The case against session 0 (or Just Start Playing)

The Case Against Session 0 (Or: Just Start Playing)

I ran a Session 0 exactly four times in my roleplaying life. I participated in several more as a player.

Two of those evenings were fundamentally boring, mostly spent figuring out character creation in a new system, something that could easily have been handled individually or asynchronously. Another was enjoyable, but only because it wasn’t really a Session 0 in the modern sense. We weren’t negotiating tone or boundaries. We spent a few hours collaboratively building the setting for an alternative Dune universe. It was creative work, not procedural alignment.

And one of them, the one where I consciously tried to follow “best practice”, was so dull and uninspiring that the group never actually played a first session.

That experience clarified something for me.

A dedicated Session 0, as often recommended today, is fundamentally at odds with what makes RPGs great and does not solve many of the problems it is meant to solve.

In Medias Res Works for a Reason

There is a reason so many novels and films begin in medias res.

Because it is exciting. Because it hooks you.

Beginning a campaign with what feels like a project kick-off meeting at work is about as sanitised and bureaucratic as shared imagination can become. You gather adults with limited free time, sit them down, and say: we are not going to do the fun thing this evening; instead we will spend our time together negotiating frameworks, group etiquette, creative agendas, and meta-expectations. Yes, for the whole evening. But the next time we meet, we will have fun, I promise you.

Well, predictably, momentum vanishes before it even forms.

And momentum, in any social activity, is everything.

The Real Constraint Is Not Conflict

The most serious constraint in roleplaying is not misunderstanding. It is not boundary violations. It is not tonal mismatch. It is not conflicting "creative agendas".

It is time.

Adults have jobs, families, obligations. Shared free evenings are rare. 

Sometimes in some of my groups we joke about only being able to play when "the stars are right".

In that context, spending a session not playing is not neutral. It can easily be the difference between a campaign beginning or fading into the calendar void.

A full evening spent talking about playing instead of actually playing is therefore extremely expensive.

It spends the one currency more precious than anything else at the table: time together.

Alignment Does Not Happen in the Abstract

Session 0 is usually defended as a way to align expectations: tone, themes, boundaries, play style.

In theory, that sounds sensible. But in practice, most mismatches only become visible once play actually begins.

People do not know what they want in the abstract. They discover it through scenes, pacing, consequences, dice rolls, character choices. Through tension. Through boredom. Through surprise. Play reveals preferences far more reliably than discussion ever will.

You cannot meaningfully negotiate how gory violence should be until someone describes something gory. You cannot assess tonal fit until tone is experienced. You cannot detect mismatches in expectation until play happens. 

Experience generates clarity. Discussion before experience often generates generic statements of intent that will easily be misunderstood.

Conventions Don’t Need It

A common defence is that Session 0 is necessary because players don’t know each other.

And yet conventions, the purest form of playing with strangers, cannot use one.

At a convention table, the GM spends five minutes explaining how they run their game, clarifies tone, expectations, and red lines, and then starts playing immediately.

If Session 0 were essential to safe and functional play, convention gaming would be impossible.

It isn’t. And I can tell you, as someone who has run dozens if not hundreds of convention sessions, that it works remarkably well. Not without any problems, but with very few. 

In fact, I only remember one truly problematic situation that ever occurred, and given that the player sounded very reasonable until he started acting in a bizarre way, randomly attacking NPCs, and eventually rage-quitting the game, I don’t think any talk before the session would have avoided what happened there. 

What conventions rely on instead is clarity, authority, good sense, and goodwill, not prolonged negotiation.

Trust Is Not a Contract

Groups do not survive because they pre-negotiated everything.

They survive because of communication, flexibility, and good faith during play.

If a group cannot adjust when friction arises, no amount of pre-game discussion will save it. And if it can adjust, alignment will emerge organically through shared experience and mutual adjustment.

I recently read an article on Gnome Stew extolling the virtues of Session 0. In their example, the GM had prepared an agenda so long the group did not finish it in a single sitting. Moreover, the GM included a point about motivation commiting the players to playing characters “interested in saving the world and humanity.” The article presented this as a great idea, because if a player later declared during play that their character hated humanity, the GM could point back to the Session 0 notes and overrule them. 

This is precisely the kind of bureaucratic nonsense I wish to avoid. Why would you want quasi-legal agreements about your game? Who are you playing these games with anyway?

Roleplaying games are not legal systems. They are places of shared imagination, where the sharing is managed through empathy and responsiveness, not paperwork.

What complicates this discussion is that Session 0 is treated by some (at least in online fora) as a purity test. Not as an optional tool, but as proof that you are one of the good, responsible people. That is a bad habit. Session 0 is not virtue. It is just one possible procedure.

A Lighter Alternative

Instead of Session 0, do what convention tables do: as a GM spend five minutes at the beginning of Session 1 explaining how you run your table. State succinctly what behaviours you consider unacceptable, what hook are the characters supposed to follow into adventure. Explain how players can signal problems if they arise during play (stuff like x-cards goes here). Ask if everyone is fine with it. 

Then start playing.

(Essentially, it is the responsibility of the host to define the basic rules of engagement and to do it as succinctly as possible.)

For longer campaigns, keep the first session light and exploratory. Afterwards, spend a few minutes checking in with the players. Adjust if needed. If you think something requires clarification, write it down and share it asynchronously.

Sometimes you may need a time out and a serious talk.

But that talk should be about something that actually happened at the table, not about hypothetical concerns that may never materialize.

And not only those conversations take minutes, not entire evenings, they are in practice extremely rare. In 30 years of running multi-year campaigns, I cannot remember needing to have "the talk" more than a couple of times.

Don’t Replace Play With Talk

I don’t object to discussing play. If I didn't like discussing play I wouldn't be writing a blog. I object to replacing play with talk.

In a hobby already starved of time, momentum is precious. Spending it before the game even begins is not wise.

Start with play.

Let experience reveal the rough edges.

And above all, respect the rarity of those hours when everyone is finally in the same room, ready to imagine together.