With the new year comes lots of new #dnd players & games, and the best way to start your campaign off is with a session zero! @jamesjhaeck @BDaveWalters & @ToddKenreck explain what a session zero is and why it is so essential to running an amazing game:hello everyone welcome back to todd talks we are now firmly in the grasp of 2021 thankfully and uh we are talking about uh dungeon masters tools that you’ll find in tasha’s cauldron of everything i am joined by the esteemed mr b dave walters and james hake our lead writer over at dnd beyond uh say hello everyone hello hello can we at least agree that we escaped the clutches of 2020 right whether or not we’re firmly in the grip of 2021 let’s say warm embrace warm embrace yeah right of 2021. we’re still in the honeymoon phase it’s still new listen i’ll be grasped [Laughter] as hugged as we’re not in the vile clutches right right anything is fine exactly yeah okay upgrade complete i’ll take any grasping tentacle or eldritch blast wherever that will get me into 2021 so i appreciate we all got the we all got the wardrobe note here you know we’re all like it’s it’s a mode it’s a look we have going yeah that’s that’s a good thing goatees and in in black outfits well i don’t think i wear anything else um so we’re talking about uh because we have a lot of new dungeon masters out there a lot of people are learning dnd uh and just tabletop in general and so this is a very good way to start the beginning of 2021 and talking about something that is very fundamental and will make a really huge difference in anyone’s game it’s session zero i cannot outline how important this is this is not you know episode one of your game your game that you’re playing with your players but you as a dungeon master and you as a player should want to do this because you will learn a lot about your character a lot about your limits uh what about what you don’t like and you’re probably gonna learn a lot more after session zero as well uh so this all really begins at having this conversation with the dungeon master how do both of you start this conversation uh b-dave oh yes um well it’s it’s it’s um obviously sometimes i’m on the dm’s chair sometimes i’m on the player chair at this point i’ve been lucky to play enough d that i’m comfortable literally in any role so a lot of times my first conversation with the dm is what does the story require you know like is there is there anything missing um party balance in fifth edition is not nearly as restrictive as it was in past editions where it’s like oh you’ve got to have the healer you’ve got to have the tank you’ve got to have the rogue you know not so much anymore but uh so i find a lot of that now is more narrative driven where for instance you know your storyteller might come back to you and say it would really help me if there was at least uh one asamar so um you know so that that’s going to plug in to the narrative in a certain way or if there’s a certain uh if there’s a ghostwise halfling that grew up in the region or something like that um that’s usually where i start with those conversations and then build out from there i mean i always said oh sorry go ahead no no i i just want to jump in on this point you’re making about a a player who has seen both sides of the table talking to the dm about what’s narratively expedient because that’s absolutely the sort of thing that a session zero is great for establishing because there are lots of players who won’t want to do that and there are a lot of dms out there who won’t want to do that like people who are really into uh crafting a story kind of uh as a chronicle of events rather than a as a plot that moves forward and and they might even get frustrated if if characters want to serve the narrative rather than kind of letting the narrative wash out later on there are so many different expectations and assumptions and prejudices and baked in biases that everyone brings to the table on their own that uh session zero is the perfect place for everyone to really lay bare all the things that they think d or your rpg of choice is um because otherwise uh some people may end up disappointed when their expectations aren’t being met yeah you oh go ahead no i was just going to say this um you yeah definitely if nothing else if absolutely nothing else making sure everybody’s on the same page about what this campaign’s supposed to be i mean if somebody is expecting eldritch horror in the vein of ravenloft and somebody else is go lucky i’m the pudgy halfling who’s gonna steal every pie i ever see that could be a recipe for chaos so having those expectations is also good yeah absolutely and i agree on the point of it it is delightful when a player uh tend to be that player when you ask the dm like how can i serve that narrative because as you mentioned like you know asimar can often get uh impressions and dreams associated and then and anytime you give that kind of opening to a dm of like okay i can send you know these visions on occasion to come move the plot forward uh this is a good way to get buy-in from a dungeon master as well who maybe uh does tend to be very focused on the chronicle of their writing and sometimes maybe not necessarily forgets their players along the way but this is a good way to hook it yeah although a great way to work together i i will say though even though i just said that i do that as a player and i do as a dm both of you have experienced this where it’s like well do you have any preference would i play i’m like do literally anything like i will adjust to you just do whatever you want i will make it work so it’s it’s funny that i’m like on the one hand how can i serve you and your narrative but on the other hand now you do what you want though and it’s gonna be all right so i think you and i have gone to the point where we appreciate the chaos like having to adapt is always a nice surprise so this all comes down to yeah character and and party creation and like you said like d d is far more forgiving about party balance um you know certainly if someone really loves healing and that’s their kind of identity you know that can happen in a group where like that’s what i want to be doing that’s why i want to be the important person because i’m the core healer that’s another conversation but like a cleric can go full-on attack mode all the time never heal and be totally fine in d d now and it wasn’t like that for those of you that like i’m like for you don’t remember back back in my day you know certain certain roles which is vital if you didn’t have them you just might as well not even go into the dungeon you know yeah right it was like a hard rain and everyone died in the village sorry joey i think james you’re about to say something and i’ll cut you off there brother sorry no no there are just so many things to talk about with session zero i i i feel like i i want to try and give a broad overview of the topic because we’ve we’ve kind of jumped right into a a useful and specific aspect of it but there’s such a huge umbrella of things that can be covered in in a preliminary session like this yeah um that like you can talk about game stuff like this the uh the mechanical dynamics of who everyone wants to play and what kind of story are we looking for that sort of thing there uh there’s a major dynamic of session zero and i think it’s it’s usually what people think of when you talk about session zero that involves um safety tools when it comes to uh rpgs as well um and this is especially true when you’re playing with a group who you’ve never ever played with before uh but also drew and you’re just starting a new campaign um like me dave you brought up horror and raven loft and horror is a great place to talk about safety tools and things like that because the the joy of horror is you know getting into a situation that would normally be deathly terrifying and gaining some sort of enjoyment out of it but you know one person’s fun cathartic horror is another person’s deeply like legitimately psychologically triggering event and you know if you want to play straw to the hilt as a as a suave sexual abuser that vampires can be like you want to make sure that everyone on your table is okay with that sort of thing yeah i mean that’s it is a massive thing that you really really should be doing and also understand that this this i mean this kind of comes down to uh that social contract around the table this can be a moving target depending on the times that you’re living in and what is happening in each person’s personal life um you know as a dungeon master i probably wouldn’t recommend if someone’s going through a terrible breakup to have them deal with a breakup say in the game right okay i i just had this experience uh it wasn’t d and d but it was wraith and um wraith is all about digging into a lot of the most terrible aspects of what makes a person a person and one of my players was going through a complex personal situation and i did pull them aside and was like hey so you know you know and they were like no i want to do it i want to do it and then afterwards after we’d gone through it all they were like even i didn’t know if i could handle it but it actually helped me and um i think that’s if i had to describe like session zero as a concept from top to bottom it is just an opportunity to make sure everybody’s on the same page just whatever that is it’s a time to pick character classes to discuss like the macro plot of the story the setting the themes the inner pre-existing interpersonal connections between the characters which also helps when you sit down and you’re like hey man do you want to be brothers do you want to be uh that we were we are betrothed do you want to be the bitterest of enemies because that actually can be kind of exciting if there’s a reason at the beginning why we’re forced to cooperate but you know wernstrom you know you know as long as everybody agrees to that though yeah yeah that’s that’s always deeply fun i i started a campaign off like with two characters who deeply hated each other and it was just continuously hilarious because it was very much a uh han solo versus lando kind of situation that they walked in and before the friendship had congealed i would say and it got played into over and over and over again that these two characters were in constant competition and it was really fun i do want to clarify one thing though especially with my halfling pie stealer comment earlier um there are room that’s going to be my next character you all have like yeah yeah you know i’ll just have freely it’s just going to go on a pie stealing spring um there there are room at the table for different character concepts like especially when you look at iconic stories like dragon lance you know where you have caramon and racelyn but you also have tasselhoff who is still vital to the narrative but everyone still needs to make sure you’re all rowing in the same direction i guess just to clarify there’s not that everybody has to play silly or everybody has to play grimdark or whatever just make sure it all meshes in fact having that character uh you know when you when you’re all trying to figure out the type of game you want to play and having you know in that setting this is what was great about tess off burfoot and say dragon lands was that there are deeply horrifying and dark moments facing lord soth uh going to the tower of high sorceries uh i always pronounced it shoiken grove um where there’s extreme fear and even tasselhoff who is immune to fear is like ah i don’t like this this is a creepy feeling yeah that lets you know how bad things have gotten yeah yeah where angels fear to tread um it’s it’s still it’s they become the canary in the coal mine for a lot of people mm-hmm so if they freely is like maybe i shouldn’t jump in here uh yeah right yeah when he’s like maybe we shouldn’t fight this dude you’re like wait what yeah no i i i i agree he gets really kind of shocking he’s like i don’t know about i don’t know about this but yeah it’s a good opportunity i think also at the beginning to like talk about like your your your character backgrounds um and your bonds and all that stuff because that those can overlap like you know if you’re a pirate if you’re a charlatan that can kind of inform where you guys are going as well as a group very quickly and certainly there’s group patrons that you’ll find in tasha’s um which is a very easy way to get things started like hey i have an adventure for you you all have the same quest giver um but but they did have they do have like some i actually like some of these choices uh you could have the characters grow up together um and knowing each other for years which is very much the dragonlance way of stirring things um we’ve got the characters are united to overcome foe uh the characters were brought together by a common benefactor is exceptionally common a funeral funeral brings the characters together we see this constantly in television and film um a festival brings the characters together which is much more lighthearted unless you’re in ravenloft you know if it’s mid-summer what are we getting together for yeah right yeah boy um and the characters in tashas these are all party origin options and tasha’s that you can actually roll uh the characters find themselves trapped together which i’ve been thrust into many times where we all get arrested we’re in all an agenda we all gotta what do you mean you’ve been thrust into you did that to me like you did that to us we all got arrested together that was the inciting incident it was because it was done to me as a player at the beginning of that campaign you were all mind flares together it’s you know that’s that’s how that’s how the greatest of friendships begin being my players together um i don’t want to i don’t want to interrupt the list i do have something to share but i want to make sure oh no that’s the patriots those are the six options they provide which are pretty pretty pretty standard i feel options um but there’s you know there’s lots of other ways i have started games out where everyone’s the enemy of each other which was deeply hilarious uh for a one-shot live stream i don’t know if that’s always gonna pan out you gotta trust your players then your players have to trust each other but it’s pretty funny when everyone’s like yeah bounty hunting like one of the characters in one character is trying to assassinate the patron of another and one’s trying to steal something from that person and i did set up a star wars campaign once that way and it was so funny uh it just set the tone for the entire campaign that lasted three years very guardians of the galaxy i would say now now i have two things to say uh one and this is just a general aside um that like when you when you’re playing uh try not to ever take anything that happens to your character personally uh that can be very difficult uh it absolutely has happened to me where things happened to my character that i was like full pearl clutch but i mean for the most part the game is the game and you know life is life you know you’re not them uh but the other thing that i was just saying when we’re talking about these group patrons a trick i use a lot that i heard somewhere along the way it was not my idea but i do not know who to credit properly is you get your players to give you a list of three or four things about their character that are true and then you create two or three things that are false about them and you mix it up and you give it to every other player at the table so they’ve all heard things about each other so then some of them will be true and some of them won’t be true and that is some of the most like uh fertile seeds of role playing ever um it works especially because like if you if one of the things you say about someone that isn’t true is they’ve got this terrible temper once they’re in their cups and the first time they go to a tavern this person gets into a fight then everybody’s like i heard that about you that thing i think like that perspective on say jamie last or in game of thrones as the king slayer that he’s this horrible man without any kind of honor and you know just murdered the king and the king was totally great and totally fine you know the mad king you know obviously great guy um i think that’s a good example of like some false advertising and i think that’s that’s pretty a great example uh joey how do you like to start things what what are some of the ways that you like to start a game i wanted to touch on something that uh that b-dave said just a second ago his first point about uh emotional bleed in rpgs because this is a tough thing for people to uh talk about so which means it’s a great thing to talk about at a session zero when everyone’s being totally you know all cards on the table um because some people uh suffer from rp emotional bleed more than others and even people who think that like oh that will never happen to me sometimes they just get you know blindsided struck and struck in the middle of the forehead by an incredibly emotional emotional moment that they can’t let go of and they’ll be you know it’ll be with them for you know a week or maybe they’ll be running into the next session with it and they’re still uh pissed off at another player because of something that you know shouldn’t shouldn’t have huge quote marks uh affected them but it has um and because of that it’s really important to know i think that session zero can happen again at any time it can happen again and again and again and again um the the name session zero is sometimes a little bit misleading uh but uh it’s a good name because every campaign should should start with one but you can have a session zero in the middle of a campaign uh you might want to have like a quarterly session zero if you’re a particularly organized dungeon master who always likes to be on the same page as their players uh you know explicitly um if you’re if you’re a player and you have suddenly encountered something that you don’t uh that you weren’t expecting you want to talk out with other players i think it’s a perfectly viable option to say to your dm probably say to your dm in privately hey let’s have a session zero uh just so that we can work out what happened and um [Music] it’s not always easy it can be hard to have these emotionally honest conversations even for like adults yeah absolutely absolutely and and and uh i think an emotional bleed uh that will definitely happen to people at the the most unexpected times and that’s fine and that also comes down to you know when a character dies like that can be emotional and very emotional after three years you know you become very you become fast people you become long-term friends with these characters and seeing them go even if you’re okay with it is tend to go it’s going to make you emotional um and that’s okay uh to you know obviously to an extent don’t yeah don’t don’t don’t br break yourself uh on on your own character um yeah it’s a it’s a good conversation now with the players and the other dungeon masters as well um and that’s all part of that social contract of under is understanding that um yeah yeah this is this is a mask you’re putting on but it is not you but you know by the same token it it makes sense that it happens too because that’s how our minds work our minds literally don’t know the difference between something that is real and something is vividly imagined that’s why thinking of a painful memory can make you sad now thinking of a happy memory can make you happy now so when you’re completely immersed in these things realizing that that triggers the same parts of your brain and sometimes your reptile brain is normal but you know try and as much separation as possible and also don’t be afraid to exit a scene if you need to you know like if you need to back away wall go get a drink of water or something like you can do that like it’s okay yeah yeah and um every character even the ones most distant from you have a little bit of you in it and maybe especially in characters that are very very different from you but have like a nugget of your soul just this tiny little thing if something bulls-eyes that bit of you you might be like i did not expect anything from my past to come up with this character of all people um and so you should never feel that that shame for for letting that sort of emotional bleed happen to you you just need to be prepared to deal with it in you know an emotionally mature and responsible way with your good good friends who you’re playing d d with yeah yeah yeah and that but again that will come up and i’ve seen it happen to players at exceptionally unexpected times both for them and and for me seeing it happen uh you just don’t know and sometimes you don’t know you’re like and we they tasha does talk about this and this is something everyone’s known for a long time is hard and soft limits you’ll be surprised what will come up and role-playing and that’s good and it’s healthy just you know try not to take too anything too personally obviously now there are off you know obviously there is the potential to run into a toxic player around the table and then there are actual a lot of things you can do to deal with that as well we do have this great they do mention the social contract in tasha’s and this is pretty well outlined um it has like four big tenants you will respect the player by running a game that is fun fair and tailored for them you will allow every player to contribute to the ongoing story and give every character a moment to shine when a player is talking you are listening i think this is really great and this is something like especially like shows like critical role are very very good about is they give each other lots of time to do their thing like i mean when you see when you think about liam describing his tower right for widow ghast that is like a four i would say a 40 minute and i’m not necessarily saying give them 40 minutes but that is a 40 minute like love note to his own players that he’s working with because he’s made a room for each of them and that was like a lovely moment um so that’s that’s a good one and the second one is players will respect you and the and this is talking about the dm players will respect you and the effort it takes to create a fun game for everyone the players will allow you to direct the campaign arbitrate you know decide the rules you know subtle arguments but when you are talking the players are listening this is a lot of this is just listen to each other very basic social contract stuff good things to learn uh in real life also the third one is players will respect one another listen to one another support one another and do their utmost to preserve the cohesion of the adventuring party uh this i think is the one thing that can fail sometimes sometimes in some groups and then the final one is you you should or a player uh should you or a player disrespect the other or violate a social contract in some other way the group may dismiss that person from the table and this is very unfortunate it certainly happened uh in my own games where i had to let a player go um is i would say hopefully not inevitable but it does happen especially like the longer longer you play you come you become faced with a very hard decision very interesting pros and cons oh sorry uh which is a very quick thing i was going to go go ahead before it comes to that everyone knows and if you don’t say it the whole group will fall apart so it’s like there’s no point in trying to ignore it yeah yeah that was that that’s actually a great segue to what i’m talking about there are interesting pros and cons to clearly laying out a social contract the pros i think far outweigh the cons because everyone’s on the same page everyone’s clear there are no uh weird sort of edge cases uh or you know rules lawyering a social contract the messiness is all cleaned away uh for the most part i have noticed and this is usually the big argument against uh including these sort of explicit social contracts at the table and it’s that there’s a change in atmosphere that happens some people will uh think that some of the the the fun has been sucked out of the room because now there are very clear guidelines it’s no longer just people palling around being dudes now there’s kind of a an expected uh mode of behavior and i got into oh yeah no no no keep going no you’ve got to go [Music] uh i i just have one more little thing to say i think for the most part um it is a thousand percent better to suck that little bit of air out of the room and just be clear with everyone um especially if there are people who uh you you don’t know you know who aren’t your childhood friends who you’ve known all your life who you practically have a psychic bond with and even then you know people change over the years right like if you had a friend from high school and now it’s however many years later you meet up with them again suddenly you’re kind of different people that psychic bond isn’t as true as you thought it was um and all of a sudden someone says the wrong thing and there’s a big blow up and then suddenly your dnd game has been the cause of a of a nasty friend breakup and it’s like damn if only we made that social contract this could have all been solved so much easily um and anyways this something like this kind of came up earlier today in a different context i’m somewhat of the opinion when whenever you’re like hey so everyone should be cool to each other and somebody’s like well but that means that i can’t blah blah blah i mean no no bro bro bro if you’re if that upsets you you’re the person you know that is causing the problem you know and into your point about how even even with friends you know i mean i’ve seen this many times where people might be trying on different ideas playing a different type of character they might be you know exploring some things in themselves i mean of course you know to do freud proud sometimes a character is just a character where you’re like i’m playing a gnomish barmaid who’s a barbarian and fights with a skillet let’s go you know but but sometimes there’s more to it than that and so you still have to respect those choices in in in respect that that’s what the person is bringing to the table and respect the choices that they’re that they’re making in those moments now if i could give uh just a thing that i find will always be useful to you at the table and this transcends session zero and todd let me know if we’re gavin too much about session zero but it’s the whole thing is about session so i i just i i just didn’t want to suck all the oxygen out of the room um when you are playing always try and find a way to set up someone else for a cool moment you know like like like pass it to someone else you know on a camera be like uh i hit him with a trip attack and get out of the way because i know she’s about to attack you know or hmm i don’t know what to do hey quiet person who hasn’t talked in 20 minutes what do you think we should do you know just like find ways to like pass the ball to the other person and kind of give them an easy in uh because sometimes other people might be so concerned that they don’t want to step on someone else’s toes that they don’t do anything so you know trying to lead the league and assist as it were that’s me as a player i i never want to step on anyone else’s toes so yeah i love hearing other people say that advice because it means i know i have an easier time playing it’s also very rewarding when you see that happen when you because you don’t know what gem is going to come out of like the quietest people will not get cut completely out of the park and just kill you with something just amazing yeah i had a i had a player who never role played and for like i’d say about 10 sessions almost said it and did not like they did things but they didn’t role play and then one day just killed the room like we just didn’t see it coming like they finally came out of their shell and they were the expert of those single like almost corbin dallas quiet moments yeah one of my players kj shout out to kj same thing like it’s she maybe says ten words over the course of the evening but like every one of them is an ace it’s like gambit just like explosive yeah and you gotta make room for it to happen and that’s why why playing these games is so fun because like video games are fun and cathartic in their own way i reviewed video games for seven years um but when you’re working with other people and the whole point of this is to be creating a shared narrative uh what’s fantastic is the unexpected that you will see from your fellow players and how you will react in yes and to those moments that’s what makes it fun and that’s why you remember it so well for years i remember every campaign i’ve ever been in like it was yesterday it’s i mean it is alarming so well yeah both your fellow players and the dice will surprise and amaze and often betray we were in like a heated set of combat and uh this wonderful role player hope lavelle uh like it became her turn and she’s like i want to talk to the turtle like a like life and death situation and the most innocent person in the party did the most innocent thing and just kind of reminded us of like almost like the scariness of combat in a way where like kindness suddenly like got in like into the conversation as well in the middle of d d combat uh it was such a lovely moment i i had a similar experience and i had to check myself during it i was playing a one shot i won’t give too many details because you might be able to determine what the one shot was but we were fighting an enemy one of the other people in the party had already been laid out so this is you know pretty pretty in-depth combat and one of the other players is like i throw i throw i have a book of law i throw the book at him because that was that was the gag i throw the book at him and i literally was like we’re all about to die like what’s wrong with you you know but but i had to just be like wait you know let me just okay that’s all right but but i mean i don’t even in my own heart i had a moment there that i had to like put back in my heart box you know yeah it’s a good reminder it’s okay to be sub-optimal and have a sub-optimal moment and i i love these moments when i see them in in in d in any game when someone’s like i would be terrified to not do anything and yeah you part of you is like get up and fight but like that’s a great reaction in your character but as a player you’re like that’s their moment you know like if their moment is to not get engaged in combat that’s always fantastic that is true and shocking and also terrifying for your livelihood as a character but yeah then again this brings us to this concept of hard and soft limits uh that also is outlined that you might have heard this you know called fails as well um but this is like you have a soft limit and for a soft limit this is something that you talk to your players about this is the threshold that one should think twice about crossing this is something like it tends to make me kind of uncomfortable that should be a warning sign to you to maybe not go in that direction both as players interacting with that player or the dungeon master as well um this is stuff that will probably create genuine anxiety fear and discomfort you know we all have our triggers um and again this depends on what your current life situation is so check in often if you can um and you know that person’s background in history this is a very it’s a very good idea to like watch it but a sophlem also is like that gives you a sense of like okay i don’t want to i don’t want to get murdered by tentacles and octopus or deal with spiders or deal with relationship stuff this is all very common stuff talking about stuff like this is really really valuable in cases of things that can happen in the real world especially the phobias are one thing right arachnophobia is a class of you know where does the limit of your arachnophobia fall because giant spiders the the tolkien made giant spiders they’re everywhere like if you know that someone or even if you don’t know that someone uh has had like a friend who was murdered or something then it’s like dnd is a game where people die a lot usually by someone else killing them um where where does it fall are are they okay enough about this real-life issue where like you can have you can have murder as like maybe a uh an element of the setting because stuff like that happened in you know the real world in the past and fantasy worlds or is it so so deeply like psychologically problematic then to like find a game where or or find a style of campaign where you don’t have to have these sort of person killing events in the game and if you can’t reconcile with that as a player as a dm then that’s also a valid part of the conversation maybe you know maybe you don’t want to play d d maybe you should play a different sort of rpg like i don’t know the fiasco or something like that where you will still have an awesome time with your friends but you don’t have to confront a world where murder is constantly a possibility yeah yeah absolutely uh like that’s not weakness either right that’s that’s not a moral thing like anyone’s heart yeah hey look i did two seasons on a zombie horror survival show i hate zombies i hate zombies i did it quite frankly because it was the biggest break i’ve been offered at the time and i don’t regret it but the entire time i’m like like it just it’s not my jam it’s just not my thing and it’s okay if something is not your thing yeah yeah yeah completely i i think like especially dark settings like me and b dave we’re in a vampire game and i forgot how punishing vampire can be like the world of darkness is not called the world of darkness by accident some things choices were made and that game of choices were made yeah my way of my way because i was like oh this is this is kind of a bummer i’m like uh maybe i’ll and at first i was playing a very comical character but i found myself like doubling down on the awfulness and the darkness to cope with darkness to make like the rest of that universe easier for me to like absorb but that was a valid choice and contextually it all worked and it led to some really great storytelling and and even like you were saying with the phobias like i just um again i won’t get specific because you probably could figure out what i’m talking about but recently a monster i designed debuted on a stream and tripped up two of one of the players phobias because i’d combined like two different elements of you know fairly standard horror and it was like that’s a double nope that’s a that’s a that’s a double note you know when it comes to stuff like this there is a safety tool uh not mentioned in tasha’s but very useful and known kind of in the broad uh safety tool rpg sphere called the x card made by a guy uh named john stevropoulos that is basically you you want to have some kind of tool on hand a non-verbal tool maybe literally an index card with an x drum on it that you can casually put on the table you know without making a big deal about it just saying like this situation sucks for me the situation is the sort of situation where if it continues i will have to leave the table maybe temporarily yeah maybe permanently if we continue to go down this road so let’s bring it to an end yeah it is yellow the yellow and red x are what we tend to use and there’s two things about that with both the yellow and the red x you know they’re sacrosanct everything stops when they go out but also don’t deploy the yellow and red x over nothing either yeah yeah yeah you can use it for good reason but don’t feel bad about using it either yeah yeah don’t feel guilty for having an issue like that yeah guilt guilt is terrible like this is a game this is supposed to be fun and these are tools to make sure that that fun uh never stops yes exactly i do all things being equal obviously i’m sure all of us have had our emotional moments at a d and d table but all things being equal unless the dungeon master has expressly set out to tell a traumatic story it probably won’t be it’s more adventure it’s more high fantasy it is more you know we’re out doing heroing stuff but you know it’s i think a lot of times you’ll come across things like parents like there’s a there’s there’s a person we all know who uh i was on a stream with and we were discussing back stories and they were like my dad has got to be a good guy and i was like why and they were like because my real dad isn’t um yeah and i was like got it you know understood you know no other uh you know explanation required you know i i had i had a conversation with uh sam delev years ago when we did theogony of kairos which is my first stream and same as non-binary and they wanted their character to be non-binary and i was like okay but do the people in the world address this at all or is it just normal and they said to me it said i will never forget and have not forgotten since they were like no everyone accepts it because i expect my fantasy world to be better than this one and i was like transmission received you know but that’s those are the conversations you have during session zero you know because to me in my mind having somebody in the world be like wait what might be a normal reaction until i understood the rationale of like no no don’t at all no at all i was like oh oh got it yeah and if you’re a dm this is this can be a moment that you just kind of like say okay and you just kind of like put up a mental ward against it or then you can take that and start world building with it right like i uh i i’ve got a player who’s playing a a non-binary character in my game and they are non-binary in real life also and it’s just like i i have opted like you did b dave not to you know make a big world building detail about it the world just did not develop in such a way that there’s that kind of bigotry in the world and it’s and it’s not addressed anywhere but you you could really dig into the why is it this way why why did things turn out so well in this world when they did not turn out so well uh on the planet earth um i i would say things like that though i would put that type of story in the hands of someone that has lived that experience like with into the motherlands we expressly design into the motherlands to be a game that is a world that exists with zero colonialism so all of the effects of colonialism haven’t happened uh because we as the people that are telling the story have been on the other side of that so we can like hearken unto a world where there’s not the thing now this is a sticky thing that i just said so let me clarify here i am not saying that a a a cisgendered white male can’t tell a story a compelling lgbtq story or a male can’t tell a female story or female can’t tell a man’s story i’m not saying any of that i’m saying if you are trying to make a sweeping social statement maybe only make it when it’s been your experience [Laughter] it’s great to figure out where everyone’s comfort level with that lies because things you know on the internet when you’re talking to thousands of people at once they’re very different when you’re talking to a group of five of your best friends or five strangers you know if you’re playing at a convention uh which hopefully will happen again uh in 2022. street streaming streaming game and playing the game around your table at home are two totally different animals in many ways being in the same room is valuable yeah i just want to say one little thing and i’m sorry todd i know i’m rambling but i’ll just say if you’re not quite sure what your group is looking for and they may not know so they may not be able to articulate it to you i’m going to tell you a couple things you can count on everybody wants everybody wants an opportunity to contribute something where they’re important everybody wants to be at cause in the narrative where what they do or don’t do matters and everybody wants a chance where again they get to shine you know that’s that is the point of these games that we play where we take on these heroic or villainous roles but they are roles of consequence and substance and they’re people that matter and have an impact on their world so let your players have that yeah um if you’re ever lost build off of that that’s those are the best and best moments i’ve ever had dungeon mastering is when you especially when you you kind of like certainly you’ve moved the storyline in a certain certain direction and you’ve you know added the villains and all this stuff but when there is a session that is almost entirely the players talking to each other and i just sit back and watch the chaos i am probably at my happiest i feel like that is like an achievement of its own like where i almost did nothing and can i just share an anecdote for this this was todd’s storytellers this is beyond heroes this is back when i was still just a guest i think this was the second time freely been on maybe the third time because when the illiterate invasion was on and he had any antiquing ceranthus and there was an evil goddess trapped in the coin and i literally messaged todd if i release this evil goddess is it going to mess up the story and i just got like dot dot dot no it was like well okay because i’m like i’m new here you know like dave knew it’s an evil god it’s freely didn’t and she’s like hey let me out and i’ll save your friends and he’s like okay that’s what i’m here to do let’s go you know so i just remember that moment i even saw on his face when he was like i like chaos we restarted the game everyone was back in prison together we rebooted the show yeah yeah that that did happen but again it’s it’s times like that but also do notice in that moment i did check in with him real time i was like i’m about to detonate a nuke is that all right i am famously nuke friendly as a dungeon master because again it means i get to bob and weave and try to come up with a storyline and it’s often not a storyline i thought was going to happen and that makes that’s why i love players players are just the best um i know not everyone likes chaos but i do because i trust my players and this is the whole point um we did stray away from the hard limit and the hard limit should be very clear don’t ever go there yeah yeah don’t even hardly talk about it you don’t really even need to talk about it the hard limit is like don’t ever do this thing ever ever ever there’s no shades of grey on this it’s just please don’t ever bring this up that’s that’s where the because of my own personal background uh and and like i don’t like being treated like a street urchin not my favorite thing i take it very personally and i don’t have a way to censor that apparently like i don’t i don’t like being like someone treating me but differently because i’m poor but if you give me a chance to kill a king with poison i will take it every time um we call an eldritch blast poison now uh right sure these were pre-eldridge blast days so total aside total aside uh shout out to james hank that because we were talking about like squeaking out players and realizing how far you can go with something i did my mind flares in season two of dungeons and dragons of dark and wish and mind flayers were the adversaries and i read your articles james about how to play them like eldritch horrors instead of relatively squishy you know like tentacle-faced people it was delightfully awful thank you for that uh and you know we pushed it man we pushed it we like we pushed it because it was all psychological torment that’s all they were about yes yes so the final thing that we should kind of bring up are just general house rules like there are things that are going to be unique to that group right and don’t be afraid to customize that game to what the players want this is a big deal in the dungeon masters guy this is a big deal natasha’s don’t forget that like hey they’re gonna like the certain type of combat they’re gonna like certain types of technology to be in there maybe a character wants to carry a old-timey pistol i literally uh my characters like carried a pistol and never shot it because i just find it funny that one of them has a pistol um you know like they’re like if they want to do something a little bit unique give it thought as a gender master like does it really break your game for this to exist you know rules are meant to inform this to facilitate the story and not the other way around yep and we’ve kind of talked about house rules in terms of like having these kind of like hard limit soft limit but house rules may include something like don’t check yourself on the table while we’re playing you know don’t uh you know bake a fish during the game you know who knows like yeah and everyone has their own opinions on these so you might as well get everyone’s expectations straight right out of the gates yeah yeah and i i i don’t have a ton of house rules actually um that i can recall and that that can vary from group to group uh but yeah like cell phones at the table um unless you’re looking at dnd beyond.com uh it’s kind of a big one because when players are checked out like if they’re looking down they may be listening but they look checked out yeah hey we’ve got about 10 minutes left on the clock do we want to tackle some questions from our audience yeah we have a lot of questions um questions hello dive in real quick uh what should you include in a session zero zero for someone who has never played the game before and doesn’t know what to expect give them time to learn do not get frustrated with them like most of your players should already know that um be patient i don’t know that i would like that’s you know i think the best way to say is talk around the table be like hey i’m a new player i think everyone should clue into the fact that maybe give them some time they’re learning um you know the session zero doesn’t have to be a full session all the time but if if one or more people are new to the game it might be good to have it be kind of a full two hour three hour sessions length and maybe have them build their characters there with someone who knows what they’re doing you know yeah totally i mean uh i i would it takes a village to raise a player yeah and if in if and it really only takes one or two villagers to ruin one forever so be cool but uh yeah if somebody’s like completely new i would even i would work with them even more separately than that just run them through a very short scenario of like how they got there that day you know like they traveled there through the woods you know encountered an injured wolf in a trap and you know just let them roll some things and get an idea of that that’s how it works i mean even five ten fifteen minutes will make all the difference in the world doesn’t know how to run a one-on-one session there there are things in tasha’s also i’ve done one-on-one sessions with both of these beautiful people you can google one-on-one shots they’re all on youtube yeah yeah oh my god that was one of my my favorite it wasn’t really a one-on-one so much fun one-on-one show with my wife and i and that was uh so it’s true because we got to be our most awful selves uh and gonna zero is a good way to get your players away from being musical murder hobos why would you want to do that i would love to see musical murder hobos no uh yeah sure that’s it or get them to be musical murder hobos right if that’s what your campaign uh is geared towards or if that’s what everyone wants to play right if everyone wants to play that way who are you to say no we are playing my intrigue campaign uh yeah yeah remember this group effort this is a group effort well cause it’s not gonna go the way you think it’s gonna go like jason carl always says he’s like my only job is to represent the world of darkness and what it demands you know he’s like you guys do what you do it’s gonna do what it does and and you’ve got choices as a dungeon master when you get to that scenario right because you know your fun is worthy too uh it’s just like you’re you’re setting yourself up for failure if if you go that hard against the grain maybe maybe you decided this group of people maybe you should just have a board game night with them every week uh and find another group to play with like i mean that’s valid that’s valid if you want to do your hype if you feel as a dungeon master you’re not being taken seriously maybe you shouldn’t be the dungeon master of that group yeah yeah right yeah true that’s uh or start killing some players i mean characters characters uh we got another question if one player is forced to miss the session zero and joins later what is your recommended way to catch up yeah that’s kind of difficult um just kind of give them yeah an abbreviated recap i think that’s that’s very wise and but have that have a session zero with at least them to thoroughly explain what everyone had brought up yeah it depends on when when you mean by late right because they’re like an hour late and they missed a session zero then it’s like okay recap then yeah and ask if there’s anything crucial that they need to say but if it’s like three four five weeks late then just do another session zero just get them in from the ground floor mm-hmm yeah uh we’re a little short on time so we’re gonna try blazes what is this uh sorry i got a little thing in the way would a session zero be a time for a dungeon master to address concerns and issues he may be having with the gameplay like what if the dungeon master isn’t getting anything out of the game i again i i um you know i’ve actually not ever run into this personally uh that maybe you don’t want to be a dungeon master uh i i mean that sounds very harsh but maybe this isn’t the group that you want to dungeon master for and that’s something you should definitely consider as well man it’s really hard to discuss ending a campaign um i i i don’t have good advice for it not right now or or pass the ball yeah you know like i i i ran a very long campaign where we like i literally like okay i’m burnt out on storytelling right now or dungeon mastering uh how about you run a game for a few and we kind of had a cinematic universe and this is like when i was 18. and this was very fun and game gave me a chance to play and it almost inevitably always ended up like the moment i got tired of playing it was my turn dungeon master and so that helped prevent burnout of any kind so uh yeah you have something to say yeah it’s uh also um i completely agree with you that it’s like if they’re doing it completely in a way that is like irritating or frustrating that might not be the group for you um but there are times you can you can set certain expectations you know like um in some of the vampire games there’s been times i’ve had to tell some players very directly i’m like this isn’t that’s what she said game that’s not this game you know i’m like i’m like we may be those people and tell those kind of jokes but like not when we’re doing this you know so you can try and maintain a certain tone as long as that’s the tone that the players have shown up and want to engage with [Music] we do have a question on how you know how much of session zero should actually be about social rules rather than where are we going um we talked a lot about social roles because i feel like these are the most sensitive topics the theory is if someone’s like hey if pda is like hey do you wanna like play in some eldritch horror creepy stuff i’m like okay well i know that’s what we’re dealing with that’s a conversation you have with your players uh like do you wanna be a whole bunch of rogues and thieves um i play very chaotic evil characters i tend to i tend to like that the best when it’s just me doing it but maybe you all want to be evil that’s a nice change of pace but this is a conversation you would have at that session zero i feel like this resolves itself very quickly right with your group of friends like if you’re like do you like steampunk do you want to do eldritch horror do you just want pure high fantasy low fantasy post apocalypse these are very easy questions to answer you know we have so many examples in media of what that is and again you know they were we’re bouncing it out here like maybe the players don’t know then you can tell them hey check this out yeah i’m thinking you guys are going to be pirates up and down the sword coast you know and then and then adjust from there and quite frankly there’s been plenty of games that may be set out with them being pirates of the sword coast and in the second session the ship runs aground and they go to a town and then don’t leave it you know like i mean that’s okay you know yeah that’s okay session zero is a big tent and and don’t be afraid to adjust you know halfway through the game or like a few sessions in because you know you will find this especially like new players or seasoned veterans you will be like i don’t like this character like i don’t like who they’ve become because they are kind of a living breathing thing and they may not want to play that character just in the same way that they’re like okay we thought we really want to do the pirate thing but now we really just don’t that’s okay to change it up or to move into an entirely different setting it’s still very impossible it’s a big multiverse oh i’m frozen i can see in here todd no oh wait wait we lost to james yeah no i see oh i lost james but i can hear james yeah that’s how it happens that is how it begins well one minute left we gotta we gotta go we’re gonna sign this off yeah well so real quick what do you do if uh you know that you don’t know there are issues in your group uh well uh yo check in with your players often i have definitely been blindsided several times because i’m so focused on being a dungeon master and you are kind of the cpu of this game you’re overheating with all all the things you’re keeping track in your brain it can be very easy not to know that there is like something wrong in the game check in with your players and make sure that they feel safe checking with you and talking to you about stuff that’s how you solve that uh otherwise um you know divination yeah yeah where everybody’s there to have fun man you know just you can always come back to that it’s everybody’s there to have fun and as long as you’re operating from the place of trying to facilitate both your enjoyment and the mutual enjoyment of everybody else at the table you can sort it out yeah that was our big big giant conversation about session zero for dungeons and dragons you can find that in tasha’s cauldron of everything uh thank you so much b dave where can you be found and what you got going on uh back here in like three hours on silver and steel and on all sorts of other stuff just follow me on twitter at b dave walters it’s too much to list but it will say thursdays at five o’clock we’re in the third and final season of dungeons and dragons and dark and wish uh the first two and a half seasons are up on youtube already check that out and again i dropped the links to the one-on-one shots in chat actually lauren did thanks lauren because i was cruelly oppressed by moobot uh yeah that was a fun time with these beautiful people and uh some other people that you probably know james my back everyone oh sorry sorry i cut i cut in and out a couple of seconds there can you hear me all right yeah yeah we can hear you we got you perfect yeah james hey what you got going on other than being uh employed by me right now as a lead writer oh my gosh yes you can see my articles twice a week uh on dndbeyond.com i do things like class 101 which explains currently the new subclasses coming out of tasha’s cauldron of everything as well as a couple of just sort of general interest articles we’re going to see an article on session zero to follow up this one later on this week um and i think that will really distill a lot of the things we talked about today into a fine nugget of information you can digest in two thousand words or less um be ready for that these days fine nugget was one of my street names back in college that’s my gamertag [Music] yeah man always a pleasure always a pleasure thank you everyone for watching todd talks we are very excited about 2021 and everything that it holds for everybody uh thank you so much for watching and don’t forget to be kind to each other goodbye https://t.co/Q7f04bBOiK
— D&D Beyond (@DnDBeyond) January 6, 2021
What is Session Zero?
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