Party Creation

Tasha - session zero

Character and Party Creation

Each player has options when it comes to choosing a character race, class, and background, though you may restrict certain options that are deemed unsuitable for the campaign. If there are multiple players in the group, you should encourage them to choose different classes so that the adventuring party has a range of abilities. It's less important that the party include multiple backgrounds, as sometimes it's fun to play an all-soldier party or a troupe of adventuring entertainers. The backgrounds they choose define who their characters were before becoming adventurers and also include roleplaying hooks in the form of ideals, bonds, and flaws—things you ought to know. For example, if a player chooses the criminal background, one of the options for the character's bond is, "I'm trying to pay off an old debt I owe to a generous benefactor." If that's the character's bond, you should work with the player to decide who that generous benefactor is and build relevant storylines into the larger campaign.

Party Formation

During session zero, your role is to let the players build the characters they want and to help them come up with explanations for how their characters came together to form an adventuring party. It can be helpful to assume that the characters know each other and have some sort of history together, however brief that history might be. Here are some questions you can ask the players as they create characters to get a sense of the party's relationships:

• Are any of the characters related to each other?
• What keeps the characters together as a party?
• What does each character like most about every other member of the adventuring party?
• Does the group have a patron? See chapter 2, ""Group Patrons"" for patron examples.

If the players are having trouble coming up with a story for how their characters met, they may choose an option from the Party Origin table or let a dice: d6|avg (d6) roll choose it for them. You should spend part of session zero helping the players flesh out the details. For example, if the characters came together to overcome a common foe, the identity of this enemy needs to be determined. If a funeral gathered the group, the identity of the deceased and each character's relationship to them will need to be fleshed out.