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<blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 4975201" data-attributes="member: 22424">To be honest, every edition of D&amp;D since the &quot;Red Box&quot; days has been too complex for newbies. Or, rather, the amount of rules information that must be assimilated all at once is too daunting. It would be nice to start new players off with them creating their characters, but that's just not feasible.That said, 4e does have a distinct advantage over 3e in two regards: first level characters aren't quite so fragile, and characters never truly run out of powers. These two should make the 1st level experience a more satisfying demo. With 3e, I'm always tempted to demo at 4th level or so to avoid these problems - but that then causes problems with character complexity.In my experience, the best way to introduce new players to D&amp;D (any recent edition) is with a fairly light 'one shot' game with pre-generated characters. Ideally, such a game would have a group of newbies, with a single trusted 'old hand' gamer in the group to help guide the new guys (but not take over the game). Get them playing as quickly as possible, and introduce the rules gradually as you go.Regarding your comment about 4e being more 'streamlined', that's only mostly true. The extra emphasis on movement in combat, coupled with such elements as 'marking' and the exception-based design, has actually added some fairly shocking levels of complexity to the game. On balance, the whole game is probably easier to handle, but it's not a huge step forward. (Other enhancements, such as ease-of-prep, geniunely are a big step forward, though.)Ultimately, however, in answer to the question you actually asked: no, I haven't introduced any real people to 4e.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="delericho, post: 4975201, member: 22424"] To be honest, every edition of D&D since the "Red Box" days has been too complex for newbies. Or, rather, the amount of rules information that must be assimilated all at once is too daunting. It would be nice to start new players off with them creating their characters, but that's just not feasible. That said, 4e does have a distinct advantage over 3e in two regards: first level characters aren't quite so fragile, and characters never truly run out of powers. These two should make the 1st level experience a more satisfying demo. With 3e, I'm always tempted to demo at 4th level or so to avoid these problems - but that then causes problems with character complexity. In my experience, the best way to introduce new players to D&D (any recent edition) is with a fairly light 'one shot' game with pre-generated characters. Ideally, such a game would have a group of newbies, with a single trusted 'old hand' gamer in the group to help guide the new guys (but not take over the game). Get them playing as quickly as possible, and introduce the rules gradually as you go. Regarding your comment about 4e being more 'streamlined', that's only mostly true. The extra emphasis on movement in combat, coupled with such elements as 'marking' and the exception-based design, has actually added some fairly shocking levels of complexity to the game. On balance, the whole game is probably easier to handle, but it's not a huge step forward. (Other enhancements, such as ease-of-prep, geniunely [i]are[/i] a big step forward, though.) Ultimately, however, in answer to the question you actually asked: no, I haven't introduced any real people to 4e. [/QUOTE]

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