I don't know if you've heard of Shadow of the Demon Lord, but it's probably my favorite TTRPG right now, though that might be replaced by Shadow of the Weird Wizard when it drops. It's very good, pretty much everything I've wanted out of a TTRPG except for a thriving 3rd party scene. The mechanics are simple but fun, the crunch is generated via player choice and the choices players have are interesting, and enemies are threatening even to high level players to encourage creative problem solving even when combat is engaging. It's simple, but has a lot of depth.
This isn't a review of SotDL, this is a review of a single aspect of SotDL that I love: level 0. The intended start for a SotDL game is as a level 0 commoner, nothing but your ancestry, your starting equipment, and some sort of weird extra item or bonus or curse or something.
It's great. I've recently started running a SotDL campaign and the first session was one of my favorite sessions ever. Tossing the party in and letting them get way in over their heads and come out on top via creative problem solving is 100% what I play TTRPGs for.
There's often this adage that backstories should be simple (I often limit players to a single paragraph) because the game is the story of them being adventurers, and level 0 hits that perfectly. This is the story of how the party become adventurers. How they went from nobodies to monster hunters and tomb divers.
It was great. I loved it. I think it really solidified my love of SotDL. A singular encapsulation of what makes the system good. Overall, the idea of a session 0 is one I can't recommend enough. The story of how the party becomes adventurers is such an interesting one to tell. It might take a bit of homebrew (DCC is the only other game I know of with something similar), but I can personally attest to how cool the results are.
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