As was once said in the opening of a classic 80’s sci-fi movie, “a beginning is a very delicate thing.” And while that holds true for many different types of media, it is especially true for an RPG campaign. After all, you as the GM have asked several of your friends to devote a few hours out of their lives on a recurring basis to a group gathering with the intent to tell a story, roll some dice, and generally have a good time.
I’ve been a table-top gamer for a great many years, and I’m all too aware of the “analysis paralysis” that can strike both new and veteran GMs when it comes to embarking upon a new campaign, be it a sweeping epic in FFG’s Star Wars system or a gritty noir drama using Savage Worlds or a light-hearted romp of a dungeon crawl in Dungeons and Dragons. Hopefully, what I’ve got to say here will address some of those concerns and help those GMs who are unsure about how to get the most bang for their buck when launching a new RPG campaign.
As I alluded to earlier, the most important part is getting your player’s buy-in. If they’re not on-board with what you’ve got in mind, then you don’t have a campaign, simple as that. Admittedly, there are some players who are very easy to please; you tell one friend that’s a huge superhero junkie that you’re going to run a four-color Mutants and Masterminds game set in Freedom City, it’s a safe bet that you’ve got that player’s buy-in without much effort. On the other hand, if one of your prospective players is more interested in a socio-political drama versus punching cartoonish villains in the face, you’re going to be facing an up-hill battle on getting that player to buy into that same campaign.
One of the best ways to handle this was something codified in the Dresden Files RPG by Evil Hat Productions, and that is “Session Zero.” Specifically, the inaugural session for the campaign shouldn’t involve the players rolling dice or getting into combats or other forms of trouble. Instead it should be the GM and the players getting together to discuss the core campaign idea, what sort of characters they’d like to play, and what they’re hoping to get out of the campaign. While Evil Hat suggests having the players and GM go further than this and actually have the players establish the core setting, for most RPGs that degree of world-building isn’t really necessary. Instead, let each of the players take a turn to discuss what sort of character they’re interested in making for this campaign and what sort of shenanigans they want that character to get up to.
To use the prior example of a Four Color Supers campaign in Mutants & Masterminds, the one player that’s all about superheroes is happy playing a super-strong and super-tough bruiser that spouts a couple of corny catch-phrases. The main thing he’s looking for is to engage in some cool battles with over-the-top villains while trading pithy remarks; since that’s a core part of the GM’s campaign idea, this player won’t be a problem to draw in and keep hooked.
For the other player that would prefer the socio-political drama, he’s going to be a tougher sell on this campaign. However, in the course of the Session Zero discussion, it comes out that he’s actually okay with forays in the somewhat stereotypical four-color antics that the GM has in mind, but only if there’s serious elements in the campaign to serve as a contrast, as well as the stakes being considerably higher than stopping the latest bank robbery by some garishly dressed supervillain. During the course of talks with the rest of the group, a consensus is reached that the GM will add in elements reminiscent of Cold War-era spy dramas, which it turns out will suit this player perfectly, and he’s already got a core idea of a slick, ultra-competent super spy as their characters in this game.
The core thing to take away from this in regards to “Session Zero” is to be open and frank with your prospective players about what sort of campaign you’re looking to run, but that you also may need to be flexible in adding or removing elements of what you’ve initially come up with. Remember, running an RPG campaign is a group exercise, and sadly there’s been far too many GMs that get wrapped up telling their particular story that they forget that it’s the players’ characters that are the true stars and may exercise free will and take the story in an unexpected direction.
At the same time, the players themselves have to be willing to exercise a degree of flexibility themselves when it comes to their expectations and what type of character they’d like to play. It’s nearly a given that anyone who has been in the RPG hobby for more than a couple of months has heard horror stories of “that one player” who insisted on playing a sociopathic murder-hobo where the rest of the group are sane and generally upstanding folks. Now, that’s not to say that the murder-hobo character is always going to be a problem or is going to automatically ruin the group dynamic. For some examples, take a look at how Jayne in “Firefly” is handled as well as Belkar Bitterleaf in the Order of the Stick webcomic. Perhaps the best known example would be Wolverine of the X-Men comics, who is one of the leading archetypes for “surly loner with a bad attitude and penchant for violence.” But in each of these cases, the player of those characters was willing to be flexible and actually work with the party instead of at cross-purposes.
Now with all that being said, one factor that you as the GM or player may simply have to accept is that maybe this particular campaign isn’t for you. I’ve regrettably walked away from a number of campaigns that sounded interesting in concept, but that I just didn’t feel worked for me or that the character I wanted to play was a good fit for the group, or simply that I as a player didn’t fit with a particularly group of players; after all, it’s hard to get a rich in-character role-playing experience when the rest of the table is only interested in slaughtering monsters and looting the bodies. It’s not great, but it happens. As a GM, you simply have to accept that perhaps your campaign is better off without this player, because if they’re not having fun, then they’re going to sour the mood for the rest of the group, and before long nobody will be having fun. Since the main point of playing an RPG is to have fun, then ultimately nobody wins.
While the usage of a “Session Zero” can go a long way towards laying the groundwork for a long and memorable campaign, it’s only part of the story. The other critical element is that first session, which I’ll discuss in part two of this article. Hopefully this article has given you as either the player or the GM something to think about when embarking upon a new and hopefully exciting RPG campaign.
