D&D General Deborah Ann Woll Teaches Jon Bernthal D&D

[overgeeked]

"I love D&D" and "it's the greatest game ever created" are different statements.


The video is about D&D. Are you saying D&D and the hobby are the same thing?

I see we're being pretty loose with our language in this thread.


Truth. I feel bad for new D&D players who, in their first 10 minutes of learning, hear something like, "when you want to attack, you make an attack roll. You add your ability mod for the type of attack you're making, proficiency mod if you have proficiency with the weapon, and you have to be in range of your target, which is found in the weapons table. If you hit, roll damage and add your strength mod (or dex if your weapon has the Finesse property), and you might need to tell the DM if your weapon is bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing . . . "

Exactly. Strip out all the silly rules and jargon and get on with the heart of the game. Here you are, here’s the situation, now…what do you do?

 

[KYRON45]

"I love D&D" and "it's the greatest game ever created" are different statements.


The video is about D&D. Are you saying D&D and the hobby are the same thing?

I see we're being pretty loose with our language in this thread.


Truth. I feel bad for new D&D players who, in their first 10 minutes of learning, hear something like, "when you want to attack, you make an attack roll. You add your ability mod for the type of attack you're making, proficiency mod if you have proficiency with the weapon, and you have to be in range of your target, which is found in the weapons table. If you hit, roll damage and add your strength mod (or dex if your weapon has the Finesse property), and you might need to tell the DM if your weapon is bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing . . . "

She's telling someone about a thing that she loves.
Don't you have any joy in your life that you're hyperbolic about when you share it?

All of the modifiers you are listing would be all mathed out on a properly formatted character sheet.
When you teach a kid math you start with greater than & less than, not abstract math and topology.

 

[Theory of Games]

"I love D&D" and "it's the greatest game ever created" are different statements.


The video is about D&D. Are you saying D&D and the hobby are the same thing?

I see we're being pretty loose with our language in this thread.


Truth. I feel bad for new D&D players who, in their first 10 minutes of learning, hear something like, "when you want to attack, you make an attack roll. You add your ability mod for the type of attack you're making, proficiency mod if you have proficiency with the weapon, and you have to be in range of your target, which is found in the weapons table. If you hit, roll damage and add your strength mod (or dex if your weapon has the Finesse property), and you might need to tell the DM if your weapon is bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing . . . "

Since I'm not in a court of law and under oath and in compliance with EnWorld ToS, my language can be as loose as I like. And yah, D&D is part of the tabletop role-playing hobby chiefly because D&D created the hobby. I wonder how you define "hobby"?

 

[TiQuinn]

I look forward to you posting a video of you teaching a complete beginner and getting them from being asked if they want to play to actually playing the game in less time than DAW.

I don’t see what your point is. Is it a race?

 

[Scribe]

Exactly. Strip out all the silly rules and jargon and get on with the heart of the game. Here you are, here’s the situation, now…what do you do?

"I play Shadowdark."

 

[Aldarc]

I don’t see what your point is. Is it a race?

Basically. What you are witnessing is veiled pitch for FKR via an argument that "rules get in the way."

 

[TiQuinn]

Basically. What you are witnessing is veiled pitch for FKR via an argument that "rules get in the way."

Okay, not sure what FKR is. My main point was that I thought the really interesting point in the video was how Bernthal and Woll were talking about how not feeling like you fit in can get in the way with learning something or participating. That’s something I’ve definitely recognized in games and it’s a trickier thing to overcome.

 

[Aldarc]

Okay, not sure what FKR is. My main point was that I thought the really interesting point in the video was how Bernthal and Woll were talking about how not feeling like you fit in can get in the way with learning something or participating. That’s something I’ve definitely recognized in games and it’s a trickier thing to overcome.

"Free Kriegspiel Revolution/Renaissance." It's basically a TTRPG minimalist movement that overgeeked frequently advocates for, whether explicitly by name or by its principles.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I apparently don’t have the same issue teaching people to play that others do. I’ve never had trouble explaining the rules of D&D. I’ve had people hesitant to participate because they’re holding back from roleplaying though.

I'm not sure that this is accurate for all groups. We all suffer from the tunnel vision of "sample sizes of what we experience" ...

I've taught people ... so many people ... to play D&D. And I think that there are some people that find the roleplaying more challenging. But there are also a lot of people (a lot!) that find the rules challenging. D&D has never been the heaviest game out there in terms of rules or "crunch," but it's also one of the heavier games.

As a general rule, a new player can always find something easy to grasp on to. After all, if you are playing a Champion and you are using ToTM, it's fairly easy to grasp. But as soon as you start tossing in spells, or a battle map, or any of the things that require just a bit more ... it can be overwhelming.

And this is before we get into all the ways that D&D has confusing vocabulary or rules. Levels ... as spells? as class? thankfully, we don't use it for dungeons any more. Why is Armor CLASS a number, and what does it have to do with your class, and since it doesn't, why does it share a name? How does stealth work, anyway (I'll get back to you on that one)?

Having seen people learn and play D&D, I can see that we often ignore the ways that people struggle at first- usually because we are helping them! And there are those that never git gud when it comes to the rules. At least, in my experience and observation.

PS- FKR?

D&D General - FKR: How Fewer Rules Can Make D&D Better

A lot of the time, I fail my own wisdom saving throw. I sometimes will refer to FKR with the assumption that people will know what I'm talking about, given that I've written about it in the past. However, as @Micah Sweet recently reminded me, that is not the case. So, since it has been a while...

www.enworld.org

 

[TiQuinn]

I'm not sure that this is accurate for all groups. We all suffer from the tunnel vision of "sample sizes of what we experience" ...

I've taught people ... so many people ... to play D&D. And I think that there are some people that find the roleplaying more challenging. But there are also a lot of people (a lot!) that find the rules challenging. D&D has never been the heaviest game out there in terms of rules or "crunch," but it's also one of the heavier games.

As a general rule, a new player can always find something easy to grasp on to. After all, if you are playing a Champion and you are using ToTM, it's fairly easy to grasp. But as soon as you start tossing in spells, or a battle map, or any of the things that require just a bit more ... it can be overwhelming.

And this is before we get into all the ways that D&D has confusing vocabulary or rules. Levels ... as spells? as class? thankfully, we don't use it for dungeons any more. Why is Armor CLASS a number, and what does it have to do with your class, and since it doesn't, why does it share a name? How does stealth work, anyway (I'll get back to you on that one)?

Having seen people learn and play D&D, I can see that we often ignore the ways that people struggle at first- usually because we are helping them! And there are those that never git gud when it comes to the rules. At least, in my experience and observation.

PS- FKR?

D&D General - FKR: How Fewer Rules Can Make D&D Better

A lot of the time, I fail my own wisdom saving throw. I sometimes will refer to FKR with the assumption that people will know what I'm talking about, given that I've written about it in the past. However, as @Micah Sweet recently reminded me, that is not the case. So, since it has been a while...

www.enworld.org

Perhaps it’s better to say that I don’t find teaching it any more difficult than say, explaining the rules of American football, which are probably even more arcane at the fringes, and yet millions watch it every weekend without much of a thought for how many rules they don’t actually know, and how often it doesn’t matter in the big picture.