We've all been there. Three months into what was supposed to be an epic campaign, and everything falls apart. One player wanted political intrigue, another showed up for combat, and nobody told you they hate spiders until the giant spider dungeon. The campaign limps along for a few more sessions before quietly dying.
That's what happens when you skip Session Zero.
A Session Zero is a pre-campaign meeting where everyone, GM included, gets on the same page about what kind of game you're running. Expectations get aligned. Characters get built together. Boundaries get established. It takes maybe two hours upfront, but it's saved more campaigns than any amount of prep work.
Here's everything you need to cover, with a checklist you can actually use.
Give Them a Real Pitch (Not Just "We're Playing D&D")
"We're playing D&D" tells your players nothing. They need to know what kind of D&D.
Spend five minutes thinking about your campaign pitch before Session Zero. What's the tone? What's the hook? Movie or book comparisons work great here: "Think Guardians of the Galaxy meets The Witcher" gives players an instant feel for the vibe.
Cover these four things:
- Tone and genre: High-fantasy epic? Gritty noir? Swashbuckling adventure? Horror survival? Players make very different characters depending on the answer.
- The central conflict: "A kingdom on the brink of civil war" or "An ancient evil is awakening" gives players something to build toward.
- What role the characters play: Are they heroes? Mercenaries? Rebels? Just people trying to survive?
- How long this will run: A few sessions? A few months? A year-long campaign? Be honest about your commitment level.
Ask What They Actually Want (Then Write It Down)
Here's where most GMs mess up: they pitch their vision, everyone nods, and nobody asks what the players want.
Turn the tables. Go around and ask each player for two or three things they'd love to see or do in this campaign. "I want to pull off a heist." "I want to explore ancient ruins." "I want my character's backstory to actually matter." Write these down. They're pure gold for future session planning.
Also talk about the three pillars: Combat, Exploration, and Roleplay. Does your group want tactical battles? Deep mysteries? Character-driven drama? If half the table wants dungeon crawls and the other half wants courtly intrigue, better to know now than six sessions in.
Build Characters Together (Not in Isolation)
The lone wolf rogue who "works alone" is fun in theory. In practice, it's a nightmare for party cohesion. Session Zero fixes this by having everyone build characters in the same room.
When players create characters together, they can build connections before the game starts. Are two characters siblings? Old war buddies? Does one owe the other a debt? These pre-existing relationships give the party reasons to stick together beyond "we all happened to be in the same tavern."
Go around the table and ask each player to define at least one relationship with another party member. Meanwhile, keep an ear on backstories. If someone's writing a tragic orphan backstory, that's your chance to connect their dead parents to your main villain. Weave player stories into the campaign from day one.
Set Up Safety Tools (Yes, Really)
Safety tools make sure everyone actually has fun, including you.
Lines and Veils is the proactive approach:
- Lines are hard limits. Content that will not appear in the game, period. Common ones: sexual violence, harm to children, detailed torture.
- Veils are things that can exist in the world but happen "off-screen." Torture might be part of your villain's MO, but you fade to black instead of describing it.
The X-Card is reactive. Put a card with an "X" in the middle of the table. Anyone can tap it at any time, no explanation needed, and the scene gets changed or skipped. It sounds awkward until someone actually needs it, and then everyone's grateful it exists.
Also mention the open door policy: anyone can step away from the table for a moment, and anyone can talk to you privately about concerns. Making this explicit removes the awkwardness of needing to ask.
Handle the Boring Stuff Now (You'll Thank Yourself Later)
Nobody wants to talk logistics. But you know what's worse? Having the same scheduling argument every week for the next six months.
Scheduling: When do you play? How often? How long are sessions? What happens when someone cancels? Establish a quorum (three out of four players, or whatever works) so one absence doesn't kill the whole session.
House rules: If you're using variants or homebrew, spell them out now. How do crits work? What about fumbles? Flanking? Better to hash this out before someone's character dies to a rule they didn't know existed.
Table etiquette: Phones at the table? Crosstalk during other players' moments? Alcohol? These feel awkward to bring up mid-campaign. Session Zero makes them easy.
Snacks: Someone has to ask. Might as well be official.
End with a Taste of the Adventure
If you've got time left, run a quick opening scene. Nothing elaborate: maybe the party meets at a tavern, or you drop them straight into a small combat encounter.
This does three things: players get to try out their new characters, the party starts bonding, and everyone leaves Session Zero excited for Session One instead of just feeling like they sat through a planning meeting.
The Real Reason This Matters
Most campaigns don't die from bad GMing. They die from mismatched expectations that nobody talked about. The player who wanted combat showing up to a political intrigue game. The safety issue nobody mentioned until it derailed a session. The scheduling conflict that could've been solved in week one.
Two hours of Session Zero prevents months of frustration. It turns a random collection of players into a team that actually wants to tell the same story.
Your campaign deserves that foundation.
All those player wishes, backstory connections, and house rules? ScriptoriumGM gives you a place to store everything from Session Zero, then surfaces it when you're prepping sessions at 11 PM the night before.
Sources
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Banks, J.B. (2020). The X-Card and Other Safety Tools. TTRPG Safety Toolkit. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/288535/
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Gilsdorf, E. (2023). "Why Session Zero Matters More Than Ever." Geek & Sundry. https://geekandsundry.com/
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Mearls, M. & Crawford, J. (2014). Dungeon Master's Guide, Chapter 1: A World of Your Own. Wizards of the Coast.
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r/DMAcademy Community. (2024). "Session Zero Best Practices Megathread." Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/
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TTRPG Safety Toolkit. (2022). Lines and Veils. https://www.google.com/search?q=lines+and+veils+ttrpg