The prior title of this article, “Session 0 is a Scam,” was a shot across the bow of lore-dumping grognards, more interested in novelizing their world than creating emergent stories from play. What I failed to realize is that Session 0 is not only a venue for safety tools that can be moved to Session 1. In many cases, it is a safety tool itself for folks that need to gauge their comfort level with strangers. The new title more accurately reflects the spirit of the article.

One of the biggest failings of D&D is that you often don’t play the game the first session.

This is a poor way to introduce someone to a game. There’s a couple reasons why:

Time is precious. You’ve spent an evening of the new player’s time investing a lot of mental energy into an activity they might not enjoy. If they decide that…