Best way to teach 4e?

[maddman75]

Here's an option.

Start with Pregens and begin the learning session In Media Res - the party is already within a dungeon and needs to recover an ancient McGuffin Of Evil. They fight past some cultists and undead then get to the temple's chamber. When they remove the McGuffin from its altar, the Evil Spirit Dude is released, slaying all the PCs and shrouding the countryside in darkness.

Then describe to them the village that has lived under Evil Dude's thumb for nigh these many years, since being unwittingly released by adventurers. They then make their real characters, and either have lived with his Undead Hordes roaming the countryside or have journeyed from the elf lands or whatever to put a stop to this menace. The campaign focuses on defeating the great evil they unleashed in the learning session, as well as his champion Death Knights - their former PCs!

That way, the pregen session isn't just learning, but an essential part of the story.

 

[SteveC]

I really like the idea of having a session with pregens, but still having it relate to the group as a whole. For a good example of this, take a look at Lazybones' Keep on the Shadowfell storyhour. The storyhour starts with a previous group of adventurers going up there, only to be horribly killed. The real storyhour has characters who knew the previous group, and are looking into what happened to them. Something along those lines might work exceptionally well.

Now you don't need to dwell on the actual deaths, mind you, since that might be a downer...

--Steve

 

[malraux]

It might be worth while to run the intro scenario in medias res. Perhaps the temp group saw something being awakened, or fought and defeated something, or just happened to disrupt a ritual. Obviously it depends on what you want for the long term campaign, but it would help to get the players somewhat current on the rules while also getting them into the campaign. Of course, if you are running it as a higher level intro, you might want to greatly simplify a lot of the higher level complications: cutting back the powers to maybe just 2-3 encounter powers, a magic item daily power, and a regular daily power, only feats that grant static bonuses instead of conditional ones, etc.

edit: Ninjas can't catch you if you post to the thread well after they've been through.

 

[The Ghost]

The biggest problem I had in learning the 4e rules (and I have been gaming for twenty-plus years) was the number of options available to me at character creation. In addition, the character sheets Wizards puts out are, in my opinion, confusing. I would look at something like what they did for H1: Keep on the Shadowfell - give the players only what they actually need. Let them get a feel for the system first, then let them explore other options. This of course assumes that your players are new to D&D or 4e. If not, feel free to do whatever they are comfortable with. Trying the game out with the H1 characters was a vastly better experience than trying the game out by building a character from scratch.

 

[amysrevenge]

Also, any general tips about the first session's actual encounters? How to really emphasize the rules in a good way, and/or make it real exciting? I'm hoping to avoid 'ye olde goblins & kobolds', but I have the suspicion I might have to.

If it is people new to 4E but not new to D&D, then ye olde goblins and kobolds is exactly where you *should* start. Watch them start cursing the shifty dang kobs and gobs. Throw in a few orcs, and then have them start healing themselves with their racial powers.

 

[Rechan]

It might be worth while to run the intro scenario in medias res. Perhaps the temp group saw something being awakened, or fought and defeated something, or just happened to disrupt a ritual. Obviously it depends on what you want for the long term campaign, but it would help to get the players somewhat current on the rules while also getting them into the campaign.

The problem with relating it to the campaign is: I won't know what the campaign will be until I get the players in one room.

As I said in an above post, I'm giving four different campaigns I want to run, and the players pick one. Or, they come up with a campaign they want to play in ("We're all traveling gypsy con artists" "We're all members of a Church" "We're in prison").

So coming up with a story that fits into anything, is going to be a challenge, especially since the campaigns I have in mind are fairly different from one another.

An anti-hero "Underbelly of the City" game is going to have nothing to do with "Awakening an evil undead over in yon forest", for instance.

 

[Umbran]

Also, any general tips about the first session's actual encounters? How to really emphasize the rules in a good way, and/or make it real exciting? I'm hoping to avoid 'ye olde goblins & kobolds', but I have the suspicion I might have to.

I don't think you have to avoid them. Instead, embrace them. Kobold Hall, in the back of the DMG, isn't a bad choice.

I did exactly this with my group - put together pregens, explained the very basic mechanics, and tossed them in. You might think that the goblins and kobold level of things would be boring, but the players were 1) Pretty well absorbed in the new mechanics, and 2) interested in how the new mechanics also manifested in both their enemies, and the other character types. If you layer on too much "interesting" stuff, the players are distracted from learning what the system does.

 

[Rechan]

I don't think you have to avoid them. Instead, embrace them. Kobold Hall, in the back of the DMG, isn't a bad choice.

I love kobolds. I just wanted to avoid the cliche.

 

[Bumbles]

Break the cliche, give your kobolds machine guns.

 

[malraux]

Break the cliche, give your kobolds machine guns.

Shotguns; Meepo carries a shotgun.