Interesting! Yeah, when I run TBZ for folks who haven’t played or a mixed table, I tend to pick the first zero act from the following:

* Aim for the person who has played before, especially if I know they have “juice”
* Aim for the story-gamer
* Aim for the person who seems to have a dramatic flair

The other thing I tend to do is drag zero act scenes on for too long. I think “fast zero act where you describe your character, say two lines and the GM gives you Your Session Goal” was the goal back in 2001, but since then character-focused RP has changed in that it’s more interesting to drag it out that much more. So I tend to:

* Bring in another player (giving them an Aiki) as a secondary NPC to the zero act, even if they’re just a hype man contributing a line or two to the scene.
* Still drag it on too long; which is to say, have a great and fulfilling scene for all that was 20 minutes when the game originally intended like maybe 3-5.

Topical, too: Last night I ran TBZ for the first time in a long time for my Thursday crew (jan w tobia dh and Monica), and it was super awesome and intense. We sat down to order drinks and food at 7:00 (we played in an Izakaya over mixed drinks and fish and fried awesome shit). We stopped between 10:30-11. Given time fucking around with menus and stuff aside… those 3, 3+ hours were dominated by the explanation of the setting and simple rules (30-60 mins?) and 3 zero act scenes.

Intense, awesome, fulfilling, all cylinders firing, engaging with the Aiki system and the Emotion Matrix. 

It’s clear that the most enjoyment I have with the game comes out of the stories that last more than one session. At this point, it’s weird to call it a single-session game (unless all members understand/have exp with the rules beforehand); for new players it’s really a 4-6 hour (2, potentially 3; depending on the player count) session game…