Hi everyone - I still appreciate everyone's input, although sorry that the thread has turned contentious.
Time for an update, but the TL;DR is that DM was more than happy to nerf the bludgeon damage to leave me unconscious.
At the last session, my character being declared dead was literally the last in-game event. My SIL (DM) and brother needed to gather their things and leave our parents' house to catch a flight home. There was no time to emotionally process or try to work out anything. (Ironically, I was the one to point out that the damage was enough to insta-kill me, since I had light knowledge of rules going in. Insta-deaths had never come up for the DM before, on either side of the table, so she didn't know that rule.)
I just spoke with them this evening, and literally the Plan A offered eagerly by DM was to set my HP to 0, no death. She shared the sentiment that some have given here, that this is a for-fun, one-shot campaign that was meant to be enjoyed to the fullest by three first-time players. She was dissatisfied even at the time with the damage she was tasked with rolling (TBH, I still cannot believe a low-level campaign's trap could give 12d10 damage), as well as finding the text's possible warnings insufficient for the scale of the threat.
(DM's Plan B was having my character's identical (same class and all) twin brother stumble in after searching for my char's last known whereabouts, then join the party. Plan C was coming back as a literal ghost.)
So all is well! I can't say those couple days after "the incident" felt great, but I guess I'm mentally prepared to lose a char when it actually does happen. And I'll definitely encourage the party to look for traps better!
Seems to me that this is part about mutual understanding and respect is a one way street. If a DM makes a ruling, you seem to think it is fine to disrespect the DM and ask them to reverse that ruling.
A concern cannot be voiced before an action is taken to raise the concern. This post seems to convey the message that any player who dares to give voice to their concerns is disrespecting the DM. I cannot imagine a DM mature enough for the chair who cannot handle having their players express concerns or wishes to them in a respectful manner. Do you find it personally disrespectful and offensive when anyone questions you, irrespective of the approach?
Personally, I see it as having fostered an environment of trust and respect when my players voice their concerns and they have. I don't know every rule and I sometimes get things wrong. I believe my games would suffer if my players felt they could not safely give voice to their concerns. It is healthy to be receptive to feedback and even disagreement from your players and I encourage you to give it a try.
A char died per the rules. The player is now asking the DM, who has made a ruling, to reverse that ruling. That is the definition of disrespect.
How is it disrespectful? You are making a pretty grave assumption about the poster in question who is actually reading this thread. I daresay your accusations are more disrespectful than asking a DM for help.
The compact that all players are to follow is that once a DM makes a ruling, that is the end of it. That has ALWAYS been the way. To ask a DM to retcon a death is very disrespectful.
this is, again, incorrect and both deceptive and disingenuous.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Hi everyone - I still appreciate everyone's input, although sorry that the thread has turned contentious.
Time for an update, but the TL;DR is that DM was more than happy to nerf the bludgeon damage to leave me unconscious.
At the last session, my character being declared dead was literally the last in-game event. My SIL (DM) and brother needed to gather their things and leave our parents' house to catch a flight home. There was no time to emotionally process or try to work out anything. (Ironically, I was the one to point out that the damage was enough to insta-kill me, since I had light knowledge of rules going in. Insta-deaths had never come up for the DM before, on either side of the table, so she didn't know that rule.)
I just spoke with them this evening, and literally the Plan A offered eagerly by DM was to set my HP to 0, no death. She shared the sentiment that some have given here, that this is a for-fun, one-shot campaign that was meant to be enjoyed to the fullest by three first-time players. She was dissatisfied even at the time with the damage she was tasked with rolling (TBH, I still cannot believe a low-level campaign's trap could give 12d10 damage), as well as finding the text's possible warnings insufficient for the scale of the threat.
(DM's Plan B was having my character's identical (same class and all) twin brother stumble in after searching for my char's last known whereabouts, then join the party. Plan C was coming back as a literal ghost.)
So all is well! I can't say those couple days after "the incident" felt great, but I guess I'm mentally prepared to lose a char when it actually does happen. And I'll definitely encourage the party to look for traps better!
Thank you all again!
outstanding 😀
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
A good session 0 would solve this and so many issues posted in this forum. Not every table is right for every player/DM.
How would Session 0 have solved this? As a DM, I would've never anticipated this situation. As a player, I understand that I didn't calculate my HP just for fun.
Yeah. With relatively inexperienced players and (I believe) DM, using a canned adventure, it's easy that nobody would think of the problem of "way out of scale surprise damage".
They did the right thing, and stepped back out of the game and sorted it out. There's no lasting harm, except to JustAFarmer's sense of propriety.
Well a good session 0, should be about, among other things, how to deal with issues like this when they inevitably come up. This was not a problem about the death of a PC it was a problem of how to deal with a PC death that the player was not okay with. The group or this player in the group had no clear way to deal with the problem, evidenced by this threads existence, so they came here and asked for solutions which came aplenty. Ultimately the OP had a conversation with their DM and it was sorted out, color me surprised. A good session 0 would address not every single issue that may arise, but a clear way to deal with any issues when they arise. Going outside the group for help to solve a table problem is not a bad thing, but it shouldn't be the first thing.
Well a good session 0, should be about, among other things, how to deal with issues like this when they inevitably come up. This was not a problem about the death of a PC it was a problem of how to deal with a PC death that the player was not okay with. The group or this player in the group had no clear way to deal with the problem, evidenced by this threads existence, so they came here and asked for solutions which came aplenty. Ultimately the OP had a conversation with their DM and it was sorted out, color me surprised. A good session 0 would address not every single issue that may arise, but a clear way to deal with any issues when they arise. Going outside the group for help to solve a table problem is not a bad thing, but it shouldn't be the first thing.
Session zeros are of questionable merit with new players - and often do more harm than good. A new player does not know what they want out of the game; they cannot know things like “how hard will I take character death?” before they game has even started, since they have no context of how attached they might get to a character they are playing.
The most major risk of a session zero is the risk of getting the compact wrong, then having players who use the shaky foundation of a session zero to justify inflexibility. Folks realise they have different views on certain situations (like death) once that situation actually manifests, and their new, more informed opinions are dismissed as “too bad, you didn’t bring it up in session zero.”
Here OP is both in a group that should be able to address problems as they arise given that they are already have pre-existing social relationships (and as evidenced by the fact OP and their DM did, in fact, work things out without any blowups). That is the exact situation where you do not need a session zero—especially not a session zero built on the shaky foundation of new players guessing at things they have no experience with which to base their guesses on.
Ultimately the OP had a conversation with their DM and it was sorted out, color me surprised. A good session 0 would address not every single issue that may arise, but a clear way to deal with any issues when they arise. Going outside the group for help to solve a table problem is not a bad thing, but it shouldn't be the first thing.
It's easier to solve problems within games where family and friends are involved, and OP did state he was playing his sister-in-law (the DM), and the players were their brothers, and partner. Had this been a group of strangers the outcome probably would have been this player just quitting or finding another table.
I'm more surprised that they came to the forum with this post instead of going to their family first. I understand coming here for clarification if you have problems in a game with strangers, but when it's a home game with family it seems strange to go and ask strangers on the internet whether one of them is cheating, even to go as far as having someone check the module to see if their sister in-law ran it right. But, at least everything turned out for the best.
Well a good session 0, should be about, among other things, how to deal with issues like this when they inevitably come up. This was not a problem about the death of a PC it was a problem of how to deal with a PC death that the player was not okay with. The group or this player in the group had no clear way to deal with the problem, evidenced by this threads existence, so they came here and asked for solutions which came aplenty. Ultimately the OP had a conversation with their DM and it was sorted out, color me surprised. A good session 0 would address not every single issue that may arise, but a clear way to deal with any issues when they arise. Going outside the group for help to solve a table problem is not a bad thing, but it shouldn't be the first thing.
Session zeros are of questionable merit with new players - and often do more harm than good. A new player does not know what they want out of the game; they cannot know things like “how hard will I take character death?” before they game has even started, since they have no context of how attached they might get to a character they are playing.
The most major risk of a session zero is the risk of getting the compact wrong, then having players who use the shaky foundation of a session zero to justify inflexibility. Folks realise they have different views on certain situations (like death) once that situation actually manifests, and their new, more informed opinions are dismissed as “too bad, you didn’t bring it up in session zero.”
Here OP is both in a group that should be able to address problems as they arise given that they are already have pre-existing social relationships (and as evidenced by the fact OP and their DM did, in fact, work things out without any blowups). That is the exact situation where you do not need a session zero—especially not a session zero built on the shaky foundation of new players guessing at things they have no experience with which to base their guesses on.
I respectfully disagree, I can not imagine how a session 0 would be a bad thing if done correctly. I find session 0's work really well for new players especially if there is a clear way to deal with any issues that may arise during play. How can having a protocol in place for dealing with problems that all players know be bad? Are new players supposed to stew, reach out to people not in their group to come up with convoluted solutions and then go sort it out? That seems like a very frustrating way to deal with issues at a table that can be streamlined if not negated by a GOOD session 0.
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CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Well a good session 0, should be about, among other things, how to deal with issues like this when they inevitably come up. This was not a problem about the death of a PC it was a problem of how to deal with a PC death that the player was not okay with. The group or this player in the group had no clear way to deal with the problem, evidenced by this threads existence, so they came here and asked for solutions which came aplenty. Ultimately the OP had a conversation with their DM and it was sorted out, color me surprised. A good session 0 would address not every single issue that may arise, but a clear way to deal with any issues when they arise. Going outside the group for help to solve a table problem is not a bad thing, but it shouldn't be the first thing.
Session zeros are of questionable merit with new players - and often do more harm than good. A new player does not know what they want out of the game; they cannot know things like “how hard will I take character death?” before they game has even started, since they have no context of how attached they might get to a character they are playing.
The most major risk of a session zero is the risk of getting the compact wrong, then having players who use the shaky foundation of a session zero to justify inflexibility. Folks realise they have different views on certain situations (like death) once that situation actually manifests, and their new, more informed opinions are dismissed as “too bad, you didn’t bring it up in session zero.”
Wait a second... are you saying that we shouldn't run a session zero if we have new players? I have never heard anybody ever say that ever, but you usually give good advice on here. Can you explain a bit further, because I think I may be misunderstanding what you are saying here. The vast majority of advice when starting a game of D&D is always to run a session zero first; it's even in the core books.
I've always run a session zero regardless of the experience of the players; we cover a variety of things, including player death and what happens in those cases. Sometimes, I'll run multiple session zeros (or just take the first 30-45 minutes of a session to do a mini-zero; I call it the laundry list) throughout the campaign in case some stuff does come up that we didn't cover in the original session zero, which requires another one just to make sure everybody is on the same page. I'm assuming by "compact", you mean the social contract, and it won't be perfect, which is why open communication at the table is so important as the game takes place.
Session zeros are of questionable merit with new players - and often do more harm than good.
The most major risk of a session zero is the risk of getting the compact wrong, then having players who use the shaky foundation of a session zero to justify inflexibility. Folks realise they have different views on certain situations (like death) once that situation actually manifests, and their new, more informed opinions are dismissed as “too bad, you didn’t bring it up in session zero.”
Before OP gets dissuaded from running Session Zeros for newer players, I'd like to say that - in my eyes - this is some pretty horrendous advice.
Sure, some lousy idiots - or may likely, terrible DMs - might fixate on what was and wasn't approved in Session Zero and blatantly refuse to modify the soft and hard limits in place. But the likelihood of a Dungeon Master doing that's about as likely as the characters randomly stumbling across a modified Commoner having an intelligence score of 30: It's not theoretically impossible, but the chances of this occurring absurdly low.
A Game Master who refuses to accept the evolution of what makes players comfortable and uncomfortable in game is simply a trash Game Master. If someone refuses to listen to their players future needs and changing worries, they're more likely not to have a Session Zero and/or follow the results stemming from that session anyways. The idea that numerous DMs would utilize a Session Zero and somehow come away with the impression that everything there is set into a guarded and unchangeable stone is just bizarre and appears to have preponderosly little faith in humanity's hidden skills... AKA things like empathy, morality. and basic social conditioning.
But yes, it's undeniable that bad DMs could screw up a Session Zero and use it improperly. Bad DMs (and good DMs for that matter) always have the capability to screw up anything. But I think the risk of that for Session Zeros is low, and the odds of fudging up a lot later due to not having one is a quadrillion times higher. Session Zeros help the GM build their adventure and even their world. It can help in ensuring the party doesn't have too much overlap, or at least that the backstories make sense relative to the others. And with new or newer groups, not only is it crucial to be around to help ensure the characters are built properly, but it's most importantly there to "set expectations" and establish what elements players will or wont vibe with.
A new player does not know what they want out of the game; they cannot know things like “how hard will I take character death?” before they game has even started, since they have no context of how attached they might get to a character they are playing.
Duh. But does the fact that newbies won't fully understand everything that might upset them mean that they shouldn't have a space at the start designed for them to share the things they know or worry would upset them? And it helps drastically that the Dungeon Master in Session Zero is supposed to mention some of the most uncomfortable elements and ask about anything at their table that might get a controversial reception from the group?
For example, when I was new to D&D, I had little idea romance was a prevalent concept in o so many games (or even any games at all). Theoretically, if I had wandered into a group for newbs that was gonna play and had a major theme of graphically described ***, I would have never known or contemplated that and would've been horrified when it came up and I had no idea because there wasn't a Session Zero (note that this is a realistic hypothetical scenario).
Should players with arachnophobia encounter creepy Giant Spiders with saliva dripping from their pincers? Should someone with extreme agoraphobia unknowingly enter a game featuring a massive series of farm fields? And should they not be given a session to mention this fear and be warned that it might ruin any and every game of Dungeons and Dragons for them unless it was literally all in a super enclosed dungeon?
Obviously, some of these examples are extreme and way less likely to occur than the giant spider one. Yet, I do view it as unfathomably offensive and inconsiderate to argue against a Session Zero - which is the place for players to list and discuss and convey what they can't have in a game - merely because they won't be able to list all of their fears and don't completely know how they'll experience everything. Yeah, people won't know exactly how much it sucks to have your character randomly one-shotted in a module, but I think the idea would still be incredibly or at least somewhat uncomfortable to players like the OP and a proper Session Zero would've led to it being avoided.
Here OP is both in a group that should be able to address problems as they arise given that they are already have pre-existing social relationships (and as evidenced by the fact OP and their DM did, in fact, work things out without any blowups). That is the exact situation where you do not need a session zero—especially not a session zero built on the shaky foundation of new players guessing at things they have no experience with which to base their guesses on.
1. So what the players have had some previous interactions and know each other? Just because they know each other beforehand doesn't mean they know everyone's fears or understand what elements each person might hate with certainty or being highly worried about before the game starts better than those people do. They might know of huge obvious fears like agoraphobia,but there are still a huge amount of things they'd unnecessarily be forcing the rest of the table to deal with that a discussion on - such as on one trap completely obliterating a character - could have solved.
2. "No experience" is inaccurate here. The new players have no gaming experience to comprehend all that will offend them. But they have real life experience with stuff and an absolute boatload of it translates to potential aspects of each campaign.
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I have new players -- by which I mean new to the game itself -- roughly quarterly.
I always run a session zero with them. It is a core aspect of my process with all players. THe session Zero does, in fact, deal heavily with role playing, teamwork, cooperative gaming, and understanding the goals and structure of play, while also letting them understand the meaning behind all the character sheet stuff. New player session zeros are longer and harder to do than experienced ones, because of all the questions.
I also usually run a 5 room dungeon "introduction" exclusively for new players, with one experienced player when possible. Not counting the "getting in" part, which I shamelessly stole from the OG Tomb of Horrors, in those five rooms and corridors, I test and enable the Player to see how all the major parts of most function happen. Combat, teamwork, exploration, healing, resting, skill use, dicing, magic, searching, and so forth.
As I am about to embark on a new setting and campaign, I have a 10 room dungeon created to enable folks to learn about some of the new mechanics I am introducing, as well (if I am introducing such. Not often I do).
My experienced players all know the dungeons by heart, and nothing in either of them do fatal damage (these are like the introductions in a video game, I suppose), since the point of them is to enable the players to learn the rules. I've used them for years, specifically for the purpose of and designe dto engage every major mechanic at least three times, as well as guide the players in how to do the things that the rules don't really deal with: working together, avoiding characters whos e sole purpose is to be an *******, taking turns, building up a mental picture, asking questions, respecting other players, figuring out who is more suited to doing different tasks, that kind of thing.
But I also have a bunch of "old rules" -- players map, spells must be found, treasure has to be hauled, that kind of thing. More crunch means more to learn.
The one thing I don't have a set up for, as I think about it, is the new rules for Special Combat -- mounted, vehicles, swimming, flying, chases) that I am introducing. Mostly because the rooms aren't that big. Although I suppose I could add on a room...
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
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Hi everyone - I still appreciate everyone's input, although sorry that the thread has turned contentious.
Time for an update, but the TL;DR is that DM was more than happy to nerf the bludgeon damage to leave me unconscious.
At the last session, my character being declared dead was literally the last in-game event. My SIL (DM) and brother needed to gather their things and leave our parents' house to catch a flight home. There was no time to emotionally process or try to work out anything. (Ironically, I was the one to point out that the damage was enough to insta-kill me, since I had light knowledge of rules going in. Insta-deaths had never come up for the DM before, on either side of the table, so she didn't know that rule.)
I just spoke with them this evening, and literally the Plan A offered eagerly by DM was to set my HP to 0, no death. She shared the sentiment that some have given here, that this is a for-fun, one-shot campaign that was meant to be enjoyed to the fullest by three first-time players. She was dissatisfied even at the time with the damage she was tasked with rolling (TBH, I still cannot believe a low-level campaign's trap could give 12d10 damage), as well as finding the text's possible warnings insufficient for the scale of the threat.
(DM's Plan B was having my character's identical (same class and all) twin brother stumble in after searching for my char's last known whereabouts, then join the party. Plan C was coming back as a literal ghost.)
So all is well! I can't say those couple days after "the incident" felt great, but I guess I'm mentally prepared to lose a char when it actually does happen. And I'll definitely encourage the party to look for traps better!
Thank you all again!
this is, again, incorrect and both deceptive and disingenuous.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
outstanding 😀
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
A good session 0 would solve this and so many issues posted in this forum. Not every table is right for every player/DM.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Yeah. With relatively inexperienced players and (I believe) DM, using a canned adventure, it's easy that nobody would think of the problem of "way out of scale surprise damage".
They did the right thing, and stepped back out of the game and sorted it out. There's no lasting harm, except to JustAFarmer's sense of propriety.
Well a good session 0, should be about, among other things, how to deal with issues like this when they inevitably come up. This was not a problem about the death of a PC it was a problem of how to deal with a PC death that the player was not okay with. The group or this player in the group had no clear way to deal with the problem, evidenced by this threads existence, so they came here and asked for solutions which came aplenty. Ultimately the OP had a conversation with their DM and it was sorted out, color me surprised. A good session 0 would address not every single issue that may arise, but a clear way to deal with any issues when they arise. Going outside the group for help to solve a table problem is not a bad thing, but it shouldn't be the first thing.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Session zeros are of questionable merit with new players - and often do more harm than good. A new player does not know what they want out of the game; they cannot know things like “how hard will I take character death?” before they game has even started, since they have no context of how attached they might get to a character they are playing.
The most major risk of a session zero is the risk of getting the compact wrong, then having players who use the shaky foundation of a session zero to justify inflexibility. Folks realise they have different views on certain situations (like death) once that situation actually manifests, and their new, more informed opinions are dismissed as “too bad, you didn’t bring it up in session zero.”
Here OP is both in a group that should be able to address problems as they arise given that they are already have pre-existing social relationships (and as evidenced by the fact OP and their DM did, in fact, work things out without any blowups). That is the exact situation where you do not need a session zero—especially not a session zero built on the shaky foundation of new players guessing at things they have no experience with which to base their guesses on.
It's easier to solve problems within games where family and friends are involved, and OP did state he was playing his sister-in-law (the DM), and the players were their brothers, and partner. Had this been a group of strangers the outcome probably would have been this player just quitting or finding another table.
I'm more surprised that they came to the forum with this post instead of going to their family first. I understand coming here for clarification if you have problems in a game with strangers, but when it's a home game with family it seems strange to go and ask strangers on the internet whether one of them is cheating, even to go as far as having someone check the module to see if their sister in-law ran it right. But, at least everything turned out for the best.
I respectfully disagree, I can not imagine how a session 0 would be a bad thing if done correctly. I find session 0's work really well for new players especially if there is a clear way to deal with any issues that may arise during play. How can having a protocol in place for dealing with problems that all players know be bad? Are new players supposed to stew, reach out to people not in their group to come up with convoluted solutions and then go sort it out? That seems like a very frustrating way to deal with issues at a table that can be streamlined if not negated by a GOOD session 0.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Wait a second... are you saying that we shouldn't run a session zero if we have new players? I have never heard anybody ever say that ever, but you usually give good advice on here. Can you explain a bit further, because I think I may be misunderstanding what you are saying here. The vast majority of advice when starting a game of D&D is always to run a session zero first; it's even in the core books.
I've always run a session zero regardless of the experience of the players; we cover a variety of things, including player death and what happens in those cases. Sometimes, I'll run multiple session zeros (or just take the first 30-45 minutes of a session to do a mini-zero; I call it the laundry list) throughout the campaign in case some stuff does come up that we didn't cover in the original session zero, which requires another one just to make sure everybody is on the same page. I'm assuming by "compact", you mean the social contract, and it won't be perfect, which is why open communication at the table is so important as the game takes place.
Am I just getting it wrong here?
Before OP gets dissuaded from running Session Zeros for newer players, I'd like to say that - in my eyes - this is some pretty horrendous advice.
Sure, some lousy idiots - or may likely, terrible DMs - might fixate on what was and wasn't approved in Session Zero and blatantly refuse to modify the soft and hard limits in place. But the likelihood of a Dungeon Master doing that's about as likely as the characters randomly stumbling across a modified Commoner having an intelligence score of 30: It's not theoretically impossible, but the chances of this occurring absurdly low.
A Game Master who refuses to accept the evolution of what makes players comfortable and uncomfortable in game is simply a trash Game Master. If someone refuses to listen to their players future needs and changing worries, they're more likely not to have a Session Zero and/or follow the results stemming from that session anyways. The idea that numerous DMs would utilize a Session Zero and somehow come away with the impression that everything there is set into a guarded and unchangeable stone is just bizarre and appears to have preponderosly little faith in humanity's hidden skills... AKA things like empathy, morality. and basic social conditioning.
But yes, it's undeniable that bad DMs could screw up a Session Zero and use it improperly. Bad DMs (and good DMs for that matter) always have the capability to screw up anything. But I think the risk of that for Session Zeros is low, and the odds of fudging up a lot later due to not having one is a quadrillion times higher. Session Zeros help the GM build their adventure and even their world. It can help in ensuring the party doesn't have too much overlap, or at least that the backstories make sense relative to the others. And with new or newer groups, not only is it crucial to be around to help ensure the characters are built properly, but it's most importantly there to "set expectations" and establish what elements players will or wont vibe with.
Duh. But does the fact that newbies won't fully understand everything that might upset them mean that they shouldn't have a space at the start designed for them to share the things they know or worry would upset them? And it helps drastically that the Dungeon Master in Session Zero is supposed to mention some of the most uncomfortable elements and ask about anything at their table that might get a controversial reception from the group?
For example, when I was new to D&D, I had little idea romance was a prevalent concept in o so many games (or even any games at all). Theoretically, if I had wandered into a group for newbs that was gonna play and had a major theme of graphically described ***, I would have never known or contemplated that and would've been horrified when it came up and I had no idea because there wasn't a Session Zero (note that this is a realistic hypothetical scenario).
Should players with arachnophobia encounter creepy Giant Spiders with saliva dripping from their pincers? Should someone with extreme agoraphobia unknowingly enter a game featuring a massive series of farm fields? And should they not be given a session to mention this fear and be warned that it might ruin any and every game of Dungeons and Dragons for them unless it was literally all in a super enclosed dungeon?
Obviously, some of these examples are extreme and way less likely to occur than the giant spider one. Yet, I do view it as unfathomably offensive and inconsiderate to argue against a Session Zero - which is the place for players to list and discuss and convey what they can't have in a game - merely because they won't be able to list all of their fears and don't completely know how they'll experience everything. Yeah, people won't know exactly how much it sucks to have your character randomly one-shotted in a module, but I think the idea would still be incredibly or at least somewhat uncomfortable to players like the OP and a proper Session Zero would've led to it being avoided.
1. So what the players have had some previous interactions and know each other? Just because they know each other beforehand doesn't mean they know everyone's fears or understand what elements each person might hate with certainty or being highly worried about before the game starts better than those people do. They might know of huge obvious fears like agoraphobia,but there are still a huge amount of things they'd unnecessarily be forcing the rest of the table to deal with that a discussion on - such as on one trap completely obliterating a character - could have solved.
2. "No experience" is inaccurate here. The new players have no gaming experience to comprehend all that will offend them. But they have real life experience with stuff and an absolute boatload of it translates to potential aspects of each campaign.
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HERE.I have new players -- by which I mean new to the game itself -- roughly quarterly.
I always run a session zero with them. It is a core aspect of my process with all players. THe session Zero does, in fact, deal heavily with role playing, teamwork, cooperative gaming, and understanding the goals and structure of play, while also letting them understand the meaning behind all the character sheet stuff. New player session zeros are longer and harder to do than experienced ones, because of all the questions.
I also usually run a 5 room dungeon "introduction" exclusively for new players, with one experienced player when possible. Not counting the "getting in" part, which I shamelessly stole from the OG Tomb of Horrors, in those five rooms and corridors, I test and enable the Player to see how all the major parts of most function happen. Combat, teamwork, exploration, healing, resting, skill use, dicing, magic, searching, and so forth.
As I am about to embark on a new setting and campaign, I have a 10 room dungeon created to enable folks to learn about some of the new mechanics I am introducing, as well (if I am introducing such. Not often I do).
My experienced players all know the dungeons by heart, and nothing in either of them do fatal damage (these are like the introductions in a video game, I suppose), since the point of them is to enable the players to learn the rules. I've used them for years, specifically for the purpose of and designe dto engage every major mechanic at least three times, as well as guide the players in how to do the things that the rules don't really deal with: working together, avoiding characters whos e sole purpose is to be an *******, taking turns, building up a mental picture, asking questions, respecting other players, figuring out who is more suited to doing different tasks, that kind of thing.
But I also have a bunch of "old rules" -- players map, spells must be found, treasure has to be hauled, that kind of thing. More crunch means more to learn.
The one thing I don't have a set up for, as I think about it, is the new rules for Special Combat -- mounted, vehicles, swimming, flying, chases) that I am introducing. Mostly because the rooms aren't that big. Although I suppose I could add on a room...
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