Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 47 - Comprehensive Session 0 Guide for DMs

Episode Date: November 15, 2020

Most campaigns are better when they start with a Session 0 but what the heck is a Session 0?  What do you do during a Session 0 and how do you conduct one?

Thank you for tuning in to episode 47 of the Taking20 podcast, the comprehensive session zero guide for GMs. This week's sponsor is social media, feeding your desperate cries for attention since 1997. In my So You Want to Be a GM and So You Want to Be a Good Player episodes that started this little podcast, I mentioned the importance of a Session Zero, but I never went in-depth on the concept. Given how important I think a good Session Zero is, I think it's time that we discuss this critical topic. Before I get started, there's a couple of terminology reminders.

I use the term DM or GM interchangeably, and I try to use both often. DM means Dungeon Master, and it's a term from Dungeons and Dragons. GM means Game Master and it's from Pathfinder. I play both systems. I like both systems so I use both terms. It's also important that you know the difference between players and characters. If characters get hit by a hammer, they take damage. If players get hit by a hammer, they press charges. Players are the people around your table role-playing the characters they created. So that being said, on with the rest of the episode. What is a session zero? A session zero is an RPG meeting purely for planning purposes. The DM and

the players decide the basics of the campaign. The group sets expectations about player and character behavior. The DM gives details like setting, house rules, and how to create characters. So let's dive in. Here are four things you need to do to get ready for session zero, what to do before the session ever starts. So yes, you're going to have to do some homework. One, understand that you as the DM are not a dictator. If you've listened to any of my other episodes, you know that I push the collaboration aspect of role-playing games pretty hard. Just because you're the adjudicator of the rules doesn't mean that you can demand the way the game be played. 2. Make plans for your adventure, but don't be afraid to change them based on conversations with your players.

3. Reach out to your players one-on-one and ask them what they'd like to do during the campaign. Campaigns a lot of times are months or maybe even years long. Ask them questions about what they would enjoy and what they'd like their characters to do. You want to make sure you're giving the players the type of adventure they want to be in in the game setting that they'd like to play in. Here are my typical questions. One, what type of adventure would you like? Horror, political, dungeon crawl, murder hobo, mercenary company, universe saving quest, saving a lost cat, wandering the earth like Kane from Kung Fu, or others. And then where would you like the game to take place? What game setting? Would you like to be an open sea adventure with

pirates, a corporate adventure, the underdark, a remote village? The streets of a megalopolis? Megalopolis? A big city? Chances are you as the DM know what type of adventure and game setting that you'd like to run. It could be based on a pre-built adventure. I mean, if you're running Waterdeep Dragon Heist, you're going to have an urban adventure with lots of city fights and a potentially political plot. If you're running keep on the borderlands, it's remote with dangerous wilderness just outside the eponymous keep. If you're homebrewing, you may know the basics of where you'd like the adventure to be set, but either way, incorporate as many player ideas into your adventure as you possibly can. Fourth thing you need to do to get ready for your session zero,

decide the prominence of game system rules. Can the DM discard rules if they're getting in the way of a good time? Okay, discard may be strong. Creatively interpret the rules. Is the DM allowed to change rules on the fly? How would this be discussed with your players? Decide how you would want to suggest this to your players in preparation for that session zero. So now it's time for the session zero. Do you conduct this session zero in person or online via something like Discord? Session zero can be done either way and each group has their preference. As I'm recording this, the U.S. is still in the grips of the COVID-19 outbreak and probably about to have a second wave. In situations like this, or when players live too far apart or schedules are difficult, just do it

online. Discord, Skype, Zoom, Google, whatever. Pick your technology solution and make it happen. But make sure everyone gets their chances to speak. Powerful and forceful personalities can easily dominate online discussions. I'm a traditionalist in that I prefer session zeros to be in person with everyone present. I hope we get back to that before I start the pirate campaign I'm working on. It should start sometime in early 2021. All this planning that you've been doing, one thing to know is that I believe that plans are useless, but planning is invaluable. That's because no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Make a plan for what you want to get accomplished during a session zero. Remember, you're setting

the stage for player and character interactions for an extended period of time. So one of the things you need to accomplish during a session zero is to establish the rules for the campaign. What house rules exist? Discuss them with your players and make sure everyone agrees to them. How critical hits or critical successes and critical failures will be handled. For example, on a natural one, do things go full Wile E. Coyote? Any changes to actions that you would like to make? Encumbrance rules? Flexible skills rules? Is friendly fire a thing? Do magic users have to track spell components? Are you tracking ammunition? Are

potions a swift bonus action? Move action? Does it take a full round to drink a potion? How are out-of-combat potions handled? For example, do they give the maximum amount of healing that they can because players can take all the time they need to to drain the last drops out of that little vial? Get player feedback for your suggested house rules and adjust as needed. Get player feedback for your suggested house rules and adjust as needed. My recommendation is to also mention that you may decide on the rules initially, but there may be a need to adjust rules on the fly as the campaign evolves. And make sure that the players know that you will only do so after discussing it with the players.

So other rules for the campaign to consider. How to handle player-player disagreements. My recommendation has always been clear communication between the parties and the DM steps in only if needed or if the conflict is starting to escalate. Also for the campaign, how do you handle player-GM disagreements? My recommendation usually is that the GM makes the ruling, the players live with it for now, and it's discussed on break or between sessions. Another campaign rule that must be discussed during a session zero. How are characters built?

Do they roll dice for their ability scores? Do they use a point by or standard array of values for the character statistics? Do the characters get standard equipment or are they given a set amount of starting gold? What alignments are allowed for the players? Are there any classes that you would suggest not be part of the campaign? In the pirates campaign that we're running, I'm suggesting no one runs a paladin because paladins don't make good pirates. Is the expectation that the players will min-max their characters and go for the exact optimal builds? Is third-party content allowed or only officially published material? Another campaign rule to discuss, how do characters level up?

Do they level up at the table in session or between sessions? When a character gains a level, they gain new abilities. Which abilities do they gain instantly, kind of a ding, you can do this now? Or which abilities are delayed until they camp or rest, wake up the next morning, and now they know how to do something new. Another campaign rule to discuss, how are player absences handled? Are the missing PCs run by other players? Are they run by the DM, or are they just not there? A long time ago when I started a brand new campaign

with players who had never played before, the second session one of the players couldn't make it, and they had just discovered the entrance to this tomb with some dead horses outside of it. So we said that that player was outside the tomb burying the horses. That has been the statement made for every single missing player now for the better part of two and a half campaigns and four and a half real life years. There may be other things that you may want to discuss as well. Things like what level will the PCs be when the campaign finishes?

It's a little bit of a guess. If you're running a pre-built, chances are you'll know pretty accurately, but you may just decide, okay, we think you might finish up about level 14 or so. By giving the players this information, it helps the players plan. They can make their character builds maybe even up to the final level they'll be when the adventure ends. I love doing that. When we start a campaign and the DM says you guys are going to finish about level 15, I will pre-make all 15 levels of the character that I'm playing. I'll adjust as needed depending on the way the campaign evolves, but I love doing stuff like that at the beginning of a campaign. During the session zero,

you need to establish the rules that are in play at the gaming table, such as etiquette and behavior. You can throw a lot of rules on the table and throw a lot of rules out for discussion, but my usual rule is don't be an asshole. That usually sums up everything. Pay attention when people are talking, be in the moment, don't just be on your phone and goofing off. That kind of thing. For the players, what's allowed and not allowed during gaming sessions? At the table, are players allowed to drink beer, hard alcohols? Are they even allowed to do recreational drugs? Are players allowed to make sex references to one another?

Is politics something that should be discussed? Can players make jokes that are immersion-breaking? These are things that need to be decided ahead of time so that no one gets their feelings hurt. Other things to decide at the gaming table. Is this game going to be role-play heavy or not? Is the expectation that you will be in voice all the time? Hello, I'm speaking in character right now. My name is Reginald Dipthorn the Thed.

Or is it mostly just roll dice, take damage, move on to the next one? Another thing that must be discussed is not just what's allowed or not allowed by players, but also what's allowed and not allowed by characters. How are uncomfortable topics handled? Make sure you and your players very clearly communicate any hard limits about disturbing and uncomfortable material before you start the campaign. A very much non-comprehensive list includes things like murder. Listen, in most role-playing game systems, killing monsters and people features prominently. It's how experience points are earned. It's how they gain levels. It's how they gain treasure and so forth. But how much will it be discussed during the game? Will the violence

or aftermath be described at all or will it be kept in abstract numbers of hit points and damage? There's a huge amount of difference between you swing your sword, you hit the guy, and you do 19 points of damage and he dies versus you bring yoursword down in a great arc and it cleaves him between the neck and shoulder, opening him up and showing his insides like a flower and blood pours out onto the floor as he collapsed in a heap, obviously dead. What about murder of non-combatants like innocents and children? If an orphanage burns down, will the PCs find the children's bodies? Or is a partially burnt, discarded teddy bear enough of an image? Just about every gaming group that I play with has at least one person who's uncomfortable with violence on children. And believe me, I understand, and it's not something I think we should dwell on by any stretch of the imagination.

Even if it happens in your world, for me, I tend to do the latter. We see the discarded teddy bear, and that's good enough. What about topics like sex? Are characters allowed to have sex with NPCs? If so, is it discussed or described? In my campaigns, usually the answer is yes, characters are allowed to have sex with NPCs, but the scene fades to black before anything intimate happens and they start diddling cloacas or whatever they want to do. Are characters allowed to have sex with each other? If so, how is that handled around the table?

In my campaigns, usually the answer is no. About the only exception I've ever made is for players that happen to be married to each other. Married or dating. happen to be married to each other. Married or dating. If they want to role play that their characters are just as attracted to each other as they are as players, fine, so be it. But you know what? We're fading to black. Whatever romance things that you want to do in your bedroom is between you and whoever can hear you, but please keep that away from the RPG table. For the sake of time, I'm going to group together some other topics, and by no means am I calling these topics equivalent to each other.

But I have a similar way of handling them. Rape, racism, gender politics, slavery, sexuality, bigotry, gore, torture, mistreatment in general such as starvation, sex trafficking, harm to animals, harm to children, large amounts of blood, the list could go on and on and on and on. If your campaign will feature these themes, it needs to be discussed in session zero to make sure everyone understands their presence and make sure that you understand how in-depth you're allowed to go into these topics at the table. The one thing that everyone must be allowed to do, no matter what kind of campaign you're running,

no matter how long you've been gaming together, no matter how well you feel like you know each other, every player and the DM is allowed to object at any given moment. If you're covering something that includes, unfortunately, the discovery of a caravan of people who have been slaughtered by a barbaric horde of evil minions. If any player taps the X card, raises their hand, says, I'm not comfortable with this, then you move it off screen, no questions asked. Chances are, in a lot of campaigns, these uncomfortable topics will be present in your game world. Rape and sexuality and bigotry and slavery will likely exist somewhere. They happen, and the PCs can know about it, but you don't have to graphically depict it to everyone. A campaign I ran a long time ago was an Underground Railroad-type game

where the players were part of a group of freedom fighters smuggling halfling slaves out of a tyrannical devil-backed dictatorship. Early on, I discussed that slavery would be a front and center topic and some of the offshoots thereof, torture, mistreatment, etc. They would be alluded to, but they would not be shown. I made sure everyone was okay with that. Another thing to start thinking about are player phobias. Spiders, dark cramped places, clowns, bugs, rats. Everybody's got their thing they're scared of or freaked out by. I'll be open and upfront with mine, eye trauma.

And to a lesser degree, hand trauma. No. There's actually a scene in an older video game where to progress, you had to guide a needle into your own eye. The game contained gore out the yin-yang and your cutting limbs off things left and right. That didn't bother me one bit. But that scene with the needle going into your eye made me weak in the knees and not from love. Whatever the player limits are, everyone must understand them and agree not to cross them.

Also, make sure everyone knows they're allowed to object to content they find disturbing or troubling, even if you haven't discussed it beforehand. And that every one of your players, and you as the GM, will abide by their wishes. It does no good and it reflects poorly on our hobby if you force players to roleplay things they're not comfortable with. We don't mock someone for being uncomfortable, nor do we give them any grief for it. Players will not be asked to explain why they feel it's uncomfortable.

We will simply move on and get off of that topic. Being a GM or player doesn't give you the green light to force others to satisfy your desires or to role-play certain uncomfortable topics. If people are uncomfortable, move on. Also, during a Session Zero, it's good to give players advice. Base it on the type of adventure it will be. Guys, this is a pirate adventure, so someone better know how to sail a damn ship, yeah? Ask the players a few questions about their characters.

One that I love to ask is, name three magic items you'd like your character to find at some point in their career. And then do your best to work them into the adventure. When characters level up, how will they level up? Are you doing XP or milestone leveling? Are characters allowed to keep secrets from one another? Find out also if the players feel comfortable adding to the narrative. Can the PCs do some exposition on some of the details of the campaign, describing kills, describing buildings and areas, maybe even describing NPCs. So how do you wrap up your session zero? How do you end it? The ending of session zero is your opportunity to set the campaign stage, and there's multiple ways to do this. You can read a pre-written paragraph. It establishes the location, the

narrative, the tone, and so forth. It's simple, it's easy, you can pre-write this ahead of time, and then read it out and then see you guys for session one. You can also give each character a brief backstory scene. It requires a lot of collaboration between you and the player, but all the scenes end with the party coming together or just after the party came together. The other thing to end your session zero is to make sure all the players know what to expect going forward. When and where is session one? What's expected of the players? Are they to bring printouts of their characters?

Or is everything happening electronically? Who's bringing snacks? Are there any dietary restrictions? Make sure the characters are ready to go. Players have finished up the level process, put the finishing touches on the characters and maybe their backstories. But most importantly, make sure everyone, to the greatest extent you can,

is primed to have a fun, interesting, laugh-filled, tension-filled campaign. Thank you so much for listening to episode 47, Comprehensive Session Zero Guide for GMs. I want to thank our sponsor again this week, social media,

helping you discover which of your friends and family are batshit morons. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.