Word Count: 707
Published Nov 1st, 2023 | Updated Jan 21st, 2024
Favorite aspect of TTRPGs. What do they like about TTRPGs? What kind of things do they want to happen? Is there any “cool moment” that they really wanna have at some point? Usually you’ll get things like “world building” or “puzzles” or “social subterfuge”, but it really depends on the players. This really helps you set the tone for the campaign and how you plan it.
Campaign specifics. How long do you wanna run this for? (A good rule of thumb is when you estimate the amount of time for players to complete a certain amount of content, multiply it by ~2-4 to get the actual amount). How frequently are you meeting? Will it be the same day/time every week or not? Where are you meeting week to week? Will there be food? Snacks? If so, who brings the food/snacks?
Absences. Establish a quorum with everyone, and decide what they want to do with their characters when absent. (“give control to another player” and “has something else to do canonically” are the 2 most common options) If you don’t meet quorum do you still want to meet anyway and play board games instead? Also I like to implement a 3 strike rule. The way I usually run it is “if you no-show a session without at least 24 hours of advance warning that’s one strike, 3 strikes and you’re out.” This is also established on a case by case basis though so if someone has an emergency, I don’t rule that as a strike. You can be as loose or as rigid with it as you want, but it’s really good to have from the get-go.
Vibes. Ask everyone what kind of campaign they want and have them put percentages on the following scales: silly/ serious and RP/Combat (eg: 30% silly, 70% serious; 90% RP, 10% Combat). If there are any polar disagreements here (including on your part) talk it over. If you’re too split here, and nobody wants to budge, it might just not be a good group. If this the case, it’s good to note this early and potentially stop before you realize nobody is having any fun.
Safety tools. It’s better to have them and not need them than the other way around. The X-Card is a good option.
Lines and veils. Topics that people don’t want to come up at the table. Lines are red flag no-no topics that you should avoid writing into the story at all, and veils are more of a “it’s ok if you fade to black/glaze over it rather than going into detail but be careful”. I like to describe both then leave the table open for suggestions. This isn’t the only framework for this kind of discussion, so encourage your players to talk about sensitive topics in whatever way they feel comfotable with. For example, a player might be alright with going into a certain theme, but only if it’s being handled in a certain way. Also make sure that players know they can direct message you if they’re not comfortable saying in front of everyone else. The most important thing here is that everyone should be having fun, so if one person says something’s off limits, it goes, no questions asked.
Other stuff! Open the floor to any additional notes that players might want to add. Address any of these, and once you do that, you can move on to…
Character creation! I specifically ask players not to bring any character to session 0. Just potential ideas. Give them a brief intro to the world, ask for questions, then let them loose. I’d start with some basic character details (such as race and class), then jump right into backstories, as those influence pretty much everything else. Encourage them to link backstories with each other. I require my players to have at least 3 relevant NPCs that mean something to their character. This grounds them in the world and can serve for some really nice plot hooks later down the line. Here you also want to set the campaign’s starting parameters. Where are they meeting and how did they get there? Once backstories are done, have them finish character sheets. Bada bing Bada boom, session 0 complete.