Make Sure Your D&D Players Make PCs, Not NPCs

screenrant.com:

It is hard to overstate the importance of conducting Session Zero before a campaign. However, one of its most vital purposes is sometimes overlooked. This is because Dungeon Masters must ensure their players create Player Characters for the story, and not play them like NPCs.

Establishing lines and veils, and setting table rules, is certainly significant, but the DM should also clearly convey the premise and tone of the campaign they plan to run. Players can then determine why their character has an emotional stake in that premise, so they areinvested in the story, taking on the role of protagonists, not just characters that feel more like NPCs.

Some DMs are overly cagey about the premise of their campaigns, but a Session Zero can have spoilers without diminishing the impact for the characters. Transparency is far more important, since players need to know what the game’s plot will center on, at least in a broad sense. Otherwise, the players could create a party that has no compatibility with that story, rendering them Non-Player Characters in essence. If the DM wants to run a game about airship pirates, they should convey that the game will center on piracy, so players can create characters that mesh with that premise.

Letting players have some narrative control at Session Zero gives them more agency over why, exactly, their character has emotional ties to the campaign’s central premise.

Doing this lets each Session Zero address problems proactively. If the DM hopes to tell a story about holy inquisitors sealing away an ancient evil, springing that on the party without notice might lead to a mess. Some characters might have no investment in that premise and could either reject it to pursue entirely left-field plans, or perhaps worse, grudgingly go through the motions of a story their character has no emotional ties to. Inexperienced DMs put too much weight on the value of the unexpected. The DM does not have to reveal every twist they have in store.

Being honest