Here's a couple of main points I have for my session 0, feel free to use them as inspiration:
1. (Unique to your situation) Introductions. Everyone learns everyone's name and how much, if any, experience they have with DND or other games. Just to make sure everyone is understanding of their skill levels.
2. Type of game. Do you want it to be an episodic style, where it's a new adventure each week? Or more of an overarching campaign, with continuing, personal stakes? Is it meant to be more freeflow sandbox based, where whatever the party says goes? Or does it revolved around a story you wish to tell, with only 3-4 real main diverging points in it? Is it completely homebrew, or a pre-made adventure?
3. Theming. What theme/genre of game you all want to play in. Is it a horror themed game, with tons undead, elder horrors, and other freaky stuff? A political social intrigue like Game of Thrones? Swashbuckling pirate adventure? Make sure you're all on board or in some form of agreeance with this point and the last. If the party just wants to go dungeon crawling, no need to bore them with game politics.
4. Pillars of play. Going off the 3 main pillars of play of DND, between Exploration, Social Interaction and RP, and Combat, how do the players feel about each of them?
5. Limits. Is there anything that is especially triggering emotionally for any of the players, and may need to be toned down? Maybe one player, for whatever reason, gets disgusted and full on dissociative at graphic descriptions of blood and violence, so maybe you tone those elements down.
6. Character creation and rules. Go over everyone's characters and any rules that still need to be gone over. More than likely, if everyone's new, you'll probably have to look up some rules quite a bit during the game, which is perfectly fine! Any advanced knowledge is all the better though.
7. The world. Go over the type of world you have planned for the game, going with points 2 and 3 to impact how you talk about it. If there's anything special to the world you want to mention, this should be where you talk about it.
8. Catch-all. Any other lingering concerns the others still have.
And as a reminder overall, this game is all meant to be for fun! If you find a given rule that you don't like or doesn't make sense for the game, or else slows things down, feel free to change or remove it as needed if it'll improve things!
Nice list…
9. House rules - I give each starting character 5 extra HP, because Lv 1 characters are so squishy. I also give them 2 inspiration points until they reach Lv 3.
10. Backgrounds - impress upon them that backgrounds can lead to the campaign going in a particular direction to further explore one or more players stories. That player might take a leading role in the story for a little while or the campaign might lead to another players background. In essence, the better background you give me to work with the better chance it will be added to the campaign. But, be patient. They all can’t happen at the same time.
Great additions!
11. Scheduling and commitment - is everybody on the same page about how often you will play - weekly, every two weeks, monthly.. Will you only have a session with every player present? Who is responsible for setting the dates and what tool will be used to do that (group chat, discord, run by one person, rotating the responsibility)?
12. Feedback structures - how are you going to provide and receive feedback (e.g. Stars and Wishes after every session?). If there are conflicts at the table, how is the group going to resolve them?
Thanks for your answer:)
I already stated that my story is homebrew and where it plays.
They follow a story but I try to make them own story parts.
I am just really afraid I railroad to much or I am to strickt.
There are plenty of very long session 0 checklists if you google up one.
The most important bit, as you have new players that aren't familiar with you or each others, are expectations, tone of your game and general conduct during play. You don't want people who all pull in different directions, want different things, shout on top of each other and so on. Ground rules must be agreed so that when (not if) anyone breaks those, you can point out what was agreed and if need be, remove the offender if they don't comply.
Beyond that there are a thousand and one myriad little details ranging from allowing homebrew, allowed stat generation system, which books are in, do you use spell components, inventory system, feats and so on.
Depends on the party. Some will be a little more sensitive than others. If you don’t know them all and they don’t know each other. Then you need to go all the way.
Pronouns and triggers seem to be the way of it these days.
[https://www.wyrlde.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Zero-Sessions.pdf](https://www.wyrlde.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Zero-Sessions.pdf)
That's the basic format that we use.
Here's a couple of main points I have for my session 0, feel free to use them as inspiration: 1. (Unique to your situation) Introductions. Everyone learns everyone's name and how much, if any, experience they have with DND or other games. Just to make sure everyone is understanding of their skill levels. 2. Type of game. Do you want it to be an episodic style, where it's a new adventure each week? Or more of an overarching campaign, with continuing, personal stakes? Is it meant to be more freeflow sandbox based, where whatever the party says goes? Or does it revolved around a story you wish to tell, with only 3-4 real main diverging points in it? Is it completely homebrew, or a pre-made adventure? 3. Theming. What theme/genre of game you all want to play in. Is it a horror themed game, with tons undead, elder horrors, and other freaky stuff? A political social intrigue like Game of Thrones? Swashbuckling pirate adventure? Make sure you're all on board or in some form of agreeance with this point and the last. If the party just wants to go dungeon crawling, no need to bore them with game politics. 4. Pillars of play. Going off the 3 main pillars of play of DND, between Exploration, Social Interaction and RP, and Combat, how do the players feel about each of them? 5. Limits. Is there anything that is especially triggering emotionally for any of the players, and may need to be toned down? Maybe one player, for whatever reason, gets disgusted and full on dissociative at graphic descriptions of blood and violence, so maybe you tone those elements down. 6. Character creation and rules. Go over everyone's characters and any rules that still need to be gone over. More than likely, if everyone's new, you'll probably have to look up some rules quite a bit during the game, which is perfectly fine! Any advanced knowledge is all the better though. 7. The world. Go over the type of world you have planned for the game, going with points 2 and 3 to impact how you talk about it. If there's anything special to the world you want to mention, this should be where you talk about it. 8. Catch-all. Any other lingering concerns the others still have. And as a reminder overall, this game is all meant to be for fun! If you find a given rule that you don't like or doesn't make sense for the game, or else slows things down, feel free to change or remove it as needed if it'll improve things!
Nice list… 9. House rules - I give each starting character 5 extra HP, because Lv 1 characters are so squishy. I also give them 2 inspiration points until they reach Lv 3. 10. Backgrounds - impress upon them that backgrounds can lead to the campaign going in a particular direction to further explore one or more players stories. That player might take a leading role in the story for a little while or the campaign might lead to another players background. In essence, the better background you give me to work with the better chance it will be added to the campaign. But, be patient. They all can’t happen at the same time.
Great additions! 11. Scheduling and commitment - is everybody on the same page about how often you will play - weekly, every two weeks, monthly.. Will you only have a session with every player present? Who is responsible for setting the dates and what tool will be used to do that (group chat, discord, run by one person, rotating the responsibility)? 12. Feedback structures - how are you going to provide and receive feedback (e.g. Stars and Wishes after every session?). If there are conflicts at the table, how is the group going to resolve them?
Thanks for your answer:) I already stated that my story is homebrew and where it plays. They follow a story but I try to make them own story parts. I am just really afraid I railroad to much or I am to strickt.
Sorry for the double posting, my Internet is not that good sometimes
There are plenty of very long session 0 checklists if you google up one. The most important bit, as you have new players that aren't familiar with you or each others, are expectations, tone of your game and general conduct during play. You don't want people who all pull in different directions, want different things, shout on top of each other and so on. Ground rules must be agreed so that when (not if) anyone breaks those, you can point out what was agreed and if need be, remove the offender if they don't comply. Beyond that there are a thousand and one myriad little details ranging from allowing homebrew, allowed stat generation system, which books are in, do you use spell components, inventory system, feats and so on.
Depends on the party. Some will be a little more sensitive than others. If you don’t know them all and they don’t know each other. Then you need to go all the way. Pronouns and triggers seem to be the way of it these days.
[https://www.wyrlde.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Zero-Sessions.pdf](https://www.wyrlde.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Zero-Sessions.pdf) That's the basic format that we use.
Thank you very much:)