Tag Archives: Roleplaying

JiB on GM’ing: Why Session 0 Matters

Posted on by jazzisblues

In this JiB on gm’ing article we will explore the notion of a session 0, what is it, why does it matter, and why some people still don’t want to do it. Let me say at the outset that some of what I’m going to say here may be inflammatory. You have been warned. It is my opinion and my experience take it for what it’s worth.

So, what is a session 0 anyway?

Session 0 is the game session that precedes the start of actual gaming. It’s a time for the gm and the players to come together (preferably in the same room) to discuss the game, the world, and their characters. During a session 0 it’s important to remember that this is not a time for the gm to lecture or pontificate about, “their game,” I’m going to talk more about this later, but it’s very important to emphasize that this is a conversation, we are building these things together. Get that idea firmly in mind right now. As a rule, I like to start with the world building. As the gm, I come into session 0 with some ideas for what I’d like to see, but I intentionally keep them kind of broad and loose for now. It is worth noting that there is actually conversation before we even get to session 0, the elevator pitch. The elevator pitch is when I (as the gm) send out a message (email, slack, or whatever we’re using) to say, “So here are one or more ideas for games I’d like to run, what sounds fun?” It usually looks something like this:

Ok, so getting ready to start our new campaign, here are some ideas that I’ve been thinking about.

  • High Fantasy (Fate)
  • Urban Fantasy (Dresden Files Accellerated)
  • Weird West (Savage Worlds)
  • Hard Sci-Fi (PbtA)

Rate them how you prefer, or if you have an idea for something else include that, and we’ll go from there.

Once I have the responses, usually we go with the one that everyone has rated the highest. I rate them too, but not until the others have as I don’t want to influence the vote. Now we’re ready for session 0.

So, how do we do a session 0?

All of us get together, in the same room if possible, if not we will skype someone in. The point is that we’re all together in one place to talk about the game we want to make. It’s very important for me to make a point here. If you are a player or gm who feels that the game is something that the gm makes, and the players then play, nothing that I’m saying here is going to make any sense to you. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, just an observation. Our fundamental viewpoint about what the game is, is very different, and our belief about who, “owns,” the game is very different and probably not compatible in the long term. The reason for this is that fundamentally I believe that the game belongs to all of us around the table, and we all contribute to it equally, if perhaps differently. The point is that the formation, structure, and narrative of the game are not solely my province. It’s not up to me to come up with every little thing in the game. It is up to me to put some boundaries around things, and I am the final arbiter of the rules, but it’s not MY game, it’s OUR game. If that makes sense to you, read on. Hopefully the rest of this will be useful to you.

I generally start by talking about the world, I’ll share my broad ideas and thoughts, but they are not cut in stone, they are at most, the foundation on which we’re going to build. So, let’s say that the group above picked the Urban Fantasy game. Going into Session 0, I’m going to do a couple of things. First, immerse myself in the genre, read and listen to some relevant books, and probably review some things about myths and faeries and such. Second, I’ll make some loose notes about things that I’d like to see in the game. Hey! I’m a player too. These are just ideas, thoughts, things to keep in mind. I have no need of detail at this point. Just ideas.

So, here are some quick bullet points for the urban fantasy game.

  • The faerie courts, conflict between them.
  • Outside pressure on the faerie courts.
  • Internal pressure between the characters

That’s it, that’s really all I need. Background information, and some idea of some things that I’d like to see.

Now going into our Session 0, I can ask some leading questions to get everyone’s collectively creative juices flowing.

  • So, where does our game take place? What’s the city like? Do we even have a city?
  • How do the characters fit into the hazy area between the mortal world and the faerie realms?
  • Who/what is important to the characters?

These questions don’t have to be answered in detail at the outset, nor are they the only questions, but they are an easy starting point. I do want to get answers to these questions as we move into talking about the characters. Why? Because of JiB’s rules #1 of game creation, “Weave it back to the characters.” The player characters ARE the story. GM’s if you think that you come into the game with a story, in my opinion, you fail to understand the most basic of precepts about role playing games. The story is what evolves out of the game play, and the very best story is about the player characters.

If I come into session 0 with all the answers, I’m not really giving the players anywhere to go with their characters. They have to find some way to fit into what I’ve come up with. That’s not really collaborative in my opinion. The point is that we’re going to build it together.

Why does it matter?

It matters because it’s not just my game, and the game is made stronger when we build it together. Two heads (or 5) are better than one after all. There’s another reason as well. One of the biggest complaints I hear from gm’s is that they ran a game, but nobody was interested in what they had going on. They couldn’t get any buy in from the players into, “Their game.” Let me ask a question then, why should the players care about, “Your game,” or what YOU have planned? But, if I know that I need a murder victim, and I make that murder victim someone that the player has said matters to them, I don’t have to TRY to get them to buy in, they’ve bought in because it was something they created. Yes, killing off someone from their backstory can be a dick move, and can cause trouble, the point is to tie what you’re doing to them. Here’s an example.

I was running a game where the characters are detectives in a 70’s crime drama. One of the players picked a playbook that has some great trauma built into their past. In this case the player said that they had been a narcotics detective and had gotten their then girlfriend hooked on heroin. So, when I need a murder victim who do I pick? Not the girlfriend, too easy, besides if I make it the girlfriend’s little sister, that player character now has to go deal with his ex-girlfriend. Something that would probably have never occurred to me without knowing what the player brought to it, and far better than what I would have come up with on my own. If I don’t tie what’s going on in the game back to the player characters, I’m HOPING that the players will decide that they want to get involved in what I have cooked up. But, if I weave it back to them, they will care about it and they will get involved, and it will matter to them.

If it’s so awesome, why doesn’t everyone do it?

Not everyone sees the need for it, largely because they approach the game from different viewpoints. I’m very sure that by now I’ve given the impression that I think that not having a session 0 is a mistake, and that gm’s who approach the game differently than I do are doing it wrong. For me, they are, but not for everyone. Not everyone wants the same thing out of games, and that’s good. We shouldn’t do everything the same way. Some groups want the gm to bring the game to them, and bring the story to them, and that’s also good. If it works for you do it, if it doesn’t, change it. That’s part of the beauty of games in general, we can all do it different ways, and it will work. Some things that I find to be pretty much universally true include:

  • The group will produce a much better game than I could do by myself, and I should leverage that.
  • The players will buy into what they’ve helped create much more readily.
  • The story evolves constantly out of the game play.

These truths are one of the reasons for the growing popularity of powered by the apocalypse games (games based on the Apocalypse World engine.) as these games do world and character creation as a cooperative effort.

Final thoughts

I recommend that everyone do a session 0 and be open to evolving the game rather than creating the game themselves. Group think the game and all the parts of it. Everyone bring your  creativity and their ideas to the game. Have fun no matter how you do it.

 

Cheers,

Being a Review of Hero System 6th Edition by JiB

Posted on by jazzisblues

Hero System Character CreationAs everyone who listens to the podcast or reads my rambling scribbles can probably attest I’ve been learning the Hero game system for the last couple of months since Stu’s Blue Monkeys game at OrcCon. I’ve run several Hero games (mostly Fantasy Hero), and I figured that after running several and talking with players from those games and with GameX going on this weekend this seemed an opportune moment to share my thoughts on Hero System 6th Edition. I’m going to split this up into three parts;

Playing Hero

GM’ing Hero

Resources and Links

First off let me say that this is some heady koolaid. It’s like Koolaid seriously spiked with Russian Vodka. I could say that it’s not for the faint of heart and that wouldn’t be inaccurate, but it’s also not hard to play or to gm. It’s really more like a puzzle box that the basics of operating are very straightforward and easy to work with, but leaning all its nuances and subtleties is going to require some time and effort.

Playing Hero

If the first time player to Hero is in the hands of a gm who knows what they’re doing playing a character is amazingly simple. The basic die mechanic is about as easy as it gets. Roll 3d6 do some quick math and boom success or failure. Here’s the rub to that, it’s that quick math that can become incomprehensible if the gm isn’t on the ball because there are a huge number of things that can come into play and someone has to juggle them all at some point. Now, it should be noted that many of the rules can be treated as “optional” and simply glossed over. Hit location is a good example. If you don’t want to use hit location don’t use hit location, it’s easy enough to just ignore it and assume that all hits are generically to the torso. I will say that the game becomes more interesting as you add in the more involved rules.

Probably the hardest part of the Hero system for the player is actually going to be character generation. For those who play the game at a convention that problem is removed because the gm will create the characters for their game. Which leads me to a serious recommendation for players. Write up your character concept in plain English (or whatever you speak) and let the gm work out the details. Certainly for the first few characters this is a very good idea and I would never try to create a character without gm involvement. So much of what comes up in the game is a result of what the gm has done to cook their game that it’s almost impossible to reliably create a character without gm involvement.

GM’ing Hero

With the enormous wealth of information available for the Hero System 6th Edition it might seem at first look that running a Hero game would be very complicated for the gm. Steven Long and his merry minions at Hero Games have done a spectacular job of creating a very playable game with mechanics and concepts that just work. That’s the thing about Hero, complex as it can be everything just works. This is largely because everything basically works the same way. Pretty much without exception you’re going to roll 3d6 do some math and get a result that will make sense. Die rolls are made at sane times and nothing seems to take very long to resolve. I’ve never had to make more than a couple of die rolls or look in more than one place for an answer. Hero Games provides a wealth of available resources and information from free pdf documents to a very active and vibrant community that is both helpful and knowledgeable makes the learning of the game a much less imposing task.

Without exception the most difficult part of the game system for the gm is game preparation. But even that doesn’t have to be an onerous undertaking. As complex and rich and full as Hero is, there is so much that’s already done that a full game can easily be done without having to make anything yourself. The time and effort investment comes in when you start building custom elements for the game. Let me add at this point that creating custom elements for the game is where the real fun of game preparation can be found. There is something imminently satisfying about custom making powers, effects and anything else for games. Hero provides the ability to create anything for the game. The price for that power is that it’s not necessarily easy or quick to make.

Conclusions and Final Thoughts

I’ve spent two sections of this article talking about how great Hero is, and that’s not about to change. I am going to talk about a couple of things about Hero that are somewhat barrier imposing on players and gm’s wanting to get started with the game. The two things that I think make Hero somewhat difficult to get started with are the absolute wealth of material available. Very productive, Hero Games is constantly putting out new material and updating material for their game. This is great in that there’s a lot to work with and I’m not for one second suggesting that they change. Having so much material makes figuring out where to start (particularly without someone to show the way) a heady task. I’ve spoken with other gm’s’ and players and the most common question I hear (I asked it myself) is what do I need to buy? There’s not a clear cut answer to that question but with some help from wizer heads than mine I have a solution to that problem. Start with the Hero Basic Rules book either on pdf or in hard copy. I like books but the pdf has all the information you really need to get started. From there it’s a pretty easy jump to the other resources available.

The second obstacle is actually in my mind a little more limiting for new players. The numerous and wonderful books that Hero Games provides are not cheesy little digest books poorly put together and poorly laid out. They are heavy weight well bound books that are well thought out, well designed and put together. As such they are not cheap. The character book reminds one of a college textbook for it’s size and mass and tips the cash register at $39.99 retail. Start to build up a collection at all and it represents a fair cash investment. That said, they are worth every penny.

A Couple of Tips and Tricks I’ve Discovered

You may remember that I singled out the hit location rule as one that could be used after getting a little used to the combat system. I have found, what to me is, an easy way to resolve the hit location rule. Allow me to explain. Hit location works thusly; (On a successful attack) Determine the hit location by rolling 3d6 and consulting the hit location table. (It’s located on p. 109 of the Combat and Adventuring Guid) then determine damage as normal. What I’ve taken to doing is instead of rolling 3d6 and then rolling again, I roll 6d6 in two different color bundles one is for the attack and one is for the hit location determination.

Another tip I might suggest is for Knockback. Knockback can occur because of a number of circumstances but most often occurs in super hero based games. Only attacks that do physical damage (should) do knockback but I can think of and have seen cases where it made sense. In essence mental attacks probably don’t do knockback. Knockback is a function of how much body damage is done by the attack. Again having multiple colors of dice can make this easier to keep track of.

Major recommendation. Buy lots of d6’s in lots of different colors.

Resources and Links

Home page for Hero System 6th Edition

Hero Games

Introduction to the Hero Game System

Introduction

Combat Summary (three page pdf about the combat system … INDISPENSABLE)

Combat Summary

Rules FAQ for Hero System 6th Edition

Rules FAQ

Master Index for Hero System 6th Edition

Master Index