Anecdotes: Introducing players to D&D

[MerricB]

From here: http://enworld.org/showthread.php?t=198848&page=2

I love 3.5, but I recently ran a short campaign for 2 players - one very experienced with the 3.5 ruleset and one very new to the 3.5 ruleset.

It wasn't fun to DM. Having to stop constantly to explain rules was a major drag on my fun quotient. (I do not fault the player at all, but the complexity of this ruleset made it clear to me that you've got to be really be into the game rules to play this game as written and have fun.)

Over the last seven years, I've played a lot of D&D. At the height of my playing, last year, I had 16 players split over three groups. (The number is currently 12 players). Quite a few players had never played D&D before.

Before that, I played quite a bit of AD&D.

In that time, I've had much more success introducing players to D&D 3e than - in particular - D&D 2e.

However, it must be said, you do need to pay attention to what type of character you give new players. Spellcasters are demanding to play, not least because spells tend to be more complicated than any ability a fighter has. Some new players will leap at the opportunity for something complex, but for the type of person who doesn't want to be bothered by the detail... make sure they're not running a spellcaster!

Pretty much all the people I've played with have quickly picked up the basics of D&D: Roll a d20, add modifiers, ask if it succeeded. Then roll dice for damage (if in combat). Movement with miniatures isn't much harder (although diagonal movement does puzzle some at times).

I do believe that starting players at higher-levels when new is a very bad idea with 3e; there are levels of complexity for high-level PCs (especially spellcasters) that take some getting used to, and many people don't want to deal with such; but I've never had all that much trouble with new players and 1st level PCs.

How have your experiences been?

Cheers!

 

[I'm A Banana]

For my side, I like to keep it simple.

I'll create a few characters. You choose the character you want. I'll tell you when to roll. You just tell me what you want to do.

These few simple rules have introduced dozens of friends, and a few sorority sisters, to D&D.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

When I was in the Navy, I gathered a group together to play through the original Adventure Path (The Sunless Citadel, etc). The roommate of one of the players peeked in to see what we were doing and decided to sit down and create a character. That night he borrowed someone's PHB. Next session, he brought in a new character that he felt he could get into better and...wow. Over the week that he had borrowed the PHB he had mastered the rules. He knew the rules better than anyone at the table and he was one of the best roleplayers I've ever run into.

Contrary to that, back in 2E my wife and I tried to get another couple into the game. The larger group had been playing WoD and my wife and I wanted to get our D&D fix. With both systems, the other couple (both of them) had to ask what to roll...every single time. No matter how many times we explained how things worked in either system, they had to ask.

 

[Roger]

I started off a couple people with that new Basic D&D boxed set.

It went alright, but when we decided to move on to full 3.5 D&D, the learning curve started all over again, so I'm not sure we were really any better off.

But I got some good minis and a nice box out of it, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Crothian]

Two years ago I introduced a new person to the game. Well our group did. We lent him a PHB and the first night no punches were pulled and it was very little on the explanation (he jumped in in the middle of a campaign). That night was also a TPK. Why he came back the next week, I'll never know. But we really just tossed him in the deep end and luckily he was able to swim.

 

[Moggthegob]

I have a had lot of luck introducing this to my theater friends. They love it as an oppuritunity to roleplay and be somethin they reall are not. i find that hwen it comes to dnd some people are up to different challenge than others. For instanceo ngut pla6ed a illusioinist righto ut ofthe gateand was great ati ad o nthe other hand we had a guy wh had a very hard time playing a bard.

However, i agre 3e has been infinitely easier to introduce peopl to and get the mt opla. less acronyms the better it seems

 

[BlackMoria]

I have a crib sheet of the basics that I give to new players to the game.

We do a few walkthrough combats prior to actual playing so they can experience the thrill (or agony) of combat. During these walkthroughs, I explain why they are rolling certain dice, etc. I explain the tactical side somewhat (why it is better to move over here rather than there, why is best to hold your ground in this situation, to charge in this situation and the importance of teamwork. After a few walkthroughs, they generally get how it all works.

First characters for novices are not difficult classes to play, such as Fighters, Barbarians Rogues and Rangers (limited spellcasting). This is because novices playing spellcasters can be overwhelming to them and slows the game greatly. Only when the novice player has gained some proficiency in playing is he/she eased into playing a spellcaster.

When it comes time for leveling up, I ask the new player if he/she has a character concept in mind (most new players wanting to take Barbarian want to do the 'Conan' thing, for example). The experienced players and myself help the new players by suggesting feats that will better realize the character concept the new player had in mind.

Many years of experience has show me that this is the best approach for easing new players into the game. Get them hands on and doing stuff but at the same time, limit their character choices so they are not overwhelmed by the choices.

 

[GreatLemur]

I've just recently introduced my gaming group to D&D v.3.5. Previously, we'd been playing World of Darkness (old WoD, that is), but at the end of the storyline, I proposed that I take over the GM's chair and run a quick, one-shot D&D adventure. They were surprisingly open to it. None of the other folks in my group have seen D&D since 2E, and a couple of them have never played any version of it. One of those, our WoD GM, is particularly math-avoidant (possibly to a clinically-diagnosable degree), so I was really worried how she'd feel about it. But she was completely into it, happy to have some time to develop the next storyline of our WoD game.

Anyway, we're just two sessions in, but things have run pretty smoothly. I gave them a choice of pre-generated characters, for simplicity's sake, and they're actually getting into them and fleshing them out. The WoD GM sort of re-wrote and embellished her chosen character's history quite nicely, and the other never-played-D&D-before player is really playing up her character's schtick, much to the whole group's amusement.

Inspired by David Noonan's Dungeon Delve, I made simplified character sheets for everyone, which has probably helped a lot. I tried to include only what they actually needed to know, plus a little bit of the math showing where those numbers came from. I even left off class, of all things, since I didn't want the players to see their characters' identities or roles in society in those terms. (Danet isn't a Fighter; she's a young archer who wants to join the town watch. Simot and Nian aren't a Cloistered Cleric and a Druid; they're both chosen servants of two very different gods. Jimphs isn't a Sorcerer; he's a weird kid with unexplained illusion powers. Bodge isn't a Warblade; he's a wealthy merchant's son who's had some formal duelist training.) In addition to getting rid of unnecessary information, I also wanted to include a lot of the really useful stuff that isn't usually on a character sheet, such as descriptions of class abilities, feats, and spells. This blew most sheets out to two pages, but it's certainly saved us a lot of book-flipping.

Anyway, they haven't really had much trouble with the rules. They've been making loads of skill checks and combat rolls, and without requiring me to tell them what to add. They remember their own initiative order. They grasped critical threats without any trouble. Vancian magic hasn't bothered them any. I've yet to fully introduce them to attacks of opportunity, or the wonders of the grappling system, but I think we'll get through it when it happens. For a bunch of folks who've mostly been playing Amber Diceless and a lot of damn-near-diceless World of Darkness for years, they're doing a great job of coping with my constant requests for skill checks.

Our only problems so far have been the results of my own inexperience. Previously, I've only been a forum-based DM, so having to prepare materials in advance and keep all the appropriate rules in mind during play is new to me. I let them do bludgeoning damage against zombies without penalty, and I think I might have let them get crits, too. And I think I've got a lot to learn about gauging encounter levels and making fights more dynamic. Also, they've been doing a great job of using the Track feat to skip ahead in the adventure faster than I planned. And oh how it hurts when they end up not even talking to NPCs who I've written up a lot of info on. The unexpected monkeywrenches they throw into my plans are half the fun, though.

After this one-shot is over, we'll almost certainly go back to our WoD campaign, but I'll probably be proposing more D&D (or d20/OGL) in the future. I'm really looking forward to letting them create their own characters, next time.

 

[MerricB]

Nice report, GreatLemur!

It's funny - one of my long-term players (he played with me for 6 years before getting a job elsewhere) I introduced in the last days of 2e... and with the full Player's Option rule! His first PC was killed in the first encounter, and his second PC became one of the great PCs of any of my campaigns.

Last fortnight, we introduced a new player to Wheel of Time (never played any RPG before). She really got into it... none of us were really that familiar with the WoT rules, so we just used D&D 3.5e rules for the most part, just using the WoT classes and magic rules...

Cheers!