Session Zero Checklist: A 45-Minute Plan for Your Next RPG Campaign
A forty-five-minute session zero should leave the group with an agreement it can use: premise, boundaries, party connection, schedule, and next step. It does not need to settle every possible event in the campaign.
Send a short pitch beforehand. Include the system, tone, starting situation, and expected commitment. The meeting can then resolve important choices instead of introducing an unlimited menu.
Minutes 0–5: confirm the experience
Describe the campaign in two or three sentences. An original example: “You are a recovery crew visiting settlements abandoned after a magical disaster. Sessions combine exploration, negotiation, and dangerous encounters. The first job is at a riverside manor.”
Ask whether that matches what everyone expects. Resolve a major mismatch now. A person seeking constant heroic battles should know if the intended game emphasizes cautious investigation.
Record the agreed premise. It gives later character concepts and adventure ideas a common reference.
Minutes 5–15: establish boundaries
Discuss excluded content and material that should remain offscreen. Provide a private way to communicate. Nobody needs to explain a personal reason for a limit.
Agree how someone pauses or redirects a scene and how the group responds. The procedure matters more than its name. Allow boundaries to change when people discover what a situation feels like in play.
Discuss character conflict explicitly. Rivalry, romance, secrets, and betrayal require different agreements. Friendship outside the game does not establish consent to every fictional interaction.
Minutes 15–25: connect the party
Choose a shared responsibility and ask why each character accepts it. Different motives can support cooperation: money, duty, curiosity, or a person they hope to find.
Create a connection between each character and another party member. A shared job, debt, or promise is easier to use than a complicated history nobody remembers.
Ask one setting question per person: who trusts you here, what do you want protected, or what unfinished matter brought you? Record answers that can shape the first adventure. Do not require everyone to produce pages of backstory.
Minutes 25–35: settle logistics
Choose frequency, session length, location or platform, and how absences are communicated. Decide what happens when someone cannot attend. Identify who keeps notes and where references live.
Explain house rules before finalizing choices they affect. Discuss optional tools, including AI if relevant. Clarify what materials are shared and whether anyone needs to buy something.
Be realistic about the schedule. A modest reliable commitment often supports a better campaign than an ambitious agreement everybody already expects to miss.
Minutes 35–42: try one procedure
Run a tiny practice scene. The crew reaches a locked landing while a storm approaches. A player describes an approach; the GM explains the relevant uncertainty and rules; the group resolves it.
This reveals questions a verbal introduction can miss. Do people know what they may attempt? Can they find their abilities? Are risks communicated clearly?
Keep it short and separate from the full campaign. Its purpose is learning, not quietly starting an adventure while some players are still unprepared.
Minutes 42–45: confirm the next step
Record the first session date, starting location, necessary preparation, and unresolved decisions. Assign any essential follow-up clearly. A brief usable note is better than a transcript no one reads.
If a serious mismatch remains, address it before play. Do not treat finishing the clock as more important than understanding what the group is joining.
B3's recommendation is to leave with a connected party, workable boundaries, and a scheduled first game. Session zero succeeds when people understand the experience and know how to participate, while still having a world left to discover.