It's true though, threads whining about things are objectively less useful to the quality of the board and discussion of traditional games than people producing content.
Unlike you, /misc/shitter tourist, I remember when /tg/ got shit done and the people who actually create and run shit weren't just stuffed into a forgotten thread once per month.
>session for chargen
Do it one on one with the people who need help, don't waste the time of people who don't. Let people write their backstories on their own instead of on the spot in front of a group.
Makes sense to talk about what you're going to do beforehand if you're actors in an improv group like Critical Role, but for a game it's time you could be playing a game instead of talking about playing a game.
Ever heard the phrase "this meeting could have been an e-mail" ?
I have never felt like an evening of brainstorming and drinking beer with friends is a waste of time, nor have I ever heard anyone in my group complain about it being a waste of time.
That is part of the game. If you can't relax and have fun with the rest, sure, send your character by mail later, but you're having to fit what the group already agree on without any imput on your part (nothing wrong, some people prefer this).
And if the system is new, you better not interrupt session 1 asking question that were answer on session 0.
Well, I and everyone else in ny group likes to take the time to talk things through before starting the game, and just shoot the shit about the game if discussing things of substance doesn't take the whole evening. If the idea of that gets someone to walk out of the campaign, that sounds like the session 0 doing a good job of getting rid of someone who'd be a bad fit for the group.
My dude, what we're saying is that for us tabletop gaming is a bar sport. We might play and we'll definitely sit around having fun with our friends and some drinks. You're rocking up here pretending you're in the professional leagues and you just aren't.
It's not about professionalism, it's about intentional use of time, when I go to a tennis court I go there to play tennis. Why should LGS work any different?
If you're just out to drink and need an excuse, that's your choice, but calling it a session is misleading.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Do people really play in LGS? Why?
7 months ago
Anonymous
Lack of space at home, usually.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>lack of venue at home >lack of friends >lack of good friends you can trust in your home
7 months ago
Anonymous
Used to before the coof. Now it's either in pub or board game cafe.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>or online via discord
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Why should LGS work any different?
You do it outside the LGS, you talks things before and then you go make the character once eveyone is on the same page.
> RRRRRRRRRR SOCIAL INTERACTION MAKES ME SO MAD!!! JUST GET TO MY POWER FANTASY!!!!!! IF I GET THIS MAD MY butthole STARTS BLEEDING!!!! MY DOCTOR SAID NOT TOO BUT GRRRRRR!!!!!
>session for chargen
Do it one on one with the people who need help, don't waste the time of people who don't. Let people write their backstories on their own instead of on the spot in front of a group.
Makes sense to talk about what you're going to do beforehand if you're actors in an improv group like Critical Role, but for a game it's time you could be playing a game instead of talking about playing a game.
>I don't play with friends in the real world
This is what online D&D does to you. Play better games, kids.
I don't even get this, there's absolutely no reason not to have a 'session 0' if you're playing online
I can kinda understand feeling like you've wasted a session if you're playing in real life where everyone has to get together in one spot for several hours and all you do is talk about backstories and do chargen.
But if you're playing online then 'session 0' can just be everyone getting in a call for an hour or two to talk over the basic details of the setting, introduce the characters and work out how the party fits together, it's extremely convenient and makes the first session flow a lot smoother when the DM doesn't have to just slap the party together in a tavern or some shit.
It only really needs to be a thing if you're integrating character back stories into the campaign or running something obscure or homebrew. I'm running a game tomorrow and all the players needed to know is what the setting is and which books were using the adventure is just busting into a tower and murdering a wizard.
There's another campaign I'd like to run, where the players have holdings and command troops and that game would be a shitshow if I tried it without a session zero. Not least because I'm the only one who's read rules on holdings and troops.
That said, the last game I played in had a session zero but not only disregarded all the characters' backstory in the actual game (which was being run from a module), but the GM was using houserules that were never mentioned during the dedicated prep session that exists specifically for clearing up things like house rules. Some people are just bad at the game.
>doesn't play in person or value time with friends
Session zero is a vital thing, and everyone should do it.
If one of your players has PTSD, you need to know what triggers that before you set them off and get a pencil jammed into your ear canal. Session zero allows you to make sure everyone is on the same page, discuss general information about the setting and game you don't want to waste time with on session one, and create characters together as a group bonding experience.
People who b***h about session zero don't play games in the real world, they think a circlejerk with clones of themselves in some VTT somewhere counts as TTRPG. That's like jerking off with a shower curtain and telling everyone you got laid.
>assumes the group don't know each other or interact outside of the game
If you just wanna booze and hang out that's your choice. But when I sign up for a game I expect a game.
>isn't social at a social event
Are these the "no games" I've been hearing about?
>Are these the "no games" I've been hearing about?
More likely than you may think. Last few years saw the creation of the Faux-OSR fanboy who has extremely strong and aggressive opinions about RPGs, but seemingly never has a group or any stories to backup his objectively correct opinions about how RPGs are meant to be played.
>That said, the last game I played in had a session zero but not only disregarded all the characters' backstory in the actual game (which was being run from a module), but the GM was using houserules that were never mentioned during the dedicated prep session that exists specifically for clearing up things like house rules. Some people are just bad at the game.
Are you me?
Had the same thing going on where the GM just introduced new naval combat rules in a have about pirates, with the explanation being pretty much just "trust me bro".
There are more examples
Based >DM sends email with pdfs of info on campaign and char gen >Send email back with character sheet and backstory >Once everyone is ready then we play our first session
Session 0 just seems like a waste of time
Some games are clearly designed with the assumption that the PCs will be created as a group, rather than everyone doing it separately. “Session 0” is just when you do that and then you hang out and have fun because the GM couldn’t possibly have prepared a campaign opening for every possible group concept.
The problem is that Forgites tried to make it standard practice for all RPGs, because they’re a blight on RPG culture.
The most obvious example is FATE.
Rogue Trader also really benefited from at least a little coordination between players, since the game only works well if you have Exactly One Rogue Trader.
Yes but we're talking about RPGs here, not CRPGs or board games. Any game that requires a hard "role" division between players to function need not apply.
You can do this for in person campaign too, that way you and your friends can spend your time together playing the game or doing anything more interesting than filling out a character sheet. You should try it!
No buddy, they reeeeally want to adequate their 2 page backstory to the railroaded plot the DM is going to come up with
That is why they gotta wasted 4 fricking hours
God I dont play DCC but If there is ONE thing I love about It the the backstory section of chargen.
Literally roll d100: ALL right you are a human who used to be a baker, you get a knife and a bread. Now go play the game
7 months ago
Anonymous
Haven't played OSR but ran a death-funnel intro to a 5e campaign once. All the male players lost their shit at having to play someone that wasn't a super special snowflake and retired their rand-gen'd characters early. Only the chick stuck with the dragonborn mime.
7 months ago
Anonymous
And its such a fun thing to do anyways, having a no one become a baron and conquer a myriad of dungeons is where the fun is at.
If you are such a special creature why would you be adventuring and risking your life, right?
>meet once every 2 weeks >its pain in the ass to coordinate it with 5 adults >one of these times should be wasted on something that we could have done beforehand
Every time I hear people how session 0 should be a thing am I convinced they never played Tabletop, especially not offline.
Like, Black person we all have jobs and families, it might be different for you but I dont wanna dick around making characters and discussing god knows what when we have like 4 hours twice a month.
Every time we have one of these stupid threads, people explain that session 0 can be a 15 minute talk where the GM and players go over the basics, discuss tone, ideas, intentions, etc. I'm sorry that your life is so miserably busy that the mere thought of wasting time makes you recoil in terror, but it's really not whatever the frick you think it is, and I sincerely doubt you're actually playing anything so complex that character creation will take all night and significantly impact your ability to play for a few hours.
I have never once exchanged emails with my close friends. I use my email for professional work related shit and coomer subscriptions exclusively. Who the frick uses email as a form of actual communication? Do you hand write letters too?
>session zero
Usually means your dm doesn't have faith in the players. Any time I dm'd I either have to generate half the parties characters or have some kinda week prior hype them up for roleplaying at all because they see all the numbers and shit and are usually demoralized about trying anything they're unfamiliar with. Sometimes it's full on d&d but like tutorial mode. One session some of my players still like to bring up was just a basic ship wreck and waking up on the beach, fighting a bore, then introducing each other and actually picking classes. I made them all roll their stats and do their skills but didn't let them choose their classes or feats. They were just dumb nobodies and I used this as a quick guide to explain those mechanics and how they're used in and out of combat. Then as they all shot the shit I walked each of them through their classes and adding the related shit to their character sheets. Just hand waved away all their class features as being exhausted and almost dead from a ship wreck. Then once they killed a boar and did some checks to make camp and rest all their abilities (came back).
TLDR session zero is good for explaining rules(especially and gay homebrew or houserules) and making characters for a relatively new party while gauging what your players want from a campaign whether it's a classic dungeon crawl or some gay thespian critical role recreation.
>Usually means your dm doesn't have faith in the players.
I don't usually trust people to read my every thought and have my intentions and desires communicated at a single glance, but you do what works for you.
>Usually means your dm doesn't have faith in the players
I mean, is that such a bad thing?
I play online with a group I've been playing with for years, I recently took over DMing and while I did write a setting primer and details on the campaign, I don't expect the players to remember all the shit I write (Nor am I probably as concise as I should be) and I know for a fact that the important details will stick better if they hear them coming out of my mouth while getting to ask questions.
Does this mean I don't have faith in my players? I guess in a way it does, but honestly I feel like it just makes more sense to work with my players in a way that works with how they are than to cross my arms and go "Well if they don't remember the stuff I wrote then they don't DESERVE to understand the setting!"
>yeah I didn't read that pdf >what? It was like 3 pages >anyway here's my gunslinging 3 headed warforged that's actually piloted by 3 gnome catgirls from the future
Hey buddy, this shit of a build and race makes no sense hahaha! How about you change It to one of these options? Yeah, sure, you can reuse your attributes, just remember to change up any racial bonuses.
There are two kinds of ttrpg player. The one for whom the other players are an integral part of the game, and one for whom the other players are an inconvenience.
The two type of RPG players are exploration oriented players and story oriented players.
There is a third, the combat oriented players, but these are better off playing video games
Some people need specifically segregated time for routine things. They won't think about a character until the first session - you need to be prepared for that, and making the first session a chargen session immediately mitigates the chance of SNAFU. It also makes any severely antisocial players b***h out, saving you from another future headache.
A session for chargen and daydreaming about how awesome things might be where that's all you do sucks fricking dick.
It's a necessary evil for a number of modern systems, but make no mistake - it's an evil, and it should be structured such that you have a 1-hour mini adventure ready to go to end the session with actually playing the game.
Nothing, OP is just a nogames homosexual, probably because he brought a character that didn't fit a campaign, got told no, and then sperged out and got booted for being an autistic subhuman.
No? The primary intention of the session is chargen/backstory/establishing house rules and group dynamic. That takes a few hours at most. After then the GM isn't all SESSION OVER EVERYONE GO HOME. At least, not usually.
More like >Half a session to agree on what everyone will be playing, maybe asking amy doubts they have about the setting >Other half pleying an epilogue of how the characters meet or know each other
That's how It usually goes. You'll probable also get to make a combat or plot hook depending on time (mostly if it's a new system to test the waters)
Depends on the system, also it's more than just that, it's bouncing around character concepts, running them by the GM, asking the GM questions about the setting so their character isn't some isekai homosexual who got shat out randomly or spawned from the void and actually fits the setting, then it's getting the sheets and shit filled out.
> it's bouncing around character concepts, running them by the GM
One of the best campaigns I had was me and a bro rewriting our characters session zero due to the addition of the dm bringing the complete warrior and complete rogue 3.5 fluff. We made a wrestling themed duo. A reaping Mauler who specialized in grapples. His signature move was a double titty twister purple nurple. a hand for each nip. Mine was a drunken master who specialized in improvised weapons and just carried a ladder around. He used it like jackie chan or would just spin around the room with it knocking everything over.
Nothing , it's based and a nice chance to get to know your fellow players if you don't already. We would look forward to them, because it was the start of a new game and we'd bounce character ideas off each other and balance the party out thru discussion.
no? that's prepping for the game, like learning the rules or setting up the board. this is not dark souls where you can get to the character creation and claim to have played the game because it counts on your "played" time. if you don't get to the roleplaying part of a roleplaying game then you're not playing the game
My group has plenty of trouble aligning everyone's schedules together to play at all, so I wouldn't want to waste a session on character creation which can easily be done through a few one-on-one calls.
>Doing characters separately >Doing them without sitting face-to-face
Ok, serious question:
Is playing TTRPGs just an excuse for your group to hang together, or it's just a force of habit of something you've enjoyed when still in school/uni?
Genuinely asking, because it sounds to me like you don't really feel like playing at fricking all >b-but schedules
Black person, my group has an ER nurse and a land surveyor who's constantly Ganker due to his line of work. Do you have ANY idea how challenging scheduling can be? And yet we play. And we do meet together to make characters, too.
If playing RPGs was just an excuse to hang out then session 0 wouldn't be a problem, that's just another excuse to hang out. I see some of of the individual members regularly anyway, so it's not like I need an excuse anyway.
I just don't see the need for creating characters in a group, or face to face. We can come up with concepts perfectly fine on our own, then discuss how that'd fit the world with the GM in person and change it accordingly. Makes it easy to keep secrets about our character too. We can fill in our character sheets by ourselves.
If the DM notices similarities or possible connections between characters he'll tell us and we'll discuss them together. If we want to talk to other players about our characters ahead of the session we will, and if we have ideas to make connected characters we'll talk about it with each other. Calls are much easier to organise than live play.
I'm sure there's plenty of benefits to making them in real life, but we play TTRPGS because we enjoy playing the TTRPGs. Delaying the session we can actually play by another month or two isn't worth it to us. Don't know why that seems to upset you so much.
I bet at least one young beginner GM has unironically been scared off having a session zero and thereby given themselves a tonne more work to do for no reason, and that alone is good enough reason for these threads to continue.
This whole website is [theme] board with people who actually don't engage with [theme] irl, they just make [theme] flavored ragebait & coombait threads.
Yeah, it is. And it sucks - these boards used to be a source of information that you couldn't get through other sources, because it was all citizen reporting with long memories. Now, it's just a bunch of antis sitting around cupping each other's bollox and moaning about how much they hate "the thing" (take your pick) like a bunch of bitter old british women.
Session zero is a vital thing, and everyone should do it.
If one of your players has PTSD, you need to know what triggers that before you set them off and get a pencil jammed into your ear canal. Session zero allows you to make sure everyone is on the same page, discuss general information about the setting and game you don't want to waste time with on session one, and create characters together as a group bonding experience.
People who b***h about session zero don't play games in the real world, they think a circlejerk with clones of themselves in some VTT somewhere counts as TTRPG. That's like jerking off with a shower curtain and telling everyone you got laid.
Literally none of that matters because the way things actually go is you roll a character and bring it to session 1 for a game about killing shit and taking its stuff, that is the "setting" and the "game"
I am NOT your parent.
I am NOT your guardian.
I am NOT your carer.
I am NOT your doctor.
I am NOT your employer.
I am NOT your lawyer.
I am NOT your teacher.
I am NOT your supervisor.
I am not responsible for your mental health in terms of care or management, nor am I obligated to take time out of my personal life to learn about your mental health issues. Your mental health is the responsibility of yourself and those who have a duty of care towards you. Expecting that I accommodate it when we have no personal or professional relationship is arrogant and selfish.
Except you're not triggered, you've been gaslit into thinking you have a trigger by shitty communities on tumblr and reddit. Ever see someone with shellshock when they fear a sudden burst of fireworks? That's what being triggered looks like.
I try not to entangle this issue with politics. Some people understand that different minds exist, and some people say "any mind which differs from me is wrong", and this isn't entirely political. For instance, current pro-transsexual politics are heavily based on the idea that the transsexual conception of gender is correct and that any other concept of gender is incorrect.
Nevertheless, I'm 99.2% sure that this anon is a rightoid.
>Imagine coming to this conclusion >Imagine typing it out for other people to see >Imagine going about daily in your life having confidence in your self and decision making while you have these reasoning skills
Respect honestly for even being here. If I were a walking lobotomite I'd just end it but you just keep on going. Although it probably comes with the package now that I think about it.
I am neurodivergent, expecting me to understand the intricate workings of your edge case when it defies all common sense (like the verbal mention of a spider setting off your arachnophobia) is ableism. You are not playing because you are being disruptive.
Anon, it's not about understanding each other automatically, it's about having a basic respect for each other and talking through our problems. Some part of that has to happen on the fly, but also some part of it (like if you're super spooked by spiders and this has been a problem for you in the past) can be handled before the game even starts.
Nobody gets "spooked" by a description of a spider unless they're up to the eyeballs on drugs, at which point you're already being disruptive. Persecution fetishists out.
7 months ago
Anonymous
You don't decide and have no special insight into what other people are spooked by.
7 months ago
Anonymous
And dreams don't exist because your experiences with them are anecdotes.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Dreams exist. I don't claim to have any insight on other people's dreams, though. Only information I have on others' dreams is what people having those dreams tell me. When someone tells me of their dreams I'm going to assume they're telling the truth. I'm not going to declare that since I've never had a dream like that, other people can't possibly have a dream like that, either. Similarly, when it comes to phobias, I'm going to trust the experiences of people who actually have phobias instead of using my own phobia-free experiences to try and figure out what kinds of things can trigger someone's phobia.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Dreams exist.
No they don't. The plural of anecdote is not evidence. >But we've been talking about them since pre-biblical ti-
Same with cryptids, ghosts, and magic but I don't see any proof of that.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Have you never had a dream?? Fricking lizard people itt
7 months ago
Anonymous
>arachnophobia isn't real
You idiot.
Being afraid of spiders is a legitimate fear.
Being afraid of words describing something akin to spiders is being a pussy.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>arachnophobia isn't real
You idiot.
7 months ago
Anonymous
He’s not an idiot he’s just >neurodivergent
You fricking istaphobe how dare you impede his right to impede on other people’s rights. Unless you tick the right diversity boxes too then it’s ok
7 months ago
Anonymous
Phobias are real, being spooked by descriptions is not. This is the kind shit tumblrpedos were bullied for.
7 months ago
Anonymous
You don't know what you're talking about.
[...]
Being afraid of spiders is a legitimate fear.
Being afraid of words describing something akin to spiders is being a pussy.
Basic consideration for other people isn't a huge thing to demand, anf it's worlds apart from taking on the role of a mental health professional.
Mental health professionalism is a spook. We really just need to talk to each other more. Being human comes with certain baggage and you need to accept that if you want to spend time among humans.
If they need an entire session to spell out everything wrong with them and what we should or should not do around them, chances are they're going to end up a nogames.
I’m not talking about a session 0. If their mental health is so bad they can’t play the game right they shouldn’t be there. I’m saying that calling mental health professionals useless is moronic.
7 months ago
Anonymous
That's fair, but I didn't mean to say that it was useless for everyone, I meant that 'it's a spook' in the context of the posts that I was responding to ("I should be able to play pretend with 4 strangers for 6+ hours a week without having to talk to them about their needs or tastes or limits because I am not a mental health professional").
7 months ago
Anonymous
>I’m saying that calling mental health professionals useless is moronic.
When it comes to real issues, 95% of them are, and it's not their fault. Their field is almost completely occupied by helping people process normal shit because people are surrounded by "friends" and "family" who are neither.
If you think that therapy is a good idea for you then you're probably right. But when someone else tells you to go talk to a therapist it's just because they don't want to talk to you, and that's a common attitude because people are spoiled twats, community-building isn't supposed to be the job of mental health professionals.
> community-building isn't supposed to be the job of mental health professionals
I completely agree. Just as someone who’s struggled with some serious mental health issues I can tell you right now I wouldn’t be here without support from proper mental health professionals. My shit was way too complex for just the community. But I have tried my hardest not to let it affect my games lately. I was definitely a really shitty player before getting help.
That's mostly true, but serious issues definitely require something more than everyday discussion. Like, mild depression legitimately benefits a lot from fresh air, exercise and talking to people a lot, but severe depression isn't going to be cured by that. Psychotic disorders aren't going to go anywhere just by talking to people. It's definitely true that there'd be a lot less need for mental health services if people talked to each other more, though.
>Being human comes with certain baggage and you need to accept that if you want to spend time among humans.
Yes, but not all people accept it, and learning to accept it can also be the goal of mental health work. Like, it's easy to say that people should think or act in a certain way, but what if they don't? Giving a bit of help to work these things out is generally better than just leaving people alone with their issues.
If you think that therapy is a good idea for you then you're probably right. But when someone else tells you to go talk to a therapist it's just because they don't want to talk to you, and that's a common attitude because people are spoiled twats, community-building isn't supposed to be the job of mental health professionals.
>and that's a common attitude because people are spoiled twats, community-building isn't supposed to be the job of mental health professionals.
I feel like a lot of people have a creepily, unhealthily transactional view on social interaction, one where they focus overmuch on calculating gains and costs of interaction instead of just, I dunno, being present in social situations like a normal person, not taking on the responsibility for other people's woes but letting normal human empathy take place.
>I am NOT your parent. >I am NOT your guardian. >I am NOT your carer. >I am NOT your doctor. >I am NOT your employer. >I am NOT your lawyer. >I am NOT your teacher. >I am NOT your supervisor
No. You're thw DM. And that comes with certain responsibilities, so this game doesn't become a /tg/ horror story greentext read by neckbeardia.
>You guys really don't play in real life with friends or at all I guess
I'm not friends with mentally ill morons who get upset by me saying "a spooky spider crawls out of the imaginary dungeon" and goes in to a homicidal rage because I've triggered someones "arachmuhphobia"
That's why (you) never get to play with anyone past session 3, while I am happily getting my players clamouring for my games every fortnight.
>I am NOT going to be kind towards the former prisoner with the neck tattoo saying VENGEANCE IS MINE SAYETH THE LORD >I am NOT going to be saved by the police >I am NOT going to be buried in an open casket
ftfy, you pathetic antisocial worm
>I am NOT your parent. >I am NOT your guardian. >I am NOT your carer. >I am NOT your doctor. >I am NOT your employer. >I am NOT your lawyer. >I am NOT your teacher. >I am NOT your supervisor.
This but unironically and not as autistically. I'll post a warning if a game's gonna have anything particularly weird (I bluntly stated for my current CoC campaign topics like mass shootings WILL happen because of the premise planned before any prep started just so everyone was warned in advance), but I'm not gonna chase anyone around to figure out all their little worries and triggers. If there's shit they don't like and they're worried I might include, they can tell me.
Completely necessary unless the group is playing modules or preexisting settings.
Unless you want someone to have a shit time because they showed up with a Sailor-speced character to a Mongolian Steppe campaign where 90% of the stuff they can do is utterly useless.
>Bringing a party up to date on a campaign setting.
Print it out. It's reference material. You have to read books to play these games, players will read it if it's not too long and then they'll be able to keep the reference notes.
>one-on-one with the DM
No you entitled shit. You don't get your own personal session zero.
>one-on-one with the DM >No you entitled shit. You don't get your own personal session zero.
Christ dude, it'll take 15 minutes for me to hand you a 1 page campaign primer and roll stats, maybe an hour if it's point buy abilities because you give me that impression that you can't be trusted to multiply and add correctly.
What kind of furry sexual ass games are you guys running that you want to ask about people's ptsd triggers before a campaign? Yeah. You guys need to run your Session 0's. Running games PG13 has never given me problems.
>Christ dude, it'll take 15 minutes for me to hand you a 1 page campaign primer and roll stats, maybe an hour if it's point buy abilities because you give me that impression that you can't be trusted to multiply and add correctly.
That's a session zero you dumbc**t.
It's not a session, not everyone has to be there for it. You can write your backstory on your own time, you've recieved the rules of the game, game schedule, and what's expected of you in print. It's not a round table discussion, if you don't like it you can frick off and run your own game.
All we did was roll dice unless you're a new player and need your hand held. If your character/background isn't finished by the start of session 1 you start a level behind everyone else, that's in the rules on your campaign primer. We start on time, we end on time, I run shit.
>So you're an autist who demands other people put in work outside of game night. Pretending you have game nights of course.
You might have to read a book to play tabletop games. If you can't read a rulebook without help you're not old enough to be at the table, go play tag or something outside with your friends little brother.
The most obvious example is FATE.
Rogue Trader also really benefited from at least a little coordination between players, since the game only works well if you have Exactly One Rogue Trader.
>FATE
I've run FATE without a Session 0. Players got the campaign notes, we were doing 1920s occult investigation/intrigue, think Indiana Jones. I had a starter adventure set up and then the next sessions went into the players goals and backstories. I can see using a session 0 for FATE though. It's not like D&D where i can tell someone "we've already got a rogue" when they're writing their character.
Is a session zero but without the fun of chatting with the other players about what they have in mind and spending some nice time together hanging out.
>Print it out. It's reference material. You have to read books to play these games, players will read it if it's not too long and then they'll be able to keep the reference notes.
Evidence suggest that players don't ever read the primer (unless it's a module, then they read the entire module).
>players don't read the primer
I don't do more than one page, front side for a primer. I can see people not reading it when there's more. It lists the books we're using, what level we are, xp rules, and a paragraph or two about the world. They've read the rules, they don't show up at the wrong place or time, or mess up and bring me something from another rules system.
In general, players in my groups are outsiders, because outsiders make great POV for stories with unusual settings because explaining setting does not have to be exposition, it can happen in the context of the story/in game as you go.
I do things differently if we are using a major brand established setting/time period, but I don't run those often.
>a Sailor-speced character to a Mongolian Steppe campaign
I literally did the exact opposite of this; I once brought a Mongolian steppe nomad to a pirate themed game set almost exclusively on the High Seas.
To this day I have no idea what possessed me.
I play dnd with my friends. Hanging out with my friends is fun. If people are finished more quickly than others, they can chat, and it's fun to come up with characters together and make fun of the guy who rolled three 8s for stats.
This. A lot of the time fa/tg/uys views on games seem like they don't like their groups, or talking about games in person, or social interaction in general.
Listen Brian. I work full time. I have things to do. I appreciate my downtime. I do not want to be watching a movie with my gf while you bombard the group chat with questions about the setting/optional rules. I've allocated several hours to you a week to play plus untold more to prep. If I'm going to talk about the setting and answer questions I'm going to do it when I know everyone's paying attention and I'm not wasting my breath. If you're so opposed to hanging out with us then you may not be a good fit for the group.
If you show up to my session with a character you created by yourself without knowing the party you're meant to be fitting into, I'm ripping up the sheet.
>putting words into OP's mouth instead of dick
I think you might be the bigger homosexual here. Session 0 isn't necessary aside from walk-ins with randoms in person. If it's online, all the information is already available to you (or should be if the DM is worth a shit), and if you need any help you can one-on-one with the DM or, as one anon put it, things can be established through a goddamn email.
Depends on the game. A classic dungeon crawler only need for the group to agree classes and why are their characters doing dungeon exploration together. A game like VtM on the other hand may need people having a clear idea of what everyone will be playing on the politics of the game. On CoC you may even need to think some spare characters since the start for when your investigator have sudden dead syndrome or goes crazy.
Yeah. There are a lot of merits to the OSR approach, but they don't work with most games. The OSR guys are right that you should try to minimize it, but the moment you start picking from a skill list, that OSR "roll a dude in 5 minutes" goes out the window.
If I'm playing a game with a specific feel I'm going to use it. If I want the party to have a history before the game it's best to set aside time everyone is available to discuss it rather than juggling 4 text conversation and hoping one of the adhd riddled morons who play with me doesn't just forget to read anything and shows up with a character that doesn't mesh with the setting or party.
It's also worth it if it's a new system nobody has played so questions can be looked up an answered in real time. But you'd know all of this if you actually played games.
>dm can't stop laughing at his own antics to even finish one sentence >turns blue in the face and has to use his inhaler >rest of the table looks uncomfortable and concerned >one guy is laughing but not at the dm's dumb humor but the fact the dm might kill himself laughing himself into an asthma attack >the bluer he gets the harder the guy laughs >as soon as the dm starts showing concerns and stops laughing choking on his inhaler the other guy starts howling with laughter attracting the other tables in the store's attention
I never wanna play at a comic book joint or game store again.
>DM vaguely describes immediate surroundings >Suddenly a monster we can't fight pops up >DM tells us this will be a "5-7 skill challenge" >Just calls for rolls and then narrates what we do after we roll >If we fail he just has the other players roll a different thing to "save us"
Pretty much, just finished one for next week's game like this. All I'm missing is some spells because I don't want to choose the same shit the wizard will be using, but otherwise GM send the basic campaign info, everyone just said what race and class will be playing and we already know where we start.
Session 0 can be anything you want it to be.
In my case it was a nice way to casually get started in a massive developed world my gm made with no repercussions before every action had reaction. I appreciated the ease in because it let me know a lot of my ideas were misplaced and whole game was better off for it.
>asked folks to have characters ready to go and chat with them in the weeks leading up to session 1 >also made sure to send them emails and PMs setting info >first session >folks only have half their character Gen done and are only now reading the notes >session 1 turns into a session 0
I’m not that mad but… kind of wish they had just said they wanted a session 0.
In D&D or a D&D like system, we start at level 1, or level 2 with your backstory and character completed before the Session 1.
I've always gotten completed characters from players. Doesn't have to be level 1, could be we've got a group and someone new joining or starting at a higher level, you're party level -1 if you can't finish your shit.
Do you really think they wanted a Session 0?
Usually if someone's curious about whether they can have something special or have a question about the world before/when they're creating their character it's because they're hyped, they'll message me or get in a call/discord about it.
Session 1 we introduce characters in game by having them introduce themselves to an NPC with some status or leverage who wants to know who they are. Instead of introducing like it's an AA meeting, we do it in game with something at stake and it's always kinda funny when someone starts lying about their backstory right away.
Most campaigns are enhanced by a party that knows what it wants to be "let's all be pirates/vikings/gangsters/etc:. And a lot of the time, instead of going back and forth over emails and discord, sitting people at the table and (stealing this from one of the Traveller editions) saying "Your PC knows the PC to your left. How?" helps make for a more cohesive party, which lends itself to a better campaign where everyone is on the same page.
I just think the concept is moronic. Character creation and conveyance of information can take place over the days or weeks leading up to the first session.
It can. It can also take place when you and your friends sit down in person to talk about the upcoming game.. What's the problem?
Most campaigns are enhanced by a party that knows what it wants to be "let's all be pirates/vikings/gangsters/etc:. And a lot of the time, instead of going back and forth over emails and discord, sitting people at the table and (stealing this from one of the Traveller editions) saying "Your PC knows the PC to your left. How?" helps make for a more cohesive party, which lends itself to a better campaign where everyone is on the same page.
This is true. In my experience session 0s are also useful for hashing out the details of the setting. Like, letting players have some input and make suggestions often leads to a better setting and, in my experience, increases player interest in and engagement with the setting. I've usually viewed session 0 not just as a character creation session but a brainstorming session, and it's always been both fun in itself and worthwhile.
Yeah, but after an hour or two, I think you really need to cut it off and run a mini-adventure. Don't waste the momentum of everyone being excited to play after making their PCs and figuring out how they relate to each other, by just ending it there.
I don't really like the idea of a mini-adventure, personally. I'd rather leave the actual playing to full length sessions where we can get a satisfying amount of things done.
I've seen too many games fail because they lack momentum. I'd rather end a Session 0 with some fast inciting incident that brings the party together, even if it's not really relevant to the overarching plot.
I can understand that. It hasn't really been a problem for my group lately, though. It used to be, when we were younger, but back then we didn't really have session 0s, we just got together,made characters and played in a largely improvised manner. Back then it was easy to get games going but difficult to keep them going. Everyone had a lot of time but little commitment, and all of us got distracted easily by new character or plot ideas we wanted to try out, even if that meant abandoning the ongoing game. Nowadays everyone has a lot less time, but our games tend to be more thought through and longer-lasting.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Back when I was a stupid kid playing in a different campaign 5 days a week, starting and dropping games left and right, we'd still have that similar ramp up period while one of us percolated new ideas and talked about the kind of campaign they wanted to run. There was never any explicit session where we didn't roll dice all night and went over the minutia before starting, but that was only because when it came time to play Bill's Knights of the Round Table campaign, we had all been talking about it and getting on the same pages for weeks in advance. Also easier to do when your group consists of people you can see and talk to and hang out with every fricking day.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Also easier to do when your group consists of people you can see and talk to and hang out with every fricking day.
Sadly never happens after high school.
>momentum
That's the word I'm looking for. Hype is what I've been using, but momentum, that feeling of progress is a better way to say it. What we're doing has to feel worth the time players set aside for games.
Every time we have one of these stupid threads, people explain that session 0 can be a 15 minute talk where the GM and players go over the basics, discuss tone, ideas, intentions, etc. I'm sorry that your life is so miserably busy that the mere thought of wasting time makes you recoil in terror, but it's really not whatever the frick you think it is, and I sincerely doubt you're actually playing anything so complex that character creation will take all night and significantly impact your ability to play for a few hours.
>too busy to meet up for 15 minutes for a session
Yeah. That's gas, travel time, scheduling for five or six people. I'd rather take time with each person when it's convenient for them in the week leading up to the game. That is the whole point. We're trying to get why you guys are so adamant about something we've never needed to do.
Some people are saying it's not a session, and you call not having a session and rolling your characters beforehand one on one a Session 0. That makes sense, I do that.
>Some people are saying it's not a session, and you call not having a session and rolling your characters beforehand one on one a Session 0. That makes sense, I do that.
It can be, or it can be a group exercise. Either is fine, but both have pros and cons.
Catch-22 ass bullshit, 2+2=5, it's called a Session 0 whether you have a session or not.
>Due to circumstances beyond my control, there will be no big parade this Sunday afternoon.
>“What’s so different about this Sunday, I want to know?” Hungry Joe was demanding vociferously of Chief White Halfoat. “Why won’t we have a parade this Sunday when we don’t have a parade every Sunday? Huh?"
It's fine. It's fine. We drive in a parkway, we park in a driveway. It makes sense. Drive in a parkway. Park in a driveway. Just put the car in park, let go of the wheel, let Jesus park. The first shall be last, it's not a clerical error, then last isn't last, the first is last, the cleric didn't frick up. The car is parked. The stove is off. Last isn't last anymore, it's first. A session is a session whether it's a session or not. The wizard casts his spells by forgetting them. The wizard memorizes things twice.
The wizard memorized things twice.
It's okay. Just memorize it twice.
It's D&D's Vancian wizardry, just induce schizophrenia to increase your spell slots so you can memorize something twice, like in the Jack Vance books. Just remember the nice lady who thought she could divide by zero and how you yelled at her. Let go of the wheel.
7 months ago
Anonymous
tl;dr
7 months ago
Anonymous
Please take your meds. Besides, in your pseud ramblings you've missed a pretty obvious implication of the term >session >zero
It's not a real session. Session zero doesn't exist. If it did it would be session one. Because session zero doesn't exist, it isn't bound by the usual constraints of a session and thus can be a group session, or individual, or a simple primer. Different approaches work best for different groups, but they all amount to the same thing. You refusing to view your method as session zero out of fake grognard pride doesn't make it any less of a session zero.
7 months ago
Anonymous
You aren't entirely wrong, but I wouldn't call it "session 0" unless everyone was there, and I think there are certain advantages to having everyone there (vs having a series of 1-on-1 conversations with players). Ex, player one might say "I built a fighter and a wizard and I don't know which one I want to play", and player 2 says 'I haven't built my character but I definitely want to be a meatshield", and player 3 says "I usually play fighters but I've been thinking about trying a rogue", they'd benefit from being able to talk to each other and to the DM at the same time. Even moreso when you get into backstories and the 'culture' of the party (and yea, most of that stuff is supposed to emerge from play, but there are still advantages to starting on the same page).
7 months ago
Anonymous
I prefer to hold session zero in person too. The "this meeting could have been an email" crowd clearly don't work, or they'd know the phrase doesn't refer to a meeting with a collaborative focus (i.e. every ttrpg session). But if I had to speak to players individually, or had the process take fold over a group chat, I'd still consider it a session zero. Let's be honest here, anons hate the term session zero because it's new and therefore woke zoomer nonsense, even though groups have been doing session zero for nigh on half a century.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Totally true. I don't believe in X-cards (because I believe in open and ongoing communication, lol) but note how they lump session-0 in with 'X-cards', like "How frickin dare you expect me to give a shit about other people". These complaints are not coming from quality players.
I'm sure a lot of people can do a perfectly serviceable session-0 with emails, but it depends on the person, others will do better work with a face-to-face conversation. I think the ideal Session 0 is mostly about boardgames and pizza with maybe 30-60 minutes of on-topic conversation.
> community-building isn't supposed to be the job of mental health professionals
I completely agree. Just as someone who’s struggled with some serious mental health issues I can tell you right now I wouldn’t be here without support from proper mental health professionals. My shit was way too complex for just the community. But I have tried my hardest not to let it affect my games lately. I was definitely a really shitty player before getting help.
I'll just add that I fully agree with this: [...] >and that's a common attitude because people are spoiled twats, community-building isn't supposed to be the job of mental health professionals.
I feel like a lot of people have a creepily, unhealthily transactional view on social interaction, one where they focus overmuch on calculating gains and costs of interaction instead of just, I dunno, being present in social situations like a normal person, not taking on the responsibility for other people's woes but letting normal human empathy take place.
I did make it sound like mental health professionals were pointless and I apologize. Personally I'm really convinced that a lot of mental health problems are caused by our shitty modern communities, where everyone just tries to evade responsibility for the problems unfolding around them, but that's frankly off-topic here.
7 months ago
Anonymous
tl;dr and very reddit posting style
7 months ago
Anonymous
You can shut the frick up about it, it's a Session 0 whether you have a session or not as long as you roll characters and communicate what the game will be about. It's a session 0 even if immediately afterward you start session 1 in the same meeting.
Ergo as long as you have rolled characters before a game you've used a session 0.
What the frick does this mean?
Does it mean anything? Does it mean nothing?
It makes sense. I mean, you can't play without characters, everyone should use a session 0. Everyone is already using a session 0.
It's important to do all the things you already do and call it something else and then ask people why they aren't doing what they already do.
How do I not have a session 0 before a game? Can i have a session 0 after session 1 if I need to roll a player who joins?
It's not a real session.
Why is some jackass talking about triggers? We don't need a session to talk about that. People with triggers is usually won't shut the frick up about them. Session 0 is for existing whether you like it or not, not to discuss what you should be talking to your therapist about.
7 months ago
Anonymous
The issue is that the term "session zero" is a dog whistle to certain kinds of people, causing them to melt down in a way that has been demonstrated in this very thread. Calling it something else, such as an explanatory term like "pre-game prepwork", will help lower the chance of setting off players like those in your groups.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>dog whistle
If you can hear a dog whistle, it means you're a b***h. Stop acting like a b***h.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Am I watching this guy have a breakdown in real time?
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Hey Dave, we're playing PF >Oh nice, I'll bring a halfling rogue >Actually I rather we sick to humans for your first sheets of the campaign >Oh alright, sure. What if he was raised by halflings? >Sounds great, you can be a folk hero of sorts >What's everyone else doing >Jen's bringing a cleric of Pelor, Sam's being a Barbarian, and I think John's deciding between a wizard or a warlock >Sounds great. What time are we meeting? >3PM, my place. I'll bring snacks
WOAH GORILLIONS OF HOURS WASTED
HOW WILL ANON EVER FRICKING RECOVER THE PRECIOUS SECONDS LOST BEING A FRICKING ADULT
7 months ago
Anonymous
That isn't session 0 that's a 5 minute text convo
7 months ago
Anonymous
You have now redefined "Session 0" into not being a session of any kind at all, and have in fact made it what everyone else has been suggesting all along: Just keep a conversation going as you plan together in preparation for actual gametime.
You absolute buffoon.
>Shadowrun literally has built in session 0 food fight >has had this since before the term existed and since before any of you were born >have been having productive and useful session 0s since before the existence of Ganker
I don't understand what is wrong with you people this isn't hard.
Food fight isn't Session 0, what the frick are you talking about? Food fight is literally a starting scenario for completely new players.
7 months ago
Anonymous
the frick do you have against double spaced type you illiterate high school drop out?
Catch-22 ass bullshit, 2+2=5, it's called a Session 0 whether you have a session or not.
>Due to circumstances beyond my control, there will be no big parade this Sunday afternoon.
>“What’s so different about this Sunday, I want to know?” Hungry Joe was demanding vociferously of Chief White Halfoat. “Why won’t we have a parade this Sunday when we don’t have a parade every Sunday? Huh?"
It's fine. It's fine. We drive in a parkway, we park in a driveway. It makes sense. Drive in a parkway. Park in a driveway. Just put the car in park, let go of the wheel, let Jesus park. The first shall be last, it's not a clerical error, then last isn't last, the first is last, the cleric didn't frick up. The car is parked. The stove is off. Last isn't last anymore, it's first. A session is a session whether it's a session or not. The wizard casts his spells by forgetting them. The wizard memorizes things twice.
The wizard memorized things twice.
It's okay. Just memorize it twice.
It's D&D's Vancian wizardry, just induce schizophrenia to increase your spell slots so you can memorize something twice, like in the Jack Vance books. Just remember the nice lady who thought she could divide by zero and how you yelled at her. Let go of the wheel.
>more defensive about the exact definition of a "session" than anything else >not actually concerned with the issue of pre-game conversation and preparation >MUH VALUABLE TIME
Okay, so this is just moronic kneejerk homosexualry by a bunch of uppity dipshits trying to purity spiral into nogames puragtory. Got it.
There's no "problem" other than it being pointless and moronic. If I'm sitting down and, as part of that stated period of days or weeks leading up to the game, sit down and talk with my friends about the upcoming game, that doesn't constitute a "muh session 0".
In any group worth a shit we're likely to "sit down and talk about the upcoming game" many times, whether in person, in group chat, or as part of a call. Does that constitute sessions 0 through 258? Of course it doesn't. Ridiculous.
>If I'm sitting down and, as part of that stated period of days or weeks leading up to the game, sit down and talk with my friends about the upcoming game, that doesn't constitute a "muh session 0".
Yes it does. It's just a less efficient way of achieving the same result.
>Shadowrun literally has built in session 0 food fight >has had this since before the term existed and since before any of you were born >have been having productive and useful session 0s since before the existence of Ganker
I don't understand what is wrong with you people this isn't hard.
Once I told my players that it sounded like a light rain advancing out of a dark hallway towards them. Then the plops got heavier as it got closer, then a huge swarm of quarter-sized jumping spiders came out of the shadows. None of my players thought that they were arachnophobes but they still got triggered.
You sound like a based darkbad player. I like the X card because when another player is annoying me I can just touch the card, point at them, and then they’re banished from the game forever. I’m trans btw
>How low effort can the bait be for it to still succeed in nu/tg/? >This and more epic pranks will follow every single day until the end of time I guess! >Don't forget to subscribe it goes in every field
>he thinks session 0 takes hours
Session 0 is basically the time it takes for the GM to explain what's the game about, what system you're going to play, make the chars and come up with a coherent story for the pcs to be helpful to each other
You literally had that on every game, and if you say you don't you're lying
I been here for 6-7 hours now but thanks for noticing.
And like I said, I don't like it, but it's hard to avoid: 90% of the rightoid memeplex is "different-think bad". It's no surprise that they got kicked out of other TTRPG communities, and it's no surprised that they ended up here.
Look at this entitled American moderate liberal here.
I dont even bothered reading the discussion, but I already know suck just by looking at how much effort youre putting into sacastically dismissing the rightoids opinions.
be sure, your kind makes this genre of games and this world, in fact, sterile to live in.
Everything you guys do make this life boring, less meaningful, less joyful, less personal.
Everything must be streamlined so as to fit AS MANY PEOPLE as possible.
Let me ask
Do you have depression?
>moderate
lol >I dont even bothered reading the discussion
I would urge you to familiarize yourself with things before judging them, but you won't, but still I urge you to do so. >how much effort youre putting
lol >dismissing the rightoids opinions.
Do you admit that "frick session 0" is a rightoid nogames opinion? I feel bad saying so, because part of me still wants to believe that everyone has a point, but in this case yea I think it's just a rightoid tourist thing. Rightoids are offended by the idea that other people might have different expectations (and different triggers) in social situations. Like I said earlier, this is something that orthodox liberals are getting in on to, but it's mostly still a rightoid thing ("DIFFERENT-THINK BAD, SAME-THINK GOOD, ME AM BASTION OF RIGHTFULNESS"). >Everything you guys do make this life boring, less meaningful, less joyful, less personal.
Says the conformist drone. >Do you have depression?
No, I was an unhappy teenager (20 years ago) but that was because of my circumstances, the world is complicated and I wasn't ready for it. Good shot though. Leftoids are more likely to describe themselves as depressed, rightoids are more likely to blame someone else for their unhappiness, it's good to point that out.
Feel free to frick off out of here anytime then. Ywnbaw
I've been a woman, it was just a phase but it was awesome, and nothing that you say or do can diminish my satisfaction. Enjoy being a drone.
>Con game >Game with children with development issues
What's the difference?
This has to be ironic, you cant truly be this insufferable and smug at the same time
>Do you admit that "frick session 0" is a rightoid nogames opinion?
No, where did I say that? I just used the same term as you for the sake of argument.
>Says the conformist drone
Im not the one telling people to submit to streamlining practices for the sake of making everyone super comfy and wholesome
>This has to be ironic, you cant truly be this insufferable and smug at the same time
You're totally right, different-think doesn't exist, anyone who sees things differently from you is obviously just trolling. >No, where did I say that? I just used the same term as you for the sake of argument.
But I didn't dismiss any rightoid opinions except for "session 0 is bad". I even went out of my way to validate a random-ass rightoid opinion just for the sake of argument. You guy are silly. >streamlining practices
What? "Streamlining" is skipping all the prep because you assume everyone wants the same thing you do. Which, to reiterate, is an opinion which I blame on rightoid tourists, because I don't remember anything like that opinion existing on pre-gamergate /tg/. But I'd love to be wrong. >I'm not the one ... making everyone super comfy and wholesome
Why not? >What?
Dated a string of older women, they put me in dresses and I frickin loved it, then I grew out of it but I don't regret it for a moment. I only mention it because you did, you are totally barking up the wrong tree if you're trying to tell me that I'll never be a real woman.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Why not?
Funny that you cut a part of the sentence as If that didnt change the meaning of It.
Ill explain. I meant to portray the fact that I dont enjoy giving up the qualities of my game and the way I and my players enjoy playing to accommodate people who cant look out for themselves. That is not to say im not accepting, in fact, there is an highly autistic boy that plays at my table in my LGS, but that is because he does not make any demands an entitled homosexual likes to do. We dont diminish from our collective enjoyment by including him, that is the big difference. He is challenged, but is not diminished, we dont restrain ourselves for him, and He enjoyed It a lot, has been playing with us for a long time.
>because you assume everyone wants the same thing you do
Eles they wouldnt be playing in my table, they generally come with a brief pitch, telling what the game is about. Mine are about Dungeon and hexcrawling, I generally say: come with a one-line backstory and two characters. Im available to help chargen for those who never played before.
>they put me in dresses and I frickin loved it
What the frick
>you're trying to tell me that I'll never be a real woman.
What the frick, again. I wasnt going to tell you that
Is this some kind of humiliation kink in which you expose your shameful past to internet strangers in hopes of getting them to mock you so you can cum very hard?
what the frick is this, you dont need to tell me this shit. Now I just pity you, hope you find God someday
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Ill explain. I meant to portray the fact that I dont enjoy giving up the qualities of my game and the way I and my players enjoy playing to accommodate people who cant look out for themselves. That is not to say im not accepting, in fact, there is an highly autistic boy that plays at my table in my LGS, but that is because he does not make any demands an entitled homosexual likes to do. We dont diminish from our collective enjoyment by including him, that is the big difference. He is challenged, but is not diminished, we dont restrain ourselves for him, and He enjoyed It a lot, has been playing with us for a long time.
nta but what does any of this has to do with having a session zero? What do you think it happens there?
7 months ago
Anonymous
More in line with his question really, not exactly about session zero.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>I meant to portray the fact that I dont enjoy giving up the qualities of my game and the way I and my players enjoy playing to accommodate people who cant look out for themselves.
No one asked you to do that. Talking about it doesn't mean deferring to others. Sometimes you can compromise, sometimes you have to kick a player, the difference is up to you but it's always worth talking about it. "I shouldn't have to talk about what I want from my game because everyone should share my opinions by default" is a conformist drone opinion. >What the frick
lmao, just based on that I can guarantee that you have repressed fetishes, I don't know what they are but I can guarantee that you have them. >I wasnt going to tell you that
You just replied to a post where I replied to an anon who told me that. Welcome to Ganker, I hope you enjoy your stay. >hope you find God someday
Been there, done that, it's a trap for small minds. I hope you find an outlet for your repressed fetishes.
lmao @ Ganker christians
7 months ago
Anonymous
When I replied to you I didnt even think about session 0, in fact, I just wanted to address your leftoid smugginess.
But I do think session zero is a waste of precious session time, yes, especially If used to talk about personal problems.
>just based on that I can guarantee that you have repressed fetishes
Hey buddy, not everyone has to have the same problems as you.
We all have fetishes yes, but I dont need to talk about mine on the internet. Also, sometimes its virtuous, too, to not do everything we want, to restrain ourselves, especially when It comes to sexuality.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>When I replied to you I didnt even think about session 0, in fact, I just wanted to address your leftoid smugginess.
Of course, you didn't read the thread, you said it yourself. Like I said, welcome to Ganker, I hope you enjoy your stay. >We all have fetishes yes, but I dont need to talk about mine on the internet.
This makes me think that you're probably not going to enjoy your stay. >Also, sometimes its virtuous, too, to not do everything we want, to restrain ourselves, especially when It comes to sexuality.
Only in terms of getting pregnant, or getting diseases, both of which are the result of normative heterosexualty and not the result of fetishes. Like I said, I hope you find an outlet for your repressed fetishes.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>This makes me think that you're probably not going to enjoy your stay
I meant to say in a less accusative manner that you should be ashamed of telling other of your fetishes, especially the one you have.
I cant see how getting diseases ir pregnant is a result of normative heterosexuality, but It doesnt really.
I think you found to yourself convincing enough terms to justify your behavior, and make it seem beautiful, aesthetically pleasing and revolutionary even.
I wont be changing your mind anytime soon
7 months ago
Anonymous
>I meant to say in a less accusative manner that you should be ashamed of telling other of your fetishes
lmao
I wish you the best of luck bub, you're going to need it.
Weird how you guys got super-ethnicized in such a short span of time, I can sort of forgive brits for being xenophobic, but that only goes for brits. Xenophobic americans are all morons.
>leave when thread was about the benefits of arranging details of the game beforehand and how session 0 can happen using the same chat you use to agree on the scheduling >come back and suddenly is people rambling about X cards and how phobias aren't real
The frick is wrong with you people
I have never heard anyone dealing with X cards in real life, only people here claiming how terrible they are (in their minds) like the easier strawman ever created.
Seriously, at most I heard people here claiming that once they had an online GM who handle them a form about what things they were confortable with and they just decided they wouldn't play (your problem since you play with strangers), but X cards? Nothing, no one has ever seen them.
>Year 20XX >"Wow anon this battletech game is pretty fun but I wish we could play it as an RPG." >"Well conveniently enough it has an RPG component, it just doesn't have one of those automated character builders like D&D has so I have to crunch it manually. Why don't we have a session zero and I'll guide you through it." >Players drag feet on meeting for literally three months. >Meanwhile come up with loose concept for Solaris 7 campaign complete with faction loyalties, sponsorship deals, and come up with a way to simulate battle damage on NPC mechs the players aren't currently fighting so that I don't slow the game down with stuff not relevant to the players. >Players arrive the first session expecting to build characters in the first ten minutes of the game. >Game doesn't last three sessions.
(Several years later, repeat second greentext) >"It's got an RPG, but last time I tried to run it my players dragged their feet on a session zero for so long that they lost interest and availability, so I'll make all your characters for you, just text me a general idea of what you want for your characters, and I'll ask when some options come up." >like pulling teeth, again dragging their feet for months. >Meanwhile research PDFs to make a campaign that is parallel to the canon with timeline, news articles, etc. >By the time we have the first session one player is completely unavailable due to new girlfriend, whole group collapses before third session. >Get invited to CoC group >GM doesn't want me to make my own character. >Expected to pick characters from a stack of prefabs like so many monopoly pieces. >Players eat that shit up? >Several years later, post-agaoc, new Battletech group. >see Greentext 2 >"Nah I'm done with GMing". >Battletech meatspace total warfare group still going strong with monthly pickup games four years on.
The RPG might have been my first foot in the door, but I'm done with breaking my back for stillborn groups, session zero or no. Someone else can.
That's been my experience with specifically the Battletech RPGs. They're just terrible for starting things up. Maybe destiny is better but I've just had no real interest in giving it a go.
Honestly, it wasn't destiny itself but the community that killed it for me.
>New rules light narrative/RP-focused version of Battletech RPG gets released that is mostly self contained. >"Hmm this looks like it would be alright for newbies that are only used to RPGs. Maybe I'll give it a whirl if I give running RPGs another chance." >Youtubers with warhammer studios start touting Destiny and their other homebrews as a wargame 'replacement' for standard Battletech just as the first wave of confused new players and 40k expats start showing up, and claim that sticking to the original rules is somehow gatekeeping new players because new players can't into gaem. Actually gains traction. >mfw
people who are against session 0 are the biggest gays ever and will immediately be uninvited from my table if they don't want to participate. /tg/ is an inherently social activity, and if they don't want to socialize they will be a problem player. nip it in the bud
Session 0 is such a non-issue people on this thread have to invent increasingly twisted and convoluted scenarios to justify not having one.
You can make good use of one if you:
-never played/run the system
-want to answer all the players doubts at the same time
-want ideas/feedback
-want to let players agree on backgrounds or builds
-want to test combat or mechanics before the game
-are running a game or system that needs some info dumping like historical stuff ("this is 1920's South Africa", "this is a 90's Sabbat campaign set on Cuba")
Reminder that the divide on /tg/ is less about games or no games and more about friends and no-friends.
To people with friends, tgs are a way to hang out with bros and have fun playing games, regardless of investment. Can go from casual to deep, fully fledged houseruled systems. Friends are an excuse to play and try games, games are an excuse to meet again. A self feeding loop.
To people without, people are a means to play a game, so any time not spend doing that is wasted.
This is why there's such a divide for sesion 0. For some, it's the hype moment, the preparatior for the next adventure with friends. To others, it's like a mandatory job meeting. "I just want to do my job and get paid, why do I need to deal with this pointless chore?" and such.
Disagree, I think its much more about the kind of game being played. There a people who really want to play these grandiose narrative stories.
For these a session 0 is mandatory because they need to agree on everything going forward.
For those who play games um much less emphasis on a predetermined narrative, then a session 0 is pointless
>For these a session 0 is mandatory because they need to agree on everything going forward.
Yes you need to all agree to go from plot beat to plot beat without ever diverging from the railroad.
Just read a book at that point.
Do they? My group's games are often story-heavy but never railroaded. That is, there's something going on that can't be ignored and players have to engage with, but the outcome of things isn't pre-determined. Who plays these on-the-rails games you're talking about?
What is with this moronic notion that a story-heavy game has to be railroaded? A halfway decent GM will just improvise and and adapt the story to the players' chose with consequences that make sense.
Heck, I'm a shit GM, but I'm not forcing my players to do anything specific despite having a rough timeline of events prepped. Players can follow whichever plot hooks however they want, I'll adjust if they kill the main antagonist in an ambush several sessions early and throw the "intended" story haywire. Maybe that solves the story, maybe the surviving subordinates step up and put the party on their personal shit list, maybe a different antag steps in to fill the power vacuum.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Do they? My group's games are often story-heavy but never railroaded. That is, there's something going on that can't be ignored and players have to engage with, but the outcome of things isn't pre-determined. Who plays these on-the-rails games you're talking about?
You guys imagine is something like streamings group do where they have a clear idea or where the story is going for that session, but actually is more akin to VtR aspiration system
>Aspirations are plans and goals for your Character. Goals have always been encouraged as they add an extra dimension to a Character but now they also provide us with a way to track and award extra Experience (XP) by using Aspirations.
>Though Aspirations are not obligatory and a requirement, they are strongly recommended as a way to add extra plot hooks and colour to a Character and a means to earn extra XP by achieving your Aspirations through gameplay. As a Character completes an Aspiration they have listed they will earn extra XP.
You have short (one session, a couple session) aspiration and long term character goals, the Storyteller may use it at discretion and can be intertwined with plot hooks. More than one character can share them.
Most important: and is not about the direction of the story, but the direction of the character. If your character wants to become Prince is a good tool for the Storyteller to include chances for you to do that, but that doesn't mean you will succeed or are impervious to dying, just that most of the focus will be on that instead of other random shit like your previous mortal life.
7 months ago
Anonymous
I don't imagine anything; i just told you what my group's games tend to be like.
7 months ago
Anonymous
So its railroading with extra steps?
Dont worry the storyteller DM Will give ou what you want. But you may fail I dunno roll charisma
How is that not railroading? You just added the chance of failure, so instead of one ending, there are two. This is only and illusion of choice.
The thing you guys dont understand is that, for this shit to be a game, there shouldnt be a heavy story in the sense that there is a point by point plot to be followed.
What can they do besides following the explicit storylines?
Can they explode the unknown? Roam the overworld looking for villages in peril, dungeons and loot?
If they can only follow predetermined plot points, is there really a choice? The dm is just choosing for the players and then making them believe their choices matter. The DM, as you said, Will Just improvise after any deviations somehow so that the story reaches the specific end he envisioned.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Thinks making goals for a character is railroading
I'm a different anon. I run games in the goal style against a generated map. You can follow your goals, fail your goals, get caught up in the party's personal or group objectives (as decided by the party, I don't have a say in what you guys decide to do), as in your goal isn't the only hook, you can get close to your goal and fail, or you can die in an unrelated situation. The goal isn't the entire game but it makes hexcrawl not aimless, characters in our games want something other than money and power.
These goals are something it might take several months to do, because they're goals for the campaign. I'm trying to go over everything about it because I think you're missing/overlooking a vital piece of information.
I don't meet for a session for this, most players knowing the requirements and the rather large xp bonuses they get out of it and come up with something creative, if not something mimicking a hero they like.
I usually introduce people to the idea that there is no right way to go by showing them two hooks where they can't follow both in session 1. If they comment on it, that's when I get to tell them "you can go this way, you can go that way, you can follow your goals, you can sit in the bar and drink til it closes, it's not up to me."
Then you get attacked by 1d4 Wererat.
7 months ago
Anonymous
I get what you mean, but isnt this just railroading with multiple roads to follow?
Yes, there are choices through the multiple hooks, but a limited number of them.
And when It comes to plot hooks, the narratives are still somewhat predetermined, once again, its just that the players dont need to follow them in order.
For sure this is much more freeing that a pure one single choice railroad. But id say gaming freedom only comes from the lack of a structured narrative and the setting of a populated world allows the narrative to emerge from It.
A world with conflicts, problems, castles, villages, cities, lairs and dungeons, but no narrative to be found, for that is to arise from the tables experience, and It will be a story when told in its aftermath.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>not sure about railroading
Railroading is when DMs run games like modules. When you run a module there isn't a game outside what's in the module, because if the DM or players get creative with it that might mess up what the module has planned.
I'm not sure what you mean by predetermined. They say not to plan more than a session ahead. It's not worth it. If during a session I need to generate a dungeon or a series of encounters and loot to go with it, there's tables for that. Unique maps are the most important thing for me to buy because I always want more my players haven't seen before.
The important thing for me is understanding it's still a game and an experience and not just straight simulation, so I want rising tension, broken up by moments to joke or RP or mess with NPCs in between, as the game session goes on. A bigger fight or a harder puzzle toward the end is a better feeling than stopping in the middle of something that doesn't really matter. (Goals serve the same purpose, making things matter in an exploration game)
The puzzles/situations I make don't have solutions built into them. If you come up with something that works, it works. Generating games and filling in you maps as you go is old school D&D, they stopped making tools for that because they found out people would fixate on a setting they liked and stopped buying new material. (Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons, 2022) Because there's no singular way to fix things, players who just focus on their stats and look at their sheets for what they can do well have trouble with these open ended problems, while creative players find solutions easily.
It's just a style of game. Some people prefer or have more experience with modules.
7 months ago
Anonymous
That's because you're running dungeon crawling and the like, games like Vampires where politics and connections are relevant need for the storyteller to have a smaller scope because you can't just create a big conspiracy of politics out of your ass. If your sire suddenly does something it would have never done before then you would get suspicious, but if you're just inventing things on the fly you will end up making the players concern with irrelevant shit.. >"But I don't get it, why did he betrayed the Camarilla?" >"H-he just did, ok! S-shut up!"
7 months ago
Anonymous
>The thing you guys dont understand is that, for this shit to be a game, there shouldnt be a heavy story in the sense that there is a point by point plot to be followed. >What can they do besides following the explicit storylines? >Can they explode the unknown? Roam the overworld looking for villages in peril, dungeons and loot?
They can explore the shit I have prepared, which isn't an entire continent, homosexual. This isn't Skyrim, I'm not going to just produce a dungeon because you went into a cave unless you want all the content to be half assed because I had 30 seconds to make it or rolled it off a table.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Anon has never played a hexcrawl in his life...
7 months ago
Anonymous
Procedural generated garbage belongs in videogames, the days of the hexcrawl are over.
>invite friends for CharGen >drink couple beers and help whoever hasn't played the system yet >when everyone is finished with the stats etc we play some board games for the rest of the day >??? >profit
I would say it's pointless if you play online with strangers but if I do shit with my friends it's just comfy and helps to get a good mix of chars with everyone knowing what to expect from the group. For example char A picks locks like a baboon fricks his aunt so the player with char B might consider a different skill as their party trick. Not saying that's necessary, just that it can be beneficial.
Why would I waste my time with a wargame when it offers literally nothing turn-based strategy video games and RTS games don't do better? >Cheaper because I'm not wasting my money on overpriced plastic >Easier on the hand because I don't have to waste my time painting shit >Easier on the nose because I don't have to play with morbidly obese homosexuals who don't know what a shower is like (you) >Easier on my time because I can play them whenever I want for however long I want and stop whenever I want >Easier to find other players for because nobody has to deal with any of the bullshit I listed above
Meanwhile, TTRPGs offer a truly emergent narrative and sense of exploration that video games can't hope to match.
>Meanwhile, TTRPGs offer a truly emergent narrative and sense of exploration that video games can't hope to match. >moron has never played a narrative campaign with a wargame.
And crpgs are better than the garbage your DM comes up with anyways
>crpgs are better than~
That depends. If you want to play an rpg with your friends, crpgs aren't really going to do it. If you want to vfrick a bear or a vampire twink crpgs have you covered. The fricking state of crpgs.
If I'm not playing D&D 5e, I don't expect other players to know how to play the game, much less make characters. It's much better to set up a short session to make sure everyone is on the same page than to suffer from someone bringing their 5e abomination of a character to a GURPS or Lancer game.
I never played a session zero, and it sounds like hours of blueballs. I ran a session zero once, though. My players all knew how to roll characters, so they did it pretty quickly.
Then I had them collaborate on what planet they lived on (Spelljammer setting). Name, climate, culture, etc.
Then I ran a quick encounter to set the stakes. Whole thing took the length of a normal session.
I think a session zero is okay if players know how to make a character, and if some gameplay happens.
Oh, also, I swear some of you people don't preempt your players with what you're gonna run. They should know "the setting is this, the adventure is a heist or survival horror or whatever, and you're all prisoners or mercs or a band of bards", so that way they have some ideas of who they want to be.
>preempt your players with what you're gonna run.
Literally and unironically: That's session 0 material. Convincing yourself that people are talking about wasting hours doing nothing when it's been said many times in this thread that's not what people mean, is just willful ignorance.
By redefining the meaning of "session", you've effectively made it mean any conveyance of information in any context, at any time, for any amount of time (or none). At this point, Session 0 is either completely unavoidable at all times, or it does not exist at all and never did.
Okay, let's fully acknowledge that calling it a "session" is a bit silly, but if we're going to do that, I want you to also acknowledge that having a severe kneejerk reaction over it because you're imagining something no one is actually suggesting, is a very silly thing to do.
No, we can't acknowledge that it's silly to call it a session, because everyone that is criticizing the concept is doing so based on the fact that it is, in fact, a dedicated session.
If you remove the core aspect of why people are questioning it, no shit questioning it becomes stupid. Effectively no-one is questioning an exchange of relevant information in order to facilitate gameplay, because that would be absurd - people are questioning the idea of a dedicated singular session dedicated to something that shouldn't be a problem in the year of our gods 2023.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>noo you can't use a word if it's not literally the thing the word describes nooo
Wait until this guy hears about metaphors.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Exchanging that information without a session 0 isn't a problem. Neither is having a session 0, though, and sitting down in person is generally both a more pleasant and a more effective way of making sure that everyone has paid attention and understood things the same way than just handling things through messages.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Okay, so you're an irrationally outratged moron and why should anyone care what you think?
7 months ago
Anonymous
Session cero was a literal session before everyone and their grandmas had an instant chat device on their pockets. Today you have new tools you can use to bypass it, but even so getting together to discuss what you're about to play is still useful, specially to allow player to create thing together (for example to let characters share a backstory).
Still depending on how familiar with the system everyone is if may just take half a session or even less.
Imagine not wanting: >Sitting down as a whole group to make sure everyone understands and matches expectations for the game >The opportunity to talk to other players about the character you're making so you can banter and figure out some potential dynamics between your party members (especially if they are supposed to already know each other) >Access to having more brains at the table to cover any potential questions and concerns about how to make your plans and ideas work out the way you want them to
Not only are games a social activity, but good communication is the most important factor for making sure everyone's having fun. This minimal investment of one meeting before the actual RPG starts ends up paying out dividends for ages if you bothered to cover the right things. Even in groups where the players all know each other and talk outside of the game, setting this time aside to make sure they are all in on getting ready for the game itself is massively useful, and can even give the GM so much extra information to work with in the initial planning.
The sorts of people kicking and screaming about session zero, or the very concept of talking to your players, are the guys that become the subject of GMs asking other GMs how to deal with them. >I just expect to sit down and have everyone show up with finished characters and fully finished 5 page backstories! THAT'S HOW GAMES WORK AND THAT'S HOW YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO PLAY
Is the most nogames shit you'll hear repeated by people who think every game is a no nonsense meat grinder where everyone everyone always knows the exact kind of game they are playing every single time without ever talking to the GM.
>He doesn't know about systems where session zero is a mechanical thing, arguably one of the most enjoyable parts of the game.
Have you tried not playing D&D?
>Either you just play with the same gruop of friends and all the things you like, they like too,and know exactly the same systems as you
or you just play with people who aren't moronic and don't need someone babysitting them for the entirety of system learning and character creation.
>Or you never actually played a fricking game that survived 4+ sessions
I could say the exact same about people who require a session 0 to start playing and it would be just as if not more valid.
>Some people are arguing that the reason they're sore is that it's called a "session."
Did you gather the players of the game together to do something related to the game? Then the group is in session. And also, this is the least important part of the topic.
>gather friends >talk with players before starting >set tone, theme, expectations >take feedback and ideas >go over any last second questions >end session 0, which did not involve playing the game >take short break, let everyone get their shit together, adjusting anything that conflicted with previously discussed topics >start session 1, actually playing the game. >this is unironically what nearly everyone already does anyways >this is what many people in this thread have admitted to doing >someone the idea of calling it ANYTHING sends them into an irrational sperg-rage
>gather friends >talk with players before starting >set tone, theme, expectations >take feedback and ideas >go over any last second questions >end session 0, which did not involve playing the game >take short break, let everyone get their shit together, adjusting anything that conflicted with previously discussed topics >start session 1, actually playing the game. >this is unironically what nearly everyone already does anyways >this is what many people in this thread have admitted to doing >someone the idea of calling it ANYTHING sends them into an irrational sperg-rage
the problem isn't what is called, but that it is treated as a necessary encounter separate from the one where you actually get to play the game. and this isn't a made up no-games /tg/ problem, I've legit encountered people who expected to have a session just for character creation, even when they already know how to play the system.
It doesn't make sense if everyone already knows the game.
It does make sense if it's a new system, I can tell you when we tried playing Robotech it did take everyone a lot of time to prep the characters and the mechas, and indeed we did take an entire session to do it.
yeah, I'm not against session 0 on principle, but I also generally tend to avoid systems that a new player couldn't reasonably learn on their own while asking me questions via chat messages.
>yeah, I'm not against session 0 on principle, but I also generally tend to avoid systems that a new player couldn't reasonably learn on their own while asking me questions via chat messages.
Harder systems, like a point-buy, I want to help players one on one if they're new. I'm not happy with a group session where I spend extended one on one time with more than one person and people who have to wait start losing interest or looking for reasons to try to give up. If it's not that complicated I don't need a session 0, if it is that complicated I need individual time with new players.
>people who have to wait start losing interest or looking for reasons to try to give up
Why... why don't they like, chat with each other as they wait? You know, like normal human beings.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>not understanding why new players in a point buy system getting stuck and fristrated on what should be a fun game, instead to get the most out of it you have to be familiar with the whole book
There's no classes in point-buy and each skill, ability, and stat costs so much. It's very easy to get things wrong (as in not buying saving throws, alternate abilities, attack rolls, not taking flaws which are immensely powerful). They're also the most flexible systems you can find. It's pretty easy to have multiple forms, create your own spells, have a dungeon or base of operations you own, not have a body, have more than one body, eat sunlight and see through time, dual wield longbows.
No classes though. How long do you think it'd take you to generate a character in a system like this point-buy virgin?
7 months ago
Anonymous
That's not what I asked, what I wondered is why those who already finished their characters don't they just chat with each other as they wait whoever is left finish?
7 months ago
Anonymous
If they're done they're fine. It's needing to help multiple people that gives me trouble.
So as an example. Duel wielding longbows. You can buy extra arms. That doesn't give you extra attacks but you can manipulate more than one thing at a time. Extra limbs don't cost very much. If you want to get something out of this you'll want to set up a special attack, like an AOE arrow spam. Set a limit on it where it only works with two bows. It has your base attack. Base attack is expensive to buy but affects all your attacks. If you want a more powerful character you'll want to limit it, so buy attack that only goes with bows. There is agility/dexterity but that doesn't affect your attack. Another way to do it would be buying magical bows with your character creation points, setting an alternate attack that's an AOE if you use both. If you really want to get fancy you can make it a spell that summons bows so you can't ever lose them. It'll cost a point more because there's two of them, but a point less because it's coming from a device. You'll start to save points when you put more alternate attacks into your bows, like an overcharged freeze beam that hits a single target for more, but takes a negative to hit but also comes with a freeze status effect, which might have cost ten times as much if it were bought alone, but because it's an alternative power it only costs 1.
The rules for every aspect of creating this attack are split up into five different places in the book and the section on attacks and powers takes up half the book like a D&D spell list.
It's an example from a point buy system. Others are slightly more or slightly less convoluted and i left out the part about multiplying. This can frustrate new players when they need help and have to wait on other people who are getting help first.
I do need sessions before the games in those systems, but a full group meeting is counter-productive.
>the problem isn't what is called, but that it is treated as a necessary encounter separate from the one where you actually get to play the game >it's not the words being used >it's that it's being referred to as something that schisms my tism
It's almost like you need to communicate and talk with people and make sure they're all on the same page. And if your group isn't having this problem, having some asinine hateboner for the concept because some people waste their own time with an added character creation session is still fricking moronic.
I don't have a hateboner, I've even said in another post that I'm not against the concept. what I did was clarify that the reason some people complain isn't because of semantics, they simply dislike the concept of an aloted meet-up session where no game is played, which is a reasonable opinion to have if you think normalizing it or making it a required habit might slow down and waste time they could use to be actually playing, which is the part I sympathize with.
>It's being treated as a necessary encounter
It's not, but it's extremely useful. Experienced players who understand that these games are collaborative want the value that comes from doing this.
You don't NEED a Session Zero. But they're so useful that being adamantly against the concept of them is actually stupid.
>it's not semantics >it's... semantics
Come on man...
the problem was never with the word "session", people are not suddenly okay with it if you call it "encounter" or something else. if you're changing the wording so that it doesn't mean what they have a problem with, of course they're not gonna be mad anymore, but you'd have to be a moron if you think this is a matter of "semantics" when you're using words that mean or imply different things.
Session 0 is for people with friends. 🙂
X cards are still cringe and their issues are resolved in Session 0 (whether there's adaptability to your needs or the GM tells you to save yourself and run)
epic thread homosexual
>I don't like this thread because it takes up space that could be uses for more AI generals
Somehow, it contributes even less than those, because at least the AI threads contribute art.
lol
It's true though, threads whining about things are objectively less useful to the quality of the board and discussion of traditional games than people producing content.
Unlike you, /misc/shitter tourist, I remember when /tg/ got shit done and the people who actually create and run shit weren't just stuffed into a forgotten thread once per month.
Mmm, gonna need a bigger sheet for that massive projector of yours, hun.
NTA but please have a nice day.
>oh no I've been called out for being dead weight
>AHA I GOT IT
>no u
What the frick is the name for that picrel? I've tried finding them before but I can't.
ReallyGoodComics
Dead wrong, homosexual.
The existence of shit threads doesn't justify making more shit threads.
What wrong with a session for chargen
>session for chargen
Do it one on one with the people who need help, don't waste the time of people who don't. Let people write their backstories on their own instead of on the spot in front of a group.
Makes sense to talk about what you're going to do beforehand if you're actors in an improv group like Critical Role, but for a game it's time you could be playing a game instead of talking about playing a game.
I have never felt like an evening of brainstorming and drinking beer with friends is a waste of time, nor have I ever heard anyone in my group complain about it being a waste of time.
If you just wanna booze and hang out that's your choice. But when I sign up for a game I expect a game.
That is part of the game. If you can't relax and have fun with the rest, sure, send your character by mail later, but you're having to fit what the group already agree on without any imput on your part (nothing wrong, some people prefer this).
And if the system is new, you better not interrupt session 1 asking question that were answer on session 0.
Well, I and everyone else in ny group likes to take the time to talk things through before starting the game, and just shoot the shit about the game if discussing things of substance doesn't take the whole evening. If the idea of that gets someone to walk out of the campaign, that sounds like the session 0 doing a good job of getting rid of someone who'd be a bad fit for the group.
My dude, what we're saying is that for us tabletop gaming is a bar sport. We might play and we'll definitely sit around having fun with our friends and some drinks. You're rocking up here pretending you're in the professional leagues and you just aren't.
It's not about professionalism, it's about intentional use of time, when I go to a tennis court I go there to play tennis. Why should LGS work any different?
If you're just out to drink and need an excuse, that's your choice, but calling it a session is misleading.
Do people really play in LGS? Why?
Lack of space at home, usually.
>lack of venue at home
>lack of friends
>lack of good friends you can trust in your home
Used to before the coof. Now it's either in pub or board game cafe.
>or online via discord
>Why should LGS work any different?
You do it outside the LGS, you talks things before and then you go make the character once eveyone is on the same page.
>But when I sign up for a game
>Things that never happened.
>rolling dice to determine stats
>not a game
;^)
homie just say you have no friends.
> RRRRRRRRRR SOCIAL INTERACTION MAKES ME SO MAD!!! JUST GET TO MY POWER FANTASY!!!!!! IF I GET THIS MAD MY butthole STARTS BLEEDING!!!! MY DOCTOR SAID NOT TOO BUT GRRRRRR!!!!!
Ever heard the phrase "this meeting could have been an e-mail" ?
>I don't play with friends in the real world
This is what online D&D does to you. Play better games, kids.
Holy shit, it's true. Our worst troll will literally shitpost in any thread even remotely related to RPGs.
Stop being the stereotype.
I don't even get this, there's absolutely no reason not to have a 'session 0' if you're playing online
I can kinda understand feeling like you've wasted a session if you're playing in real life where everyone has to get together in one spot for several hours and all you do is talk about backstories and do chargen.
But if you're playing online then 'session 0' can just be everyone getting in a call for an hour or two to talk over the basic details of the setting, introduce the characters and work out how the party fits together, it's extremely convenient and makes the first session flow a lot smoother when the DM doesn't have to just slap the party together in a tavern or some shit.
It only really needs to be a thing if you're integrating character back stories into the campaign or running something obscure or homebrew. I'm running a game tomorrow and all the players needed to know is what the setting is and which books were using the adventure is just busting into a tower and murdering a wizard.
There's another campaign I'd like to run, where the players have holdings and command troops and that game would be a shitshow if I tried it without a session zero. Not least because I'm the only one who's read rules on holdings and troops.
That said, the last game I played in had a session zero but not only disregarded all the characters' backstory in the actual game (which was being run from a module), but the GM was using houserules that were never mentioned during the dedicated prep session that exists specifically for clearing up things like house rules. Some people are just bad at the game.
>doesn't play in person or value time with friends
>assumes the group don't know each other or interact outside of the game
>isn't social at a social event
Are these the "no games" I've been hearing about?
>Are these the "no games" I've been hearing about?
More likely than you may think. Last few years saw the creation of the Faux-OSR fanboy who has extremely strong and aggressive opinions about RPGs, but seemingly never has a group or any stories to backup his objectively correct opinions about how RPGs are meant to be played.
>That said, the last game I played in had a session zero but not only disregarded all the characters' backstory in the actual game (which was being run from a module), but the GM was using houserules that were never mentioned during the dedicated prep session that exists specifically for clearing up things like house rules. Some people are just bad at the game.
Are you me?
Had the same thing going on where the GM just introduced new naval combat rules in a have about pirates, with the explanation being pretty much just "trust me bro".
There are more examples
The fact that you equate hanging out with what should be your friends to a work meeting is sad as frick.
I mean, for them putting up with him probably IS work.
Based
>DM sends email with pdfs of info on campaign and char gen
>Send email back with character sheet and backstory
>Once everyone is ready then we play our first session
Session 0 just seems like a waste of time
Some games are clearly designed with the assumption that the PCs will be created as a group, rather than everyone doing it separately. “Session 0” is just when you do that and then you hang out and have fun because the GM couldn’t possibly have prepared a campaign opening for every possible group concept.
The problem is that Forgites tried to make it standard practice for all RPGs, because they’re a blight on RPG culture.
Which games are built with that assumption?
The most obvious example is FATE.
Rogue Trader also really benefited from at least a little coordination between players, since the game only works well if you have Exactly One Rogue Trader.
>um you have to protect my MMO build or else we can't do the dragon raid!!!!
frick you lmao go back
Yes but we're talking about RPGs here, not CRPGs or board games. Any game that requires a hard "role" division between players to function need not apply.
Online tabletop roleplayers are cancer.
All of that is stuff you can do for a game that will meet in person.
You can do this for in person campaign too, that way you and your friends can spend your time together playing the game or doing anything more interesting than filling out a character sheet. You should try it!
No buddy, they reeeeally want to adequate their 2 page backstory to the railroaded plot the DM is going to come up with
That is why they gotta wasted 4 fricking hours
God I dont play DCC but If there is ONE thing I love about It the the backstory section of chargen.
Literally roll d100: ALL right you are a human who used to be a baker, you get a knife and a bread. Now go play the game
Haven't played OSR but ran a death-funnel intro to a 5e campaign once. All the male players lost their shit at having to play someone that wasn't a super special snowflake and retired their rand-gen'd characters early. Only the chick stuck with the dragonborn mime.
And its such a fun thing to do anyways, having a no one become a baron and conquer a myriad of dungeons is where the fun is at.
If you are such a special creature why would you be adventuring and risking your life, right?
>meet once every 2 weeks
>its pain in the ass to coordinate it with 5 adults
>one of these times should be wasted on something that we could have done beforehand
Every time I hear people how session 0 should be a thing am I convinced they never played Tabletop, especially not offline.
Like, Black person we all have jobs and families, it might be different for you but I dont wanna dick around making characters and discussing god knows what when we have like 4 hours twice a month.
Every time we have one of these stupid threads, people explain that session 0 can be a 15 minute talk where the GM and players go over the basics, discuss tone, ideas, intentions, etc. I'm sorry that your life is so miserably busy that the mere thought of wasting time makes you recoil in terror, but it's really not whatever the frick you think it is, and I sincerely doubt you're actually playing anything so complex that character creation will take all night and significantly impact your ability to play for a few hours.
I have never once exchanged emails with my close friends. I use my email for professional work related shit and coomer subscriptions exclusively. Who the frick uses email as a form of actual communication? Do you hand write letters too?
>session zero
Usually means your dm doesn't have faith in the players. Any time I dm'd I either have to generate half the parties characters or have some kinda week prior hype them up for roleplaying at all because they see all the numbers and shit and are usually demoralized about trying anything they're unfamiliar with. Sometimes it's full on d&d but like tutorial mode. One session some of my players still like to bring up was just a basic ship wreck and waking up on the beach, fighting a bore, then introducing each other and actually picking classes. I made them all roll their stats and do their skills but didn't let them choose their classes or feats. They were just dumb nobodies and I used this as a quick guide to explain those mechanics and how they're used in and out of combat. Then as they all shot the shit I walked each of them through their classes and adding the related shit to their character sheets. Just hand waved away all their class features as being exhausted and almost dead from a ship wreck. Then once they killed a boar and did some checks to make camp and rest all their abilities (came back).
TLDR session zero is good for explaining rules(especially and gay homebrew or houserules) and making characters for a relatively new party while gauging what your players want from a campaign whether it's a classic dungeon crawl or some gay thespian critical role recreation.
>Usually means your dm doesn't have faith in the players
A perfectly reasonable stance.
>Do you hand write letters too?
He doesn't know about play-by-post!
This made me actually laugh out loud, good fricking job.
>Usually means your dm doesn't have faith in the players.
I don't usually trust people to read my every thought and have my intentions and desires communicated at a single glance, but you do what works for you.
>Do you hand write letters too?
Why, yes!
I vaguely remember reading that pencil pal skit. it went on for a few skits. ol charlie brown what a silly kid
>Usually means your dm doesn't have faith in the players
I mean, is that such a bad thing?
I play online with a group I've been playing with for years, I recently took over DMing and while I did write a setting primer and details on the campaign, I don't expect the players to remember all the shit I write (Nor am I probably as concise as I should be) and I know for a fact that the important details will stick better if they hear them coming out of my mouth while getting to ask questions.
Does this mean I don't have faith in my players? I guess in a way it does, but honestly I feel like it just makes more sense to work with my players in a way that works with how they are than to cross my arms and go "Well if they don't remember the stuff I wrote then they don't DESERVE to understand the setting!"
You have autism.
>yeah I didn't read that pdf
>what? It was like 3 pages
>anyway here's my gunslinging 3 headed warforged that's actually piloted by 3 gnome catgirls from the future
Hey buddy, this shit of a build and race makes no sense hahaha! How about you change It to one of these options? Yeah, sure, you can reuse your attributes, just remember to change up any racial bonuses.
>doesn't want to meet his friends
no wonder you're still a virgin
There are two kinds of ttrpg player. The one for whom the other players are an integral part of the game, and one for whom the other players are an inconvenience.
The two type of RPG players are exploration oriented players and story oriented players.
There is a third, the combat oriented players, but these are better off playing video games
Some people need specifically segregated time for routine things. They won't think about a character until the first session - you need to be prepared for that, and making the first session a chargen session immediately mitigates the chance of SNAFU. It also makes any severely antisocial players b***h out, saving you from another future headache.
It is a staple for spamming the /tg/ with nogames threads.
A session for chargen and daydreaming about how awesome things might be where that's all you do sucks fricking dick.
It's a necessary evil for a number of modern systems, but make no mistake - it's an evil, and it should be structured such that you have a 1-hour mini adventure ready to go to end the session with actually playing the game.
Nothing, OP is just a nogames homosexual, probably because he brought a character that didn't fit a campaign, got told no, and then sperged out and got booted for being an autistic subhuman.
>A WHOLE SESSION for character generation
It speaks for itself
>whole session
A decent GM has something prepared if the players are all ready to play before the end of the session. Stop being silly.
All right, but in the way he said, it seemed as If It is a normal thing to take a whole session to chargen
No? The primary intention of the session is chargen/backstory/establishing house rules and group dynamic. That takes a few hours at most. After then the GM isn't all SESSION OVER EVERYONE GO HOME. At least, not usually.
More like
>Half a session to agree on what everyone will be playing, maybe asking amy doubts they have about the setting
>Other half pleying an epilogue of how the characters meet or know each other
That's how It usually goes. You'll probable also get to make a combat or plot hook depending on time (mostly if it's a new system to test the waters)
Depends on the system, also it's more than just that, it's bouncing around character concepts, running them by the GM, asking the GM questions about the setting so their character isn't some isekai homosexual who got shat out randomly or spawned from the void and actually fits the setting, then it's getting the sheets and shit filled out.
> it's bouncing around character concepts, running them by the GM
One of the best campaigns I had was me and a bro rewriting our characters session zero due to the addition of the dm bringing the complete warrior and complete rogue 3.5 fluff. We made a wrestling themed duo. A reaping Mauler who specialized in grapples. His signature move was a double titty twister purple nurple. a hand for each nip. Mine was a drunken master who specialized in improvised weapons and just carried a ladder around. He used it like jackie chan or would just spin around the room with it knocking everything over.
Nothing , it's based and a nice chance to get to know your fellow players if you don't already. We would look forward to them, because it was the start of a new game and we'd bounce character ideas off each other and balance the party out thru discussion.
>what's wrong with not playing the game instead of playing the game?
lmao
>making a character isn't playing the game
no? that's prepping for the game, like learning the rules or setting up the board. this is not dark souls where you can get to the character creation and claim to have played the game because it counts on your "played" time. if you don't get to the roleplaying part of a roleplaying game then you're not playing the game
Biggest waste of my time. Talk or email with the DM and then show up to play.
My group has plenty of trouble aligning everyone's schedules together to play at all, so I wouldn't want to waste a session on character creation which can easily be done through a few one-on-one calls.
>Doing characters separately
>Doing them without sitting face-to-face
Ok, serious question:
Is playing TTRPGs just an excuse for your group to hang together, or it's just a force of habit of something you've enjoyed when still in school/uni?
Genuinely asking, because it sounds to me like you don't really feel like playing at fricking all
>b-but schedules
Black person, my group has an ER nurse and a land surveyor who's constantly Ganker due to his line of work. Do you have ANY idea how challenging scheduling can be? And yet we play. And we do meet together to make characters, too.
If playing RPGs was just an excuse to hang out then session 0 wouldn't be a problem, that's just another excuse to hang out. I see some of of the individual members regularly anyway, so it's not like I need an excuse anyway.
I just don't see the need for creating characters in a group, or face to face. We can come up with concepts perfectly fine on our own, then discuss how that'd fit the world with the GM in person and change it accordingly. Makes it easy to keep secrets about our character too. We can fill in our character sheets by ourselves.
If the DM notices similarities or possible connections between characters he'll tell us and we'll discuss them together. If we want to talk to other players about our characters ahead of the session we will, and if we have ideas to make connected characters we'll talk about it with each other. Calls are much easier to organise than live play.
I'm sure there's plenty of benefits to making them in real life, but we play TTRPGS because we enjoy playing the TTRPGs. Delaying the session we can actually play by another month or two isn't worth it to us. Don't know why that seems to upset you so much.
Only excusable if a large portion of the group is new to the system or RPGs in general
>session -1
I agree, but this didn't need a thread.
I bet at least one young beginner GM has unironically been scared off having a session zero and thereby given themselves a tonne more work to do for no reason, and that alone is good enough reason for these threads to continue.
This whole website is [theme] board with people who actually don't engage with [theme] irl, they just make [theme] flavored ragebait & coombait threads.
Yeah, it is. And it sucks - these boards used to be a source of information that you couldn't get through other sources, because it was all citizen reporting with long memories. Now, it's just a bunch of antis sitting around cupping each other's bollox and moaning about how much they hate "the thing" (take your pick) like a bunch of bitter old british women.
>session 10 because everyone enjoys the system and each others' characters
>session √ (-1)
All my friends are normies who need assistance in making characters, so session 0 is mandatory for me.
Session zero is a vital thing, and everyone should do it.
If one of your players has PTSD, you need to know what triggers that before you set them off and get a pencil jammed into your ear canal. Session zero allows you to make sure everyone is on the same page, discuss general information about the setting and game you don't want to waste time with on session one, and create characters together as a group bonding experience.
People who b***h about session zero don't play games in the real world, they think a circlejerk with clones of themselves in some VTT somewhere counts as TTRPG. That's like jerking off with a shower curtain and telling everyone you got laid.
Literally none of that matters because the way things actually go is you roll a character and bring it to session 1 for a game about killing shit and taking its stuff, that is the "setting" and the "game"
Please tell me this is a copypasta stolen from reddit lmao
I am NOT your parent.
I am NOT your guardian.
I am NOT your carer.
I am NOT your doctor.
I am NOT your employer.
I am NOT your lawyer.
I am NOT your teacher.
I am NOT your supervisor.
I am not responsible for your mental health in terms of care or management, nor am I obligated to take time out of my personal life to learn about your mental health issues. Your mental health is the responsibility of yourself and those who have a duty of care towards you. Expecting that I accommodate it when we have no personal or professional relationship is arrogant and selfish.
Basic consideration for other people isn't a huge thing to demand, anf it's worlds apart from taking on the role of a mental health professional.
Except you're not triggered, you've been gaslit into thinking you have a trigger by shitty communities on tumblr and reddit. Ever see someone with shellshock when they fear a sudden burst of fireworks? That's what being triggered looks like.
Not "I feel the big sad now T.T"
I try not to entangle this issue with politics. Some people understand that different minds exist, and some people say "any mind which differs from me is wrong", and this isn't entirely political. For instance, current pro-transsexual politics are heavily based on the idea that the transsexual conception of gender is correct and that any other concept of gender is incorrect.
Nevertheless, I'm 99.2% sure that this anon is a rightoid.
>Imagine coming to this conclusion
>Imagine typing it out for other people to see
>Imagine going about daily in your life having confidence in your self and decision making while you have these reasoning skills
Respect honestly for even being here. If I were a walking lobotomite I'd just end it but you just keep on going. Although it probably comes with the package now that I think about it.
I am neurodivergent, expecting me to understand the intricate workings of your edge case when it defies all common sense (like the verbal mention of a spider setting off your arachnophobia) is ableism. You are not playing because you are being disruptive.
If you're neurodivergent, explicitly talking thibgs through so that everyone's on the same page becomes more, not less, important.
Anon, it's not about understanding each other automatically, it's about having a basic respect for each other and talking through our problems. Some part of that has to happen on the fly, but also some part of it (like if you're super spooked by spiders and this has been a problem for you in the past) can be handled before the game even starts.
Nobody gets "spooked" by a description of a spider unless they're up to the eyeballs on drugs, at which point you're already being disruptive. Persecution fetishists out.
You don't decide and have no special insight into what other people are spooked by.
And dreams don't exist because your experiences with them are anecdotes.
Dreams exist. I don't claim to have any insight on other people's dreams, though. Only information I have on others' dreams is what people having those dreams tell me. When someone tells me of their dreams I'm going to assume they're telling the truth. I'm not going to declare that since I've never had a dream like that, other people can't possibly have a dream like that, either. Similarly, when it comes to phobias, I'm going to trust the experiences of people who actually have phobias instead of using my own phobia-free experiences to try and figure out what kinds of things can trigger someone's phobia.
>Dreams exist.
No they don't. The plural of anecdote is not evidence.
>But we've been talking about them since pre-biblical ti-
Same with cryptids, ghosts, and magic but I don't see any proof of that.
Have you never had a dream?? Fricking lizard people itt
Being afraid of spiders is a legitimate fear.
Being afraid of words describing something akin to spiders is being a pussy.
>arachnophobia isn't real
You idiot.
He’s not an idiot he’s just
>neurodivergent
You fricking istaphobe how dare you impede his right to impede on other people’s rights. Unless you tick the right diversity boxes too then it’s ok
Phobias are real, being spooked by descriptions is not. This is the kind shit tumblrpedos were bullied for.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Some people are pussies. Man up and deal with it.
It's almost as if having, I don't know, some kind of "Session ZERO" could help you communicate those issues and understand.
Also, you're autistic, not moronic. Don't pretend the notion "this player does not like spiders = I should avoid using spiders" is beyond you.
Your neurodivergence should be discussed prior to the commencement of the campaign so I know you are defective, and are not trying to be an butthole.
Mental health professionalism is a spook. We really just need to talk to each other more. Being human comes with certain baggage and you need to accept that if you want to spend time among humans.
If you’ve ever spent time around someone with serious mental health issues and/or trauma you would know how moronic a take this is.
If they need an entire session to spell out everything wrong with them and what we should or should not do around them, chances are they're going to end up a nogames.
I’m not talking about a session 0. If their mental health is so bad they can’t play the game right they shouldn’t be there. I’m saying that calling mental health professionals useless is moronic.
That's fair, but I didn't mean to say that it was useless for everyone, I meant that 'it's a spook' in the context of the posts that I was responding to ("I should be able to play pretend with 4 strangers for 6+ hours a week without having to talk to them about their needs or tastes or limits because I am not a mental health professional").
>I’m saying that calling mental health professionals useless is moronic.
When it comes to real issues, 95% of them are, and it's not their fault. Their field is almost completely occupied by helping people process normal shit because people are surrounded by "friends" and "family" who are neither.
If you think that therapy is a good idea for you then you're probably right. But when someone else tells you to go talk to a therapist it's just because they don't want to talk to you, and that's a common attitude because people are spoiled twats, community-building isn't supposed to be the job of mental health professionals.
> community-building isn't supposed to be the job of mental health professionals
I completely agree. Just as someone who’s struggled with some serious mental health issues I can tell you right now I wouldn’t be here without support from proper mental health professionals. My shit was way too complex for just the community. But I have tried my hardest not to let it affect my games lately. I was definitely a really shitty player before getting help.
That's mostly true, but serious issues definitely require something more than everyday discussion. Like, mild depression legitimately benefits a lot from fresh air, exercise and talking to people a lot, but severe depression isn't going to be cured by that. Psychotic disorders aren't going to go anywhere just by talking to people. It's definitely true that there'd be a lot less need for mental health services if people talked to each other more, though.
>Being human comes with certain baggage and you need to accept that if you want to spend time among humans.
Yes, but not all people accept it, and learning to accept it can also be the goal of mental health work. Like, it's easy to say that people should think or act in a certain way, but what if they don't? Giving a bit of help to work these things out is generally better than just leaving people alone with their issues.
I'll just add that I fully agree with this:
>and that's a common attitude because people are spoiled twats, community-building isn't supposed to be the job of mental health professionals.
I feel like a lot of people have a creepily, unhealthily transactional view on social interaction, one where they focus overmuch on calculating gains and costs of interaction instead of just, I dunno, being present in social situations like a normal person, not taking on the responsibility for other people's woes but letting normal human empathy take place.
>I am NOT your parent.
>I am NOT your guardian.
>I am NOT your carer.
>I am NOT your doctor.
>I am NOT your employer.
>I am NOT your lawyer.
>I am NOT your teacher.
>I am NOT your supervisor
No. You're thw DM. And that comes with certain responsibilities, so this game doesn't become a /tg/ horror story greentext read by neckbeardia.
>babysitting fully grown adults is now a DM's job
And people wonder why there's a DM shortage.
>no personal relationship
You guys really don't play in real life with friends or at all I guess
Just spells it out for everyone lmao
>You guys really don't play in real life with friends or at all I guess
I'm not friends with mentally ill morons who get upset by me saying "a spooky spider crawls out of the imaginary dungeon" and goes in to a homicidal rage because I've triggered someones "arachmuhphobia"
That's why (you) never get to play with anyone past session 3, while I am happily getting my players clamouring for my games every fortnight.
>I am NOT going to be kind towards the former prisoner with the neck tattoo saying VENGEANCE IS MINE SAYETH THE LORD
>I am NOT going to be saved by the police
>I am NOT going to be buried in an open casket
ftfy, you pathetic antisocial worm
>I am NOT your parent.
>I am NOT your guardian.
>I am NOT your carer.
>I am NOT your doctor.
>I am NOT your employer.
>I am NOT your lawyer.
>I am NOT your teacher.
>I am NOT your supervisor.
This but unironically and not as autistically. I'll post a warning if a game's gonna have anything particularly weird (I bluntly stated for my current CoC campaign topics like mass shootings WILL happen because of the premise planned before any prep started just so everyone was warned in advance), but I'm not gonna chase anyone around to figure out all their little worries and triggers. If there's shit they don't like and they're worried I might include, they can tell me.
>if one of your players has PTSD
>people who b***h
sounds like your players on the people who b***h actually
Completely necessary unless the group is playing modules or preexisting settings.
Unless you want someone to have a shit time because they showed up with a Sailor-speced character to a Mongolian Steppe campaign where 90% of the stuff they can do is utterly useless.
Most systems assume a level of theming and congruity in the party, so you really want to avoid 13th warriors.
>Bringing a party up to date on a campaign setting.
Print it out. It's reference material. You have to read books to play these games, players will read it if it's not too long and then they'll be able to keep the reference notes.
>one-on-one with the DM
>No you entitled shit. You don't get your own personal session zero.
Christ dude, it'll take 15 minutes for me to hand you a 1 page campaign primer and roll stats, maybe an hour if it's point buy abilities because you give me that impression that you can't be trusted to multiply and add correctly.
What kind of furry sexual ass games are you guys running that you want to ask about people's ptsd triggers before a campaign? Yeah. You guys need to run your Session 0's. Running games PG13 has never given me problems.
>Christ dude, it'll take 15 minutes for me to hand you a 1 page campaign primer and roll stats, maybe an hour if it's point buy abilities because you give me that impression that you can't be trusted to multiply and add correctly.
That's a session zero you dumbc**t.
It's not a session, not everyone has to be there for it. You can write your backstory on your own time, you've recieved the rules of the game, game schedule, and what's expected of you in print. It's not a round table discussion, if you don't like it you can frick off and run your own game.
All we did was roll dice unless you're a new player and need your hand held. If your character/background isn't finished by the start of session 1 you start a level behind everyone else, that's in the rules on your campaign primer. We start on time, we end on time, I run shit.
Is this a Session 0?
So you're an autist who demands other people put in work outside of game night. Pretending you have game nights of course.
>So you're an autist who demands other people put in work outside of game night. Pretending you have game nights of course.
You might have to read a book to play tabletop games. If you can't read a rulebook without help you're not old enough to be at the table, go play tag or something outside with your friends little brother.
>FATE
I've run FATE without a Session 0. Players got the campaign notes, we were doing 1920s occult investigation/intrigue, think Indiana Jones. I had a starter adventure set up and then the next sessions went into the players goals and backstories. I can see using a session 0 for FATE though. It's not like D&D where i can tell someone "we've already got a rogue" when they're writing their character.
You refusing to call a spade a spade does not make a spade any less of a spade.
>It's not a session, not everyone has to be there for it.
A session with just one person is still a session, you dumbfrick.
>mfw I've been having SEX sessions my whole life
I think they meant to say a session with one player.
Is a session zero but without the fun of chatting with the other players about what they have in mind and spending some nice time together hanging out.
>Print it out. It's reference material. You have to read books to play these games, players will read it if it's not too long and then they'll be able to keep the reference notes.
Evidence suggest that players don't ever read the primer (unless it's a module, then they read the entire module).
>players don't read the primer
I don't do more than one page, front side for a primer. I can see people not reading it when there's more. It lists the books we're using, what level we are, xp rules, and a paragraph or two about the world. They've read the rules, they don't show up at the wrong place or time, or mess up and bring me something from another rules system.
In general, players in my groups are outsiders, because outsiders make great POV for stories with unusual settings because explaining setting does not have to be exposition, it can happen in the context of the story/in game as you go.
I do things differently if we are using a major brand established setting/time period, but I don't run those often.
>a Sailor-speced character to a Mongolian Steppe campaign
I literally did the exact opposite of this; I once brought a Mongolian steppe nomad to a pirate themed game set almost exclusively on the High Seas.
To this day I have no idea what possessed me.
I play dnd with my friends. Hanging out with my friends is fun. If people are finished more quickly than others, they can chat, and it's fun to come up with characters together and make fun of the guy who rolled three 8s for stats.
This. A lot of the time fa/tg/uys views on games seem like they don't like their groups, or talking about games in person, or social interaction in general.
Listen Brian. I work full time. I have things to do. I appreciate my downtime. I do not want to be watching a movie with my gf while you bombard the group chat with questions about the setting/optional rules. I've allocated several hours to you a week to play plus untold more to prep. If I'm going to talk about the setting and answer questions I'm going to do it when I know everyone's paying attention and I'm not wasting my breath. If you're so opposed to hanging out with us then you may not be a good fit for the group.
Thank you telling us how many sessions you've ever played. Epic blog post.
>nogames complaining about their own misconceptions
I hate fake grogs.
If you show up to my session with a character you created by yourself without knowing the party you're meant to be fitting into, I'm ripping up the sheet.
>session 0 keeps gays out
Working as intended then? And people say gatekeeping doesnt work.
>putting words into OP's mouth instead of dick
I think you might be the bigger homosexual here. Session 0 isn't necessary aside from walk-ins with randoms in person. If it's online, all the information is already available to you (or should be if the DM is worth a shit), and if you need any help you can one-on-one with the DM or, as one anon put it, things can be established through a goddamn email.
>one-on-one with the DM
No you entitled shit. You don't get your own personal session zero.
>session zero
You mean the five to ten minutes to roll up everyone's character before you get to playing the actual game?
Apparently they manage to make this shit last a whole session,
Anon once again unable to read a thread without posting.
Depends on the game. A classic dungeon crawler only need for the group to agree classes and why are their characters doing dungeon exploration together. A game like VtM on the other hand may need people having a clear idea of what everyone will be playing on the politics of the game. On CoC you may even need to think some spare characters since the start for when your investigator have sudden dead syndrome or goes crazy.
Yeah. There are a lot of merits to the OSR approach, but they don't work with most games. The OSR guys are right that you should try to minimize it, but the moment you start picking from a skill list, that OSR "roll a dude in 5 minutes" goes out the window.
If I'm playing a game with a specific feel I'm going to use it. If I want the party to have a history before the game it's best to set aside time everyone is available to discuss it rather than juggling 4 text conversation and hoping one of the adhd riddled morons who play with me doesn't just forget to read anything and shows up with a character that doesn't mesh with the setting or party.
It's also worth it if it's a new system nobody has played so questions can be looked up an answered in real time. But you'd know all of this if you actually played games.
>the DM is doing voices
>he thinks its hilarious
>everyone it the table looks uncomfortable
>dm can't stop laughing at his own antics to even finish one sentence
>turns blue in the face and has to use his inhaler
>rest of the table looks uncomfortable and concerned
>one guy is laughing but not at the dm's dumb humor but the fact the dm might kill himself laughing himself into an asthma attack
>the bluer he gets the harder the guy laughs
>as soon as the dm starts showing concerns and stops laughing choking on his inhaler the other guy starts howling with laughter attracting the other tables in the store's attention
I never wanna play at a comic book joint or game store again.
>DM is voicing a prostitute in a brothel
>describes everything he does with each of us
>antisocial spergs upset about session Zero because they stick out and get filtered or booted before even get to play once
sorry about your damn luck
>theaterkid who never played TTRPGs and who only saw session zero in his favourite stream thinks they are normal and should be encouraged
I hope you will find a game in the future..
>nu-/TG/ monkeys who were taught that session 0 was good and normal by DnD youtubers chimping out ITT
>DM vaguely describes immediate surroundings
>Suddenly a monster we can't fight pops up
>DM tells us this will be a "5-7 skill challenge"
>Just calls for rolls and then narrates what we do after we roll
>If we fail he just has the other players roll a different thing to "save us"
>session 0 working as intended
Session zero can be concluded in chats. No need to be scheduled
Pretty much, just finished one for next week's game like this. All I'm missing is some spells because I don't want to choose the same shit the wizard will be using, but otherwise GM send the basic campaign info, everyone just said what race and class will be playing and we already know where we start.
Session 0 can be anything you want it to be.
In my case it was a nice way to casually get started in a massive developed world my gm made with no repercussions before every action had reaction. I appreciated the ease in because it let me know a lot of my ideas were misplaced and whole game was better off for it.
>asked folks to have characters ready to go and chat with them in the weeks leading up to session 1
>also made sure to send them emails and PMs setting info
>first session
>folks only have half their character Gen done and are only now reading the notes
>session 1 turns into a session 0
I’m not that mad but… kind of wish they had just said they wanted a session 0.
In D&D or a D&D like system, we start at level 1, or level 2 with your backstory and character completed before the Session 1.
I've always gotten completed characters from players. Doesn't have to be level 1, could be we've got a group and someone new joining or starting at a higher level, you're party level -1 if you can't finish your shit.
Do you really think they wanted a Session 0?
Usually if someone's curious about whether they can have something special or have a question about the world before/when they're creating their character it's because they're hyped, they'll message me or get in a call/discord about it.
Session 1 we introduce characters in game by having them introduce themselves to an NPC with some status or leverage who wants to know who they are. Instead of introducing like it's an AA meeting, we do it in game with something at stake and it's always kinda funny when someone starts lying about their backstory right away.
Many people on this thread focus on the players talking to the GM and not on the players, you know, talking to each other.
Most campaigns are enhanced by a party that knows what it wants to be "let's all be pirates/vikings/gangsters/etc:. And a lot of the time, instead of going back and forth over emails and discord, sitting people at the table and (stealing this from one of the Traveller editions) saying "Your PC knows the PC to your left. How?" helps make for a more cohesive party, which lends itself to a better campaign where everyone is on the same page.
>he pulls out the lifegain deck
I just think the concept is moronic. Character creation and conveyance of information can take place over the days or weeks leading up to the first session.
It can. It can also take place when you and your friends sit down in person to talk about the upcoming game.. What's the problem?
This is true. In my experience session 0s are also useful for hashing out the details of the setting. Like, letting players have some input and make suggestions often leads to a better setting and, in my experience, increases player interest in and engagement with the setting. I've usually viewed session 0 not just as a character creation session but a brainstorming session, and it's always been both fun in itself and worthwhile.
Yeah, but after an hour or two, I think you really need to cut it off and run a mini-adventure. Don't waste the momentum of everyone being excited to play after making their PCs and figuring out how they relate to each other, by just ending it there.
I don't really like the idea of a mini-adventure, personally. I'd rather leave the actual playing to full length sessions where we can get a satisfying amount of things done.
I've seen too many games fail because they lack momentum. I'd rather end a Session 0 with some fast inciting incident that brings the party together, even if it's not really relevant to the overarching plot.
I can understand that. It hasn't really been a problem for my group lately, though. It used to be, when we were younger, but back then we didn't really have session 0s, we just got together,made characters and played in a largely improvised manner. Back then it was easy to get games going but difficult to keep them going. Everyone had a lot of time but little commitment, and all of us got distracted easily by new character or plot ideas we wanted to try out, even if that meant abandoning the ongoing game. Nowadays everyone has a lot less time, but our games tend to be more thought through and longer-lasting.
Back when I was a stupid kid playing in a different campaign 5 days a week, starting and dropping games left and right, we'd still have that similar ramp up period while one of us percolated new ideas and talked about the kind of campaign they wanted to run. There was never any explicit session where we didn't roll dice all night and went over the minutia before starting, but that was only because when it came time to play Bill's Knights of the Round Table campaign, we had all been talking about it and getting on the same pages for weeks in advance. Also easier to do when your group consists of people you can see and talk to and hang out with every fricking day.
>Also easier to do when your group consists of people you can see and talk to and hang out with every fricking day.
Sadly never happens after high school.
>momentum
That's the word I'm looking for. Hype is what I've been using, but momentum, that feeling of progress is a better way to say it. What we're doing has to feel worth the time players set aside for games.
>too busy to meet up for 15 minutes for a session
Yeah. That's gas, travel time, scheduling for five or six people. I'd rather take time with each person when it's convenient for them in the week leading up to the game. That is the whole point. We're trying to get why you guys are so adamant about something we've never needed to do.
Some people are saying it's not a session, and you call not having a session and rolling your characters beforehand one on one a Session 0. That makes sense, I do that.
>Some people are saying it's not a session, and you call not having a session and rolling your characters beforehand one on one a Session 0. That makes sense, I do that.
It can be, or it can be a group exercise. Either is fine, but both have pros and cons.
>not having a session is a session
Catch-22 ass bullshit, 2+2=5, it's called a Session 0 whether you have a session or not.
>Due to circumstances beyond my control, there will be no big parade this Sunday afternoon.
>“What’s so different about this Sunday, I want to know?” Hungry Joe was demanding vociferously of Chief White Halfoat. “Why won’t we have a parade this Sunday when we don’t have a parade every Sunday? Huh?"
It's fine. It's fine. We drive in a parkway, we park in a driveway. It makes sense. Drive in a parkway. Park in a driveway. Just put the car in park, let go of the wheel, let Jesus park. The first shall be last, it's not a clerical error, then last isn't last, the first is last, the cleric didn't frick up. The car is parked. The stove is off. Last isn't last anymore, it's first. A session is a session whether it's a session or not. The wizard casts his spells by forgetting them. The wizard memorizes things twice.
The wizard memorized things twice.
It's okay. Just memorize it twice.
It's D&D's Vancian wizardry, just induce schizophrenia to increase your spell slots so you can memorize something twice, like in the Jack Vance books. Just remember the nice lady who thought she could divide by zero and how you yelled at her. Let go of the wheel.
tl;dr
Please take your meds. Besides, in your pseud ramblings you've missed a pretty obvious implication of the term
>session
>zero
It's not a real session. Session zero doesn't exist. If it did it would be session one. Because session zero doesn't exist, it isn't bound by the usual constraints of a session and thus can be a group session, or individual, or a simple primer. Different approaches work best for different groups, but they all amount to the same thing. You refusing to view your method as session zero out of fake grognard pride doesn't make it any less of a session zero.
You aren't entirely wrong, but I wouldn't call it "session 0" unless everyone was there, and I think there are certain advantages to having everyone there (vs having a series of 1-on-1 conversations with players). Ex, player one might say "I built a fighter and a wizard and I don't know which one I want to play", and player 2 says 'I haven't built my character but I definitely want to be a meatshield", and player 3 says "I usually play fighters but I've been thinking about trying a rogue", they'd benefit from being able to talk to each other and to the DM at the same time. Even moreso when you get into backstories and the 'culture' of the party (and yea, most of that stuff is supposed to emerge from play, but there are still advantages to starting on the same page).
I prefer to hold session zero in person too. The "this meeting could have been an email" crowd clearly don't work, or they'd know the phrase doesn't refer to a meeting with a collaborative focus (i.e. every ttrpg session). But if I had to speak to players individually, or had the process take fold over a group chat, I'd still consider it a session zero. Let's be honest here, anons hate the term session zero because it's new and therefore woke zoomer nonsense, even though groups have been doing session zero for nigh on half a century.
Totally true. I don't believe in X-cards (because I believe in open and ongoing communication, lol) but note how they lump session-0 in with 'X-cards', like "How frickin dare you expect me to give a shit about other people". These complaints are not coming from quality players.
I'm sure a lot of people can do a perfectly serviceable session-0 with emails, but it depends on the person, others will do better work with a face-to-face conversation. I think the ideal Session 0 is mostly about boardgames and pizza with maybe 30-60 minutes of on-topic conversation.
I did make it sound like mental health professionals were pointless and I apologize. Personally I'm really convinced that a lot of mental health problems are caused by our shitty modern communities, where everyone just tries to evade responsibility for the problems unfolding around them, but that's frankly off-topic here.
tl;dr and very reddit posting style
You can shut the frick up about it, it's a Session 0 whether you have a session or not as long as you roll characters and communicate what the game will be about. It's a session 0 even if immediately afterward you start session 1 in the same meeting.
Ergo as long as you have rolled characters before a game you've used a session 0.
What the frick does this mean?
Does it mean anything? Does it mean nothing?
It makes sense. I mean, you can't play without characters, everyone should use a session 0. Everyone is already using a session 0.
It's important to do all the things you already do and call it something else and then ask people why they aren't doing what they already do.
How do I not have a session 0 before a game? Can i have a session 0 after session 1 if I need to roll a player who joins?
It's not a real session.
Why is some jackass talking about triggers? We don't need a session to talk about that. People with triggers is usually won't shut the frick up about them. Session 0 is for existing whether you like it or not, not to discuss what you should be talking to your therapist about.
The issue is that the term "session zero" is a dog whistle to certain kinds of people, causing them to melt down in a way that has been demonstrated in this very thread. Calling it something else, such as an explanatory term like "pre-game prepwork", will help lower the chance of setting off players like those in your groups.
>dog whistle
If you can hear a dog whistle, it means you're a b***h. Stop acting like a b***h.
Am I watching this guy have a breakdown in real time?
>Hey Dave, we're playing PF
>Oh nice, I'll bring a halfling rogue
>Actually I rather we sick to humans for your first sheets of the campaign
>Oh alright, sure. What if he was raised by halflings?
>Sounds great, you can be a folk hero of sorts
>What's everyone else doing
>Jen's bringing a cleric of Pelor, Sam's being a Barbarian, and I think John's deciding between a wizard or a warlock
>Sounds great. What time are we meeting?
>3PM, my place. I'll bring snacks
WOAH GORILLIONS OF HOURS WASTED
HOW WILL ANON EVER FRICKING RECOVER THE PRECIOUS SECONDS LOST BEING A FRICKING ADULT
That isn't session 0 that's a 5 minute text convo
You have now redefined "Session 0" into not being a session of any kind at all, and have in fact made it what everyone else has been suggesting all along: Just keep a conversation going as you plan together in preparation for actual gametime.
You absolute buffoon.
Food fight isn't Session 0, what the frick are you talking about? Food fight is literally a starting scenario for completely new players.
the frick do you have against double spaced type you illiterate high school drop out?
>more defensive about the exact definition of a "session" than anything else
>not actually concerned with the issue of pre-game conversation and preparation
>MUH VALUABLE TIME
Okay, so this is just moronic kneejerk homosexualry by a bunch of uppity dipshits trying to purity spiral into nogames puragtory. Got it.
There's no "problem" other than it being pointless and moronic. If I'm sitting down and, as part of that stated period of days or weeks leading up to the game, sit down and talk with my friends about the upcoming game, that doesn't constitute a "muh session 0".
In any group worth a shit we're likely to "sit down and talk about the upcoming game" many times, whether in person, in group chat, or as part of a call. Does that constitute sessions 0 through 258? Of course it doesn't. Ridiculous.
Oh, it's another "I have session 0 but I insist on calling it something else" episode.
>If I'm sitting down and, as part of that stated period of days or weeks leading up to the game, sit down and talk with my friends about the upcoming game, that doesn't constitute a "muh session 0".
Yes it does. It's just a less efficient way of achieving the same result.
>Character creation and conveyance of information can take place over the days or weeks leading up to the first session.
So an extended session 0.
So not a session in any way.
Underrated reply.
Don’t let the door smack you on the ass on your way out.
>session÷0
>Shadowrun literally has built in session 0 food fight
>has had this since before the term existed and since before any of you were born
>have been having productive and useful session 0s since before the existence of Ganker
I don't understand what is wrong with you people this isn't hard.
I have an arachnaphobic in my group, so I don't use spiders.
I apparently still trigger this consistently with my replacement creatures.
Once I told my players that it sounded like a light rain advancing out of a dark hallway towards them. Then the plops got heavier as it got closer, then a huge swarm of quarter-sized jumping spiders came out of the shadows. None of my players thought that they were arachnophobes but they still got triggered.
I'm not even trying to spook my players, I just like monsters.
>session 0
>x-cards
>freakshit races
Just say no.
You sound like a based darkbad player. I like the X card because when another player is annoying me I can just touch the card, point at them, and then they’re banished from the game forever. I’m trans btw
>How low effort can the bait be for it to still succeed in nu/tg/?
>This and more epic pranks will follow every single day until the end of time I guess!
>Don't forget to subscribe
it goes in every field
>he thinks session 0 takes hours
Session 0 is basically the time it takes for the GM to explain what's the game about, what system you're going to play, make the chars and come up with a coherent story for the pcs to be helpful to each other
You literally had that on every game, and if you say you don't you're lying
>Americans wake up
>thread gets political
I been here for 6-7 hours now but thanks for noticing.
And like I said, I don't like it, but it's hard to avoid: 90% of the rightoid memeplex is "different-think bad". It's no surprise that they got kicked out of other TTRPG communities, and it's no surprised that they ended up here.
Look at this entitled American moderate liberal here.
I dont even bothered reading the discussion, but I already know suck just by looking at how much effort youre putting into sacastically dismissing the rightoids opinions.
be sure, your kind makes this genre of games and this world, in fact, sterile to live in.
Everything you guys do make this life boring, less meaningful, less joyful, less personal.
Everything must be streamlined so as to fit AS MANY PEOPLE as possible.
Let me ask
Do you have depression?
>moderate
lol
>I dont even bothered reading the discussion
I would urge you to familiarize yourself with things before judging them, but you won't, but still I urge you to do so.
>how much effort youre putting
lol
>dismissing the rightoids opinions.
Do you admit that "frick session 0" is a rightoid nogames opinion? I feel bad saying so, because part of me still wants to believe that everyone has a point, but in this case yea I think it's just a rightoid tourist thing. Rightoids are offended by the idea that other people might have different expectations (and different triggers) in social situations. Like I said earlier, this is something that orthodox liberals are getting in on to, but it's mostly still a rightoid thing ("DIFFERENT-THINK BAD, SAME-THINK GOOD, ME AM BASTION OF RIGHTFULNESS").
>Everything you guys do make this life boring, less meaningful, less joyful, less personal.
Says the conformist drone.
>Do you have depression?
No, I was an unhappy teenager (20 years ago) but that was because of my circumstances, the world is complicated and I wasn't ready for it. Good shot though. Leftoids are more likely to describe themselves as depressed, rightoids are more likely to blame someone else for their unhappiness, it's good to point that out.
I've been a woman, it was just a phase but it was awesome, and nothing that you say or do can diminish my satisfaction. Enjoy being a drone.
lol
This has to be ironic, you cant truly be this insufferable and smug at the same time
>Do you admit that "frick session 0" is a rightoid nogames opinion?
No, where did I say that? I just used the same term as you for the sake of argument.
>Says the conformist drone
Im not the one telling people to submit to streamlining practices for the sake of making everyone super comfy and wholesome
>I've been a woman
?
What?
>This has to be ironic, you cant truly be this insufferable and smug at the same time
You're totally right, different-think doesn't exist, anyone who sees things differently from you is obviously just trolling.
>No, where did I say that? I just used the same term as you for the sake of argument.
But I didn't dismiss any rightoid opinions except for "session 0 is bad". I even went out of my way to validate a random-ass rightoid opinion just for the sake of argument. You guy are silly.
>streamlining practices
What? "Streamlining" is skipping all the prep because you assume everyone wants the same thing you do. Which, to reiterate, is an opinion which I blame on rightoid tourists, because I don't remember anything like that opinion existing on pre-gamergate /tg/. But I'd love to be wrong.
>I'm not the one ... making everyone super comfy and wholesome
Why not?
>What?
Dated a string of older women, they put me in dresses and I frickin loved it, then I grew out of it but I don't regret it for a moment. I only mention it because you did, you are totally barking up the wrong tree if you're trying to tell me that I'll never be a real woman.
>Why not?
Funny that you cut a part of the sentence as If that didnt change the meaning of It.
Ill explain. I meant to portray the fact that I dont enjoy giving up the qualities of my game and the way I and my players enjoy playing to accommodate people who cant look out for themselves. That is not to say im not accepting, in fact, there is an highly autistic boy that plays at my table in my LGS, but that is because he does not make any demands an entitled homosexual likes to do. We dont diminish from our collective enjoyment by including him, that is the big difference. He is challenged, but is not diminished, we dont restrain ourselves for him, and He enjoyed It a lot, has been playing with us for a long time.
>because you assume everyone wants the same thing you do
Eles they wouldnt be playing in my table, they generally come with a brief pitch, telling what the game is about. Mine are about Dungeon and hexcrawling, I generally say: come with a one-line backstory and two characters. Im available to help chargen for those who never played before.
>they put me in dresses and I frickin loved it
What the frick
>you're trying to tell me that I'll never be a real woman.
What the frick, again. I wasnt going to tell you that
Is this some kind of humiliation kink in which you expose your shameful past to internet strangers in hopes of getting them to mock you so you can cum very hard?
what the frick is this, you dont need to tell me this shit. Now I just pity you, hope you find God someday
>Ill explain. I meant to portray the fact that I dont enjoy giving up the qualities of my game and the way I and my players enjoy playing to accommodate people who cant look out for themselves. That is not to say im not accepting, in fact, there is an highly autistic boy that plays at my table in my LGS, but that is because he does not make any demands an entitled homosexual likes to do. We dont diminish from our collective enjoyment by including him, that is the big difference. He is challenged, but is not diminished, we dont restrain ourselves for him, and He enjoyed It a lot, has been playing with us for a long time.
nta but what does any of this has to do with having a session zero? What do you think it happens there?
More in line with his question really, not exactly about session zero.
>I meant to portray the fact that I dont enjoy giving up the qualities of my game and the way I and my players enjoy playing to accommodate people who cant look out for themselves.
No one asked you to do that. Talking about it doesn't mean deferring to others. Sometimes you can compromise, sometimes you have to kick a player, the difference is up to you but it's always worth talking about it. "I shouldn't have to talk about what I want from my game because everyone should share my opinions by default" is a conformist drone opinion.
>What the frick
lmao, just based on that I can guarantee that you have repressed fetishes, I don't know what they are but I can guarantee that you have them.
>I wasnt going to tell you that
You just replied to a post where I replied to an anon who told me that. Welcome to Ganker, I hope you enjoy your stay.
>hope you find God someday
Been there, done that, it's a trap for small minds. I hope you find an outlet for your repressed fetishes.
lmao @ Ganker christians
When I replied to you I didnt even think about session 0, in fact, I just wanted to address your leftoid smugginess.
But I do think session zero is a waste of precious session time, yes, especially If used to talk about personal problems.
>just based on that I can guarantee that you have repressed fetishes
Hey buddy, not everyone has to have the same problems as you.
We all have fetishes yes, but I dont need to talk about mine on the internet. Also, sometimes its virtuous, too, to not do everything we want, to restrain ourselves, especially when It comes to sexuality.
>When I replied to you I didnt even think about session 0, in fact, I just wanted to address your leftoid smugginess.
Of course, you didn't read the thread, you said it yourself. Like I said, welcome to Ganker, I hope you enjoy your stay.
>We all have fetishes yes, but I dont need to talk about mine on the internet.
This makes me think that you're probably not going to enjoy your stay.
>Also, sometimes its virtuous, too, to not do everything we want, to restrain ourselves, especially when It comes to sexuality.
Only in terms of getting pregnant, or getting diseases, both of which are the result of normative heterosexualty and not the result of fetishes. Like I said, I hope you find an outlet for your repressed fetishes.
>This makes me think that you're probably not going to enjoy your stay
I meant to say in a less accusative manner that you should be ashamed of telling other of your fetishes, especially the one you have.
I cant see how getting diseases ir pregnant is a result of normative heterosexuality, but It doesnt really.
I think you found to yourself convincing enough terms to justify your behavior, and make it seem beautiful, aesthetically pleasing and revolutionary even.
I wont be changing your mind anytime soon
>I meant to say in a less accusative manner that you should be ashamed of telling other of your fetishes
lmao
I wish you the best of luck bub, you're going to need it.
Same
Feel free to frick off out of here anytime then. Ywnbaw
No one is ever going to forget, you filthy Leaf.
I'm Bri'ish you yankee dankee doodle streak of piss.
Weird how you guys got super-ethnicized in such a short span of time, I can sort of forgive brits for being xenophobic, but that only goes for brits. Xenophobic americans are all morons.
U wot m8
>X cards are dumb because dreams don't real
X cards are dumb
Not sure what this has to do with dreams
>leave when thread was about the benefits of arranging details of the game beforehand and how session 0 can happen using the same chat you use to agree on the scheduling
>come back and suddenly is people rambling about X cards and how phobias aren't real
The frick is wrong with you people
I have never heard anyone dealing with X cards in real life, only people here claiming how terrible they are (in their minds) like the easier strawman ever created.
Seriously, at most I heard people here claiming that once they had an online GM who handle them a form about what things they were confortable with and they just decided they wouldn't play (your problem since you play with strangers), but X cards? Nothing, no one has ever seen them.
I think the only place you're likely to see an X-Card is at a convention game.
That or the place they were created for: playing with children with development issues.
>Con game
>Game with children with development issues
What's the difference?
the difference is the kids with development issues can potentially learn the game.
I've seen zoomers on tik-tok make fun of people who dislike X-cards, so they do exist for some groups it seems
But do they use them on their game or do they just make fun of the X card living rent free on your head? I have never used tik tok so I have no idea
No you see, Anon's an expert who know people's phobiae aren't set off by vivid descriptions of them. That would just be irrational!
session zero is getting shitfaced with the lads
session one is getting shitfaced with the lads while rolling dice
god damn do I love my table
>Year 20XX
>"Wow anon this battletech game is pretty fun but I wish we could play it as an RPG."
>"Well conveniently enough it has an RPG component, it just doesn't have one of those automated character builders like D&D has so I have to crunch it manually. Why don't we have a session zero and I'll guide you through it."
>Players drag feet on meeting for literally three months.
>Meanwhile come up with loose concept for Solaris 7 campaign complete with faction loyalties, sponsorship deals, and come up with a way to simulate battle damage on NPC mechs the players aren't currently fighting so that I don't slow the game down with stuff not relevant to the players.
>Players arrive the first session expecting to build characters in the first ten minutes of the game.
>Game doesn't last three sessions.
(Several years later, repeat second greentext)
>"It's got an RPG, but last time I tried to run it my players dragged their feet on a session zero for so long that they lost interest and availability, so I'll make all your characters for you, just text me a general idea of what you want for your characters, and I'll ask when some options come up."
>like pulling teeth, again dragging their feet for months.
>Meanwhile research PDFs to make a campaign that is parallel to the canon with timeline, news articles, etc.
>By the time we have the first session one player is completely unavailable due to new girlfriend, whole group collapses before third session.
>Get invited to CoC group
>GM doesn't want me to make my own character.
>Expected to pick characters from a stack of prefabs like so many monopoly pieces.
>Players eat that shit up?
>Several years later, post-agaoc, new Battletech group.
>see Greentext 2
>"Nah I'm done with GMing".
>Battletech meatspace total warfare group still going strong with monthly pickup games four years on.
The RPG might have been my first foot in the door, but I'm done with breaking my back for stillborn groups, session zero or no. Someone else can.
That's been my experience with specifically the Battletech RPGs. They're just terrible for starting things up. Maybe destiny is better but I've just had no real interest in giving it a go.
Honestly, it wasn't destiny itself but the community that killed it for me.
>New rules light narrative/RP-focused version of Battletech RPG gets released that is mostly self contained.
>"Hmm this looks like it would be alright for newbies that are only used to RPGs. Maybe I'll give it a whirl if I give running RPGs another chance."
>Youtubers with warhammer studios start touting Destiny and their other homebrews as a wargame 'replacement' for standard Battletech just as the first wave of confused new players and 40k expats start showing up, and claim that sticking to the original rules is somehow gatekeeping new players because new players can't into gaem. Actually gains traction.
>mfw
I had a quick Session 0 that led into Session 1 in about an hour.
Dunno what you gays are doing wrong.
Oh wait, I do.
You're all nogames.
people who are against session 0 are the biggest gays ever and will immediately be uninvited from my table if they don't want to participate. /tg/ is an inherently social activity, and if they don't want to socialize they will be a problem player. nip it in the bud
Session 0 is such a non-issue people on this thread have to invent increasingly twisted and convoluted scenarios to justify not having one.
You can make good use of one if you:
-never played/run the system
-want to answer all the players doubts at the same time
-want ideas/feedback
-want to let players agree on backgrounds or builds
-want to test combat or mechanics before the game
-are running a game or system that needs some info dumping like historical stuff ("this is 1920's South Africa", "this is a 90's Sabbat campaign set on Cuba")
Reminder that the divide on /tg/ is less about games or no games and more about friends and no-friends.
To people with friends, tgs are a way to hang out with bros and have fun playing games, regardless of investment. Can go from casual to deep, fully fledged houseruled systems. Friends are an excuse to play and try games, games are an excuse to meet again. A self feeding loop.
To people without, people are a means to play a game, so any time not spend doing that is wasted.
This is why there's such a divide for sesion 0. For some, it's the hype moment, the preparatior for the next adventure with friends. To others, it's like a mandatory job meeting. "I just want to do my job and get paid, why do I need to deal with this pointless chore?" and such.
Disagree, I think its much more about the kind of game being played. There a people who really want to play these grandiose narrative stories.
For these a session 0 is mandatory because they need to agree on everything going forward.
For those who play games um much less emphasis on a predetermined narrative, then a session 0 is pointless
So, quoting old /tg/, "depends on the game".
>For these a session 0 is mandatory because they need to agree on everything going forward.
Yes you need to all agree to go from plot beat to plot beat without ever diverging from the railroad.
Just read a book at that point.
I agree with you but what can I say, some people do enjoy these kind of storyplaying games
Do they? My group's games are often story-heavy but never railroaded. That is, there's something going on that can't be ignored and players have to engage with, but the outcome of things isn't pre-determined. Who plays these on-the-rails games you're talking about?
What is with this moronic notion that a story-heavy game has to be railroaded? A halfway decent GM will just improvise and and adapt the story to the players' chose with consequences that make sense.
Heck, I'm a shit GM, but I'm not forcing my players to do anything specific despite having a rough timeline of events prepped. Players can follow whichever plot hooks however they want, I'll adjust if they kill the main antagonist in an ambush several sessions early and throw the "intended" story haywire. Maybe that solves the story, maybe the surviving subordinates step up and put the party on their personal shit list, maybe a different antag steps in to fill the power vacuum.
You guys imagine is something like streamings group do where they have a clear idea or where the story is going for that session, but actually is more akin to VtR aspiration system
>Aspirations are plans and goals for your Character. Goals have always been encouraged as they add an extra dimension to a Character but now they also provide us with a way to track and award extra Experience (XP) by using Aspirations.
>Though Aspirations are not obligatory and a requirement, they are strongly recommended as a way to add extra plot hooks and colour to a Character and a means to earn extra XP by achieving your Aspirations through gameplay. As a Character completes an Aspiration they have listed they will earn extra XP.
You have short (one session, a couple session) aspiration and long term character goals, the Storyteller may use it at discretion and can be intertwined with plot hooks. More than one character can share them.
Most important: and is not about the direction of the story, but the direction of the character. If your character wants to become Prince is a good tool for the Storyteller to include chances for you to do that, but that doesn't mean you will succeed or are impervious to dying, just that most of the focus will be on that instead of other random shit like your previous mortal life.
I don't imagine anything; i just told you what my group's games tend to be like.
So its railroading with extra steps?
Dont worry the storyteller DM Will give ou what you want. But you may fail I dunno roll charisma
How is that not railroading? You just added the chance of failure, so instead of one ending, there are two. This is only and illusion of choice.
The thing you guys dont understand is that, for this shit to be a game, there shouldnt be a heavy story in the sense that there is a point by point plot to be followed.
What can they do besides following the explicit storylines?
Can they explode the unknown? Roam the overworld looking for villages in peril, dungeons and loot?
If they can only follow predetermined plot points, is there really a choice? The dm is just choosing for the players and then making them believe their choices matter. The DM, as you said, Will Just improvise after any deviations somehow so that the story reaches the specific end he envisioned.
>Thinks making goals for a character is railroading
I'm a different anon. I run games in the goal style against a generated map. You can follow your goals, fail your goals, get caught up in the party's personal or group objectives (as decided by the party, I don't have a say in what you guys decide to do), as in your goal isn't the only hook, you can get close to your goal and fail, or you can die in an unrelated situation. The goal isn't the entire game but it makes hexcrawl not aimless, characters in our games want something other than money and power.
These goals are something it might take several months to do, because they're goals for the campaign. I'm trying to go over everything about it because I think you're missing/overlooking a vital piece of information.
I don't meet for a session for this, most players knowing the requirements and the rather large xp bonuses they get out of it and come up with something creative, if not something mimicking a hero they like.
I usually introduce people to the idea that there is no right way to go by showing them two hooks where they can't follow both in session 1. If they comment on it, that's when I get to tell them "you can go this way, you can go that way, you can follow your goals, you can sit in the bar and drink til it closes, it's not up to me."
Then you get attacked by 1d4 Wererat.
I get what you mean, but isnt this just railroading with multiple roads to follow?
Yes, there are choices through the multiple hooks, but a limited number of them.
And when It comes to plot hooks, the narratives are still somewhat predetermined, once again, its just that the players dont need to follow them in order.
For sure this is much more freeing that a pure one single choice railroad. But id say gaming freedom only comes from the lack of a structured narrative and the setting of a populated world allows the narrative to emerge from It.
A world with conflicts, problems, castles, villages, cities, lairs and dungeons, but no narrative to be found, for that is to arise from the tables experience, and It will be a story when told in its aftermath.
>not sure about railroading
Railroading is when DMs run games like modules. When you run a module there isn't a game outside what's in the module, because if the DM or players get creative with it that might mess up what the module has planned.
I'm not sure what you mean by predetermined. They say not to plan more than a session ahead. It's not worth it. If during a session I need to generate a dungeon or a series of encounters and loot to go with it, there's tables for that. Unique maps are the most important thing for me to buy because I always want more my players haven't seen before.
The important thing for me is understanding it's still a game and an experience and not just straight simulation, so I want rising tension, broken up by moments to joke or RP or mess with NPCs in between, as the game session goes on. A bigger fight or a harder puzzle toward the end is a better feeling than stopping in the middle of something that doesn't really matter. (Goals serve the same purpose, making things matter in an exploration game)
The puzzles/situations I make don't have solutions built into them. If you come up with something that works, it works. Generating games and filling in you maps as you go is old school D&D, they stopped making tools for that because they found out people would fixate on a setting they liked and stopped buying new material. (Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons, 2022) Because there's no singular way to fix things, players who just focus on their stats and look at their sheets for what they can do well have trouble with these open ended problems, while creative players find solutions easily.
It's just a style of game. Some people prefer or have more experience with modules.
That's because you're running dungeon crawling and the like, games like Vampires where politics and connections are relevant need for the storyteller to have a smaller scope because you can't just create a big conspiracy of politics out of your ass. If your sire suddenly does something it would have never done before then you would get suspicious, but if you're just inventing things on the fly you will end up making the players concern with irrelevant shit..
>"But I don't get it, why did he betrayed the Camarilla?"
>"H-he just did, ok! S-shut up!"
>The thing you guys dont understand is that, for this shit to be a game, there shouldnt be a heavy story in the sense that there is a point by point plot to be followed.
>What can they do besides following the explicit storylines?
>Can they explode the unknown? Roam the overworld looking for villages in peril, dungeons and loot?
They can explore the shit I have prepared, which isn't an entire continent, homosexual. This isn't Skyrim, I'm not going to just produce a dungeon because you went into a cave unless you want all the content to be half assed because I had 30 seconds to make it or rolled it off a table.
Anon has never played a hexcrawl in his life...
Procedural generated garbage belongs in videogames, the days of the hexcrawl are over.
I run a welcoming table that allows LGBT people and women. This means that Muslims are banned because Islam is inherently homophobic and sexist.
I think Islam prohibits luck-based games anyway.
No it prohibits gambling.
Ah yeah that's it.
people like you are exactly why we have a session 0
>invite friends for CharGen
>drink couple beers and help whoever hasn't played the system yet
>when everyone is finished with the stats etc we play some board games for the rest of the day
>???
>profit
I would say it's pointless if you play online with strangers but if I do shit with my friends it's just comfy and helps to get a good mix of chars with everyone knowing what to expect from the group. For example char A picks locks like a baboon fricks his aunt so the player with char B might consider a different skill as their party trick. Not saying that's necessary, just that it can be beneficial.
Stop wasting your time with rpgs and play wargames you moronic homosexuals. Problem solved.
Hell, skip the game entirely and just head to Ukraine and/or Israel. They'll be glad to have you, I'm sure.
I hear they are only accepting rpg cucks.
Why would I waste my time with a wargame when it offers literally nothing turn-based strategy video games and RTS games don't do better?
>Cheaper because I'm not wasting my money on overpriced plastic
>Easier on the hand because I don't have to waste my time painting shit
>Easier on the nose because I don't have to play with morbidly obese homosexuals who don't know what a shower is like (you)
>Easier on my time because I can play them whenever I want for however long I want and stop whenever I want
>Easier to find other players for because nobody has to deal with any of the bullshit I listed above
Meanwhile, TTRPGs offer a truly emergent narrative and sense of exploration that video games can't hope to match.
>Meanwhile, TTRPGs offer a truly emergent narrative and sense of exploration that video games can't hope to match.
>moron has never played a narrative campaign with a wargame.
And crpgs are better than the garbage your DM comes up with anyways
>crpgs are better than~
That depends. If you want to play an rpg with your friends, crpgs aren't really going to do it. If you want to vfrick a bear or a vampire twink crpgs have you covered. The fricking state of crpgs.
>Man of Shade
>Nogames literally walks away from games
If I'm not playing D&D 5e, I don't expect other players to know how to play the game, much less make characters. It's much better to set up a short session to make sure everyone is on the same page than to suffer from someone bringing their 5e abomination of a character to a GURPS or Lancer game.
I never played a session zero, and it sounds like hours of blueballs. I ran a session zero once, though. My players all knew how to roll characters, so they did it pretty quickly.
Then I had them collaborate on what planet they lived on (Spelljammer setting). Name, climate, culture, etc.
Then I ran a quick encounter to set the stakes. Whole thing took the length of a normal session.
I think a session zero is okay if players know how to make a character, and if some gameplay happens.
Oh, also, I swear some of you people don't preempt your players with what you're gonna run. They should know "the setting is this, the adventure is a heist or survival horror or whatever, and you're all prisoners or mercs or a band of bards", so that way they have some ideas of who they want to be.
>preempt your players with what you're gonna run.
Literally and unironically: That's session 0 material. Convincing yourself that people are talking about wasting hours doing nothing when it's been said many times in this thread that's not what people mean, is just willful ignorance.
By redefining the meaning of "session", you've effectively made it mean any conveyance of information in any context, at any time, for any amount of time (or none). At this point, Session 0 is either completely unavoidable at all times, or it does not exist at all and never did.
You're a fricking idiot.
Okay, let's fully acknowledge that calling it a "session" is a bit silly, but if we're going to do that, I want you to also acknowledge that having a severe kneejerk reaction over it because you're imagining something no one is actually suggesting, is a very silly thing to do.
No, we can't acknowledge that it's silly to call it a session, because everyone that is criticizing the concept is doing so based on the fact that it is, in fact, a dedicated session.
If you remove the core aspect of why people are questioning it, no shit questioning it becomes stupid. Effectively no-one is questioning an exchange of relevant information in order to facilitate gameplay, because that would be absurd - people are questioning the idea of a dedicated singular session dedicated to something that shouldn't be a problem in the year of our gods 2023.
>noo you can't use a word if it's not literally the thing the word describes nooo
Wait until this guy hears about metaphors.
Exchanging that information without a session 0 isn't a problem. Neither is having a session 0, though, and sitting down in person is generally both a more pleasant and a more effective way of making sure that everyone has paid attention and understood things the same way than just handling things through messages.
Okay, so you're an irrationally outratged moron and why should anyone care what you think?
Session cero was a literal session before everyone and their grandmas had an instant chat device on their pockets. Today you have new tools you can use to bypass it, but even so getting together to discuss what you're about to play is still useful, specially to allow player to create thing together (for example to let characters share a backstory).
Still depending on how familiar with the system everyone is if may just take half a session or even less.
Imagine not wanting:
>Sitting down as a whole group to make sure everyone understands and matches expectations for the game
>The opportunity to talk to other players about the character you're making so you can banter and figure out some potential dynamics between your party members (especially if they are supposed to already know each other)
>Access to having more brains at the table to cover any potential questions and concerns about how to make your plans and ideas work out the way you want them to
Not only are games a social activity, but good communication is the most important factor for making sure everyone's having fun. This minimal investment of one meeting before the actual RPG starts ends up paying out dividends for ages if you bothered to cover the right things. Even in groups where the players all know each other and talk outside of the game, setting this time aside to make sure they are all in on getting ready for the game itself is massively useful, and can even give the GM so much extra information to work with in the initial planning.
The sorts of people kicking and screaming about session zero, or the very concept of talking to your players, are the guys that become the subject of GMs asking other GMs how to deal with them.
>I just expect to sit down and have everyone show up with finished characters and fully finished 5 page backstories! THAT'S HOW GAMES WORK AND THAT'S HOW YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO PLAY
Is the most nogames shit you'll hear repeated by people who think every game is a no nonsense meat grinder where everyone everyone always knows the exact kind of game they are playing every single time without ever talking to the GM.
Good bait.
>He doesn't know about systems where session zero is a mechanical thing, arguably one of the most enjoyable parts of the game.
Have you tried not playing D&D?
Mongoose traveller 2e is right there.
There are 2 options to why people make fun of session 0.
Either you just play with the same gruop of friends and all the things you like, they like too,and know exactly the same systems as you.
Or you never actually played a fricking game that survived 4+ sessions.
>Either you just play with the same gruop of friends and all the things you like, they like too,and know exactly the same systems as you
or you just play with people who aren't moronic and don't need someone babysitting them for the entirety of system learning and character creation.
>Or you never actually played a fricking game that survived 4+ sessions
I could say the exact same about people who require a session 0 to start playing and it would be just as if not more valid.
>Some people are arguing that the reason they're sore is that it's called a "session."
Did you gather the players of the game together to do something related to the game? Then the group is in session. And also, this is the least important part of the topic.
>gather friends
>talk with players before starting
>set tone, theme, expectations
>take feedback and ideas
>go over any last second questions
>end session 0, which did not involve playing the game
>take short break, let everyone get their shit together, adjusting anything that conflicted with previously discussed topics
>start session 1, actually playing the game.
>this is unironically what nearly everyone already does anyways
>this is what many people in this thread have admitted to doing
>someone the idea of calling it ANYTHING sends them into an irrational sperg-rage
>explains nothing
Why is it a session if it's not a session, as in info exchanged on the phone or online but no session happened?
Why is it a 0 anything if 0 is nothing?
Shut the frick up.
the problem isn't what is called, but that it is treated as a necessary encounter separate from the one where you actually get to play the game. and this isn't a made up no-games /tg/ problem, I've legit encountered people who expected to have a session just for character creation, even when they already know how to play the system.
It doesn't make sense if everyone already knows the game.
It does make sense if it's a new system, I can tell you when we tried playing Robotech it did take everyone a lot of time to prep the characters and the mechas, and indeed we did take an entire session to do it.
yeah, I'm not against session 0 on principle, but I also generally tend to avoid systems that a new player couldn't reasonably learn on their own while asking me questions via chat messages.
>yeah, I'm not against session 0 on principle, but I also generally tend to avoid systems that a new player couldn't reasonably learn on their own while asking me questions via chat messages.
Harder systems, like a point-buy, I want to help players one on one if they're new. I'm not happy with a group session where I spend extended one on one time with more than one person and people who have to wait start losing interest or looking for reasons to try to give up. If it's not that complicated I don't need a session 0, if it is that complicated I need individual time with new players.
>people who have to wait start losing interest or looking for reasons to try to give up
Why... why don't they like, chat with each other as they wait? You know, like normal human beings.
>not understanding why new players in a point buy system getting stuck and fristrated on what should be a fun game, instead to get the most out of it you have to be familiar with the whole book
There's no classes in point-buy and each skill, ability, and stat costs so much. It's very easy to get things wrong (as in not buying saving throws, alternate abilities, attack rolls, not taking flaws which are immensely powerful). They're also the most flexible systems you can find. It's pretty easy to have multiple forms, create your own spells, have a dungeon or base of operations you own, not have a body, have more than one body, eat sunlight and see through time, dual wield longbows.
No classes though. How long do you think it'd take you to generate a character in a system like this point-buy virgin?
That's not what I asked, what I wondered is why those who already finished their characters don't they just chat with each other as they wait whoever is left finish?
If they're done they're fine. It's needing to help multiple people that gives me trouble.
So as an example. Duel wielding longbows. You can buy extra arms. That doesn't give you extra attacks but you can manipulate more than one thing at a time. Extra limbs don't cost very much. If you want to get something out of this you'll want to set up a special attack, like an AOE arrow spam. Set a limit on it where it only works with two bows. It has your base attack. Base attack is expensive to buy but affects all your attacks. If you want a more powerful character you'll want to limit it, so buy attack that only goes with bows. There is agility/dexterity but that doesn't affect your attack. Another way to do it would be buying magical bows with your character creation points, setting an alternate attack that's an AOE if you use both. If you really want to get fancy you can make it a spell that summons bows so you can't ever lose them. It'll cost a point more because there's two of them, but a point less because it's coming from a device. You'll start to save points when you put more alternate attacks into your bows, like an overcharged freeze beam that hits a single target for more, but takes a negative to hit but also comes with a freeze status effect, which might have cost ten times as much if it were bought alone, but because it's an alternative power it only costs 1.
The rules for every aspect of creating this attack are split up into five different places in the book and the section on attacks and powers takes up half the book like a D&D spell list.
It's an example from a point buy system. Others are slightly more or slightly less convoluted and i left out the part about multiplying. This can frustrate new players when they need help and have to wait on other people who are getting help first.
I do need sessions before the games in those systems, but a full group meeting is counter-productive.
that's fair enough, I would be lying if I said a session 0 has never been useful for me personally as a DM.
>the problem isn't what is called, but that it is treated as a necessary encounter separate from the one where you actually get to play the game
>it's not the words being used
>it's that it's being referred to as something that schisms my tism
It's almost like you need to communicate and talk with people and make sure they're all on the same page. And if your group isn't having this problem, having some asinine hateboner for the concept because some people waste their own time with an added character creation session is still fricking moronic.
I don't have a hateboner, I've even said in another post that I'm not against the concept. what I did was clarify that the reason some people complain isn't because of semantics, they simply dislike the concept of an aloted meet-up session where no game is played, which is a reasonable opinion to have if you think normalizing it or making it a required habit might slow down and waste time they could use to be actually playing, which is the part I sympathize with.
>it's not semantics
>it's... semantics
Come on man...
>It's being treated as a necessary encounter
It's not, but it's extremely useful. Experienced players who understand that these games are collaborative want the value that comes from doing this.
You don't NEED a Session Zero. But they're so useful that being adamantly against the concept of them is actually stupid.
yeah, I'm just explaining what other people feel.
the problem was never with the word "session", people are not suddenly okay with it if you call it "encounter" or something else. if you're changing the wording so that it doesn't mean what they have a problem with, of course they're not gonna be mad anymore, but you'd have to be a moron if you think this is a matter of "semantics" when you're using words that mean or imply different things.
What have we learned...
Session 0 is for people with friends. 🙂
X cards are still cringe and their issues are resolved in Session 0 (whether there's adaptability to your needs or the GM tells you to save yourself and run)
Look how many idiots responded to this low tier bait.