Keldryn
Adventurer
I'm starting up a new 4e game tomorrow night, and two of the players have never played any edition of D&D before. I seek the collective wisdom of the EN World community in asking for some ideas as to how to do everything I can to make sure these new players stay engaged in and excited about the game.
My sister and I are long-time D&D veterans (since 1987), but neither of us have actually played 4e yet. I DMed two short 4e sessions for my wife when we were camping this past summer, but we didn't use a lot of the rules since she had never played D&D before and I only had the core books and a set of dice with me (no minis or battle grids). My wife might decide to play with us tomorrow, so I would actually count her as a third player who hasn't played D&D before.
One of the players has played perhaps half a dozen sessions of 4e, but had never played any edition of D&D previously. Another player was his DM for those games (he won't be there tomorrow, but should make it for the second game), but he doesn't have much pre-4e experience (if any). I might have two more players joining in a couple of weeks, and they have played 2e and/or 3.x, but have not yet played 4e.
So most of the players and I are still going to be learning the rules of the game. Therefore, I decided to stick with the default 4e setting, rather than Eberron (as I was originally planning on using) or a re-imagined Greyhawk. I was worried about overwhelming the new players with too much stuff to learn, and I waffled for a bit, but I feel pretty confident that I made the right decision here.
I've always struggled at the beginning of a new campaign with finding the right hook for the first adventure if the players haven't given me a bit of backstory and character motivations.
While it has been strongly criticized, I'm planning to run H1 Keep on the Shadowfell with some modifications (I have been reading several of the threads on that module in these forums), unless I can come up with something better. Kobolds and an evil priest feel somewhat cliched to me, but I'm keeping in mind that the simple-but-iconic villains and setting may resonate more with the new players than something more original. Plus, I think it would be good for me to run some encounters crafted by the 4e design team to help me "un-learn" encounter design habits from previous editions.
So, any comments or ideas on how I can best:
Thanks!
My sister and I are long-time D&D veterans (since 1987), but neither of us have actually played 4e yet. I DMed two short 4e sessions for my wife when we were camping this past summer, but we didn't use a lot of the rules since she had never played D&D before and I only had the core books and a set of dice with me (no minis or battle grids). My wife might decide to play with us tomorrow, so I would actually count her as a third player who hasn't played D&D before.
One of the players has played perhaps half a dozen sessions of 4e, but had never played any edition of D&D previously. Another player was his DM for those games (he won't be there tomorrow, but should make it for the second game), but he doesn't have much pre-4e experience (if any). I might have two more players joining in a couple of weeks, and they have played 2e and/or 3.x, but have not yet played 4e.
So most of the players and I are still going to be learning the rules of the game. Therefore, I decided to stick with the default 4e setting, rather than Eberron (as I was originally planning on using) or a re-imagined Greyhawk. I was worried about overwhelming the new players with too much stuff to learn, and I waffled for a bit, but I feel pretty confident that I made the right decision here.
I've always struggled at the beginning of a new campaign with finding the right hook for the first adventure if the players haven't given me a bit of backstory and character motivations.
While it has been strongly criticized, I'm planning to run H1 Keep on the Shadowfell with some modifications (I have been reading several of the threads on that module in these forums), unless I can come up with something better. Kobolds and an evil priest feel somewhat cliched to me, but I'm keeping in mind that the simple-but-iconic villains and setting may resonate more with the new players than something more original. Plus, I think it would be good for me to run some encounters crafted by the 4e design team to help me "un-learn" encounter design habits from previous editions.
So, any comments or ideas on how I can best:
- get the new players hooked within the first 20 minutes or so (I already know that I want to start the game more or less in the middle of the action, rather than spend 40 minutes establishing why the PCs are doing this)
- avoid the new players leaving the session with the impression that, to paraphrase a quote I once read on these forums, "D&D looks like it's 20 minutes of fun spread out over 4 hours."
- make sure the new players want to keep playing
Thanks!