Session 0-2, Mid Campaign Debriefs

You get a group together to play a game. You have a Session 0, and go over the important topics prior to starting the game. You set the goals for the campaign, go over consent forms, and everyone is ready to play. The entire table feels like they agree. That is it, right? You are done discussing, and can just play the game. Not necessarily.

The truth of the matter is that a game of Dungeons and Dragons can go on for a while. Some of the published modules can take years of regular play to complete. In that time, a lot can occur. Players can change, joining or leaving your table. The campaign itself will often grow and change as time goes on as well, taking on different themes or spotlighting other elements. Ultimately, things will change as you progress, and because of that, it is important to stay on the same page. Having a regular conversation with the party can help with that. I do this, calling these mid game debriefs my “Session 0-2s”.

The purpose of a Session 0-2 is to course correct, and adapt. Like I mentioned earlier, campaigns are bound to change. Players, you as the DM, and the story itself can all alter and shift a bit. I like to think of it in nautical terms, comparing this to a ship’s journey across the ocean. Many variables can cause drift or deviation in the journey. Left unchecked, these minor changes can become massive by the end of the journey. As a DM,  you can combat these by taking these “occasional readings” at your table. Like a ship captain checking the heading and speed, your debriefs allow you to gain information and make changes as necessary. It helps maintain the enjoyment of everyone involved.

This is not to say that you should try to combat change at the table. In fact, the opposite makes more sense. Perspective can and often will change over the course of a campaign. For players, sometimes a concept early on does not match with their feel of the character, and they want to adjust. For a GM, some story elements might not work with the table as much as originally thought. The feedback you can have in a Session 0-2 can help you decide when to make these changes, and how much change to make.

While the Session 0-2 is an extremely useful tool, it is not a substitution for having consistent communication with your table. It is important for you to maintain a clear channel of communication, allowing the party to come to you with any comments, critiques, or other thoughts that come up over the course of the game. This communication helps nurture and cultivate a bond and trust at the table, making everyone feel like an equally important part of the collaborative story-telling process. This periodic debrief should serve to supplement those conversations, allowing for a more in depth discussion.

When to have a Session 0-2?

Deciding when to have your Session 0-2s comes down to personal preference. It depends on a lot of factors that are specific to your group. How often and how long you play, and how quickly you progress. Some tables also are in a state of almost constant communication. A campaign that has a very active Discord Server or text chain, for example, might address a lot of the problems in between games, making this debrief needed less often. But there are a few different options available.

The easiest way to schedule a Session 0-2 is to just say that you will do it periodically. This can be something like “Every 4 sessions we debrief” or “Once a month we will break to have a talk”. Using this method allows for a more frequent chance for the group to debrief, meaning that each of these meetings will be a bit more informal. You can make sure that you are getting as much time to talk to the party as possible. On the downside, this can definitely slow down campaign progress since you are taking so much time to have these conversations. You may find that with the naturally varied pacing of a game that it is not always needed.

Another option is to tie it to character advancement. You tell the party “We stop and talk every other level” or “When we hit a new Tier of Play, we stop and talk”. This is a good way to make the conversations a bit more character-centric. It makes tying in mechanical discussions about the level ups a bit more natural in feel. However, this will cause a gradual increase in time between games. Leveling slows gradually as you increase, so going from 1 to 5 will be a lot shorter than 5 to 10, or 10 to 15. Sometimes those higher levels can be tricky and need more of a conversation, the opposite of how this goes. 

A final option is to tie the Session 0-2 into the story arcs in the campaign, tying it to those elements. Here, I would like to envision the campaign as a book or television show. I would consider arcs either chapters or parts in a book, or seasons in a TV show. When some of the narrative elements conclude (or cliffhanger) you can have your debrief. This can be a suitable compromise between narrative and mechanical elements. If you do Milestone Leveling instead of XP, it may also often coincide with a level up or new tier of play, though in this case its not really necessary. This method will help focus on the story elements, making sure that the narrative elements of both the story and the characters’ journeys are satisfying. This method can be very subjective, where the other two have very concrete moments to them. Sometimes it will make sense when the Chapter Ends, or the Season Finale occurs, but other times you may second guess it. Time between debriefs can also vary greatly, as well.

Right now, I am using the Story Arc method to determine when my table debriefs. The campaign that I am currently running, as well as my Dming style, leans more towards world building. On the player side, I have a lot of players really focused towards the stories they are making and the personal journeys of their characters. So for me, this option is best for my Session 0-2.

You can have extra debriefing if you feel or need it, or with a “Life Changing Incidents” for the campaign. Events in the real world, such as a change in schedule or the addition or loss of players at your table, or events in the game, such as a character's death or TPK. The purpose of this Debrief is to deal with challenges that occur, so it makes sense that sometimes you might need to call an emergency group meeting. I have done this more than a few times.

How to have Session 0-2

I like to pause my games when I decide it is time to have a Session 0-2 with the group, for a few reasons. Taking a pause can be a great time to catch your metaphorical breath and do a personal check. As I talked about in my article on Dealing with Burnout, having exhaustion creep up on you is a genuine threat. Especially when you are juggling all the elements of the party, it can be a useful moment to contemplate. Scheduling a group discussion sometimes is a lot easier when you use a time that everyone already can meet. With my group, weeknights and weekends can be difficult to find. I recently found this out when trying to run a one shot with this group. It took months longer than it should have, with schedules conflicting. 

There are some benefits to picking a non-normal time to have this conversation. The biggest benefit is that by not taking up session time, you prevent any sort of loss of campaign momentum. Pauses in the game can cause players to cool off, and the game’s progress can slow. Campaigns can be long, and you want to move as swiftly as possible. It also can help keep the thoughts and emotions you want to share much more fresh in everyone’s mind. Especially if you play biweekly, or monthly, the thoughts you have about the game can fade a little as you go about your day-to-day life. Aiming for a Session 0-2 that is close at hand will make sure that everything is fresh in the mind.

As mentioned above, I usually do a pause in the schedule. We meet weekly, so I do not worry about too much time passing. It makes scheduling them a lot easier. For our group, this works the best. You might find that is not the case for your table, and it may take trial and error to figure out the best fit for you.

Now it comes down to how you actually run your debrief, and again, there are a few options available here. Oftentimes it makes the most sense to do this live, in the same way that you would conduct a regular session of the game. Talking in person or over your VTT/VoIp (if you are playing virtually) can be a much faster and effective way to share information with everyone. Everyone will stay on the same page. If you are handling things virtually, most VoIP and VTT options can also double as a White Board or Screen Share, allowing you to share information with the group easily. This method can be difficult time-wise, however. Sometimes asking all the questions and getting all the feedback can be time-consuming. If you play shorter sessions, this might not be something you can fit in a normal night. It can be tricky to record all the prevalent information in a real time setting while talking. Having a designated scribe or recording the session can rectify this, but it is still a possibility.

Alternatively, you can decide to have your debrief through text. This can still be real-time, but can be done at a slower pace. Topics can be organized and discussed a bit more easily this way. Discord, for example, has the option of making threads, sub-channels that can encompass specific discussions. This helps better organize information, and can help make sure everyone has a better opportunity to share their feelings. It also can help you run a Session 0-2 in a time that won’t take up session time, and would help prevent any sort of campaign slowing. However, this can have a reduced engagement. If your players are treating this conversation less formally than a live meeting, they may not be all engaged in the conversation at all times. Couple this with the potential for certain players talking more than others, and this format can very easily cause information to be missed.

Here, I often like to use a hybrid option of the two. I will schedule an in person meeting, since I think it best allows people to talk amongst one another. The information is much better shared this way as well. I will also use our Discord Server and even a survey site such as Google Forms or SurveyMonkey to get information. This can require a lot of player engagement, as well as time for myself to go through the notes, but to me this is an excellent compromise. I get the most information and it is much easier for me to review after the fact.

What to go over in Session 0-2

Now that we have discussed the logistics of running a Session 0-2, the last question to ask is what to talk about during the conversation. It can take a bit of time to decide what you need to focus on with a group of players, and that can also change based on the game itself. When thinking about this, it is important to remember the purpose of this debrief. You are trying to get feedback on how your table is enjoying the various elements of the game, and determine if any changes need to be made with the group or individually. Where the Session 0 (Session 0-1) can be seen as a bit of a thesis for the game, the Session 0-2 is feedback focused.

When I start, I like to focus on questions that pertain to the entire group and the campaign. This will include questions about the atmosphere and general themes appearing in the game. I want to see how my party feels about them. Are elements of the game coming off too comical? Is the game feeling too dark and depressing? These questions are especially useful if I am trying to run a horror-focused campaign. As I mentioned in my My Tips For Running Horror, that atmosphere can be difficult to maintain in the right amounts. Too much can drain players, while too little can make the impact not felt by the group.

I also like to ask about the general feelings about how the party interacts with the general population of the surrounding setting. When a party enters a town, do they get enough out of the visit? Did the town itself offer too many options? Sometimes a town acts as a hub, a safe space where they can travel to do quests. Other times the town is going to be the quests itself. Sometimes a mixture of factors can leave players feeling conflicted about their involvement in the local hooks, or that a hub needs to be given more focus and time. Do the citizens feel like they are reacting in a way that makes sense to the party’s actions? This can be especially important to have a world that feels like it is reacting to the party’s actions. Sometimes as a DM you might think that you are making the party feel like heroes because they slayed the monsters, but from a party perspective they might not see that at all.

Quests and side quests are an especially important element to talk about. If you have played any of the Bethesda games, such as Fallout or Elder Scrolls, you will know the trope of having an unmanageably long log of quests. That can sometimes happen in a campaign where the party moves through a world collecting hooks like weeds on clothing. Some of those hooks might be unimportant, while others could lead to main story progression or have big consequences for the character. Sometimes the party will just not see them. At this point, you want to look at what the party has as a list of incomplete quests. When looking at this list, you want to think about how you go about trimming this list. When I do this, I try to balance out potential with importance in the campaign. If the party has a side quest from two towns ago that might be a year old, and it was just meant as a means for the party to become closer to the location? That might get cut since it would not be worthwhile to do now. But something recent, or something that could deal with current or future plot points? More likely to keep that. It comes down to being really subjective.

I also suggest trying to have some one-on-one conversations if the time allows it. It's good to get the group perspective, but sometimes you lose some of the individual thoughts. Some people might find it hard to speak up in a crowd, and some thoughts might be of a more personal or private nature. At least offering the opportunity to talk individually can help a lot.

A lot of the questions in the group chat can at least be offered here. As I mentioned, sometimes the one-on-one environment can be what some individuals prefer. However, this is an excellent place to point the spotlight onto individual characters. This is a great time to examine the choices, both mechanical and narrative, of this character. With the feat and class/subclass choices, do they still seem to make sense for the character? I try to focus less on choices that the player might have grown out of and more on the choices that the player just feels were wrong. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything did a wonderful job in chapter one of laying out how to go about changing skills and subclasses, and I feel like this can apply to feats as well. 

Sometimes the narrative choices, and the consequences of them, can sting just as much. A character might make a choice that, while in the moment made sense, almost feels damning later on, with the player not sure how to make things right. This is a great place to discuss that situation, and come up with ways that you can help alter those choices in a way that narratively still makes sense. Working in ways the character can try to grow, or maybe interacting with the party to work things out. Once you know, you can work to change it.

Sometimes, you and the player might realize that it’s time to retire a character. Their personal story might feel complete at this point. Mechanically, it might be too much to change. Or maybe they are at a point where their needs and desires are not aligning with the party. I make sure that my players know that switching out characters is a totally workable option if we all agree on that. Especially in some of the longer running games, a character might just come to a narrative conclusion earlier than expected, and that is acceptable. At that point, you can work out how to go about doing that. How you and your player would like the character to leave, or retire, and how you want the new character to come in.

Ultimately, what you talk about is entirely subjective, and can change between debriefs depending on any issues you see (or do not see). Sometimes You may need to change things and certainly might not match mine. But I usually stick to the topics I just mentioned as it gives me the most information.

Results

These periodic check-ins give you some valuable information. You can clearly get a reading of the elements of your table that are working, the ones that might need adjusting, and the things that are not working at all. Ultimately, you get a ton of information that you can use to adjust the campaign. I look to focus on a few things overall with this entire process.

I want to make sure that the overall party satisfaction is high. I want to make sure the encounters, the party experiences, both combat and social, are enjoyable. Do they find them to be challenging enough, without being too much of a struggle? I also want to judge how the party feels about how the world around them is reacting to them. You want the world to feel like it has agency, avoiding any feelings of being railroaded. On the opposite end, I also want to avoid excessively beating down the party.

Final Thoughts

Taking the time to occasionally talk with your party is very useful. When you have your plan in place, knowing when, how, and what you talk about allows you to get very useful feedback from the table. You can then take this information and look at your game, and make adjustments to how you are handling the game. Trimming and pruning the excess elements or changing things you want the party to focus on, you can help make sure that your game grows and develops healthily. I can keep table satisfaction high, and you will be happy knowing you are creating the story you want.

Do you do Session 0-2?

When do you do them? What do you talk about? Please let me know below!