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Hello!

Here's a video preview for a video I shot on the importance of reinforcing a cooperative character motivation in the session zero of our D&D games.

Enjoy!

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Reinforce Cooperative Character Motivations in D&D

Mike talks about the value of reinforcing a cooperative character motivation to smooth out inter-party conflicts in your D&D game. Subscribe to the Sly Flourish Newsletter https://mailchi.mp/aea22a827290/slyflourishnewsletter Support Sly Flourish on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/slyflourish Buy Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master http://slyflourish.com/returnofthelazydm/

Comments

Matt Roy

Thanks Mike! What would you suggest as a good one-line motivation for Ruins of the Grendleroot?

Jacob Kapp

Thank you and appreciate this. I was trying to think of one for Storm Kings Thunder. I am starting a new campaign in August. If I read the objective correctly, the soon to be heroes are to find out why the Giants are pillaging the towns. I am trying to think of a way to reinforce a cooperative character motivation, for this instance. Any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate? I definitely will have some players who will be uncooperative, if I do not state this in session zero.

Oldercloud

One of my players balked at this idea, as well as providing a list of patrons. He felt hemmed in and railroaded. I happen to love your session zero prep ideas, but I can see certain players disliking a prescribed campaign.

Gustavo Campanelli

Masks has this baked in, session zero has character creation and playbook questions, and the last question is different ways of asking "why does you character care about being in this starter super group?"

Michael Shea

Howdy! The Grendleroot Player's Packet actually has a suggestion for this: "Whatever your specific purpose, though, you are first and foremost an adventurer who seeks to explore the mountain with your companions." https://slyflourish_content.s3.amazonaws.com/fantastic_adventures_pregen_characters.pdf It's probably a little vague so you could tighten it up a bit and say "you and your companions seek to adventure in the depths of Blackclaw Mountain to uncover the ancient secrets within!" or something like that.

Michael Shea

Storm King's Thunder is such a loose adventure that I might be more vague and say "You and your companions work in cooperation to aid the people of the Sword Coast from the threats of the wilds".

Michael Shea

I bet if a player balks at wanting to work in cooperation with the other characters it's going to be a problem down the road. There are certain times, of course, where this is not true, but if the rest of the group is seeking to go on adventures with their friends and one guy wants to cause strife, that's not going to play well. My wife likes to remind me of the game in which every player played a drow from a noble house trying to both accomplish a big goal but also screw the other houses and they had a blast but that sort of thing was baked in from the get-go.

Jacob Kapp

Much appreciated and thank you.

Matt Roy

Super! I just got Ruin of Grendleroot (book and PDF) and am planning on running it for a group in December so this will help a lot!

Eric Lyons

SKT is my favorite WotC adventure to date! I would combine your initial thought and Mike's guidance into something like: You and your allies must get to the bottom of why the giants rampage before the small folk are ground to a pulp!