DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 38B: Nasira’s Story

The next morning, as was her familiar custom, Tee arose a few hours before the others and went down to the common room to break her fast. While she picked at pieces of cold mutton, a young woman approached her table. She was a wiry thing — rather plain, and generally brown: tanned skin, light brown eyes, brown hair, and with a dress of pale brown.

“Is your name Tithenmamiwen?”

Tee nodded.

“My name is Nasira. I’ve been told that you were asking questions about a woman named Silion.”

Tee palmed a dagger.

Back in Session 8, we added a new player to our group.

In Session 37, we sadly lost a player.

Now we’re adding a new player to replace the one we lost. The basic procedure we’re following hasn’t changed much, but there are a few twists that I think are worth mentioning.

First, for the reasons we looked at during the last session, the group wasn’t just looking to add any new character: They were specifically interested in filling the gap left by Dominic’s departure. They wanted a healer.

Generally, I don’t like putting any limits on what characters a new player can play. I also don’t put a lot of stock in the idea that every group needs to conform to some “standard” set of roles. (See our previous discussion about non-standard groups.) But this was a very specific circumstance and, as I’ve noted, it was being driven by the group’s desire to fill a very specific need.

With that being said, I didn’t want this new character to just be a carbon copy of Dominic with the name scratched out and a new one written in: That would be boring. It also wouldn’t be fair to the new player.

To make sure she felt creatively free to make the character she wanted to play, (a) I made sure the remit was as broad as possible and (b) I also tapped my own system expertise to offer her a wide variety of build concepts that could potentially deliver the healing the group was looking for.

If I recall correctly, there was a point where we considered making “let’s find a replacement” diegetic — i.e., the PCs would actually go looking for a new compatriot. As I began exploring Nasira’s background with the new player, however, it was clear that this character wasn’t a “healer for hire” or anyone else who could be logically recruited by an adventuring party.

So how could Nasira be introduced to the campaign?

I used a combination of the collaborative methods for creating campaign characters described here, taking the background Nasira’s player had given me, fleshing it out with additional lore, and tweaking elements to provide hooks (including the big, obvious hook featured in this session) that would not only bring Nasira to the current PCs, but also naturally align her goals with theirs.

As described in GM Don’t List #19: Ignoring PC Backstories, this went both ways: I harvested elements introduced by Nasira’s player in her backstory and seized the opportunity to flesh out my campaign notes.

During this back-and-forth process, I also took the opportunity to seed some stuff into Nasira’s background that wouldn’t turn up in campaign until later. (As it turned out, much later: It wasn’t until around Session 100 that some of this stuff started paying off.)

OPEN TABLE RECRUITMENT

The other big twist was that this was the first time I’d recruited a new player to a long-term campaign since I’d started running my first open table.

Holy shirtforks! It was amazing!

Not only had I been running games for this new player for several months, but the other players in the Ptolus campaign had been playing games with her. So when we asked the question, “Who should be the new player?”, not only did we all know exactly who we wanted, we were also absolutely sure she’d be the perfect fit for the group (and vice versa).

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Running an open table would be worth it even if the only thing you liked about it was recruiting new players to your dedicated campaigns.

Not only have I repeated this process of adding a new player from my open table to an ongoing campaign several times since this inaugural example, it’s also the primary method I use for recruiting players to brand new campaigns too (like Eternal Lies, Dragon Heist, Blades in the Dark, Night’s Black Agents, and so forth).

The results are exemplary every single time.

Campaign Journal: Session 38C – Running the Campaign: Expanding Dungeons
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Ptolus: Running the Campaign – Guaranteeing Failure Ptolus: Running the Campaign – Thus Endeth the Campaign Ptolus: Running the Campaign – Exposition Dump Handouts