Introducing Players to TROS

[Judd]

I've gone over the threads in the sticky at the top of the forum.  They are tremendously helpful and led to an epiphany concerning Sorcerery.

What I would like in this thread are strategies for teaching this game to newbies.  

How does one deal with the maneuvers?  Do you show them all of them at once, or just ask them what they want to do and let them know how to do it?  Do you start the combat system slowly and add new rules as you go?  How do you not scare them with the many possibilities in each combat maneuver, all of those choices in every exchange?

Now I am thinking of how to teach a bunch of gamers whose only gaming has been D&D and White Wolf about TROS.  I think they will like it but the last group I taught this game was quite system savvy and a few had been toying with the combat sim and had been reading the book like a bible.

My thoughts:

1 - I will have a player hand-out, something with just some quotes and art, denoting the tone of the game, the segments of combat and the nine vagaries.  Along with this will probably be a page or two out of the Masterscreen, if the DM's screen I will have doesn't seem to be enough.

2 - I structured my last Riddle game in a way that worked really well.  I started with the PC's watching a series of judicial duels on a bridge.  The dueling bridge allowed the players to take NPC's and play with the combat system.  It started with farmers with staves, moved into heavily armored knights with heavy weapons and finally we had a professional duel between two paid duellists and then, finally, two young noblemen accused of rape took on a professional swordsman who demanded to take both of the scoundrels on at one time.

When the scoundrels killed the duellist with a sword to the face, after a failed terrain roll, the PC's sprang into action and took on the nobles themselves, leading to a dramatic game with powerful enemies.  One of the nobles was killed and the other's hand was wounded and he was offered to jump off of the bridge and live.

Anyway, I've over-stated my point but the bridge worked and I'd use it again.

3 - As Senescal, I will know the rules.  I know this sounds stupid and most people are probably thinking, "Duh."  But I have trouble internalizing new rules sets until I actually play them.

4 - The damage table computer program on my laptop was immensely helpful.

That is about it.  Any links, ideas or comments are helpful.

[Brian Leybourne]

There are several threads about this very topic floating around.

In a nutshell (IMO, anyway) the best way to avoid maneuver overload is to start the players off with a limited set of the maneuvers, and slowly add more as it seems appropriate. That way they'll get used to them slowly and not be overwhelmed.

Brian.

[Valamir]

Perhaps the most flavorful way, is to handle the player's training as a flashback to the characters actual weapon training with the master who taught them.  Then in that guise you can start slow and add on.

By starting slow I mean, do a couple of exchanges without any maneuvers at all.  Don't even mention them.  Just straight up Red / White, Attack / Defend, who has initiative, how are wounds calculated.  Calculate the wounds as if they were real so the player gets a sense of the deadliness of being hit, but obviously its all just "practice".

Then introduce moves into the exchange.  The first one I'd probably introduce is the Full Evasion.  It shouldn't be too hard to maneuver the player into a position where he doesn't have nearly enough dice to defend successfully against his opponent's next attack (especially if you've created the "master" with a few extra dice).  Right about then the player should be registering "oh shit, I'm screwed" which demonstrates an understanding of how the basics work.  Perfect time to say "right...that's a good time to consider a Full Evasion".

Probably the next one I'd introduce is the Feint.  Its generally pretty easy to completely kill a new player instantly with a Feint.  Just spring it on them...no explaination or advance notice.  Attack with a few dice, the player defends, then announce and describe how the Feint works.  Most likely the PC will "die" and the "master" will have successfully taught the lesson for the day.

The next couple I'd demonstrate is the Counter and the Stop Short.

These 4 are probably the 4 most important moves in the game*  Entire fighting strategies can be built around these.  At this point the player should have a good sense of the ways in which maneuvers can impact the basic exchange sequence and can simply be provided with a list of moves explaining how the rest of them work.  

* That's not saying that Beats and Hooks and Simo Block Strikes aren't effective and important.  Just that Full Evade, Feint, Counter, and Stop Short are pretty foundational, and the most likely to get the PC killed if the player isn't really familiar with them.

[Mike Holmes]

If you're doing the thing where you use the limited options, to start, allow the players to introduce new maneuvers by teaching them to the group. That means, if you're the GM, then you don't get to use the maneuver until one of the players "broaches" it. This will, of course, give the players a one time tactical advantage in theory, which should be incentive for them to learrn the maneuver. And it'll make the character look good that one time that it makes a difference.

Mike