Whether you’re a seasoned GM or someone running their first TTRPG, a Session Zero is the single most effective tool in your GM toolkit to ensure a fun and successful campaign. Simply put, a Session Zero is a game session that occurs before you start actually playing a TTRPG that allows everyone to get on the same page about tone and content, discuss the safety tools that you’ll use during gameplay, and build your characters together. A good session zero is the best way to set a new campaign up for success and is the easiest way to avoid many of the common pitfalls and problems that tables can encounter during a campaign. 

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Setting the Tone

One of the most common causes of tension–both in tabletop and in real life–is a mismatch of expectations. Imagine going into a movie theater expecting to see The Terminator and when the film starts rolling you find yourself watching Titanic instead. That would feel weird, right? Even if you would normally enjoy Titanic you were expecting to see Arnold Swarzennegger shooting a shotgun and saying, “Hasta la vista, baby,” and you’ll likely end up disappointed and annoyed watching Leonardo DiCaprio drown in the frigid Atlantic (spoilers for Titanic, I guess). The same is true for TTRPGs. If the GM has prepared a grimdark, high-lethality campaign that focuses on political intrigue ala Game of Thrones and the players are all expecting to be covered in plot armor and using Looney Tunes logic to solve all their problems then no one is going to be satisfied when you start your first session. 

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Here’s a quick list of the topics you should align yourselves on:

• Genre: Is this campaign heroic fantasy? Grimdark? Sci-fi? Horror?
• Vibe: What are some similar works of fiction we can look to as a guide? Movies, comics, TV shows, etc.
• Tone: Where does the campaign fall on the spectrum of Silly to Serious?
• Lethality: Are we okay with PC death? Can it happen at any time or only when it’s narratively appropriate?

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Wishes for the Campaign

My favorite part of a session zero is also the most immediately helpful tool for GMs to build their first sessions: Ask the players what they want to see in the campaign. This can be as broad or as specific as they like. Maybe the players want to plan a heist, maybe they want to fight a dragon, maybe they want a chase scene, or maybe they want to have some emotionally-charged moments with a character from their backstory. Pretend this is a trailer for the campaign; what are some cool events we know we want to experience as these characters. 

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And GMs: TAKE NOTES! Your players are making your job easier by literally telling you exactly what will make them happy and excited to play in your game. Add these things into the world in fun and unexpected ways and watch your player’s faces light up when they encounter them. 

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Safety Tools

Telling collaborative stories with your friends is a beautiful experience, but it can sometimes take you to places that may be uncomfortable for some players for any number of reasons. Safety tools are the things you can use in your game to help prevent this from happening and also to deal with it effectively if it does. 

The first safety tool I’d recommend using is called Lines & Veils. Simply put, you and your players make a list of Lines, things you don’t want to exist at all in your shared fiction, and Veils, things that can exist in the world but only off-screen. Common lines are things like homophobia, racism, sexism, or suicide. Common veils are things like romance, sex, or torture.

By agreeing to the limits of our collaborative story in advance we form a clear idea of the outline of the world that will allow us to color more vividly and confidently within those boundaries. It’s also important to remember that Lines & Veils are not set in stone; they are an ongoing conversation that can be reevaluated and changed as players grow more comfortable with each other or realize they aren’t having fun with a certain aspect of the story. 

The second common safety tool to discuss is The X Card. An X-Card is a physical card with an X on it that you place in the center of your table (if you’re playing online you can just type an X in the chat or come up with some other easily recognizable symbol). When a player touches this card that means that the player was uncomfortable with the scene that was just occurring. Gameplay then stops and the table works together to remove the material that was making them uncomfortable. Perhaps a description of violence got a little too graphic and the player wants to dial it back. Or maybe an NPC was flirting with their character and they weren’t interested in roleplaying a romance. Consider adding this uncomfortable material to your list of Lines and Veils and then continue having fun now that everyone is happy with the direction of the story. 

At their core, safety tools are just simple ways to ensure that everyone is having as much fun as possible at the table. And that’s the whole point of playing TTRPGs, isn’t it?

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Build Your Characters Together

Great characters are rarely made in a vacuum. They are a product of their environment and their relationships with the people around them. Instead of making characters separately and coming to the table with a collection of individuals with unrelated backstories, build your characters together during session zero and form connections between the PCs. Instead of having your brother just be a name in your backstory, see if another PC wants to play your sibling. Maybe two PCs share a friend who has gone missing. Or maybe two of you used to be married and are now forced to adventure together in the same party. Imagine how much more invested you’d be in the story when the most important characters in your life are the friends around your table rather than just names on a piece of paper. 

Games like Fiasco and DIERPG have great tools that help you to form relationships between characters before you start playing. I’d recommend every player at the table have some kind of connection with at least one other player. Be family members, be friends, be allies, be co-workers, be enemies, share a secret, know something about another character that the others don’t, or maybe you just both think you’re the “tough guy” of the group and are constantly competing for dominance. No matter what connection you choose you’ll always have something to lean on once you start playing. 

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Remember, TTRPGs Are Collaborative

Unlike movies or novels, there is no single writer that is crafting the story. At their best, TTRPGs are a medium through which every player at the table is able to create within the world and influence the path of the story. So as you discuss what you want the campaign to be during your session zero, remember to be flexible. Synthesize all the ideas the players are bringing to the table and create something that is absolutely unique to your table. If you do it right, you’ll be on the path to telling a story that you’ll never forget. 

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Brian Flaherty is a co-founder of Many Sided Media, a TTRPG podcast production company which produces award-winning shows like My First Dungeon, Talk of the Table, and Bitcherton.