All good ideas. It sounds like you’re definitely a fan of the “action scene” starter.

I’ve definitely heard of this one before! It feels like something that’s situational to the character/player involved. Or maybe the campaign too. If your campaign is something dealing with the gods/afterlife/eldritch beings/etc that could resurrect someone, it’s probably a good choice!

That’s fair; obviously a session 0 is critically important. I was actually thinking once the campaign itself is started, so to speak!

See, this answer I like because you actually differentiate by the style of campaign. I’ll definitely take this advice under consideration!

That’s definitely a new one; I’d not heard of that strategy before. It’s certainly interesting if you have players who are into actually playing their characters. Did you find the group got bored with being bumped back to Level 1 after being effectively action-movie stars for the opening?

I think this would be more meaningful if things cash flow and hirelings had any reasonable purpose in 5e. But the reality is most players will have a pretty stable cashflow by level 5, and most campaigns simply don’t have a meaningful role for Hirelings to play.

So like, I could see this being a thing in Waterdeep Dragon Heist, which encourages you to acquire a home base and then take a side in a gang war. One building, 4-5 rooms acting as a bastion for each player? I guess. But it’s essentially making mechanics for something a lot of DMs did already, and a lot of other campaigns simply don’t have a good basis for this.

I’m also kind of underwhelmed by the attacks mechanic. “A random special facility is shut down for your next bastion turn”? So like, I can’t ever actually lose anything I put into the bastion, it just stays there even if I have literally no defenses, the attackers overrun the place, and squat in it for 7 days?