There are a lot of reasons that we decided to feature Session Zeroes for our Infinity Tower cast.
For many games, session zero is to establish a game concept and get people comfortable. This is especially useful when you have a group of people that haven't played together before. For Infinity Tower, I have run a game featuring each of the players but they haven't played a game together as a party before. This gave me some insight into the way each player approaches the game, but the players needed to learn to appreciate each other. The session zero allowed us to approach these interactions but without too much awkwardness.
We were unable to schedule a single play session for our whole cast. Initially we had one additional player planned but they proved difficult to schedule. The result was that when we came to session zero (the first one), we had communicated several different times, confusing another player. So we had two session zeroes.
This presented an additional challenge. I had already decided that session zero would feature an encounter excerpted from session one (in media res for the Latin crowd). The reason for this was that I wanted gameplay with a unified party, so I told everyone that they had already met and were in accord. I didn't want to force that and ruin the opportunity for role-playing, and I also have a meta-story that needs to be told, so we saved that for session one.
The final driving factor for the zero was that we anticipated having less equipment than we wanted. Knowing that would be the case, I didn't want the session one to be wasted as a test, so we did a zero.
The best part of a Session Zero is getting people to play the game, understand the dynamics of the party and think about what they want to accomplish together. I like big story devices and small personal backgrounds. What I mean by this is that I like a guiding overall story that has a game benefit to the party and drives the campaign forward, but I also want players to have their personal stakes and interactions that drive their decisions. So we have PCs that deal with the Infinity Tower but have motivations that lead them to adventure. Session Zero lets us see those ideals in action and make sure that we like the characters that are being portrayed. It gives us an additional chance for tweaks or changes if needed.
I'm looking forward to Session One but glad that we did our Zero (twice).
- Generate content
- Start streaming right away
- Familiarize players with 5e (1 new player)
- Get players working together
For many games, session zero is to establish a game concept and get people comfortable. This is especially useful when you have a group of people that haven't played together before. For Infinity Tower, I have run a game featuring each of the players but they haven't played a game together as a party before. This gave me some insight into the way each player approaches the game, but the players needed to learn to appreciate each other. The session zero allowed us to approach these interactions but without too much awkwardness.
We were unable to schedule a single play session for our whole cast. Initially we had one additional player planned but they proved difficult to schedule. The result was that when we came to session zero (the first one), we had communicated several different times, confusing another player. So we had two session zeroes.
This presented an additional challenge. I had already decided that session zero would feature an encounter excerpted from session one (in media res for the Latin crowd). The reason for this was that I wanted gameplay with a unified party, so I told everyone that they had already met and were in accord. I didn't want to force that and ruin the opportunity for role-playing, and I also have a meta-story that needs to be told, so we saved that for session one.
The final driving factor for the zero was that we anticipated having less equipment than we wanted. Knowing that would be the case, I didn't want the session one to be wasted as a test, so we did a zero.
The best part of a Session Zero is getting people to play the game, understand the dynamics of the party and think about what they want to accomplish together. I like big story devices and small personal backgrounds. What I mean by this is that I like a guiding overall story that has a game benefit to the party and drives the campaign forward, but I also want players to have their personal stakes and interactions that drive their decisions. So we have PCs that deal with the Infinity Tower but have motivations that lead them to adventure. Session Zero lets us see those ideals in action and make sure that we like the characters that are being portrayed. It gives us an additional chance for tweaks or changes if needed.
I'm looking forward to Session One but glad that we did our Zero (twice).
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