Campaigns rarely collapse in flames. They fade. A missed week becomes two. Energy dips. Someone forgets what happened last session. Then the group quietly pivots to a board game night, or just drifts away and never returns.
It feels dramatic when it ends. The reasons are not. Most campaigns fail for mundane causes. Scheduling drift being by far the most common. We’ve all either experienced stories of campaigns just stopping waiting ofr the next session. Other reasons can include Unclear expectations. Tone mismatch. Spotlight imbalance. None of these are exciting. All of them are predictable.
A session zero is not about paperwork. It is about friction control.
What session zero actually does
Session zero is the meeting before play begins. No adventure. No dice rolling. Just alignment. The group talks about tone, commitment, logistics, and boundaries. This conversation sounds dull. It is not. It is maintenance. And maintenance keeps everyones engines running. It’s far better to get any expectation conflict out of the way and find a way everyone is happy with before playing several sessions and losing one or more players over an irreconcilable difference.
Campaigns are long term projects. Long term projects need clarity at the start. Without it, small irritations compound quietly. The boring reasons campaigns fail:
Scheduling entropy
This is the real villain. One player works shifts. Another has family obligations. Someone travels monthly. People say “we’ll play weekly” without checking diaries. Two months later the pattern collapses.
Session zero forces a choice. Fixed day every fortnight. Minimum quorum rule. Clear start and end times. Decide what happens if one player is absent. Does the game continue? Is the character sidelined? Ambiguity kills momentum. missing one session here and there for availability conflicts is ok, just not every weeks.
Commitment mismatch
One player writes a ten page backstory. Another barely remembers their character name. Neither is wrong. But if expectations are not aligned, resentment forms. As a forever DM players giving me something to build into the story is great.
Session zero clarifies effort level. Casual? Character driven? Tactical? Narrative heavy? Agreeing on this prevents quiet frustration.
Tone confusion
A grim horror campaign played with sitcom energy feels odd. Likewise, a light hearted fantasy collapses if someone insists on moral nihilism. Discuss tone explicitly. Comedy, drama, tragedy, heroism. Not in abstract terms. In examples. Referencing something like The Lord of the Rings versus Guardians of the Galaxy gives clarity fast. If everyone’s expecting Lord of the rings in terms of tone and scope and the game ends up beiong Monty Python and the Holy Grail it can feel grating.
Mechanical overload
Some systems demand high rules fluency. If the group expects cinematic flow but chooses something crunchy, friction appears. Discuss learning curve. Decide who reads the rules. Decide who teaches. When we moved to using Foundry for our online game there were inevvitable occurances of learning friction where someone forgets how something works
I got really lucky that one of my players took on learning things as much as possible so every question wasn’t just directed my way.
Why session zero prevents drift
Clarity reduces cognitive load. When logistics are settled, mental energy stays on play. When expectations align, conflict feels fictional rather than personal. It also builds social trust. People feel heard before play begins. That matters more than perfect prep.
The quiet power of an agreed ending
Many campaigns collapse because they never had a defined arc. Endless play sounds romantic. In practice, fatigue sets in. Session zero can define a season. Ten sessions. A three month arc. A clear goal. Finite structure increases follow through. Campaigns do not need grand failures to end. They need structure to survive.
Redlines and Veils
One absolute must is talking about your groups red lines. The things they don’t want to explore during play. It’s super impoprtant to discuss these without any judgement and with full understanding. It’s important to understand whether some themes are just unnaceptable completely or whether it needs to be a fade to black situation where players don’t need to roleplay something uncomfortable but are ok with things happening as long as it’s just not explicit.
A common example might be Player romance. Not everyone is comfortable roleplaying romancing their friends.
A session Zero can head off promblematic situations before the campaign starts. It might not be the most fun part of an RPG but it is one of the most important elements.