Teaching the Game


Advice

Silver Crusade

Hey all, I need some advice on how to teach the game to a new player.

This is a guy who has never role-played before, and has always thought of "D&D" like games as "the game those fat virgin nerds play in their parents' basement" (not an actual quote, just trying to put the social stigma into words). He had never even considered playing until I told him about it.

I had the idea to get him used to the idea of role-playing itself by having him imagine his character, what he looked like, what weapons and armor he wore, etc. Then taking him through a short "adventure" where there are no dice rolls, just descriptive actions. I would describe the scene, and then ask him what his character wants to do. In this way, he is learning how to role-play his character while building the character's personality at the same time.

After that, once he is comfortable with the idea of role-playing, then I introduce the rules of the system.

So, what do you think? Any advice or critiques on this? Have any GM's here had to teach not just the rules of the system, but the concept of role-playing itself?

Silver Crusade

Beginner Box?


I'd start at least with some dice and a basic character writeup. I've taught several people to play, and I don't think starting as story time would be very productive.

Basically, treat him like an adult, and approach it like you would teaching someone a new board game.


I think you should just have him jump in. Experienced gamers tend to assume that the game is somehow too complicated for newbies, and that they need some special method of coaching to "get" the game. But when I think back to when I first played as a little kid, we just dove in and played the game. Yeah, we messed up a lot of rules, and I made suboptimal characters, and they were super bland and not fleshed out at all, but I had an awesome time. And I was, like, 9. A teenager or adult should be able to handle that.

I introduced Pathfinder to an adult friend of mine last year; she played 1st ed way back in the day, and a session or two of 3e, but hasn't really touched much since. I suggested she start out with a rogue or a fighter - something simple like that - but after giving her a run-down of all the classes she really wanted to be an oracle. So we went with that. And while she was far from optimized (wading into melee with a club and Str 12 *facepalm*) she did just fine for herself and we had an awesome time. She picked up the system gradually, and she's going to join my usual group soon. Her next character is a big improvement over the first.

So, just dive in. He'll be fine. Whatever he picks will probably be super sub-optimal, but he'll either find a way to survive, or die trying. That's D&D. You can adjust encounters a little, too. As he learns the rules he'll probably start to see the flaws in his character (and the flaws in the system), and he'll be able to correct those things next time he plays. That's how we learn.

As for cutting through the stigma: in my experience, roughly 9 out of 10 people who still think D&D is for "fat virgin nerds" have logged 200+ hours in Skyrim and own the LotR trilogy on blu-ray. They would love D&D if they could just get over their insecurities long enough to try it. I'm glad your friend seems to be up to the task, and that he has a friend like you who will run a game for him.


I agree with Bacon, I recently ran a game consisting of me, two friends, and 4 new players(Three of which had never even seen anything like pathfinder played before). We jumped right in and combat ran rather smoothly, all we had to do was ask them what they wanted to do, then had them roll the required dice. Not long after we started, they all started to realize what to roll when, and our brand new rogue player ended up one-shotting a boss with by using acrobatics to move behind it without and aoo and critical hitting with a flanking scythe attack. And to think I told her to just walk up and attack. Just make it fun and they'll pick up quickly.

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