D&D encounters - session 0?

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I'm going to be DMing D&D encounters for the first time very soon. I've just got the adventure packet from the organiser, and it mentions session 0 being character creation.

Two questions, if anyone knows...

1. Does this character creation intended to take all of the first session, or does the first part of the adventure also happen on this day (sesson 1)?

2. If this takes the whole of the first evening, what do players do that have already made their character, or just happy to use a pre-gen?

Welcome to the Encounters club Chimpy. To answer your questions:

1. Time may vary depending on the number and experience of your group. Some DMs will create a mini adventure/fight so players can test drive their characters if time allows. To keep in line with the official program you should run Session 1 on 2/13.

2. If players who already created characters show up they can help new players create characters freeing you up. In general it's a good time to go over any special rules and the background of the adventure.

There's an Encounters forum where people discuss the season. Join the community group and you'll be able post. It's a great resource.

@feetz_grande on Twitter

Thanks for the info, I'll head over to that commununity site.
Feetz: Thanks for the link to the Encounters community. I played seasons 5-9 and DM'd season 10-11 and never knew about this place!

As for session #0... our group has typically not done this session. We did it with season 10 because that was the first season I fully DM'd and because it had some pretty unique rules for character creation. Hopefully, I'll be getting a new crew for season 12. If that's the case, then I will probably do the character creation session. 
Yea, the forum is kind of tucked away in a corner.

We've also skipped session 0 in the past. This season we're going to run it using D&D Next so we're actually going to sit down and work out the characters together.

@feetz_grande on Twitter