Session Zero

"Session zero" has become a popular term in the role-playing community.  The concept, unnamed, had always been a part of gaming.  The campaigns I ran in the 80s naturally began with the players making characters and a discussion of house rules.  The term itself, however, begins to turn up on the Forge in the mid-2000s, but for the rest of the net, it's common usage doesn't begin until after 2012.  When I wrote and published How to Run in 2014, the term was hardly front and centre in the culture, though of course there would be many individuals who can remember adopting the term twenty years ago.

Today the term is defacto canon for anyone wanting to run D&D.  Upon starting a campaign, I'm expected to introduce myself, talk a little about why I like to DM, then go around the table and have the players talk a little about themselves. Then I'm to provide an overview of the campaign — including, of course, the setting, the "lore," themes and any unique features or house rules.  The players ask questions.  Then we settle down to character creation ... and by the session zero bible, because these things have to be included in any description of the process ... this includes the characters manufacturing backstories.

Then, together, DM and players, openly discuss our expectations for the campaign.  During this phase, we're meant to talk about how much "roleplaying" is expected, what the combat encounters are going to be like and the sort of balancing mechanism we'll be using.  The players discuss how they'll work together as a group, and then as DM, I establish the campaign's "goals" and objectives, and importantly the "theme."  This establishes whether the game stresses heroism or not, exploration of the map, political intrigue, the prospects for character survival and such.  I'll then be outlining the primary quest for the players to pursue, before discussing potential sub-plots and character-specific objectives that I've created for the overall "story."  This helps the players personally invest in what's going to happen.

Next, we need to interrupt this discourse so we can have a frank discussion about "session safety and consent."  Now, I know this idea has been thrown around for a while, but it helps if we understand just what's meant by this.  We want to know what's expected for a DM ... after all, if I were to write How to Run again, I'd have to be sure and include this content.

Let's see ... yes, it's expected that I'll listen to player feedback, I've certainly argued for that.  There's this part about my not including any content that might make a player uncomfortable.  Sensitive topics may trigger a player.  Safety and consent are, after all, an ongoing process.  If a player wants to pause the game and request a change in the ongoing scene, rewinding, fast-forwarding, or changing the tone or outcome, they have the right to propose that script change.  Lines should be drawn to represent any content that's strictly off-limits, so that it won't be included in the game under ANY circumstances.  And in case there's a mis-understanding, every player has an "X"-card that they can lay down at any time, stopping play.  It's only fair and proper.

Shall we stop?  Because I can get into the details of all these things at length; there are posts all over the internet that express why it's responsible to address the game in just this manner.

I'm tempted to go through a step-by-step description of what happens after the ball is snapped in football, and the practicality of using cards to stop play as mass slams into mass, but in retrospect that's probably not helpful.  Take note of the dynamic above.  These are rules for managing strangers ... and in most cases, strangers with a minimal or narrow perception of the game, such as that played in game stores, where rules about loud chatter and overt body language hold sway.  Some of the enthusiasm that one or more of my players might express in a normal running — pacing around the table, hooting when something dies, shouting and waving their arms because their blood is up — that's not acceptable behaviour in a cramped public space full of five or six gaming tables.

I play with my friends and family.  I've sat with them at the hospital, I've helped them clean their apartments, and move, and looked after their plants and pets when they've left town.  We've had Christmas dinners together and birthdays at the bar and gone for hikes and days at the beach.  I don't need to introduce myself, or explain what my game is ... they all knew what it was months before they were allowed to join.  Does anyone here think that after being my daughter for 34 years, that she's going to put an X-card down and stop play?  Ridiculous.  A sarcastic comment, sure ... but if she had any problem with my DMing, she wouldn't use a card.  She'd speak her mind.  Like a grown-up.

These are helpful rules if we're unable to find anyone to play with on a regular basis except strangers.  In some way, perhaps I might have done better with the online campaigns I ran if I'd held the players' hands a little bit more ... if I'd take the time to carefully warn them that I was going to use "themes" equivalent to those found in any mainstream action film, thriller, horror or drama.  Or equivalent to the daily public news, where actual real life people die in hurricanes, are carved up with saws inside embassies, invade foreign countries with artillery and tanks, or lie constantly and unrelentingly if they think it'll help grift money or get elected.

I've always kind of assumed we're all living in this world.  The one with homeless people slowly dying on bad streets, where a shooting at the nearby mall took place in the last few months, where the price of things are going up relentlessly despite our human need to eat food or live under some kind of roof.  This is the world that I and my players occupy, together, every day.  I don't want to play with people who are so sheltered and weak that they can't stiffen their lip, act bravely and face every challenge they're given, no matter what it is.

I don't want to play with these people and I definitely wouldn't want to write a book that catered to these people's fragility, so they could bring themselves around to play D&D.

Yet were I to write a book on the subject today, I'd be expected to do so.  And I'd be called irresponsible if I refused.

On the surface, the session zero seems like a reasonable approach to introducing new players ... but much of the "introduction" is about making people feel comfortable, encouraged, supported, protected and safe.  The only people who need this are those who are easily threatened or made uncomfortable.  Anyone else, who has already chosen to BE comfortable of their own accord, who don't need encouragement to talk, who don't need support because they've already got it, who don't need protection, who don't feel unsafe ... is bound to find all the elements surrounding the session zero concept as something like a group therapy session.

We don't want to talk meet and greet, or about our characters or debate party mechanics or deliberate on the overall campaign, or discuss rules in case something gets out of hand ... we want to play.  That's why we're here.  We have a limited amount of time, we already know the game, we're not children, let's get started.  That's how quite a lot of us think.

Research session zero and you'll find the argument that it's "about creating an environment where all participants, regardless of their comfort level or experience, can engage in the game."

This is a bald-faced lie, because the rules DON'T say that.  The "goal of inclusivity" says that any one single person who has a problem can ruin everyone else's experience, at will.  It says that the right of any one person to be completely respected supercede the right of any other person in earshot to go ahead and play the "uncomfortable" scene that they don't find uncomfortable.

For those people who might want to argue with me that it's my responsibility to provide a good experience for anyone who might be a would-be participant, keep this in mind:  I'm not a game store or an official league.  I'm a person who plays a game in my home, which no one enters without my say-so.  I play with my friends.  I don't make friends with weak people.  I did when I was young and I learned that it's drama-drama-drama all the time.  I make friends with people who can carry their own baggage.  

Needing an environment that will care for you, or that you think ought to exist for other people, regardless of their comfort level or experience, sounds quite a lot like people who can't carry their own baggage.  People like that are hard to have around.  Emotionally, they're very needy.  You show up at their house to help them move their stuff, and find that they haven't packed anything or rented a truck for the day.  They're supposed to show up and help you move, and they don't.  You help them work on their resume and then they don't use it.  Or you get them a job at your office and they quit after a few weeks.  You're at the bar for your friend's birthday and invite them along, but then they get upset by something the bartender says and then its a three-hour pity-party about them, until someone has to leave the party for awhile to drive them home, because they don't feel "safe" taking a cab or using the bus.

I know, I know, this isn't what we're supposed to say ... but anyone who's reading this, who carries their own baggage at least most of the time, learns sometime in their 30s — especially if they have kids — that there just isn't room any more for the kind of inclusivity that seemed possible in high school.  You invite these people to play D&D, and for the whole night every has to put their game on pause for this one needy person.

Cruel as it all sounds, this is what we call straight-talk.  Those who need to feel included, who need support, who need attention, who need someone else to make them feel empowered, who need little cards, who need and need and need, should get a therapist.  I'm not a therapist.  I'm a DM.  You may think me an asshole, but since my baggage-carrying family don't think so, and I have plenty of players, and I don't need support or an X-card to give my opinion, I guess it really doesn't matter if other people think I'm also cruel.

I give plenty of support on this blog all the time.  People write me and I do my best to answer questions.  I think it's my responsibility to be open-minded and flexible, and to provide what benefits I can for my reader.  But this doesn't include telling me what I'm allowed to talk about, or what content to include in my game, or what's over the line, or even what information I'm obligated to give my players when we start playing.

Roll your characters.  You're in a small village on the French coast, about 60 miles south of Nantes.  You have no idea what might happen next.  There.  We've had our session zero.

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