A Lesson In Teaching The Game

[Argyle King]

On Wednesday nights, I DM a D&D 4th Edition game. The 4 players I usually have are quite familiar with the game and D&D in general. As such, there are a lot of things I take for granted that they understand -and, typically, they do understand them.

While we are playing, there are also usually a few other people hanging out. Among those who often show interest in the table while the game is going on is a friend of the group (whom I will refer to as 'Bill') and the step-daughter of one of the players (whom I will refer to as 'Steph.')

Bill has sat and watched the group play a few times. He's welcome to join, but -as of yet- has not. Thus far, he's been content to simply watch and listen. He also interacts with various members of the group. He's not disruptive; most of the group can manage side conversations here and there without interupting the game. Bill has often said he has trouble understanding some of the game elements.

Yesterday night, the group did not have dungeons tiles nor the Descent pieces and other such things which we normally use to illustrate the battlefield available to us. Instead, I used a very large tablet -without lines. I simply drew the rooms and what the group saw by hand. I arrived early before any of the other members and had pre-drawn some of the encounters areas I had expected the group would get into. During the game, I would first verbally describe the area, and then follow by turning to the page which had the encounter area they were in. When I say large table, I mean it was large enough to be the size of a Chessex battle mat.

While I was running the game, Bill asked me a few questions about the game. I first explained the story which the group was playing through; he then expressed that he had understood that part so far. He then went on to say that the grid and tiles was what had confused him before. Then he added that he more clearly understood what was going on and what was being represented without the grid being there and just the hand drawing of what the party saw being the map. I'm glad he has come to a clearer understanding of the game (maybe he'll try playing,) but the obstacle which had stood in the way of understanding for him was something I found odd.

I can draw well enough to give a fairly clear idea of what's going on, but I would hardly call myself an artist. As such, I do not believe my drawing skill had anything to do with helping Bill. What he expressed -as I said- was the lack of the grid helping him to more clearly see the picture. While I do prefer to go gridless and measure movement in a manner similar to tabletop wargaming, I typically use the tiles for D&D on Wednesdays for 2 reasons: 1) The players are familiar with playing that way, and 2) some of the players have bought them, and bring them with the expectation of using them.

As I said, tiles were not available this week. This grew from a lack of communication about who was bringing what. So, as I said, we simply used paper, and I drew the scenes and maps by hand. It was strange to me to think that things would be easier for someone to understand without the map. However, that was exactly the case for Bill. It was more than simply him saying he understood it more; there was a genuine look of understanding in his face and eyes when he said so. For some reason, the lack of 1 inch squares -an element of D&D which is typically accepted as a normal part of the game- helped him. Throughout the night -when I wasn't busy interacting with a player- he asked questions and showed interest in the game.

Toward the end of the session, Steph (the step-daughter of one of the players) was hanging out around the table. I needed to roll d4s for a Poison Dart Trap. She asked me how d4s were used. It took some time, but eventually various members of the group explained that you use the number on the corner of the die rather than the number that's on the flat face of the die like you would with a d6.

The lesson I took from this is that I should not assume everything which makes sense to me will make sense to others. When teaching a game, I spend a lot of time explaining powers and skills and feats and things of that nature -the big details. I never really stopped to think that some of the small details such as the lines of the grid or how to read a d4 would be obstacles to learn the game. Those are things that I somewhat took for granted due to how familiar I and the others I typically play with are with the game. I think it's an important lesson to realize, and it is something I will keep in mind when I teach rpgs to others. What makes sense to me might not make sense to somebody else.

Still, the grid thing did throw me for a loop a little bit. Mostly because I've tried to go gridless with some D&D groups in the past, but they had trouble with the concept of measuring distance without squares. In Bill's case, the grid is what stood in the way of him more fully understanding the game; without it, things were clearer.

Thoughts? Comments?

OOC: I had originally posted this elsewhere, but I felt as though I'd get some more feedback here. While I call out D&D 4th Edition specifically, I placed this in the general forum because it's more about teaching/learning games in general than it is about a specific game.

 

[billd91]

I remember being flummoxed by the d4 when I first encountered it until someone clued me in. After many years, I switched and now I use a d12 numbered 1-4 three times. It's much easier and I don't get jabs in my feet from the lost dice caltrops in the dining room.

Interesting about the grid being an obstacle though. I'm guessing Bill hasn't read the rules in depth if he's read any of them at all. Without a grounding in them, I can see how the technical aspects of the grid might be more confusing than a sketch done more to eyeball specifications.

 

[Janx]

The story Bill was an observer, correct?

I can see someone not knowing how to read the dice. that is something very basic to cover with new players, both in how to reference then (2d6, 1d8) and in how to read them since non-d6 dice might be a new concept to a new player.

The grid causing confusion for Bill is unexpected.

Many games have squares denoting where you can move, and the nicer tiles usually make the grid be unobtrusive to the larger picture of the layout. It's not a complicated concept to see a dungeon layout in tiles and grasp that it represents the playspace and these figures are your guys.

I'm not going to call Bill an idiot. I have seen non-stupid people be stumped by simple concepts. It seems to happen most often when there are a lot of side details present. Things that their brain is trying to integrate as related information, that can really be discarded as tangential to the main concept.

Thus, when you killed the grid, you removed an aspect from the presentation, that was confusing his understanding. It wasn't the grid itself. It was most likely that you kept putting out map elements that made no sense to him how or why they were put out there.

Look at it from a no-battlemat perspective. If you saw D&D played in a group that used no map, battlemat or other on-table representation of where people are, how confusing would that be for the first time? Especially if you didn't really pay close attention and didn't know what things the GM said meant or were significant.

Now slide that to watching a group play D&D. You would think it's easier, there's a map, showing what's happening.

But to the observer, the map usage is random and intermittent. The players will talk for a while, then suddenly the guy in charge starts putting out the mat, and then they move their figures around, and after an hour, they ignore the map (because nobody bothers removing it until the next encounter).

It's basically a distracting element to what's really going on. Especially as an observer, not as a new player at the table who is getting talked through the whole time.