieves the set goals (reward to the group or to the character);
Fully exploits and even is alternative in the use of their Skills and abilities (reward to the character);
Solves problems in a creative, imaginative and functional way (reward to the character);
Proposes plans and actions that work and are alternatives to what was expected (reward to the character);
Discovers or initiates adventure clues and creation of new plots (reward to the character);
Uses in an intelligent and clever way a skill or object (reward to the character);
Uses in a brilliant (and alternative) way a spell (reward to the character);
Performs an action that puts their life at risk for the group (reward to the character);
Performs actions following the creed of their Patron (for Devotees). These should give Trait points (reward to the character);
Converts an NPC, of equivalent level, to their Patron (only for Devotees) (reward to the character);
Collects at least 500*Level in gold coins (or equivalent treasure) (reward to the group, maximum once per session);

Table: Experience Points per Level

Level	XP	Level	XP
1	0	11	300000
2	2000	12	390000
3	8000	13	490000
4	15000	14	600000
5	35000	15	740000
6	60000	16	890000
7	90000	17	1050000
8	120000	18	1250000
9	170000	19	1470000
10	220000	20	1730000
+	prev*0.2	-	-

I also suggest evaluating these actions to reward the player’ **s commitment

Is collaborative with other players (reward to the group or to the character);
Helps a player in difficulty (reward to the character or to the group);

Grant 200 Experience Points * Character Level or Average Group Level.

A further approach, but to be considered only in the most close-knit and mature groups, is at the end of the session to ask the players to choose who among them played the best, in a combination of role, inspiration, incisiveness, and collaboration. Reward his character with 200 XP per Character Level.

These Experience Points can be assigned to the group and therefore to all characters or to the single character. There is no need to give Experience Points at the end of the game session, keep track of them and inform the players when there is a moment of pause, of reflection on what has happened and been done. In this system about 8/12 sessions are needed to level up, potentially many fewer if the players prove skilled and face situations effectively.

Build the session so that all characters can participate and no one feels excluded.

When I say encounter don’ **t think of the simple confrontation with monsters, by encounter I mean any role-playing event that challenges and tests the characters. This challenge can be a clever discussion with the nobleman who doesn’ **t want to pay them at the end of a mission, the challenge of a riddle, rebus, well-placed traps. Based on the difficulty of the challenges, derive the Experience Points.

A monster doesn’ **t have to be killed to get its Experience Points, it’ **s enough to defeat it, capture it, win in a different way. In case of retreat by the characters or enemy, grant half the Experience Points provided for the encounter if there has been at least an attempt at challenge.

As far as possible, every session should include a part of role-playing, a part of exploration, three parts of combat (even many more than three), a part of rest.

Milestone: It is clear that nothing prevents you from setting up a level progression based on fixed points (miQuickne) during the adventure. Your table, your rules!

Gold per XP: It may seem anachronistic when there is already the sixth edition of the most famous role-playing game in development to reward characters based on the gold taken from monsters.

However, I can guarantee you that if your group is particularly poor in role-plays or simply prefers a more combative style, knowing that the collected gold equals experience can make adventuring much more dynamic and exciting.

OBSS refers to the principles of OSR and as such the exploration and combat phase has its own important and vital weight.

Encounters

What is life without hope? A throw of dice in darkness, in delirium. (Ambrogio Bazzero)

An encounter is a moment of tension and hope, fear and challenge. It’ **s the opportunity to show and manifest one’ **s abilities and to work as a group.

An encounter is not the occasion to show off one’ **s absolute power, either as a Narrator or as a Player. The Narrator will know how to \st educate the player who wants to be beyond the group and not part of it.

In the following pages, you will find instructions for creating easy, medium, high, extraordinary, deadly, and epic challenges.

Through the tools provided by the manual and your experience with the group, you will know what level the challenge proposes and will evaluate both its impact as experience points and as rewards.

An encounter is an event that puts the characters in front of a specific problem they have to solve. Many are combats with monsters or hostile NPCs, but there are other types: a corridor bristling with traps, a political interaction with a suspicious king, a dangerous passage over a rickety rope bridge, an uncomfortable conversation with a friendly NPC who believes a character has betrayed them, or anything that adds a bit of drama to the game.

Puzzles, interpretative challenges, and skill checks are the classic methods for resolving encounters. The most complex encounters to build and balance will be combat encounters. Trust your instinct and the suggestions provided in OBSS.

A confrontation can also be clearly unbalanced, it will be the players’ ** shrewdness to understand when to run away!

When designing a combat encounter, first decide what level of challenge you want the PCs to face, then follow the points described below.

Determine APL: Determine the average level of the characters: this is the Average Party Level (APL for short). You should round this value to the nearest integer (this is one of the few exceptions to the round down rule).

Note that this reference guide to creating an encounter assumes a group of four or five characters. If your group has six or more players, add one to their average level. If your group contains three or fewer players, subtract one from their average level. For example, if your group consists of six players, two of 5th level and four of 7th level, the APL is 7th (38 total levels, divided by six players, rounded to the nearest integer, and adding one to the final result).

Table: Determining Encounters

difficulty	Challenge Rating
Easy	APL
Medium	APL +1
High	APL +2
Extraordinary	APL +3
Deadly	APL +4
Epic	APL +6

Determine the Challenge Rating: The Challenge Rating (CR) is a convenience number used to indicate the relative risks presented by a monster, a trap, a hazard, or another encounter: the higher the Challenge Rating, the more dangerous the encounter. Refer to the Table: Determining Encounters to determine the Challenge Rating that your group should face, based on the difficulty of the challenge you want and the APL.

How many encounters to face

There is no single answer. It’ **s your choice, the system finds its balance between 3 and 5 encounters per day. Obviously, they don’ **t all have to be High difficulty!

Encounters are ultimately a management of resources to use against an enemy. These resources are Hit Points, spells, potions, scrolls, and consumable items possessed.

If you place an Extraordinary challenge as the first encounter, it is likely that the players will then decide to rest to recover energy, otherwise you could opt to tire them gradually with medium encounters and then test them with a greater difficulty. Finally, remember that an encounter doesn’ **t have to be physical, but also traps, puzzles/riddles, alternative challenges… anything that makes them consume resources and think.

Always evaluate where they move and what’ **s around, it will come naturally to find the right number and types of encounters and enemies.

Building the Encounter

To build an encounter, first calculate the value of the APL (the average level of your group).

To develop your encounter, add creatures, traps, and hazards until you reach your planned APL.

Start by calculating the challenges with the highest Challenge Rating of the encounter, completing the rest with minor challenges.

For example, you want your group of six 7th level characters to have a Medium challenge and face some Gargoyles (Challenge Rating 2 each), some Xorn (Challenge Rating 5), and their leader, a Stone Giant (Challenge Rating 7). The characters have APL 8 and the Table: Determining Encounters establishes that a Medium challenge for an APL 8 is an encounter of Challenge Rating 9 (Medium Difficulty = APL+1).

Starting from an established Challenge Rating (9), follow this table to establish how many monsters to insert in the encounter.

Table: Challenge Rating Weight for encounter calculation

Factor	\% Weight	Factor	\% Weight
-6/-7	5	-2	65
-5	10	-1	80
-4	20	+0	100
-3	45

Factor means the difference between the monster’ **s CR relative to the chosen Challenge Rating. The Weight is the relative \% that the monster brings to reach the goal of 100%.

*To reach the goal we must add *the percentages** of each individual opponent until we reach 100, i.e., 100\% of the challenge.

In our example, a Stone Giant has Challenge Rating 7, i.e., a Challenge Rating -2 compared to our difficulty target of Challenge Rating 9, the Xorn has Challenge Rating 5 i.e., -4 compared to Challenge Rating 9, the Gargoyles have Challenge Rating 2 i.e., -7 compared to Challenge Rating 9.

An enemy with a Challenge rating of -2 has a weight of 65, a Challenge rating of -4 has a weight of 20, a Challenge rating of -7 has a weight of 5.

To reach the goal of a Challenge rating of 9 I will put 1 Challenge rating -2 (i.e. 1 stone giant), 1 Challenge rating -4 (i.e. 1 Xorn) and 3 Challenge rating -7 (i.e. 3 gargoyles). The total will be 165 (a Stone Giant) + 120 (a Xorn) + 3*5 (three gargoyles) = 65+20+15 = 100. Goal achieved!

The total Experience Points will be: 2900+1800+450*3 = 6050 Experience Points / 6 Characters = 2015 Experience Points per character!

Opponents with Challenge Rating less than 8 compared to the APL are counted, weighed, only if they are more than 20 as units.

Opponents with CR equal to 1/2 consider them as CR 1, with CR less than 1/2 consider them as CR 0.

Remember Traits: Remember at the end of each encounter or challenge to note down the Traits that have characterized the actions of the characters. You can grant these partial points at the first opportunity for the characters to rest.

Encounters too fast

You might encounter a problem where combat resolves too quickly. There can be several reasons for this and just as many solutions.

If players expect few encounters, they will likely use their best resources and options immediately at the beginning of combat, thus quickly defeating enemies. In this case, surprise them with successive waves of enemies.

It’ **s possible there are too few enemies, and even if they are strong, by channeling all attacks on them, they become easy prey for the characters. In this case, minions or preventing rest and thus recovery of Magic Points and Hit Points will help.

It’ **s obviously possible that the encounter isn’ **t well calibrated and you’ **ve actually balanced it to be too easy. This is the easiest case to solve; experience will teach you to better construct encounters either by adding or replacing adversaries.

Remember that monsters can also perform Actions like Push, Grapple, Knock Down, Flank; don’ **t limit yourself in your choices.

The essence of the world is play… we play the serious, we play the authentic, we play reality, work and struggle, we play love and death, and we even play the game itself. (Eugen Fink)

The Boss Fight

When preparing a boss fight, that is, with what you might define as a significant enemy who has a certain weight in the development of the campaign, you need to worry about making the challenge interesting!

If the encounter is to be memorable, it’ **s not enough to just place the villain; organize everything so that all events are engaging and exciting.

Organize the enemies so that:

they arrive in multiple waves to create a sense of false success
enemies come from multiple directions to prevent forces from concentrating on just one side
more and less difficult enemies are interspersed to create a sense of false security
the environment is significant and plays an important role in combat
divide the characters across multiple fronts
make the attack not seem like an attack
play with cleverness and don’ **t let yourself get demoralized.

And in any case, always remember: it’ **s not a battle between Narrator and Players! The goal is to create memorable moments!!!

Adding NPCs

A creature that has levels, Feats, skills, that could be a character but is managed by the Narrator is considered an NPC. These creatures can play a very important role and should not be used as simple monsters. Give them depth and you’ **ll create unforgettable figures.

Ad Hoc Challenge Rating Modifications

While you can modify a monster’ **s specific Challenge Rating by advancing it, applying templates or levels, you can also adjust the difficulty of the encounter by applying ad hoc modifications to the encounter or to the creature itself.

Here are three additional ways you can alter the difficulty of an encounter.

Terrain Favorable to PCs

An encounter against a monster that is not in its preferred element (like a Yeti encountered in a lava-filled cave, or a huge Dragon encountered in a very small room) gives the characters an advantage. Consider the encounter as having a Challenge Rating one lower than its actual Challenge Rating.

Terrain Unfavorable to PCs

Monsters are designed with the assumption that they are encountered in their preferred terrain: meeting an Aboleth underwater doesn’ **t increase the Challenge Rating of the encounter, even if no character can breathe underwater.

If, on the other hand, the terrain has a more significant impact on the encounter (such as an encounter against a creature with Blindsight in an area that suppresses all sources of light), you can increase the Challenge Rating of the encounter as if it were one grade higher.

NPC Equipment Modifications

You can increase or decrease the difficulty presented by NPCs by modifying their equipment. An NPC encountered without equipment should have a Challenge Rating reduced by 1 (provided that the loss of equipment is truly counterproductive for the NPC), while an NPC that has equipment equivalent to that of a character (as indicated on the Table: Character Wealth by Level) has a Challenge Rating 1 higher than its actual Challenge Rating.

Care must be taken when assigning this additional equipment to NPCs, especially at higher levels, where you can consume your entire adventure’ **s treasure in one go!

Assigning XP

Characters advance in level by defeating monsters, overcoming challenges, having fun, completing the adventure and amassing treasures: in doing so, they earn Experience Points (XP for short). You can assign Experience Points as soon as a challenge is overcome, but this could interrupt the flow of the game. It’ **s easier to assign experience points at the end of a game session (or multiple sessions) that allows characters to reflect on what happened. The player can use the time available between game sessions to update their character sheet.

Character Wealth by Level

Table: Character Wealth by Level

Level	Wealth (gp)	Level	Wealth (gp)
1	100	11	13900
2	160	12	19900
3	220	13	25900
4	340	14	37900
5	530	15	49800
6	2030	16	67700
7	3660	17	85700
8	5780	18	142000
9	8100	19	253000
10	11000	20	365000

The Table: Character Wealth by Level indicates the equivalent amount of gold pieces in treasures and items that each character should have at a specific level. Note that this table is based on a standard game model.

Adventures with rare magic might assign only half this value, while more epic adventures might double it. It is assumed that part of the treasure is consumed during an adventure (such as potions and scrolls) and that some of the less used items are sold for half their value to purchase more useful equipment.

The Table: Character Wealth by Level can also be used to establish equipment for characters starting after 1st level, such as a new character created to replace a dead one. Characters should not spend more than a third of their total wealth on a single item.

For a balanced method, characters created after 1st level should spend 25\% of their wealth on weapons, 25\% on armor and protective items, 25\% on other magic items, 15\% on consumable items such as wands, scrolls and potions, and 10\% on normal equipment and coins. Different character types might spend their wealth differently than suggested; for example, arcane spellcasters might spend more on magic and consumable items than on weapons.

I know a guy…

To facilitate the spirit of adventure and not leave characters incapable or indecisive in acting, allow them to know a certain number of NPCs equal to their Charisma score +1. The player can declare at any time that they know this NPC and must keep track of them. These NPCs can be leveraged when characters find themselves in difficult situations, danger, or simply in need of support. The character who appeals to I know a guy… must adequately describe the subject and the relationship between them. The Narrator will adapt the situation to include this character to the best of their ability.

The guy could be a merchant who owes them a favor, if not a thief or a bureaucrat. Characters are encouraged not to invent friendships or favors from overly important characters.

Roleplaying

A role-playing game is not simply rolling dice; it’ **s a meeting of thoughts, opinions, challenges, struggles. It’ **s a cathartic, liberating, evolutionary, and instructive game.

It’ **s right that there should be combat, struggle, blood, fear, and action; in the same way, there must be the possibility to play one’ **s characters with their disadvantages, advantages, powers, stories, and even personal dramas.

The player must always personify the character, identify with them and actively participate.

There may be background situations, handled quickly, that are done in the third person, yet every time it becomes necessary to play, it must be true, done by the player fully immersing themselves in the character.

When a player roleplays well and describes the action they are performing in a {participatory, engaging, inspired manner, give them a reward, grant a +1 bonus to the action they are performing}

Make it clear to the player that thanks to their interpretation they have that bonus.

At the same time, there could be situations that prove unpleasant to manage and play for some players. Be very careful in this case; going against a player’ **s sensibility, a friend’ **s, is not like going against a character’ **s ethics or morals. If you perceive a sense of discomfort and embarrassment, stop the game immediately and clarify the situation with the players, and resume only when you have agreed on how to modify the situation to prevent it from happening again.

{Focus on people, not rules. Push for a group style of play; roleplaying is fun but should not hinder the plan; support your companions. (Frank Mentzer)

Changing Character

Although the system favors freedom of character construction and development, if a player is struggling with the character they’ **ve created, allow them, up to level 4, to change character and create a new one. Remember that the goal is for everyone to have fun.

About OBSS and dice rolling

OBSS uses a peculiar dice rolling system by mixing a 3d6 distribution with the potential of exploding 6s. This system manages to guarantee a good variance and while concentrating the results around the central values of the distribution, leaves the upper limit open to particularly lucky rolls.

If you want to have fun studying the corresponding curve, I recommend the website https://anydice.com/. This is the pseudo-code to enter (or click https://anydice.com/program/2610e} for the code already entered):

if ROLLED = 1 { result: 0 }

result: ROLLED}

output 3d[explode d6]}

or click https://anydice.com/program/2610e} for the code already entered.

Optional - Resource Consumption Variant

Whenever the character uses counted resources, such as Arrows, Food Rations, Torches, if there is no pressure to consume objects, this optional rule can be used.

At the end of a combat, after a day of adventure, the player rolls 1d12 for each type of resource they have consumed. If they roll a 1 or 2 on the die, they have decreased their supply. The next time they will roll a 1d10 instead of 1d12, and then 1d8 and then 1d6, and then 1d4. When they get to rolling the d4 and roll a 1 or 2, they have completely run out of the resource and must repurchase 20 arrows, 7 days of food, 6 torches…

On the character sheet, next to those resources, mark the die to use for the next roll.

The Narrator might decide to track only common consumables in this manner and not premium ones.

Adventures in OBSS

I suggest reading the entire article: https://lithyscaphe.blogspot.com/p/principia-apocrypha.html} {Principia Apocrypha}

https://lithyscaphe.blogspot.com/p/principia-apocrypha.html what follows is a summary adapted and modified by me of the guidelines I follow when I DM OBSS.

OBSS follows the principles of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_School_Renaissance (wikipedia). Adventures in OBSS aim to be lethal, have a freely explorable world, a sketched plot, push on problem-solving, and have a reward system focused on exploration, treasures, and participation in the group. OBSS doesn’ **t care too much about balancing encounters and appreciates players’ ** initiative and captures their ideas by putting them into the adventure.

For me, OSR is not random encounter tables and chaotic randomization nor a specific ruleset, it’ **s rather the spirit of adventure, wonder, fear, glory, amazement, and challenge that develops in the adventures. Don’ **t be too linear, too predictable, add that right mix to your adventures that makes them always unique.

If the method may not appeal to you, use what you prefer; personally, over the decades, I have learned to appreciate and see appreciated the spontaneity and naturalness that the tenets of OSR bring to the game.

These are basic rules for the Narrator that I suggest for conducting adventures.

You are the Narrator, yours are the Rules, yours is the World.

Don’ **t let yourself be limited by the adventure, the system, the monster list, always feel free to modify and adapt based on the needs of the adventure and the group

Remember to be fair and correct. Improvise, adapt as much as you want but be consistent. If you establish a rule (or a modification to a rule) follow it through.

At the same time if you need a rule and can’ **t find it, use common sense, it’ **s certainly the right choice at that moment.

Respect the dice and the results obtained, as will happen to the players, particular results will also happen to you. This is right.

You don’ **t have to save the characters’ ** asses. You are neither their friend nor their enemy. Your role is to tell stories that are born from the stories of the characters, from their actions and inactions.
Sketch the story, write the central parts or parts to read to the players but don’ **t let yourself be dominated or constrained by what you expect. Often and willingly the players will surprise you, better to know where they move and what they have around to be able to react always promptly.

It’ **s the players who give direction to the adventure and you who unfold it.

Appreciate the case and create different situations where players can choose different paths or weave new ones. It’ **s your luck to have creative players who know how to surprise you.
Don’ **t force anyone to do anything, let the players make mistakes, let them pay for their choices. You should neither hinder them nor feed them in a direction. It requires from you a considerable imagination and adaptability, but surely the adventure and the fun will benefit.
The characters are explorers, by definition. Focus on exploration, the more they explore, the more situations are created, the more hooks are created in the adventure, the more they know other NPCs, the more areas there are to explore.

Make them understand that treasures are experience, in a literal and practical sense. You will never have to push them into a dungeon but their craving for experience and treasure will.

Let the players solve problems, not the characters. Let them roleplay the scenes, they are always better than a dice roll. Encourage the players to interact and ask for a check only as a last chance. Propose problems that don’ **t necessarily have to be solved with a dice roll but rather through multiple actions, even complex ones.

Reward creative actions and courageous choices first and foremost, wit and wanting to find alternative and creative situations.

Have the players ask you for information, confront the environment and each other. Encourage interaction with the outside world and only as a last possibility grant a dice roll.
Great challenges and risks always give great rewards. Don’ **t disappoint the players (unless for adventure purposes) by denying them the right treasure or experience; the deeper they go, the more lethal the dangers, the greater the reward will be (Law of Reward).
There should be no habits or customs. Don’ **t create a standard. Always try to surprise the players with out-of-place monsters (but that make sense), unusual traps, alternative environments. Different situations will stimulate players to solve each problem in a different way.

Prepare different solutions and accept different solutions. Put problems and situations in the adventure that together allow for the solution; each room should not be an aseptic environment but contain clues and solutions for other problems even without a direct solution.

Accept death. A combat if such is always lethal, don’ **t be afraid to hurt or kill the characters. Make them reason, study the enemy, understand what is the best approach; and finally surprise them. The characters must first outsmart the enemies in cunning and planning if they want to survive. If you protect the characters, the game will lack tension and the players will solve all problems with brute force.

If the players always and in any case seek frontal confrontation, then give it to them, as they request.

Keep attention high. Make it so that the passage of time has consequences; if players fear the passage of time, they will make bolder or perhaps wrong choices. Maintain the tension between the desire to explore and loot and the terror of staying still for too long.
You are the source of information, the players process it, the characters use it.

Don’ **t hide information that the characters need to know or already know; you shouldn’ **t be the professor, but at the same time, make sure they are aware of what’ **s around them. At the same time, you shouldn’ **t reveal everything at once, let them investigate, be curious. Like an onion, the information they’ **ll obtain will be hidden under layers of other information, perhaps of lesser importance.

Clues create situations. Let your clues, specific and curious, attract the attention of the players.% Like bait on a hook, attract the players into situations of doubt, where to investigate and understand what’ **s happening.

Don’ **t stuff the adventure with useless details, leave room for the creativity and imagination of the players. %, the details you provide should not only make sense but be necessary for the adventure.

If players tend to forget useful information given, try to exploit an NPC who has memory or invite them to take notes; there’ **s nothing wrong with being prepared.
The adventure is never static, nor is the world where the characters move. The world has the same importance if not more than the adventure itself. Players’ ** actions can trigger events at a global level. Always think about the consequences of gestures.
If you use NPCs don’ **t make them simple caricatures, make it so that the characters can become attached and consider the NPC one of the group on par with all the others.
Monsters don’ **t have to be stupid by force. Make them talk, reason, run away… they want to live too!
Remember the Law of Reward. Reward the audacious, reward those who push deeper into the caves. Reward those who survive.

Session Zero

Session Zero, the first game session, has a particular value and importance. It can be the session where you meet for the first time, often it’ **s the session where the characters that will be played are created, and it’ **s always the session where common rules and expectations are established.

Session Zero serves to establish what and how you will play, what the main characteristics of the campaign and the group being created will be.

To start well as a group of players, it’ **s important to know each other personally and have trust and respect for others. You don’ **t have to tell everything about yourself, but at least passions, interests, curiosities, what at least initially serves to create trust.

I suggest that Narrators establish clear rules for good gameplay. Unfortunately, experience teaches that we are all different people with different styles, perspectives, and expectations. Getting to know each other also serves this purpose, to understand if your character can be well together with others and to understand if your person and personality is in some way similar or not to other people.

Before beginning, it is appropriate for the Narrator to clarify what the essential rules are at their table. Examples of rules can be:

That each player knows the part of the rulebook they will most use (combat, magic, patrons…).
Respects the limits of others. Each person has a different sensitivity to certain topics (rape, slavery, racism, violence…); it is fundamental to clarify together what limits should never be crossed.
Respect every person you play with. This includes being punctual and not canceling without an important reason.
Players must create a cohesive group made up of individuals who collaborate.

The basic information of the adventure must be shared and established.

Introduce in broad terms the campaign or adventures that will be carried out. Indicate the typology (heroic, dark, gothic, horror, political, infinite caves, exploration, survival…) and degree of difficulty.
Introduce the necessary information related to the setting or provide handouts and manuals on the subject. Indicate if there are suggested Feats.
Establish the optional rules and make sure they are clear to everyone.
Indicate the list or type of Traits accepted and if there are limits in the choice of Patrons.
Encourage the creation of characters with shared backgrounds so that the group is already cohesive at formation.
As a Narrator, you must understand the degree of knowledge of the system by the players and if necessary, when needed, take time to explain the rules.

Other useful indications concern:

What is allowed to bring and use at the table and what is not (drinks, food, cell phones, alcohol, smoking…). Know if there are animals in the house.
Establish the minimum number of players to have the session, game day, and times.

In conclusion, Session Zero is fundamental for establishing a solid foundation for good role-playing. It helps create a collaborative environment where everyone feels involved and helps avoid problems and disagreements during the course of the campaign.

Even in the best already well-established group, it’ **s always good to remember and share these suggestions at the beginning of each campaign.

{ The most complex problems have simple and easy-to-understand but wrong solutions (Arthur Bloch)…. but if they’ **re fun and everyone likes them, then use them! (NdA)