What is a beginner-friendly game?

[M. J. Young]

First, let me say that I have never actually seen the starter set, and I tell people that I haven't seen it but am working from what I've heard from people who have tried it.

That said, I think there are some things that make a game more user-friendly for new players.

The first thing is you have to make it quick and easy to get started. A seasoned gamer understands and even enjoys the idea of spending an entire game session crafting the perfect character for a campaign; the newbie doesn't even know what a campaign is, and probably expects they're going to play one game and see if they like it. That means you need to at least give them the possibility that they can get their charaters up and running very quickly.

Valdron is designing a game for introducing new players to the hobby. Our goal is to create a rules set that can be learned in the same time it takes to learn and set up a game of Monopoly. Yes, there are people in the hobby game world who are accustomed to heavy rules sets--wargamers and bookcase gamers (an overlapping group) (and is it any wonder that our hobby is so filled with battle-oriented play?). But outside that, people play games in which one guy reads the rules in about five minutes, then tells everyone else what they need to know to play the game.

For a game like Ygg, where you've got 20 classes, you probably want to put in a bit that says, in essence, "If this is the first time you've played a role playing game, don't go through all this information. One player should be an X, the second a Y, the third a Z, and any others should be W's, and after you've played it a couple of times and gotten the hang of it, you can branch out into the other possibilities."

Prepared scenario is a must, I expect. This means that the referee has to be able to present the game world without reading an entire sourcebook--preferably without reading more than a couple pages. One of the advantages of the dungeon crawl is that it provides a controlled and limited setting. You need to be able to limit your setting in a similar fashion, or the referee won't get it.  I read the entire D&D blue book before we began play, but I was really into playing games and really thought this was going to be a great new sort of game. I can't imagine the typical video game playing kid today reading that much material; most of them don't read the instruction papers that come with the video games.

It's got to be quickly accessible and quickly constructed, so that they begin actual play in a very short time.

I'm not saying that there aren't people who would pick up and learn a more difficult game. I remember one guy coming to me to learn D&D.  He said his mother picked up a book in a store and became completely fascinated by it--and it was one of the OAD&D rule books. But there aren't many people in that category. Most have to be sold on the idea that this sort of play is fun before they'll accept the idea that it's worth reading a more complicated book to get a more complex set of options.

Does that help?

--M. J. Young

[Christoffer Lernö]

the newbie doesn't even know what a campaign is, and probably expects they're going to play one game and see if they like it. That means you need to at least give them the possibility that they can get their charaters up and running very quickly.

Someone else (I don't remember who) also mentioned this. Hmm where was I reading about this? I forget.

Anyway, the it stressed the iterative process of learning: give a piece of system for the reader to digest, let them play it. Then when that is mastered, give another piece building on the first and let them use it.

Basic D&D had something like this:

1. Solo adventure starting with no rules, introducing 3 stats (If I remember correctly)
2. Explanations of dice and all the stats.
3. Solo adventure part 2, all combat odds precaulculated but you had to keep track of items and hitpoints
4. How to make your own customized character
5. Item lists and such

Which pretty much conforms to those guidelines.

For a game like Ygg, where you've got 20 classes

This is why I want to trim the game down and possibly give a D&D style intro to it as well.

"If this is the first time you've played a role playing game, don't go through all this information. One player should be an X, the second a Y, the third a Z, and any others should be W's, and after you've played it a couple of times and gotten the hang of it, you can branch out into the other possibilities."

That's exactly what I'd like to do.

Prepared scenario is a must, I expect.

And it's useful both for experienced and newbie players.

Anyway, I think you pretty much have nailed down most of the points. I'm gonna go and look for that article on how to make games playable for beginners now.

[Christoffer Lernö]

Here's the article I was thinking about: http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/ruleslaw30aug01.html

And a note to Fang: All I can say is that I agree with you very much.

[Mike Holmes]

So Fang, you agree that most people today who get introduced to RPGs get into RPGs via other gamers. Right? And to clarify other's posts, I keep hearing these anecdotes about how people got into gaming after only one session with another. Or having been told about it by somebody. How is this not gamers getting people in?

Hey, if we want to go with annecdotal evidence, I'll post here that I was co-opted into RPGs by a coisin of mine in '78. That's right, at this point so early in the history of RPGs, people were being introduced to RPGs by people who played. The sudden burst of popularity of such games can only be attributed by them being spread by word of mouth (lord knows it wasn't advertising in the Dragon magazine that was pulling in non-gamers).

And how many of these stories about having learned RPGs on your own come from the early days? Lots, Ill bet. How many people are, today, actually unaware of the existence of RPGs. I mean if you said, hey, have you ever heard of D&D? how many people would actually say no. Almost everybody has heard of RPGs, and made the decision not to play because of the associations they have with nerdyness, occultism, or whatever. (OTOH, I am speaking from the American POV, here. I know it's different in other countries. That said, I believe that America makes up by far the lrgest RPG market.) My point here is that if people were going to just walk in off the street and pick up an RPG, for the most pat they would have don it by now. It's hardly a new phenomenon.

Ron is not saying that the "apprenticeship" need be long. I can give a person an idea of how to play RPGs in just ten minutes of discussion, and that counts as being introduced by a gamer. The point is that this ten minute discussion makes that half page "What are RPGs" obsolete. In fact, most gamers resort to quoting these paragraphs when asked what an RPG is. "Did you ever play 'Cops and Robbers' when you were a kid? Its like that, but you have rules so people can't just say 'you missed'". As do the articles written about RPGs. As does any description just about.

So what you're left with is those people who wander into a book store, and see a copy of D&D, buy it, and try to teach themselves what it's about. This is a truely small group. For those people, simply having a well designed game will suffice. If you must, refer them to one of the better descriptions of roleplaying on-line, or to some site where they can get help.

Because, do any of you have a problem with people getting into RPGs through other gamers? Seems to me that it's a great way to introduce somebody to a hobby. It's how everyone learns to play bridge for example. Being complex, don't people deserve the sort of support that a book just cannot provide?

And Fang, how is making a game "more accessible" actually going to get people to get into RPGs more? Seriously. Are people picking up copies of RPGs in stores, looking at them, then putting them back down and not buying because they find them to be "inaccessible"? And there's some magic paragraph that you can put into your game that will jump out at this mythical buyer and say, "hey, you can play me". I'd suggest that people are doing what they can to make this happen. By putting in those stupid paragraphs and writing to the best of their ability. Do you really think that one can do that much better a job?

The way you get people to buy a product is to advertise and market the product. And that has been attempted in the past. And you know what? Penetration of the products has gone about as far as it can. Just how large, do you estimate, is the crowd of people who really want to play RPGs but just don't know it yet? Remember, we have a skewed view from the inside. We assume that if we like it som much that others would too. But that's just not true. RPGs are not for everyone.

Again, I suggest directing potential newcomers to groups who can help them. In fact, if you were really interested in getting new people into gaming, I'd suggest that you have a system neutral site on the internet that did nothing but try to help new gamers get started. That's my solution for the potential problem. Of course it follows my other bias about everyone needing to be on the internet; given that they are not, a large percentage of gamers will be missed. You might need local chapters. But isn't that the purview of the RPGA? How well do they do it?

Anyhow, I'm rambling now. But the point is that, well, Ron has a point. Isn't it better to virally market to new gamers by making the rules accessible such that they can be taught easily? If you want new gamers, shouldn't that be your #1 priority?

And interestingly, to get back to an earlier point. The statement that "lots of mechanics" is what new gamers need, can be confusing. What new gamers need is a lot of easily accessed structure. They need frameworks in which to make simple decisions. This was, I believe Mearls' point when once said to make games with easy chargen decisions (as opposed to, say, skill lists), such as classes. This is exactly what makes a game more accessible. Not just a large pile of mechanics.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your post. I was getting angry with people disagreeing and then providing examples of exactly what I was saying, which is why I was avoiding posting.

Mike has articulated the issues very clearly and straightforwardly, in my view, especially his points about structure ... which, as it happens, I think apply to all role-players, not to beginners exclusively. In other words, that necessary structure is wisely desired by beginners, and only the myths and fallacies of gamer culture, as well as the widespread presence of incoherent and broken structures, lead people to say otherwise.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

At any rate, regardless of which came first the gamer or the egg; PF has a desire to make his game easily accessible to players (new or veteran) who don't want to have to read a tome of background and a treatise on mechanic sub-systems 3 times each before being able to start to play.

And there are games like that...at least for the GM.  

Anecdotes, and tangents about new hobbiests aside; how to keep a game from being like that, is the true topic at hand.

So I'll throw in some thoughts.

First, I'm probably not part of that target audience who just wants to dive right in and start playing.  I HATE it when my players insist on just starting to play and learning the rules as they go (mainly because they always blame me for not telling them about some crucial rule that I took advantage of but they didn't have the patience to hear about).

So...I'm not a big fan of programmed learning; meaning..."here's a little piece of the rules, now you're ready to play the basic game...there's a little piece of the rules, not you're ready to play the intermediate game".

I think that can be a HUGE tool for alot of people.  But for others like me...HATE it.  I always skip to the end where the advanced rules are.

Sooo...my piece of contributed advice is this.  If you go with the programmed rules presentation.  Include a complete set of the rules also so that those who want to learn a piece at a time can, and those who want to learn the complete game, don't have to keep referring back to different tutorials for the basics.

[M. J. Young]

So Fang, you agree that most people today who get introduced to RPGs get into RPGs via other gamers. Right? And to clarify other's posts, I keep hearing these anecdotes about how people got into gaming after only one session with another. Or having been told about it by somebody. How is this not gamers getting people in?

The silliness of this just struck me.

How many games have I ever started to play because someone else introduced me to them? I could probably name hundreds, maybe thousands, given the time. Someone introduced me to chess, Risk, Monopoly, Stratego, Casino, Bowling, Miniature Golf, Baseball, checkers, and games I can't even play today.

On the other hand, there are also hundreds of games I started to play because I like games and I thought it looked interesting. I learned Bridge from reading Hoyle and following the columns in the paper. I taught myself a lot of games from Hoyle. I've bought scores of board, trivia, and adapted parlor games because they looked or sounded good--I Think You Think I Think, Suspicion, Malarkey, Stage 2, Lord of the Rings (bookcase game), Dune (bookcase game), and again games whose names I cannot now remember.

On balance, I would say that I've learned twice as many games from other people as I have learned on my own. Maybe I'm weird (O.K., granted, but maybe I'm weird in this regard as well).  Maybe most people learn ten games from others for every one they teach themselves.

But once in a while that means someone is going to think a role playing game looks interesting, and, having no idea what it is, they're going to buy it and try to teach themselves to play it. Sure, far more people learn most games from people who already know them. Role playing games aren't really different in that respect. Even with role playing games, we're more likely to learn a game because someone else we know plays it with us once or twice than to pick one up merely because we read about it or it looks cool (yet a lot of you do that, too). But there are still people out there who haven't really thought about them. For example, I'm sure this isn't the first time I've mentioned Malarkey; any idea what the game is like? thought of playing it? Probably not, but if you saw it, you might think about picking it up because you'd heard of it, even though you have no idea what it's like. I pick up a lot of games because they sound interesting and I like games. Role playing games are not automatically excluded from that possibility.

Yes, I wrote one of those essays that are so vehemently attacked by long-time gamers as wasted space. It takes up two pages in the back--yes the back--of a five hundred plus page rule book, and it's posted on the web and gets periodic comments from people grateful for the explanation. Most people who don't play role playing games actually have no clue what they're like, and are surprised when they find out. I have had to explain to a score of relatives that Multiverser is not a computer game; I've had to explain to complete strangers who write to me online that D&D is neither a computer game nor a MMORPG. Obviously no one hear needs to read one of those essays; but people do. I'm on a list of very intelligent authors and publishers strongly interested in fantasy, and one of them just realized that role playing games were "like make-believe with rules"; and he posted this to the list as if it were an insight no one ever had before. Sure they've heard of them. They still have no clue what they are.

Sorry for the ranty nature of this post. I certainly am not arguing that my experience is normative; but I keep getting the impression that my experience is being labeled as invalid because it doesn't comport with that of others. I guess I'm just around different people.

--M. J. Young

[Jeremy Cole]

True words Mr Young, my friends and I taught ourselves, however we still didn't use that 'What is RP' crap.

Why do we persist with the assumption that we can define all roleplaying games?  Why not just define this game?  Most commonly, introductions consist of a 'What is RP' schtick, followed by some flavour text.  The statement here is, 'this is how all roleplaying games are, this is the setting for this one, go play.' I think this leads to players carrying a lot of 'last game baggage' into the new game, thinking that the last game was the same as this one, but now with laser guns.

On the inside of the Monopoly box there isn't a 'What is a board game section', followed by a story of fictional events represented by a monopoly game.  Boardgames are so dissimilar in actual play that an accurate mass description would be very and confusing.  The same goes for RPGs.

More coming...

[Jeremy Cole]

Perhaps rather than 'What is Roleplaying', use 'What is this game'.  Such a chapter would define this game, a game seperate to all other games on the planet, and this game is to be played.  Whatever gets the point to this game across.

Maybe this would be much more helpful to the newbie and veteran alike.

Jeremy

More coming...

[Mike Holmes]

I agree, Jeremy.

MJ, first, I'm betting that the online description of RPGs is doing a lot more good than the one in the book. People can read it withought having to buy the cow first. It's more important to get people to understand what RPGs are so that they will buy than to hope they buy not understanding what an RPG is. I'll also bet that yours is better written than most. So I'm not surprised that people have been helped by it. Still, I wonder how many have then gotten into RPGs. I still say there are better forms of advocacy.

Further, I would say that your other ideas for quick start are by far a better way of snaring such players. Your Monopoly point is well taken. That's accessibility. Looking at Story Engine, I see that Story Bones is postedd up front first. A player need only read...well, a Monopoly amount of rules, to get started. This will not annoy Ralph, as the entire set of rules is included thereafter.

As such I see starter sets as a cool way to go (as you describbed, MJ, with pregen characters, and a stock advanture to play). The question is whether or not to make them part of the standard game. The experienced gamer may not find them that interesting. If you could manage to make such a starter so that it was useful in making the game accessible, yet still of value to the experienced gamer; you'd really have something there.

Mike

[Christoffer Lernö]

Trying to add something here, although it has been mentioned a little already:

Don't underestimate the effects you get from trying to make something for the beginner. It makes you think of accesibility and clarity and such things which are important. I say this although I could mention quite a few books teaching physics and electronics I've come in contact with that despite trying to be beginners books are extremely inaccesible.

Incidentally, american authors are infamous for the amount of sheer talkative meaningless texts they put in between the facts. I had a book of about 600 pages on electronics that was neatly summed up by 4 pages of handwritten material handed out at the beginning of the course. I tried to read that book, that was a waste of time.

On the other hand I had an excellent book where the less than 100 page books where used for two long courses. Despite being so full of information it managed to communicate everything with perfect clarity.

The tendency today with many rpgs are of the former kind. It's not really inaccesible because it needs to be. It's inaccessible because the writter seem to be payed by the amount of words hes/she writes and not for the content.

And this might be all and well for the people who picks up RPGs for reading and not for playing (there is a market for it, I know a lot of people who does that).

That aside, let's get back to the subject of making a game approachable.

I'm arguing that this actually helps people start playing the game (as opposed to simply reading it). I don't know about you, but if rules are too complicated or confusing I simply ignore them. When I started GMing Shadowrun I didn't have patience to read the rules for magic and netrunning. They were too complicated. Eventually people started to read up on the magic because it seemed cool to have. But we never ever played any netrunning. Who wanted to do that? And it was too much effort to read the rules. So if the group needed a decker to break in I simply made sure they had an NPC who did it. That way there was no need for anyone, neither me nor my players, to read the rules. Great!

But what does it really mean? If our group is anywhere near representative for their audience they shouldn't have included the decker rules at all. And preferably making the magic a lot simpler.

Incidentally SR character creation is simple enough. It's the actual mechanics where the big trouble starts. However, this is different for every game. It's not very strange though that after a while we had a lot of characters we had created for fun but never played with.

Anyway, I have a few old games that were truly aimed at beginners, and even now, despite their obviously aged mechanic, they stand out as really good designs. There's an ease and flow to them which you can't get from say Shadowrun or Vampire.

Another thing is the question of "how easy is it to internalize". Again we have the advantage of a simple beginner's game because they are usually rather limited in scope as far as mechanics go (to allow the players to quickly go in and play) which makes the process a whole lot easier.

As internalized play is something which I guess we all can agree is A Good Thing (tm), there is a very solid worth to making games with this in mind, not only to get more beginner players, but to allow fun play for experienced players as well.

[Mike Holmes]

So, to boil down your post, write succinctly, as if for beginners, and make the game accessible, so that people can play. Do I have that right?

Mike

[Christoffer Lernö]

So, to boil down your post, write succinctly, as if for beginners, and make the game accessible, so that people can play. Do I have that right?

I guess so. I'm making a poor job of doing that myself in my posts, do I?

It goes beyond the mere writing though. For example too much mixing mechanics with setting makes it hard to learn in stages. Too many rules makes it hard to "finish learning" the game and so on. Try to leave out as much as possible. Attempts at completness leaves horribly disfigured and ultimately incomplete games. Designing rules where resolution is arbitrarily defined also makes it confusing. Trying to create detail by introducing more rules is a classic mistake. I think you can come up with a whole lot more examples of mistakes in game design.

Obviously these things are problematic for beginners and experienced players alike. However many experienced players see hard to learn games as a challenge or more of a "meaty" read, which is why it's easier to feed those to the experienced ones. The beginners are more likely to question why it has to be so complicated.