Start of a New Campaign

Last night saw the start of my first full 5e campaign, "Eberron: Dust to Dust", which is expected to meet once a month for the foreseeable future. My thoughts after the first session:

A Good Group

The group consists of five players, which is a full complement, and which is the number I had hoped for. I've played with all of these players before, and there are no problem personalities amongst them, no obvious clashes that I can see, and they all have the nice habit of turning up when and where they say they will (which is distressingly rare amongst gamers). Which is all to the good.

In terms of PCs, we have a Warforged Fighter, a Dragonborn Cleric, a Forest Gnome Wizard, and two Bards - a Tiefling and a Changeling. Thankfully, Eberron is extremely cosmopolitan, so I don't see any issues with the group not including any humans or in it being a wide variety of races. So that's all to the good.

And the players all seem to have latched on to the role-playing aspects of the game rather well - whereas past groups might have seen me despairing over a lack of Traits, Bonds, etc, or finding it like pulling teeth to detail the Anchor NPCs, this group were readily able to provide that material. Good stuff.

Character Creation in 5e

Character generation went very well, despite this being a new system for almost everyone. I did feel a little sorry for one player, who turned up with a fully-detailed PC, but he didn't seem to mind. Otherwise, it was just a matter of working through the steps, which are rather less involved than even core-rules-only 3e.

I particularly like the Backgrounds for 5e, which allow for some nice detailing of the character (and also allows players to either enhance or play against their other character choices - you don't get unduly penalised for playing against type). And I also like the use of Traits, Bonds, Flaws, and Ideals, which inject role-playing aspects right into character creation (and, given the way we're handling Inspiration, should also tie into the game itself).

So I was well pleased with that.

Woefully Under-prepared

The one concern I have with this campaign is the question of how much to prepare. With "The Eberron Code", I had a clear beginning, middle, and end for the campaign before I started, and quite a few of the steps along the way. I just don't have that here.

However, with the relative failure of "Star Wars: Imperial Fist", and also the collapse of "Lost Mine of Phandelver", I don't want to put a huge amount of effort into the campaign until I know it has legs.

And so I find myself somewhat under-prepared for what's ahead. I know how the campaign starts, I have a rough idea of how it might end, and I have many of the antagonists pencilled in (including immediate, mid-term, long-term, and secondary opponents). But I don't have anything like the sort of detail that I feel makes for good mysteries... and I do love a good mystery or three.

Still, that's something I can work on over the next little while. And I'm very happy with the way things have begun, so I don't really have anything to complain about. Which is nice.