Your First Session

Getting together with your friends to make characters can be a lot of fun. Many groups spend most of their first session talking about the campaign's story, making heroes, and going over expectations for the game. It's a great way to kick off a long-term campaign.

The Director should make an agenda for a campaign's first session often called "session zero." Chapter 15: For the Director has all the information a Director needs to help organize a successful first session, which can include any of the following events:

• The Director and players talk about the safety tools they want to employ at the game table (whether physical or virtual), so that everyone has a good time and understands which topics should be avoided in the game's narrative and which should be embraced. For more information, check out the MCDM Tabletop Safety Toolkit at mcdm.gg/SafetyToolkit, which includes advice for running a successful first session.
• The Director discusses the campaign's world and the major story themes they want to introduce into the game. This often takes the form of a campaign pitch the Director presents to the players.
• The Director should tell the players if any options are limited or rare in their campaign. For example, some Directors don't want psionics to appear in their game worlds, so they might decide that heroes can't be nulls or talents. Another campaign might be grounded in more typical medieval fantasy and not have any memonek or time raiders, or those ancestries might be exceedingly rare. In the latter case, players should know that their memonek or time raider heroes are likely to get a lot of questions from curious NPCs.
• The players get a chance to tell the Director what they would like to experience in the campaign. This can include anything from "I'd love to play out some chase scenes!" to "I want to explore themes of loss and grief." These wishes should be starting points for a conversation. If not all players are comfortable with certain themes or content requested by other players, then session zero is a great time to discuss that and come to a consensus about what everyone wants out of the game.
• Make heroes! Once everyone understands what the campaign is about, it's the perfect time to get into character creation. When a group of players make heroes together, they can tie backstories together and strategize to build a tactically dominant party both in and out of combat.
• The Director runs an encounter to kick off the campaign. If all the players have the time, it's totally worth it to get some play in during the first session, even if it's just a quick brawl in a tavern with some cultists! Starting off with a little action lets you see what the game is all about—and raises anticipation for the next session.