The perspectives of new gamers (long)

[Gothmog]

Hello all,

There is something I have been thinking about the last few days, and I was wondering what everyone's opinions here are about it. I think we all remember our first exposures to gaming fondly, almost nostalgically, and probably for as many different reasons as there are posters on these boards. For me, when I first started gaming over 15 years ago, there was this sense of wonder, mystery, and the feeling of "Wow! You can actually do this kind of thing in a game?!?!?" Everything seemed perplexing, and at the same time so intriguing that I thought about gaming a lot in my free time, and while I wouldn't call it obsessive, every time I got the chance to game was a cause for great excitement.

As time wears on, we become more familiar with the terminology, structure, and expectations of the game, the "magic" that accompanied gaming in the beginning fades- to be replaced by a deeper, more aesthetic understanding of rpgs. What I mean by this is learning how to use the system to do all the cool and fancy things it is capable of, building complex characters, and learning the ins and outs of whatever system you prefer. Finally (and it happens to everybody sooner or later) burnout seems to occur, probably due to an overfamiliarity with a certain game/genre/group, and it becomes hard to motivate oneself to put the hours of effort into gaming that was possible in the beginning.

I have rambled quite a bit here, but the point of this post is that in the last month or two, I have noticed something when I have been gaming (both DMing and as a player). I was at the semi-burnout stage for a while, and while I would game occasionally, it had lost a lot of its "magic" to me. Recently, my girlfriend expressed an interest in starting to game (she never had before), and we created a character for her and have done several solo adventures to let her get the feel of things. The entire time we have been gaming, I have been watching her go through the same initial stages we all seem to when we begin gaming, and I find it extremely refreshing to have new ideas and new ways of looking at situations brought into the game. As an example, this last weekend when she and I played, her Rog3 ran into a zombie in some catacombs. Those of us in the know about the system know zombies have 2d12+3 hp, AC 11, CR 1/2, etc., and would not have considered it much of a challenge for a Rog3 with a fairly high AC and good Init. She won Init, and stabbed the zombie once- I described the wound as a "deep puncture in its side which jolts the rotting corpse with its force, but the creature continues to move forward undaunted." Her response, probably much different than most seasoned gamers, was to flee at this point. Her response took me by surprise, and made me start to wonder why she did it. Once the adventure was over I asked her if she thought she could have taken the zombie, and she replied "No, because to stop it I would have to hack it to bits, and in the meantime, it would have eaten by brains!"

I guess what I am trying to say is that her perspective of not thinking in game terms (in this case because she doesn't know much about the monster stats) allowed her character to show a fairly realistic, but all too rare response to some nameless horror adventurers are likely to encounter. Do you think this is due to relative inexperience with the rules, a less jaded perspective of gaming, some other reason, or some combination of these things? Her fresh perspective of gaming has rekindled my flagging interest in gaming, and I am rediscovering some of the mystery and "magic" that I experieced when I first started this great hobby. Also, probably of more interest to people who frequent these boards, what thing(s) do you think could be done to revitalize the interest of those of us whose interest has waned over the years? I have a few ideas, but I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks too.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Gothmog

 

[I'm A Banana]

No familiarity with the monster.

I mean, this is why new monsters are so appealing. Every player knows (even if their characters don't) that a Zombie is fairly simple, and that demons have spell resistance, and that red dragons breathe fire. It's just the accepted realities of the game world.

Which is why, to avoid this, DM's should probably do things slightly different. This can be as much as describing the creature with the same stats as an orc as "seven feet of bristling needles and quills, with teeth dripping with saliva that seems to sizzle in the air." Sure, it uses the stats for an Orc, but simply by altering it's appearance, jaded players realize that New Things Are Dangerous again.

I mean, in a group new to 3e, they were astonished the first time I threw goblins at them with a few class levels. "What? Goblins are doing sneak attacks? Holy crap, dudes, these must be polymorphed warriors or something!"

Similarly, the first time I described a Lemure to these guys, they ran away "Ah! Liquid monsters that my longsword passed right through!"

It reaches a point where, by Goblin No. 35, you realize they're just more red shirts, another log on the fire. That's when you pull out the new beasties, and show them what it's like to be affraid of the unknown again.

Of course, this could also work to make them overconfident, as with the goblins-with-levels above, and show them that even your old monsters still have enough new tricks so that you can't take them too lightly.

New players, this is easy to do. The first time they see a beholder, their natural reaction is "AH! RUN!" even if they're level 20 and have a few hands of vecna back home.

It never hurts to remind characters that no matter how big and tough they are, there's always something bigger and badder out there.

 

[The Sigil]

A dearth of replies...

Wow, a dearth of replies to this...

One of the things I loved about 3e was that everything was "new" again. Players weren't really sure what to expect, because they hadn't been able to pore over all the rules and didn't know what a DM was going to throw at them. Even those in my group with 15+ years of gaming said, "this is cool because of the unkown factor."

One of my own personal favorite ways to play/DM the game is to go with the "unknown" as much as possible, rather than the stats. If a player rolls the dice for an attack, I don't ask them, "did you beat X" but rather, "what did you roll?" If it's enough, it's a hit, and I describe it. If not, I describe the way the creature brought its shield up in the nick of time or dodged easily out of the way (depending on how much they missed by). After four or five rolls, the players usually know what the AC is (based on what has hit and what has missed) but you still get that initial "unknown" factor.

I've found that the easiest way to avoid the "boredom/burnout" problem is to concentrate more on the "storytelling" surrounding the roll than the roll itself. In other words, "I know what the outcome is based on the roll, now how do I describe the outcome in words?" Think of the game as a story, with each die roll determining whether your next sentence will describe success or failure.

Furthermore, I always tell my players to expect the unexpected. With all the stuff that has been published for D&D, finding a new monster description should be the least of your worries... just grab a Monstrous Compendium PDF from wizards.com for 5 bucks and use the descriptions of the creatures there. My 8th-level PCs were scared spitless when they went into a crypt and instead of zombies and skeletons, they found themselves up against a Grey Philosopher and his Malices, followed up by a Wyrd (from the old D&D Creature Catalog) and a Fleshcrawler (from Creature Collection I). New monsters should NEVER be a problem.

I also make it a point to always try to include at least one newbie in a group, so that everyone else can see the game through a newbie's eyes. In fact, I'm starting a new campaign tomorrow... thus far, I am looking at 7 players... three of them have been roleplaying less than a year (they were part of my previous campaign) and the other four are brand new. This is going to be great because there will be no problems with metagaming knowledge... even the "vets" aren't really.

More reports on how we do with this group after we get into the meat of the campaign for anyone who's interested.

--The Sigil

 

[Valmur_Dwur]

I wish I could post a reasonable answer to your question. Perhaps I'm one of the lucky few who while having played and DM'ed this DnD thing for a while have always tried to create a pc "persona" that grows as I game. Case in point my "handle" is a 4th level Dwarf fighter getiing ready to become a cleric to Gendwar Angrim. I had hoped to become a dwarven defender PrC but our last battle just made that impossible. The party plays in Greyhawk and we came upon a demon who was able to spit forth little jebli(goblin) creatures from it body. We lost the elven archer to the giant demon who kept getting up after it would fall over from it wounds that appeared to do it in. The jebli had nothing but sharp claws with which to attack but a couple of crits and Valmur had his tendons in his right leg slashed. Left alone by his companions who took the fallen archer back to Greyhawk city to try and raise her Valmur was confronted by a spirit of a Dwur from the lair the creatures came from. Anyway I don't think "metagame" when I play and don't when I DM a scene. That is the hard part of RP'ing knowing something outside of the game but not using your knowledge inside it

 

[KnowTheToe]

This feeling of the doldrums is what almost ruined 3e for me. I was excited for the newness of the game when it came out, but before I could finish reading the rules, the rules lawyers were pulling apart loop holes, finding ways to stack outrageously unbalancing bonuses and tearing the game down to a list of stats for conquering. It seemed methodical and boring to me. It really steals the life out of the game. I am just sorry that it is so hard to pull that need to Win" or "beat" the system drives so many gamers.

Hooray for new gamers. Do yourself a favor and throw away the rules.

 

[Voneth]

One of the reason I left 2 ed wasn't just the rules, but the reactions people had.

1st level fighters suddenly knowing how to take down a troll with fire and military precision ... right.

3e has a lot of options and is flexible enough that I've been able to constantly throw new things at people. Now if I could just get those players to stick around ...

 

[Alcamtar]

Re: A dearth of replies...

Wow, a dearth of replies to this...

One of the things I loved about 3e was that everything was "new" again. Players weren't really sure what to expect, because they hadn't been able to pore over all the rules and didn't know what a DM was going to throw at them.

This didn't really work for our group. The players immediately purchased the MM (you need if for those Monster Summoning spells) and the DMG (for the prestige classes, and so they knew what items they could make with their item creation feats). Even without these, the appendix in the PHB did a lot to dispel the "unknown factor". It doesn't take long for an experienced gamer to size up a new system, see what's easy and what's hard, what's cool, etc. Within about two months, my players knew the system better than I did (and rules-lawyered it too), and I was the DM! It's too bad that the design of 3E seems to encourage everyone having all the books. The tactical combat as a lot of fun, but it's no fun when the players are a surgical strike team that knows every weakness and exploit in the system. I encouraged them not to buy the stuff, and finally when they all had finished their collections I quit 3E because there were no surprises left. If they want to play 3E, they can run it. Now I'm using homebrew rules to preserve the element of surprise and the unknown.

 

[reapersaurus]

I don't see why it should be a revelation to have a player not meta-gaming their butts off.

I agree, unfortunately, that WAY too many people do.
To have your character know the best way to go about attacking a troll, or whatever monster, is absolute meta-gaming.
I don't agree with the approach that says as PC's they would know what most gamers know.

However, the rules don;t take this into account.
MANY monsters would be almost impossible to defeat if you actually played a chatacter like a real-life person who's never met this creature before.

In other words, if you played with a cautious approach like non-suicidal people would do, and if you didn't play your PC like they already knew the in-depth details of the rules, youd see a lot more running away and the like.

 

[S'mon]

When I GM for my wife her female PCs run away from _everything_ - in Call of Cthulu her journalist PC is the one who refuses to go into the cellar, or go anywhere near the cultists' lair. In D&D she'd never go into caves alone in the first place, never mind go one-on-one with some rotting undead hulk!
She's a lot cowardlier in-game with her female characters than she is in real life.
Mind you, when we want to do dungeoncrawling in D&D she plays male PCs, and they're just as butt-kickin' (albeit somewhat smarter) than any male players'.

 

[Lela]

First:

If you need access to more monsters then you can go to the
Creature Catalog (though I'm sure most of you already know this) or to MW Tools to add a few class levels to some generic monsters (thanks go out to Lord Ben for getting me this site).

Now, I admit that I was really annoyed when one of my players shouted out that they were fighting a Mantacore a little while ago. So much so that another Mantacore suddenly appeared. Almost killed the party. I was happy with it.

Well, anyway, for the next session I printed out a bunch of stuff from the Creature Catalog and started to pull things out during the session. Which kept them guessing.

Another option that someone gave me was to start substituting the stats of other MM monsters for those that you describe. When a goblin starts breathing lightening (as blue dragon) or a nymph starts draining levels it will throw them off. And since your still looking in the MM--which they think they know front to back--they get confuesed. And, really, all you did was change what the monster looks like.

Other Options

• Trolls healed completely by fire.
• Glammered Armor. They think their charging a Wizard. In reality, he's just a fighting who's really good at the quarter staff.
• Go to B.A.D.D.'s website. Sure they can take down a normal dragon, but what happens when tactics get involved.
• If a monster has Teleport w/o Error then USE IT. It's amazing how few people do.
• Flying creatures can drive any party nuts. Especally at low level.
• Have them be attacked by a Paladin. If one member of the party is a Pal too, then it gets good. Decide why they're being attacked.
• You can get to the party Wizard pritty fast with the Tumble skill.
• Take monsters who are meant to be Fighters and give them Wizard levels. High HP, good Str, Natural Armor, and spells will throw a party off.
• "Jump around! Jump around. Jump around!"
• Remind them that their character doesn't know that. Usually players want to be good RPers and don't mind when you say, "But would your character know that?"
• If the problem persists tell them that you might just stop describing what a monster looks like. Instead just saying how many squares it takes up. This will really tick them off if you do it. Just say it to make your point.
• "Do ah didy, didy dum, diddy-do."
• Use posien. Most players are never prepared for this.

Well that list went places I didn't expect it to, but I love to see players suffer. So MAKE THEM SUFFER!! For me of course.


[Edit: Added the folowing.]

More reports on how we do with this group after we get into the meat of the campaign for anyone who's interested.

--The Sigil

I'm Interested.