So i got a "casual" PC friend in a group.
To put it simply , we want her to play with us and she makes a effort for it , but she is not the kind of person to remember the rules, the items, make preparations before the game time and so on, we dont mind remembering her , but it does detract of the fun she is having , since she thought she could do this amazing thing till we stopped her.
So i have been wondering , anyone got experience with kinda of thing and how to improve this kind of PC enjoyment?
She loves animals (playing a druid) so all i could think for now is advising her to take leadership and go for an unicorn/pegasus or something like that.
First... find out what kind of game she actually wants to play. Having a GM'screen or a custom screen to reference might help. If she's doing a lot of summoning have her make or provide for her index cards of the animals she's likely to summon.
Second.. Be patient, system mastery comes with time and practise and it comes at different rates for different people.
Hehe dont worry about the patience , nobody really even care if she learns the rules or not , we dont mind telling her when she tries to do something what are the rules for it, in the end we even do things like getting her atk, CA and the rest for her.
We used to play together with her a more "open" system where the rules were made up by the GM. There was no need to keep record of them and even there we were the ones who used to keep her sheet for her, making the changes based on what she wished and so on.
But Pathfinder does have rules , even if we are not playing "strictly".
I will get a quick reference guide to what she can summon rdy , ty for the tip.
Casual or advanced, I find details make the story. Descriptive surroundings and encounters, interesting characters and storylines can hold interest outside of the mechanics. Instead of "you see a beholder", try, "a floating ball with and enormous eye in the middle, and smaller eyes on stalks waving about like hair focuses upon you". Or something similar. Add in some wildlife that seem to follow her, a bird that lands by her and sings a song. There isn't mechanics in it, it just happens. Try little elements of story for each character for their development, spontaneously. I must add the disclaimer that I'm not a DM, but these elements I enjoyed in my rollplaying career.
give her emotional attachments to the story (even if they are negative)
have a 'helpful' NPC turn out to be a villain that betrays her
give her revenge motivations
make sure the story is larger than "kick in door and take treasure"
an adventure path might be a good idea
The easiest way to make someone enjoy themselves, is to give them the chance to shine and do what they enjoy.
If she likes animals, make sure she gets to interact with animals, (Maybe the house cat saw who stole the magic sword etc.).
Design encounters that lets her use the druid abilities etc.
She sounds like she likes roleplaying more than combat so make sure she gets to roleplay alot.
It might also be a good idea to have one of her co-players give her snippets of advice "you can move through that undergrowth without penalty", helping her BEFORE she asks to do something that's not allowed (if she's ok with it, otherwise she might get annoyed).
Maybe write a cheat-sheet for her, outlining some of the druid abilities in one sentence.
If she's enjoying the game, she'll keep coming back and eventually she'll learn the rules.