My party are all fantastic. We alternate campaigns usually every session between mine, and one run by another DM, who is in the party during my games and vice versa.

My campaign is the more recent of the two, so we’ve had our session 0, which included the tavern roleplay, and session 1. After session zero, all the players reflected on the party dynamic that their characters created, and two of them realized the characters they made were too edgelord/loner broody, so for session one, they both started by telling the group that they’d changed their characters slightly so they could be better party members. All totally unprompted. That alone feels like the opposite of a lot of horror stories I’ve seen lol

In session 1, they encountered my first puzzle. The system I’m running is Pokémon Tabletop United, (while our other DM runs 5e), and the world is a homebrew Age of Exploration-style setting. They had to get the hoist for a mine cart track running so they could descend into an abandoned mine. The hoist was powered by a giant Steel type Torkoal in place of a steam boiler, and they had a cart full of coal, but no matter what they did, they couldn’t get the Torkoal to wake up to eat.

That’s when my girlfriend, who is one of our players remembered that they’d been given a Lava Cookie by the owner of the tavern, “…for an old friend.” If you aren’t super versed in obscure Pokémon items, that’s okay; a Lava Cookie cures any status affliction on a target. The whole party was so excited to have solved the puzzle, and made my girlfriend feel super proud for thinking of it, which was really nice, because she’s still new to TTRPGs, and is still learning how to be fully engaged with the game.

A week or so later, we were all hanging out with friends for a barbeque, and I overheard one of our players chatting with a person I’d never met before, explaining my game, what they had to do, the stuff they’d found, and how cool that puzzle was. That made me super proud.

I love my party