D&D General Session 0 Tips -- What are your favorite session 0 questions/activities?

[CleverNickName]

We call them "Rolling Parties," because everybody rolls up new characters using the 4d6 method. We have a lot of fun activities built around that theme, but my favorite is the "Roll Up Dinner" potluck. Everyone is asked to bring a rolled food of some sort for everyone to share: cinnamon rolls, egg rolls, Fruit Roll-Ups, burritos, Tootsie Rolls, salad rolls, whatever. Whoever's rolls are voted the best gets a prize (last time, it was a random magic item that was rolled from Table B.)

 

[Shiroiken]

We generally use a group chat to discuss upcoming campaign ideas. A DM proposes an idea, offering houserules, variants, and restrictions for character creation. An overall concept, theme, genre, and style is proposed. In general players offer suggestions, and if the overall consensus is positive, that becomes our next campaign. If no consensus is found, that campaign is discarded.

Players often then discuss the type of character each wants to play, trying to ensure most niches are at least somewhat covered (especially healer). Since all of us have 2 or more ideas floating around (and not enough games to play them), this is seldom an issue. Usually if we have a missing niche it's the trapfinder/lockpicker, since you can usually get around without it (even if it may hurt more).

 

[atanakar]

We call them "Rolling Parties," because everybody rolls up new characters using the 4d6 method. We have a lot of fun activities built around that theme, but my favorite is the "Roll Up Dinner" potluck. Everyone is asked to bring a rolled food of some sort for everyone to share: cinnamon rolls, egg rolls, Fruit Roll-Ups, burritos, Tootsie Rolls, salad rolls, whatever. Whoever's rolls are voted the best gets a prize (last time, it was a random magic item that was rolled from Table B.)

Sounds really fun!

 

[Larnievc]

I'm going to be running a Session 0 soon, and I want to make it as fun and as informative as possible. What are some good questions to ask the players? The only ones I really have in mind right now are XP vs. Milestone leveling, and the usual questions about tone (silly vs. serious), etc. But I need MORE, so give me your Session 0 tips!

For what it's worth, the Session 0 is for Ghosts of Saltmarsh. We ran Sinister Secret as a one-off and have now decided to run the rest of the book as a campaign.

I ask about how deadly they want it, whether rez spells work, whether they want to track arrowsand food, I explain the how’s and why’s of house rules.

Having some campaign specific backgrounds on show can let the pcs tailor their abilities to the nature of the campaign.

Is it going to be a bit grounded, gonzo or something in between?

I think that about covered my last session zero.

 

[toucanbuzz]

In Session 0, I take the "hook" to the adventure/campaign and have the players roleplay the story backwards of how they got to the adventure, linking themselves together to explain why they're invested in the setting and one another. If it's a campaign, I'll provide a 2-3 page guide for the setting and any changes in the rules.

For example, in a one-shot I recently ran with new players, the "hook" was that the 1st level party arrived at a graveyard to pay their annual respects to a fallen comrade, but this year the graveyard was locked up (Boneyard, DMsGuild). I printed a picture of their comrade with an epitaph rhyme in which the party filled in the blanks (of who his friends were, where he was and what killed him). They made the story up as they went of how they failed to save him and actually caused his death. Full of grief, they gave up the adventuring life for a bit, only donning gear for their annual.

In the Curse of Strahd campaign, I started with the idea we arrived in a foreign land through mists, then used the dinner invite "hook" to roleplay how each player fit in the story. By the time we were done, one player was the baronet's daughter, another the bastard son she loyally defended, another their aged mentor who viewed them as his own kids, and the last a woodsman who would be damned if he let any harm come to his old pal the mentor or the "youngins" he helped raise. In other campaigns, I'll provide "campaign backgrounds," 1 or 2 paragraph unique links to help spur the story on and link to NPCs, future hooks, and so on (such as owning a piece of a treasure map, or having saved the career of a particular NPC).

I find having players invent the story and investing in NPCs is a fantastic way to launch any adventure.

 

[Lanefan]

Same. This is a standard assumption among my regular table and I require this with pickup groups, too. If someone wants to play out the "gettin' ta know ya" stuff or be all standoffish or need to be convinced to go adventuring they can do that in another DM's game.

I can see the last two points but what's wrong with actually playing out the PCs' first meeting each other?

If nothing else it gives the players an in-fiction reason to introduce their PCs to each other (and thus to the table) and give a quick summation of what they can and can't do.

That, and there's loads of ways to get a party of strangers together that don't involve meeting in a tavern.

 

[iserith]

I can see the last two points but what's wrong with actually playing out the PCs' first meeting each other?

If nothing else it gives the players an in-fiction reason to introduce their PCs to each other (and thus to the table) and give a quick summation of what they can and can't do.

That, and there's loads of ways to get a party of strangers together that don't involve meeting in a tavern.

Ain't got time for that.

Two sentences at the outset as to how everyone knows each other and perhaps setting character Bond to refer to another character in an evocative way is sufficient.

 

[Lanefan]

We call them "Rolling Parties," because everybody rolls up new characters using the 4d6 method.

Yeah, this about sums us up too - our first group gathering isn't so much "session 0" the way most seem to define it; it's more just "roll-up night" and counts as session 1.

Usually I've gone over the houserules-expectations session-0 stuff individually with each player much earlier, if only so said player can make an informed decision as to whether or not s/he wants to join the game.

If things go half-smoothly on roll-up night I can get 'em introduced to each other and into the field by the end of the evening. Last time I even managed to kill off a PC during session 1.

 

[Lanefan]

Ain't got time for that.

Which would, were I a player there, be a huge red flag saying you ain't got time for a bunch of other things either; that you're going to rush the pace; that you're not going to allow time for character development or romances or arguments or even extended in-character conversations as the campaign goes along, and that we'll be lucky to see any uncoordinated downtime where we can do our own thing.

I sure hope this isn't the case.

Unless you (or any of your players) are geriatric enough that time remaining is a serious concern, you've got all the time in the world. No need to rush anything.

 

[iserith]

Which would, were I a player there, be a huge red flag saying you ain't got time for a bunch of other things either; that you're going to rush the pace; that you're not going to allow time for character development or romances or arguments or even extended in-character conversations as the campaign goes along, and that we'll be lucky to see any uncoordinated downtime where we can do our own thing.

I sure hope this isn't the case.

Imagine having all of those things you value, but short and punchy, and more or less continuously through the session, adventure, and campaign and you'll have an idea of what we're going for.

Unless you (or any of your players) are geriatric enough that time remaining is a serious concern, you've got all the time in the world. No need to rush anything

You'd have to define what rushing would mean to you. But that's another thread.