Teaching the spousal unit D&D

[jtone]

I recently started playing with my wife and another couple we're friends with. It was my second time DMing anything beyond a one-shot (first was in Sunday School, oddly enough, back in my high school days). They're all new to RPGs.

My wife reads a lot of fantasy and plays Neverwinter regularly, so it wasn't too much of a stretch for her. The other guy loves tactics, number crunching and reading through the rules to find an edge so he makes sure I don't get too far off track with the rules. I wasn't sure about the other lady as fantasy/SF is pretty much outside her area of interest. Interestingly, she's probably the most enthusiastic player now after some inital reluctance.

Having a group of newbies start off together seems to have worked out well in my case. I've been able to introduce options slowly to keep things simple. Since we're all friends already, there haven't been any problems with keeping the party working together. Everybody gets to discover neat new things they can do with their character pretty much every other session. Nobody picked a magic-user, which greatly reduced the complexity. My wife did multi-class into greenbond (more or less equivalent to a druid).

My suggestion would be that finding another couple with whom to play might not be a bad idea. It helps give you something closer to the archetypical D&D party and playing with other people makes it more fun.

 

[Keovar]

Note: my husband is for some reason bothered by there being 9 levels of spells that do not correspond to the character's level. "What? If that wizard is 6th level, why can't he cast 6th level spells? That's just dumb!" Maybe he's just obtuse. It never perplexed me, when I learned. Or maybe it really is a confusing thing for some people.

YA! dat iz veree STOOPID. Not need werd LEVEL four ev'ryting. Mebbee werd CIRCLE be beddur fore da diff'rint STRongniss of da MOJO!

 

[Commonblade]

Lucked out

I got lucky and met my wife through a DND game. Sometimes you just luck out.

 

[Sado]

She read through the various descriptions of the character classes, and took the "Who are you?" survey that's now up on the WOTC website, which told her she'd either like to be an elf rogue or half-elf sorcerer.

Can you provide a link to that survey? Their website isn't the easiest to navigate.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Can you provide a link to that survey? Their website isn't the easiest to navigate.

D&D Activities; click on the "Who are you?" button (the one with Tordek on it).

Alternately, select the "What is D&D" link from the D&D home page, click on the lower right box (labeled "Explore the D&D Game"), and click on the "Who are you?" button.

There's also a demo of the D&D Basic Game, which is a little more interactive than the last D&D demo (if still equally goofy).

-------

Update: After a confusing period of selecting skills, feats, and equipment, SU is done with her first character (Shyla, the 1st level half-elf ranger). Equipment buying wasn't bad -- it's like shopping -- but she found the feat and skill choices bewildering. We simplified skills by just maxing out a small set; feats, well -- she asked "I only get to pick ONE?" -- with a little dithering between Self-sufficient, Stealthy, and Point Blank Shot, picked Point Blank Shot. On for a revisit to the goblin cave soon!

 

[Aries_Omega]

My awesome wife

For me it was actually easy to teach my spouse tabletop gaming. I met her at a Vampire LARP and later I taught her tabletop gaming. The first game was Cyberpunk 2020 and she played a Fixer that turned into an awesome and powerful character.

I remember one adventure she was given found a job that paid VERY well. A corporation was testing a new anti-power armor weapon in a highly secured base with surrounding proving grounds...in the Mojave Desert during summer! We are talking the works. A battalion of armor, two of infantry and a squad of ACPA, satellite surveillance, electrified fence and killer drones. She had 7 days to get in....observe 4 days of trials and record their tests and get out with the results. She suggested the following and actually arranged most of what they needed. She called in a favor with a commander she knew through a friend of a friend who commanded an Airborne Cavalry Squadron.

My lovely wife then got out a ledger pad and made a shopping list of weapons, armor, IR cammo tents, rations, water condensation machines, generators and the like. She arranged to ride with the unit as they go do a jump. Everyone in the party quickly checked their character sheet and all said "Yo Jade...we don't have no skills wit da parachute". She said, "That’s cool. Skill chips baby!"

So.... the unit (6th Squadron, 66th Airborne Cavalry Regiment) does their usual bi-monthly jump to maintain proficiency and 6 hours later the PC's are alone (except for the military pilots) and are over the desert where the are going to jump in.now mind you...not static line like normal paratroopers from about 500 ft. to no more then 10,000 ft..... nope...not "Jade" and the PC's. They all have oxygen masks on and are going in HALO.... High Altitude Low Opening. They are going to jump from about 30,000 ft. and burn in until they get to about 800 ft. before they open their chutes. With a tear in my eye I rolled the dice and watched proudly as the PC's jump in....lose about 1/2 of the cargo pallets in the jump ) happens) and they scramble to gather up stuff and get off the drop zone before Militech comes over to find out what went "plop!"

Recently she tried Deeds Not Words RPG. Now that was a bit harder for everyone so I made up “cheat sheets”. Please email me if you want a copy of one and an explanation on how to use them. They are so GREAT! My email is…. spelled out to prevent spambots from using it…marsalpha at yahoo dot com. She made an awesome character that was grade “A” nasty in combat all based on the Bride in Kill Bill after we were watching it.

With all this she will not play fantasy RPG’s like AD&D. She doesn’t do what she calls “hobbit crap”. She just can’t get into it….that and has heard to many “Dead Ale Wives” skits and the like and can’t help but laugh. Oh well…can’t win them all right.

 

[diaglo]

hiya

i think the big difference i'm seeing here is style of play and trying to get the spark to ignite.


when you do 1 on 1 sessions. the style of play changes. mostly to accomodate the single player. as you know each of the players in our group has different likes and dislikes in style of play. so you need to read the tea leaves or entrails or toss the bones or just figure out exactly what makes your SU tick when it comes to having fun playing a game.

you also of course need to help SU get the basics down. but knowing your SU i would let her do the work too. don't spoonfeed. but don't ignore.

and have fun.

 

[Iuz]

Note: my husband is for some reason bothered by there being 9 levels of spells that do not correspond to the character's level. "What? If that wizard is 6th level, why can't he cast 6th level spells? That's just dumb!" Maybe he's just obtuse. It never perplexed me, when I learned. Or maybe it really is a confusing thing for some people.
Good luck and have lots of fun!

In all fairness to your husband, why on earth did they use the word level to describe both the power of a characters and the power of a spell (and the depth of a dungeon) ? Especially when those concepts don't correspond.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I know I'm chiming in a little late here...

When teaching my wife there were three things that I learned:

1) It is her character. Let her do things her way. Our group's DM was a little, shall we say, overzealous in helping my wife integrate a character background into the campaign. As a result she felt that she lost creative control of her character and it was really no longer hers, it was more the DMs. That led to endless frustration and now she will not play when that person is DMing (he has done this to her on more than one occasion).

2) For my wife the game is still more about being social than about gaming. She enjoys the game, but more for the interaction of friends that it creates. She would never be interested in a solo game.

3) Mostly because of 2) above, she is not as into doing the prep work as I am. She hates the drudgery of updating a character sheet, does not particularly enjoy PC "downtime" work via e-mail and in general does not think about the game much until the couple of days before the next session (and usually then only at my prompting).

 

[sir_ollibolli]

Trying to introduce a player into roleplaying... you should accentuate the actual roleplaying part. Something like a gauntlet riddled with riddles, and perhaps one combat... It is much more important to introduce into the form of being in your role and having a dialogue with the NPC's and acting with the environment..., then adventuring, and a combat comes later... that way you incrementally introduce the new player first to the type of the game and then into the rule set... the first gets them hooked, and then they are keen on the second to be able to partake in a group...