I read a post today about someone wanting to play an OSR game and then cooling on it quite rapidly because the GM presented them with a river to cross and they couldn't work out how to do it.
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@Printdevil I think for absolute beginners, the hard part to understand is never 'roll the big dice and look at the numbers to see if you succeed at doing a thing'
But then I did once run a game for someone who wasn't familiar with fantasy and thought that he was wandering around a town with a bag full of rabits killing homeless people.
Origins: A Carrier Bag Full of Rabbits
Origins is a series of posts in which I reflect upon my relationship with RPGs as well as the events that have shaped my tastes and understanding of games. The rest of the series can be found here. A boardgame-player asking for recommendations as to their first RPG got me thinking about how accessible roleplaying…
Taskerland (tasker.land)
@Taskerland @Printdevil @RogerBW @satsuma loved this post, thanks! It reminds me of conversions I've had with folks who simply do not know (and may well not care) about fantastical things but are doing their best to socialise. I do still know some people in that bracket.
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@RogerBW @Printdevil I'm reminded of when I started drifting back towards the hobby, I decided to run Mines of Phandelver and I was *horrified* by how bad an introductory adventure it was.
The first encounter has a load of Goblins attacking you, forcing you into mass-combat as your first encounter with the rules.
If I were to write an introductory adventure for a broad audience, I would start with the fundamentals of engaging with a fictional world.
@Taskerland I ran this for the family group and it was fine, although to be fair we'd done "Warlock Joe's Dungeon for Babies" as a starter. There's only four goblins in the ambush and they won't kill you, so at least there's that.
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All the games I did with my old group before having to go our separate ways began with formative years section. Everyone just enjoyed the backstory, and it made "meeting up after University to be Eaten by The Crocodile with Human Eyes" more credible.
@Printdevil I have so many questions. How does thr crocodile got human eyes. Is it just a regular ass crocodile with human eyes or humanoid crocodile? Or maybe crocodiloid human? Are the eyes only human element or are they just the most outstanding?
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@Taskerland I ran this for the family group and it was fine, although to be fair we'd done "Warlock Joe's Dungeon for Babies" as a starter. There's only four goblins in the ambush and they won't kill you, so at least there's that.
(Bearded Resident of Dragonsfoot) "You aren't running those goblins right then"
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@Printdevil I have so many questions. How does thr crocodile got human eyes. Is it just a regular ass crocodile with human eyes or humanoid crocodile? Or maybe crocodiloid human? Are the eyes only human element or are they just the most outstanding?
GM makes little wet clicking noise with mouth.
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@satsuma This wasn't about understanding the mechanics though... this was about understanding that it's a fictional world and it's okay to go 'Is there anything that we might be able to use to fashion a raft?' Understanding how to push dice is a skill that should come after the basic processes of engaging with a fictional world. @RogerBW @Printdevil
@Taskerland @satsuma @RogerBW @Printdevil this is a plus point for adventures that start off with, say, waking up in a room with a locked door and a key on the table.
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@Printdevil I'm hooked.
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(Bearded Resident of Dragonsfoot) "You aren't running those goblins right then"
@Printdevil You know me, I only ever run things By The Book...
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@Taskerland @satsuma @RogerBW @Printdevil this is a plus point for adventures that start off with, say, waking up in a room with a locked door and a key on the table.
I think again you can only do things like occasionally. I remember a point in the mid 80s when every scenario seemed to be "the players awake captured by" or "there is a single door and you can't remember how you got there" and general amnesiac things.
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@Printdevil You know me, I only ever run things By The Book...
By the Bok?
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I think again you can only do things like occasionally. I remember a point in the mid 80s when every scenario seemed to be "the players awake captured by" or "there is a single door and you can't remember how you got there" and general amnesiac things.
@Printdevil @shimminbeg @Taskerland @satsuma I've seen a CoC adventure in which it turns out each PC is a personality facet of a a single mad person, which again is a good conceit but you can't really do it twice.
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@Printdevil @shimminbeg @Taskerland @satsuma I've seen a CoC adventure in which it turns out each PC is a personality facet of a a single mad person, which again is a good conceit but you can't really do it twice.
I know that scenario and the whole way through it sort of relies on "it just working" I've never been convinced it would actually be much fun as a scenario because of the extent the GM has to manipulate things.
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By the Bok?
@Printdevil When in doubt, change characters to orange smoke?
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@Printdevil When in doubt, change characters to orange smoke?
"Five Rounds Rapid" is how long a good fight in D&D should take. The instructions were all there in the episode.
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The idea that you can be in the hobby long-enough to be involved in playtesting scenarios for a magazine and have an entire group of characters drown themselves in a river because there's no 'pass river' skill is really worrying.
Those people probably have 150k followers on YouTube.
@Taskerland a basic lack of in real life experience problem solving. And Crpg’s evolving button thinking to a necessity. (The computer isn’t programmed to allow raft building, so people forget the basics of real world building alterations like raft building is a solution.
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I think again you can only do things like occasionally. I remember a point in the mid 80s when every scenario seemed to be "the players awake captured by" or "there is a single door and you can't remember how you got there" and general amnesiac things.
@Printdevil @Taskerland @satsuma @RogerBW oh yes, I just mean in the sense of having a simple realistic interaction to deal with ("I unlock the door with the key, I open the door") as a starting point for interacting with the fictional world. And one it's hard to get a TPK out of. It could easily be your own room in the tavern with a perfectly clear memory.
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@BigJackBrass @Taskerland @Printdevil @satsuma I like the idea of a CoC investigator party gradually realising that they _are_ the violent murderers, killing people and burning down houses based on the most superficial evidence, and so on… but (a) it's not much fun to _play_ and (b) it's kind of been done.
@RogerBW @BigJackBrass @Taskerland @Printdevil @satsuma
A lot of the best rpg ideas are not very fun to play and, instead, better off as books/comics.
(I had a coworker run the 'you should have everyone die in a standard D&D campaign and then tell them they take off their VR headsets and go cyberpunk'... no... no, it sounds AWESOME, but that's how you get people walking off in disgust.
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@RogerBW @BigJackBrass @Taskerland @Printdevil @satsuma
A lot of the best rpg ideas are not very fun to play and, instead, better off as books/comics.
(I had a coworker run the 'you should have everyone die in a standard D&D campaign and then tell them they take off their VR headsets and go cyberpunk'... no... no, it sounds AWESOME, but that's how you get people walking off in disgust.
The bearded dragonsfoot reference person did that to us in a game and we walked off in disgust.
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@Printdevil @Taskerland @satsuma @RogerBW oh yes, I just mean in the sense of having a simple realistic interaction to deal with ("I unlock the door with the key, I open the door") as a starting point for interacting with the fictional world. And one it's hard to get a TPK out of. It could easily be your own room in the tavern with a perfectly clear memory.
Again, not a base session zero thing to be doing. "Does everyone remember how play without clicking on things? Or having 17D6.. ok..good.. so how would you open a door?"
"No Derek, put your socks back on"
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The bearded dragonsfoot reference person did that to us in a game and we walked off in disgust.
@Printdevil @DarkestKale @BigJackBrass @Taskerland @satsuma Oh yeah, never liked that bait and switch. Particularly since in asking people to play the game I'm essentially promising that the stuff in the game "matters", it's real to these characters even if it's not real to us. If you then say "no it's not", there's an inevitable implication of "har har silly you for taking it seriously". Which is basically the same feeling I get from Ocean's Twelve, in which (spoiler) the resolution is "we did the actual crime a month ago, everything you have just watched was fake even to us"..
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