Couldn't really think of any specific reasons why anybody would like to play in the hypothetical "first game" we've been talking about other than some of the general info already in the blog entries. Either they'll like it or they wont. The fact is, I don't have too many anecdotes to tell either. I find that strange as I'm sitting here wracking my brain trying to come up with a decent story to tell...let alone coming up with people to tag...that I have plenty of hours in at live tables, across many nations BTW--love my VTT groups but even the ones that are closest to becoming real friends are gaming friends only and I have no 'real' knowledge of their personal lives, so what can I tell you? I'll summarize a recent play with a lot of rookie players that I was a part of.
The most recent live game I've been a part of took place among teachers after school at my current place of employment. This particular school has an activity called "Sharpen the Saw" wherein the teachers should take in an afternoon activity--about an hour--that some would call mandatory fun or a team building exercise. One of my colleagues decided to run a one-shot of D&D and it was approved, so naturally I signed up.
The first problems was what edition to run. I suggested he go with 5th because it is easier and most likely current players will be expecting that one, and it's better for rookies--my Pathfinder Beginners Box is stuck out in the Philippines, but that's another story.
Then, the next problem is that there is just no way one can run even the most bare bones one-shot in an hour. There is no session zero so we just have to jump right in. Should I attempt to do the thing next year, I'd try to be in touch with everyone by email in the weeks leading up to the event just to get everyone on the same page. As it stood he went with pre-gen characters to save a little time. I lessened that burden by bringing my own character, but in the end we still wound up being short a character leaving one of the experienced players scrambling to quickly generate one for himself. That led to the next problem of having rookies and experienced players at the table. If I remember correctly, we ended up with three rookies--the only girl was a female Chinese colleague with the English name 'Hamburger' who didn't speak much English--and three experienced players along with the DM. That would have been a bit unwieldy for me. Personally, six players is right at my max, but I prefer 3-5. Our DM carried on.
This mix of newbies and oldies brought us to the next hurdle. The experienced players tried to help the first timers, but it was a bit of a clown show. I can't speak for the other guys, but coming in directly after a day at work means my own brain was already mush. I'm not completely shy at the table, but I'm also not the most vocal either, so unless I'm the DM, I'm easily drowned out by more verbose players, and the later it gets--the more quiet I become. These factors made the game run more slowly than it should have and we were already pressed for time. It's such a fun hobby, but so difficult to explain to the true first timer.
We managed to get our feet in the door with a set-up. There was a little bit of role play there and I got to try a spell, but all the magic wasn't working for some reason. We then went literally down a rabbit hole for the adventure. The DM decided to run a world using creatures from the Final Fantasy video game series. It didn't really matter in the end, and personally, I never critique someone willing to run as it gives me a break, but I think if I were in charge of it, I would have stuck with more traditional monsters. There needs to be something for the newbies to hang their hats on. The FF series has a lot of weird stuff going on and that's cool, but for rookies? Since we were already running under time constraints, it takes less time not having to describe these off the wall monsters. To make it less of a burden I'd just throw some goblins out there and call it a day.
Text messages started coming in at around the 45 minute mark of our scheduled hour, and fifteen minutes later when we actually were an hour in, a few already needed to go. I think Hamburger hung in there for a little while, but eventually she left too. I'd have liked to sink my teeth into that Hamburger...but I digress. We ended up having two combat encounters--one kind of introduced the crazy creature we were fighting and the second had us fighting a pack of them; can't remember exactly but they were either snails or some living plants of some sort.
It was around the 90 minute mark right at the end of the second encounter when we decided to go ahead and wrap everything up. I remember that there were four of us that stuck around to the end--DM included. We had one real rookie standout--the P.E. coach. He was really using his imagination and pushing what his character could do. He tried to come up with something unique on each turn of combat. Of course, that's not sustainable and the DM was letting him get away with murder--er, that is--encouraging creative game play :) but he showed a lot of potential to continue with the hobby. We all agreed that we should meet again and run a live table right at the school.
That was either in April or May of this year, and in spite of all our promises to schedule a real gaming time, you can probably guess that we have yet to meet up again for another session. I have my VTT weekly game and the reason I have it is that I push myself to get up and do it...even when I don't feel like it. The DM in this story forces some gaming from his wife and kids at times, but hasn't fully pulled the trigger to game with me in spite of us living in the same building. Scheduling is just a pain in the butt and the bane of all would be TTRPG groups. When we go back next year--which is to say in September--we may give it another shot. I'm thinking to run 'Alice is Missing' for them, but they'll need to commit to 2hrs if they want me to do it.
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