Best way to teach 4e?

[deadsmurf]

I love kobolds. I just wanted to avoid the cliche.

Then make them goblins! (with the same stats, but goblin tactics instead of shifty)

For reals Kobold Hall was a great first adventure for one of my groups (My girlfriend, Her 2 brothers and her best friend) all but one of them had never played D&D before (and she hadn't played 4E yet) and they had a blast, we ended up playing the entire thing over a weekend.
The traps are great, the variations on basic monsters are great, then finish it off with a big Dragon fight (generally keep this encounter easier than written because your players won't be playing optimally yet, forgetting about encounter powers and dailies etc - unless you're trying to kill pregens or whatever)

Pre-gens are a great idea though, they'll be less overwhelmed when they look at the huge section of powers when they know how they work.

 

[Kzach]

Just play. Tell everyone that the first couple of sessions are so everyone can get the hang of the game and find what they really like and want to play. That way you can swap and change things for when the proper game starts and people get involved and learn as they go.

 

[Bumbles]

Shotguns; Meepo carries a shotgun.

He's the unique, of course he's armed differently.

 

[Umbran]

(generally keep this encounter easier than written because your players won't be playing optimally yet, forgetting about encounter powers and dailies etc - unless you're trying to kill pregens or whatever)

I would play it as written, for two reasons:

1)If the GM is relatively new to 4e, it demonstrates that encounters that are appropriate can still be deadly.

1a) As above, but for the players.

2)If the GM is relatively new to 4e, it will likely demonstrate "grind". Every DM for the system should experience it before trying to find ways to avoid it, IMHO.

 

[Rechan]

I'm rather versed in 4e, Umbran, but you make a good point.

Mainly I'm just looking for 'What's better, pregens before characters, or ACTUAL characters in real battle'.

 

[amysrevenge]

You could try a middle ground.

Find out what sorts of characters people want to play - what archetypes or roles they are interested in, and maybe what races/genders. Then go ahead and make the PCs yourself, and then give the players a more generous retrain allotment for the first few levels.

 

[Umbran]

Mainly I'm just looking for 'What's better, pregens before characters, or ACTUAL characters in real battle'.

Before they see the rules in action, they can only guess at what they're going to like. This goes doubly for players of previous editions, who are apt to have to unlearn a few things.

I would suggest pregens so they have fewer preconceptions coloring their experience. If they play with a pregen, they don't feel a need for it to behave a particular way. With an "actual" character, they have expectations, but since they don't know anyting about the system, those expectations are apt to be unrealistic. And nothing scotches the feel for a game than unmet expectations.

 

[Jack99]

If your players have played 3.x, the teaching should be very brief. It took me 15 minutes to outline the major differences between 4e and 3.x and the rest we took as it appeared at the table.

Of course, if your players are completely new, I would make a cheat-sheet (2 pages tops) and a short introduction and then take the rest of the things as they come. Learning by doing and all that.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

My solution was to say that at any time throughout Keep on the Shadowfell, the PC's could be completely rewritten between sessions, even to the extent of having one character leave and another replace them.

It just meant that everyone went into the game knowing that if they made choices they didn't like, it was fine and they could just work it out afterwards. Helped everyone to relax, I think.

 

[vagabundo]

Make a bunch of pre-gens with the Character Builder, one for each class. dont bother optimising them and let them pick them on the day.

Try to get the campaign vote done before the session, possibly by email. This also sets up a good dynamic for email updates between games.

Start the action immediately, have an epic fight at first level in the tavern or something that will really hook them solid into a story. Have a nice range of skill checks, improvised stunts and other interesting situations. Have the fight spill out onto the street and have a nice small plot arc that opens things out into your bigger campaign. But I think you should start things with a bang.

That's how I'd do it.