Make Sure You're All Trying To Have The Same Kind of Fun at Your Table

No matter what game we're all playing, the genre we're playing in, whether we're tossing out a one-shot for the evening, or running a multi-year campaign, the point of any RPG is for everyone at the table to have fun. The players, the Game Master, everyone there should be having a good time.

However, "fun" is a slippery word... which is why it's important to make sure it means the same thing to all of you.

Fun looks like different things to different people.

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What Does "Fun" Mean To You?

Think about all the friends you have, and the things they like to do for fun. Some of them might curl up in a window seat and read novels. Others might run marathons. Some will do karaoke, get rip-roaring drunk, or both at the same time. You've probably got a friend who's a foodie, another one that's a power lifter, and one who just likes to kick back, smoke weed, and watch silly comedy films.

What I can guarantee you, though, is that while some of your friends might enjoy the same activities, a lot of them don't. Not only that, but one friend's fun would be something another friend wouldn't enjoy at all. Whether it's your foodie friend who detests running, the lifter who can't stand alcohol, or the bookworm who gets nauseous at the very idea of getting up and singing in front of people, the old proverb, "One man's meat is another man's poison," comes to mind.

Emily, I appreciate you're a wine lover, but the rest of us don't drink.

So what does this have to do with gaming? Well, it's because you all need to want the same kind of fun if you actually want your table to be enjoying the game equally.

I talked about this in 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better Game Master several months back, but it's something that I re-iterated in the companion volume 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better RPG Players that came out recently. However, to re-iterate, just because you and someone else are friends, and just because you both like RPGs, that doesn't mean you're both going to want the same things out of your games.

As an example, consider the following:

- Do you like games with a lot of crunch so you can build and manipulate, or do you like simple, stream-lined rules that don't get in your way?

- Do you like games with a lot of moral dilemmas in them, or do you like your good and evil to be cut and dry?

- Do you like playing good guys, or bad guys?

- Do you want the whole table on the same team, or do you enjoy stories where jockeying for position and seizing advantage is part of the experience?

- Do you like stories with clear plots you're supposed to follow, or do you want to be in charge of creating your own destiny?

These are just a few examples of the kinds of things that can be major points of contention among players. I know several folks who love playing DND 5E, or even simpler systems, because they don't want to spend hours poring over mechanics, or to build a character from start to finish before the campaign even starts. For me, that's my jam, and when I can't do that it takes away from the experience for me. I've shared tables with some players who always wanted to have evil characters, and who disengaged when they realized there would be serious consequences for that sort of behavior (even if they were warned beforehand this was a heroic campaign). Some players want to get stuck-in running the numbers for making a profit wtih the shop the party took over, and only go out on adventure if everyone else pulls them away from their ledger. Some players just want to empty a quiver of arrows at goblins without worrying about the moral ramifications of slaying a sentient species... other players want the opposite of that.

Sometimes we can all compromise, and find aspects of a game that we all like. We might be having fun with different parts of the campaign, but we're all enjoying it as a group. Other times, though, it's possible that what's fun for other players, or for the Game Master, is what makes the game not fun for you.

Because it's all well and good to say to people, "Play whatever game you want, and play it how you want, as long as you're having fun!" But fun isn't a universal feeling, and we need to be sure that what makes it fun for us is also what makes it fun for the rest of the table!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

For The Love of God, Play a Different RPG

I've been playing RPGs for almost half my life now. That's longer than some, and nowhere near as long as others. However, there is a very curious trend I've noticed among a lot of tabletop RPG players, and it's something that never ceases to confuse and fascinate me in equal measure.

Namely that they'll find a game they like, and then just stop. They don't want to hear about other editions, they don't want to try out other systems, they have this one thing, and they will not be moved from this hill. And this often leads to people turning themselves (and their games) inside out instead of just making their lives easier by playing a game that already does what they want (but which their current/favorite game doesn't do).

Please... on behalf of all designers out there... play something else.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

The Right Tool For The Right Job

If you were going to enter a drag race, you'd probably want to bring a muscle car to that event, right? Something that's got a lot of pick-up and go, that hits its speed fast, and that will send you rocketing over the finish line inches ahead of the other guy. Now, maybe you're not used to handling that kind of machine. However, bringing the dusty old VW bus you're used to driving to this kind of event basically guarantees you're not going to make it over the finish line at all. No matter how much you chop down, re-rig, or alter this machine, it's never going to perform as well at this task as a vehicle purpose-made for it. It's even possible that you could cut it down too much, and end up with the whole thing just dying right under you.

For those who aren't sure what this metaphor is talking about, keep reading. You're the ones who most need to hear this.

Because sometimes you just cannot make an X into a Y.

What I'm getting at is that RPGs are built and designed for a purpose. Even games that claim to be broad-reaching and genre-neutral still have limitations regarding what you can and cannot do with them, or alterations you can make to them.

But there are a lot of players (and a lot of GMs) out there, who want to take their game of choice, and twist it in an attempt to make it do something it was never designed or intended to do in the first place.

A perfect example is something I saw the other day. I love Pathfinder, as my regular readers know. I have an entire Character Conversion master list that covers concepts from the Death Korps of Krieg from Warhammer 40,000, to The Incredible Hulk from Marvel, to Sandor "The Hound" Clegane from Game of Thrones, because there's a lot you can do with this game. Something you really can't do with it, though? Run a modern fantasy game where the players are all vampires in a secret world, and who are differentiated into a bunch of different clans each with their own unique power sets and heritages.

Why would someone attempt to run Vampire: The Masquerade using Pathfinder rules? I don't know, but there was someone on a forum who seemed bound and determined to make it happen!

I hope they eventually stopped.

This is the clearest example of this kind of thinking. For one thing, Vampire is a classless system with no levels, and Pathfinder has classes AND levels. Beyond that basic issue, though, vampires are an extremely potent threat in Pathfinder, far beyond something that PCs are supposed to have access to. Not only that, the magic systems are completely different, with Pathfinder using Vancian magic and Vampire using trees of unique powers that cost blood to activate.

It may be the most extreme version of this, but it's certainly not the only one that just wasn't going to work. From trying to remove magic without a replacement from Dungeons and Dragons to make a gritty, "realistic" game (forgetting that high magic as a resource is a major pillar of the game's mechanics), to trying to twist a game as simple as FATE to run a full Werewolf: The Apocalypse campaign, you're just going to be better off choosing the right tool for the right job.

Mechanics Cause Ripples. Flavor Usually Doesn't

As someone who hasn't had the disposable income to purchase a new RPG of my own in most of a decade, I know the struggle when it comes to keeping things fresh around the table. Sometimes you really want to do something different, but you have to work with what you've got. And sometimes you want to change things up, but your group is really loyal to a particular system, and don't want to play anything different, even as a sampler. As someone who's sort of made converting content from one game into content for another my personal niche, let me offer a piece of advice that will save the GMs out there a lot of time, energy, and sweat.

Changing mechanics causes more issues that changing flavor. However, when mechanics and flavor are closely linked, you end up needing to change both of them.

Sand in the gears, and the whole thing falls apart.

Let's say, for example, you wanted to run a DND 5th Edition sci-fi game, but you didn't want to use the rules created by products like Ultramodern Redux. A simple change would be to re-write the classic fantasy species as genetically-engineered creatures, and aliens. Turning orcs into a gene-spliced species of super-soldiers, or making elves into highly-advanced aliens, would change none of the mechanics, but give you all of the flavor shift you want. Changing the species name would likely help, too.

Then there's simply shifting high magic to high tech. Now instead of wizards you have something like Ingeneurs, who use their unique tools and foci to create changes to the world around them. Each school becomes a unique discipline of the sciences, and their "spells" are now cast via implanted neuro devices, handheld computers, and even their familiars might be little more than intelligent, hard light projections. Sorcerers become psionic anomalies altered by a variety of cosmic events, gene-tampering, or alien influences, armor is given a clean up and a name change while the stats remain the same, and so on, and so forth.

That would be a lot of work, but it would be a functional change because the underlying mechanics of the game haven't really been touched.

Could you strip out all magic entirely? Sure, you could. Could you then replace it with a completely different system of high technology? Yep. But at that point, you'd basically be writing your own game, and having to re-balance some really big issues, and to make sure the rules and content you created kept things fair and balanced. And that is a lot harder, while also presenting the real potential for the whole thing to come apart at the seams in the way that flavor changes wouldn't.

So, if you feel you have to alter a system you have in order to run a game it wasn't meant for, keep this in mind. It's going to save you a lot of time, energy, and effort going forward.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Game Designers, Stop Relying on GMs To Do The Work For You

Anyone who's ever sat in the big chair at the end of a game table knows that it's a tough gig running a campaign. You need to keep the plates spinning regarding the plot, all the NPCs' voices, figuring out what information your players have and don't have, and making sure you understand all the different plots and schemes the villains are running at any given time... it's a lot to balance.

However, I'm going to plant a flag in a hill this week when it comes to game design. Because there has been a trend I keep seeing when I read rulebooks that I think entirely too many designers are getting in on. Namely that a lot of us seem to be content to do half the work of designing a game and its rules systems, then clocking out for the day, expecting the game master to fill in the rest of the blank sections on their own.

What does this dial do? Meh, hell if I know!

Before we get into the meat of this, remember to subscribe to my weekly newsletter to stay on top of all my latest releases! And if you want to help me keep the wheels turning around here, then consider becoming a Patreon patron today. It really does make a huge difference when all is said and done.

Make Sure The Product is Done Before You Release It

In the interest of clarity, let me say what I'm not talking about here. I'm not saying that games should try to discourage game masters from changing things to suit their table's desires, because that's absurd. Nor am I saying that we should design our games in such a way that GMs have no agency or decisions they can make within the framework of the rules or setting, or that we should somehow do away with Rule 0.

What I am saying is that we need to make sure the product is actually complete, and that it's totally functional as it stands without any additional material provided by the people who purchase it. Because that's what they paid us to do!

An example might be helpful.

Let's say, for a moment, that you were designing a car. People who buy a car acknowledge there are all different kinds of makes and models, but they still expect a machine that functions. The vehicle should start up when they turn the ignition, it should go when they put it in drive, and get them to their destination. They have to keep it on the road, and it has limitations, but it's a functional, complete device that performs the function one expects.

However, a lot of RPGs I've come across seem to be missing parts, and the fill-in for it is always, "ask your GM," or, "at the GM's discretion." Whether it's games where the villains and the PCs seem to be operating on different rules (giving the monsters powers/spells/items that simply don't exist for the PCs), games where target numbers are left entirely up to the GM to set (often without any sort of guidance as to what would be fair at any given power level), or games where character abilities out-and-out say that a player needs to ask their GM when and how it functions are all examples of cars that are missing pieces.

It's not that they don't work... but it's that if you expect them to actually work properly, all the time, then the game master has to get in and make their own fixes to the vehicle that should have been there in the first place.

Aftermarket Upgrades Need To Be Optional

An RPG needs to be a complete, functional system when it goes up for sale. The reason is because this isn't some group project you're just tinkering around with that might be fun for people... this is a product. You are selling this game, and if you've ever bought a product that was missing pieces then you know exactly how frustrating it can be trying to make it actually do what you need it to do.

Yeah, I made it work. Still pissed I wasted money on this thing.

It is understood in any rules system that players can pick and choose whatever aspects they want, changing things to suit their fancy. But that's the keyword; change. You cannot change something that wasn't provided in the first place. That's just you actually crafting a piece the manufacturer didn't give you.

For an example, you could look at my Gods of Sundara release (available in both Pathfinder and DND 5E for those who are interested). In this book I provided a blueprint to use for creating gods in this setting, and in a world that has no alignment. Every god has the usual entries like name, domains, holy symbol, and things like that, but each god also comes with 5 Pillars to represent the central ideas and commandments of all varieties of their faiths, as well as signs/portents of their favor and disfavor. Many also included Faces, which were alternative perceptions of this god under different names and appearances.

While this book makes it clear there are a near-endless variety of gods great and small in Sundara, and that players and GMs alike are encouraged to make their own to suit the stories they want to tell, I also provided a sample pantheon of gods. So, while I provided the blueprint for making one's own divinities, and made it clear they could alter as much of this as they wanted without upsetting the world canon, I also provided a full 10 gods with write-ups and faiths so that no GM who picked up this setting ever needed to create their own pantheon if they don't want to.

That is what I'm referring to. A game should have all its parts in motion, and the GM should be able to just get behind the wheel and drive without having to change fuses, find a missing 4th wheel, or troubleshoot a poorly-designed fuel injector. Because there will always be people who, when they buy a car, want to tinker around with it to see just what sort of performance they can get out of it. Other people, though, just want to be able to take a drive through the countryside. In both cases, these people paid for a complete product... so give it to them!

Speaking of Complete Products...

If this is the first you're hearing of my Sundara: Dawn of a New Age setting, the idea is that it's a fantasy RPG that utterly removes alignment, and whose goal is to focus on moving forward rather than constantly looking back into some mythical, half-remembered past. A place of strange magics, unique discoveries, and constantly shifting alliances and borders, it's a realm filled with adventure as surely as any other!

And if you've already gotten your copy of Gods of Sundara (available for Pathfinder and DND 5E), consider checking out some of the Cities of Sundara splats that started this world off!

- Ironfire: The City of Steel (Pathfinder and 5E): Built around the Dragon Forge, Ironfire is where the secret to dragon steel was first cracked. The center of the mercenary trade in the region, as well as boasting some of the finest schools for teaching practical sciences, Ironfire is a place where discovery and danger walk hand in hand!

- Moüd: The City of Bones (Pathfinder and 5E): An ancient center of trade and magic, Moüd was lost to a cataclysm, and then buried in myth. Reclaimed by the necromantic arts of the Silver Wraiths guild, this city has once again become a place teeming with life. Despite the burgeoning population, though, it is the continued presence of the undead that helps keep the city running, ensuring that Moüd is not swallowed up once more.

- Silkgift: The City of Sails (Pathfinder and 5E): Built on the cottage industry of Archer cloth (an extremely durable material used for sails, windmills, etc.), Silkgift is a place that prizes invention and discovery. From gravity batteries that store the potential of the wind, to unique irrigation systems, to aether weapons, the city positively churns out discoveries... and then there's the canal they cut through the mountains that makes them a major center of trade across the region.

- Hoardreach: The City of Wyrms (Pathfinder and 5E): A center of power across an entire region, Hoardreach is ruled over by a Cooperation of five different dragons. A place for refugees and outcasts of all sorts, Hoardreach boasts some of the most unusual citizens and creations from across Sundara. Infamous for their sky ships, which require the cast-off scales and unique arcane sciences of the Dragon Works to take to the air, one never knows just what they'll find in this city built atop a mountain.

- Archbliss: The City of The Sorcerers (Pathfinder and 5E): A floating city in the sky, Archbliss has been a refuge for sorcerers for thousands of years. It's only in relatively recent years that the city has allowed those from the ground below who lack the power of a bloodline to join them in the clouds. However, while there are certainly amazing wonders to behold, there is a darkness in Archbliss. Something rotting away at its heart that could, if not healed, bring the city crashing to the ground once more.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

A Good DM Understands The Rules Before Changing Them

There is, perhaps, no more hotly debated topic than Rule 0 when it comes to RPGs. For those who aren't familiar, Rule 0 is the one that's usually stated in the introduction to a game where the creators point out that this is your game, and you bought it. If you feel that certain aspects should be ignored, changed, or tinkered with, that's your decision, and you should run the game that makes you and your players the happiest.

Do whatever, we've already got your money!

This is very similar to the advice that I've seen in a lot of creative writing classes. It goes something along the lines of, "It's your story, write it however you want to. The rules only exist as guidelines!"

While this advice is inherently true, anyone who's tried to read fiction written by someone who thought their story was so brilliant that it shouldn't have to adhere to convention or common story structure knows just how badly awry this can go. Because as I said over on The Literary Mercenary, Good Writers Understand The Rules Before They Break Them, and the same goes for all the dungeon masters out there.

You can change absolutely anything in the game. But you need to understand what you're changing, and the wide-reaching effects it might have, or you could end up chopping off your nose to spite your face. Because you're basically pulling up the files that make the game run, and making your own changes to the code. If you're not sure what you're changing, or all the aspects of the game it can affect, you can do more harm than good.

Wait... Was That a Load-Bearing Rule?

Oh shit... I might have just made things worse...

I've been in a lot of games over the years, and more than a few of them were run by dungeon masters who were more than happy to change rules they didn't like, or to port things in from other games to suit their fancy. Generally speaking, I've found that DMs who understood the game and had a firm grasp on the rules could make this work. Those who had only a rudimentary understanding of the game, though, ended up making things much worse than the so-called problem they were trying to fix.

As an example, I've met several dungeon masters who wanted to take Pathfinder, and run it as a low-to-no magic system. As such they limited, or outright banned, spellcasting classes for players, and made magic items rare-to-nonexistent in their campaign. While this eliminated fully half of the game's playable content (given that a roughly half of the classes and archetypes in the game get some form of magic or magical abilities), that's completely possible to do. However, when these DMs tried to run a game that followed the usual progression of challenge by level, they noticed something straight away... the difficulty curve went vertical in a big damn hurry.

Shit! That's the third TPK this level... what the hell?

The reason for this is that Pathfinder is a high fantasy game, and the progression of threats players face at higher and higher levels assumes they have access to magic. Not just for the purposes of healing (though that is a concern, since taking total rest heals double your class levels in a day, and that means a fighter could be in traction for a month just to get back to full strength from a single mid-level scrap), but just to be able to face certain monsters with any expectation of wining. Damage reduction that specifically ignores attacks not considered magical is very common starting at around CR 5, and it only gets harder and steeper from there.

Now, that doesn't mean you can't run a relatively low-fantasy game using Pathfinder... but you need to understand that just eliminating your players' access to magic is essentially removing half the pistons from your engine, and expecting it to run more efficiently now that there's less weight. You need to consider all of the things that choice effects, from how you expect PCs to heal, to which monsters they can realistically fight, to how that changes the value of certain classes and abilities.

In this situation, it's often just a lot easier to run a system that does what you want in the first place, such as Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of or perhaps Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, instead of trying to twist the core system in knots to do something it wasn't really meant for.

Whether you want to eliminate alignment in a game where it actually has effects on your character actions and the world around you, you want to throw out feat taxes because you think they're a drain on gameplay, or you just want to import a different game's rules for handling grappling, energy resistance, or weapon degradation, you need to be able to see all the ways this change is going to effect the game going forward.

Because if you change something, you're essentially throwing a rock into a pond. As such, you should have some idea of where the ripples are going.

Avoid The Cascade Cock Up

For those fortunate enough to have never experienced this phenomenon, a cascade cock up is when one thing goes wrong, which makes something else go wrong, and it continues on until you realize you've pulled the level on a Rube Goldberg device you hadn't realized was there, and whose end goal you're not entirely sure of.

Oh crap... where's the stop button?

You started with something small, maybe. But that small change had an unforeseen outcome, and now you've got a problem. So to try to fix the first problem you make another change, but that also results in a fresh set of problems. Now you've got to change something else in order to keep your first change valid, but it opens up a whole different can of worms.

There are two things you need to help prevent this. The first is to know the game you're modding so that you understand how all the moving parts are connected. The higher your degree of system mastery (or the fewer moving parts your game has), the better the chance that your changes will work they way you intend them to with minimal side effects. The second thing you need to do is actually run a few scenarios, even if it's just you sitting at your kitchen table and rolling dice, to see just how well this change holds up to the action.

Because when you make a house rule, you're essentially writing a patch for the existing game. You need to make sure your patch doesn't accidentally put your players on god-mode, or end up making your enemies into unstoppable monsters because of an unforeseen complication.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

The Importance of "Session 0" in Your Tabletop Games

So, you told your group you wanted to run a new campaign. Everyone in your group agreed that a new campaign sounds like a topping idea. You agree on a time and a place for the session, and then you spend the next week fitting together a complicated political drama for your players to get embroiled in. There will be subtle maneuvering, assassination attempts, duplicity, and it will really keep them on their toes. You take a step back, and admire the thing you've created.

Then your players show up. That's when you find out your "party" consists of a chaotic evil necromancer whose motivating goal is to raise an army of the dead to raze the nation to the ground, a gunslinger whose on the trail of the barbarian chief that murdered his father, a ravenous halfling whose chief motivation is seeing how much cheese he can steal from every inn he passes using an obscure 3rd-party class you've never heard of, and a ronin samurai who thinks with his sword instead of any more viable parts of his anatomy.

Problem?

It's bad enough that no one in this group is really a hero (and at least one of them has no real interest in becoming an adventurer), but they have no connection to the plot, or to each other. Attempting to bring this hodgepodge group together is already going to be a headache and a half, but trying to get them to follow a subtle, political plot is bordering on psychological self-harm.

Fortunately, you can prevent this sort of scenario by making sure you start every campaign with Session 0.

What Is Session 0?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and Session 0 is a DM's best preventative. What you do is sit down with your group, and set all the ground rules for the upcoming campaign. If you want to use point-buy instead of rolling for stats, you bring that up in this session. If you aren't allowing 3rd-party content, this is when you tell players. If you want to make any other blanket rulings, like no evil alignments, no gunslingers, no construct crafters, or no non-core races, this is the time to do it.

Standard dice only.

Once you've laid down the basic rules, and made your pitch for your campaign, you open the table to questions, comments, and discussion. For example, your group might like the idea of doing something different than the average dungeon crawl, but they want to know what you mean when you say "political thriller". Does that mean they should all bring non-combat characters, or does it mean that you're going to be doing more of an urban game? Does it mean you'll be allowing assassins or ninjas for PCs? Does everyone in the party need to be from the same nation? Should they all have background ties to one noble family or another?

There are innumerable questions that can, and should, be asked during Session 0. Here's a list of some of the most basic things you need to cover.

- What system are we using?

- What world is this campaign set in?

- What books will and won't be allowed?

- What are the general themes and overall goal of the campaign?

- What is the method of stat generation?

- What house rules are going to be in-play?

Once you've covered all the basics, you should let players discuss character concepts, both with you and with each other. Ensuring that you're present while this process happens allows you to answer any questions your players have, and it allows you to get an idea of how the party is shaping up. You can also point out deficiencies in party strengths, and warn players that certain concepts, while valid, might not get as much time in the spotlight as they're hoping.

It's Preventative Maintenance On Your Campaign

Session 0 takes a bit of work, but the amount of trouble it will save you down the line is totally worth it. Gone will be the days of your players trying to port in stuff from older editions that have been changed, or taking unusual templates or races without checking in with you first. And, if you're lucky, the players will work together to form a party that has connections, and cohesion. Any problems that do arise can be nipped in the bud, rather than waiting until they've grown a size category or two before trying to tackle them.

Also, before you get your campaign rolling, you might want to check out 4 Common DM Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them), as well as The 5 RPG Characters We Should Stop Playing.

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