This is a guest post of mine that originally appeared in Johnn Four’s Roleplaying tips newsletter #408. It’s reprinted here to allow for comments. Subscribe to John’s weekly e-zine for awesome RPG tips delivered to your inbox.
Introduction
Unless you have been living under a rock, you likely know there is a new edition of D&D out. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to share my thoughts on teaching a new RPG (D&D or otherwise) to new players.
I’ll assume that you already have players that have accepted to give the new game a shot. I’ll also assume that one game session is enough to demonstrate the essential aspects of a game.
My goal here is to help you hook these players to this new game with a few tips.
Keep it Simple
You need to dive into the adventure you chose/created for this demonstration game as soon as possible. I don’t advocate showing the games’ core rules “as you go along,” because this risks breaking any kind of story/game momentum you may build as you step in and out of the game to explain concepts. However, you need to keep the rules lecture to minimum so your players’ eyes don’t glaze over.
While each system has its own level of complexity, I suggest you keep the presentation of the basic rules of the game to 10-15 minutes. For this, I strongly suggest you completely skip character generation, and provide players with pre-generated PCs.
Present the rules in basically the same order the rules book does. Go over attributes, basic task resolutions mechanism, combat and related statistics (Health/Hit points, wounds and dying rules). Keep examples and options to the bare minimum.
You need to focus on the game’s most basic rules that allow capturing what you want to share with your players. Keep everything else for later sessions, or to fuel future discussions of the game with players if interest is sustained.
I strongly suggest not using house rules in the demonstration game unless such rules are necessary to make the game more enjoyable to new players. If such is the case, make sure house rules are part of the initial presentation. While making house rules is one of the great things about RPGs, they are usually not crucial for teaching the game.
Take a few more minutes to go through the pre-generated PC sheets with the players. Attribute them as you see fit (randomly, by player preference, etc.) and go over each one in a few key sentences. If you have some players around the table who have already played the game and/or have read the rules, ask them to help you explain what each PC can do.
Once you are done with the rules and PCs presentation, take the time to answer questions your players may have. Be careful to reign in your enthusiasm for the game and keep your answers as short and to the point as possible. Your goal is to make your players secure with the new rules set, not awe (or more likely confuse) them with all the cool things that you can do with some of the more esoteric options/powers/variants of the game.
If things go well, they’ll discover them when reading the rules while eagerly waiting for you to start a new campaign.
Keep it Short
Once players are satisfied with your answers to their questions, it’s time to dive in the adventure.
Focus on capturing what got you interested/excited in the game in the first place, and infuse all parts of the adventure with those elements.
Since the goal is to demonstrate what the game is about, you should jump right into what the game does best. If your game is an action-driven RPG like D&D, start in media res with an action scene, such as an ambush or a chase. If the game is more geared toward storytelling, set a scene based on the narrative elements that make the game shine, such as a role-playing challenge/conflict.
In either case, inform players that it is assumed they know each other and are used to working together (unless meeting together and forging a party is the focus of the game/adventure your are teaching).
When starting the adventure, avoid elements that force new players to take initiative. They are dealing with a new system and are probably going to prefer reacting than planning.
While you should go with your natural style, avoid having a long background-heavy introduction to your adventure. Remember, you already spent at least 15 minutes going over the rules, and possibly the same amount going over the characters.
For the same reasons, if you chose a game or adventure that relies heavily on investigation type challenges, make sure that finding clues and ways to progress are relatively easy. The last thing you want is frustrated players stuck because they missed one clue, bringing the game to a jarring stop.
You should also pick/create an adventure that will be completed within the time planned for the demonstration session.
I can’t say enough praise for the 5-room/scene model where you set up a whole adventure in 5 scenes or less, including introduction and resolution. If you play a more classic exploration-based” kill and loot” game, those 5 scenes can be an area (a dungeon) made up of 5 significant rooms (plus a few empty ones) including the entry, guards, and the area’s ‘boss’.
Keep it Open
You should open up all the numbers of the game so that players can understand the “why” and the “how” of the rules faster. That means putting the GM screen away and laying down the numbers as you crunch them during the game.
Slowly go through each task resolution, each skill roll, and combat rolls with the full numbers. You tell the players how hard it is to hit an opponent in combat, how skilled an NPC that they want to best is, and how dangerous it is to try to jump over a snake-filled pit.
Inform them that this is for demo purposes only this session, and that you are sacrificing some of surprise/fog of war effects for their benefit.
Thus, players get a complete picture of how the game plays from both sides of the table and they get to see what goes under the game’s hood. If this sets your teeth on edge, I invite you to rationalize this by seeing your role as more of a salesperson than a game master. You want the potential client to understand and embrace the product (so you can start a campaign with them later).
Since you are playing your own dice in the open, this means you won’t be able to fudge dice and statistics. If this goes against your usual play style, I suggest you make an exception, and just mention you usually keep such rolls and numbers on your side to provide the best possible playing experience.
Take the time to answer questions and explain, more than once if necessary, how you came up with the target numbers that players must roll. Informed players are more likely to be satisfied with their experience and base their evaluation of the game on the merits of its rules and your interpretation of them (plus your awesome narrative skills, of course!).
Keep it Fun
First impressions are vital, and your demonstration game is the equivalent of a job interview. You need to keep things moving as much as possible. You need to do everything in your power to eliminate downtime.
If you are new to the game yourself, make sure you’ve read the rules that you need to use a few times. Be also very familiar with the adventure you use.
Keep rules discussions to a minimum unless it’s necessary to satisfy a player’s need for understanding. If any rules discussions threaten to break the pace of the adventure, invite the player(s) to discuss it after the game, or call a pause at the next logical point and continue the discussion.
During the game, especially during combats, don’t be a killer GM. Play opponents in a fair and believable way, but give more than enough chances for the PCs to shine. You want to leave an impression of satisfaction and pleasure in your players, not a face full of deaths and failure (at least, not at this stage).
Keep it Up!
All this is a lot to rest on your already burdened GM shoulders, but know that you should be proud of yourself. By teaching a game to new players, you are doing the role playing games hobby a great service by bringing new players to it, or expanding the horizons of existing RPG gamers. If you make the experience fun and you manage to communicate your enthusiasm, chances are you’ll have sold the new game, and you’ll have takers for that campaign idea you have been working on.
Good advice, all. Here’s a few more tips:
Level the playing field. If you’ve got a mix of experienced players and new gamers, give them all pre-generated characters. If you’re part way through an ongoing campign this will provide a welcome change of pace and perspective for the oldies as well as keep them out of the comfort zone of their usual characters. If they’re looking for rules just like the newbies it’ll break the ice and feel less intimidating.
Make the adventure a part of a bigger picture. Perhaps this adventure is a cut-scene from your existing campaign, or even occur a thousand years in the past. Have the characters be a part of a larger organization or acting on orders from a higher authority. This little bit of psychology will help the player (through their character) feel like they belong.
As you say, use pre-gens, and build them with new players in mind. Keep their Powers simple. Make sure there’s room on the sheet so the player can add a description and personality – and make sure it’s more than just one line! Allowing them to personalize their character is important. It emphasize that this virtual person is theirs, to keep.
Have each character be different and geared toward a certain style of play. If you know your new players, all the better – but if not, provide a decent selection of big hitters, sneaks, spell-casters, ranged weapon users, etc . If you’ve time, generate more characters than you’ve got players so the last guy to choose still does have a choice. If you end up with a sub-optimal party mix (no Cleric? no Wizard?) don’t sweat it but enjoy the game and adapt if need be. I’ve run games where pretty much all of the characters were Fighters, and it’s great fun! If the players enjoy the game they’ll learn about party composition later.
Don’t forget their equipment lists either – but don’tgive them everything. Weapons, armour, ammo and a standard adventurer’s pack each is fine. Give them about 40gp each so they can add items if they want, but new players shouldn’t be penalized for not knowing they need torches, flint & tinder, etc.
Prepare a single crib sheet of the important rules. Keep it as simple as possible and print one out for each player to keep.
Stress that the players can create their own characters too, but you’ve prepared these for speed. I’ve known new players leave a first session thinking that the GM always hands characters out like this! If a character dies mid-game, just let them pick another pre-gen and carry on.
In the game itself, take things slow and add complexity to the encounters through the game. Give the evil Bad Guys simple melee attacks in the first encounter and scale the complexity up from there. This will help the players as well as give you breathing space to answer their questions in the first few combats.
First and foremost, listen to the players. If one of the players isn’t enjoying his Fighter and would like to try a spell-caster,let him swtich characters mid-game. An arrow in the neck works wonders 🙂 If a new player want to search for traps, let him have the satisfaction of fining one, even if you’d not got one planned. In other words, reward ’em for playing the game 🙂
Ok. You can have your blog back now.
Depending on the type of player you have (or if they have limited english reading skills and your books are in english) the learning as you go might be a good idea and is what I did whit my introduction of the 4th edition D&D.
Do as CDM said:
Have pre-generated character and give some basic explication on the role of the character without going into detail of each power.
Give the basic mechanic (move, standard and minor action and how they can substitute each others; how do attacks work) without going in the detail.
First combat make it against a hole bunch of minions and a 2 or 3 other monster maybe with some potential NPC that will help. In this fight you focus on explaining, as they present themselves, the initiative, charge, run, flanking, cover, ready, delay, AoO mechanics. On the player’s turn gives them hints at mechanic or power that could be useful in this situation. The purpose of this encounter is to give them the basic most commonly used mechanic.
Second encounter give them a skill challenge. Purpose of the encounter here is to make them learn the different use of skill and the aid other mechanic. Try to include a vast diversity of skill in it as it gives you opportunity to explain the scope of each skill.
Make an ambush and make it with some hard to hit opponents amongst the enemies (like:pseudodragon). The purpose here is to show them surprise rounds, readying equipments, the different role of each players, how the ready mechanic can be use effectively against flying opponents, the importance of second wind and healing. This fight should encourage some team work. Help the player with suggestion and continue showing them the mechanic in this fight.
Next let the player do some recon of the enemy and give them the opportunity to stage an ambush of their own and give a fight equivalent of the first one without any help this time.
Those are the major line of what I did and it worked pretty well.
@greywulf and Yan: Awesome tips both of you especially for D&D. Yan, I was told by one of your players that you are a Master teacher of games so kudos to you!
Great advice!
Matts last blog post..Geeking It Up: D&D 4th Edition
Thanks Matt!
Oh yeh, I forgot the most important tip of all 🙂
LEAVE THEM BEGGING FOR MORE!
Leave loose ends. Have plot hooks that need resolving. Keep some mysteries mysterious so that the new players WANT to come back to solve them. Perhaps they’ve still got to work out why an elven tribe is aiding the goblins. Maybe the Paladin wants to know who his true father is, or the Big Bad Villain turns out to be a Little Bad Villain who’s working for an even Bigger power.
In other words, treat the scenario like it’s an episode not a movie. This way the new players can’t tick the “I’ve played D&D” box in their mind because there’s still stuff to do.
Get this one right, and even if they don’t understand the rules (and they won’t), even if lots of it didn’t make sense (and it doesn’t) – They’ll Be Back For More.
And that, after all, is what that first scenario is all about.
Excellent advice.
One thing I would add: Try to tell a story. In a short introductory game, it will by necessity be a short, fairly simple story, but a plotline will grab most players’ attention faster than a plotless hack-and-slay will.
That doesn’t mean you can’t send the players through a short dungeon. Just provide a reason for it. Maybe the boss has kidnapped the Baron’s only daughter, and he’s tasked the PCs with rescuing her. Maybe the goblins in this cave have been raiding a local village, and the PCs are going to put a stop to it. Maybe the witch who lives down in the crypt is the only one who knows the cure to a rare disease that’s struck the prince, and the PCs have to fight through her undead guards to get to her — and then convince her to help. Maybe this is some sort of rite of passage or tournament in the PCs’ culture, and they and their enemies are “really” using mock weapons and illusory spells.
Any of it is better than “You decide to kill these things and take their treasure.” Even a player whose main interest lies in the tactical wargaming part of the game will typically be drawn into the game more when there’s a story, and a specific, defined goal. It also makes it easier for you to launch a campaign from there.
Along the same lines, don’t be afraid to give the players capable characters. You don’t want them to be too overpowered, but they should be on the stronger side of average, so that they succeed more often than they fail (at least when they’re doing the job their character is “meant” to do). Don’t penalize the players for trying unusual actions — you want to encourage that at this point. It means they’re getting more immersed in the game. If they come up with a plan you hadn’t anticipated, and it seems even remotely plausible, give them a bonus. You can clarify the usual chances of success later, if you feel the need, but if they’re making the effort in the introductory game, they should have a good chance of succeeding.
My other piece of advice would be to vary the challenges. Don’t make it all straight combat. Give the players a chance to roleplay and use their social skills, give them a chance to deal with a trap, give them a fight with some sort of interesting environmental effect in play. You don’t necessarily need to give them a little of everything the game has to offer — it’s a one-shot, after all — but give them a variety of experiences.
Ninetails last blog post..Skybreaker session 2: Deep as a…
@Greywulf: Awesome stuff… all true and appropriate… you are quite the salesman!
@Ninetail: I agree completely with what you add here. Adding story to even the most basic dungeon crawl is simple enough. I also completely buy the competent character concept.
Thanks. The session next will be trying to encourage the RP by improving my own description/immersion skills which are really far from your own… 😉
Usually when I’ve been presenting a new game, I’ve started off with an explanation of the rules. But with 4E, I’ve been just starting right off with a brief explanation of the general mechanic (roll d20, add any modifiers, higher is better). Then I jump right into a combat and explain things as I go along. I also present options when it’s tactically feasible. For example, “This might be a good time to charge, here’s what that is…” or “You could try and bull rush this guy off, here’s how it’ll work…”.
I think it’s worked out better to just learn as you go along and you get to jump right into the action. The first couple combats go a little slower, but I think players pick up things more organically when they put stuff into action instead of just hearing how things work.
I tend to agree specifically for 4e because of the structure of the rules.
While I did teach it with a 15 min primer followed by a sample fight, the teach as you go along of the crunchfest that is 4e also works.
I was fortunate enough to have most of my group trained in 4E on Game Day, so it didn’t take a lot of effort to get things moving on the first session. The couple that hadn’t gotten to play yet were still familiar with the d20 mechanic, so the only things that really needed explanation were occasional dissimilarities in the rules between 3.5 and 4E, mostly stuff like bullrushing and grappling.
In other words, I totally lucked out.
Kavondes last blog post..What I’ve Learned About 4th Edition
This is good advice. The only thing I wouldn’t do is give the players premade characters. I’d have them make them in advance so they felt more a connection to this person they are going to be. I do love the comment of being a salesperson instead of a GM. I would have to think that way to play because while I didn’t fudge my numbers often, I liked the secrecy of rolling behind the screen.
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@Diane: Well to create the character you need to know the rule if you do you don’t really need the teaching… 😉 What I did is tell them to create one if they could and I brought one character of each class to give to the other players so they could take the actual class they wanted. After the introductory session I’ve let them change any aspect of the character to better fit what they wanted.
That is the simplest way I’ve found.
I am really looking forward to breaking in some new players just as soon as dem books arrive.
Great advice all around. I’ll keep them in mind when I start luring new players to join the dark side of 4E. Mwahahahahaha~!~!
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@Diane: If it is important to you to introduce Char Gen to new players, I strongly suggest that you make char gen part of the adventure. For instance, last time I thought Gurps to new players, I gave them children stats and we role played freely a mini adventure about 8 year olds running away from an evil caretaker in a Corn field.
I took the natural choices each player made to affect how to build each character. So we would play a scene. then spend about 30 min adding points and traits to PCs, then move forward a few years and repeat until all players were 100 points (Starting point of Gurps) and they were 16.
@Labareda: This is where my non-native English skills do me a disservice… I keep reading ‘Breaking my players’…. 🙂
@Questing DM: Thanks QDM, hope you get a good group!
Hey, Chatty!
I posted your advice in my blog. There is a very significant relevance of it to us here. Hope you don’t mind.
Questing GMs last blog post..Good advice for starting 4E
@Questing DM: I’m way okay with that QDM, getting linked to by other blogs always makes us happy. Thanks!