A session zero checklist for online games
Most session zero checklists were written for a table in someone's living room. If your game runs on Discord, a few things need deciding that never come up in person, and the most useful one is what gets written down.
By Peter Neale, a DM who builds SCRY. Updated 20 October 2026.
Keep it short, then play
Session zero works best as the first hour of a real session rather than a whole evening of forms. Talk through the list, make characters together, then run a short scene so everyone leaves having actually played something.
The game itself
- Tone. Pick two words for it, like grim and political or light and heroic, and say them out loud so nobody brings a joke character to a horror game.
- Length. A twelve-session arc and an open-ended campaign call for different characters.
- House rules. Anything you change from the book, from flanking to how critical hits work.
- Character ties. Every character should know at least one other before session one. Sorting out why the party is together takes ten minutes now and an awkward hour later.
Safety tools
Agree on lines and veils. Lines are things that won't appear in the game at all, and veils are things that can happen off screen. Then pick a way to stop a scene mid-game. The X-card works just as well online as a typed X in the chat or a reaction on the last message, and some players find a private message to the DM easier still. The TTRPG Safety Toolkit collects these tools in one free document if you want more options.
The online bits most lists skip
- Schedule and quorum. Same time every week, and decide how many players you need to run without someone. Three out of five is a common line.
- Voice and video. Cameras on or off, push-to-talk or an open mic, and a text channel for side chatter so it doesn't talk over the scene.
- Rolls. In the open with a dice bot, on a virtual tabletop, or on everyone's own dice on trust. Decide once and stick to it.
- Where things live. One channel for the game, one for scheduling, one for out-of-character chat and one place for notes.
Decide what gets written down
This is the one I'd add to every list. Long campaigns run on memory, and memory is the first thing a table loses. Settle three things at session zero.
- Who keeps the notes. You, a player who enjoys it, a rota, or a tool.
- Who can read them. Your notes have the twist in them, so players need their own version.
- Whether the game is recorded. If it is, everyone hears that now, before session one, along with what happens to the audio and how to opt out.
Asking at session zero matters more than any setting in any app. Nobody should find out at session six that the game was being recorded.
If you use SCRY
SCRY is the tool I build for that third question. It records the session in your Discord voice channel and writes the recap and a campaign wiki, and your players get their own wiki with only what's been revealed. When recording starts, SCRY posts a notice in your server. Anyone who'd rather sit out can react to it or type /scry consent withdraw, and their audio is left out from then on. Audio is deleted within 72 hours.
Session zero is the right moment to show your table that notice. The Discord bot page has the details.
Check in at session three
Session zero decisions are educated guesses. Ask again after a few games whether the tone, schedule and pacing are working, while it's still easy to change course.