General Who's run a Session Zero and what do you include?

[Spinward Scout]

Do you run a Session Zero?

I would think a pre-game obstacle course would be cool. Or Target Practice to teach Gun Combat. Maybe even a simulated Blade or Melee Combat mini session. A short race to get a feel for Vehicles.

There's so many things to put into a practice run.

Do you do any practice with the Players learning the game system in the Session Zero?

And what do you include in your Session Zero?

 

[PulseStar]

1) I include the Character Creation in the Session Zero.
It lets them learn the rules as they go forward.
2) I also put the Connection Rule on pg 19 of the Corebook.
It brings the group together and gives them a shared history.

 

[coliver988]

Our Session Zeros tend to be character generation, figuring out how/if we know each other, and learning the basic mechanics. This applies to all games as my group tends to switch games every few weeks as we rotate GM duties. I do like the idea of some practice combat as that is where I honestly always have issues when running most games, with so far, the sole exception of The Fantasy Trip as its combat is based on the board game.

I do want to run a Traveller game this year, and I'd love to have session 0 also have the players at least describe their home worlds and we generate a MTU by mutual exploration (and I cannot take credit there - I read about that somewhere on this forum I think). So not only character generation but universe generation as well.

 

[Dragoner]

Sesh 0 is talking about themes, and parameters, and I mean things can change in game, except everyone starts out as crew of a Free Trader or something like that. That is what we decide, then often it is on to character generation. We do sometimes do VR battles as training, and that is like if everyone wants to do it.

 

[coliver988]

Sesh 0 is talking about themes, and parameters, and I mean things can change in game, except everyone starts out as crew of a Free Trader or something like that. That is what we decide, then often it is on to character generation. We do sometimes do VR battles as training, and that is like if everyone wants to do it.

we honestly must have a session -1: towards the end of the current game we start also discussing via chats what sort of game we want to play and who will be running. That's when we come up with the basic parameters of what the game is basically about and we start throwing out character ideas. The actual 1st session aka session 0 we already know which game is going to be played, the general idea or background, and at least vague ideas about the characters we want to play.

We also have fun months and years later in our text chats (while most of the group are in FB or the like, I do not use social media, or as I like to call it, anti-social media) we still run jokes and things in character from older and current games. Mostly very silly things. But it is also a form of game play we all enjoy.

We do use Discord to run games in, and for the next game we'll create a new channel and start info dumping there.

 

[Dragoner]

we honestly must have a session -1: towards the end of the current game we start also discussing via chats what sort of game we want to play and who will be running. That's when we come up with the basic parameters of what the game is basically about and we start throwing out character ideas. The actual 1st session aka session 0 we already know which game is going to be played, the general idea or background, and at least vague ideas about the characters we want to play.

We also have fun months and years later in our text chats (while most of the group are in FB or the like, I do not use social media, or as I like to call it, anti-social media) we still run jokes and things in character from older and current games. Mostly very silly things. But it is also a form of game play we all enjoy.

We do use Discord to run games in, and for the next game we'll create a new channel and start info dumping there.
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Nicely organized. I have run some games on a discord, works well. We have multiple GM's so that games sort of grow from whoever has the most enthusiasm to run it. Long term campaigns are fun in that without other ideas, we can pick up from where we left off the last time.

 

[Starglim]

I've run an in-character training combat for a scenario framed as a joint mission of several allied military forces.

 

[Bartleby]

We had players brand new to roleplaying let alone Traveller. So we focused on two things:
1) I had already pitched my idea of the tone and style of the game to ensure they knew what they were signing up for
2) We discussed what they imagined when we said "Science Fiction". The term is a big umbrella and I wanted to ensure they thought more of the gritty human-centered things like Alien or Fifth Element than say, the clean automated view of Star Trek (not that they are mutually exclusive for everyone but they were for me.
3) Then we made characters, and that is the great thing about Traveller, it is a mini-game itself. I think that is why they enjoyed it. And as much as I consider myself a CT person, the Mongoose life events really bring a spark to the generation