Getting parents to play D&D

[Moe Ronalds]

My parents are finally willing to play a D&D game with me, and I need help. The party will be my little sister, my mom, and my dad. (You can see how desperate I am for players.) My little sister has played before and loves the game. My mom tried to play once, but spent the entire session making her character. My father has never played before, and hates Fantasy. My dad would probably be more interested in riddles, traps and whatnot. My sister is more of a hack&slash type. My mom is neutral. I can easily come up with hack&slash encounters, but thinking up riddles that'll be a challenge to two 40+ year olds will just make my head hurt. Also, I have no ideas about what level they should start at, and what the adventure should be about and whatnot.
So, I am begging of the infinite amounts of logic, experience and whatnot you've all got locked away in your heads. Please help me. I know they'll hate the game, but I want to at least show them I'm not some sort of mental patient for playing (meaning, my current adventure I've designed will NOT work)

 

[KnowTheToe]

I would stricktly stay away from a dungeon based adventure. Dungeon adventures offer little in problem solving and role playing. They are great for your hack-n-slashers. I would put something together like the Freeport adventures. Death in Freeport is a spoonfed mystery in a corrupt city.

Think of a basic city concept. Develope the culture informally, ie what type of clothes do they wear, what is going on in the streets ect. Don't worry about to much detail. What you want to portray is that there is depth in role playing. Once you have your city concept you can develope a simple mystery for them to solve.

 

[Garmorn]

Just a quite suggestion.

Try something along of slave raid concept.

Start with them finding a burnt out village where they have to figure out what happen and who did it. Let them decide how to trace and track the enemy. Once they figure that out make sure that they are pressed for time. (If the slavers cross the boader then they have lost type thing.)

Next present them with a delima on how to defeat/slow their eniemy. My making it a good sized army that is spread out to cover the loot they can do some hit and run tactics. I would suggest that if they can slow the enemy down enough the local army would arrive and reward them for their heroic efforts.

Something like this will give you a nice combo of fighting and puzzles.

Oh, yea if you want to add some attachment make the village their own are where relatives lives so their character have a very strong reason to chase the raiders.

 

[DM with a vengence]

This would also be a good time to fudge the dice a little, because nobody likes losing their first character in a matter of minutes. Also, in you really want to make them angry at the enemy, have him kidnap the children. I play with teenagers and when I sent them against a mindflayer kidnapping and sacrificing children, they... Well let's just say that playing with people who have throwable items in their hands is not a good idea.

Another good idea (unlike playing with people who have throwable items in their hands) is to pick a setting (Arthurian England) and a place in that setting (a field) and an activity that's happening at the place (a tournement). And then just let them wander around slaying stuff and talking to people. If they get bored, they can wander in the forest to the east, the village of strange pig people to the south, Morgan's tower to the north or they can try and cross the river to the west.

Give them goals to solve through investigation (find out what Morgan is doing with the strange magic items in her tower), combat (destroy the village of the piggie people), traps (out riddle the magic castle that has imprisioned many young nobles), and roleplaying (gain admittance to King Arthur's Court).

 

[FullTinCan]

Pick up a copy of Dungeon 92 and Dungeon 91.

In Dungeon 92 there is a challenge of champions which contains a session of only puzzles. Use this is a resource for your campaign. Dungeon 91 has an excellent "mega-adventure" that has hack n' slash and puzzle solving and role-playing.

I would also recommend stearing clear of demons and undead. Give them orcs and ogres and "fantastic beasts" to fight. Give them a chance to be heroic and do things that they can't do in real life.

 

[Dr Midnight]

I strongly disagree with Cameltoe. I think a simple dungeon adventure would be fantastic for new players.

Specifically, I recommend Gorgoldand's Gauntlet. It gets a lot of mention around here, and for good reason- it's a simple 1st-level dungeon crawl with challenging obstacles and puzzles to solve. Some beasties as well.

 

[Zappo]

I strongly disagree with Cameltoe. I think a simple dungeon adventure would be fantastic for new players.

While this can be true in general, I think it wouldn't work well with such a heterogeneous group. It is good for learning the rules, but the 40+ year old non-players would probably dislike such an adventure, especially the fantasy-disliking father. A mystery adventure is the way to go, but be sure to throw some combat in it too. Avoid long fights, though (except maybe at the end).

I strongly suggest
1) keep the game rule-light, rules are one of the major problems with getting new players to like the game. Give advice often. Avoid using advanced combat situations like grappling, disarming, etc. unless one of the PCs wants to do it OR you feel that combat is becoming boring.
2) fudge the dice! Getting killed on the first session is a sure way to make people never come back. Non-roleplayers always subconsiously feel it as "game over, you lose". It takes some time to get out of that mindset.

 

[WSmith]

Well, a couple of things:

How old are you and your sister?

What sort of things does your father like if not fantasy? (play sports, read war history, watch police shows like NYPD Blue...)

 

[NiTessine]

You know... You situation is EXACTLY like mine... Well, except that I have a little brother, not a sister...
I think Gorgoldand's Gauntlet is the way to go.

 

[Moe Ronalds]

Me--- 13
Sister--- 10 also in a campaign I am desperatly trying to get started (there have been a few problems that haven't been solved yet, but that's another thread (that got closed))
Dad's interests--- Uh... Humor? He doesn't read many non-text books, and he doesn't watch much tv other than the news and sitcoms.

Hope this helped.