Non-gamers say the darnest things

[Valamir]

I'm not saying that the mission based thing doesn't happen or shouldn't--but the fairly (IMO) mean "what did you expect, dumbass" bit doesn't have to.

I think Walt's point was that a newbie player wouldn't necessarily know to ask such questions (save perhaps trained military personel, which is possibly a reason why there is a good bit of such tactical RPGing going on on military bases).

To be newbie friendly the GM should be volunteering this information not needing it drug out of him with 20 questions.

"Ok your approaching a region of increasingly dense forests...New Guy, because you're a professional ranger whose scouted through this area several times, you know that there are many scattered small bands of orcs in the area.

The bands are rarely more than 6-8 individuals in number and 1 on 1 you feel confident that you could take one out fairly easily in a fair fight.  But orcs rarely fight fair, and you know you should be ready to deal with ambushes".

Big difference in terms of hand holding in the mission selection process.

[Jay Turner]

I'm running D&D for a group made up mostly of non-gamers, and as they exit the opening "tutorial" levels, I'm running into a problem of mission selection. The comments so far have been helpful, mostly because they show me that I'm on to something good by showing me the less favorable alternative. :)

I find that I am creating a number of appropriate objectives for different challenges in an area. So in Oakvale, the small village on the way to the large city of Geniir, there is a hook to a dungeon adventure (actually, two hooks that lead to the same adventure) and one that gets the characters into an adventure involving a white dragon that lives in the area. The dragon is a part of Geniir's tale as well, and I imagine her to be more powerful than the PCs can handle at the moment (haven't given her stats yet). If the PCs decide to follow the dragon storyline, though, I am planning to give them a lower-level story that pertains to the dragon but doesn't put them in a 40x40 ice-walled room with her. They'll meet her minions, sure, but the mission would be more about confirming or denying her existance in the first place than about confronting her and getting her dead.

Alternative missions that go in the direction the party'd like to go might be an interesting alternative to pitting them against whatever Big Bads happen to be at the end of the line. If the party is level 5 when they decide to go find the dragon's lair, maybe they meet her children (half-dragon hobgoblins) rather than see her in her full glory.

On the other hand, I like to keep my Big Bads unstatted until they come into play, so I can adjust their difficulties on the fly. The wererats at the docks in Geniir might be base-level CR 2 beasties, or they might have some class levels.

Anyway, I don't want to hijack the thread, but I was interested in Walt's points and thought I'd stick these out there.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Alexander,

...as a gamer, I should be able to look at things, weigh the risks, and go "hmm, that looks right for my level." But for whatever reason, I've never been able to successfully develop that skill.

I think I can diagnose this. What's up is that you've subconsciously decided you value your personal characters to the extent that they are a "whole package" of effectiveness and significance. And this scheme of valuation is in direct conflict with the distributed effectiveness built into the game system. I imagine your play is characterized by efforts to demonstrate that your character is a "whole package," and probably a high incidence of character death.

I know, because I'm the same way. My thief characters in the early 80s had an exceedingly high mortality rate. Cleverness is metagame in AD&D, and so, pursuant to demonstrating the whole package of significance, I would get my characters into situations that their effectiveness couldn't extricate them from. I once got turned to stone in a crawlspace I'd discovered by paying careful attention to detail when looking at a treasure map. The party had to break me into pieces to remove me as an obstruction.

Of course, I deserved what I'd got for having "gone it alone." But no matter the extremity of consequence, my pursuit of non-distributed significance was unremitting. I was trapped in a world I didn't make. I didn't want to live, if living meant constant and conscientious aversion to risk and personal initiative.

Paul

[Mike Holmes]

Meaning that you both prefer Narrativism without any Gamism, and Marco prefers some player challenge to remain involved. I'm so surprised.

The original subject was what things throw newbies. How did this become a diatribe on what we as players don't like? To say that your opinion is that of all newbies is to claim that the mainstream has the same preference as you. And look, Paul and Marco claiming to represent the masses. I'm so surprised.

Mike

[John Kim]

It's funny.  I recognize most of elements of the style that Walt describes, but I had very positive experience from it.  I, too, encountered such gamers first on my college campus (U of Chicago in '87 in my case).  The gamers I met match with much of Walt's experience -- various post-college gamers, thick wad of game-world notes, etc.  

As Mike said, this is really off-topic, so I started a new thread on http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8592">Mission Selection and Player Authorship.

[M. J. Young]

After all, they can't very well tell you that you've lived 18+years in this world and don't know anything....

Actually, that is just about what our Gamma World referee told us. I remember specifically complaining that our group of six were going through their rite of passage into adulthood in their hunter/gatherer village, and between us not one could identify an edible plant in the region, or recognize that a particular plant or animal encountered was poisonous or dangerous.

I remember creating world maps and city maps and dungeons which I expected my characters would one day explore, and then worrying whether they were going to find some of these too soon. However, I did learn to give hints and blaze a few trails rather early on, I think, so that they would know to say, "what we're doing now is important; we'll come back to this after we've taken care of our current situation" and so not walk into something beyond them.

--M. J. Young

[Ron Edwards]

Hello everyone,

Back on topic, please. And I mean really on-topic, exactly what the first post is about.

Best,
Ron