General things to include:

1. What is the shared history of the party? I like to use the Phase Trio from FATE: https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/phase-trio

2. What’s the focus of the game? Investigation? Mysteries? Combat? Are you aiming for an “OSR” style exploration and emergent story game, where the DM is discovering new things about the world as you play, or is it a railroad storyline, or something in between?

3. Any big house-rules or optional rules from the DMG/PHB? Are Feats allowed, or just ASI? Are we rolling or using stat array? Are we playing strictly RAW PHB, DMG and MM? What’s the general policy on 3PP material? Is any WotC stuff automatically available?

4. What’s the setting? What kinds of PCs fit with it? Are there Dragonborn? Are there Wizards? Is everyone a Wizard? Is everyone an Elf?

5. What kind of table rules do you want to set up? Is drinking, smoking, etc. allowed at the table? What’s the plan for food? Should everyone eat before they get there? Are you all ordering pizza? Is there some kind of “rotation” on who pays, or do you all chip in?

6. What’s the game schedule? What happens if you can’t make it one week? How much notification should you give everyone? Is there a threshold on how many PCS have to be there for the game to go on? What happens to PCs whose players aren’t at the game?

7. XP and levelling: Are you doing straight up By the book XP? What kind of non-combat activities might get you XP? Are you tracking individual XP, or is it all just by the group? If your PC dies, or retires, what’s involved in bringing in a new PC? Do you come in at the same level? Do you start over again at 1?