During Session Zero the chosen Dungeon Master (DM) should give a basic layout of the game that they will be running. Some important points should be:
- What Edition of the tabletop Role-playing Game will you be running ?
- Genre: is it a fantasy world, science fiction, western, gothic, steam punk. Each of these genres have there own unique draws and will set the tone of the world you play in.
- Location: where you physically be starting and the general surroundings, maybe even social and economical features.
- Races: what the common races and not-so-common races in the world, will there be any prejudice towards a particular race for some reason. And will also solidify what races the players can choose to play as.
- Magic: what is the general state of magic naturally occurring in the world, and how abundance it is.
- Leveling and Lifespan: the intended starting level and desired ending level, also an estimation of how long the general campaign will last.
Along with these main points, the DM is responsible for telling any campaign based knowledge the players should already have access to, house rules, and he/she should setup basic guidelines on the character creation process for the players. Some methods on how to acquire their stats are one of the following:
- Roll four 6-sided and record the highest three dice on a scratch paper, do this six times in total for the six stats.
- The premade Standard Set of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 ,8
- Point Buy (27) to purchase ability scores based on the chart, page 13 of the Player's Handbook.