Lessons Learned - Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde 3e to 5e Conversion

Hi ho, Hearty Adventurers! All the way back in 2018, I began running a D&D 5e campaign for my friends, and being the lazy bastard innovatively efficient DM that I am, instead of coming up with my own adventure, I converted The Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde from D&D 3e (well, 3.5e) into 5th edition. While I may be a lazy bastard (fine, I admit it), I'm at least enough of a team player that I am willing to share my notes so if you want to run SGoS in 5e yourself, you don't have to work too hard at it. I mean, you have to buy your own copy of the adventure (I suggest getting the DM's Guild PDF copy instead of shelling out upwards of $50 for a physical copy), but after that, smooth sailing!

Quick review of SGoS - it's not the best adventure out there, but still a neat little story, with some interesting set pieces, and was generic enough that I plopped it into my own campaign world and the setting for the adventure (Valley of the Obelisks) became my party's "home away from home" for the next 3 years of playing this campaign. It's great for 1st level adventurers, and lasted for 4 months of almost weekly game sessions for my group, so if you're looking for something to ease your new PCs into harder adventures, this is a good choice.

My notes (we're almost to the conversion, promise!) are pretty sparse, as I wrote these for myself and not originally for public consumption, so I will try to explain my mad ramblings with new notes, which I will place in italics after every section. Where I pulled monsters from the Monster Manual, I marked those MM followed by the page number; XGtE for Xanathar's Guide to Everything; VGtM for Volo's Guide to Monsters; MToF for Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes; and I even pulled some stuff from the Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG). With no further ado, The Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde!

The Other Stuff

There is a bunch of stuff the WotC staff put into SGoS, like specific races and classes found in the Valley of the Obelisks (the physical setting of the adventure) and a bunch of 3.5e-specific prestige classes and faction-specific magic items... and I didn't use any of them. Sorry. I really liked 3/3.5 Edition prestige classes, but they really don't fit into 5e well, as the power curve is much steeper in 3e. As you'll see further down, I was still pretty new to the 5th Edition rules and was trying to jam 5e into my 3e expectations, but I didn't even bother trying to fit this section in as I didn't need them for my homebrew world I was plopping the Valley of the Obelisks into. They're pretty interesting and give you a feeling for the lands surrounding the Valley of the Obelisks, so if you're looking to add some more flair to your game world, you won't go wrong adding in what you can, flavor-wise, like new factions and groups, but I strongly warn you away from trying to copy things in stat-for-stat.

In the Beginning

-travel to Valley of Obelisks NOTE: I had other things before this, but they were boring, like "Session Zero" and "get party into Dogpack" (their Patron organization, back before Eberron and Tasha's came out and I realized what I was using was a Patron).

-the route is 10 days, danger rating of 1/3 (protected lands, have to roll three consecutive ones to experience an encounter), resources and navigation are automatic, and discovery is 1 (fairly civilized and well explored) NOTE: this is referring to a system for determining when an encounter happens during overland travel I got from The Angry GM. He does great analysis of the game, and comes up with some pretty neat systems to use in the game. This one I need to pick back up again, but as my current group is doing urban adventures in an Eberron campaign, I'm not too sure when I'll have the opportunity to use it next.

-random encounters along the way (XGtE93), forest (1-2), grassland (3-4), hill (5-6)

-arrive at the Valley (city of Sumberton starts pdf page 29)

-Master Teagallow dies of natural causes NOTE: Master Teagallow was a NPC from my homebrew world and a part of the Patron organization the party belonged to. The kingdom they were from, Toklan, was looking to annex the Valley of the Obelisks through non-military means, and had sent the party to guard the kingdom's negotiator, Master Teagallow. He was this grumpy, old, former adventuring halfling, who promptly died of natural causes when the party arrives at the Valley of the Obelisks. The party was then ordered to take over negotiations, which is why this note and several others pertain to nothing in the SGoS adventure text.

-PCs find Sending Stone (DMG199, except these are once each way per day) and talk to Prime Magistrate NOTE: more tie-in to my homebrew world, Prime Magistrate is the leader of the Patron organization.

-PCs must continue the mission to the best of their ability, replacement negotiating team is at least 2 months out

-meet with the Lord’s Council in Sumberton

-halfling leader is Vintra Marktunsel (for joining Toklan); human leader is Lord Bariss Carstellan (against joining Toklan), sons Jarrik and Thrann; dwarven leader is Harunio Quell, mine owner at Silvermont (neutral); elven leader is Anastrianna Shul Shennek, leader of Oakwood (neutral) NOTE: since I was leading the party into the main plot of the adventure from a different way than the book has you go, I needed this info up front and handy to roleplay this first scene with the party.

-get first adventure lead from Marktunsel (Slaughtergarde pg22)

The Laboratory

-travel to the lab is half a day, only one hour off the road, no foraging is required, and no encounters or discoveries will occur NOTE: this points back to that wilderness travel and encounter system I was using from The Angry GM.
-outside the Laboratory, the party will either run into or be ambushed by a light patrol of 4 goblins (MM166), 200xp NOTE: here's the important stats for this monster encounter - who/what they are, where I can find the stats, and what the total Experience Points for the encounter are, as I was not doing hallmark leveling, actually counting out the XP the party earned for overcoming enemies (they don't have to fight, just overcome and still get the XP), solving puzzles, accomplishing missions, and whatnot. I also now write all my monsters and NPCs on 3x5 index cards so I don't have to keep flipping back and forth in all the various monster books.
-the Laboratory (pdf page 82, map on pdf page 38)

-DC formula: (oldDC-10)/2+10 = newDC NOTE: this was important enough I wanted it bolded so I could reference it on the fly, but as you can see further down, I just put the adjusted DCs right into my notes. This formula doesn't work 100% of the time, but is close enough to work most of the time if you are doing your own 3e to 5e conversion.

-L2 - hobgoblins (MM186), half-plate AC+2, breastplate AC+1, 375xp NOTE: I was trying to stay true to the monster stats in SGoS, but it didn't take me too many sessions to realize that the minor changes I was making to the 5e monsters, like these noted here, really didn't affect combat all that much and I run pretty much standard monsters now for all your low level minions and non-special encounters. You'll see later, I do get pretty fancy if the encounter deserves it.

-L3 - goblins (MM166), studded leather AC+1, 225xp

-L4 - complex trap (XGtE119), spotted on a 15 DC skill check (perception or investigation)

-trigger: someone steps on any square in the room

-initiative: acts on 20 (fast)

-active element: scythes (roll 3d8 to determine which lanes, doubles and triples don’t count, nor do 8s), +3 attack bonus, dealing 1d8 slashing damage

-dynamic element: scythes reset every round

-countermeasure: can be blocked (must pile up 400lbs of solid material), or destroyed (AC 8, 5hp), or turned off (search DC 15, panel in corner in lane 1, other side from L3) 

-if PCs break off a door in this room, the hobgoblins in L6 hear it and are waiting in the room between L4 and L6

-XP is 250 for this encounter NOTE: as you have probably already guessed, I am translating the trap to the new trap system found in Xanathar's. But wait, you say, this room isn't that wide! For this campaign, I changed the scale of the map, instead of a one inch square equaling a 5 foot by 5 foot square, my squares were 3 foot by 3 foot. I felt that was a bit more "realistic", in a game with magic and talking animals and whatnot. I did not continue this into my next campaign, it was fun and gave each battlefield a different set of tactical considerations, but in the end, it was too fiddly and did not change combat drastically enough to be worth it.

-L5 - goblins (MM166), half-plate AC+4, 200xp

-L6 - hobgoblins (MM186), half-plate AC+2, 250xp

-L7 - goblins (MM166), studded leather AC+1, 225xp

-L8 - howler

Large outsider XP: 700xp

HP: 30 AC: 16 Initiative: +4 Speed: 60’ (20 squares) has darkvision 60’ Melee: bite +7 (2d8) and 1d4 quills +3 (1d6, DC12 Dex save or suffer -1 on attacks, saves, and ability checks per quill, DC15 medicine check or it deals another 1d6 damage upon removal)

Howl: free action; if heard for an hour or longer, DC 10 wisdom save or suffer 1 temporary point of Wisdom damage, check every hour NOTE: I can't remember where I got these stats, if I made them up or found someone else's conversion online, though I suspect the latter rather than the former (remember, lazy bastard), but whatever it was, my players feared it enough, because I built it up over a couple of rooms, that they went nuclear on it and I did not get to use half the cool stuff in its stat block. It happens that way, sometimes.

-L9 - giant rats (MM327), 75xp

-L10 - ankheg (MM21), 450xp

-L11 - goblins (MM166), half-plate AC+4, 200xp

-L12 - maug - if the PCs fight it, they die

-XP of 100 if they talk to the maug and don’t try to attack

-XP of 50 if they observe it destroying a goblin and decide to run and don’t talk to it NOTE: yes, I typed that ("if the PC's fight this they die") on purpose. Go look up the maug's stats in 3.5e, this is a good aligned celestial, but so far above where the party was at by this point in the game (1st, maybe 2nd level), power wise, that I didn't waste any time trying to convert the maug or find someone else's conversion, I just wrote that note. Trust me, my players may have pulled off killing this maug one time out of a hundred, and I was betting on the 99. My party did not even try, they did talk to it, and got bonus XP for sending it back to its home plane.

-L13 - giant lizard (MM326), 50xp, 100xp if they use the mushrooms to not fight it

-L14 - DC 12 dexterity check to cross

-L15 - goblin boss (MM166) 200xp, hyena (MM331) 10xp

-spellbook: burning hands, cause fear, charm person, ray of sickness, comprehend languages, longstrider, mage armor, magic weapon, protection from good and evil, ray of enfeeblement, ice knife, snare NOTE: this was just me replacing what spells the adventure mentioned that had translated over to 5e, plus some others replacing the spells that hadn't translated well.

-L16 - skeletons (MM272), count as hobgoblins, 150xp

Nambrakh Hobgoblin, cleric (3) of Magublyiet (war domain)

HP: 23 AC: 14 (chain shirt, Dex+1) Initiative: +1 Speed: 30’ (10 squares) darkvision 60’ Melee: mace +1 (attack +2, damage 1d6+2)

Spells: cantrips (3) - sacred flame, mending, 1st level (4) - shield of faith, bane, inflict wounds, 2nd level (2) - magic weapon, spiritual weapon, 3rd level (1, through icon on altar) - animate dead

XP: 700 NOTE: I was still pretty new to 5e and my last edition had been 3e, so I was still trying to give monsters class levels. I have long since learned it is just easier to give the monster what you want it to have, whether it be magic items, spells, or abilities, and worry about the CR on the fly. You don't have to stick to the same rules your players do, but you have to be willing to adjust on the fly if you made the monster too powerful. If your players ask why something is, wave "jazz hands" at them and say "MAGIC!"

-L17 - zombies (MM316), 200xp

-L18 - darkling elders (VGtM134), 900xp

-if the PCs find all the missing Chicane Guild crates (L3, L5, L15), the party is awarded 100xp for securing the primary mission

-if the PCs search deeper into why this laboratory is here (talk to the maug, study the mirrors in L11, read the books in L15, piece together the statue in L16, examine the shattered gate in L17, and read the papers in L18) award the party an additional 50xp per piece of the puzzle explored, for a total of 300xp

 

Interlude

The PCs should take their findings, including the notes they can’t decipher, back to Vintra Marktunsel, who will take a few weeks to research it. If the PCs aren’t level 3 or 4 yet, have them take care of some of the wilderness encounters (Slaughtergarde page 28) while they take care of business in Sumberton (pdf page 33)(DMG125)(XGtE130). Eventually they will be approached by the captain of Lord Carstellan’s home guard, Sir Armin Harrak, who wants help with locating the next part of the puzzle (page 22). Due to the PCs not being part of the local political landscape and them finding the evidence that leads to the Surrinak lodge (plus the recent drow surface raids in the area), the PCs are asked to go into the Temple (page 108, map pages 39-40). NOTE: the DMG and XGtE references are to the Downtime rules. If you want to do Downtime activities, which I do like, stick with the XGtE activities, they update the DMG activities and work better. I took this a step farther and picked up Pathfinder v1's Ultimate Campaign book and allowed the party to build a home base in the Valley for their Patron (a military/law-enforcement organization called the Foxes & Hounds, or colloquially the Dogpack), as well as one of the PCs saved up his gold and built a tavern in the Valley.

The Temple

Fiery demon arches - see T14 (pg127) - disabling an arch or taking damage from it passing through it the first time 700xp, disable DC is 12, up 1 for every disabled arch, damage is 2d6, plus 1d6 for every disabled arch NOTE: here are the arches, their current status, how much damage they are doing, and what the DC is to disable them; as the PCs move through the dungeon, I changed it in the document to keep track of what was going on.

T10 - on, 3d6, disable DC 13

T5/T13 - off

T14 - on, 3d6, disable DC 13 (off)

T16 - on, 3d6, disable DC 13 (off)

T23 - on, 3d6, disable DC 13 (off)

T25 - on, 3d6, disable DC 13 (off)

-T1 - drow (MM128) w/breastplate (AC 17), longsword (1d8+2), longbow (1d8+2), 200xp

-T2 - grimlock (MM175) w/greataxe (1d12+3), 200xp

-T3 - drow (MM128) w/breastplate (AC 17), longsword (1d8+2), longbow (1d8+2), 200xp

-T4 - drow (MM128) fghtr lvl2, dueling, 2nd wind (bonus action regain 1d10+2hp), action surge (gain another full attack once) w/full plate (AC 18), lance (1d12+2), longsword (1d8+2), hp30, 700xp, initiative +2, to hit +2

- lizards, AC 14, hp30, speed 39, climb 39, initiative +2, to hit +3, 2 attacks, bite (2d4+4), claw (1d3+2), 700xp NOTE: again, in 5th edition, you don't have to create monsters as if they were PCs. This drow and the lizards are a good example of this - for the drow, I could have left out the level and the fighting style (dueling) but left everything else in and he would have played exactly the same. But the lizards are just fine, I gave them the HP, AC, and attacks I wanted them to have, no wasted space, and they worked just fine. And yes, the speed the lizards have is based on 3 foot by 3 foot squares, not 5 by 5. Just raise the speeds to 40 feet and everything will be fine in your game.

-T5 - arcane guard (drow, MM128) fighter 1/wizard 1, dueling, 2nd wind (bonus action regain 1d10+2hp), adamantine chain shirt (AC 15, no crits against), flail (1d8+2), cantrips: Fire Bolt, Poison Spray, Shocking Grasp; spells: Expeditious Retreat, Ray of Sickness, Shield; hp30, 700xp, initiative +2, to hit +1 NOTE: yes, yes, way too much work. Leave out the levels and classes, the fighting style (yes, I know it has an effect, but I could just bump the Attack bonus and be done), and I would prune Expeditious Retreat, and pick two from the Cantrips list to also get rid of. These drow aren't particularly tough, so they're only getting one spell off before they go back to swinging sharpened steel at the PCs, but I still like to have some options.

- hobgoblins (MM186), 200xp

-T6 - quaggoth (MM256), 450xp

-T7 - arcane guards (drow, MM128) fighter 1/wizard 1, dueling, 2nd wind (bonus action regain 1d10+2hp), adamantine chain shirt (AC 15, no crits against), flail (1d8+2), cantrips: Fire Bolt, Poison Spray, Shocking Grasp; spells: Expeditious Retreat, Ray of Sickness, Shield; hp30, 1,400xp, initiative +2, to hit +1 NOTE: I can tell that I had not read through Salvatore's Drizz't novels anytime near to when I ran this game (I am currently reading back through all of them, up to The Thousand Orcs as I type this), as I would have done these drow so differently than what I did then. Yes, like before, leave off levels, but add in a good Stealth roll, keep the melee combat stuff, and only two spells, Faerie Fire, Globe of Darkness, and Levitate. Plus hand crossbows with a poison feature and a Blindsight. Or, maybe I wouldn't have, these are likely very low level house guards and wouldn't have all that fanciness of a scion of one of the bigger houses in the Underdark.

-T8 - gargoyle (MM140), 450xp

-T9 - zombie (MM316), 100xp

-T10 - giant bat (MM323), 100xp

-T11 - wererats (MM209), 900xp

-T12 - Garanaach, young black dragon (medium), MM page 88, 900xp (paragon) 

HP: 33 & 33 (2 hp pools) Initiative: +4 initiative on first, see below.

Paragon Fortitude:  The dragon has multiple pools of hit points, each of which is tracked separately. All damage suffered and healing gained during a round must be completely applied to only one pool. When a pool is reduced to zero, all ongoing conditions and effects affecting the dragon end. Once a pool is reduced to zero, that pool cannot receive any healing until after a long rest. If all hit of the point pools are reduced to zero, the dragon is killed.

Paragon Wing Sweep: When the first hit point pool is exhausted, occuring as a reaction immediately after the damage that reduces the pool to zero occurs, Garanaach sweeps her wings around. The effect is treated as a DC20, level 1 Thunderwave spell, any PC failing the save are also knocked prone.

Paragon Exhaustion: The dragon may take one complete turn in each round of combat for each hit point pool it has above zero and receives one reaction between each of its turns. When a pool of hit points has been reduced to zero, the dragon loses one turn each round thereafter. The dragon determines initiative normally for its first turn, though it gains advantage on the roll. Each subsequent turn is inserted immediately after any one PC’s turn in the initiative order (roll randomly to see which PC). NOTE: this is another little something I stole, er, borrowed from The Angry GM, the Paragon. Think big bad in a video game - you hit it so often, it changes form and attack pattern, repeat a couple of times, and then it dies. This is the same idea.

-T13 - yuan-ti malison (per Slaughtergarde, but refer to MM309), 1,800xp, cast Fear as a 15ft radius centered on Garanaach

-T14 - wererats (MM209), 900xp

-T15 - drow rogues (MM128), rogue 3 (assassin), cunning action (dash, disengage or hide each round as a bonus action), sneak attack 2d6, assassinate (any creature that hasn’t acted this combat you get advantage against; critical on surprised opponents), AC15 (studded leather+1), hp18, rapier+1 (+5 to hit, 1d8+4), hand crossbow (poisoned, +4 to hit, 1d6+3+1d4 poison, Con save 13), initiative+3, 900xp

-T16 - Lanthurrae (drow cleric 5, war domain)

-spell save 16, spell attack +8, AC17, hp31, make three extra attacks as a bonus action, make +10 to one attack once, turn undead, destroy undead ½ or lower, chanimail +1, whip +1 (+3 to attack, 1d4+2, double reach), spells: 3rd - Bestow Curse, Spirit Guardians; 2nd - Magic Weapon, Spiritual Weapon, Hold Person; 1st - Shield of Faith, Inflict Wounds, Divine Favor, Command; 2,300xp

grimlock (MM175) w/greataxe (1d12+3), 200xp

-T18 - drow (MM128), 6 instead of 3, 300xp

-T19 - giant spiders (MM328), 600xp

-T20 - giant spiders (MM328), 600xp

-T21 - as per pg136 of Slaughtergarde, 2,900xp

-T22 - 4 magmin (MM212), 400xp

4 magma mephit (MM216), 400xp

-T23 - stirges (MM284), 150xp

-T24 - death dogs (MM321), 800xp

-T25 - clockwork abomination (ToB59), 1,800xp

 

Armory

NOTE: SGoS is a strangely laid out book, I have no idea why the last part of the adventure is placed first in the book, and the other two dungeons are in their own section separate from the rest of the adventure info. No idea folks, just how it is. Extra note - the Fiery Gates in this section are so easily bypassed by the party searching for and finding the Slaughtergarde Medallions on the monsters they encounter, that I didn't even bother putting them into my notes to keep track of them. If the ones back in the Temple section become too onerous, just give the baddies the Medallions as well, which does make sense for them to have, and just skip it. The Fiery Gates are an interesting bit of dungeon decoration, but get old pretty quick.

-wandering patrol - Fang of Yeenoghu (MM163), 4x Flesh Gnawers (VGtM154) NOTE: for the monsters and NPCs in this and following campaigns, I was using the excellent paper standees from Rich Burlew of Order of the Stick fame. The standees are called A Monster for Every Season. The funny thing about this is that Yeenoghu is one of those copyright protected names that Wizards of the Coast owns, so Rich renamed these creatures as Fangs of You-know-who, which sounds like the commonly accepted pronunciation of Yeenoghu. Sorry, thought that was funny.

-A1 - 6x Hunters (VGtM154)

-A2 - 4x Hunters (VGtM154)

-A3 - Venom Troll (MToF245)

-A4 - Hill Giant (MM155)

-A5 - half-fiend ogre per Slaughtergarde, 2,300XP NOTE: when I originally ran the game, I honestly can't remember what I did with this, but apparently I tried to use this half-fiend ogre straight from SGoS. Looking at the stat block in SGoS, I would probably go with something from 5e that was CR 6 instead, quite likely a Vrock (MM64) and just describe it as a half-fiend ogre as described in SGoS.

-A6 - White Abishai (MToF163)

-A7 - per Slaughtergarde, 700xp NOTE: again, I can't remember exactly what I did here, but again, I wouldn't try to use the 3.5e monsters, but instead build a combat encounter that adds up to 700xp. 14 troglodytes would do it, but this room is too small and the combat would be boring. You could go the easy route and do one water weird (MM299), which fits the location pretty well. I'd probably do 2 troglodytes (MM290) and 3 giant toads (MM329), fits the location and keeps the CR correct.

-A8 - per Slaughtergarde, 2,300xp (cleric) and 1,100xp (thugs), see Lanthurae above for spell selection NOTE: again, trying to jam PC class levels onto monsters like we used to in 3.5e, for this I would reskin the conjurer (VGtM212) to look like a troglodyte as it has the spellcasting I need for this group, and then for the thugs, I'd reskin the stone defender (MToF126) to look like troglodytes. Yes, just straight up reskin, and trust me, your party won't really notice.

-A9 - per Slaughtergarde, 1,100xp NOTE: again, I'd use stone defenders (MToF126) for these troglodytes.

Tybalt - fighter 3, Str+3, Dex+2, Con+3, AC17, hp31, Great Weapon Fighting (reroll 1 or 2 on damage die), Second Wind (1/day regain 1d10+3 hp), Action Surge (1/day gain another action), Champion (Improved Crit, 19 or 20), Glaive+1 (+6 to hit, 1d10+4, heavy, reach, 2-handed) NOTE: I played this guy straight and my players completely did not trust him, immediately sent him back to town. The instant distrust helped them later in this dungeon, but oh so untrusting my players were. Not really pertinent, but I found it funny then, still do, thought I'd share.

-A10 - Chimera (MM39)

-A11 - Tieflings per Slaughtergarde, 2,100xp NOTE: you need two melee combat baddies, so two veterans (MM350), and for the spellcaster, the illusionist (VGtM214)

-A12 - Fang of Yeenoghu (MM163), Pack Lord (MM163)

-A13 - Fang of Yeenoghu (MM163), 6x Witherlings (VGtM155)

-A14 - 2x Fangs of Yeenoghu (MM163)

-A15 - Oni (MM239) NOTE: I didn't like the troll here, so I just swapped in an oni, whole cloth. It worked really well.

-A16 - 1 Derro Savant, 3x Derro (MToF158&159) NOTE: this encounter and the one before it and the following encounter, read the notes in SGoS thoroughly, and just have fun with these encounters. The oni outside the door is a tough fight and the party probably won't be able to sneak up on her, and the fight with the derro is fun with all the moving parts in the foundry, followed by a tough fight that the party is better off running away from. However, the derro yelling encouragement through the doors is hilarious, play it up and have fun with it.

-A17 - Fire Elemental (MM125)

-A18 - Succubus (MM285) NOTE: again, played this straight, played her like she was another adventurer like poor Tybalt above, trapped down in the dungeon. And really, this succubus just wants to go back to her home plane as she has had all the death and destruction from this little group of gnolls and drow as she can stand. It's been swell, but the swelling's gone down. But yet again, my players weren't buying it, yet she managed to talk her way into the next room and escaped back through the opening gate and managed to distract some of the baddies on the way out.

-A19 - Mezzoloth (MM313)

-A20 - Hezrou (MM60)

-Flind (VGtM153)

That is the end of it. Of course there are other bits to this adventure that I added in to fit better into this homebrew world I was making. Things like the party, if they successfully close down the Gates (d'uh, if they fail, they're all dead) they convince the people of the Valley to be annexed by the Kingdom the party is from/work for, and how the party's Patron (Dogpack) was stationing the party in the Valley since they did such a good job.

As you can probably guess, I am a big proponent of homebrewing but still using adventures and stats that are already available instead of working to build everything from scratch. To that end, while typing this up, I used the 5e Monster List found over on the Donjon website, just one of many handy references they have for us DMs to utilize. I also use the Adventure Lookup database, a very useful tool to find adventures with... you know, I am going to let Matt Colville explain this one, he does a much better job at describing it than I am currently capable of. I also used Google Drive - if you have a Google account, which is very likely, you have access to this, and if you don't already have one, the account is free, so why not? - to organize my notes and also set up a folder for all my players that I drop pertinent info into. I have toyed with the wiki-style repositories like Obsidian Portal, and those are definitely interesting, but it is so much easier to use Google Drive. I think if one or more of my players had been into keeping their notes in a wiki, I would have used one, but as it was, it was just easier to do the Google Drive folders. 

This is a pretty fun intro adventure, easy to use, and it shows off a lot of the basics of the game - you have combats with a bunch of different monsters, you have exploration and puzzles to solve, and some decent roleplaying opportunities scattered throughout. Is it perfect? No, but what adventure(s) would you call perfect? No, SGoS is good enough and hopefully you can learn something from this post to run it yourself, either in original rules, the newer 5e rules, or in some other rules you prefer. Hope this helps you out, fellow Dungeon Masters and Game Masters (and Referees and Storytellers and...), have fun running games for your friends.

Wiskaria

  The two prisoners were brought before the Lord, bound at the hands, and thrust to their knees before him. He looked down at the pair, the rough hewn edges of the ancient desk offsetting the understated elegance of his office. The prisoners, for their part, merely looked back at the aged figure before them.

“Karzent and Wisendon,” the Lord began. “Fomenting rebellion amongst your fellow slaves again?” Many would have quailed before this gaze, but these two, frequent visitors to this august presence, did not. “It has become apparent that the standard punishments are no impediment to the two of you, so I believe something different may be in order. We may even be able to get some use out of you.” The Lord smiled at this last.

The prisoners exchanged a look. Nothing that pleased the Lord boded well for them and their fellows.

The small band crouched at the lip of the ridge overlooking the valley. They had started on this adventure with ten, but now there were only eight, as two of their number now shared a common grave with the fell beast that had ended them. It had been distasteful to most of the band, but those in charge had decided that mere slaves deserved no better.

Karzent lowered the spyglass and handed it over to Wisendon. “I don’t see anything living, but some of the markings are fresh.” Wisendon looked through the glass, but not having the tracking skills of his partner just nodded in agreement. “I’ll go tell their Highnesses.” Wisendon snorted, but kept looking through the glass.

Karzent scrambled down the backslope, to where the horses and pack animals waited, along with Karzent’s minders. Despite her comment, the two minders were not royalty, but they were pure bloods, sent to mind their half breed slaves and make sure of their completion of mission. The slaves had not slipped blades into their backs, despite many opportunities, as the two did have their uses, and the mission was grim enough to require all the help they could get their hands on.

“We are there,” Karzent announced.

“And? Speak up, slave.”

“There’s something there, the signs are clear.” Karzent was used to being addressed as such, and had long stopped reacting to it. “Not sure how many, but it does not look like more than two or three.”

“Well, let us go see.” They deigned to dismount and climb the hill. Karzent would have demanded they keep low, approach the top below the brow and but peek over the top of it, but she was more than sure that whatever resided below had either already detected the band, or had no need of forewarning.

The castle was ancient, a legend and a nightmare. Built into the side of a now inactive volcano by the tyrants that once ruled the entire land, its current resident or residents were purported to have cast them down, long ago when the flow of lava had stopped and the fields of fire had died to ember and then to ash. Even though it had been generations, the area was still a blight in the heart of the land, for all who traveled through it were never seen again. All expeditions to find the missing never returned themselves. Eventually all of the surrounding city states learned to avoid the area entirely, counting the extra travel time spent going around a small price to pay.

Built to massive, nay gigantic proportions, the defensive works of the keep dominated the landscape. The lush greenery feeding off of the plain of volcanic residue would have overwhelmed and hidden works built by the smaller races, but here the towering giants of the forest just served to show how massive the walls and towers truly were. Even surrounded by the undisturbed vegetation of generations, it dominated the landscape.

“Should we wait until night?” asked Wisendon. They all looked to Karzent, her years of experience tracking and hunting in the wild making her a natural leader of the band.

“No point,” she answered immediately. “Whatever is down there already knows we’re here.” She turned down the hill towards the horses. “Or they don’t care.”

It was nothing more than luck that had saved them. The tyrant at the heart of the fortress had let the party come deep into his lair and played with them for most of a day, all the while killing them one at a time. Only when Karzent and Wisendon were left did he stop the games, and confront them directly. The dark giant, his skin covered in runes of power, was ancient beyond measure. The last of his tribe, they had defeated the former masters of the keep and enslaved them. They had lost control of the once great kingdom the previous masters had, but they cared not. Their slaves had served them as long as they could, but their new masters, more powerful than they had even imagined, ground their entire tribe to dust, and then themselves had succumbed to the vagaries of time. Until there was just one left.

He had gloated as he chased them, telling them of the vast expanse of history he and his tribe had been witness to. How insignificant the half-breeds were, how only because he had nothing to occupy his time and had no one else to speak to in a long while was he deigning to speak with such lower beings. One does not hold conversations with rats, one merely kills them, do they not? Karzent’s arrows and blade had bounced off the steel-like hide. Wisendon’s best magics slid off of the giant like so much water. The rest of the party, slave and master alike, their efforts had been similarly futile. He had laughed, time and again, at their impotence, and continued to hound them in and around buildings built at a scale almost beyond their comprehension.

In the end, age and luck, bad luck, had done the tyrant in. Karzent had managed to trip the tyrant and it had fallen against an aging wall, and its protective spells, weakened by time, had reacted with the monster’s own runes, bringing enough weight down to crush the tyrant. The last of the party, they had not survived without wounds of their own. Only by searching the body of the fallen giant and drinking deeply of several healing draughts they had found did they manage to survive. They both had lost parts of themselves, but they still lived and huddled in the still ruins to gather themselves.

“We won,” said Wisendon, his remaining eye closed against the pain. “But for what? So our pure blood masters can expand their control and grind us further under their heels?”

“Yes, Wis, that’s exactly why I came here, to lose half my leg and watch you hover near death just so that goblin’s dung heap of a Lord can clamp down on trade with the south even more,” Karzent said. They were tucked into a corner of a long cold hearth, many times the size of the shacks they and their fellow slaves enjoyed back home. A small fire crackled before them, the wood hacked off of a chair that had towered above them both. “Though I have to admit, watching that monster squish those two uppity bastards like so many mice under his sandal, that was almost worth all of this.” They were quiet for a little while. “What do you suggest we do, Wis? We barely made it here with ten of us, and everyone had all of their legs and hands.”

“Don’t forget eyes,” said Wisendon. “The hand was bad enough, but at least I don’t appear to need it to manipulate magic.”

“I’m sorry, Wis, I am,” said Karzent, and sat silently for a long, miserable while. “You know, we could just build a home here. If we didn’t tell anyone all the giants are dead, who’d come looking for us here? We could settle down, stop the constant moving, raise a family…”

“Karz, I’ve told you, while our people live under the lash…”

“...of pure-blood hatred and oppression, you do not have the time nor the interest in any type of relationship,” Karzent quoted at Wisendon, having heard the sentiment far too many times. “I know, but I’m on the old side of middle-aged, Wis, and a girl won’t wait for…”

“Wait,” he said, “what did you say about building a home here?”

“We could build a house here. Only we know the giants are all dead, and since everyone avoids the area out of fear, we’d get at least a couple of years alone. Just you and me and...” She stopped and looked at him intently. “What’s going on in that head of yours, Wis?”

“I think you’re right,” he said, his eye open and staring intently at the ceiling of the hearth, many feet above him. “I think we could build a home here.”

The journey back had been harrowing, but they made it, and more importantly, without running into any of their masters or their minions. They slipped into the slave slums and word spread quickly through all of the camps, for fear of their masters catching word from one of their many spies. The word was such a shock to the community that several such spies revealed themselves in trying to run to their masters, a boon to the slaves as it allowed them to eliminate those leaks and gain more time. The slower, more careful spies were too cautious, and by the time the slaves made their move, it was too late.

The slaves revolted, along with many of their former guards. Even in a land of slave and master, many of the so-called masters were treated not much better than the slaves they guarded. They escaped into the night, half of the land on fire and in chaos, Karzent and her fellow trackers obscuring the trail and misleading the pursuers in many different directions. Tens of thousands of slaves, from the old to the newborn, all vanished into the wilderness.

They could have left years ago, generations ago, but they had nowhere to go to. Bastard half breeds of two proud races, unwanted by one and enslaved by the other, they had tried going to the other races in the surrounding lands, but beyond weapons and equipment, supplied more to twist the nose of their masters than out of a sense to help them with their plight, no one was willing to open up their own lands to these unwanted children. Now, with an entire fortress, the most recent owner dead at the hands of their own with no one else the wiser, they had that somewhere to go, somewhere to call their own. And took it they did.

The fortress, built to the scale of giants three times the size of its new occupants, had been crafted by masters of stonework and magic, protective energies woven into the near seamless stonework to make it as indestructible as anything else worked by mere mortals. As such, the new inhabitants could not alter the structure, they had not the skill nor the equipment to rework the bones of the fortress, bring it down and build it back to suit their size. So they left the stone as it was, and built everything else to their scale. Hallways became two story dorms and apartment blocks. Kitchen ovens became smithies and forges. Extra steps added onto every staircase made them accessible, while the unused portions of the stairs were used for market stalls. The mighty forest that had grown up in the nutrient rich volcanic ash was quickly cleared, first to provide lumber for all of the projects, and second to provide planting area to grow crops. Used to the hard labor under the lash of their former masters, the people worked even harder to build and grow what was now theirs.

The delegation from the Lords Under the Mountain entered into the grand hall of the new nation. The hall had been built into the old inhabitant’s own great hall, but with so much extra space, much of the upper areas of it and the sides of the hall were being walled off and made into offices and apartments. The delegation was met by the council of the new city state and quickly escorted into the feast hall for a welcoming meal. The grizzled head of the delegation’s guard excused himself from the meal, and with two of his guards left the hall for one particular, newly-built apartment overlooking the hall. He knocked and stood with his hands tucked into the belt under his prodigious gut.

“Yes?” asked the face behind the door.

“I would like to talk with the Lady Karzent and the Lord Wisendon, if they are not indisposed,” the grizzled veteran said pleasantly.

“I’m sorry, they don’t live…” he tried, before the man before him snorted and gently, but inexorably, moved him and the door out of the way and walked into the cozy domicile. The man attempted to protest but stopped when a voice from the next room stopped him.

“Let them in, Lenet.”

Lenet bowed the grizzled veteran in, while he motioned for his own men to stand in the hall outside.

“Stay here, boys, I’m sure if they wished me harm, you couldn’t stop them anyway,” he smiled at his men and motioned for Lenet to accompany them. “You too, kind sir, I hold no harm in my heart for your master nor your mistress, and I assure you they will have no trouble from me, as I don’t wish to perish anymore than you do.” Lenet bowed at the grizzled man’s sincerity, and left. When Lenet had secured the door behind them, he walked into the next room to find a very pregnant Karzent reclined, with her foot and jewel-bedecked wooden leg propped up.

“Lady Karzent, I presume?”

“I’m not a Lady of anything, in this nation or the next,” she said, her eyes peeking out from under a damp cloth. “The council runs things, we did our part, igniting the revolution and bringing our people here, and they honor us by letting us work for our new country.” 

“Nor am I a Lord,” said Wisendon, coming down the staircase, “but you are, aren’t you? Not some mere guard from the Under Mountain, are you?” Wisendon stopped behind his wife and began to massage her shoulders.

“You have me there,” he said, setting his bulk down gently upon a plain, but comfortable chair. “May I? The wife and I have ten of our own, adopted more than a few, and have more grandchildren and great-grandchildren than I care to think about, and even starting to get some great-great-grandchildren.” He began to massage her remaining foot and ankle, his massive callused fingers gentle on the swollen appendage. “But you are correct, I am no mere guard. I am Hlerzod.”

“Hlerzod? One of the Five Lords Under the Mountain?”

“Aye, that I am,” he continued to massage, even though both Wisendon and Karzent had stopped and stared with intent. “Let the delegations talk and look pretty to each other, I wanted to come out here, see this new nation for myself.”

“But, your Lordship…” began Wisendon.

“Please, if you both are neither Lord nor Lady, then here, in this time, I am not Lord anything either,” he smiled, continued to knead away. “We Under the Mountain, we may live in darkness, surrounded by those who hate us, inwardly focused on our mine works and projects, but we hear things even still. You are bastard children unwanted by both of your parent races, except to be slaves to your former masters. Your leaving has crippled one of the largest and oldest countries, upset trade, and nearly started three separate wars. The whole western half of the continent is in an uproar thanks to your little revolution, which is the only reason no one has shown up to see exactly how impenetrable this ancient fortress really is.”

“We just wanted to be our own people, have our own place,” Wisendon said. “It’s been almost ten generations since any ‘slaves’ were born due to infidelity between the races. My parents, Karzent’s parents, almost every parent of the half-children in this place were half-breeds themself. We aren’t bastards, merely Master Hlerzod, we are a new race, a new people that have bred true. We are not mules, unable to reproduce, we are a people!” Wisendon’s face was suffused now, the fervor that fired the entire revolution shining through.

“It matters not whether or not you are a race, not-a-Lord Wisendon,” Hlerzod said, “that is not the question. No, the question at the heart of the matter, is whether or not you are a country and can remain a country.” He stood, slapping at his vast belly. “Can the other nations trust you, can they count on you, to keep and hold any treaties with you a generation from now? Two generations? Three generations? Three years? Three months?” He paced around the room, studying the items the pair had gathered over the years. “It’s not that we, the other countries around you, that we care not for your plight, but we have our own problems and issues and enemies, and the most any of us can do is sit back and watch.” He turned to the pair. “Well, most of the countries in the area can only watch. We Under the Mountain can possibly do more than just watch, but you can’t expect us to sacrifice our own country, own safety and stability, just to prop yours up. We can provide instructors and weapons to build up your army and defenses, markets to trade your goods for, and I think, most importantly, someone to recognize your legitimacy, confirm to the whole continent that you are indeed a nation in your own right.” He sat again and looked at the two younger leaders.

“I don’t know which promises any of us can give you, sir,” Karzent said, “all we can do is try.”

“Well, you have a better start than I did,” Hlerzod said. “What? That surprises you, that I struggled and had a start? How do you think I became one of,” and here his voice swelled, “The Five Lords Under the Mountain?” He smiled at that. “No, I certainly was not born into it, and while it seems a long time to you and yours, it has not been all that long when me and mine moved and settled a new mine away from our home shafts.”

“What now? Where do we go from here?” Wisendon asked after a few moments of silence.

“I go back to acting like a guard, for form’s sake, and once my delegation returns home, the Five Lords will decide to extend you the copper nugget of friendship.” Hlerzod stood, creaking and groaning, and slapped his ample belly. “We may not be able to keep you safe, but for nothing else, tweaking your former masters’ collective noses is worth the help we can give. And,” he continued, “we need every friend we can get. It doesn’t hurt that this will open trade with you and your very skillful craftsmen, but will also open up another trade route and byway to us. Until you two killed the tyrant in this keep, we had despaired of ever using the old lava tubes on this side of the peak.”

“Pretty quiet trip up into our deepest basement, was it?” The delegation had indeed come up into the lowest levels of the keep, as the original builders had tapped directly into a lava flow underneath their keep, possibly to use the lava in their workings, or to commune directly with fire elementals who had lived in the volcano. As both the volcano and the original builders were long dead, the current occupants did not know for sure, but the lava tubes underneath the dead volcano proved to lead almost directly to the caverns of the Under Mountain.

“Pretty quiet, aye,” Hlerzod said, rubbing his face, “and it will get quieter still the more we travel it and clean it up. There are a few chasms that we will need to fortify to keep the very deep ones from using, especially now that they don’t have the tyrant of the keep to fear.”

“That’s what my trackers told me,” said Karzent. “Do you really think we have a chance?”

“My dear lady,” Hlerzod said, smiling, “if any of us have a chance of giving our children, and their children, and their children, a better world than the one we were born into, it is you, here.” He paused, thoughtful for a moment. “By the by, what are you going to call it, this new country of yours?”

“They want to call it Wiskaria, for Wis and me, but…”

“Wiskaria, hmmm. Yes, I think you should let them give you that honor. It may just serve as a warning to not attempt to enslave your people ever again.”

WISKARIA: LAND OF BASTARDS AND HALF-BREEDS

When I originally wrote about Wiskaria, I had just grown tired of always finding that half-elves (long my favorite race, pretty much thanks to Weis and Hickman’s Tanis Half-Elven) were the bastards, the unwanted children of the world, despised by most and ignored by the rest. I wanted these half-breeds to have their own place in the wider world, and roughly at the same time that was percolating through my brain, another idea of a city built into the ruins of a castle built into the ruins of a giant’s castle was also rustling through my subconscious (too many sources to cite them all here, though Terry Pratchett - the Nomes books and the Carpet People - comes immediately to mind), and Wiskaria was born.

I kept the history above as vague as possible so that you could pick just about any half-breed race to be the base Wiskarian, any race to be their new allies Under the Mountain, and modify the rest of the background as you see fit. In my version of Wiskaria, the people are half-elves, who have recently escaped their elven slavemasters, and settled halfway between the elven lands and the human lands. The humans, of course, care little for the half-elven slaves, mostly because the half breeds have been slaves for so long, their human parents have all died out and they have been breeding true amongst themselves for several generations now. Once they are free, they settle in the now abandoned castle, former center of a fairly large fire giant kingdom that had fallen, after the volcano had gone dormant and deprived the fire giants of a lot of their power, to the depredations of a tribe of rune giants. The rune giants (yes, completely stolen from Pathfinder, you're welcome Paizo) in turn had slowly died out over the centuries, until the last one fell to Wisendon and Karzent. The Five Lords Under the Mountain are dwarves that have recently (in their terms) settled a new mine under the mountain range the castle’s cinder cone is a part of.

D&D in Panic Mode

As has been remarked upon by many DMs (that's Dungeon Masters to the uninitiated), the greatest threat to any group engaged in role-playing games is not the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy/Gal), but the players' and DM's schedules. Yet another scheduling conflict struck me this very week, a mere three days before our Session Zero for the big Eberron campaign, and my five person group suddenly drops to only three players able to attend. Rather disconcerting, considering my groups are set for monthly meetings to help alleviate such issues, but the best laid plans of blah blah blah.

What did I do? Fold? Call the session off? Surrender and drink away my feelings for the next 24 hours? No. If we can't do the original plan, we change course and drive on. No plan survives contact with the enemy, which is Army-speak for "you better have a backup plan for when the first one fails, bud". Not that I had a backup plan, but us DMs are known for our improv abilities and being able to think quickly on our feet. When first one and then not long after the second player dropped, I contacted the players in my other games (two other RPGs and one tabletop wargame) who aren't in my D&D group, and asked if they were free for a one-shot game. When I had two more, I let all of them know we were still on for the session, we would be switching over to a one-shot adventure, and made sure I would still have at least four show up. Sometimes, being a good storyteller and knowing the RPG's rules is almost secondary to being able to manage all the scheduling conflicts. 

What was the off the cuff backup plan? I'm preparing for a long-term Eberron campaign, so let's stick to Eberron, thought I. I'm hip deep into getting the lore and feel of the world down, and it will be a good sneak peek for the three players that are already in the D&D group and will be playing in Eberron soon. Great idea! But do I want to write out a full adventure? No, let's be lazy about it. They (Wizards of the Coast, current owners of D&D, WotC to most of us) have already done two Adventurers League adventure series in support of Eberron, Oracle of War and Embers of the Last War. Oracle is the more recent of the two, but I plan on stealing parts of it for my upcoming campaign (shhh! don't tell my players!), and I really just needed an afternoon of gaming for low-level PCs, nothing that will be multi-session. So Embers it is, specifically the first adventure, Murder in Skyway. It's just vague enough that i can fill in details as I want them to be, but gives me names and stats on the baddies and other NPCs, plus maps for the big fight scenes. Well, okay, one map, and I had to create the other two i wanted to use, but the one they provided was very nice. Oh, and the adventure is only $5. I really need to go ahead and pick up all the Embers and Oracle adventures, just so I can comb through them for help with future sessions. 

Got my adventure picked and purchased, start going through that material (only a part of a week to game day by this point) to familiarize myself with it, but I am still missing something - characters. Most of the time, I'm pretty open to whatever the players want to bring to the table (yes, I do make some restrictions, as I freely admit there are some races and classes that do not fit well into my games, and some ideas all players get are too crazy for anyone's game, much less mine), but for a one-shot where we are time limited, and especially in a new setting my players are unfamiliar with? Yessiree, we gonna need us sum pre-gens! Pre-generated characters, that is, as I did not want to waste time the day of the game making PCs, as even with experienced players this can take too long. D&D will always be special to me, my first tabletop RPG love, but even in 5th edition, character creation takes too long too often to count on doing it quickly. Plus, you ask any player, experienced or not, to come up with a character now Now NOW, hurryHURRYHURRY! and they will vapor lock with too much to choose from. So I needed to provide some pre-gens. 

Let us set some parameters first. Am I rolling their stats or just using the "standard array" of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8? I wanted this to be easy, and rolling up a bunch of stats sounds like work, plus I also want these PCs to be fairly equal to each other, didn't want anyone to fight over the one PC I rolled well for while everyone ignores the character I rolled subpar on. Standard array it is. I began looking through various manuals when I realized that the internet contains untold thousands of nerds like me, surely someone out there has put up a character generator for free on the World Wide Web that will meet my needs. Yes they have, and don't call me Shirley - after only a small bout of Googling, I discovered Fast Character, a rather robust random character generator that is very configurable and blessedly free of pesky ads. They even cover PC options from obscure books, like Eberron: Rising from the Last War (though thanks to Monsters of the Multiverse, most of the Eberron options now come from there, instead), which is what I wanted as I knew I needed to include at least one warforged and one other Eberron-specific race (kalashtar, changeling, goblinoid/orc, whatever), and Fast Character had the options. It even has where you can set certain things a specific way and randomize the rest, so I quickly generated six PCs. 

I was expecting only five players but hoping for six, so I made six to give a little bit of choice and cover myself in case of good fortune. I generated three basic characters to give my less experienced players something familiar- half-orc barbarian, halfling ranger, human wizard - and then branched out to Eberron new options for the more adventurous players - dwarf artificer, shifter rogue, and warforged fighter. Yes, I leaned away from casters and more towards fighters, but again, this was a one shot, just one session, hopefully never to be repeated (though always an option at need), so I chose the way I did. Thinking back on it, if I do ever run this again, I will probably change either the barbarian or the ranger out for a cleric or a druid (should have gone with a halfling druid from the Talenta Plains, wild shape into various dinosaurs in the middle of Sharn, that would have been a blast). I cannot give enough praise to Fast Character, as I set race, class, background, and chose the standard array ability scores (but not into what abilities each went, their program didn't just assign randomly, it has some thought behind its selection), and it randomized everything else and produced very workable characters everyone enjoyed playing. If I ever run a convention game or set up an Adventurers League locally, I am using Fast Character to make the pre-gens.

Got our adventure, got the pre-gens, and on the day of the game, as I had already been reading through the adventure and readying myself for it, I did not have much set up. Pull out miniatures (yes, 15mm still, I am in love with these tiny little minis), draw up the various maps on my battle board (just a sheet of Plexiglas with poster board under it and a half inch grid because we're using 15mm scale minis, which gives enough room I could draw the three potential combat encounters onto the board at the beginning), and we're good to go. For the characters, I put their one page character sheet in a page protector, along with a blank piece of ruled paper and a piece of graph paper, as a player I always loved having something to take notes on. The adventure itself went well, Murder in Skyway is not the best adventure ever, but as a one shot it was just fine, and it is the intro to a longer series of adventures, so if I ever need an emergency one shot again, I am so running the same pre-gens (leveled up to 2, maybe also do a class switch in there) in the next adventure in the Embers of the Last War series, Boromar Ball. And I'm really liking Eberron, it is not your typical "kill them all for they are all monsters, and care not for life!" classic D&D murderhobo-fest setting. There are so many factions, all vying for power that when I wanted my "bad guys" (who is really bad in Eberron? it's hard to say) to talk instead of just fight, they could. Not liking the odds? Run away, and that applies to both the NPCs/monsters and the party. There was enough story and combat that everyone was satisfied with the adventure and felt like they contributed. Like I said, not the best adventure, but good enough is all I was really looking for.

There you go. When half your group cancels for whatever reason, you just gotta drive on and get some enjoyment out of the situation. Oh, I could have easily pulled a couple of board games out from our voluminous collection and just played those with the remaining members of the D&D 5e group, but I wanted to get some role-playing in. I hope this helps out those of you in similar, unforeseen circumstances. Don't be afraid to change up what you had planned and go in a whole new direction, because your players' and your own schedules are your biggest opponent in this hobby.

D&D 5e Lessons Learned 1 - Starting a New Group

 I do not know about you, but I had an excellent weekend. The weather was pretty nice, in the 60s and 70s for the most part, which was great considering we were in the 90s for most of the previous week. And of course the big one for a gaming geek blog - I started up my new D&D 5e campaign. Finally! As you have read here, I have been trying for months, MONTHS!, to get my own schedule open enough to start a campaign, enough interested folks to come together who could meet on the appointed day and time, and surprisingly, repair enough of our dining room chairs that we could seat everyone at the table. Yes, my campaign was being held up by carpentry and upholstery, of all things. I mean, look at this gorgeous fabric the wife and I had lying around (we used to be medieval recreators, and had bought this fabric many years ago for that hobby, and it has been laying around, unused, ever since) and I love the chainmail rings pattern it has (yes, that is European 4-in-1), thought it would be perfect for medieval fantasy gamers to sit upon. My Cyberpunk Red and Savage Worlds groups will just have to suffer with non-setting appropriate upholstery.

But we had our first session! I was excited and impatient all last week, and the appointed hour finally rolled around... and everything went well. I have two of the six players from my last D&D campaign in this one, one who has been playing for the past couple of years a variety of systems, and another one who had never played until they joined my last game. At 10th level no less, he got thrown into the deep end, but rolled well with it, and is enjoying the instructional nature of this new adventure I am currently running (more on that in a second). We also have three folks who have been a part of my Team Yankee 6mm Escalation League, one gentleman who has been playing and GM'ing D&D and various other RPGs for about as long as I have, another gentleman who has tried D&D a few times in the past but most of his experience is with tabletop wargames, and a lady that has never played any tabletop RPGs ever. Last to the group is someone I had never met before, but had responded to a plea for players for the new game, and while he does not have as much experience as I do, it is still a pretty impressive history with the game and various others. I was hoping that we would get some newer players in, as I have been feeling a bit rusty and have a great intro adventure that is great for newer players and DMs, or for us more experienced players to knock off the rust. But I got a few new players and some more experienced players. {shrug} You take what you can get and run with it. Oh, and not only was one of the chairs sporting the very appropriate chainmail pattern, I made sure to be wearing my "I'm such a D&D nerd" shirt I got from Shirt WOOT!, and the shirt was appreciated as well. Now I just have to reupholster five other chairs. 

Anyway, the game, as I am sure you did not stop by to hear me brag about my awesome chair upholstery or shirts. We did not have a Session Zero, as we were playing through a fantastic intro adventure that came with pregenerated characters, and it is aimed at being instructional, so we jumped straight in. I got this adventure from my favorite game blogger, the Angry GM (his blog can be found over there on the upper left of this page), and had even helped fund it when I backed his gaming instruction manual Kickstarter, the book Game Angry and have been itching to use it ever since it came out. The adventure module is The Fall of Silverpine Watch, which is how I think you should teach folks how to play D&D - it starts with the roleplaying aspects of the game, gets them invested in the setting and the world, then introduces them to the crunchier aspects of the game, slowly. While I love D&D for its tactical combat (yes, we used 15mm minis on a 1/2" gridded board), this is first and foremost a game about telling stories and the players interacting with each other as their characters. And the adventure is a good adventure by itself, it has an interesting story with clues for the players to find to reveal what occurred before the characters arrived on the scene. Seriously, if you have newer players or are a newer GM yourself, run this adventure (it's free! no, really, those of us who bought the book put in enough in the Kickstarter this is free to everyone, not some illegal download from the darkest reaches of the internet), you will thank me later for it.

Because we ran Silverpine Watch and pre-gens, we did not have a Session Zero. I am not as in love with Session Zero as a lot of modern gamers are, but they do have their uses. I am going to be frank and honest here - I played for a couple of decades and while we had Session Zeroes from time to time, we never called them that, we were just talking about the game we wanted to play. We definitely did not talk about our "safety tools" or creating a "safe space" where we listed out our "trigger words" beforehand to make sure we did not offend anybody, yet in many players' minds, that is what a Session Zero is for. You want to virtue signal to the Woke nation, have a "biggest victim" contest amongst your snowflakes, go ahead, it is your game. My game, I am not going to pander to anyone's phobias or kinks, we are going to act like adults, and if you act the asshole and offend me or another player, I am going to call you on your shit. Anyway, we did not have a Session Zero because we did not need one. I do suggest you have one in your own group, if for nothing else then to let your players talk amongst themselves while they roll up new characters, let them figure out how the party got together in the first place. For us DMs, use your Session Zero to relay to the players what your upcoming campaign is going to be, is this a funny campaign full of slapstick and bard songs about naughty sex acts (yes, I'm looking at you, Legends of Vox Machina, you funny effing cartoon) or is this a super serious affair? Are you going to do lots of talky-talky, with intrigue and well-rounded NPCs, or is it going to be combat-combat-combat-FRAY-FRAY-FRAY!! What house rules do you have? What setting are you using? That kind of thing, not whatever the hell the snowflakes have decided a Session Zero should entail. I will say if you are worried someone will break your precious "social contract", this is the time to lay out what exactly that document contains so no one is left guessing on where the boundaries are.

We did have a few lessons we all picked up. Our wargame experienced yet new-to-RPGs player figured out very quickly that outside of combat, RPGs are all about interacting as your character with everyone else's characters or the NPCs. The experienced players at the table had quickly established their characters' personalities and were interacting, which was a good example for this newer player of what to expect during the adventure. My lesson is that, especially in an intro adventure like Fall of Silverpine Watch, you want to slow down and take as much time as possible whenever you roll dice. Oh, there is a tree across the road, what do you do? Do you Help your fellow PC? Are you adding a skill into that roll? What skills are applicable? How does Advantage (from the aforementioned Help) work? In other situations, how does Disadvantage work? How do opposed checks work? Especially in combat, you as the DM need to take as much time as possible with your new players so they can learn all the nuances of 5e combat - Movement, Action, Reaction, Bonus Action. Advantage/Disadvantage. Spellcasting. Initiative. 

One funny occurrence - our newest player, at least to the group, had to leave early and had not brought his dice or PHB, and when I asked for a roll, he looked a little lost. I immediately offered a bag of d20s, and he declined, thinking I was offering my personal dice, a huge taboo amongst many players - YOU DO NOT TOUCH SOMEONE ELSE'S DICE!! At least, that is the belief, personal dice are sacrosanct and not to be shared, touched by anyone else, or even looked at funny, else all the Luck contained therein shall scamper off into the Feylands, never to be seen again. I cannot say truthfully that I do not believe in this at all, as I literally changed my dice in recent tabletop wargame when the first set rolled multiple 1s, and I do not even DM D&D with my personal playing dice. Instead, I have purchased multiple sets of dice and a Chessex Pound-O-Dice that I use as my DM dice and loaners to my players. Anyway, after explaining that these were not my personal dice and merely my DM dice that are for sharing as well as my DM rolls, this player happily grabbed a die out and rolled. 

Okay, enough ranting on that. Some lessons being learned on everyone's part, and lots and lots of rust getting knocked off. Next session we will finish up the intro adventure, and then I think we will slide into a mini Session Zero and let everyone make up characters for Lost Mine of Phandelver, the original 5e official intro adventure. I got the Starter Set at Walmart of all places, could not pass it up when I ran across it, and I want to play it some time. If nothing else, it will be a great learning tool for these new players on how to create a character from scratch, as I will not be using the pre-gens included with the set. Plus, I do not want to dump this group, new as they are, straight into my Eberron campaign. Nor myself, just so many moving parts to consider and keep track of, and I am not talking about the combat. As I described it to a friend recently, Eberron is to medieval fantasy as Futurama meets Cyberpunk is to science fiction - nigh dystopic setting with an almost universal apathy from everyone who resides in the world. Usually in medieval fantasy, where the general populace is very invested in the outcomes of your average adventuring party's latest delve, in Eberron, the general populace kind of glance over to see that indeed there is a horrible mess going on, and once they have verified that there is no easy money to be made from the kerfuffle, shrug and go back to their lives. This makes for a very complex social setting, as even in Sharn, deep in Breland, there are so many factions operating in the city, with interests both inside and outside the nation. I do not want my players, old hands and new players alike, to be overwhelmed by both the rules of the game and complex setting we are going into. But we will see after our next session where the party stands and I will decide at that point if we are going into LMoP or straight into Eberron. Until then, I hope you get the chance to join up with your friends and roll some dice.

Last Minute Preparations

Here we are. As I type this, we are under two weeks from my first game of what I am dubbing in my head, the Rotation. The second Saturday from today (again, as I type this), I will sit down and introduce a new group of players to the world of 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. I cannot tell you how excited I am this is finally happening. And then, at the end of the following month, we are having our Session Zero for Cyberpunk Red.  

It has been a long time since I have DM'd/GM'd any game, looking back on my posts here, it has been almost a full year. But we are almost there. I had a job change that killed all of my extra free time, and while the pay was good, it was not quite good enough to put up with no free time to speak of, and so another job change occurred. There, free time! I can run games as I had been hoping to! Wait, no, another snag - our dining room chairs, veterans of my last weekly campaign, were in dire need of repair and reupholstering. Seriously, carpentry and sewing were holding up my game. Fortunately the repairs to the chairs were not too difficult and well within the scope of the tools I possess and skills I have attained. The chairs that need repairing have been repaired, and reupholstering has begun, but that does not need to be completed in its entirety, and can be done in between sessions. The repairs did need to be done, as some of the chairs were literally falling apart and not safe to sit in. Strange what has kept me from starting a campaign back up, but sometimes you have no control over what decides whether you can do something or not.

Speaking of, my other major problem was having enough players. I have found that scheduling, the reason my last D&D campaign folded, is still a major issue, to the point that even going to a one session a month schedule that three out of six from that last group are completely unable to join in and a fourth that is still on the fence on if he wants to give up one weekend afternoon a month or not. Out of six previous players, only two of them have committed to one or more of the games in the Rotation, where all six had professed an interest in playing something with me as the GM again. But this just shows why that group perished - when I decided what days and times worked for me, and would not budge, three players were no longer interested. Gosh, I wonder why that last campaign crumbled? I get it, other things come first, as this is just a hobby, but if you are not paying your game master and your schedules are too far away from each other, you are just going to have to find a new table to play at. Would I like to get that last group back together? Yes, but as many scheduling conflicts as we had in that group, and no one is willing to change their own situation even now, that tells me that group will never exist as it once did. 

So I went to the Book of Faces, and posted on many local RPG, nerdy, and tabletop wargaming groups what I was doing and got responses. Oh, I had a few friends here and there that were interested in getting into one or more of my games, but definitely not enough for what I wanted to do. Luckily, I managed to catch a few interested folks who could meet on the established day and time, enough to max out my D&D game at six, and enough to get my CPRed to the minimum of four to get it rolling. Yes, I want just five in any RPG I am running, but six is better, as inevitably someone has to bow out of the session come game day, and so I get the optimal five I wanted in the first place. And I am okay with just four for CPRed, this campaign will eventually roll into a long term arc, but for the beginning, to get everyone (including me!) used to the rules and the world. It also allows for other players to join at later points and not feel like they have missed out on much. Very nice.

The third game in the Rotation, Savage Worlds, is still shy a few players, but as you cannot find the core rulebook in print, and only one of the three settings I want to play (a rotation inside the Rotation) are currently in print, I am not in a huge hurry to get it rolling. It will be my least accessory intensive game, because while I am an admitted tactical combat junkie, with maps and all the minis, I recently decided my SW games were going to be the true palate cleanser for me and my players - theater of the mind, beer and pretzels, sitting on the couch instead of at a table, and just enjoying a relaxing game once a month. Yes, I am sticking with 15mm miniatures and and my patented (okay, stolen idea) grid under plexiglass map for both D&D and CPRed, I already have some wonderful minis (body bags!!!) and found so many more out there. I wish I was a better mini painter as there are so many fantastic sculpts out there that deserve better attention than what I can give them.

I almost have everything ready. Binders are almost done - I splurge and get 3- ring binders for each player and fill it with handy info, character sheets, blank paper for note taking, even graph paper for mapping out those dungeons (I am an admitted old school kind of DM) or abandoned warehouses deep in the combat zone - got most of the minis I need for the first session ready, I am tidying up a few other details... running RPG campaigns is as hard as a real job. But here we are, not too long now and I will be back to describing musty holes in the ground and slinging duce. This is the fun stuff.

Starting a New RPG Campaign

I am looking at starting up three separate campaigns in the near future, and wanted to share my process. This may work for you, this may not, just understand that if this process does not work for you that does not mean I am wrong, nor does it mean you are wrong. But maybe something you see in here will help you, or strike a bit of inspiration. Whatever works for you and your group is the important part. 

Starting a new RPG campaign for me starts with the rules and the setting. What rules do I want to play with? And yes, it does matter, as there are some rules out there that are just... ugh. Like Palladium's Rifts - do not mistake me, I love the Rifts setting, the history, the lore, but cannot bring myself to play it because the rules are way too complicated. And while I love the setting, the power creep that was in every successive Rifts book was way out of control. While there are a bunch of folks out there who will claim every set of RPG rules is equal, they are completely wrong. Does that mean you should ignore all of the rules that I do not like? Only play the rules that I do like? No. Rifts does not work for me, and these others that I am about to talk about do, but that does not mean Rifts cannot work for you, or that these other systems will absolutely work for you. You have to be willing to peruse rules that are out there, give them a try, and see for yourself if they do or do not work for you. So, rules - obviously Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, as my last 5e campaign died a while back and I need to start a new one, at some point, and with the new Eberron book just taunting me with all the tasty lore, I know what particular D&D setting I want to run; I have talked a bit about Cyberpunk Red since it came out (before it came out, to be honest), and I really want to throw some cyberpsychos, some corporate security types, and maybe even some plague-ridden puppies (thank you, Uncle Mike) at a bunch of edgerunners and see how they handle it; and a new interest, Savage Worlds universal role-playing system. The others I have talked about, because the internet needs another old gamer grumbling about the good old games that never were, but Savage Worlds is not quite as new an interest of mine as I mentioned, I have actually been thinking about using that ruleset for a little project of mine for more than a few years. That project, well, I will save that for later, but I have a new interest that uses the Savage Worlds rules - Monster Hunter International. Yep, an RPG based on a bubblegum pop series of action/adventure novels. What can I say, I am a fan of the novels and, well, I will talk about the idea I had for the game in just a bit.

What story do I want to tell? That is the usual thing you see from those aspiring creative types, trying to convince themselves and the world they are five seconds away from writing that next great Lord of the Rings style epic, but for me, asking this question is simpler. For D&D and specifically Eberron, the story I want to tell is Indiana Jones with magic, swords, and airships. Trips into the Mournland to retrieve ancient artifacts, discussions with warforged on what the meaning of life is, chasing rivals across the air bridges and passages of Sharn. What pieces of fiction have I seen or read lately that feel like this? Red Notice on Netflix, that heist kind of movie (it was okay, but not worth getting Netflx just to watch) with the humor and the action beats. For Savage Worlds and Monster Hunter International, the books the world setting is based on are what I want to emulate - hunting monsters, getting paid lots of money from the government (you have to be familiar with MHI, it makes sense), and generally trying to fight the forces of evil while retaining what sanity PTSD allows. For Cyberpunk Red (CPRed), it is shows like Altered Carbon (at least the first season, which is worth getting Netflix for) and movies like Johnny Mnemonic and Blade Runner 2049, and books like Neuromancer by William Gibson and Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan (the book series is excellent, if you like the show, read the books). But for story, just surviving in Night City after the Time of the Red is usually enough. Or maybe I want to visit my old CP2020 playground and take the edgerunners to Kansas City in 2045. Story wise, a bunch of street rats trying to accomplish edgeruns just so they can pay the bills, get that next meal, pay for their flop, and maybe get some new cyberware. 

Okay, so I have an idea of what rules I want to play, what worlds and settings I want to play in, and a "story" (theme, really) I want to tell. What else do I want to throw in on top of this? Do I want to play in real life or virtually? IRL is my choice, but could I go virtual in case this global pandemic springs back up? Yes, but seriously folks, go get vaccinated for COVID (and all the rest of your vaccines updated, in case you have not had a chance to get them updated in a bit while you are at it), and quit making it about politics. *feh* So, IRL, which then begs the question of logistics, something near and dear to my former military heart (amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics). Which books do I need to run these games? What books do the players need? As you probably well know, I like using miniatures and a grid under plexiglass for my tactical combats, am I using that for this? For my three games, I need the classic D&D DM books - PHB, DMG, MM, XGtE, TCoE, and then the base Eberron: Rising from the Last War book. Do I need anything beyond those? At this point, no, but I am always on the lookout for new things to toss into the mix of my D&D games. Can I use Matt Colville's Strongholds & Followers or Kingdoms & Warfare in this campaign? I have not had an excuse to pick up Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, do I need to acquire it? These are all things I am thinking of as I type out the campaign document (more on this in a bit). As for the players, they will need their own copy of the PHB (I require my players to have a physical copy, D&D Beyond is neat and all, but hard to quickly find the info you want, and electronic devices are flaky at the best of times) and E:RftLW, plus any other supplement (specifically XGtE and TCoE) they want to use classes, subclasses, spells, equipment, whatever. CPRed is easier, mostly because there is basically the core rulebook available. R Talsorian Games does have a new book that just got published, and I will grab that shortly, but I doubt my players will need it, just the core book. RTG has been teasing a Chrome book for CPRed (the Chrome series were where all the fancy gear for CP2020 that did not show up in the core book appeared) but with the pandemic (GET VACCINATED! GET A JOB!) the whole dead tree publishing industry is in slow down mode, so no telling when Chrome will be out. For now, then, CPRed core rulebooks for everyone. Savage Worlds is also easy - Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE, the latest edition of the Savage Worlds rules) and the MHI world book for myself, and both for the players, but not at first. Why? The nature of the game - I want to gather a group of five players who are interested in playing SWADE and a modern action/adventure setting, and then run an intro game, sight unseen. One of the cool things I like about the MHI books and world setting is that most folks who get into the monster hunting business do so because they were attacked, as the governments of the world keep the existence of monsters a secret from the populace at large. I want to do that for the players, give them some pregenerated characters and then spring a monster attack on them, to introduce the world and the rules to the players. After the intro, if the players want to continue playing MHI, they can pick up SWADE and the MHI book, even create new characters or keep the pregens, but this one I want to be a surprise.

Miniatures. For the longest time in my D&D 5e campaign, this was yes or no question, a set schedule of supplies that I would divide out the necessary ones from the pool, ready for that session, rinse and repeat. But now I have to be difficult and different and change everything up - for all three games, I am going to 15mm scale. Practically half the size of the traditional 28mm (which has been known to stretch all the way to 32mm scale, depending on the sculptor), 15mm is smaller and less expensive, and your battle grids automatically double in size. I am already working on 3d printed terrain to place atop the grid, and have begun collecting minis. Yes, I know, I have built up quite a collection of paper standees and 3d printed terrain for my 28mm game, and I do feel a bit guilty for setting all of that aside to switch my whole operation to a different scale, but I have a tentative plan to get some use out of those in a different project. Anyway, I am still making the jump. Why? I like big, sprawling battle fields with lots of room to maneuver, plenty of bad guys out there to deal with, and I could care less about looking fantastic on the gaming table. Yes, the downside of smaller miniatures is you do not get as good looking a paintjob as you do with bigger minis, but painting minis is my least favorite portion of the hobby, and I would gladly play with bare metal and plastic minis for the rest of my days, so I am not disappointed by that downside. One of the bonuses is that, since I do not have a lot of minis or 3d prints for modern or sci-fi cyberpunk settings, I am not really replacing a bunch of stuff for two of my three games. And the another bonus is that a few of the models I am getting for MHI work for D&D, and some others work for CPRed. Hey, I try to be efficient, especially when I luck into it on accident.

While all of the above is going on, because let me be honest, all of the above is happening at the same time, odd thoughts rumbling through my head at all hours of the day and night, this is not a process I can provide a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP, and yes, the Army really does write them for EVERYTHING) for, it just kind of happens. Anyway, once enough of the above has happened, I create a Google folder in my Google Drive for the game I am thinking about playing and a folder inside the first folder that is where I will toss all the things I am going to provide to my players. Why Google Drive and Docs? Many folks have smart phones and some internet access (and I spend enough on a monthly basis for my own 'net access that I provide my players with my wifi password, so they at least have internet when they are at my house for the game session) and can access Google Drive. Is that the best option out there? For me, yes, well, maybe. I do have an Obsidian Portal account, and I have long toyed with the idea of actually using it as it was intended, but even with my last campaign that lasted most of three years long, I do not trust that I can get players (or even stick with, myself) who can last in a campaign long enough that OP would get properly used, even the basic free version. If you are looking for a Wiki-style campaign management tool, that you can share with your party and they can submit articles and notes and maps and images to, OP is pretty good and one of the first of these aimed specifically at TTRPGs to come out. But I do not use it, because I can barely get players to show up to sessions on time and regularly, and OP is definitely for those whose gaming groups are very invested in the campaign. No, I am not bitter at all, why would you ask that? I have also used Facebook, by creating a private Group and inviting all of the members into the Group, and that is how I organize my Team Yankee in 6mm Escalation League, which you may read about more here on my internet journal (I hate the word blog... hate it, hate it, hate hate hate it). But FB is good as it does provide a communication channel, somewhere to post announcements, great for scheduling sessions, but not so good at sharing documents that multiple people can work on collaboratively. For my RPG campaigns where the sessions are held at my house, I like having the file sharing that Google Drive provides more than the scheduling and communications that FB offers, but nothing saying I cannot combine them together and use both. Back from the detour, I create a Google Doc (specifically a Sheet, which is a word processing document) and start typing all the information I want to pass to the players in the document - this is the world, here is the rules we are using, here are the classes and races you can use, here are the books that are acceptable to use stuff out of, that sort of thing. And much like this post, I just start typing whatever comes to my brain first, total stream of consciousness type of info dump. Before I share this document with any players, I for sure go through and sort everything out into sections, and give it a very real editing pass, actually several passes like I was planning on putting this out for the public at large to view, and I am updating this document throughout the campaign and discussing those changes with my players whenever I do them. Also into this folder goes anything I think the players will need - if I am allowing a certain Unearthed Arcana from WotC, in it goes, but mostly maps and any other computer file I think the party can use. That is all in the players' folder, and in the primary folder, the one that does not get shared with the players, goes all my notes and files that I think I will need for the game - a main document where I type in any notes, or if I am using a pregenerated campaign, my conversion of that campaign, plus anything else I might need, like digital copies of the rules and campaign so I can review them anytime I have a thought about the campaign.

Next I start looking for players. I post on local Facebook Groups, local gaming store internet LFG/LFP forums, and even just talking to old players to see if they are interested or know someone who is looking.  At least, that is what I try to do, there are so many ways to get players out there these days - Reddit has an entire sub dedicated to locating groups and players; there is an app called GameFor (at least there was, then the COVID hit, and they still have not turned it back on) (again, GET VACCINATED!!) that was, as the Penny Arcade guys portrayed it, like AirBnB except for D&D (which I think we have needed since PA posted that comic, over six years ago); and I am sure there are more options out there that I, as a crotchety old bastard, do not know about. Did we have these when I was a younger man and wanted to get into more games? No, we were lucky if we had friends who played or were close enough to a gaming store that we could check out their cork board, and that was all the choices we had. Even after the internet came out in 1994, it was a long time before anyone was organized enough to make it easier to find games and people to play them with. So I hope you young 'uns appreciate the slog we had a mere two decades ago and before, so you could be enjoying finding players and games with all of these tools today. Why go through all of the trouble, why not just ask my current group if they want to play a new game or games? If your current group of players is up for it, then you can skip the party creation stage, but as it sits right now, I cannot do that. You see, besides some guys who show up once a month to push tiny tanks around a table, I do not have a current gaming group. And no, my last party did not stop because they lost interest in the game, but because everyone in the group had such wildly divergent schedules that it was good the game or kick half the group out to be replaced (and I was not going to play favorites and choose which half to keep and which half to say goodbye to, so we stopped altogether).

Which brings me to a related item I am cogitating on - when and where will we play? I am, by dint of the sweat on my brow, a homeowner so I tend to run my games out of my home, but you may not be that far along in your life journey and do not have enough room in your living space to have the size of party you want. If that is the case, start making plans on where you can play. I have thought on this a bit, and I do have some options to share with you. Local gaming stores are an option, but do they charge a fee for the space that your group can afford (and is willing to pay), and do they have an opening in their schedule that matches up with your schedule? How about your local library, do they have meeting rooms available to use? Does the group have a local restaurant that they like that does not see a lot of business the night your party meets, and would they mind having a regular group in, as long as you do not disturb the other customers and you get all your food and drink there and leave an extra big tip? Does anyone in the group belong to or work for an organization (school, charitable organization like the Elks or VFW, even a church) that has unused meeting space the party could use? My dad was a minister for most of my life, and I had a key to one of the churches he ministered, and it was empty most afternoons and evenings (though this was still during the Satanic Panic, that would have been fun explaining what we were doing in the church after hours). One of my local geek-centric groups that organizes over Facebook meets regularly at our local Mall's food court and plays board games. If you live somewhere that the weather is generally nice and you plan on playing Theater of the Mind instead of with minis, try a shelter at the local public park. There are tons of options out there, you just have to look around and not be afraid to ask (worst they can do is say "no"). Do not forget to define for yourself what times you want to be running this game. If you already have a group and a place to play, then you probably have a time as well, but if you do not have a time, remember that if the time is difficult for you, the game master, then it is not conducive for you to run that game for very long. Take into account your work schedule - unless you are charging your players (if you are, I am so jealous), gaming will not pay your bills, so make sure you still have a job. If some of your players cannot make the session time that works for you, you generally can find a replacement. Trust me, it is far better to set a session time that fits your schedule the best and then see who is available at that time. Yes, our players are generally our friends, but if you have to adjust just to make a small portion of the group happy, then no one will be happy (yes, even the one(s) you adjusted for will not be happy because it will spread from everyone else) and the group will fold prematurely. You want to make your friends happy and play games with them, but you are the one running the game - players can be replaced but the GM is harder (especially if the game is at their house). You are better off setting a schedule you can keep, with a bit of wiggle room to help those just on the edge of being fully able to play at your optimal time, instead of adjusting to try and meet a happy middle ground that just does not exist. Short term, some of your friends will be miffed, but overall your game(s) will last longer. This does not take into account if any of the players' or even your own schedule changes mid-campaign - that is going to happen and you have no control over it, and cannot even plan for it at this point in the process, all you can do is discuss with your players what will happen to the session schedule and the group when the question comes up, because either or both will have to change. 

That is about it, to be honest, but that is merely the beginning. Some of the things I dig deeply into you will barely have to skim, depending on what type of game you want to play, who is going to be in your group, and how long you plan on playing (each session and for the entirety of the campaign), while other aspects you will need to dive much deeper into than I did. Or not at all. Every game is different, and so is every group and every game master. Hopefully this helps someone out there. Keep rolling dice and having fun with your friends!