[D&D 4e] Using D&D for Introduction to Roleplaying?
JoyWriter:
My idea is to play some D&D with them, and then play some totally different game, really separate to D&D, as a bit of a contrast. My basic setup is probably D&D4, Call of Cthullu, and then something more relationship based like Dogs in the Vineyard. I tried making an alternate list, but I got all carried away and came up with about 10! The thing is that the game should have a solid identity of it's own, and be one you can ease people into without it breaking down because they played it badly. There are all kinds of alternate choices for introductions, but these're just meant to have that and be tonally different from each other as well as using different mechanics.
Part of it is this though; they will play the games most that they like the most! Your introduction cannot channel them for long towards what you like, if what they like is different. Don't be afraid of giving them hefty character generation in one game if it is light in another; two other of my suggestions from my hidden list were donjon and spirit of the century, both with very different attitudes to starting situation and it's effect on play. Play games with maps and games with relationship maps. Games with secrets and hidden bidding and games with perfect information. Games where characters are precious and games where they appear and disappear like flies.
Basically contrast between games is the only thing that can truly tell people the breadth of possible rpg experience, they have to see it measured out in game form! But this theoretical suggesting strays from the purpose of this sub-forum, so I'll leave it there. I'd also like to hear about the game or about examples previously of good roleplaying that suggest the kind of stuff you'd want to introduce these guys too.
Jasper Flick:
I suggest not looking far into the future right now. Just look at a simple session of D&D. Look at what experiences you had and decide what you like to repeat or avoid with these new people.
However, it may well be that cultural differences will trump anything else. D&D's fluff, feel, and logic is rooted in western fantasy. If they go in with eastern cultural assumptions you'll likely flounder, especially with a language barrier. So check that out. Inquire if they know stuff like LotR, have seen some relevant movies, or read relevant books. In short, establish a common ground.
Aumpa:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on July 31, 2009, 03:58:21 PM
Hello,
I'd like to know more about the game at the store. What happened, both with the characters (briefly please) and more to the point among the actual people?
Best, Ron
Sure. We've had three sessions...
The first session was a practice session to familiarize ourself with the rules. It was me, one other player, and the DM playing a couple combat encounters from the first published adventure, Keep on the Shadowfell. We the players had two pre-gen characters each. The first combat was very exciting for me, being the first I'd played in over 10 years. The whole party died in a very close fight in the second combat, but nobody seemed to mind too much, since it was just practice. In reflecting on the session, one interesting thing occurred to me. I clearly remember when we were between combats, the other player took one character to sell the looted equipment that we picked up in the first encounter, and started haggling over the price. It's laughable now, but I remember thinking what a waste of time it was to try to get a couple more silver pieces out of the deal. I didn't say anything, but I wanted to "get on with the game." I would have been happy just declaring that we sold the stuff and not even determined how much we got for it, because these were disposable characters after all, right? So there's material for at least one insight about myself (and maybe D&D).
In the next two sessions, there were two more players, and we each brought our own PC. Before we met, we determined our backstories by collaborating online and the DM introduced our starting town. So you might say the game had already been in progress by the time we met. The PC races included a drow, gnoll, dwarf, and an eladrin played by myself. We felt it was a little bit of a dilemma how such a mix of races might come to be adventuring together, so it was decided that my character would be the common character that the other three had connections to, and would serve as the "glue" to hold the party together. So we (mostly me) came up with stories about how my character knew each of the others. When it came time to meet face-to-face, our characters were plopped down at a table at an inn together, ready for adventure.
I thought the creating of backstories was kinda fun, but I was a little disappointed that the backgrounds didn't really come into actual play at the table. Nobody talked about the past. The encounters, NPCs, and town we were in didn't refer to or seem to depend on our backgrounds much at all, accept passively in that all the PCs had a reason to have travelled there from their home locations. I would have liked more connections.
I felt that the rules are slightly at odds with the character concept I had created. I wanted a diplomatic wizard, which I made, but the charisma stat doesn't contribute much to the Effectiveness of a wizard as a wizard. I further traded combat effectiveness for diplomatic effectiveness and Color (i think is the term?) by taking a Linguist feat instead of one that would help in combat. I personally find that language, culture, and the difficulties of a language barrier are interesting, so I wanted my character to be able to speak some other languages. He can speak goblin, draconic, and giant/orcish. In the two sessions that I've played him, these languages have not come into play at all because we haven't encountered any goblins, kobolds, orcs, giants, or dragons. His skill in diplomacy has not come into play in any memorable way (except see below).
One of the players in the group has had more experience playing 4e than all the rest of us combined. I feel that he's sort of a helpful guide about "how to" play the game, but I think his share of the influence over the game is a little too great. It all seems natural and fair according to the rules, and I don't know what, if anything, to do about it. I think that as we play more, this dynamic will probably shift a bit.
One more thing worth mentioning is that it hasn't seemed that anybody has really been "in character" much while at the table. I've tried, but I feel that I need to work on my improvisational acting skills. A few times I've fallen back to describing in third person what my character would say. I don't think there's anything wrong with using the third person, but there was one glaring and embarrassing example in which I said, "[My character] says it better," when the party was depending on him, the diplomat, to explain something to NPCs after another character had failed to convince them. Roleplay: fail.
I'm going to post what I've written so far, though there's probably more to tell. How am I doing with the report?
JoyWriter,
Good idea. I'm going to PM you to ask for a list of the 10 games and what the special feature is that each one highlights.
Jasper,
Thanks for the advice. I hope the first session is fun enough that they'll want to play a second session. As far as the cultural differences go, I'm afraid that they will be hesitant to take creative initiative, but I'm confident they can learn, if they choose. This is part of why I started this thread. I don't want to only teach them the ways to be creative that I'm familiar with.
Caldis:
I'd suggest that the things you are seeing as problems in the D&D game you played, like the mechanics not matching the characters and players not really getting into their characters, are things you may run into if you try and run it yourself. Not that as GM you cant push the game in a different direction, and it sounds like you tried as a player in this game, but from what I've seen of it the mechanics really push the game towards caring about combat effectiveness and not towards caring about who these characters are and why they are here. There's a lot of fiddly little bits for the player to understand related to how the combat system works, it might be a bit much for them to worry about while they are also trying to worry about personalities.
My opinion, there are probably better games to start out with given your interests. If you were to use D&D 4e what were you thinking of running. Do you have a scenario idea or would you use something published?
Aumpa:
My plan is to introduce everything in a "natural, organic" order, as best as I can. If those terms seem meaningless in terms of teaching an rpg, let me try to draw up my plan, using only paper, pencils, and dice:
1. Introduce my role as DM and their roles as players, with foreshadowing of the characters
2. Introduce the setting, broadly, as mysterious, magical, ancient, and dangerous
3. Introduce their home village and a few NPCs
4. Elaborate more on their role as players and have them name their PCs, starting as human children, maybe around age 8. Determine some familial relationships.
5. Introduce some skills and teach them the basic mechanic of a skill check, with some situation for application.
6. Introduce the "class paths" and NPCs where they can choose to train: priestess in the village temple (cleric, paladin), old warrior at the barracks (fighter, warlord), wizard in the nearby tower (wizard, perhaps warlock) and the hermit in the woods (ranger, perhaps rogue).
7. Based on advice from the above NPCs, they'll roll up their ability scores and choose a location to train, and we'll age the characters forward into their teens.
8. Some sort of combat where they can use some class abilities.
9. Maybe introduce some specialized NPCs for their advanced training to bring them to their full class at level 1.
10. Maybe we'll skip ahead another year, and I'll ask them to make up a story about what their character did over the past year while practicing and using their class powers.
11. Bring them all back together and send them on a quest!
Steps 1-4 seem pretty solid to me. The rest I'm less sure about, but I think the direction and pace will depend on their own initiative.
Eventually I'll bring out the Player's Handbook and give them a chance to create new characters of any race, with all of the class options presented to them, and let them do the "regular" character creation process of picking powers and skills, buying equipment, etc.
I'd greatly appreciate hearing your encouragement, cautions, questions...
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