Session Zero

Imagine you’ve been invited to a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) campaign—whether you’re a forever DM, you grew up playing, you watch streams, you’re a nervous newbie, or you have to look up the name. As you begin, the host asks: What kind of character arc do you want to play?

Typically, a player creates a character, and a Dungeon Master (DM) creates a story. Those two actions take place independently. You don’t have to adhere to that independent pattern, though. Brennan Lee Mulligan and Matt Mercer are undeniably the two most famous Dungeon Masters because of how immersive and moving their games are. They produce video streaming series, often live, of D&D campaigns they write and host. They’ve even DM’d for each other!

They break the mold of the “typical,” set a new standard in D&D, and implement session zero, a pre-play session to ensure that everyone is on the same page about the game.

Establishing Safety

One benefit of a session zero is to clarify the content that players can expect to explore in the prepared game. Fostering open dialogue about comfort, boundaries, and what everyone wants out of the story ahead of time can ease tension that might arise later. It’s also important to establish early that this line of communication stays open and everyone is allowed to change their minds.

By discussing lines and veils during a session zero, the DM and players can keep each other in check. Lines and veils refer to content boundaries that everyone participating can set. Lines are hard rules about content that cannot be touched in-game. Veils are softer, more flexible boundaries on a topic; a veiled topic can be present and influence the story, but the DM and players can’t dwell on it. Instead, it might be implied.

There are different ways to use safe words in the middle of a game, and session zero is a great time to establish what they mean. You can set a verbal cue that immediately stops play to discuss your comfort out of character, or script changes like rewind and fade to black to escape uncomfortable scenes. People also use nonverbal cues, such as X-cards. You could establish in session zero that if someone taps an X-card, the DM must skip and move on from a scene, no questions asked.

In more structured games with less communication, DMs will sometimes share a consent form with players, which involves answering questions to record the content themes that each player is and isn’t comfortable with, but doesn’t create room for open dialogue and change as the game progresses.

By using safety tools and encouraging open, fluid communication in session zero, you can also invite better communication about the progress of the game, like reworking their characters later, or even writing them off to play a new character. 

Establishing Timeline

D&D is a long game that gets longer the more interested the players are. Sessions often last multiple hours, and games can span years with a stable group of players. One-shots, streams, and student games, though, have very rigid short-term timelines.

When preparing for a game that’s on a tight schedule, the story can be measured in milestones. The DM will plan that, by each session date, a certain battle or plot point needs to be triggered to reach the finale on the last day. This is difficult to balance with player agency. Players often explore corners of the world that aren’t directly involved with the main story. Redirecting them to the plot to stay on schedule can feel like taking away part of the game.

That’s why it’s beneficial to explore the timeline in a session zero before the game. By discussing milestones and setting goal dates, the players and DM can come to a better understanding of the constraints they’re under.

Say a campaign lasts three months, with one session weekly. By session four, the players need to leave the city. By session eight, they need to be arrested. If those milestones are hit, they will probably reach the final enemy on the last session or slightly before it.

But the players shouldn’t know ahead of time that they will be arrested. How do you discuss the timeline without creating expectations?

Developing a calendar that indicates, in vague terms, the dates on which major plot points must be reached can help keep everyone on the same page, even without sharing the DM’s private details. The presence of short-term mystery deadlines and open communication should be enough for a player to redirect their focus when the DM indicates they’re a little too far off track. Agreeing to a calendar early will also make it easier to give each other reminders and check in later in the game.

Establishing Relationships

You and five strangers walk into a bar (a tavern). By the end of the punchline, you’ll agree to travel together as adventurers, because otherwise you wouldn’t get to play the game!

The beginning of a campaign can be awkward before the characters have met each other or developed overlapping motives. You can use session zero to establish some preexisting relationships with each other and within the world, avoiding this cliché.

In the first campaign of Matt Mercer’s Critical Role, it was right before beginning the game that two of his players agreed it would be interesting if their characters, designed independently, were twins. Because of that impulsive choice, the campaign started with bickering siblings rather than strangers.

Designing a character independently ensures that the player develops more of the world around them through their backstory. Adding connections between characters and their backstories after writing them serves to broaden the content the DM can call on in a long-term story.

You can also dedicate a session to creating characters together, so that their relationships are built in. Developing characters as a group increases the amount of direct influence they have on each other. Player independence might be reduced, but total immersion and connection are gained by developing character motivations and arcs that are intimately intertwined. Beginning the game with those relationships will make it flow easily and naturally, and players will be invested and engaged in the story off the bat.

Establishing Story

A major conflict of D&D is that of player agency and railroading, or limiting and redirecting player actions to drive the DM’s story forward. The sandbox, or open world, of roleplay games inspires creativity, and players make unpredictable choices. This is the beauty of the game; it is a living, adaptive story that volleys between everyone at the table.

Occasionally, though, player choices stray from creative to contrary, fighting against the pull of the story. This can dead-stop the game, or lead it in a direction the DM can’t adapt to.

Brennan Lee Mulligan attributes this conflict to one between the player and their character, rather than the DM. He considers his role as a DM to be a one-man Greek chorus to the players, who are the actual storytellers.

In his model, the DM’s job is to create immersion where both the player and their character achieve conflicting goals: the character doesn’t want to know they are in a story, and save the world as efficiently as possible, but the player wants storytelling, character development, and an extravagant adventure. The DM provides obstacles so that the fastest path to safety, for the character, is a long and challenging one, for the player.

This way, rails are established by the players. The DM prepares a loose world—Brennan estimates 30% of a story—and relies on the players to fill in the blanks.

Explore what kind of story you want for your character. What kind of arc do you want to play across the length of the game? What changes do you want to see your character experience? What is their internal conflict? Start at the character development you want to see unfold, and work backward so that’s where their story starts.

Then, your backstory will fill in the other 70% of the story, guiding the DM to write the character deeply into the story. There’s no reason for them to fight against the story laid out by the DM, because that story will reflect their goals.

Storytelling

The collaborative storytelling of tabletop roleplay is also applicable to other parts of your life. Session zero might be specific to beginning a game, but its attributes hold importance in your story.

How are you cultivating open communication and safety in your relationships? Are there times when you preface yourself before sharing something vulnerable? Do you give a disclaimer before saying something that might be misunderstood? Do you share your goals with someone as an accountability agent? Those proactive ways of connecting with people are your real-life session zero. They show that you’re invested in your story and working to play a fair and engaging game with all of the people in it.

What do you do if you’re feeling detached from your story, unmotivated? If you’re finding yourself bored with the game, the root is in your character.

Just like reworking an unsatisfying character with the DM later in a game, you can change your mind at any time to live a life that’s more compelling for you. Find a new challenge to grapple. Redefine your goals. What is the conflict you’re wrestling with? What kind of stories are moving for you? What narratives are compelling? Can you realign yourself as a character within them?

What kind of character arc do you want to play?

About the Author

I’m an LYF administrator and wellness coordinator who works closely with the writing teams. I have a background in journalism, technical writing, poetry and creative prose.

Introspection and careful behavioral analysis have been my most refined skill. I take a deep care in observing and understanding the people around me. It’s an interest that is only fair or possible to do if you're 100% accepting of what you're going to find in people. To discover the things they can't admit because they dislike it in themselves is cruel and unkind unless you take on a particular perspective that at worst their worst traits are neutral.

I define myself by that perspective of radical acceptance, and I hope that you as readers can feel warmth in my work.