The Benefits of a Session 0

You face your aggressors stoically. They scoff at you and you feel the presence of one as he edges around to flank you from behind.

“Leave me alone. I’ve never done anything to you guys,” you say.

The older boy looks at you and then looks at his thug-like friends. “You’re a freak, an orcish freak. You always will be.” He then nods to his friends.

You feel a rock hit you in your shoulder. It stings and you turn to look at the thrower. At the same time you feel a stick hit the back of your leg. You feel your knee buckle. You start to feel tears flow to your eyes. 

You throw one punch and land it on someone’s face. You immediately feel one then two then three fits hit you in differently places, You instinctually fall to the ground and ball yourself up. Despite your efforts, you still feel flashes of pain in your head, your gut, your spine. 

As the beating goes on, you realize they aren’t going to stop. You weakly whimper out a pathetic, “please..”

Your eyes fade to black. 

You hear, “I can save you.”

You don’t even question it. You respond, “please save me.”

When you open your eyes, there are four bodies on the ground. Four young boys lie at your feet. Your hands are smoking and for once, you feel no fear.

What would you like to do?

Welcome back to the 27th episode of How to Be a Better DM. I’m your host Justin Lewis and today you and I are going on a journey. That’s right. We are going to explore what it takes to create amazing experiences for yourself and your players as you DM a session of Dungeons and Dragons 5e.  It’s going to be a back and forth and hopefully we each learn something.

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Now why would you plan a session 0? What a great question.

First, you should probably know what a session 0 is if you’ve never heard about it. I won’t go into too much detail here but a session 0 is a first session of a campaign where things aren’t completely set in stone. You get to play the characters before having to commit to them.

So why would you plan a session 0?

Well there are a few benefits.

1. You can spend more time with each individual player

One of the nice things about session 0’s is that you can split them up. For example, if you are having a campaign of 5 players, you can have a session 0 with 2 of them, 3 of them or even one of them. I don’t really recommend doing it with just one, but you could. You can have a session 0 with just 2 of your players which makes it more intimate and helps your player feel like you care about them and their character because you do.

1. You can have your players play test their character

We’ve all had players who’ve played a character that they weren’t really into that much. Playtesting during a session 0 allows your players to see what the features, spells, actions and abilities actually do in a live session. This changes it from, “That sounds really cool,” to “that was really useful and really cool.” I truly hate it later in the campaign when I start to wonder if a player is having fun. A session 0 can help them find the character they love and will have lots of fun playing.

1. You can have your characters meet each other

One of the biggest thorns in my side is figuring out a way to get the characters to meet each other without completely distrusting each other and somehow finally forming into an adventuring band. I don’t know why but it’s really hard for me. With a session 0 you can actually play the moment when 2 characters meet and become friends. This makes it easier when in session 1 you have all the characters meet and a few of them already know each other. Critical Role does this really well in their 2nd Campaign on Youtube. 

1. You can help set expectations before getting too far

As a DM you might have to train your players. This means you’ll probably have to help them understand that your campaign will likely take months and that it will be a commitment and that you expect them to give time and energy just as you will (though as the DM you will give way more). Obviously things change and people have to constantly be shifting their priorities which is ok. What isn’t ok is someone starting to be a flake on session 2. That’s not ok. You need to let them know that and any other expectations you have (such as no phones at the table or other rules you like to have).

1. You can ask your players what sort of things they want from the campaign

It’s one thing to ask, “Do you want more combat, role-play or a mix of both?” and it’s another thing to have your players do a big role-play scene and then find out they don’t really like that. You can ask them real-time what sort of things they like and what they didn’t. This lets you tweak your campaign to fit what your players want.

1. You can teach each player how to play their character

Each character will generally have a lot of bells and whistles. It will take some time learning how to play your character. Most players generally like to try new classes so if they had a barbarian last campaign they might try a spellcaster this campaign. That means they’ll have to learn a whole new set of rules. A session 0 is a nice way to gently introduce them to those new rules and help them learn how to play their character correctly. I’ve mentioned before the sorcerer who wanted to walk first into the dungeon. A session 0 is a great way to teach them sorcerer squishy get dead quick. That way, they don’t die in session 1.

1. You can play out backstory

Maybe one of the coolest benefits of a session 0 is that you can actually play through part of the character’s back story. That way when your character tells the rest of the group that they met their warlock patron at a cookout for a local bardic group, the player actually knows the details. Using the session 0 to help the characters flesh out their backstory works the best when it features the reason the characters started adventuring. That way their motives are fresh in the players’ minds.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Like always, I’m super appreciative of your patronage. I’m very grateful that you listen week in and week out.

If you get a second, please leave a rating and review so that others can find this show.

We’ll be back next week for another episode. Until then, let’s roll initiative.

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