Imagination has no experience prerequisite. When we were kids we didn’t worry about creating the imaginary stories we told with our friends. We shouldn’t as adults.
Look, here is the simple down and dirty way to start a campaign. Friends, dice, a journal, and a toy chest (real or imaginary) is all you need to start your session zero.
Ways to Get Your Friends to Play RPGs
There is a wall in your brain, it developed at some point over the years. It tells you that asking your fellow adults to play an RPG game is an uneasy feeling and you shouldn’t do it. For some of us, this wall is paper thin and easy to bust, for others the wall is so thick that even the Kool-Aid man can’t get through.
There is no formula, website, or tool that I have found to get over the wall, it just has to be broken. Call up some old friends from school, message some locals on social media, talk to a coworker, go to a comic book shop, visit an RPG discord - go fishing.
Use the Dice to Bring Back The Chaos of Youth
“Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites…” - Vision, Avengers: Age of Ultron
I can tell you this: you are not using your dice enough. Our childhoods were chaos, swirling stories, discoveries, and desires, all just at the surface for us to pick from during our playtimes.
As adults those same thoughts are with us, but far from the surface down in the depths of our minds.
We could try sitting in a quiet room and pulling those thoughts out of the depths or we could roll the dice and stir those waters up. Who knows what will come to the surface - and that’s the beauty of it!
We don’t need to sit for long hours to try and come up with something cool. Let’s just roll for a bunch of ideas and they become part of the cool thing we are doing.
Where should the campaign start? - Make a list and roll.
What items should my character have? - Make a list and roll.
What monsters are attacking us? - Make a list and roll.
Your imagination will start to put the results together in some fathomable way that makes everyone at the table go oooooooooooh from session zero to session 21 or 151.
Even better, we are rolling together with our friends and everyone has a hint of the story beats. It is exciting!
A Campaign Journal Is Your Secret Friend and there are no rules.
Your journal is beyond clutch for running a campaign. It is where all the plot hooks, monsters, cool ideas, random thoughts are recorded from session to session. It is the history of your campaign and the blueprint at the same time.
It is an artifact of your campaign and records the hints and secrets that are yet to be unveiled.
Carry it with you. Make it a part of your everyday activities. It should live on your desk, or in your car, or at the lunch table, or your nightstand, or all the above. It is a companion that is capturing all that the mind cannot hold on to.
It's yours and no one else’s. Say this with me out loud. You will not show the pages of this book to anyone. You are not creating art for display, there are no expectations, no pressure, nobody will ever judge what you write or draw in here. No one will ever see it. It's yours. These are your thoughts, your secret weapons.
When you are running your session zero or any session, write down notes, track hit points, funny sayings, or items you make up on the fly. You and your friends will create so many amazing plot lines, weapons, stories, characters, npcs, you name it. You will want to use these in future sessions. They will inspire you to write more, to create more. It is an amazing cycle of creativity that lives here in your journal.
The Heroes, The Villains, The World Around, The Toy Chest
Did your G.I Joes battle your Transformers? Did your legos also serve as bunkers for your plastic army men? Did She-Ra ride a My Little Pony into battle?
The question you need to ask is what was in your toy chest growing up? How did those toys fuel your imagination?
Here’s the thing - video games, books, tv shows, etc contain a universe inside them. The creators of those things work within that world to present to you a story. Your imagination does not work like that. It is not contained to a universe, to a genre, to a commercial toy line. It is limitless and unique to you.
How does it sound using limitless power to fuel a story between you and your friends? Sounds great doesn’t it? One small hiccup - your brain likes to get in the way. The solution - a toy chest, your toy chest.
Only you know what toys are in your toy chest. Write them down, put them on a shelf, put them in a photo album. Are they action figures, and video games? Are they bobbles collected from renaissance fairs and thrift shops? Are they trading cards and coins? It doesn’t matter what they are, it matters that they trigger your imagination.
I need a cool idea for my upcoming session zero, I have a coin sitting on my desk:
I pick up the coin and hold it, thoughts of curses, or treasure start flowing in my mind.
My music is playing in the background, is this coin singing, was it once part of a siren’s horde?
I flip the coin a few times and I feel its weight in my hand. Why does it feel heavy? Could it be like Thor’s hammer or the sword in the stone and only the worthy can pick it up. Has it been lying in the street of the marketplace for decades and the locals have come to fear it?
Bam! There ya go. Write that down in your journal. Now go back into the toy chest and grab another idea. It's that simple.
Sit down and start session zero.
You and your friends are together, let the ideas start flowing. Creating characters. Hear what plot ideas may be forming. What are the wants and needs of the group? What secrets may be said in passing. Is everyone writing down stuff in their journals?
“Good… well, that's good. You'll need it.” - Gandalf
You and your friends are more than ready for session zero.
Settle on some house rules, figure out what day of the week you are playing, and what everyone likes on their pizza.
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