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What can we do to to get veterans in and playing with new players so you have a mix of players at a level 1-3 table?
Do we need the Intro 1-3 scenarios? or something like them?
what are some strategies we could use to lure veterans to sit with new players?
How can we make them want to sit in with new players?
The whole point of course of this would be to encourage veteran players to help to show a newbie the ropes.
What are you Ideas?
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What can we do to to get veterans in and playing with new players so you have a mix of players at a level 1-3 table?
Do we need the Intro 1-3 scenarios? or something like them?
what are some strategies we could use to lure veterans to sit with new players?
How can we make them want to sit in with new players?
The whole point of course of this would be to encourage veteran players to help to show a newbie the ropes.
What are you Ideas?
I do this all the time. It has a lot to do with offering low level content that the older players haven't played before or may enjoy replaying if given an opportunity.
The second issue is helping new players make competent builds that capture their character concept. I had to convince a new player last week that meaningfully contributing to combat in some way was a good goal for any character. He literally had a bard that would never fight or cast effectively and only could buff themselves, badly at that. Level 1 was literally the high point in that character's power, and he complained he didn't feel like he contributed even at that level. But, honestly I don't think he contributed much as his bard wasn't even very good at social skills.
He literally was building a static picture of what the character would look like, without realizing that PFS was active and the character would have to do something other than just stand around for photos. I wish I was exaggerating.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16
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I think the key to getting veteran players playing with new players is to offer a steady stream of tier 1-x scenarios to play. That way veteran players will be at the table. Offering low level scenarios from past seasons is less likely to attract veteran players since they are likely to have already played those scenarios.
To be fair, the "we" in my answer is Paizo as it requires them to produce more tier 1-x scenarios then they have recently.
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I think that your region probably makes a big difference too. Here in the Denver region games held at FLGS tend to have a mix of veteran and newer players. I like that mix. I will parrot what others have said though, without more games in the lowest levels veteran players are restricted from playing with our newest players because replay isn't allowed. (I like the replay rules as they are).
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Actually, I would say most of our veterans are pretty eager to play with the new folks. They like showing/teaching someone the hobby.
The only ones that don't are the ones I probably wouldn't want sitting with a new player. The...
"Don't you know anything..."
"Well that's stupid..."
"Just play a cleric and heal me..."
"This is the way to play, if anyone tells you different they're wrong..."
We have a few of those. And I wouldn't want a new player to think that was common.
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I usually see this as in issue more on home games than store games. For the home games the veterans would want to play their main characters which were often outside of 1-5 scenarios, and they end up a well oiled group who expect certain things from certain roles when playing these characters. (note: this was true even when we had 16 people in one apartment participating in 2 scenarios at a time)
In store games, we usually tell people we're offering these 2-3 scenarios during block one and these 2-3 scenarios during block 2. Which of these have you already played? What characters do you have with you? and then we as organizers try to fit and mix the tables as best as possible. Most of the time there are enough players with high level characters that we will run one mid/high level scenario and 1-2 low level scenarios per slot.
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I know in my case I would be more apt to starting more level 1 characters to assist filling tables at our low level PFS open game nights if there were level 2 and level 3 repeatable versions of scenarios/modules ala First Steps. For me the bottle neck hits once level 1 is over, not at level 1 its self. Without a few more options to get out of the 1-3 bracket, short of enjoying having a stable of a dozen level 2 characters, there isn't much impetus outside of just being helpful. Sanctioning of modules for organized play helps a little bit, but isn't very effective in an open game store atmosphere as most aren't really suitable for swapping out half the party as they aren't designed to be run as 3 separate events.
Modules written to be broken up and designed to be repeatable would also have the side benefit of allowing further mechanics to be introduced so that new players can be introduced to solutions to common game challenges... flight, darkness, invisibility/concealment etc. with the benefit of seeing how experienced players get around these... something there has been a lot of talk recently of how to include (danger room type conversations).
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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Okay, random thought: what if the 1-2 subtier (only) of all Tier 1-5 scenarios were replayable for credit?
No.
For all the same reasons I've mentioned in all the threads that have come prior, chiefest among them this:
Replay allows veteran players to crowd out new players, and does NOT encourage people to simply "come along for the ride."
I saw it happen in LFR. I do not want to see it happen in PFS.
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Okay, random thought: what if the 1-2 subtier (only) of all Tier 1-5 scenarios were replayable for credit?
Then you'd end up with people running out of adventures for their level 3 and 4 PCs. I'm already refusing to play 1-7 and 3-7 scenarios with level 5+ characters for that reason. There are a lot more 5-9 and 7-11 adventures left for me to play than 1-5 or 3-7. And that's mostly because I'm the type who keeps coming up with new character ideas and starting new low level PCs, so I already play with newbies all the time when building up my low level characters.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Replay allows veteran players to crowd out new players, and does NOT encourage people to simply "come along for the ride."
I saw it happen in LFR. I do not want to see it happen in PFS.
Huh. Wouldn't have been my guess, but then again PFS is my only experience with organized play. Carry on, then.
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Okay, random thought: what if the 1-2 subtier (only) of all Tier 1-5 scenarios were replayable for credit?No.
For all the same reasons I've mentioned in all the threads that have come prior, chiefest among them this:
Replay allows veteran players to crowd out new players, and does NOT encourage people to simply "come along for the ride."
I saw it happen in LFR. I do not want to see it happen in PFS.
Well they tried it with first steps. I didnt see much crowding out there
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With my local group of ~10 players I was working to slowly grow it but I stopped when I realized that wasn't going to work. New players would have to wait a very long time for enough content to be released for everyone to level a new character or wait in a queue for enough new people to form a table with them (at which point they aren't really part of the group).
This wasn't a problem in LFR as generous replay allowed our group to start everyone over again at 1 whenever it was needed to accommodate new players.
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With my local group of ~10 players I was working to slowly grow it but I stopped when I realized that wasn't going to work. New players would have to wait a very long time for enough content to be released for everyone to level a new character or wait in a queue for enough new people to form a table with them (at which point they aren't really part of the group).
This wasn't a problem in LFR as generous replay allowed our group to start everyone over again at 1 whenever it was needed to accommodate new players.
For a while, locally I was sure that we needed replay since we were running into this exact problem. What I've learned since then is that this problem corrects itself once you have more than 1 table firing at once.
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Thank you all for your thoughts.
I guess one thing that helps to enable veteran players to sit down and play with new players are the 1st level scenarios like the first steps series, and 1st level modules like murder's mark because everyone is getting credit.
I wouldn't want any replay for credit expanded beyond 1st level.
Also the replay rules, allowing someone with GM's approval to replay a game for no credit helps as well.
again thank you