The Forge Archives

Introduction

The last decade has been problematic for the rpg hobby. While standards of production continue to increase growth has stagnated particularly when compared against new gaming forms such as CCG, collectible miniatures , and of course Warhammer(not really new but a remarkable resurgence of miniatures gaming).

This stagnation has accompanied marginalisation in the hobby stores. More and more I observe and hear accounts of whole hobby shops purging their rpg business,while others are pushing rpgs more and more into the backs of their shops.  And when I go into game shops I don't see owners pushing the newest rpg on young players, you see them chatting up the latest card game.
There are good reasons for this. Primarily because a person on a Warhammer or Card jones can easily drop $500-a grand in a year.  Rpg gamers are cheapskates who will buy one $30 book, pass it around among their play group and expect you to provide game space for them forever because they are gamers.(And because they buy a $20 supplement and whine about how the 5 man nano-publisher is 'gouging' the market.)

But there are other reasons. Rpgs themselves by their very structure create these issues. These issues relate directly to the ability of the game to recruit new members from the available pools.

Rpg play Structure:Statement of the Problem

Although many styles of rpg play exist I am discussing here the 'traditionally' structured RPG and most particularly D&D, which has the following elements:

*There is a classic 'gamemaster' who does the bulk of the work of  running the world and npcs and who has lions share of certain types of creative power and responsibility

*Story arcs tend to evolve over many sessions and may have no decisive conclusion(ie the 'soap opera' structure). The campaign is veiwed as potentially lasting for years or even decades.

*Characters are characterized by major increase in power over a long term developement cycle

*Continuity between session is considered paramount. The same people have to show up over and over for the game to progress. The same people play the same characters over and over.  

*Sessions tend to be long. Many rpg gamers view sessions of less than 6 hours as too short.

*There is no internal rule or structure for the length and arc of a session.  A session is viewed as potentially lasting for days with no overall structure denoting endgame.

*Pre-prep is usually high  for GM (almost invariably) and often the player. Systems require hours of study to truly understand.   

    It should be clear for the forgoing that rpgs must select for those with high levels of committment and simple ,predictable personal schedules. A major theme of the older rpg demographic is a desire to play but time issues prevent them.  Doesn't this suspiciously sound like the 'no life' game geek whose entire existence revolves around the local game shop?
Veiwed in terms of the demands of rpgs it would seem that they select for this extreme type like the desert selects for the cactus........

   The dominant preferences among rpg gamers for playstyle solidified some time ago.  Immense nostalgia is buried in the imagery of rpg gaming for the sprawling ,never ending campaign, or the endless12+ hour sessions, no matter how irrelevant they are to their present lives. And judging from the difficulties rpgs are having in their home grounds, the game store, the more convinced I am it must be irrelevant to most others too.

Group Coherence and Play Structure
.   Another problem with rpg groups is that they are 'brittle'. Put less metaphorically, their membership is more rigid, and they are less resilient to various types of stress to the group's existence.

Let's take as an example two groups of nine members. A D&D group (one GM 8 players) and a group of Warhammer 40K players each with their own army.

As ced1106 on rpg.net pointed out
"My guess is that, with mini's games, you only need a handful of people to irregularly show up for that critical mass to build a regular event. Namely, you need two people every week -- that's it -- who want to play the same miniatures game or games. In other words, WH, WH40K, MW, MK, or HC.

With RPGs, you need 4-6 people who will **always** show up each week....."    

     This is one of the things that makes as rpg group 'brittle'. Much greater sensitivity to the number of people who show up and the consistency at which they do.

   This is made worse by what I call the keystone problem. The problem of the GM. Put simply rpgs rely disproportionatley on one member of the group.  If one member of the W40k groups has to reduce his gaming drastically because of some personal issue, the other members are little affected,they can go right on playing with each other. And if he can only show up intermittenly he's welcome whenever he can come.

   However if this happens to a group's GM this can quite simply end the group. And rpgs find it difficult to accomodate intermittent commitment by players. Fitting is somebody who shows up only once in a while is irksome on for game structured along the long term continuity model idolized by the game crowd.  Once again we see rpgs select strongly for hard core committment more than miniatures.

   Rpgs have another recruitment issue. The solidification of the Group. This is particulary a problem with D&D (the game most in fact will encounter) but it can occur with any game with favors long term high level power increase among characters. Lets say a group has played about 18 months together and they have an average level of 10 and appropriate magic items.  One member moves and has to leave the group,leaving space for another member ,in theory....

    In practice however there is a serious problem with adding a member. What level do you start him at? Everyone else started at first level but the group now has an average level of 10 and a first level cannot effectively adventure with them any longer.  If you start the character at level 10 then you invalidate the 18 months of effort the other players spent to get where they are by giving away 10 free level as what is effectively a bonus for joining the group late. This can breed disaffection among members who may have gamed hundreds of man hours to get where they are.  This conundrum can so paralyze recruitment into the group that EVEN LOSS OF MEMBERS DOES NOT PRODUCE A NEW SPACE FOR GROUP MEMBERSHIP.

    With the W40k group this is s trivial issue. They can add and subrtact members willy nilly and it won't affect play because even if a new member only has a couple of squads of space marines and everybody else has a  massive army, they don't have to take the whole thing against him, they can balance play at whatever power level they want for scenario.

    Indeed recruitment into the w40k can expand much more than that of the D&D group. In fact the only natural limit is the space available for play.  I picked 9(gm+players) members as a comparison group for a reason, because you see based on long term observation I would say that is where rpg groups pretty much top out ,(at least long term play groups, I've seen tournament groups somewhat larger...).  This pretty much hits the limits of most GMs ability to manage the game. And most groups top out smaller than this, the range of 5-7 really is more common.

   Life in the Holding Tank

    When this happens in a larger game shop rpg community something occurs I call the holding tank effect for new gamers:

hyphz from rpg.net wrote:

"Critical Miss had a good description of the problem - it described a game club that was all RPGs. Sounds great, except that once the groups were formed, there was nothing for new members to do. All they could do was stand around and watch and wait for enough other people to join to start a new group. Effectively, the availability of tables etc. did them no more good than a "meet players" notice board since that was all they could do there. Once the group is formed, you aren't achieving anything by providing that table except sponsoring the group to take up space. "

I have experienced this over and over again myself, to the point I want to tear my hair out when I hear 'hang out at the local game shop' given as advice to meet new gamers. It can be an immensely unproductive and boring way to spend your time sitting in the holding tank for wanabee gamers looking over the shoulders of the already established groups waiting for something to walk in the door.  While you wait you are going to want to do something....

And the answer for some of them is just a few tables away..........

Brother Tiberius from rpg.net writes:

"Anytime someone new shows up to 40k, we always make a point to try and get them involved. Sometimes they come back the next week, othertimes, we never see them again. One night, some of the younger kids showed up, but didn't have an army. I let them use mine and coached them through it, while 3 other kids set up as an opposing force. We started playing, and then a 4th kid showed up. He only had a small force, about 300 points or so, but by then there was no one left to play. Rather then turn him away, we let him come in on the side of the other 3 kids. I put down an extra Dreadnaught to compensate. The 4 kids won, but it was fun for all involved. Now, all of those kids are semi-regulars, as their school studies don't always allow them to show up midweek.

I don't necessarily see that willingness to take on new players with the RPG groups. I play RPG's myself, and I know that I would be reticent to just offer a new player a spot, but there has to be some way to better include new players. I know that it isn't easy to do that with an ongoing campaign."

    And so it goes. Potential rpger winds up playing warhammer. Or a card game. Or something that allows him to play NOW not someday in the future.  

  And this is the reason why the oft repeated hope, that if the clickies,or the Warhammerers,or the CCGers just see rpgs they'll think they are so cool that they'll jump ship , is not happening and will not happen.  In fact I propose a reverse recruitment model. THE RECRUITMENT ISSUES OF RPGS ARE SO GREAT THAT THEY ARE EVEN DRIVING PEOPLE WHO SPECIFICALLY COME TO PLAY THEM INTO OTHER GAMING FORMS. Not only are the people who come to play the other games swelling their ranks, but rpgers who can't penetrate the recruitment maze are doing so. The draw provided by the rpgs just contributes to the holding tank which in turn contributes to the recruitment base for the OTHER games.

Conclusions and prognosis
If we view rpgs as life forms in competition for an available resource, (players) with other game  forms,we see that they are either failing or stagnating relative to them.This is due to their competitive disadvantages.

Traditional Rpgs select for a small group of hard core individuals who can traverse the rigrous requirements for successful involvement particularly system learning curve,prepreparation,and consistency of scheduling ,blocking out time for lengthy sessions,and often the time spent in the gaming social scene just trying to put a group together or join one.

Traditionally structured rpgs possess a dynamic that actively prevents using the individual game as a mechanism for recruitment.  Thus other forms have an advantage snagging the walk-ins.(but as I pointed out NOT just the walk-ins, remember the holding tank?)

The coherency of an rpg group is more easily disrupted than for other game forms, thus other game groups survive better over time.

RPG groups are uniquely dependent on a single member. (The game master). This gives them an additional and potent disadvantage to other forms.

Now the problem has been stated. What changes to rpg play structure will help them to thrive against the competition?  Simply changes will have to deal with all the issues preventing recruitment.  In my next essay: 'Evolve or Die,The New Evolution in Rpg Structures' I will identify what the characteristics of the 'new' rpg should be and even try to identifiy some that emobdy these qualities.

Bryan (it's Bryan, isn't it? If not, many apologies),

I'm sure you've already thought of the following, but if not, here's some ideas to make finding an RPG group, admitting new members, and keeping it alive easier:

- Play with 2-4 players, tops. This really, truly helps. With three, my magic number, you've got three players to feed off each other (two sometimes can be rough) and a small sampling of people, so the likelihood of one missing the game is lower.

- Play shorter games. 10 weeks is a long campaign these days for me. This allows us to play more games and admit new people quicker.

- Games where power level skyrockets can hurt this. You're right when you talk about this. You either end up with the new guy who can't do anything, or old players resentful this new guy just walked in and got a 52nd level guy. The solution: avoid these games, or play with people who aren't competitive amongst themselves. Some groups like the competitiveness, and so they've got to find other solutions.

- If you're playing in a narrative context, then don't forget about supporting characters. New guy comes in with three sessions left? He's a supporting character, taking a back seat thematically to the others, but still with an important role to play.

I'm glad you've started this topic. I've got a looming move on my hands, and forming a new group is my biggest worry.

Quote from: b_bankheadWhat changes to rpg play structure will help them to thrive against the competition?  Simple changes will have to deal with all the issues preventing recruitment.

The answer?

Don't make any more RPGs.











Make something new that won't be identified with RPGs that has none of the problems you suggest.  The Adventures of Baron Munchausen goes a fair piece down this road, except it calls itself an RPG.

Fang Langford

This NEEDS to be submitted as an Article.  This stuff is too good to just be a forum post.

Hey Ralph,

I know this one game that has no prep time, you can play campaigns with whoever shows up, no GM to destroy the game with a no-show, has no automatic character association (thus making character death and power levels non-problematic in terms of continuing to play), and players can enter or leave the game at any time without causing the least bit of damage to it.

Naw, can't be for real, must have imagined it...

OK, so this article leaves me feeling a little high. Can't blame a guy. :-)

Mike

Quote from: Mike HolmesI know this one game that has no prep time, you can play campaigns with whoever shows up, no GM to destroy the game with a no-show, has no automatic character association (thus making character death and power levels non-problematic in terms of continuing to play), and players can enter or leave the game at any time without causing the least bit of damage to it.

Yep, I think Universalis, Soap, and Baron Munchausen are the cutting edge of RPGs right now.  I think we're on the verge of a breakthrough or at least, I hope so.

I agree completely, and have thought about these issues for awhile, ever since we had the big "mainstream" issue pop up a while back.  Pretty much what Clinton says is correct, along with much of the advice that Ron puts forth in Sorcerer(and supplements) regarding gaming in general:

Less players
Shorter Campaigns
Story Now(no power build up)

I think other issues that really add to the mix are:

-the Unknown Social Contract(for jumping into a new game)
-the Shy Gamer(deals primarily with his/her imagination, not other people)
-Dysfunctional play conditioning(aka bad social contract programming)

Chris

I've said it before, and I have a feeling I'll say it again: the response that we should stop playing large-scale "traditional" campaigns is extremely problematic.  One of the best points in this article, I thought, was that people often want to join RPGs for those factors.

Let's face it.  If you've got a semi-regular group down at the ol' Game Shop, and that group likes to do things like InSpectres, or Universalis, or whatever, then none of these critiques really apply, do they?  You're not going to have this problem of someone showing up and wanting to play, but there not being a spot for them, and the rules being too hard to learn, and whatnot.

So let's think a minute about the value of the traditional game.  I maintain that there are nice things about it, and that's part of why people are so nostalgic about those campaigns.  They're not nostalgic because they're stupid or misremember things; they're nostalgic because they liked those games!

So the question, logically, is this: how do you structure an otherwise "traditional" game such that newcomers can be brought in readily, and people who have to miss a session don't destroy the game?

1. The GM problem is probably insurmountable, although having an "alternate" would sure help.  Fact is, if you're going to be able to assimilate a sudden arrival into a longstanding campaign structure, you're going to need someone who's relatively in control.  Besides, the GM is part of the tradition, and often a big attraction.  People want to play a game, often, because Joe is running it, and he's supposed to be terrific.  Dropping GMs out of the equation will lose that attraction.

2. The session structure is going to need to be formulated such that the various characters can be swapped around readily.  Ars Magica made a stab at this, from which we can learn: a given session might involve one or two Mages, some Companions, and some Grogs.  If someone shows up out of nowhere, hand him a Grog and tell him to hack things when pointed at an appropriate monster.  The Grog has an immediate place in the session, and special (and enjoyable) skills to employ; that is, he's not just a wimpy Real Character, but a character in his own right.

3. It would help a lot to write up a quick-start version of the rules, i.e. a version that could be expressed in one or two simple pages.  Then a regular player simply walks the newcomer through the basics in a few minutes, and you're all set.  It would also help to have rules sufficiently flexible that when a newcomer asks, "Er, hang on, what do I roll here?" you can answer relatively fully in one sentence: "Roll 5 dice and try to get a 1."

4. A few strong visual aids, particularly maps and whatnot, help enormously in getting the new player into the swing of things.

5. I have somewhere around here posted a brief conception of the RPG as soap-opera; when I have a minute I'll post a more detailed essay.  But the point is that a soap is not six characters whose story never ends: it's however many characters with stories of their own that overlap and intertwine.  If you watch soaps sometime, you'll notice that sometimes they just drop a character for a bit, and it never breaks the structure.  This is a structure we ought to consider, since it gives every PC a chance to be at center-stage every session, and supports cooperative involvement in others' stories.

Anyway, my point is that dropping traditional RPG structures because they have some recruiting problems misses the point.  If you want to play non-traditional games, by all means do so.  But it is entirely possible to play more traditional ones and yet avoid many of these recruiting problems.

The only problem I see as insurmountable is what I think of as the Seinfeld problem.  The show set up all these "in-jokes," and part of what made them funny was precisely that they were in-jokes.  Similarly, the traditional RPG group develops a rapport and a vocabulary of its own, such that the group gets bound together by a sense of history.  This can't be impressed upon a newcomer rapidly.  But that's a question of what to do to retain the newcomer past the first session, not initial recruitment itself.

Hmmm...well, it's not perfect, but I think Multiverser has answered some of these problems.

[*]There is a classic 'gamemaster' who does the bulk of the work of running the world and npcs and who has lions share of certain types of creative power and responsibility.[/list:u]This is a problem in Multiverser, I'd say--the game relies heavily on someone to act as referee and present most of the world stuff. I don't find it much of a problem, because I'm usually that referee--although I have found that getting games in which I can play is often disrupted by the changing lives of the people willing to run games for me. But I think that those who play in my games also run their own, and play in each others when I'm not available.

[*]Story arcs tend to evolve over many sessions and may have no decisive conclusion(ie the 'soap opera' structure). The campaign is veiwed as potentially lasting for years or even decades.[/list:u]Although this is true of Multiverser, it's not a problem in the game, because the campaign is simultaneously about many stories with different characters. Also, the campaign is a string of shorter stories, more like a series of books or episodic television than a massive novel. A new player can enter at any time without disrupting the campaign per se, because the campaign is constantly open to changes.

[*]Characters are characterized by major increase in power over a long term developement cycle.[/list:u]True and false of Multiverser. This is a player choice more than anything else--players can build their characters into superheroes or leave them as ordinary people, and have just as much fun in the game, even if they are playing with others who have chosen otherwise. I've been in games in which relatively weak characters and relatively strong characters teamed together, and found much to challenge each and a lot of fun for everyone. The fact that some players become high-powered characters and others are still quite ordinary doesn't become a problem in play.

[*]Continuity between session is considered paramount. The same people have to show up over and over for the game to progress. The same people play the same characters over and over.[/list:u]This is emphatically not true of Multiverser. Because multiple staging has been pushed to the extreme (player characters are frequently not in the same universe, let alone the same activity) if Chris doesn't show up this week we just ignore Chris' story. In the periodic gathers this has some impact, but since there is no mandated party system in play there's no particular reason why Bill and Chris have to work together even if they're in the same world, so Chris' absence only means that Bill will do what he wants without Chris.

[*]Sessions tend to be long. Many rpg gamers view sessions of less than 6 hours as too short.[/list:u]That's a valid critique; but it's not universally true, even apart from Multiverser play.

I think that many make the choice of long sessions at long intervals. I know of groups that dedicate one weekend a month to play; I know of one that plays four times a year (and has been doing so for over a decade). If you play sporadically, you want to play long when you get the chance. On the other hand, I know of groups that play three times per week for two or three hours, and are quite happy with that.

A lot of hobbyists make the same kinds of choices. The guy who has bowling night once a week will make it a long night, because it's his time to relax; the one who joins the bowling league will play several times a week during the season, but these sessions will be shorter and get him home early so he can be up for work the next day.

I run long game sessions mainly because when I find the chance to play I want to move my stories forward significantly. I could probably run more games if I ran shorter sessions. (I'll have to give that some thought.)

[*]There is no internal rule or structure for the length and arc of a session. A session is viewed as potentially lasting for days with no overall structure denoting endgame.[/list:u]This can be a positive thing. After all, how long is a game of Monopoly? There's a game that has been criticized for taking forever--sometimes people start a game and it goes all weekend. Risk, too, developed "short game" rules because it was clear that conquering the world could take a very long time if it didn't happen quickly (once the sides become entrenched, it's very difficult to dislodge them--particularly in multiplayer games, when an effort by A to crush B will leave A and B open to attack from C, so everyone starts thinking defensively).

In the early days, we played until we were exhausted, and then we called it a night; and sometimes we came back and played the next night. We were really enjoying playing, and on weekends we had no other obligations. (Note: our group discovered RPGs after college.) Once we had kids, it was more difficult. But we developed social contract rules about the game session. In one of the longest running campaigns I ran, at one in the morning I would announce the time, and everyone knew that they needed to find a place where they all felt comfortable holding things, because the game would be over by two. In some ways, if the game itself dictated the length of the session by events (as Monopoly and Risk do) it would be much more difficult to plan a play time. Will it be over in an hour, or is it going to bog down into something that goes beyond midnight?

Thus I see the lack of structure within the game as a strength, not a weakness, as each group can create such structure for its sessions as suit its needs.

Whether game texts should make this sort of thing more explicit is a seperate issue.

[*]Pre-prep is usually high for GM (almost invariably) and often the player. Systems require hours of study to truly understand.[/list:u]Only half true for Multiverser, although true in a big way on that half.

Multiverser doesn't expect players to read the rules at any time; everything they will need to know they should be able to discover through play. Thus I can take anyone, with no RPG knowledge or experience, and in ten minutes have them playing in a game I'm running. I certainly don't mind them reading the rules if they wish to do so, but it's completely unnecessary. You're you; this is where you are; what do you want to try to do? That's all there is to play, really. You'll discover how the mechanics impact that as you go.

Referees do get saddled with a lot of work--understanding the system, knowing where to look for information at need, presenting interesting worlds for play. Most of our best referees are strong on improvisation, and can invent a universe on the fly; they're also well-read, and can quickly adapt books and movies to play without much difficulty. So yes, there is a lot of demand placed on the referee, and if you want to run this game you have pretty much accepted that you're going to have to do a lot of that.

Quote from: Bryan? BankheadAnother problem with rpg groups is that they are 'brittle'. Put less metaphorically, their membership is more rigid, and they are less resilient to various types of stress to the group's existence.

Good points about most games; I think, though, that the multiple staging aspect of Multiverser eliminates this as a problem. Players drop in and out of games all the time, with little or no impact on the others.

I think that a lot of the problems you raise can be addressed in multiple ways. Clinton's ideas are good; so are Mike's in Universalis. But there are other current solutions to the problems based on other non-traditional approaches, and they're already out there.

Maybe the problem is that most groups are playing the wrong games.

--M. J. Young

Quote from: clehrich
So the question, logically, is this: how do you structure an otherwise "traditional" game such that newcomers can be brought in readily, and people who have to miss a session don't destroy the game?

Clehrich,

I certainly didn't mean "non-traditional" RPGs. (Strangely, and with no affront intended to their authors, I don't enjoy games with a non-traditional structure - like InSpectres, Universalis, and even Donjon - as much as ones with a traditional structure, like Sorcerer, The Riddle of Steel, and Trollbabe.)

I do see what you're saying - what's the problem with long campaigns? My answer: nuttin'. The ideas posted above apply to them just as well: make a small group that can grow, and introduce new characters as supporting characters that grow to their full thematic stature in the game.

As for players missing a session not destroying the game - well, I don't have any answers for you there. It's still one of my hangups, and I don't deal with it well.

Greetings b_bankhead,

Interesting, and prime example of 'wrong thinking' or 'misapprehension' of game design rooted in the false belief that there is only one way to stat and play the average RPG.

Quote from: b_bankhead
    In practice however there is a serious problem with adding a member. What level do you start him at? Everyone else started at first level but the group now has an average level of 10 and a first level cannot effectively adventure with them any longer.  If you start the character at level 10 then you invalidate the 18 months of effort the other players spent to get where they are by giving away 10 free level as what is effectively a bonus for joining the group late. This can breed disaffection among members who may have gamed hundreds of man hours to get where they are.  This conundrum can so paralyze recruitment into the group that EVEN LOSS OF MEMBERS DOES NOT PRODUCE A NEW SPACE FOR GROUP MEMBERSHIP.

Actually, it should be the other way around.  The newbie player should feel left out (and ultimately often does) because they missed all that time.  What's more that's time that they lost that could have acclimated them to the foibles of the current game, from GMing style and inter player social subtext to which characters are established as being trustworthy or not.  To put the game in terms of beginning levels is just wrong.  Granted, a lot of people do it, as you probably well know and have likely addressed.

But, as there are presently a number of additions of the xD&D family of games I think this is a issue that could probably be addressed differently based upon which edition we are talking about.  As a former 1st ED DM I can tell you unequivocably that there is a way to generate characters above 1st level on the fly.  It's found in the DMG (if memory serves) but I can't speak to other editions of the game.

But, you are right, many games do appear to foment the idea that to play you have to start with a beginning (viz. introductory) level character.

Why?

You've nailed the main reason why this idea is promulgated right on the head!  It rests with the players, players who become invested in the game up to that point feel cheated if another player comes along as is able to generate a character of mid- to high level without seeming to have to go through all those iniitatory steps to 'earn' that player.

But, IMHO, that is wrong thinking and detracts from what role-playing is really all about.  Course I could be wrong.  (Heck I was probably guilty of it when I first began playing RPGs!)

What are your thoughts?


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

I cross-posted with Chris, but he's made some points that resonated with some long-forgotten D&D tropes we used.

Quote from: Chris Lehrich1. The GM problem is probably insurmountable, although having an "alternate" would sure help.  Fact is, if you're going to be able to assimilate a sudden arrival into a longstanding campaign structure, you're going to need someone who's relatively in control.  Besides, the GM is part of the tradition, and often a big attraction.  People want to play a game, often, because Joe is running it, and he's supposed to be terrific.  Dropping GMs out of the equation will lose that attraction.

There's a lot to this. I know a lot of referees who attract followings, as people want to play in their games.

In our first gaming group, I was the Dungeon Master; only I ran D&D games. But within a couple months, Bob was the "Mutant Master" who ran our Gamma World games, and Jan was the "Space Queen" who ran all the Met Alpha and Star Frontiers games we played. We didn't get together so much "to play D&D" but rather "to play games", and then once we were there we decided what to play. Who was there, who was ready to run, what tense situations we wanted to resolve, were all part of that process. Most significantly, though, we had three people running games--we were just running different games.

Quote from: Chris also2. The session structure is going to need to be formulated such that the various characters can be swapped around readily.  Ars Magica made a stab at this, from which we can learn: a given session might involve one or two Mages, some Companions, and some Grogs.  If someone shows up out of nowhere, hand him a Grog and tell him to hack things when pointed at an appropriate monster.  The Grog has an immediate place in the session, and special (and enjoyable) skills to employ; that is, he's not just a wimpy Real Character, but a character in his own right.

Early on we created what we called "special character" status. If you were a player, you had to designate whether your character was a player character or a special character. If you were a player character, you had immunity when you were not there--your character would be returned home and left there with the maximum possible speed within the story, and would be out of the action for the duration (although you might have to wait to get back in if you came the next time). Nothing could happen to you, for good or ill--no experience, no treasure, no injuries, nothing. If you were a special character, then you controled the character whenever you were there, but if you weren't there the character reverted to NPC status with the promise that the referee would play him as much as possible in character without taking unwarranted risks. You could in theory lose such a character if things went badly (no one ever did), but you could also come back and discover that you'd earned a lot of experience or treasure in your absence.

That of course is only one side of the equation. The other side is bringing in new people. Being a game played in a private home, this was rarely a problem--I was notified of anticipated guests in advance most of the time, and could arrange to have someone supervise character creation in advance. On those rare occasions when someone appeared unannounced, we generally had them create a character on the side while we organized everything else, got it to playable status, and brought it into the action. My character creation document was very helpful in this regard, as people could go through the steps pretty quickly and get what they wanted. Also, we tended to keep choices simple for newcomers, in a sort of drilling down process: do you want to be a fighter, magic-user, cleric, or thief? Fighter? Do you want to be more a chivalrous knight or a potent footsoldier? and so on. To some degree, we split the workload--players would help new players create their characters while the referee was setting up everyone else.

I don't think we solved the problem, but for a game with such complex character creation as D&D it tended to work pretty well.

Quote from: Then Chris3. It would help a lot to write up a quick-start version of the rules, i.e. a version that could be expressed in one or two simple pages.  Then a regular player simply walks the newcomer through the basics in a few minutes, and you're all set.  It would also help to have rules sufficiently flexible that when a newcomer asks, "Er, hang on, what do I roll here?" you can answer relatively fully in one sentence: "Roll 5 dice and try to get a 1."

Eh. Most of our players just helped the newbies along, and tried to draw them into play. Our focus has always been first on what do you want to try to do, and then on finding the mechanics to do it. Usually the mechanics part was the referee's job, so there wasn't much call for players to be looking stuff up. Also, we encouraged newbies to stay away from magic-using classes, where the abilities were more complex, and stick to fighters and thieves where you could pretty much list everything important you could do on a file card.

Quote from: He further4. A few strong visual aids, particularly maps and whatnot, help enormously in getting the new player into the swing of things.

I can see this, but we never did it. We did have mood props--swords, sometimes posters and models, robes and magic ropes and weapons and stuff, and sometimes clothes that helped the mood (I had a T-shirt with a castle, done in temperature-sensitive paint that shifted from night to day as it went from cool to warm, and on breaks in the winter I'd step outside to bring it back to night image). But we didn't do much with maps beyond use them functionally.

However, Jim Denaxas' character party dungeon map in one game became legendary. He didn't have graph paper so he used columnar paper, which resulted in everything being out of scale but still aligning correctly. He didn't have a scale to start with, so whenever he went off the edge he would tape another sheet of columnar paper there and continue. When we started bringing in experienced players, they really felt that added something to the feeling of being part of an adventuring party--it looked like a cobbled together adventurer's map.

Quote from: Finally, he5. I have somewhere around here posted a brief conception of the RPG as soap-opera; when I have a minute I'll post a more detailed essay.  But the point is that a soap is not six characters whose story never ends: it's however many characters with stories of their own that overlap and intertwine.  If you watch soaps sometime, you'll notice that sometimes they just drop a character for a bit, and it never breaks the structure.  This is a structure we ought to consider, since it gives every PC a chance to be at center-stage every session, and supports cooperative involvement in others' stories.

Indeed, this is very like Multiverser--each character is central in his own story, and although the stories may overlap and intertwine they're still their own stories. (Actually, I think the new http://www.multiverser.com/novel.html">novel does an excellent job of bringing this feeling across, telling the stories of three characters who are really on their own adventures but come together as a group, still each on his own adventure but working together briefly before being separated again.)

I certainly agree that it's silly to suggest abandoning traditional structures altogether; finding ways to make them work more smoothly seems to be the way to both appeal to what is good and loved about them and reduce the problems this thread presents.

--M. J. Young

Obviously I'm here during the busy session. Let me see if I can comment on this and vanish--people want me to deal with dinner.

Quote from: Kester PelagiusBut, as there are presently a number of additions of the xD&D family of games I think this is a issue that could probably be addressed differently based upon which edition we are talking about.  As a former 1st ED DM I can tell you unequivocably that there is a way to generate characters above 1st level on the fly.  It's found in the DMG (if memory serves) but I can't speak to other editions of the game.

One thing people miss about OAD&D at least and most other versions is that the distance between the first level character and any other level (through about name level) is not really so insurmountable.

Generally, for any level X which is the level of the party, and assuming:

[*]equal distribution of experience points;[*]no game sessions or adventures from which the new character is excluded;[*]standard advancement track;[*]comparable character types (that is, yes, some character classes advance faster than others through some parts of the sequence and some do advance faster overall);[/list:u]the new player character will advance from level one to level X by the time the level X character reaches level X+1.

Thus the game inherently fast-tracks newbies.

This works up to name level; thereafter, the new character should reach name level by the time the other characters have advanced to the next level.

--M. J. Young

Thanx to all of you for the quick responses.
I wasnt going to respond to replys to this post of mine figuring that it would dilute my upcoming part 2 essay ,but as some of the posts address issues that it won't, I have decided to respond to some of them.

Quote from: Le JoueurThe answer?

Don't make any more RPGs.

Make something new that won't be identified with RPGs that has none of the problems you suggest.  The Adventures of Baron Munchausen goes a fair piece down this road, except it calls itself an RPG.

  I think this reccomendation has great merit.  I think the term 'RPG' really has so much baggage that we had just as well dispense with it anyway.  At least it does among the outisde-of-the-hobby shop crowd, which I think is the only place worth trying out any real new evolution of the field.  The boys in the hobby shop want D&D and more D&D and I think the idea there is room there for real inovation is bankrupt. A 'new evolution' rpg would have so many unfamiliar characteristics (although stil keeping many similar properties) that its just as well to use a new term to describe them.