The backstory…
I wanted to test out the rules and roll 20. I found 3 players for a 3 session tester campaign. I wanted to start in action…. so put an artifact in a ruined keep by the ocean, guarded by a magical hell hound thing. I also wanted a hoard near by, so wanted a scouting party to point the party this way. The action would start with their thief coming over the wall, and noticing something.
In the first session, we spent a lot of time creating backstory. I would ask questions, and sometimes get answers. Sometimes I felt like I was pulling teeth. Questions like … why do you want to play a neutral fighter, what story aspects do you hope that will bring out?
And Who is Lord Jordon, and why do you trust him?
When Lord Jordon was filling you in on your job to find the crystal of Oxy Pablo, your mortal enemy overheard the details. How did they do that?
Who is this enemy, and why do they want to get the crystal of Oxy Pablo before you?
The fighter whipped out story like it was nothing. My evil mage seemed to simply agree with what everyone else suggested… and my theif wanted to act in character, and had trouble with any details that did not pertain directly to his character.
They built neighboring dukedoms, that recently finished a war. They are in the wining city, and have been running plenty of political crimes together. The thief likes to steal things, plant the goods on an enemy, and then tip off the fighter (who used to be in the army and the police) about who has the stolen goods, and get them arrested.
They are now working with the ambassador to the losing dukedom, very closely. He has hired them to get a magic crystal, which he will be using to help his duke.
As part of the political war, the party has managed to alienate all elves and dwarves, and caused them mistrust each other. One of these elves hired the party wizard to find some some ancient scrolls of power. Once the mage did this, he took his friends to the scrolls, took the ones he wanted. The fighter burned the scrolls not wanted, and the thief taunted the elf such that he knew how he had been betrayed.
Realizing I was running out of time, I skipped a number of questions, and jumped into the keep, as the party found some gnolls. They killed the gnolls very quickly. All three gnolls killed from behind… The last gnoll creating a large amount of noise as it was shot in the back with arrows. There was a monstrous thump on the partially ruined wall near the thief.
End of session one.
After the first session, I decided I spent too much time asking questions, and not enough time playing. In the future I will attempt to intersperse questions in the actual play, instead of trying to do so much world building in the first hour.