Find a DM who can do both
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I always say: new players should have a seasoned DM, new DMs should have seasoned players (preferably with DM experience) XD
this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2024
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It's totally fine if a group of people who never played just start though.
First time GM with first time players. That's how I think most groups started before online play became so common.
The good thing about TTRPGs is that even in that scenario, they are still great fun.
That's how my first D&D group started and we're still playing together 8 years later =)
Definitely how I started, and there is definitely something to be said about playing a game where nobody knows what's going on, as long as everyone understands that's going to be the state of things and are willing to work together. Whenever something came up we weren't sure about we'd ALL dive on the rule books, not just the GM.
A while back I came to the conclusion that "games for experienced players only" shouldn't be a thing that exists.
Roleplaying games are, at their heart, about sharing in a story together. At least, thats the version of them that I enjoy. And I've found time and again that people who know nothing about roleplaying games enjoy that too.
Enjoying stories isn't something we need experience to do. We learn it as children. The storytelling part, that takes a little bit of learning, but if you do things right, if you run the game in the right way, and manage your players in the right way, you'll find that learning process is very, very quick.
Roleplaying games should have a learning curve that's measured in hours, not years. They should be for everyone, and if you do it right they are.
I'm not one of them, but I empathize with all the GMs that are just sick of dealing with those particular kinds of misconduct that crop up with new players.
Games of experienced Players should exist. DMs/GMs invest tons of hours/years into the game and have equally much world building in which someone can immerse themselves. Now you have a newbie at a table you never had experienced that said world, concept that are second nature to the experienced players and DM/GM are foreign to them and need to be explained... In much detail. So while the experienced players immerse themselves in the deep pool the newbie stands in the kiddie pool. Sure both types of players at the same table roleplay, but it's just not on the same level.
So on the other hand. Games for newbies should exist as well. Games with a patient and understanding DM/GM.
Maybe a bit of a hot take, but if your world needs to be explained in great detail and can't be experienced with minimal background information, the world building might not be that great.
I think people have radically different ideas about what "minimal background information" is.
Some people think the Silmarillion is a suitable primer for their setting.
Some people have like one paragraph for the big picture, and one paragraph for each major faction.
There are players that would say both is too much.
I think a couple short paragraphs should be enough for a quick start for a custom setting, but I've had players that just refuse to read anything at all. As someone else said, it's makes it really hard to do some sort of stories if all the players are utter neophytes/amnesiacs/from-another-world/etc
I tried to do a game of Vampire once, but the players refused to read anything about the setting. All the political intrigue fell completely flat because they didn't understand what the different factions were looking for, nor did they understand how vampires worked.
That group might have just been kind of bad players, but I feel like bad players are more common than good. By "bad" I mean "doesn't think about the game very much, doesn't retain anything about the story or rules". They couldn't really do anything more complex than a simple dungeon crawl.
If that's true, then nobody should ever set a game in a version of the real world. No urban fantasy, no historical fiction, no call of cthulhu. The real world is too complicated. Games shouldn't be set in complicated worlds like the real one.
That's not what I'm saying.
Im saying that a world should be explorable from within, by interacting with it. You don't learn about urban fantasy, historical fiction, call of cthullu by downloading the knowledge about it before you are born. You learned about them while you engaged with the world.
A newbie can be like a child, exploring a world that is new to them (and it is easy to have a role that comes up with a reason for this: Amnesia, Migrant from far away county, lived a very privileged live in a golden cage that limited expose to the outside, etc.).
Sure, there might be some explaining, as you brought up before, but that can happen from within the game, in character, giving the new player a chance go engage with a world that is as foraign to them as to the character they are playing. They should be able to learn about a complicated world as they go.
Well that restricts the kinds of characters a person can play. What if you want to play an experienced politician? An old veteran of the dragon war? The former librarian of the wizard's university? A middle aged woman who spent her youth tending bars and serving drinks to adventurers and got sick of it and decided to go pick up a sword and explore a dungeon herself?
Not everyone wants to do the amnesia story. Some people want to play as experts.
Sure, and in that case a different approach might be sensible. But honestly, I don't see how a newbie would want to play a complex character right from the get go. If they do, I'd propaly recommend a more Newby friendly world / round. I still stand by my point: A complex world doesn't by default speak against new players.
Some games are designed for you to play complex characters. Like Blades in the Dark. You're supposed to play a hardened criminal. Everyone's going to be new to the game at some point and need the ghostfence and the spirit lightning explained to them, and it's much more fun to play a character in that game who knows the world well.
So now we are talking about game systems that need you to know the lore? I thought this is about GMs putting work into their world building and newbies not beeing able to grasp it.
If you are new you build your character with the GM and accept limits he puts in it, because you don't know better anyway. You can always play a character that has more knowledge of the world, once you have a bit of a feeling for what it's like. I have never had the problem of a new player not accepting some limitations to the characters or backstorys made avaible to them.
I think you can play complex characters that are tied in to the world just fine with newbies. I have no idea how to manage my footing when I swing a sword, but many of my characters do! Similarly, my quick-fingered thief likely knows a great deal about the ghost field that I've yet to learn (I think this is what you meant? The only ghost fence I'm seeing is from Morrowind).
The way I've handled this is to give a quick, concise rundown about a topic right when it becomes relevant, or looks about to become relevant. I keep it limited to just what they need to know for what's happening now, and only expand on it if asked. Being relevant to what they're doing right now makes it easy to focus on, and being able to experiment with it right then helps it stick for them.
If it's something just one or two people should know (like how their automatons function, or the political situation of their distant cousin's family that they're walking into), I'll try to give the information just to that player . And if they improvise or expand on what I said, I do whatever I can to make what they said true - that kind of player buy-in is absolute gold, no matter how it might diverge from what I had in mind!
The idea is to teach complex game elements in play as much as possible, rather than explain them. They'll remember the intricacies of court a lot better if they discover them while being cats-paws, or running a heist! (This is also how I introduce GURPS to people - start with the simple rules, and if they want to try something different, we'll walk through how that part works. If they didn't like how that worked, we try a different way next time - either different rules for it, or a different approach).
It’s okay to do one shots for experienced players if you’re play testing something. But otherwise I agree with you.
I love introducing new people to RPGs. It's one of my favourite things. I've even run a how to GM session for an RPG club and helped a new GM run their first few games. That was a fun experience.
I'd definitely recommend not starting with Anima for a first game system now though.
What system do you recommend for a first game?
Honestly, the system you run for new players should depend on who those players are, their preferences, and comfort levels with related things you can use to judge their preferences. A group of hardcore eurogame boardgamers are going to be a lot more comfortable learning a complex rule system than my in-laws.
I don't think DND or close relatives is as good a first system as people think it is. It's very idiosyncratic. It wastes a lot of time with stuff like "8 is -1 and 14 is +2". But mostly I don't recommend it because at its core it is a resource management game, and that's not what most people imagine roleplaying is about. It will teach people bad habits, or at least habits that don't translate outside of DND + their group very well.
I like Fate. I think Fate is more intuitive and rewards creativity more consistently. You don't need to read long lists of classes and spells. It does, however, ask for a lot more creative input than DND does. You can't just be "Bob the fighter" and go. But it's a lot more rewarding when it does sing, IMO.
Whatever you and your group are interested in or whatever the GM has most experience with.
Personally I'd go with Blades in the Dark. It's great for teaching people good roleplaying habits and has advice like: drive your PC like a stolen car. The system is built to run on minimal prep with every pc action pleasing or upsetting another faction in the city everyone is locked in so you just need a few minutes to think before each session to work out what's happening next. It's very player driven and good for practicing improvisation. Plus the setting is instantly interesting (haunted Victorian London meets Venice) and I love flashbacks and clocks.
Other than that I'd recommend running a pre written module or two rather than making your own setting as it's too easy to fall into railroading players to tell your story.
The story about Jeremy, the goblin lich who just wants to 'make' some friends and takes place entirely in one village and the forest nearby is absolutely as delightful as a kingdom spanning epic of political intrigue and backstabbing!
The first sounds really nice. I want to play that now. My character will be the village granny. She knits little protection doilies.
@RebekahWSD i like the idea of granny going on a adventure and overcome obstacles with granny behaviour, like feeding the enemy and be just a wholesome charakter. she slaps the bbegs ass with kindness and cookies
Newbie campaigns are so fun. For me it feels like a slightly more challenging episode of Dora the Explorer. "The party enters the broken central chamber of the ruin. Meters above, the ruined dome gives little reassurance of its stability. Aligned with the center, and strangely cleared of debris, an obelisk stands alone. Its base marked with an empty receptacle in a diamond shape. The familiar shape yearning for the party's advance."
In my head: The McGuffin they just picked up five minutes ago was literally described as a diamond, this should only take 25-30 minutes.
Trying to gauge how long something will take your party is an impossible task. I had 90% of the first session of a new campaign get eaten up by an unlocked door with no handle that was just needed to be pushed somewhat firmly. They ended up building a makeshift handle out of debris and accidentally opened the door while trying to hammer it in. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when they realized that they had never even tried pushing it.
Oh I only GM for my friends, any session I've held online with randos gets mad disrespected. Plenty of friends to indoctrinate into ttrpgs.
Lol. That was a game with friends.
My friends are too hot headed to sit at a door, and my brother plays and he is a GM too. So luckily someone is there to tug things along if they start arguing which skull needs a bashing first.
I'm not an experienced DM, but am experienced player. Just started DMing a campaign for a group of new/relatively new players and it's incredible. They're having a blast and getting so into it. I've only DM'd a few times before, so this is my first time running a full campaign. A couple know just enough to help the others with basic gameplay and I help with mechanics and stuff if need be. They're not problematic at all and actually have a very good party dynamic going. Can't wait to see how they progress.