If you've never had the opportunity to play in the Saturday Showups before, follow these rules on Character Creation and take a quick read over the House Rules below.
For your first session, please bring your own third (3rd) level character or arrive ten minutes early to choose a pre-generated character. Dice and a miniature to represent your character are welcome but are not required.
Create your character using a combination of the Player's Handbook, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Other sources may be considered for character creation, but check with your DM first. Stats should use the point-buy system or the standard array. Characters may start with any non-magical equipment from the Player’s Handbook that they can physically carry.
Alignment is dead. Unless it is important for your character to have one, please feel free to choose “Unaligned” as your characters' alignment. Feel free to choose to worship any of the deities found in the Player's Handbook.
The heroes are all awesome. Please choose from feats and feel free to use the alternate human character heritage as well as the alternate heritage rules from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.
While making your character, please consult with the DM about anything different you may have planned. Maybe you want to use another book that isn't on the list, or test out a playtest rule from Unearthed Arcana? Chances are that your ideas are awesome and we can do them, but we should just talk it over a little bit first.
Between adventures, characters may progress in levels. For each GP of treasure taken from the wilderness and returned to civilization, the party gains 1 XP in a pool split evenly between the PCs, typically at the end of the session. Magic items and items that require appraisal do not count toward that total. Returning characters may play in future “showups” games with advanced levels and magic equipment.
In addition to the house rules on character advancement, find some other subtle rules changes from vanilla 5th edition D&D here.