Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Humanophile" data-source="post: 1736686" data-attributes="member: 1049">Tomorrow, I'm probably going to be gaming with a friend of mine.  Nice guy.  Good GM (if a tad too optimistic about human and gamer nature.)  And not a bad group.  But this guy, having come back from GenCon, came back with the indie games he so seems to love.The problem?  He only brings one copy, that he hasn't fully processed, and expects everyone else at the table to pick the game up by him pointing out rules and requirements as they come up.  This would be tough enough in a D&D or WoD where the rules and sheet are rather straightforwards.  But as I said, he's a fan of indie games.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" />So this makes me ask, both as someone with the potential to explain a new system to gamers in the future, and as a general guide for anyone about to introduce a new game.  (To total newbies or veteran gamers.)  I can think of a few, wondering what more there are.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Pregenerated characters.  With cheat sheets.  For the love of god, blind character creation is a great way to make for unhappy characters.  Especially if your system in any way references the game world instead of simple, discrete values.  Pregens also allow you to avoid the accidental creation of subpar characters, which is a good thing.  It lets the players feel useful.  (Note also that intentionally making and handing out subpar characters is just plain dick.) </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Simple plot.  This can be waived for veteran gamers, but most of the time you want your players to be able to focus on absorbing on the system and setting.  Making them puzzle out mysteries as they do so tends to overload their systems.  Additionally, you should be wary of shocking the characters with system or setting bugaboos.  As novices, we have no way of knowing who's special or what's rare, so why should we give a toss about this supposedly rare/special baddie or hero. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Typed up plot synopsis.  This can come individually with each character, or handed out as a world background before game begins.  But without knowing the world or hooks attached, players will create and play as genericman in genericworld.  If this is your intent, fine.  But when we do, please don't bitch that we should make more interesting characters.  You try doing that in a vaccuum.  (This goes double if you want everyone to play a comedy game.  Yes, I was called on to do this.  That should fully explain why I'm peeved.)</li> </ul>So.  Anyone else have any good pointers for explaining new systems?  Or just to comisserate about having to absorb way too much from the word go?</blockquote>

Verification