Sign of Things to Come?

[Edgewood]

Last October I was running a session of D&D at my local Con. I was running the second game of the day and the players consisted of all friends in the 15-17 year old range. When I handed them the pregenerated characters for them to choose from they excitedly talked about the weapons that some had. They were to say the least very enthusiastic about playing. They also thought that the hit points we low. One of the boys however said the following which I think was interesting: "Man these hit points are low....oh wait we have food, that will restore our hit points, that's good." I then had to explain to them that food didn't restore hit points. All three look at me in slack jawed confusion. "Well how do we get our health back?"

I explained to them that they will either have to heal naturally or seek out a magical means to speed up their rate of healing.

Once it was explained to them, the three said that it was stupid not to heal with food and that every video game was set up like that.

I tried to explain to them that video games and RPG's operate differently but I think it was lost on them. Although they played the game, they didn't want to let go of the video game approach to Role Playing.

I'm sure that this was a unique situation but I hope it's not a sign of things to come.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I don't think it was unique.

At their age level, they probably have a much greater exposure to things like PSP, and Nintendo's famous to go machine, as well as numerous other video game expsoures.

D&D? Probably not so much.

 

[roguerouge]

You could punch one in the shoulder and then tell him to get a sandwich when he goes "Ow!"

 

[Nikosandros]

And to connect to another recent thread food also healed you (to the tune of 4 stamina points) in the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks...

 

[Asmor]

I can't imagine they've never played an RPG that didn't have healing spells. o_0

 

[Mallus]

I don't know, it seems perfectly reasonable to me. It seems more unreasonable that the pre-gen characters wouldn't start play with some healing resources (since their equipment didn't include clearly-labeled healing potions, assuming the food listed would heal makes sense).

(goes back to playing Final Fantasy IV on his Nintendo DS)

 

[malraux]

I can't imagine they've never played an RPG that didn't have healing spells. o_0

Thinking over it, in most crpg games i've played, potions (and things that are potion like) are the main source of healing. Healing spells are much less common, so I can at least see how they'd make that assumption.

 

[nightwyrm]

If you really think about it, eating food to regain hp is not that much different from gaining hp from drinking a potion or poking yourself with a wand.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

So... Eating food to regain HP is less reasonable than sitting arround for 6 hours and watching your wounds magically vanish?

 

[Remathilis]

I don't know, it seems perfectly reasonable to me. It seems more unreasonable that the pre-gen characters wouldn't start play with some healing resources (since their equipment didn't include clearly-labeled healing potions, assuming the food listed would heal makes sense).

(goes back to playing Final Fantasy IV on his Nintendo DS)

Tell me about it. It took a lot of shock to realize that a Dead PC didn't come back to life with a simple "life potion" (that's a Phoenix Down for you whipper-snappers). Nor could buy better gear from local stores (like adamant armor or mithral swords) with your GP.

However, it seems that the Pre-gens didn't have easy access to healing. (Such as potions, wands, or even healing surges spelled out). You might have got more mileage explaining magical methods of HP restoration first, THEN discuss natural healing. (Unless you were running some Low-magic GnG sub-style, in which the loss wasn't food = health, but the lack of instant hp regen, a staple of video games).