[D&D] Integrating Newbies and Veterans

[Mark Johnson]

Greetings,

I recently returned to my old stomping grounds (Tucson, AZ) for a short vacation.  I was getting together with two couples that I used to hang out with.  We originally were going to see The Day After Tomorrow and do dinner out... then we read the reviews and opted to find some other way to entertain ourselves.  It was about 1 PM on a Saturday afternoon and I was talking with them on the phone and they suggested role playing; everyone was agreeable to this which is funny since I never could get one of the couples to play while I was there.

Anyway, I was kind of limited on my choice of games, I had none of my RPG stuff with me.  But that didn't matter since one of the participants (Tamara) pretty much refused to entertain playing anything other than D&D.  Otherwise, I was tempted to try something like the Pool.  But it is OK, I have both GMed and played D&D with one of the couples before and I am still somethwhat adept at D20.  

About the players:

Ken:  Early 30s.  Chef.  I believe he had played some D&D in the Navy... but that was ten years previous.  He was a player, not a GM and he described glowingly a game where all the NPCs and events were based on fairy tales.  Also I get the impression that the sessions were highly gamist.  I am picturing the games running rather like old style Gygax Dungeon Greyhawk with a pretty high mortality rate... more on that later.

Brooke:  Early 30s.  Pharmacist.  Ken's wife.  She had never played any kind of RPG before and was very reluctant about playing before because she "doesn't like to improvise on the spot."  On the other hand, she is easily the most extroverted member of the group.  She brought along movies to the session in case she didn't enjoy playing.

Tamara: Late 30s.  Writer.  A bit of a confession, she is my ex-girlfriend.  We have played a number of RPGs together (D&D, Shadowrun, Fading Suns, a few home brewed systems), she really likes D&D though, especially in its D20 incarnation.  Like me, she has played RPGs in some form or another for a long time.  She has some fairly strong likes and dislikes...

Likes:
fairly conventional G/S hybridized D&D
actor stance
detail in all forms
detail particularly in the rules system
equipment (every village her characters have ever gone to have quickly turned into "bargainquest", hitting all the village shops)
creative use of said equipment ("let's turn these magical bellows into a flame thrower")
combat
dungeons
"playing by the rules"  
campaigns

Dislikes:
director stance
player narration mechanics
most metagame mechanics (she tolerates "action points" which allow for rerolls though)
psionics and divination
combining genres (specifically she doesn't like any SF elements in her D&D)
railroading (a shared dislike of mine)
non-combat scenarios
one shots

It's not that she doesn't totally dislike, let's say a political scenario or a mystery.  She also did a lot of acting growing up and she likes to act these scenes out, but it is more of something to do before the next battle.

Mike:  Tamara's boyfriend.  Early 40s.  Computer engineer.  He just took up RPGs this past year.  He is the most introverted of the group and enjoys playing, but tends to be very quiet.  He plays D&D because it is what Tamara likes, but does not seem to like the level of complexity of it, even in character creation.  He seemed to like my Pool-like homebrew last year which Tamara did not like because it was half sf/half fantasy, had lots of metagame and director stance and lacked a lot of mechanical detail, particularly in the detail of the weapons.

I was to GM the game within four hours.  The one thing that every one agreed on, is that they didn't want to spend time doing character creation (which can be very laborious).  Everyone told me what classes would be acceptable and I crafted a party based on that.

Ken:  Rogue (the three acceptable classes to him were rogue, paladin and druid... but he had never played 3rd edition, so I thought the rogue would be best for him)
Brooke:  Sorcerer
Tamara: Cleric
Mike:  Fighter  

Tamara wanted to make sure that Brooke had a taste of the "proper" D&D experience, so I started all the characters at 1st level.  All the characters were human.  However, I avoided rolling their ability scores or the default array and opted for my own:  18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8... I then min-maxed the characters to the best of my ability, both for themselves and for the group.  All characters were assigned an alignment of neutral and I explained at the begining of play that low level humans do not have alignment in this campaign unless they are touched by the divine.

However, I decided not to assign names, sex, personality or any background information.  We would do that when the game started.  In the meantime, I made up a few maps, a starting village, named all the shop keepers and mayor in the village and reviewed some monsters.

We were all at Mike's place by 5 PM.  Mike was very happy with his character as constituted as it was pretty much a perfectly munchkinized fighter, but that was the point, I wanted the character to be an effective fighter.  Ken was very interested in his character sheet since he had never played third edition before.  Tamara sat down with Brooke and explained her character sheet to her and just kind of basically went over what the dice were etc.

Pretty sooon we were on to filling out the characters.  In addition to the character sheet, I gave each player an index card. I asked the players to name the characters... assign an age and a sex.  I am not a big fan of hugely detailed character backgrounds and given that we really just wanted to play that was not an option anyway.   I don't mind one dimensional characters in my gamist romps, but zero dimensional characters are a problem, so I needed to come up with something.

I told them that they would offer them some options and if they opted for them they would get a bonus.  Tamara immediately pressed what the "bonus" was and I explained that it is a pool of points that would make you eligible for a reroll whenever the player wanted.  She was a tad skeptical, as she is of all "house" rules.  But she let it ride.

First, I offered the players a bonus if their character had sex or blood ties with any other of the characters at the table (which required both players approval, but both players would gain the bonus).  Brooke, the neophyte player, immediately started negotiating with all the other players to see what kind of relationships she could generate.  Ken had no interest.  Mike didn't seem that enthrallled.  She eventually worked out with Tamara that their characters would be sisters.  Tamara's older sister had entered the priesthood while the younger sister had errantly strayed into the realm of sorcery.

Then I told the players that the adventure would start in a small village along a river (I present the map of the village as well as the map of the kingdom).  I told them that they would get a bonus if they chose to live in the village as well as have access to friendships and connections in the village.  Mike, Tamara and Brooke were all over it.  Ken again had no interest.  He made his rogue, a traveller who had come from a large city to the North

Somwhere around this point, Ken volunteered that his character was a drunkard.

I then told the players that if their character had a secret that they would not want other people to know to write it down and they would get a bonus.  Brooke asked "why do you want to know this?"  Ken said "to make his job easy."  Nonetheless, she opted to take a secret.

And what a secret it was.  Brooke came up with a killer secret (which I won't reveal at this time as we may continue this campaign and one of the other players may be lurking here).  But let me say that it is definitely not of the cliched "I am heir to the elven throne" variety.  She basically came up with a Edwardsian "bang." The newbie discovered narrativism three minutes into the game.  Totally refreshing.   It would have made a great kicker as well, but I did not want to put Brooke on the spot since she had made such a big deal about not want to make stuff up on the fly.  Nonetheless, as GM I could see how her secret totally informed the play of her character.  

Tamara's secret was decent and involved the high priest of her temple and the mayor (this was revealed during this session).  At this point, Ken saw that he was getting no bonuses and came up with a humorous secret related to his characters drinking.

I continued along this vein with about ten items total including relationships in town (the sorcerer created her master as well as character related to her secret, the sisters outlined their family), enemies, character quests, etc. etc..  At this point, Brooke had a ton of bonus points have taken advantage of every item I gave her, Tamara had quite a few as well and even Mike who really does not like the role playing part of D&D as much earned five or six.   One great fact was that Tamara picked the mayor as her enemy and Mike picked him as his Friend/Contact which would later totally shape later events in the session.

However, Ken had very few items (and bonus points) and I asked him if he wanted to reconsider.  He explained that he was "old school."  I explained that I wasn't judging his submissions (in fact you got a point no matter what you put, if you opted to take it at all) that they were there to help focus play on things that he wanted to see, but that if he didn't want to take it, that was fine too.  There was no penalty for not taking it and he seemed happy at that.

Ken resisted every effort to give him the bonus points.  His concern was that I would use it to screw him and his character.  I think the real caution flag went up when he used the term "my guy"... "my guy is not from around here, he is just a travelling thief."

I know that someone may accuse me of trying to introduce narrativism into the game.  That was not at all my intent, but rather was just trying to give the characters a bit of color, texture and motiviation... just like the equivalent contacts, dependents, advantages, disadvantages and quirks in GURPS.  However, a number of Brooke's items did resemble bangs and were quite dramatically intriguing.

Was there some way that I could have allayed Ken's fears?  I admit that a certain type of GM might have required all the characters to be from the same village in order to spring in some contrived twist such as "you are all victims of an ancient curse."  My intent was that since they were not able to create their characters in the mechanical sense (I statted them out ahead of time) to give them some investment in the character creation by creating quick and dirty backgrounds, conflicts, etc.  Was I misguided in this aim?

Anyway, I look forward to hearing your reactions to this.  I will talk about the session in the near future.

Regards,
Mark

[Caldis]

I dont have many comments other than to say that I really liked your ideas on how to personalize the characters.  Took all the work out of character creation and still retained the important parts, giving the players input on who their characters were.

As to Ken's fears I think there's not much you can do to overcome them except develop a level of trust that you wont use things to screw over your players.   With his previous experience, high mortality gamist game, that level of trust might take a while to develop and certainly couldnt be expected in a one shot first encounter.

[Mark Johnson]

Caldis,

Thanks, I am glad you like it!  I hope to have Tamara e-mail me all the characters this coming week, so I can talk about what went down at the session a bit more clearly, plus give you a bit more insight into the characters and choices the players made.  

I am wondering if this process was done in tandem with the mechanical character creation if Ken would have been a bit more invested in the process.  On the other hand, if I had to run two 3rd edition newbies (one of whom had never roleplayed before and was prepared not to like) through 3rd edition character creation, I am not sure we would have ever got started on the session.

I guess I am wondering if I am a victim of trying to sneak up on mode?  On the other hand, it did seem to help integrate the newbie who seized on the possibilities after being very reluctant.  

Later,
Mark