RPG Tutorials

[Onix]

I love the Extra Credits videos. Even though they're pointed at video games, there's a lot of info that applies to any game. As to getting people involved in RPGs I think we need to figure out how to translate from video game centric to RPG centric.

If getting people involved in video games means you only have ten minutes to grab someone's attention, then the same is true for board games, or RPGs. How do we as table top RPG designers do that? It used to be the artwork in a book but video games blow our efforts out of the water when it comes to art and that's why they have a huge audience.

Part of the process is that RPG books front load the tutorial. "Here read and memorize these thirty pages and you can start playing." Now some people (you and I) can do that. Other people have a hard time trying to work their way through it.

The thought is, introduce basic game play in the first ten minutes and have the player actually play in those ten minutes. Worry less about complex story at first, start off with a battle between swordsmen. One player takes the role of the evil general, the other takes the role of the young knight that has come to defeat him in single combat. Only introduce mechanics (including stats) that are needed for the single combat.

When they've gotten that far, introduce a small amount of back story for the hero. Only about a paragraph or so (erm, hopefully he won) and reveal the idea of the player for the evil general becoming the GM. Now introduce a small adventure something that only takes a few minutes to read like "Rescue the king from the general's henchmen."

Once you've introduced how to have fun in an RPG, now go into each of the important facets of your game one or two at a time.

This doesn't have to be written down as an adventure, you could start all your new players this way without a pre-written outline. It would have to be thought through though for it to work well.

Anyway I'm going to try something like this on my next new player. It all has to be structured so that there isn't a ten minute stretch where the new player isn't having fun playing the game. Even in the beginning. My game is really world heavy, so I'll have to figure out how to introduce story through play. I think I'll have to use some non-linear story structure, (I'd like to avoid ).

And no, I'm not affiliated with Extra Credits in any way, I just really find the episodes useful.

[Danielman]

You make a good point ill look into useing this on my players.

thank you posting this .

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

One idea might be to start players off like the beginning of the the Elder Scrolls video games, or perhaps the tutorial elements of various games in the Half Life Series. Players begin as blank slates in prison or a training facility. As they go through the process of the first few rolls, they answer questions about their life and skills.

Cybergeneration begins with the players on the run from the cops, and its only when they get to the safe house that they take an aptitude test to rate their abilities and name their skills. After that, the intro to role-playing is talking to other people at the safe house, and suffering though the symptoms of the nano-virus that plays such a notable role in the setting.

Another option would be to go the route of the old d6 Star Wars and have a "choose-your-own-adventure" style of introduction. Get them into the setting, and follow a quick story, then make characters.

One final concept would be to have a setting based around handing off the adventure from one generation to the next. For example, everyone starts with a pre-made character who is a bank robber. At the end of the heist, they're busted by SWAT, and this opens up the chance for newly made characters to fill some empty slots in the crime family. Or perhaps it starts with the players begin as bridge crew of a star ship - which gets ambushed by enemy warships, disabled, and partially destroyed. With the main crew gone, its time for some uncertain ensigns to try to step up to the position of command.

[Onix]

Blank Slate the RPG! Actually that would be pretty cool. Have an RPG where the players are "Blanks" that are designed to customize themselves for what they will need. The more they do the more of their potential they use up until they 'set' and are locked into that form. The players could literally start off knowing nothing of the world they were entering and just adapt to it as their characters do. It would be a way of role playing the character creation process. That might be a great intro game system. Once a player knows how to role play and understands the concept, it's usually easier to get into more games.

So I'm trying to take what I know about psychology an apply it to this tutorial idea. This leads me down some odd paths.

I was thinking about why certain people can get into an RPG with no one telling them "this is great". They can see the potential already there, they can imagine having fun playing while they're reading the book even if they haven't played. I know one player like that right now and I can only say I have known one other that started out that way. The rest I either didn't know how they got into RPGs or somebody in our group roped them in. I can't even rightly say I'm that kind of person because RPGs were introduced to me and I kind of went along for the ride. I guess I'm just getting at that those players are extremely rare. It's like the kids that pick up a musical instrument and start playing because they want to.

The reason I bring this up is because I'm trying to understand what triggers that imagination. Most of the time people will just say "That how people are, some get into it and some don't". I can tell you that other gaming industries don't take that question laying down. If there is a barrier to Milton Bradley selling their games to certain households, they want to know why and they don't rest until they find out (they also have the resources to not rest). Maybe TSR has done that research way back when but so far they haven't shared it.

I've also been struck by the fact that I've run into a huge number of people that have played an RPG before, usually in the airforce for some reason but stopped when they got out of the military. Was it just the collapse of their gaming group that made them stop? They usually tell stories about enjoying the game they played, why stop? Maybe it was that their GM was the one putting the energy into the game and they didn't know how to pick up after their group was split up?

I mention that because, most of the time they aren't interested in playing after that. Even a casual game. It would be weird if someone said "Yeah I once used to play Monopoly once a week with my buddies in the Navy." and then were asked "We get together every once in a while and play Monopoly, why don't you come and join us?" and they answer "Nah, I don't play anymore." OK, not impossible to imagine, but unusual. It makes me think that someone or something made it easy to play before and they don't think that can happen again.

I'm still working on those thoughts, there's something in the psychology or methodology of RPGs that trips people up. Going back into the tutorials, I think this may be one approach to get people interested and having fun but I'd like to understand how to really fine tune the approach.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Speaking of the "Blank Slate" RPG - check out an old free game called . Its about people who can call on the experiences of past lives, and has two different ways of retroactively gaining skills

There are at least two reasons I can think of for why people stop gaming - group management and time commitment.

RPGs are very dependent on the people you play with. A good GM, cohesion and in-jokes between the group makes the game run a lot smoother. Furthermore, if you don't have all the players - you can't play. People in school or on the same duty shift in the military are on a fixed schedule with little likelihood for variance - so it is unlikely to have an absence. Outside of that, juggling groups is a lot harder.

On the matter of time - RPGs do take a while to play. Its kind of hard to play one of these games for only half an hour, then move on to something else. That is much time for rolling, looking up rules, or giving much description of areas - much less planning a heist or buying equipment. Cartridge based portable gaming units (Nintendo) outsold the Mini-Disk based ones (Sony) by an order of magnitude due to less loading time, and thus the ability to play for five or ten minutes rather than the slow times of the PSP.

Now one could design settings or games to get around this. The "Ghost Dog Way of the Samurai" RPG (Based on the really good movie) was optimized for play with two people. (Its out of print, and the publisher - Guardians of Order - defunct.) One could base the game on a mercenary company hired out for quick jobs - and if someone isn't available, well they're assigned to a different team for that week. Or perhaps a game where PCs and NPCs are stated differently, with the secondary characters have easier to manage stat-blocks to make it possible to include a lot of extras simply. Kind of like how in D&B - most creatures don't have speed tracks, or expendable deadening/lucidity.

[Onix]