Build stronger D&D parties with The Session Zero System

The best part of role-playing tabletop games is the creation of a character. This allows you to share the experience with your friends. Rarely do game masters and players spend enough time putting those characters together before they leave the tavern to embark on their first adventure. Game master, designer and expert Gabe HicksTheir team from Mythic Grove Productions wants to make that a reality. The team’s next project is a game called Session Zero SystemA tarot-based, pre-game tool which could be soon joined the ranks of The Quiet Year World Ending GameAs role-playing necessities

A “session zero” traditionally refers to time that a soon-to-be role-playing group spends together before actually playing the first session of a one-shot or a campaign. It’s a space to talk about safety at the table, to delineate ways to ensure that everyone is comfortable and engaged with the material and the situations being presented. But it’s also a time to build the party itself into something more than a compilation of disparate classes, backgrounds, lethal weapons, and magic spells. It’s a golden opportunity to build community, but often one that newbie Dungeon Masters overlook.

Image by Mythic Grove Productions

“I like session zeros in the sense of getting an idea of what everyone wants to play — the kind of game everyone wants to experience,” Hicks said during a recent interview with Polygon. “Something that’s been really important to me is players having a little bit about each other’s characters so that we build off Of them. I have found that in the session zero, when you don’t talk about your characters with each other — like goals and aspirations and stuff like that — you end up not highlighting each other’s moments.”

Hicks used the example of an individual who is obsessed with cursed and forbidden objects. A player who has an insatiable lust for cursed objects will be notified by Hicks when they see it.

“I don’t have to know the reason they want the forbidden item,” Hicks said. “I don’t have to know that maybe there’s something inside of them that is craving them, but [simply] having the notion that forbidden items are important to this character helps me as a player be more receptive and be more involved in giving them that moment to shine.”

Image by Mythic Grove Productions

To Use Session Zero System, GMs play cards for each player at the table from three different decks — Bond, Catalyst, and Legacy. Every card provides a prompt to the players, which they then use to openly discuss at the table. Bond looks at how people, characters and the wider world are interconnected. Catalyst is a history that places characters in conflict with one another or their environment. The legacy is the result of those events, which creates today’s character.

“It’s not about knowing the rules of the game the most,” Hicks said. “It’s not about knowing the world the most. It’s about what you want to add to world-building in this session that we’re going to be playing together.”

Of course, it is common for these internal motivations to be clearly communicated prior to time to GMs. But Hicks believes that sharing this knowledge among the entire party eases the burden of the GM. It also encourages building complex webs of relationships between the different members of the party — a surefire way to help those new to the hobby find equal footing with more experienced players.

“The notion is if someone has a character in mind, they can answer these questions as that character,” Hicks said. “If someone doesn’t know who they want to be, they get a moment to think about it at that point.”

Hicks desires more than any other thing Session Zero System to be a tool that helps empower more players to become GMs and DMs down the line, and not feel as intimidated when they’re first jumping in. The goal isn’t to replace the custom of session zero games, but to enhance them with more structured and friendly tools.

“There are dozens and dozens and dozens of incredibly advanced storytellers that might never need or want to use something like this,” Hicks said. “I want those people to be able to enjoy it, but I also really want that person who doesn’t necessarily know how to start this — doesn’t know how to necessarily pull people in the same way […] — I want that person who’s nervous [to]Make it easy for them to do. I want this to be one of those tools for them.”

This crowdfunding campaign is for Session Zero SystemThe Kickstarter campaign is live and available until November 10. The price for 60 cards plus an interpretive book is $45, and delivery will be in November 2023. A digital version starts at just $10 and is expected a bit sooner — by August 2023.