Session Zero 1: Fundamentals

...or what is it, why you need it, and what to talk about throughout.

This is the first post in a series of posts on session zero. 

As usual, if you are confused about any terms, make sure to check out the glossary.

Now that we have a list of (all known to me) types of PNP fun and unfun, let’s go back to the list of priorities I’ve outlined in the first post in the Building Foundations series and talk about what actions you must undertake to achieve them effectively.

The priority list I mentioned is as follows:

• I, personally, must have fun

• My players should have fun as well

• I should tell a good story, have a consistent world, etc.

Obviously, there are two instrumental objectives that have to be achieved first: we have to find out what the GM finds fun, and what the players do. These twin objectives have to be achieved in what is called a “session zero”. This is generally understood to be a time (or several times, or a prolonged period of moderate interaction) when players and GM come together and discuss various issues related to the game.

The idea behind session zero is to prevent issues with the game from arising by addressing problems that lead to them in advance. For example, by discussing the setting the players would prefer, you can address all issues that come from the players being dissatisfied with the setting in advance. You can find plenty of articles online about what should and shouldn’t be discussed - for example, I think this list is very good.

I think we can do even better.

The core mistake this list makes comes from how it was written. It is pretty clear to me that the author went through a lot of known issues that may arise in PNP RP games, figured out what had to be discussed to avoid those issues, and put it in a list. This is a good way to write a task list that will almost certainly cover every issue novice GMs may face, and makes for a very good reference.

However, it misses a core fact: a lot of these issues are highly correlated to one another. And the thing that determines this correlation is what types of fun your players consider most important to them.

For example, imagine two GMs with two tables (“table” can also refer to a group of players with the GM). Let’s call them Jane and Bob.

Jane’s players really want to play a dungeoncrawl - they want their characters to go into an enormous dungeon, kill monsters and find loot. Their primary sources of fun are tactical encounters with enemies, low-key puzzle problems of avoiding traps and navigation, growth from collecting loot and increasing in levels, as well as (duh) power fantasy.

Bob’s players are hardcore roleplayers. They really don’t care about combat, or even levels - they just want to interact with the world, talk to NPCs, and see how their unique backstories can lead to amazing character arcs. Their primary sources of fun are related to storytelling, NPC interactions, and imagining detailed personalities for their characters.

Now, imagine that they read that huge list of topics to discuss during session zero. Imagine they try to talk about all of those to their players. What would happen?

Their players would get bored halfway through, that’s what. Even if the Gm manages to muddle through, the information they get from this exercise may be of little use, as the bored players won’t provide great feedback. Any kinds of decisions about e.g. mechanics of the game will be forgotten, even if they are immediately written down - players will have to re-read them later regardless.

Surely there has to be a better way.

And there is! In fact, I already told you what they have to do: focus on the fun of the players and themselves.

First of all, before they even meet with the players, they figure out what they, personally, want. 

Then, once they do meet, they start by asking the players - one after another - what they are looking for in a game, what they enjoy - and dislike - in similar games, and what they would like to try. This can be done in a group, or one by one, depending on what is easiest in their particular circumstances.

What happens then?

Jane very quickly discovers that her players want a dungeoncrawl, based on what types of fun they mention. This means she can throw out whole chunks of the original list - politics of the world, backstories of the characters, racism, narrative authority, worldbuilding, all of these cease to be a priority. They are background considerations: priority is deciding on things like starting levels and wealth, figuring out how cruel Jane can be with her encounter design, and so on.

Bob meanwhile discovers that his players do not care about “mechanics” all that much. This means all questions about rules, invisibility, take 10, starting levels, and so on can take a backseat. Most important things to discuss is the setting, design backstories so the characters fit together, and figure out how to share the narrative spotlight.

But this isn’t all - there are some hidden advantages to this method. We can imagine Bob was thinking of using DnD 3.5 as the system before he went to talk to his players. But he now realizes that there is no strong desire to stick with this particular system - roleplaying can work equally well in any system, after all - and decides to switch to Fate, another PNP system that enables the kind of play his players seem to prefer more. This will save him and his players hours, because of how much quicker character generation is in Fate compared to DnD.

Jane, meanwhile, was trying to wrap her head around where she can find good worldbuilding to use as a base for her world. She now realizes she doesn’t have to - with the players stuck exploring a dungeon, worldbuilding can be kept to a minimum necessary, and she can focus on drawing dungeon maps.

Neither of these questions naturally come up if you use the original list of topics to discuss. It is impossible to ask novice players what system they want - they don’t know any systems! - and even for experienced players, it is hard to pivot from thinking about what character they want to play to what system would best enable such a character.

Similarly, it is very hard for the players to tell the GM how much worldbuilding to do, and what parts to focus on. Players might not even know what that word means!

Furthermore, the method based on analyzing the fun of the players even works better if it is only partly executed! Imagine that for one reason or another, you have to cut session zero early. If you were going through the old list - top to bottom - you might have not even reached the issue that would absolutely sink the ship of your game. But if you were basing your strategy on figuring out the fun facets of your players, then it’s almost certain that the most important subjects to your players would come up first - meaning the chance of missing the critical issue is greatly reduced. Likewise, if you forgot to discuss some issue, then it will be much easier to guess your players reaction to it if you started by understanding what they find fun.

This is why I say that the objectives of figuring out your fun and your players’ fun have to be achieved in session zero. Not may be, not should be, have to. Otherwise, your session zero will be significantly less effective.

So how do we go about doing it?

I believe this is fairly obvious, once you put yourself to the task. If you have played PNP RPGs before, consider what aspects you have enjoyed most, and would like to enjoy now. If you haven’t, consider other media you have enjoyed: books, video games, movies, and so on. Did you enjoy reading about people who achieve great ambitions? You might be valuing Objectives highly. Do you like playing tactical video games? You guessed it, tactical encounters seem like your jam. Took part in improv theatre in high school? You probably know how much you enjoy roleplay.

Largely the same thing can be attempted for your players - ask them about their favorite media, and draw conclusions from that. The only problem might arise if someone has never really tried some type of engagement. This is probably most common with various types of roleplay, as that is a fairly niche activity outside of PNP RPGs.

In that case, you know your next task: you have to perform a short experiment to test how much your players will enjoy roleplaying. This is absolutely necessary - starting a longer campaign without full understanding of your players’ psychologies is building on sand.

What kind of experiment might that be?

I will go deeper into this subject in a later post, but I think the basics are easy to imagine. You are trying to focus on investigating a very specific emotion among your players: so make sure nothing else distracts them. Write characters for them, with short backstories and goals, and have them roleplay in a closed environment. Short murder mysteries work well here: imagine all characters are locked in a house until they find the murderer. Then have them roleplay for a couple hours (or even just a dozen minutes - as long as it takes to get the data you need), and see how they like it.

Similarly, on the GM side, if you have never tried worldbuilding before, try your hand at imagining a single fantasy city in detail, or even a single house within that city, or even a single room within that house. Do your best to figure out how the room looks, what is in it, why is it there and how it works. You can start with a room based on something real and for which you can easily get references - for example, imagine how the house of a noble in 19th century England would have looked like. Then add changes to the world and see how that would impact that one specific room. Then, finally, analyse if you are having fun in this entire process, or if this is a chore.

After you have nailed down the aspects of fun your players enjoy, and aspects of unfun they do not enjoy, you will have the most solid foundation to start thinking of actual PNP activities, and will avoid dozens of problems that plague GMs who do not know about this method. Of course, you can also choose to skip this process: but know that you are risking the existence of your PNP group, and drama between yourself and the players. Plenty of GMs skip it, roll those dice, and win. 

But personally, I am not the gambling type.

Next up, I will talk about the sort of typical GMing problems this method completely bypasses, and how to deal with conflicts between what you like and what your players like, or what two separate players like.

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