Session 1

 Session report 1:

Game Setup:  It stands to reason that the #1 way to ensure a new campaign fails is to call session 1, session zero.  There is endless analysis about different types of players out there...I have 9 starting this game and they're all different.  One has used ACKS before, others 3.5-5e, and others never played at all.  "Tell me Conan the Florida Man, how make everyone happy?" Um, you don't.  You just tell them that hey, we're running a session in small groups where you roll up lvl 0 characters, fight monsters in a learning scenario and let people ask questions and figure out the mechanics, then the survivors become their characters.

I haven't had any pushback because it works.  Experienced players get to bash, new players get to chuck dice, no one is worried about "story" but I get to begin building the world for them through the monsters I send at them AND I get to be slavishly accurate to the rules because people have freedom to ask "how do I...".  Everyone wins.

To make this work though, I had to be creative with the scenario and be willing to run the same basic session 3 times for 3 groups (Sessions 1A, 1B, 1C).  So my session had to also seem to fit with the 1:1 timekeeping I kept harping on to the players. Boy, how do I do all that?  Well fortunately I am setting this in Florida, albeit a future mythical Florida, but let's be real, the details don't change and all this is entirely plausible: 

Session 1A:

2 Players (1 newbie, 1 5e vet) rolled stats for 3 characters apiece.  These 6 lvl 0 characters were told the following:  You've been taken from your homes (who cares where) by the raiding parties of the mysterious warlord Zartax.  He's known to be the de facto satrap of Kissimmee though little is known of him besides the fact that his raiding parties go out looking for slaves.  Many slaves are sold as fodder for Arena located in the capital city of Kissimmee.  They find themselves in the Arena now.

They each select a weapon (sword, spear, or bow).  4/6 choose spears because they can attack from the 2d rank.  The other two select bows.  See even newbies get it?!  Stepping onto the sand, they see a large gatorman take his seat in the reviewing sand and signal the bout to begin.  The first fight will be against 3...Craymen! The disgusting crustaceal hominids advance in confusing fashion.  The PCs approach cautionsly in spear formation with archers letting fly...but they miss (this would be a theme).  Even though the PCs won 2 initiative rounds they couldn't land a shot! Problems...cuz I had the hot hand.  The 3 crabbos made short work of all 4 spearmen in only 2 rounds.  Unfortunately for our potentially delicious friends, they never could close the gap on the 2 archers who ran around like crazies (FLORIDA!) and attrited them, eventually the PCs won the day.

This took so long though and so thoroughly devastated the 6 character party, I wasn't going to make them re-roll new characters for the next fight.  Rather I decided to show them the mortal wounds table by sending out a nurse who treated the unconscious chars with a mysterious potion that allowed them to roll on the table.  NOW they decide to roll insanely well. Well enough anyway for Redshirts 1 & 2 who came away only missing some teeth and having a useless arm.  For Redshirt 3, she was left feebleminded and is gonna need a month to sleep it off.  But #4 had it the worst...let's put it this way, his crayman opponent had the claw-work of a skilled surgeon and ended #4's prospects of siring children this side of a miracle.  When it comes to comedy, the dice know what the crowd wants!

While the redshirts were carted off to the infirmary, our two victors were escorted out of the arena, hailed as victors for having won their freedom, and dumped out onto the pastel stuccoed streets of Kissimmee, penniless and weaponless. Fortunately there was a nice hooded fellow there to offer to help them in return for some favors.  I guess hardcore mode would have been saying no but we're still on easy.

They were taken to a merchant at the local adventuring shop/REI who offered to kit them up.  This is where I stop with each group and have them generate the rest of their characters by class, equip, and the rest...I'll summarize that for each of our primary characters as a group in another post...session 1B forthcoming (it won't be as long cuz its the same scenario but there are more Florida Monsters (tm) to meet!!...and someone gets eaten!)