Session Zero, and Session Zero

Session Zero is a card-based solo character creation game. It is, in short, a quick and easy journaling game to build a creative backstory. You draw at least five playing cards from a shuffled deck, and based on the prompts you write out significant moments in your character’s history before the beginning of the game.

It’s called Session Zero, because that’s what a session zero is. As a gaming term, session zero is, natch, what comes before the first session. It is, in essence, the prologue to the game.

What is included in a session zero? There is no hard and fast rule. Some session zeros include establishing character backstories, providing excuses for characters to form a party of adventurers. Most involve detailing the safety tools and establishing player responsibilities. Some systems strongly encourage all the players being present during character creation, and session zero can be when that happens.

At its most extreme, session zero can encompass all preparation for the game. It’s a discussion about what goals and expectations you have for your fellow players, the GM, and the game itself. It is a time to establish boundaries, detailing what you are and are not comfortable with, either in terms of narrative beats, subject matter, or cross-talk. Are you making your characters together or separately? Do they know each other? Is this going to be a long campaign, or a one-shot? Does the Storyteller have a campaign planned out, or will we play to find out? Will there be an X card? Who brings snacks? Do we even know which system we’re playing yet?

Session zero is a time for players to learn what is expected of them, to establish their own expectations for each other, and talk honestly about what game of cards you are actually going to play.

Is that really going to cover a full session of play? I certainly think it could now, but even if it does, there’s still a major difference between learning and playing.

In Seeing Like A State, James C. Scott details the difference between Techne and Metis, two different kinds of knowledge: Techne is everything you might find in a rulebook, while Metis is everything that can’t be put in a manual but is still integral to the process, and learned through experiential practice.

For example: in terms of maintaining a comedic tone in RPGs, Techne would be knowing genre tropes and having a list of prepared jokes, while Metis would be knowing what the players at the table find funny, when to let them catch a breath, and the skill of “reading the room.”

If you read a game’s manual, you may learn the rules of the game, but not necessarily how to play. One person’s D&D game isn’t going to be like anyone else’s, and the rule-book can’t explain how my game will play differently from yours. Handing out rulebooks is a good way to teach a system, but a terrible way to teach how to play a game.

Talking things out in session zero can help, but having “an idea” of what a game plays like is not the same as “knowing” what a game plays like. If this monster is actually threat, how many mistakes can I make before I need to clue in? If I want to mouth off to an authority figure, how in-trouble will I be? I may know I’m expected to “offer suggestions,” but when? How? What does “fiction-first” play like?

So, how do you show the players how to play the game, before they play the game? You could consider having a Cold Open. A Cold Open in film is a practical application of in medias res. It is a means of jumping directly into a story before the opening titles are even shown. It is the lamp-shading of the show’s dramatic tension. It suggests a tease and then a hook for what is to come.

In RPGs, it can serve a far more practical application.

A Cold Open is a short one-shot with pre-made characters whose goals are clear and simple. Through this one-shot, the players will interact with each of the factors established in session zero. (If applicable, make sure you use pre-built characters, so the players have less of a personal connection to their character’s successes and failures. This is a time for experimenting — to specifically push the envelope of does and does not work.)

In game design, “conveyance” is a term used to describe the manners and methods a game uses to teach you how to play the game “properly.” What I mean by that is; “using the behaviors that the developers expected players would use to complete and enjoy the game.”

How does a GM convey how to play their game? There aren’t many methods beyond experimentation. A player tries something, and after the GM explains what happens the player has a better idea of what will or will not work in the future. This makes the Cold Open a tutorial not only of the mechanics, but how the players will interact with these mechanics. Both Techne and Metis.

If you want the players to recognize that individual actions in-game will have lasting impact later on, consider bringing events from the Cold Open into the game. “Oh, that? That’s there to remind us of the Great Siege, when three pre-built heroes sacrificed themselves to save the town from an orcish horde. You’re staying for the Heroes’ Festival tomorrow, right?”

If you want players to realize how tough or squishy characters are, you can kill them off without too much concern. Re-calibrating from Dungeons & Dragons to Call of Cthulhu has never been simpler! “Wow, I’m dead already? Well…my main character isn’t going to get into fights very often, I’ll tell you that!”

Are puzzles to be solved by the players and not the characters? Make sure a few simple Anagrams are there as key-locks. Are politics important to pay attention to? There better be a drawing-room scene somewhere in the session. If you want players to understand the importance of teamwork, you can structure — if not outright railroad — the cold open to detail exactly how you expect teamwork and collaboration to work.

Cold opens are a great way to actually play through the expectations set in session zero. It is, in fact, a beta version of the game. Rules can be lamp-shaded, foundations can be laid, and tone can be set. You can even let the other players “behind the screen” a bit, and explain what you’re doing and how you will handle their choices. Describe how their deal with the King or their decision to fire their hireling might have affected later sessions. Spell it out. Subtlety is great for books and movies that can be experienced fifty times over, it’s terrible for bespoke game- and meta-narratives that are only ever going to be experienced once.

Talk about it afterwards: what you noticed, what worked, and what didn’t. Call out anything you think might be a problem later on, and ask how to improve for next time. Talk to the people who set out Veils, and ask them if the game got too close to anything. Ask if every session from here on out was exactly the same, what would the players miss? Explain how the future game has changed because of the player’s actions. If you have to keep secrets, save that for the real game. Now is the time so show them how this game works.

Depending on the system, you could fit a cold open in at the end of session zero, or it could encapsulate the entire first session. At best, it prepares your players so there are no unpleasant surprises. At worst, it’ll whet their appetite for the main course.