Introducing the Game

As noted, I have recently introduced the game to a group of new players. Having done that, I have some thoughts about how to proceed:

1. We Learn by Doing: The first and most basic thing is that it's generally a good idea to get new players actually playing as quickly as possible. So give them pre-gen characters to use, give an overview of some real basics, and then get on with the game!
2. Bite-sized Pieces: One of the consequences of the one-hour format is that time is at a real premium. That being the case, I definitely didn't want to spend an hour going through lots of rules details! Therefore, at the start of each of the first few sessions I quickly introduced some aspect of the rules, and then we went on with the game. To date, we've had five sessions, so the topics covered have been:
   • The types of dice. Basics of the character sheet (ability scores, attack bonuses, skill bonuses)
   • The three types of rolls (attack rolls, saving throws, attribute checks). More on the character sheet (class and race abilities, mostly)
   • Combat actions. The last of the character sheet (traits, background, alignment)
   • Spellcasting
   • Levelling up
3. Simplify, then elaborate: Starting out, nobody will have a really good idea of how things work. As far as possible, it's a good idea to abstract this out. You can then add more detail later. (My particular example would be spellcasting, where in the first session the Wizard was allowed to just cast any of his spells. The next session I added the "X per day" limit, and then in session four we introduced spell preparation.)
4. Do Something New Every Time: Ideally, every session should introduce something new to the game, until you're confident you've covered everything. So start with a basic combat against goblins, then add a bit of interaction, then add a bit of exploration, then a boss battle, then level up, and then open things out to be more player-driven...
5. And don't sweat it: Bear in mind that new players mostly just want to have fun, so don't worry too much about doing it 'right'! That may mean simplifying some rules for speed, it may mean letting them do something cool that their character normally couldn't, or it may just mean not worrying about how you present things. The key, after all, is just to have fun.

Of course, those are just the things that happen to have worked for me, this time. Next time might be different, and they may not work for you at all!

A Wider World

One of the things that the "Star Wars" original trilogy and the "Lord of the Rings" films do very well is that they give a sense that there's a whole wider world out there. Star Wars, in particular, actually has very few locations - the backwaters of Tattooine, the Death Star, Alderaan, and Yavin - but it gives the impression of a much wider canvas.

The primary way in which this is achieved is simply by referencing those other places and events: "I'm a member of the Imperial Senate...", "if there's a bright centre to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from...", "Dantooine. They're on Dantooine."

Likewise, the "Lord of the Rings" films mention locations that aren't ever shown, and also make reference to thousands of years of carefully worked out history. Of course, they had the big advantage that Tolkien had meticulously worked out thousands of years of history (mostly because his passion was "The Silmarillion", rather than "Lord of the Rings").

What does that mean for RPGs?

Well, it's actually pretty straightfoward - during those early adventures, when the players are being introduced to the world, you're not going to have much opportunity to show them the larger world in which they are adventuring. After all, that would very quickly be overwhelming. And it's highly unlikely that the players will have read the setting guide (which is a very mixed blessing anyway), so you're very likely their only real conduit for setting information.

But what you can do, and probably should do, is seed little bits of setting information here and there. Make reference to them being on the road from one place to another, and name both places. Even if you don't introduce the local ruler, have someone mention him by name. Say something about local festivals and quirks (food is very good for this), and perhaps then contrast that with what the PCs are used to.

As noted, it's important not to overwhelm the players with a huge info dump, not least because all of this is less interesting than most DMs think it is. A little goes a long way! And, as with adding salt to a meal, bear in mind that it's always easy to add more, but it's really hard to take it out again!

Encumbrance (yes, again)

After a lot of thought, my conclusion on encumbrance, until I inevitably revisit the topic, is this:

You can carry ten "things".

(Note that ten is chosen as a nice round number. It is deliberately a tight limit, and it deliberately does not factor in the character's strength, race, or other factors. It's chosen to be easy, not realistic.)

A "thing" is anything you consider important enough to declare that your character definitely has: your armour, weapons, spellbook, whatever. If you want to be sure your character has rope, you need to list it as one of your "things". If you want to be sure your character has a red robe, you need to list it as one of your "things". If you also want to be sure your character has a blue robe, that would be another "thing".

A reasonable number of identical items can be considered a single "thing". So if your character carries 3 javelins, or 6 throwing knives, or similar, that would be a "thing". Where you carry a weapon that uses ammunition, that ammunition is included (but only mundane ammunition - if you also carry various special types of arrow, you'll need to list those separately).

You don't need to list containers like your backpack, or whatever, amongst your "things". However, neither can you list "a backpack containing {ten various items}" as a "thing" - feel free to specify some or all of those ten various items amongst your "things", but they will count separately.

Finally, any magic items you want to carry must be listed amongst your "things". These are important enough to the game that if you don't specify that you're carrying them, you're not carrying them.

It must be noted that your ten "things" are only the items you've specified that your character is definitely carrying. Seasoned adventurers, such as the PCs, probably carry a bunch of other equipment.

So, what happens if the party needs something that nobody has listed as a "thing"?

Firstly, the DM should make a ruling: is this something a seasoned adventurer would obviously have with them, something they probably would have with them, something they might have with them, or something they wouldn't have with them? (Also, are they in an environment where they could easily rig up a substitute? If so, improve the odds one step.)

In the first and last cases, the answer is obvious: the party either does or does not have the item. For instance, when taking a week's journey from A to B, of course the party would pack rations for that week (and a bit extra). Conversely, they wouldn't pack a key for a lock somewhere in the depths of the dungeon (since they have no way of knowing they'll encounter it).

In the case where they would probably have the item, there's a flat 70% chance that one of the PCs has the item. If they might have the items, it's a 50% chance. Roll the dice, and find out! (Note that this is a chance for the group as a whole, not a roll for each PC individually!)

To be strictly correct, the DM should probably maintain a list of previous rolls, noting which events are and are not present in the group. After all, if you didn't have rope five minutes ago, you won't have it now! That list should reset when the party takes downtime in a settlement. (Note that this may mean they set out again leaving behind the rope that they had previously. That's a feature, not a bug: if the party wanted to make sure they had it, someone should list it as a "thing".)

One last detail: if the PCs have checked for and determine that they have some item (let's say rope) and then, for whatever reason, they use up or lose that rope. In this case, the DM should immediately roll again to see if they have another item of that type. Here, the chance is 33% - it's much less likely that they'd carry two coils of rope than that they'd carry one. This same percentage chance also applies if a PC has specified an item as one of his "things" and then used it up.

So, to recap:

Would a seasoned adventurer be sure to pack this item?
Obviously: 100% chance
Probably: 70% chance
Maybe: 50% chance
No: 0% chance
Duplicate item: 33% chance

What I Want to Run, and What I'm Going to Run...

The Work Game got off to a flying start. Given that the plan is to meet once a week for an hour, progress is going to necessarily be slow - I'd expect an encounter per session. But that's fine, being a reasonably bite-sized chunk of the game. We've started on the "Lost Mine of Phandelver", which remains an adventure that impresses me a great deal.

The plan, however, is to play that for a few weeks for people to get used to the system, and then to consider restarting once I get back from Paternity Leave. Which is a decent plan - once everyone has some familiarity with the system, it's probably a good idea to move to custom characters, and start fresh without making the same mistakes. (We'll make all-new mistakes instead, but that's fine.)

Anyway, this gives rise to a question about what we'll do. And since it's likely I'll be the DM, this asks a question about what I'd run...

In theory, I think what I'd like to run is a Spelljammer campaign, with the PCs cast as traders moving from Sphere to Sphere fixing problems as they go - kind of a fantasy Firefly, only not quite as grim. That is, instead of the crew being castoffs from the losing side of the Unification War, and the Alliance being a mostly-negative force, they'd instead be neutral figures just out to make a living, while the Elven Armada is a whole lot of sound and very little substance.

But that's probably one for another group, one more versed in the lore of the game. Plus, it would require me to actually read up on that Spelljammer lore and compose a whole new, custom campaign.

In reality, what I think I'll end up running is "Princes of the Apocalypse", the second of the 5e campaign books. This isn't the best of them ("Curse of Strahd" is probably better, and the first half of "Out of the Abyss" is excellent), but it has the advantage of being the best-suited to a brand new group.

So, unless and until I have a better idea, that's the plan...

The Work Game

In a somewhat odd development, just as I'm in the process of bowing out of the Pathfinder game for the next few months some of my colleagues are keen to start up a game in a lunch hour at work. I'm not entirely sure it will go anywhere, especially as I'll be missing a month in the near future, but we'll see.

Since time is inevitably going to be very short, I'm not planning on adopting many house rules for the game. The ones I am planning to adopt are all of the same form:

• Ignore encumbrance
• Ignore Alignment
• Ignore factions
• Ignore Traits, Bonds, and Flaws
• Ignore Inspiration. Instead, each player will have a single Inspiration token per level, which can be used on any d20 roll to cancel Disadvantage (if applicable) and instead gain Advantage on the roll. This can be declared at any time, even after success/failure has been declared to gain a reroll. Oh, and it can be given to another player if desired.

And that's it - basically, ignore a bunch of things so that we can focus on other things in the game instead.

For the moment I'm not planning on ignoring XP, since with new(-ish) players that can be quite beneficial. But it may fall by the wayside quite quickly.

(For the time being, the plan is to start with the adventure from the Starter Set, "Lost Mine of Phandelver", run for a few weeks until I'm away, and then consider doing a re-start after I get back to let the group stabilise and let people create their custom characters at that point. As I said, I'm not sure we'll get to that point.)

Thaumosaurs

For obvious reasons, most fantasy settings include the range of mundane beasts of vaious sorts: lions, tigers, and bears...

Equally obviously, most fantasy settings also include a range of magical beasts: dragons, unicorns, etc. Of course this makes sense, since in a magical universe you would expect too see creatures evolve magical capabilities as well as mundane ones.

Since dinosaurs are cool, a lot of fantasy settings also include regions where these creatures have not become extinct for whatever reason. And so PCs can find themselves going up against Tyrannosaurs, Velociraptors, and the rest. These represent an earlier branch of evolution, and are no bad thing in a setting.

But...

If you put those latter two together, you get a fourth segment of that square: what about those creatures that were part of that "earlier branch of evolution", but which were also those to evolve magical capabilities as well as mundane ones?

So that's the next thing on my to-do list: create the thaumosaurs - the magical beast equivalents for the mundane dinosaurs. Which, of course, will then probably never be used.

Campaign Theme: The Oblivion Gate

In the city of Equinox, the city founders have developed a way to deal with the excess of violent criminals in their midst and also their need for spies and agents for their ongoing agenda: using an ancient artifact called the Oblivion Gate, they have learned to erase the memories of those convicted of the most heinous of crimes. Those who agree to have their memories wiped in this manner agree to serve as agents of the state for a period of ten years, after which they will have their memories reinstated and be freed to resume their lives without further sanction.

Of course, that's what the powers-that-be tell those who awaken after having their memories erased. That doesn't necessarily mean it's true - after all, they've just had their memories erased, so who is to say they were truly guilty, or indeed the nature of their crimes.

For flavour reasons, PCs would not quite begin as a blank slate. Rather better is to have them each retain a single memory. (The in-world justification of this is that in order for the psyche to remain intact as the memory is wiped, they must fixate on a single thought. That singular memory, then, would be all that remains.)

So, then, when creating characters the players would not create a backstory for their PC. Instead, they should create a personality as normal but then decide on the one singular memory that remains. Additionally, the player should decide how the character feels about this lack of other memories: are they happy to wait out the ten years, do they want to find out what they did (or 'did'), or whatever?

For added fun, I'm also inclined to think that the players around the table should also each create a backstory, but not for their character. Instead, the DM should collect all the backstories, add one of his own, then shuffle the pack and have each player select one (but without looking). That then becomes the backstory for their PC, which they may or may not discover later.

The campaign would begin, of course, with the PCs being shipped out from Equinox to a rival city state, there to meet with their handler and begin their assignments. Where it goes from there... well, that's up to the players really.