Hey! This is the DM Discourse, a podcast about D&D, focused on the experience at the table from behind the screen. I'm your host Darrell, and today we’ll be talking about adding new players to your ongoing campaign, and different ways to get them invested before their first roll.
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Cranston had seen his share of drifters in. After all he assisted the ruler of Fenskeep, a place unmoored and at the edge of the old kingdom and further from the vigilant agents of the Prism Wizard. Business with vagrants was commonplace in this fort of thieves and ne’er-do-wells, but for this task his baron wished to take on an extra pair of blades. The note and contents of the parcel brought with that unusual trio across the Jagged Sea shook him in his bones. There were few things that could frighten Baron Blackshield, but whatever it was did the same for his castellan.
“Five hundred gold,” Cranston said, “once you reach the bottom of it. Whatever treasures you find down there are yours.” He had found two individuals in the Green Forest Inn, situated in the town commons, to join with the group that had initially arrived.
The bard’s eyes lit up, but it was the owl first to speak. “Are you serious?”
“Of course.” The talking bird puzzled him but it was not important for now. He retrieved a note and passed it across the table. “The details are there, along with the other party you are looking for. They have been gone for sometime now so I believe the sooner you settle your tab and get going, the more likely you are to find them.”
Cranston moved to get up from the table, but the bard Antonio said, “Well see friend we’ve been drinking for a while. It would be nice if maybe you and whoever your patron is could settle it for me and my friend Cht’Hoo here?”
“Of course.” The butler’s moustache bristled as he left a few coins at the table. “That should cover it.” He left without another word.
“Finally a break!” Antonio said. “It feels like it’s been weeks since we’ve had a decent paying gig.”
“That’s because it has,” the aarakocra said as she adjusted her feathers. “Doesn’t help this place already had a hired bard - and a celebrity no less.”
“Celebrity? I’ve played far more impressive places in my prime, castles of lords whose extravagance would put this place to shame.”
“And if you want to be playing those places again, maybe we should get a move on for this job. Finish your drink so we can go, oh great and talented Antonio.”
It was a short walk from the tavern to their destination, and rain started to pour as they rounded the back of the hill of the keep, and up the walkway from the river they saw the open door of the entrance to the Accursed Halls. Beyond the precipice was only dark and still against the evening rain.
“You lead,” Cht’Hoo said.
“Of course I will.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
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Oddly enough one of the first things that happened after my group had been playing our monthly sessions for about half a year, a couple of their friends heard our campaign and were interested in joining. I think this is a perfectly natural reaction - people hear about D&D, and immediately are interested in playing. I don’t think this is the place to talk about saying “no”, I think I have enough to talk about “when to say no” for another episode, but for now let’s just talk about the eventual reality that at some point you’re very likely to have other people want to join your group.
Assuming you know these folks are in some way cool with them, that’s fine, that’s easy - but you may be wondering how best to handle integrating them in the campaign. It can probably be easy enough if you’re, say, in town, but what about a dungeon? Or the party is in transit to some other location? They may have no reason to trust this strange individual who came there way but odds are good your friends will meet you halfway and still accept them in the party. Still you can do yourself and yourself a favor by weaving in this newfound fellow into the existing narrative - plausibly and quickly.
Some Sunday night years ago these two friends had their first session with the group, and for one of them his first session ever of D&D. The existing trio of adventurers were down in the shifting dungeon beneath the town, already on the adventure, so I started with a different narrative, that of the new duo. They met with the Baron, the trio’s employer-of-sorts and their contact for the aforementioned parcel, which none but the baron are truly aware is the stoneheart of the giant far beneath the keep and its dungeon in perpetual torpor. But they’ve been down there for a while and he wants to be sure the job gets done so he may as well get some extra pieces on the board.
And that’s it - I presented the new group with immediate investment in the stakes of the party. In this case it was to reach the bottom of the dungeon beneath the keep, and being new to the locale are keen on acquiring payment. Plus this setup an easy tutorial scenario: the original party members had just cleared out this first floor, and were puzzling over the door blocking the path to the lower levels. These new folks arrived just as the puzzle was solved, entering them in combat with an undead lamia, so then it’s roll initiative and the basics of actions and movement and etc.
Following their triumph, the group begins to coalesce as they face a classic quandary: do they return to town to recuperate or proceed down to discover what lurks below? To give you the short of it, they chose the latter, and to make a short story shorter, they turned tail as soon as the black pudding started to eat away the fighter’s armor. The stakes of adventuring now likewise were made clear. They got back topside to adventure another day.
I think it’s important to start with your new players at the table too - sure there’s a culture you’ve made with the existing group but these new potential members can have something else to offer, and could help them ease into the game. There could be the inverse, sure, where the players suddenly feel the pressure of being put upon to kick off the session but that’s why you’re there - to guide and referee the game and narrative both. Ask them questions about their character, the basics, what they look like, the mannerisms, how they act and why they’re there. If they don’t have any ideas or are flexible give them some ideas to springboard off of. Something basic such as, “you’re here escaping a bounty” or “you have family in town” will work, or maybe the player will come up with something while you guys are playing. The players will often discover new things about their characters, just as much as you do from what they give you. Letting them have the initiative grounds then with immediacy, because in my experience, you otherwise get to wait thirty minutes to an hour while everyone else around the table gets to play with some abstract promise of “fun” if the player sticks around long enough.
Here’s an alternative to this scenario - your player isn’t into the character they’re playing, and they want to play something different. Let them, ask what they have in mind and discuss a way that this new character can get onto the stage! For my previous campaign the half-orc fighter wanted to switch out to a half-elf paladin, where they had a bit of shared back story. The party was already heading to the capital city on urgent business to stop a necromancy plot, but it was during the same time as the summer festival. So this new paladin, himself a noble of a distant country, participated in the jousting tournament.
Of course this was an outsider, at the whims of the local aristocracy. By some feat unknown to the players the paladin’s equipment was sabotaged to kill one of some noble’s heir competing in the tournament - you and I both know the name doesn’t matter, whatever plot this was worked for us from a DM perspective to just introduce this new character. It didn’t matter who or what these shadow players were, in fact I don’t think I had them written down? All that mattered was the half-elf paladin was brought before the king on charges of murder, only to be drafted into the same order of knights the party was in by the choice of the sovereign, but not the king - his sister, the original parton of the party who forsook her royal bloodline to join that order of knights. So we introduced a new character, and we made it engaging by revealing more about characters the party was already familiar with for those who weren’t part of the scene.
There’s no problem with keeping the players in the dark; it’s the mystery that you perpetuate which will amaze them, thinking you’re prepared for everything. Take for example, if a player’s character falls during a session when you still have an hour and a half left to burn. They come across the prisoners of the hobgoblin warlord, where they find that player’s new PC shackled. Their aid would be invaluable since the party’s already down a character, but maybe there’s something else about this new member you and the player can cook up in downtime away from the prying of the other members of your group. Be flexible and you can make the best of any situation calling for a new adventurer entering the mix.
Whatever current situation you find your party in, whether it's traveling across the countryside, in socio-political discourse with the local regent, or simply exploring a dungeon, find a way to get your new players to become part of the direction the campaign is headed. You may have to drag them kicking and screaming into it, but with a bit of finesse and familiarity with your players you can do something even better - trick them into desiring to become part of it. Don’t apply brute force to the character, but perhaps take or create the things they care about along the way. The social contract of the game isn’t a guarantee of them jumping into the deep end with you, but if you help them tread the shallows for a while you can get them to swim all on their own.
Y’know I’m not sure that metaphor goes all the way for what I needed to but I’m hoping it gets my point across. And hey if so or if not I’m always glad to receive feedback. You can shoot me an email at dmdiscoursepodcast@gmail.com or reach me on Twitter @dmdcpodcast. That’s all I’ve got for now so in the meantime, take care and have a great week.
