Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 7928489" data-attributes="member: 1465">Are you sure? I think most DMs needs LESS.Session 0 can be wildly different whether your players are total beginners to RPGs, generally experienced RPGers but new to the ruleset and the fantasy setting you're using, already familiar with the ruleset but not with the fantasy setting (or viceversa), or familiar with both...In my case I pretty much always have at least some beginner in the group, so I purposefully avoid talking about rules until they come up in play. It might seem counter-intuitive since beginners likely do not know the rules so you think you need to teach them before starting the game... but if you do that, the less rules the players know the more time you're spending talking instead of playing, which is what most beginners do not want. Hardcore gamers are more likely to be interested in rules chatting.A big difference in Session 0 is whether the players have to create PCs from scratch at the table, or are coming to the game with their PCs already designed. If everyone knows the ruleset already, consider going with the latter, ask them to be ready! Have them possibly communicate with each other so that no two of them will create too similar PCs. Otherwise, creating PCs during Session 0 is still OK and can be a lot of fun to do it together, but ONLY with players who already know the stuff available... if you have more than a single beginner (one is still manageable) consider handing out pre-generated characters of the iconic classes and maybe a couple more.House rules are a tricky subject. If you have only beginners, they are probably not able to tell a house rule from an official rule. The worst thing you can do is to explain them both, and why the official rule "required" your fix. Just don't explain any rule until it comes up in play. But obviously if your players know the official rules, they need to be informed about house rules and actually before they design their PCs, which suggests to send them a group written message in advance rather than waiting for Session 0.As you can see, I am not exactly a fan of Sessions 0, in fact I'd rather just go straight to Session 1 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />But I can see the appeal of a Session 0 i.e. where the first adventure either barely starts (or doesn't even have time to start at all) when everyone is a hardcore gamer, because then your players are probably also just as interested as you in game design and campaign setup, and want to know both what to expect and what is your purpose.</blockquote>

Verification