This past week saw an event that is rare in the life of The Modern Gamer. This week saw the first session of a brand new Dungeons and Dragons table, here at my house in Los Angeles, California. What's more, most of the players had never before played a roleplaying game, so the entire experience was brand new to them. They are all friends and family members of mine, but their backgrounds couldn't be more different. One is an elementary school teacher, one an e-sports coach, another an HR manager, another yet works for a major film studio, and yet another is an computer engineer. I am very proud of them -- they all took to roleplaying very well despite having very different backgrounds. I think folks who already have a background in gaming take to it very readily -- especially those with an appreciation for the dramatic. But not everyone has a background in gaming (true for most of my players), and the experience can be a little overwhelming. How, then, do you introduce new players to RPGs with any hope that they'll pick up the activity once you're done?
Like with most everything related to RPGs -- there is no 'right' answer. That's the whole point of the activity -- its a pure example of subjectivity. If you're reading this hoping to find a golden bullet for your table, I'll tell you the single piece of advice I believe to be core to modern RPGing. You, the DM, are the bullet. You are the perfect tool for the situation -- you can do whatever you wish to make a situation better, more fun, or more successful. The rules, as written, are just guidelines to help you run a positive table experience. Use them as you wish, and deviate from them when it makes sense.
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules."
~ Gary Gygax, 'father' of Dungeons and Dragons
Knowing this, I presented my new players with a curated and simplified experience of Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, one where they could simply show up to my house and learn by playing. I trimmed the game rules down to the bare essentials, picked a story line that would be conducive to the uninitiated, and took special care to create an ambiance that helped drive the players into a feeling of immersion. Since the experience went well for my group of new players, I figured I would show you here what I did, and how they responded.
Curating the Experience
The essential components of a player's first DnD experience are as follows:
- Character Creation
- Understanding how to Play (a.k.a. Rules)
- The Story
- The Table Setup
I tackled each component individually, approaching the situation from the fresh perspective of my new players. This can be a challenging exercise for old hats of RPG gaming, but it is crucial to approach your introduction from a fresh perspective. I focused on a simple perspective -- assume it's ALL brand new to someone.
1. Character Creation
Use Pre-Gens, and focus on the thematic element
For character definition, I wrote up a quick two-sentence statement about each of the main character classes and asked the players to choose who they'd like to be. Did they want to be a hulking champion, rippling with muscles and cutting a swath through the battlefield? Did they want to be a man or woman of the woods, with an animal companion and a penchant for protection the natural world? Maybe they wanted to be a chosen of the gods, or a wielder of potent magics. This basic thematic question establishes the framework of who their characters are, and is just enough to get them started.
Once they made their selection, I handed them the simplified character sheet I pre-wrote for each of the pre-gen character possibilities. In my prep work, I actually went ahead and made a couple variants of each of the main DnD 5e classes, tuned to Level-3, with stats and equipment and all, and then stripped down the character sheet to only the basic things I knew they'd need to play. Let me show you an example of the simplified character sheet I made for them.
There are two keys here -- cutting down to only the basic Skills/Stats needed to tell a simple story, and doing the character creation math for your players. My players reacted very well to this presentation -- they looked at the bonuses they had for each Skill, and drew conclusions about what their characters are 'good' or 'bad' at. It also gave them an opportunity to inspect each other's character sheets, and feel good when they had the best bonus to a stat. At this stage, of course, the players wanted to know what each skill was for -- which slings us into our Rules section...
2. Understanding How to Play (aka Rules)
Taking the imposing and making it approachable
Page 8 of the 5th Edition Player's Handbook dictates the Three Pillars of Roleplaying as: Social Interaction, Exploration, and Combat. Thus the character sheet I doctored up has only the essentials for those three things. For social interaction, the players were likely to use Deception, Persuasion, or Intimidation. Insight is obviously also used in social interaction, but I chose to put it in the exploration area, alongside Perception, and Investigation for clarity of organization. Stealth I put in its own category, since it employs a slightly different usage model than the other skills. With these 7 skills, the players had, written in plain English, the different kinds of things they could do to engage a scene.
I figured that any other skill that might normally come into call at the table, like a Knowledge skill check or an Acrobatics check, I would either make use of the Passive skill check system (ie, auto success or fail based on the character's relevant ability score) or just ask them to roll an unmodified d20 against a DC 10 (ie, ~50% chance of success). I also promised them that we would learn how to use the combat statistics once we got to it in the story. My players were okay with this.
I would say this rules simplification worked pretty well for the session. It equipped the players with enough understanding of how they could manipulate social interaction, and gave them enough of a mechanical backing to feel-out how Perception and Investigation are utilized in exploration. The players railed a little bit against the fact that the Skill Check system has the DM set Difficulty Class values at their own discretion, but slowly grew more accepting when I switched my style to telling them explicitly "You're making a ___ skill check against DC 12". It isn't my usual style to be explicit with DCs, but it helped them feel less like they were being 'conned' during gameplay.
3. The Story
The Three Pillars of Roleplaying Games, Once Again!
My personal style of running RPGs is almost always story-focused. I do my best to write narratives that my players will find compelling, sometimes surprising, and ideally memorable. With a group of new players, I knew the story had to be the right one for the group. This meant spending more than a hot-second on the story. I knew in advance that my new players particularly enjoy the genres of Horror and Mystery, so I knew I was going to do some kind of supernatural thriller. Exorcisms, monstrous creatures hiding among the townsfolk, power-hungry politicians manipulating powers they don't understand for their own gain -- this is all par for the course for DnD. The real trick was in writing the screenplay such that complete newbies could navigate it having no prior experience, and still finish the tale in one night.
Thus once again enters the canonical Three Pillars of Roleplaying to guide the creation of our story. I guessed based on my players personalities that Social Interaction and Exploration would probably be the highlights of the night, so I decided on a murder mystery plot line, broken into the following encounters:
- Social Encounter -- Talk to the town leader. I gave the players a handout that represented the letter sent by the town leader requesting additional help in investigating the murder. Since his was the only name mentioned in the handout, he'd inevitably be their first stop.
- Exploration -- The town leader emphatically suggests the players visit the crime scene and see the body themselves. There the players receive a vision of the crime as it happened, granted to them by a magic item in their possession. They learn that the town leader was responsible for the man's death, having unleashed a demon on the man's family house in a fit of jealousy.
- Combat -- The party returns to the town leader, looking to confront him for his transgression. The town leader feels cornered, and activates his demonic power, transforming into a grotesque figure looking for blood. The party defeats him, and returns peace to the town.
The plot line fits neatly into three easy to read buckets now, but it didn't start out that way. Murder mystery plot lines are complicated to play out at the table -- players intuitively want to play the role of detective, and interrogate half of the town trying to build a picture of the victim's life, personality, and habits, and then cross-reference differing NPC's stories, assess potential motives, etc etc. This is a great, wonderful narrative that I would happily feature in a long-term campaign, but boy is it beyond the scope of a 3 hour one-shot with new players. Thus I had to shortcut the investigation for the interest of time and playability.
My strategy for this was that I created a magical dowsing rod item, called it The Oracle's Eye, and defined it as being part of the player team's toolkit as magical investigators. When the players entered the crime scene, the Oracle's Eye spouted a vision of what happened, rendering the investigation obvious as to what happened, but necessarily speeding the story along. The player's accepted this as reasonable (and a little bit fantastical), but it was clear they would've been interested in a full scale investigation. I take this as a positive thing only :)
When we got to the combat encounter, we went slowly and deliberately, explaining how each of the pieces of DnD combat and player statistics fit together. Initiative, attack rolls, damage rolls, armor class, etc. I gave each character class 1 or 2 of their rulebook powers that I felt emphasized their thematic differences, without going into the full set of character abilities that they would otherwise have at level-3. Single things like Action Surge, Rage, Sneak Attack, one iconic Spell, etc. Again the motivation was to differentiate and make them feel powerful, without overwhelming with complexity. I even threw in the always enjoyable 'How do you want to do this?' when the killing blow was landed.
All in all, my players seemed to enjoy the story. I peppered in some extra details like involving the murdered man's young daughter in the crime, and giving the players the ability to save her soul from the demon if they try for it (they did). By the end, the players felt like they had been heroic, achieved something, and emerged from the conflict (relatively) unscathed.
4. The Table Setup
Ambiance is key to immersion
There's nothing quite like a good first impression. Shows like Critical Role, Maze Arcana, and Acquisitions Inc. do an amazing job presenting the RPG atmosphere to viewers with all the flash and frills of a professional enterprise. Home tables don't always get to enjoy production at that level, but there are certain things you can channel with a more reasonable level of effort.
Music -- powered by the wonderful Syrinscape
Upon walking in my front door, I had a 'lobby' style track playing on my home theater. I had selected 3 background music tracks for the night, one for each of the encounters I detailed above. If you aren't familiar, Syrinscape is a wonderful sound-board app that is thrillingly cheap to use (free!) and delivers value far beyond its cost (free!, did I mention free!?). I pay for the optional subscription, but that's just because I believe in financially supporting companies that add value to my life. The subscription also gives you unlimited use of Syrinscape's original tracks, so you don't have to worry about accidentally using someone else's music in your game (important if you're recording for upload to the internet).
Critical Role and Maze Arcana both use Syrinscape integrally in their shows. After this session, every player of mine told me the creepy music made the scene for them. I am now hooked on Syrinscape -- you should be too.
The Battle Map -- Floors and Walls by OpenForge
I happen to have access to a 3-D printer, and I've been salivating over the Dwarven Forge sets I've seen on Critical Role for months. So I decided to print a kit of the open version OpenForge, a collection by Devon Jones on the Thingiverse website. The map turned out really nice with just a few floor tile pieces and wall segments. As you can see from the pictures I didn't even print a full set of the walls (mostly due to time constraints) -- I just leveraged player imagination to fill in the gaps. My players loved it, I happened to have a couple of set-dressing pieces from an old package of Dungeon Crate, a monthly service I used to subscribe to, and threw those in for added feel. Not bad for a rapidly thrown together 3-D map set.
I will plug the primer I used to paint the map because it exceeded expectations. I used The Army Painter Color Primer Uniform Grey CP3010, and I was very happy with it -- it really sold me on the brand for its aerosol sprays. It applied nicely, there was no unappealing texture issues as is sometimes common with aerosols, and it was really fast to apply and dry. Two thumbs way up on it -- find it in our store. I only used the color primer and a quick black wash to get a better contrast on the stones, no further paint layering.
Reflection
After the session, my players said they had a great time. They said the music was a really big contributor to the feel of the night, and they enjoyed the story plot line. They felt like the rules complexity (even simplified as it was) took a bit to adjust to, but they understood that it is just part of learning the RPG hobby. My more photography inclined player enjoyed the 3D map model and character figures -- the photos here are courtesy of him.
All in all, I would rate the play session a success. I've gotten positive feedback from my players and most have indicated a noted interest in continuing play. Here are some things they said:
"I really liked it. It was very different than anything I had played before."
~ One of my new players, after the game"The character cards were super simple and easy to remember. I loved the setting and the story. I love how quickly we jumped into it, but I can also see that I'd get even more enjoyment out of [...] a bigger story."
~ Another new player's feedback
There is no magic bullet for getting new players interested in RPGs -- but with a little bit of elbow grease and human empathy, you can put forward a memorable experience for everyone involved no matter their background. All it takes is creating a play space that is safe, supportive, and welcoming to all.
At Titan Bear Gaming, we like fun for fun's sake. We think games are cool, and that you're cool for liking them -- no matter who you are. Everyone is welcome to the Titan Bear Family, and I daresay after this play session that a few more have just been added to the ranks.
As always, feel free to share this blog where you see fit using the buttons below. Let me know what you think about this topic in the comments -- or if you want to message me privately about it you can email me at themoderngamer@titanbeargaming.com.
Until next time -- have more fun, would ya? It's good for you.
~ Alex
Comments