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No need for confusion. I love CotCT. It's just, I can't seem to find the right players. After searching for the right group for a few months, I finally found two former classmates who are interested in D&D. One of them has a brother who was also interested, so we decided to get together to make characters. I still don't know where we went wrong...
I've roleplayed with my former classmates before, but they have no D&D experience. I was told the other guy had some experience playing D&D.
Guess what, he played once. I could live with that, if he wasn't acting like such a know-it-all (Emphasis on acting like). At least the other two where interested in making a functional character. This guy, however, is hopeless. There might be another player who's interested, which would be a good thing, if only he hadn't played just once...
Now the problem. It seems absolutely impossible for these guys to be serious. And I'm not talking about lame jokes. No, these guys have the attentionspan of a goldfish. They are terrible.
Can someone please tell me what to do about this?
In these sorts of situations you want to set up the gaming time with structure. Got to let them know what to have, when to have it and where to be and what you will be doing. It is preferable to build characters one on one with new players before the game is supposed to start. It helps to have extra copies of the books to share (I know this is expensive and not always an option... it's not nessecary either, just helpful.) otherwise try pointing them to this site (linked) or get them a copy of the beta download available from here at paizo if you are doing pathfinder.
Cue cards or cheat sheets can be great too, they limit book time and help keep everyone focused on getting stuff done.
Breaks are a must. If you find you've been going at it for 2~3 hours and people's attention is starting to slip have a 5~10 minute break. Most people can't concentrate on something for over an 1 1/2 hours (long time gamers tend to break this rule habitually, so I'm not talking to all you eight to twelve hour session people!).
Minitures can help with clearing up confusion on where people are and what they are doing. This can also help keep the game in focus.
Action grabs attention. Get them in the thick of things and keep them there. Yes the king may have a nice 15 minute speech planned, but you got 3 minutes tops to get their heads into the game and moving forward. New players like to get to combat typically, roll your eyes then give them what they want so you can help them get past it and grow as role players.
All this takes time. As a new DM with new players you have your hands full and it's going to be a real commitment to get things moving. The nice thing is after you get the group dynamic going, the new players that follow the originals will be easier to teach becuase more people will know what they are doing and be capable of providing examples.
By the way I salute the effort you are putting into helping more people get into this great hobby.
No need for confusion. I love CotCT. It's just, I can't seem to find the right players. After searching for the right group for a few months, I finally found two former classmates who are interested in D&D. One of them has a brother who was also interested, so we decided to get together to make characters. I still don't know where we went wrong...
I've roleplayed with my former classmates before, but they have no D&D experience. I was told the other guy had some experience playing D&D.
Guess what, he played once. I could live with that, if he wasn't acting like such a know-it-all (Emphasis on acting like). At least the other two where interested in making a functional character. This guy, however, is hopeless. There might be another player who's interested, which would be a good thing, if only he hadn't played just once...Now the problem. It seems absolutely impossible for these guys to be serious. And I'm not talking about lame jokes. No, these guys have the attentionspan of a goldfish. They are terrible.
Can someone please tell me what to do about this?
dont run the campaign with them
you will be saddened and frustrated by such a quality campaign being wasted on this audience--why do it?
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I'd make up some small time crooks/gangbangers in the city it all goes down in, and run some gang fights; then let them get pwned and mad at them, like one guy gets an arm chopped off or something; make it personal. Then the guy with the alligator feeds his arm to the 'gator.
It can go either way; maybe they'll get interested.
Honestly, with that many new players I would give them a few sessions of a practice dungeon crawl first before you got started on an actual campaign, let alone an urban one. Let them test the rules out with the iconics for a bit before they make their own characters. It will be easier on all of you in the long run.
Oh, and if the one guy is being a jerk, don't play with him. Trust me, it always ends badly. It's more important to have a group that works well together than it is to have a set number of players.
Streamline the game so that they get to the action and usually are pretty lost if there is no action or obvious way forward. What you need is a good rail road. Show them the railroad car and make them get on it then take them on a tour of what a campaign with a plot line looks like.
Maybe next campaign they can do it on their own with just some training wheels but for now keep them on the straight and narrow and keep them going forward. That probably means coming out and telling them what they have learned whenever they learn it and then connecting the dots for them. You basically step in and narrate the story whenever its needed sort of like those disembodied voice overs we see in movies, TV and especially in older comic books.
Basically don't let them flop around confused and lost, instead move them quickly forward to the next action scenes and be clear about what their objectives are supposed to be while their here. Hell maybe giving them a quick summary of why they are here and what their goals are on an index card might not be such a bad plan - then give them XP rewards every time they manage to achieve an objective.
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Thanks guys. I'll start with something simple. I'm gonna ask them if they'd like to start with 4th edition instead, hoping that will turn out to be easier for them to start with.
I might also make a homebrew campaign setting. I have enough ideas lying around waiting to be used in a campaign, and it would be a shame to waste them.
4th edition or PFRPG, your still going to have the same basic problems. Rules for 4th are a bit simpler its true but it seems your problem isn't necessarily with the rules but instead with inexperienced players.
What i would do is try a beginning module. A short adventure that will start them off, run them through a single scenario (either a dungeon, a pirate filled island, evil temple, ect) and let them deal with something where killing everything in sight isn't necessarily a bad thing. Give them a little hack and slash to cut their teeth on, have a bit of fun and learn the ruleset as they go. If that goes well, send them on another. Most of us started out with D&D that way, i see nothing wrong with teaching new players the same way. Especially if you have an entire table of new players versus one new guy in a group of experienced ones.
Once you've tried a module or two, letting them play characters in a series of unconnected adventures (ideally letting them get a feel for the roleplaying part of it as they go) then you can try an long term campaign. It'll be a lot harder to run any sort of connected adventure path in the meantime. It might mean waiting a while to run the adventure you want, but its better than trying to run a complicated story and both you and your players getting frustrated and giving up.
If you want to try something quick and relatively inexpensive, goodman games has a plethora of cheap PDFs on sale through paizo right now, all for about 2 dollars. could pick up a few of those and try running them before you spend a bunch of money you'll regret later.
Whether you go 4e, PFRPG, WOW RPG, or any of the others out there the important thing is to have fun, both you and your players. Its a game, games are meant to be fun. Thats the only real "rule" in D&D or any game. Everything else is flexible.
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4th edition or PFRPG, your still going to have the same basic problems. Rules for 4th are a bit simpler its true but it seems your problem isn't necessarily with the rules but instead with inexperienced players.
What i would do is try a beginning module. A short adventure that will start them off, run them through a single scenario (either a dungeon, a pirate filled island, evil temple, ect) and let them deal with something where killing everything in sight isn't necessarily a bad thing. Give them a little hack and slash to cut their teeth on, have a bit of fun and learn the ruleset as they go. If that goes well, send them on another. Most of us started out with D&D that way, i see nothing wrong with teaching new players the same way. Especially if you have an entire table of new players versus one new guy in a group of experienced ones.
Once you've tried a module or two, letting them play characters in a series of unconnected adventures (ideally letting them get a feel for the roleplaying part of it as they go) then you can try an long term campaign. It'll be a lot harder to run any sort of connected adventure path in the meantime. It might mean waiting a while to run the adventure you want, but its better than trying to run a complicated story and both you and your players getting frustrated and giving up.
If you want to try something quick and relatively inexpensive, goodman games has a plethora of cheap PDFs on sale through paizo right now, all for about 2 dollars. could pick up a few of those and try running them before you spend a bunch of money you'll regret later.
Whether you go 4e, PFRPG, WOW RPG, or any of the others out there the important thing is to have fun, both you and your players. Its a game, games are meant to be fun. Thats the only real "rule" in D&D or any game. Everything else is flexible.
You could also pick up one (or several) of the Pathfinder Society adventures. For cheap introductory sessions those work pretty well.
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For an AP, you really want to be using PCs you intend to keep for the long haul (if possible). Until they've had time to understand the differences between the standard races and classes, it will be harder to express what they want in a character. (Eg, a player may say he wants to be a 'wizard', in layman's terms, when in reality, he doesn't like bookkeeping, and what he would really prefer is a sorcerer.)
Changing PCs in mid-campaign (or worse, plodding along with a PC you don't care for, or acting up in an attempt to get him killed off and start again) can kill the verisimilitude of the game, and is more work for you, having to establish or approve new PC backgrounds.
Having a few practice sessions with disposable characters also allows them to make all their mistakes, and learn from them. Being in melee with a raging half-orc with a greataxe is a poor time to find out that chugging a potion incurs an AoO!
It also allows you to send the message that 'PCs can die, especially if they prat around', and persuade them to play a more cautious game, with due respect to NPCs, if and when the 'proper' campaign starts for real.
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How is their lack of attention span showing? If it's messing around on laptops/mobiles/the tv, you might want to ban those things at the table. I find gaming in as quiet an area as possible, stripping the table down to the bare essentials (so they have their character sheets, dice and the PHB, you have all the mapping materials, rules and settings books and any GMing materials you need off to the side somewhere, until they're actually needed on the table) and switching off distracting things like TV and music (unless it's mood music for the game, which can aid concentration if it's not too familiar) can help get people focused.
As they're inexperienced, I'd agree with the recommendation to run them through some low-mid level modules before hitting up a whole AP, possibly using pre-generated characters. This shouldn't cost you much money, go to your FLGS and pick up some of the d20 licence 3pp stuff that everyone's selling at crazy prices to get rid of their stock before the licence runs out if you want hard copies. If you're good with pdfs go for the ridiculously cheap Goodman stuff on this website, or PFS scenarios (they have the added bonus of only being one 3-4 hour session long, where most modules will take a couple of sessions), or pick up the free module Hollow's Last Hope. If you want something that starts to get players interested in urban adventuring and balancing combat with roleplay encounters, I'd seriously recommend Tim Hitchcock's wonderful adventure A Pound of Flesh from 0one games. I wouldn't recommend starting with 4e if you're intending to run CotCT in 3.5/PFRPG, if they're new to both systems I think you'd run the risk of just confusing them...
Mostly I think you need to get them enthusiastic about D&D and playing characters that are viable and more than cardboard cutouts before considering running any AP. An AP is a huge investment of time and energy if the GM or the players aren't going to enjoy it, and for CotCT in particular, it really works best when everyone plays interesting characters with some real emotional investment in Korvosa.