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<blockquote data-quote="pming" data-source="post: 8492179" data-attributes="member: 45197">Hiya!YEARS ago I did a Harn/HarnMaster mini-campaign. Because none of them knew the system and I didn't want to make them &quot;read a bunch of history books&quot; (face it, a lot of Harn seems like doing homework until you start to get into the whole setting/system...), I just sat them down, told them to get out some dice and I started with one Player...&quot;You wake up. Pain shoots through your head, neck and eyes. You groggily try and sit up...more pain from your ribs and left shoulder. Slowly opening your eyes as the harsh white light stabs them. You are sitting on the cold ground. It's snowing. You're cold. You reach up to feel your head and find your hair matted with... blood. Blood all over your tunic as well. You've been in a battle! Looking around you see this is true...it's a small battlefeild. Dozens of bodies of men and some women lay, covered in a thin blanket of snow.. As the large snowflakes slowly drift down, you stand up and look around. ... ... What do you do?&quot;That was it. I had the Players just start roleplaying. Right then and there. I'd ask a question, and write the answer (or my interpretation of it) down onto their character sheet (which I had behind my GM screen; the Players only had dice...not even paper/pencil).&quot;Uh...I look around a bit more. Do I see any movement or hear any sounds of life?&quot; ...so I would reply... &quot;I don't know...do you have really good hearing or eyesight?&quot;. Then the player would just think about it and reply &quot;Not my eyes...I'm kind of nearsighted. But I make up for it with my keen ears. Yeah!&quot; (I'd then pick a 'good' stat for their Hearing and ask them to make a roll). ... ... &quot;You don't hear anything other then some ravens and scavenging birds fighting over choice meat...&quot; ... &quot;Can I tell how long I was out?&quot; ... ... &quot;I don't know. Can you?&quot; ... ... &quot;Uh, yeah. Sure...&quot; ... ... &quot;Oh, HOW do you know?&quot;. The Player and I would then go back and forth, with me just asking them questions to flesh out their PC.You know how I managed to do this with the Harn system.... and how I think you can manage it best with the D&amp;D system? ... Don't use the rules. Really, just don't use them. Pretend there aren't really any &quot;rules&quot; for creating a PC. Just ask the Player a question, then interpret that result into game mechanics and write it down. You will be &quot;breaking rules&quot;....unless you start saying &quot;No&quot; alot. I didn't. I said &quot;Yes&quot; to everything the Player said, but I always followed it up with &quot;...but how/why?&quot;. So when someone starts going down the path of being a Druid, but they are saying they are wearing chainmail armour...just go with it. Worry about the &quot;how&quot; later. It's fantasy...you can make stuff up. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />So that's my suggestion: Just ask questions, say &quot;Yes...but how/why&quot;? Then interpret that into game mechanics...but if you must ignore some &quot;rule&quot; of the game, then ignore that rule of the game. This isn't an adventure centered around &quot;normal expectations of play&quot;...so why conform it to &quot;normal expectations of PC creation&quot;?^_^Paul L. Ming</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pming, post: 8492179, member: 45197"] Hiya! YEARS ago I did a Harn/HarnMaster mini-campaign. Because none of them knew the system and I didn't want to make them "read a bunch of history books" (face it, a lot of Harn seems like doing homework until you start to get into the whole setting/system...), I just sat them down, told them to get out some dice and I started with one Player... "You wake up. Pain shoots through your head, neck and eyes. You groggily try and sit up...more pain from your ribs and left shoulder. Slowly opening your eyes as the harsh white light stabs them. You are sitting on the cold ground. It's snowing. You're cold. You reach up to feel your head and find your hair matted with... blood. Blood all over your tunic as well. You've been in a battle! Looking around you see this is true...it's a small battlefeild. Dozens of bodies of men and some women lay, covered in a thin blanket of snow.. As the large snowflakes slowly drift down, you stand up and look around. ... ... What do you do?" That was it. I had the Players just start roleplaying. Right then and there. I'd ask a question, and write the answer (or my interpretation of it) down onto their character sheet (which I had behind my GM screen; the Players only had dice...not even paper/pencil). "Uh...I look around a bit more. Do I see any movement or hear any sounds of life?" ...so I would reply... "I don't know...do you have really good hearing or eyesight?". Then the player would just think about it and reply "Not my eyes...I'm kind of nearsighted. But I make up for it with my keen ears. Yeah!" (I'd then pick a 'good' stat for their Hearing and ask them to make a roll). ... ... "You don't hear anything other then some ravens and scavenging birds fighting over choice meat..." ... "Can I tell how long I was out?" ... ... "I don't know. Can you?" ... ... "Uh, yeah. Sure..." ... ... "Oh, HOW do you know?". The Player and I would then go back and forth, with me just asking them questions to flesh out their PC. You know how I managed to do this with the Harn system.... and how I think you can manage it best with the D&D system? ... Don't use the rules. Really, just don't use them. Pretend there aren't really any "rules" for creating a PC. Just ask the Player a question, then interpret that result into game mechanics and write it down. You [I]will[/I] be "breaking rules"....unless you start saying "No" alot. I didn't. I said "Yes" to everything the Player said, but I always followed it up with "...but how/why?". So when someone starts going down the path of being a Druid, but they are saying they are wearing chainmail armour...just go with it. Worry about the "how" later. It's fantasy...you can make stuff up. :) So that's my suggestion: Just ask questions, say "Yes...but how/why"? Then interpret that into game mechanics...but if you must ignore some "rule" of the game, then ignore that rule of the game. This isn't an adventure centered around "normal expectations of play"...so why conform it to "normal expectations of PC creation"? ^_^ Paul L. Ming [/QUOTE]

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