Roleplaying Games & Session Zero
Dec. 13th, 2020 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerIn my previous journal entry I introduced how roleplaying games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons, have been a pastime of mine for many years. I wrote a lead-up to an idea I've been thinking about again just recently, the concept of a Session Zero. I wish I could claim ownership of the idea, or even the term, but alas neither originated with me. Though I did start figuring out the concept of Session Zero on my own, as it addresses a gaping problem in the play of roleplaying games, long before finding that others had already fleshed it out even more than I had. And had coined the catchy term.
The problem with starting at Session One is that the players don't always want or expect the same thing out of playing the game. They just get together and go. There's no agreement on how to play. Imagine that while in the game the story is "meet at the tavern, go to the dungeon, kill the dragon and take its treasure", at the table the story is more like The Breakfast Club. Five people who kind of know each other are in the same room for the same purpose but have completely mismatched expectations of what's going to happen.
Two players are motivated to kill the dragon is because it's evil and a threat to good people, one wants to kill it because killing things just seems kinda fun, one wants the dragon's storied hoard of treasure, and the last one wants treasure, too... and is willing to take it from the dragon or steal it from the other players when they're not looking, whichever seems easier. And because this isn't a John Hughes movie there's no happy ending 2 hours later. The players just grow frustrated with each other. Some drop out of the game, and entire friendships may suffer. (I've seen at least two close friendships shattered due to disagreement at the gaming table.)
One important area of alignment is the group's moral center. What kind of people are we, overall? What's our tolerance for people with different morality? We don't necessarily have to agree 100% but we do have to make sure we're compatible enough with each other and with the scenario the game master (GM) has prepared so we can collaborate in telling an enjoyable story. (At the end of the day that's what a roleplaying game is: collaborative storytelling.)
Another important area for alignment is What do we (players) enjoy? Different people want to get different things out of the game. Some like the sense of adventure, some enjoy the dice-rolling simulation of combat, some like the challenge of portraying an alternate person, some even like games as morality plays. There's no one right answer. But a game in which different people want incompatible things is the wrong answer, because some or even all of the players will be unsatisfied.
Other topics to work out during a good Session Zero include what skills and backgrounds the various characters have (often you want a group that "covers the bases" in terms of certain skill sets), what the style of play is (shoot first and ask questions later?), and the logistics of things like how frequently the group will meet to play, for how long, and what they'll do if 1 player can't make it that session.
In the early 90s I started to figure out for myself that players needed to agree on the style of a game before playing it. I began working with players ahead of the start of the game— i.e., in something like a Session Zero— to gain alignment. The thing was, in my gaming community I was virtually the only person with this idea, so it was slow going. For my players it was at best an unfamiliar concept they needed time to understand. At worst they were hostile to the idea, arguing I was a weak GM who sought to limit their creativity. By the early 00s, thankfully, the concept of a Session Zero had caught on in more places as the term had been coined. It may even have appeared in some rulebooks of the era; certainly by then it appeared in online discussion and blogs.
Update: Subsequent entries about Session Zero:
Session One & The Breakfast Club Problem
In the old days, a roleplaying game like D&D would start with rolling up characters. A group of players would get together, create characters, and as soon as they could roll them up and put stats to paper the roleplaying would begin. Typically, as a trope, that meant having the characters meet each other for the first time at a tavern and then head off to explore a dungeon wherein there might reside a dragon. Call that Session One.The problem with starting at Session One is that the players don't always want or expect the same thing out of playing the game. They just get together and go. There's no agreement on how to play. Imagine that while in the game the story is "meet at the tavern, go to the dungeon, kill the dragon and take its treasure", at the table the story is more like The Breakfast Club. Five people who kind of know each other are in the same room for the same purpose but have completely mismatched expectations of what's going to happen.
Two players are motivated to kill the dragon is because it's evil and a threat to good people, one wants to kill it because killing things just seems kinda fun, one wants the dragon's storied hoard of treasure, and the last one wants treasure, too... and is willing to take it from the dragon or steal it from the other players when they're not looking, whichever seems easier. And because this isn't a John Hughes movie there's no happy ending 2 hours later. The players just grow frustrated with each other. Some drop out of the game, and entire friendships may suffer. (I've seen at least two close friendships shattered due to disagreement at the gaming table.)
Session Zero: Get Aligned!
The idea of Session Zero, then, is pretty simple. It's an opportunity for the players to align on what they expect to happen in the game.One important area of alignment is the group's moral center. What kind of people are we, overall? What's our tolerance for people with different morality? We don't necessarily have to agree 100% but we do have to make sure we're compatible enough with each other and with the scenario the game master (GM) has prepared so we can collaborate in telling an enjoyable story. (At the end of the day that's what a roleplaying game is: collaborative storytelling.)
Another important area for alignment is What do we (players) enjoy? Different people want to get different things out of the game. Some like the sense of adventure, some enjoy the dice-rolling simulation of combat, some like the challenge of portraying an alternate person, some even like games as morality plays. There's no one right answer. But a game in which different people want incompatible things is the wrong answer, because some or even all of the players will be unsatisfied.
Other topics to work out during a good Session Zero include what skills and backgrounds the various characters have (often you want a group that "covers the bases" in terms of certain skill sets), what the style of play is (shoot first and ask questions later?), and the logistics of things like how frequently the group will meet to play, for how long, and what they'll do if 1 player can't make it that session.
Why Was This a New Idea?
The idea of Session Zero didn't exist back in the old days— basically the 1980s and early 90s. Back then it assumed that there was only one motivation for gamers and that all right-thinking players automatically shared it. Does that look preposterous when written out like that? Heck yeah! But that was the essence of what was written about how to bring players together in the context of a game. Only a little of that was written in the rulebooks themselves; the creators of the games thought it was so obvious that it went without mention! Those same creators wrote more at length in early gaming magazines. Alas length did not equal wisdom. The issue remained an ongoing source of woe for gamers everywhere.In the early 90s I started to figure out for myself that players needed to agree on the style of a game before playing it. I began working with players ahead of the start of the game— i.e., in something like a Session Zero— to gain alignment. The thing was, in my gaming community I was virtually the only person with this idea, so it was slow going. For my players it was at best an unfamiliar concept they needed time to understand. At worst they were hostile to the idea, arguing I was a weak GM who sought to limit their creativity. By the early 00s, thankfully, the concept of a Session Zero had caught on in more places as the term had been coined. It may even have appeared in some rulebooks of the era; certainly by then it appeared in online discussion and blogs.
Update: Subsequent entries about Session Zero:
- The Risk of Skipping Session Zero: Batman & the Joker
- Session Zero Successes & Failures: 5 (more) Examples
- Session Zero & Narrative vs. Meta Gaming
no subject
Date: 2020-12-14 08:34 am (UTC)Another is to iron out areas of the game that aren't consistently handled in the text so the players know what to expect. In D&D, this is the alignment talk; in Mage: The Ascension, it's RBD/PBD and HAP/HOP/HYP; etc. The goal being to establish the GM's interpretation at the beginning and prevent arguments down the line.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-14 02:29 pm (UTC)BTW, it frustrates me, too, when players won't take anything seriously. That play style mismatch caused one of my game groups to fall apart years ago. I'll see if there's room to write about that as one of my examples in the next blog.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-15 06:05 am (UTC)Oh, Jesus God yes.
Tone and genre aren't the same thing, but they go hand in hand. I'm not at all averse to humor in a game, but I have a definite preference for games where something is at stake and the characters are tackling one or more serious problems. Random Zany Goofball characters just kill that vibe-- it's just one of many critical things to know if there's a player who wants that at the table, so we can quickly establish what the game is going to be like.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-15 05:59 am (UTC)That depends on what you mean by "didn't exist." If you mean it wasn't a coined, common term, then I agree. But if you mean it was just a wholly new idea everywhere, then I don't. I was introduced to the idea (in a similarly early form) by my college roommate at the time: "Hey, I want to run a game like X, let's coordinate what kind of characters you want to play, so I can hook them in better." At the time, it managed to feel both revelatory, and yet somehow obvious in that "How did I not think of this?!" sense. I couldn't honestly say if he picked it up from his older brothers or if he, like you, independently discovered it.
I think a lot of people were constantly discovering and rediscovering that idea (which takes nothing away from your experience of it!) and if I had to hazard a guess, it was the late 80s/early 90s Usenet groups like rec.games.frp that let it crystallize into a shared idea. If not Usenet, then probably the bulletin board forerunner systems.
But that is a minor nitpick-- it was not in my experience a widespread idea, and it was still absurdly common to hear things like, "Hey, my new campaign is ready | I just bought this new Forgotten Realms thingie | Hey this new Amber system seems cool!" with a response like, "Cool, can I bring in my 25th/19th30th Fighter/Assassin/Jedi?" (No, you douchebag, what could possibly make you think that would fit... anywhere?)
And the other side of the coin is that a lot of game designers were not talking about things like Session Zero or different styles of play because a lot of them were still the first generation game designers like Gygax, et al, who thought (first) that there really was only one style of play, which is the one they liked, and (second) on the rare occasion that they were challenged, they believed they could just define your play style out of gaming... and they might very well have the bully pulpit to be effective.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-15 06:49 am (UTC)What I saw evolve into a consensus (online) later was initially called various things. Some of the most frequent names I recall were Player Contract and Game Contract. By the early 00s I was using these terms in my own writing and with my players.
After a bit more checking on terminology I've found that the term Session Zero seems not to have been used prior to a few years ago. That's fine. We can name it what we want; it's the content that matters. Though many blogs from the past 3 years focus on Session Zero as being primarily about agreeing on rules, mentioning play styles, goals, and tone as a seeming afterthought if at all. So, really, a proper Session Zero is still not necessarily a widespread thing.