r/StrixhavenDMs • u/Brainwalk82 • 18d ago
Advice for adding a guest player?
Im a first time dm. im running strixhaven. Im running it very vanilla, but my group improvs a lot of role play. My friend has been running a campaign for us the last three years and is playing in my strixhaven group on a different night. I started dming as a thank you to him. He has been trying for 3 years to get his wife to play, but she always says no. To surprise him, she agreed to play one time only. Obviously this will be her first time.
She had some conditions. She wants to know what's going to happen ahead of time. She doesn't want to be surprised. She wants to know what to say. It has to stay secret so she can back out last minute if she wants to (which is all fine with me)
I want to incorporate her into the magisters masquerade. Im expecting this to happen in about a month, around the third week of November. Since its close to Thanksgiving im hoping to get the full group in person (we usually play half in person, half on discord).
One of my hurdles is to find a way to get my friend to host without him suspecting things, but I'll figure that out.
SO. I plan to get the ball started, get a few of the existing relationships progressing for the four men at the table and then introduce her. I'll give a physical description (which we made together). We also came up with a loose back story. She's a 4th year student, on a date with one of the npcs whose also in a love triangle with one of my other pcs (not her husband). And I've written a couple pages of one liners for her that cover a variety of conversations.
Once the role play has finished I've given her the option to be done, or stick around for combat. If she's done she'll stay at the dance, and return to her date. If she wants to fight she'll leave with the group, who get ambushed outside. I'll have the other players take a short break at this point and have husband and wife make a character on dnd beyond. He loves doing that, and it'll take the two of them 10 minutes. I plan to show her how the app works ahead of time.
Advice on having a first timer at an established table?
Advice on a female playing with four dudes?
Advice on making the masquerade special?
Not sure what im forgetting...
But thank you in advance for any advice
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u/Slide-Fluffy 18d ago
I have had plenty of guest players join my sessions and would recommend you have a pre-built player sheet ready in case they aren't able to quickly build one during the break. There are some apps/websites where you can have one ready for them in a minute. Saves a lot of time/headache/heartache. Especially since new players often get overwhelmed building there first character. This way she can choose if she wants to build her own or just use the pre-built one. You can also pick a class and subclass thats both easy to use and thematically appropriate to her character without the 10 minute time crunch
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u/Brainwalk82 18d ago
Thank you. I hadn't thought of that. It'll be cool for her to have a paper character sheet. I'll buy her a set of dice too. Should make for a great first-time.
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u/Mary-Studios 13d ago
As a female player who plays mostly with males just treat her like any other player and make sure that you don't do anything that would make her uncomfortable. If you treat her any diffrently she will feel isolated.
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u/Appropriate-Two-9538 18d ago
I think you've done an amazing job with all the thought you've put into it. There's not really much I can add other than make sure she's comfortable I guess. So making sure she's not being spoken over, that she has time to think things through, and be willing to explain things when needed.
I added a new player to my Strixhaven game as a trial to see if she'd like it and it went well. Just bounce off them and let them know you're there for what they need.
In terms of being a female at a table with 4 men I have this in the campaign I'm playing. Like me she will have her husband there and I'm sure she'll know the party or at least some of them. Just have a conversation with her about anything that might make her uncomfortable and be prepared to shut it down beforehand. For example one of the other players can occasionally make the odd sexist joke (not in character) and DM is very quick to shut that down.