So I have no problems with either the concept or the term “Session Zero” (or 0?…whatever). A lot of internet ink and blood has been spilled about this topic. I don’t care. I am an aging Gen Xer and I wish that “way back when” we did these in a comprehensive fashion, even with groups I was playing with regularly. I’ll touch on why here via practical examples. I also don’t think anyone should tell anyone that they need to have a Session Zero, nor dictate what is in it. Tables can make decisions for themselves. My friend Che (aka Roleplay Rescue) does them, but he doesn’t like the name. My friend Anthony (aka Runeslinger) does them and finds them valuable, but believes that follow-through is needed and that if you use it, you only get what you give (probably true of most things in life). I had a Session Zero for my upcoming “ASCEND-NA” campaign with my Saturday table on Saturday, December 6, 2025. I thought it would be good to discuss what happened, how it was done, why certain things were done the way they were, and what the plan was moving forward. So with an inside joke nod to a certain film and the one it inspired, let’s go!
I like to listen to music when I write. If you’re into that vibe, and wanna listen while you read (and have Spotify) then play the song below and keep reading!
Before
So my friend Che really digs Gamemastering by Jamison. I’ve never read it. A running joke we have is that sometimes I tell him, “I didn’t know about Jamison’s book so I had to invent it.” But for fun, we’ll start with some of his principles, and we’ll see how we match up with them here regarding Session Zero principles.
- GM chooses players
- Everyone agrees on setting
- GM chooses game system
- Characters are co-created
- Adventure skeleton is written
- Start playing
Gamemastering, Jamison (2011), page 12
We have our players chosen. Everything we discuss after this point will rest on the presumption that to varying degrees, I know who my players are, what they’d like out of play, what they’ll engage with, etc. This is for my Saturday Table which I am “healing” with an infusion of three players. We have Jasmine, Core and Sceptre as players who have been at this table for at least 3 years. We have added “Mack.” Mack answered a post for a previous campaign but things weren’t gong to work out at that time. However, after a voice conversation and several chats we stayed in touch and he seemed like he’d be a great fit for a Karameikos/Low Fantasy Campaign in GURPS that my friend Che was beginning, and that I’d be playing in. Mack was eaqger to play in something else as well, and based on playing at another table with him, I figured he’d be a great fit. We added “Seb.” Seb had been playing at my Sunday table for 2+ years, where Sceptre also plays, and I knew he’d be a great fit. Seb recommended “Dan.” Seb had been playing with Dan for 2-ish years at a Table where Seb was ending a campaign, and thought Dan would gel well with the essential approach and style of the Table. I spoke to Dan via voice and sensitized him (as I did Matt) to the Table, the Setting approach, tone, etc.
Sensitized? Well, yeah. You see I had already sensitized the members of the Table (either the three players at the Table I was healing as a group, or the three new Players individually) to the concept that we’d be doing. This is a way how consent to what Jamison calls “Everyone agrees on setting” up there frequently works. Like everything else in TTRPGs, it is a conversation. The back and forth with the table on the “next thing” had evolved into “Lets do a sort of Post-Apocalyptic Sci Fi setting, but we are cool with dystopian stuff mysteries and secrets and not knowing the Unknown World we’ll be uncovering as Players.” There was a lot of talk about different types of fiction that falls into those categories, tone (“not a parody on its face, play it straight”), style (In character/as character, open world with high character agency). Mack, Dan and Seb weren’t there for all those so, as the point man, I needed to sensitize them to all that. Their buy in also establishes consent to that, as well as agreeing to the Table rules. The game system would be GURPS. As a consideration I had four players (all except Dan and Mack) very experienced with that system used to play in this style. Mack was familiar with GURPS, but is new to the system. However, he has gained familiarization with it and has experience playing in the stated style for this Table at Che’s Table. Dan is very experienced with TTRPGs and has played the system before, although a long time ago.
So with all this said and done, I had prepared some basic “primers.” These are less-than-10 page “lore documents” without any system mechanics-talk. I also shared Bio Sheet for this campaign. All these can be found at the very end of this post. They were all ready two weeks before the date of the Session Zero to allow all the players to read and review them so the Session Zero would be an informed discussion. So with all that done we’re ready for the Session Zero. I am excited!
Presentation
Everyone was in the Discord room, cameras on. I streamed a PowerPoint. Yes…PowerPoint. In fact I leaned into it. You’ll see little pieces of AI art in the agenda. I did this on purpose. The strange earth the characters will be in is meant to lean into discovery, mystery and surprise. This means leaning into player ignorance of that world as well as character ignorance. We had talked around the otherworld, tone, etc., but I thought it was a great opportunity to share some vibes. Everything they see will indeed be in that world but the “teasers” don’t really spoil anything. As a side note, I HATE streaming a PowerPoint presentation. I can’t see faces and feel like I am having a conversation. But I powered through it, and came out of the presentation at different points and went face to face with the group when discussion and questions picked up. I am not going to share every slide and comment. The presentation will be at the end. But those I feel worthy of comment about regarding purpose or interesting things that happened in different segments, I want to share and talk a bit about.
Pretty standard stuff. But is does give an idea of what the whole thing is mainly going to focus on. Lets move on.
I relay immediate timeframes and schedules as well as addressing when we will play and regular session attendance pre-checks are done at the table. I re-confirmed assent from everyone regarding 100% attendance for the first three sessions. I think you usually should try to get that buy-in for at least the first session in any campaign. In this one, where we are going to play out the crisis before the characters go into suspended animation (could take one to two sessions) we wanted three. Because pacing always has variance in-session, especially with a high character agency campaign, three sessions felt sufficient to deal with playing out the crisis occurring. getting into suspended animation, and waking up in the strange otherworld. These are important beats for everyone to be around for. After that we’ll being the standard attendance routine at this table.
A lot of discussion here. The players were already sensitized to most of this but this just makes sure we are on the same page and allows for more questions.
We discuss the Bio Sheet and The Process. This is the first place we even BEGIN to engage in Mechanics-speak or “GURPStalk.” I don’t even mention Tech Level. In GURPSspeak, that means what Tech level will be using for equipment, travel tech, etc.? In this setting, it doesn’t matter too much because of the variance in the strange otherworld. As well, discussing it openly involves “spoilers” in this campaign. The characters are coming from 10 years in the future but the organization has access to cutting edge and beyond technology. Separately, I personally have observed hat sort of “System-speak” actually says far less than plain language and discussed concepts when talking to players. This is another example of how TTRPGs are about conversation, even when you aren’t actually playing in-session. For many it can be intimidating or even alienating. I do speak to point totals, and some rules that won’t be used and some specific disadvantages that we will lean into. I don’t mention books or supplements, because that is a very basic subject, already dealt with on the table Discord channel and in the sensitization that occurred earlier.
A little more on style. I want to ensure everyone, especially those new to the table, understands that their character’s agency will drive everything in this campaign. I want the table to understand what I mean by “open world.” I wanted to discuss the “Crisis Opening” again and the future use of flashbacks. Again, making sure questions get answered, everyone is on the same page.
Ok, this part gets fun. And involved votes at the table. The votes were a blast. Much laughter was had.
ASCEND-NA has carved the North American continent into these weird regions with different regional command centers at strange locations (for reasons…). So the first vote was for which region to start in. I wanted a vote in case of tiebreaker. No need really, a vast majority voted for Region C. And then “Jasmine” asked me “How many sessions until I can make Fallout jokes?” I requested that there be a moratorium until Session Four. He agreed. He lies.
Hat tip to “The Morrow Project” and my friend Reese for the altered art. This was going to be a lot of fun….
My friend Anthony (Runeslinger) has an interesting video about rank in Star Trek Adventures (linked here). I have played many Star Trek TTRPG campaigns, and many, many other that have rank, organizational position, authority and all those issues mixed up together. There are many simple issues that can come up and discussions that could be had regarding those aspects in a TTRPG regarding players inexperienced with utilizing those concepts in a TTRPG. These players are not those players. hey are experienced with such things. These issues are: fear of having agency removed by another player, fear of role-playing giving orders, fear of dealing with reluctance in receiving guidance, all in character, etc.. This is a good topic for another post or discussion. However here, with players experienced with such things, the main issue I want to deal with is what I call “The Captain Problem.”
“The Captain Problem” is that frequently, in my observation and experience, the player playing the character of the leader NEVER wants to be perceived by the other players as some “order giver” or be perceived as taking agency from other players‘ characters in-game or from any players regarding group decision making in an open world or in any wide-open “choices and consequences” style of campaign. As a result of this, they many times rein themselves in or defer to others more than Counselor Troi sometimes. The player also may fear they will be burdened with “keeping track of all the stuff.” Discoveries. Leads. Problems. Consequences. Supplies. etc. Essentially, they fear playing that role will diminish their character agency. I find it helpful to have a discussion regarding this during the Session Zero and sometimes as the campaign moves on. Its essentially reminding everyone from time to time that, hey, its about being in character/as character. Reminding the players that nuance is possible. In Star Trek, because of its tonal and genre underpinnings, it would be kind of out of whack for a player character who is a Lieutenant to be disgruntled and maybe shirk orders that they think are “dumb.” But that would be perfectly acceptable in, say, a Twilight: 2000 Campaign powered by GURPS called “Cry Havoc.” And that’s ok. That’s cool tension in the latter case. But in my observation, I have found that, assuming experienced players, that if the situation dampens anyone’s experience, its usually the “Captain.” So its good to take the temperature of this, both with that player and the whole group. The results are usually worth it.
Regardless, at a table, if anyone is in sort or leadership or “power relationship” role (if you think a Star Trek Captain has potential power, lets talk about a Roman patrician or legate player character in the ancient republic…), its best to have good thorough consent. So we were going to have a vote, even if someone stepped up.
I called for nominations. “Core” stepped up. We saw Sceptre, Mack and Seb get nominations. I then conducted a Jungle Primary. The two top candidates were Core and Sceptre. Then we held the general election. After the players voted it was tied 3-3. It got thrown to me as tiebreaker. I rolled a d6 for a 50-50 chance on that vote and Sceptre was the Team Lead. Everyone had a blast. It was a real icebreaker for the group, and the laughter and realization that whoever got selected was certainly taking on something a little extra and having a bit of agency removed subconsciously underlined that this wasn’t a “power move” or anything.
So the team has eight members. two will be NPCs. This allows, except for the team lead, for players to have maximums selection regarding target occupations on the team. The key here was making clear these aren’t “classes” or hard archetypes. They will be making three-dimensional people who will be skilled enough to handle the occupations. And the types of characters that can fill the occupations can have skills that are very varied and distinct from the others. As an example, have two security specialists chosen, one by Jasmine and one by Seb. One idea is a former Army Ranger, the other a former FBI guy. Sure, they’ll both be “good at gun” to a certain extent. But very different skills reflected in the two concepts and all of them vital in this campaign. Mack chose a Contact Specialist. Dan chose the Medical Scientist. Core chose the Vehicle Systems Specialist. You can see the RECON Team primer at the end of this post if you want to see the job descriptions. I have to make a Medical Specialist and the Engineering Specialist as NPCs. Its a strength of the system, the ability to have two similar occupations with distinctly separate (and valuable) skills and traits. An NPC Medical Specialist will focus more of Life Sciences and Genetics while still being a doctor. Or perhaps plant life and zoology. They’ll still be a backup medical person, but compliment the scientific capabilities of the group. GURPS allows for nuanced “niche protection.” I prefer to call it “in every game, every player wants their character to have have their own thing.”
The above is just a discussion point to talk about and discuss The Process, which is already happening. I have a full-fledged concept from Core and he is writing as we speak. The same goes for Dan. Seb has a finalized Bio Sheet. We need to make the appointment for GCS creation. Not bad for three days since the Session Zero.
Ok, this post has been long enough. Below you’ll find the materials referred to in this post. May your Session Zeros empower and organize!
Click to see the ASCEND-NA-Primer
Click to see the ASCEND-NA-RECON Team Primer
Click to see the ASCEND-NA-Campaign Session Zero Agenda
Below is the SCEND-NA Bio Sheet
You’re gosh-darned right I lied. I’ve been humming Big Iron and Atom Bomb all day.
I expected no less! But I am surprised there’s no “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” or “Jingle, Jangle, Jingle?” Or OMG, “Why Don’t You Do Right?”!!??
We are in the third year of a Call of Cthulhu campaign with a variety of players from different cultures of play. This campaign offers examples of all sorts of things that I learned to do before the Internet was available to us, but in reference to this post, it lacked most of what is now assumed to be essential for good play and for the survival of a group in terms of providing an expository and confirmatory Session 0 in its current definition. Instead, after the first player, I intentionally chose players I had not played with but with whom I had some familiarity. I pitched a character occupation to them with a note about the date and location. From there, each was thrown into play either solo or with a small group. It has all worked out. How? Two important aspects of that is that each player wants to play with the others, and that as GM I am familiar with the underlying conversation required for each play style and can often pitch my contributions in play to a compatible compromise between whichever ones are present in a given session, but far more important is the group discussions before and after play. We use these to build community, discuss things we enjoyed or had trouble with, share feedback and encouragement, and conduct recaps of and reflection on our play. Normally, I would conduct a clear Session 0 for the group at the start and each new player as we add more, plus do the pre and post session communication for the life of the campaign, but given human nature, over the course of play it is the discussions which produce that valued bond of friendship and give navigational information suitable for steering a course to the play that this group will enjoy with this game in this situation this time~
Yes, we all have to fit our tables. Sometimes that is building one, sometimes like here, healing one. All tables have different and unique people, quirks, time zones and methods of play that all are going to need unique conversations and constant tending, and those needs may change based on otherworld, setting, campaign or even evolution of a campaign. Turn of a New Leaf has worked out wonderfully and its fruits are on display. This is really why I cited your post from a few years ago in the beginning of this one. I see the Session Zero as truly official “kicking off point” for a any campaign I run at my unique tables. But as you pointed out (and I tried to here) there was a lengthy “before” and much preparation leading up to the magical “Session Zero.” It isn’t of any use if it just becomes a signifier, a list-checking exercise. Afterwards, much must occur even before the first live session. And pre-session and post session feedback will be required. Sometimes that can be done chatting at the table. Sometimes the gamemaster has to provide the time, seek it out and be the collator and synchronizer of that feedback and input. And then it continues! To quote someone:
“In the end, like with most things, we get out what we put in. If we are in the habit of just showing up and just playing, then we should not be surprised if the group breaks up, that the game falters or collapses, that goals are not understood and are not met, and that fun is fickle. After all, nothing was being done to ensure those things would go well. If things have been going well, we should feel thankful for being so lucky. Autopilot is great until it encounters a situation beyond its capabilities. Worse, a habit is often something we just do, without even thinking about it, not necessarily something we enjoy.”