Why the Modern D&D variants will not attract new players

[delericho]

I disagree, at least regarding 4e: Using just the PHB it's no more complicated than creating a character in a typical computer rpg.

For new players? Including understanding all of the many options (enough to make an informed choice)? Including calculating all of the end modifiers and filling in the character sheet?

Using the Character Builder it's a piece of cake.

The problem with relying on the Character Builder is that by default it includes every option from every book published thus far. For a new player, that's an absurd number of options to wade through. (However, if the Character Builder were set up to only include the PHB1 options, then I'd would agree that it is a huge step forward. It's also great once you've gotten to grips with the rules.)

The "Quick Character" option is excellent, but the results are very badly suboptimal IME. It's better than nothing, but far from an ideal solution.

 

[Jhaelen]

The "Quick Character" option is excellent, but the results are very badly suboptimal IME. It's better than nothing, but far from an ideal solution.

I disagree. Of course they're not optimal, but please: Show me a newbie who cares! Imho, nobody but an optimizer will care.

And it's still easier to use the quick character as a starting point and then change a power or feat. Power choices are not overwhelming at all. Feat choices might be, but you get a short list of 'recommended feats', that a beginner will probably use.

 

[nedjer]

Just cast a short anecdote into the 'crucible'.

One system I played with came upon the 'problem' of simultaneous magical effects, i.e. what happens when you chuck a spell into an on-going magical effect or two spells go off at once. The answer I always got was can't happen, doesn't happen. The effects are either sequential or seperate.

I then sat down one night to play a light, not lite, system where a magical effect overlapped with a spellcasting, i.e. the area, (occupied by fur wrapped henchdudes), was being blasted with frost while a wall of thorns appeared. I expected the usual, i.e. the frost has its effect and the wall of thorns has its seperate effect.

Instead, the GM says 'what do you think would happen?'. Quick suggestions included the thorns get frosted over. The GM says 'right: it's a wall of sharp icicles now - looks brittle'. Some 'idiot' can't resist and the wall soon explodes all over the room. Icicles embedded in everyone.

The PCs pick themselves up, do some healing and realise they're on their last legs. They leave the 'dungeon' and a week later are offered a contract to investigate the murder of ten 'henchdudes' - all found dead with circular puncture wounds. No sign of any weapons or what type weapon was used. Though some of the wounds contained tiny fragments of thorns . . .

So far as I can tell, there's no computer game or rule set capable of what the GM pulled off there - and it practically teleported me back to what play was like when we were working with that Basic Set years before.

 

[Davachido]

@OP:

I will have to disagree on most of the points. When 4e booted up we had 3 new players to our gaming group to learn 4e from scratch and they loved it, but were a little disappointed there wasn't more stuff to character creation and 4e has given more slowly but surely. Now I will not say 4e is the perfect edition or is alone in getting good response from new players.

When I was in my first year of uni picking up 3.5 I was in a group where only the DM was experienced in 3.5, 3 of the players had never touched an pen and paper game at all, despite this all 6 players were loving all the options they could take and how complex the character sheets were. Some of them were planning options 10 levels ahead by the end of the 2nd session.

Not 2 days ago I was advertising gaming group to new students, a lot of which had never played D&D before and after I started giving them a run-through on the basics of character creation and character mechanics they didn't hesitate to join up. Now I can't say this is the same everywhere but where I am at the moment in the UK there are a lot of new players coming in. (Back home in Mauritius is another story though )

Though I will agree that with no guidance it is sort of hard to grasp, others will have most likely mentioned this. It is rare that players and a DM will all be new to RPGs, at least one person (usually the DM) has played RPGs before or played the current system to teach the players.

I guess it could be like learning to drive a car. If you and a friend just sat in a car the dashboard and all the controls all seem daunting at first, especially if you and your companion had never driven or sat in the drivers seat before. You sit there reading through books figuring out what to do. However with an instructor (the DM) he'll guide you through the motions, you will eventually know things a lot easier and spot things you might've missed, hopefully then enjoying the activity more.

 

[delericho]

I disagree. Of course they're not optimal, but...

Suboptimal isn't a problem. Badly suboptimal is.

If you put a newbie in with a bunch of experienced players and he's hit for effectiveness by having less understanding of the rules and by having a character who is significantly inferior to the rest, then that double whammy makes it much more likely that you'll soon have one more ex-player to add to the statistics.

Power choices are not overwhelming at all.

The range of options goes well beyond simply power choices. We now have themes, backgrounds, races, classes, powers, skills, feats, equipment... At each step we have dozens of options, each with their own little rules, prerequisites, exceptions and consequences. We have the complexities of a point-buy system for attributes, where again it is not at all clear that you should focus very heavily on one (or maybe two) stat(s) and where the choice of 'ideal' stat depends very much on other choices.

I've been playing for 20+ years, and I find the range of options overwhelming. I have to come to it with a clear idea of the character I want to build before I start, or I have no chance. (And as for playing without the Character Builder, forget it. I simply will not do it.)

If the tool is limited to the PHB1 options only, then it absolutely is manageable. If you force the new player to accept that the Quick Character (without tweaking) is "good enough", then it is manageable. But to expect a new player to make head or tail of the full range of options allowed by that tool is absurd.

(And it's actually a good thing that the game has a 'base' set of options, represented by the PHB1, and a 'full' set of options for use by more advanced players - it allows for easier entry and then more complexity as you go. But they probably should have an "easy mode" button front and centre on the Character Builder to get it to default to the PHB1 options only with one click.)

 

[Jhaelen]

Suboptimal isn't a problem. Badly suboptimal is.

Yup, and I disagree, that they are _badly_ supoptimal, they're just suboptimal

If you put a newbie in with a bunch of experienced players and he's hit for effectiveness by having less understanding of the rules and by having a character who is significantly inferior to the rest, then that double whammy makes it much more likely that you'll soon have one more ex-player to add to the statistics.

Well, that clearly depends on the 'experience' that the 'experienced' players have with inexperienced players. Many of the experienced players I know will create a different kind of character for a game that includes inexperienced players than for a game that consists only of experienced players. Often, they will jump at the opportunity to play a whacky concept that they fully know is suboptimal!

Fortunately, I don't play with the kind of 'experienced' players that are incapable of playing in the same group as newbies because of a lack of patience and consideration. Generally, the 'experienced' players I know will try to help the newbies to get into the game, but without dictating how and what they should play.

Imho, new players should also always be allowed to reverse the choices they made during character creation if they find out during play that things don't work as they expected. No 'experienced' DM would force them to stick with bad choices they made because they didn't know better.

If the tool is limited to the PHB1 options only, then it absolutely is manageable. If you force the new player to accept that the Quick Character (without tweaking) is "good enough", then it is manageable. But to expect a new player to make head or tail of the full range of options allowed by that tool is absurd.

Well, actually, I was thinking of the free version of the character builder. I wouldn't expect a newbie to go all the way and actually become a DDI subscriber without having even tried to play the game!

The free version has everything up to and including PHB2 and I don't think it's absurd to expect a new player to be able to switch a power or feat.

I mean, I know what happened when we playtested 4e: There were only three things that caused any confusion:
- Backgrounds (almost everyone forgot to pick the skill training / bonus)
- Shopping (several of them used 'add' instead of 'buy')
- Rituals

Now, granted, they were not new to roleplaying, they were just new to D&D 4e, but I think if you have ever seen anything remotely similar to an rpg you will be able to cope.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Maybe this is nostalgia, but I've been thinking about this lately, and I really have begun to believe that the modern D&D variants, Pathfinder and 4E, just won't attract the new players that people want them to attract. Here's why:

The default character rules are just too complicated. First look at the character sheets. They are likely 2 pages, at least (and in 4E case, sometimes a lot longer). There can be some very esoteric abbreviations or words placed on the page, that a new player must walked through. It takes a long time to explain each power, stat, etc etc etc.

I have a couple of books on my bookshelf, and damn are they complicated. Dense prose, lookup tables all over everywhere, ad hoc die roll modifiers, modifiers for different weapons vs armour type. You name it they got it. Those books? AD&D PHBs.

Both systems do a ton to make a DM's job easier, but for players the game remains a very complex system, both in character creation and and in game play, particularly in the advent of miniatures. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'd want a game where the character creation was simple, but I think new players need a character system that is much easier than the offerings currently.

Easier than the Red Box Choose Your Own Adventure?

Thinking back to my first time playing, what was on my character sheet? There was a name, a race, a class, an alignment, six basic stats, my ac, the number I needed to roll to hit something and some items.

Which edition? And where were your five types of save? Your hide in shadows percentage chance? Your spells? (Which you needed to refer to the PHB for). I could go on...

I know essentials was that attempt, but honestly, I don't know if it's simple enough. If I plop down a character sheet in front of a new player, would they have a pretty good understanding of what their character can do in 5 minutes?

Level 1 character sheet? Bright person? Two minutes of explaination? Sure.

I disagree, at least regarding 4e: Using just the PHB it's no more complicated than creating a character in a typical computer rpg. I assume using Essentials, it's even easier. Using the Character Builder it's a piece of cake. You can even quick-build a pc with a single click and choosing race & class (and the result is actually a character that is playable!).

Even simple video games, like Diablo use a more complicated power system than 4e. Many board games have a more complicated ruleset than D&D these days.

Imho, only someone who's been living under a rock for the past two decades might have trouble with it.

Hell, AD&D had a more complicated ruleset than 4e. And when I started we didn't bother with red box or basic. That said, my group refers to autobuild as random on the Character Builder.

I disagree. Of course they're not optimal, but please: Show me a newbie who cares! Imho, nobody but an optimizer will care.

Were you ever 12? I remember all the munchkinry we got up to at that age. Hell yes, we cared.

Suboptimal isn't a problem. Badly suboptimal is.

If you put a newbie in with a bunch of experienced players and he's hit for effectiveness by having less understanding of the rules and by having a character who is significantly inferior to the rest, then that double whammy makes it much more likely that you'll soon have one more ex-player to add to the statistics.

Agreed. And one major problem with 3e. It's quite hard in 4e to make a badly suboptimal character accidently as long as you are aware that your primary stat should be high*. In AD&D it took either an inept caster (1 spell/day, no armour, low hp, uncreative spell use) or someone optimising (e.g. by writing "Bladesinger" on their character sheet). In 3e it took writing "Monk" on your character sheet. (Or arguably Bard or Fighter and not going for a cheese build).

* Anyone who plays an Int 8 wizard deserves what they get IMO. But Int 16 is fine. (And it's entirely possible to make a viable Str 8 Warlord...)

 

[Mistwell]

Suboptimal isn't a problem. Badly suboptimal is.

I think it would be very difficult to make a badly suboptimal character using the Character Generator.

In fact, since you can use auto-pick, I think anyone who feels overwhelmed will just use that option.

But realistically, it's pretty easy for anyone to just click options that sound good, and come up with an OK character that is not badly suboptimal. In fact, I find that new players that pick options that "experienced" players think are suboptimal, usually find new and creative ways to use those powers that make them much more powerful.

 

[delericho]

Yup, and I disagree, that they are _badly_ supoptimal, they're just suboptimal

I've recently seen it build a Str-based Barbarian, only to max out his Cha instead, and build a character with loads of sword-focused feats, only to fail to equip him with a sword. I feel pretty comfortable labelling those badly suboptimal.

Well, that clearly depends on the 'experience' that the 'experienced' players have with inexperienced players. Many of the experienced players I know will create a different kind of character for a game that includes inexperienced players than for a game that consists only of experienced players.

We have just started a new campaign with a mixed group. Given that we're expecting to play those characters long-term are you really suggesting that the experienced players should deliberately nerf their characters? (And potentially find themselves playing characters that they're really not happy with for months.)

That is what you are suggesting, after all.

(The way we dealt with this? The newbies explained the type of character they wanted, and the DM built it for them. But that, frankly, isn't a good solution - it's just the least-worst option available.)

Imho, new players should also always be allowed to reverse the choices they made during character creation if they find out during play that things don't work as they expected. No 'experienced' DM would force them to stick with bad choices they made because they didn't know better.

Agreed. But if they don't have the experience, they have no basis on which to determine which were the poor choices, and what they should have done differently. And if they hate their first session due to having a bad character, then they won't stick around to fix their bad choices... they'll just do something else instead.

Well, actually, I was thinking of the free version of the character builder. I wouldn't expect a newbie to go all the way and actually become a DDI subscriber without having even tried to play the game!

What's most likely is that the newbie player will sit at the experienced player's PC and use his installation. Of course, that would be the fully-updated version, with all the options.

I mean, I know what happened when we playtested 4e: There were only three things that caused any confusion:
- Backgrounds (almost everyone forgot to pick the skill training / bonus)
- Shopping (several of them used 'add' instead of 'buy')
- Rituals

Now, granted, they were not new to roleplaying, they were just new to D&D 4e, but I think if you have ever seen anything remotely similar to an rpg you will be able to cope.

You've just said that your experienced group had trouble dealing with all the options. In that case, can you not see how it might be a problem for new players?

 

[deinol]

However, this is something I noticed while recently GMing a session: going from level 1 to level 30 is exciting the first few times. It starts to lose its luster very quickly though.

Have you actually played a campaign from 1-30 more than once in the 3 years 4E has been out? I'm still running my 3.X game that began 4 years ago and just reached level 15. I understand our game is on the slow XP track, but we only level every 3 months or so.

My friends just finished their first 4E campaign at level 30, which has taken about 2 years to complete. I think they started at level 10 or so.

My advice: slow down. This isn't WoW where the goal is to get to the top as fast as possible. (At least, some people seem to treat it like that, "The game doesn't start until 60/70/80/whatever the cap is now.") Enjoy the game at every level. Take your time to enjoy each tier for what it is worth.