Preparing the First Session

DM Preparation

As DM, you have just a few more decisions to make before you're ready to invite your players to create their characters. Begin by re-reading the character creation chapter in the Player's Handbook, paying close attention to the various options it presents. Your first order of business is to decide which class and race options you'll open up to your players. Just because a particular combination is covered in the Handbook doesn't mean you have to allow it in your own game. Maybe there's no such thing as a half-orc on your world, or perhaps there aren't any druids. Of course, you don't want to narrow the options too much -- players appreciate a variety of choices.
As far as character classes are concerned, unless you're quite experienced, you should allow all of the basic classes: fighter, thief, wizard, and cleric. By excluding one or more of these classes, it's pretty easy to throw the AD&D rules out-of-balance -- imagine a world without clerics, for instance (and thus, no healing spells). Instead, pay particular attention to the specialized sub-classes, looking for options that might not fit into the world you've built. If your campaign world is dominated by savage barbarians, for example, a paladin player character might not make a lot of sense. Similarly, depending upon how you see magic working in your campaign, you might want to exclude illusionists and other specialist wizards.
Another good reason to exclude a character class is concern about potential abuse. If you've ever had bad experiences with a particular character class or you think you might have trouble handling any of a class's special abilities, feel free to rule that class out of bounds. An excellent example of a potential concern might be the paladin's ability to detect evil. Some DMs find this ability extremely confining and believe that it almost completely takes away their ability to plan encounters that surprise the players. Other DMs find it relatively easy to adjust and handle detect evil without a problem. If you fit into the former camp, you should simply prohibit your players from choosing paladins.
These same guidelines apply when it comes to PC races. Exclude any that make you uncomfortable or don't fit your campaign conception. I also tend to weed out a race when I can't think of anything interesting I can do with its culture. For some reason, I often drop gnomes from my games. I guess there's just something about the little beggars that throws off my imagination. Plus, I've always had a difficult time differentiating them from halflings. Of course, your own experiences will vary.

The Cheat Sheet

Once you have a pretty good idea of what you will and won't allow, you should start to create a quick "cheat sheet" for the players. Ultimately, this sheet will contain everything the players need to know about your campaign. The sheet should begin with a brief description of your campaign concept (see Dragon Magazine #256) and then a list of all the available character options, including a sentence or two describing how the more outré options might fit into the campaign. Rangers and paladins, for instance, are usually members of some sort of organized society or order. Are there any details about this order that a paladin or ranger player might need to know as play begins? Similarly, thieves are often organized into guilds. Is there a thieves' guild operating in your campaign area? If so, are PC thieves automatically members? When creating this information, don't forget the First Rule of Dungeoncraft. You don't need to generate reams of data about any of these organizations or societies. For now, just a sentence or two will do; you'll fill in the details later, as they become important. The idea is to give the players everything they'll need to choose a character type before play begins. With this in mind, it's certainly a good idea to use this section of the cheat sheet to briefly summarize the options for priest and cleric characters we discussed way back in Dragon Magazine #258.
You can take this opportunity to tinker a bit with the restrictions and abilities of the various classes to help them fit into your own campaign. Perhaps in your campaign, all magic-users must be of evil alignment, or all paladins receive occasional prophetic dreams from their patron deities. Although this is a great way to "personalize" your campaign, it isn't something you should do lightly. Again, the AD&D rules are carefully balanced, and it's surprisingly easy to upset the apple cart. It's generally a good idea to keep all alterations as minor as possible and proceed only if you are quite comfortable with the results.
After you've listed and discussed all the character and race options, you should round the cheat sheet off with a brief description of the geography in your campaign area (discussed back in Dragon Magazine #261). Here, your goal is to give the players just enough "lay of the land" to understand any references that pop up during play, allowing them to make some educated decisions about where to go and what to do. A single paragraph summary of the local government/economy and a brief list of the major geographic features in the region (each described by no more than a single sentence) should do nicely. You should already have all this information at your disposal. Lastly, if possible, adding a small version of your area map to the cheat sheet is a nice touch. This is particularly easy to do if you created your map on a computer, but even if you resorted to old fashion paper and pencil, you might be able to photocopy your own map and add it to the cheat sheet. In any case, you should make sure that the map you'll give to the players does not include any secrets or other pieces of sensitive information.

The Character Creation Session

Once your cheat sheet is finished, it's finally time to assemble all your players and ask them to create their characters. If at all possible, you should always ask the players to create all their characters together as a group -- unless you are particularly pressed for time, frown on the idea of the players arriving at the session with their characters already created. In this way, you can guarantee that the players have an opportunity to review your cheat sheet before they get started. This method also allows the players to consult with each other, allowing them to assemble a better balance of character classes and races.
If at all possible, try to conduct the character creation activities immediately prior to an actual game session. Some DMs like to hold a special session solely devoted to character creation, but I like to make sure the game gets started immediately. I think it's important to give the players a taste of the adventure as soon as possible in order to keep their interest high. I've seen far too many DMs go the other route and never get the actual game off the ground due to boredom and logistics. Over the years, I've learned that the sooner you begin playing, the more likely you are to keep playing.
Once your players have cranked through all the various dice rolls and decisions discussed in the Player's Handbook, your final step before beginning play is to give each character a careful once over. Here you want to make sure that you're completely comfortable with every aspect of the character. Pay particular attention to the class and race chosen, as well as the character's spells and equipment. Did the player purchase an item that isn't really appropriate to your campaign? Does the character have spells you're not comfortable with? If so, here's your chance to demand a change with a minimum of fuss. Also, you should use this opportunity to make sure that the players have selected a healthy mix of character classes. If there isn't at least one cleric, one wizard, and a couple of fighters present, you might suggest the players shuffle things around a bit. Such a mix will definitely improve the players' chances and make a "false start," in which the entire party is quickly wiped out, far less likely.
Another ploy you might try is the old "cliffhanger trick." Start playing during the character creation session, but don't attempt to undertake an actual adventure. Instead, run the players through a quick teaser designed to get them hooked and interested in the things to come. A quick combat encounter that gives the players a chance to test out their new abilities is usually in order here, along with some brief exposure to your campaign environment. Most importantly, though, you should try to end the teaser with some sort of shock or twist. Get the players hooked by confronting them with a compelling mystery or puzzle that won't be resolved until the next session. For example, your teaser might end with a hooded assassin murdering an important townsman right in front of the party. The adventurers give chase, but fail to catch the fiend. Just before he makes good his escape, though, the assassin's hood is torn off and the PCs are shocked and horrified by what they see. You don't reveal exactly what that is until the next session. Note that if you decide to go this route, it's important that you actually deliver on the mystery you created during the teaser. If you capture the player's imagination but then fail to invent a revelation that lives up to the dramatic buildup you've given the situation, you'll only do more harm than good. Returning to my example, for instance, it's probably not enough to simply reveal that what the players found so shocking was an ugly face or a bad scar. Instead, you might reveal that the assassin is inexplicably an exact duplicate of a player character, or that the assassin is an old friend whom the PCs believed to be dead. This sort of solution provides you with a great springboard for adventures that allow the players to uncover further revelations and delve even deeper into the mystery.