Bringing You In

As I said with this post, at the beginning of my D&D playing I was told to "watch and learn" ... which I did.  My first action, taken in haste and without understanding the consequence, got me turned into stone; whereupon I had little choice but to watch and learn.

The lesson here is that it didn't matter than my first experience was "easy" or not.  What mattered was that the party didn't overly mock me for being so stupid or in any way make me feel unworthy as a player.  Instead, as soon as they could, they got me turned back to flesh.  This is what matters.  As a player in this game, bad things happen.  It isn't the bad things themselves that turn players off, it's the way that other players, and DMs, respond in those moments.

Whatever I felt about those guys later — I played with them for 18 months before deciding their goals were fatuous and limited — they brought me in, adopted me as a player, let be become one of their number and didn't hold it against me when I stopped playing.  By the time I quit, I had three other regular games to play in and my own to run, all of which gave me a lot of experience in a short time.

Once a new player in my campaign gets to where the character is sorted, we can play.  The situation is briefly explained and the new player is encouraged to ask questions.  Usually, off balance, they have none to ask and we get into it.

Let's say we're in a dungeon and you, Dear Reader, have just joined the campaign.  Now how does that work?  The party is fifty feet underground and they've slogged through a hundred vermin to get here, and now you saunter as if you were looking for the washroom and you've ended up here.  I know that other parties make a big deal of such meetings, trying to justify this strange happenstance, but I prefer to wrap it up with something simple.  I've introduced hundreds of characters to games and I'm rather bored with the fifteen-minute "getting to know you" scene.  Rather, I'll say something like, "This is Horace, the fellow you met at the tavern in Ipswich three days ago; remember suggesting that he ought to come along?  Well, he's been about fifty yards behind you this whole time, getting over his nerve at the sound of battle and so on ... but here he is, ready to fight.  Aren't you Horace?"

You say yes and there we are.  The players ask about your equipment and if you're short a helmet or a weapon, they'll give you one.  "Uh, I had this extra +1 hand axe I'm not using right now; can you use a hand axe?"  "You've got leather armour?  I've a suit of +1 studded on my horse; if we get a chance, I'll give it to you."  This sort of thing.

I'll ask the party, "What next?"

And they'll say, "We're going through the door."  They outline where they're going to stand and who will do the actual opening and I'll ask, "Where should Horace stand?"  This is me ensuring you're not forgotten; I know you, as a new player, haven't any idea what this "where are we going to stand" thing is all about, so I'm there for you.  The party will tell you to stand here, draw your bow, point it at the door.  If anything comes in, shoot."  I move your image to a place on the map you can see, on a monitor screen.  That's you.  You can see how you relate to everyone else.

That'll sound reasonable to you, there's no reason not to trust this party, they've been friendly so far ... so you say, "Sure."  The door opens and 20 bats fly through and into the room.  You blurt out, "I shoot at them!" and I say, "no problem.  But first, we have to see if you're surprised.  You didn't expect bats, did you?  Roll a d6."

You're rolling the d6 for the whole party, but you don't know that.  I can get anyone to roll that d6, and the rest of the party knows this, but I'm picking you because you're new and I want you to feel involved.  You roll a one and the party groans ... and maybe you clam up in confusion or maybe you ask, "What?  What happened?"

And I'll say, "You rolled bad and the party is surprised.  It means the bats get to attack first."

Whereupon if you're chatty you'll say, "Gee, I'm sorry."  Keeping in mind that most new players don't say that or anything, they just feel real bad they've screwed up — without even knowing why or how they've screwed up.

"Don't worry about it," I'll tell you.  "You were rolling to see if the party was surprised is all; it happens.  These guys are tough.  You'll be fine."  I start filling the monitor screen with bats and as they pop into existence, there looks like way too many bats ... and you start to feel uncomfortable as more and more appear.  You feel a bit of a blood rush and so do the others.  Now I'm slating how many bats are attacking and who gets how many attacks against them personally.  This is done in the open, no DM screen.  I run through this process with about 20 seconds per person or less; we'll say two bats attack you and I'll ask your armour class.  Not because I don't already know your armour class, we sorted that out just half an hour or less ago, but I want you to look up your armour class so you can see where it is and remember it.  You tell me the number and I roll, saying I hit you once for 1 point of damage (they're only bats).  "Remove it temporarily from your hit points," I say, "While keeping your maximum written on the page."  If necessary, the player on one side of you will show you what I mean ... or maybe you just saw her cross out her own present hit points because she was hit for 2 damage.

"Okay, party's round," I'll say.  I go around the table, one at a time.  No one rolls a die or makes a statement about what they're doing until it's their turn.  I point at Jimmy and he picks up a die and says, "I attack," without needing to say with what weapon; essentially, his main one, the one he nearly always uses.  He'll only specify a weapon if its something else.

Although he has the die in his hand, and he's shaking his hand, he won't let that die go until I say, "Okay, roll."  If he rolls before I say, the number doesn't count.  But I don't hesitate.  The second he says that he attacks I tell him to roll, because I want the combat to go fast, fast, fast.  Player, player, player, 20, 40 seconds a player.  While Jimmy's die bounces on the table I'll say, "Allie, you're on deck."

What does that mean?  It means, Allie, get your shit together, get ready to tell me what you're doing when I call your name or point at you.  Hearing me say that Allie is on deck shakes her out of her lethargy as she watches Jimmy's die bounce — she wants to know that result as much as anyone, but I need her focused on the next thing, too.  Jimmy calls out the number of his die, a "7."  I don't like Jimmy to withhold the die and say, "I missed," because in reality, I've learned that many times the player is wrong about that.  Jimmy doesn't know what the armour class of the bats is; I do.  I also know Jimmy's level and his THAC0, so I can say absolutely that a "7" hits, because these are big, slow-moving bats that have been woken up out of their sleep and in a cold room.  Jimmy is happy and rolls damage.  "Allie, you're up," I say.  "Horace, you're on deck."

Now, maybe you say "What does that mean," but probably you've heard of baseball and — having seen Allie's turn come up — you can figure it out.  Maybe you ask, "What do I do?"  Chances are I won't answer that; I'm listening to Allie tell me what she's doing ... but here I can count on a player to say something like, "Get ready to attack."  If you have dice you've bought, he or she might pick out the d20 for you.  Allie wants to use a gadfly cantrip to attack a bat, which works because the casting time is so short a bat doesn't have time to spoil the magic; not that you, a noob, understand this.  Nor is there time to explain it; you're reaching for your d20, you hear the word "cantrip," which is utterly meaningless to you.   I say "go ahead" to Allie, who hasn't technically thrown the cantrip, and she instantly says, "I do," which means she's now thrown the cantrip, and before I take a hit point from the bat I turn to you and say, "You have your bow out.  You need a different weapon to attack the bats."  Then I turn back to Allie and say, "Your cantrip killed the bat."  Poof, the bat disappears from the screen.  "Anything else you want to do with your move?"  She tells me, I move her little image on the monitor screen and now I'm turning to you and asking what weapon you're using to attack a bat.  You say, maybe a little confusedly, and I tell you to roll your d20, and since it's already in your hand, you know it's the one to roll.  So you do.  And I call out, "Taber, you're on deck," as your die bounces on the table.

See, now?  You're in this.  You feel the speed as I move around the table, you feel the experience I have in managing multiple details at one time, the sense of things moving around you, the image of the bats popping off the screen ... this gives you the feeling of being in a fight, of standing with others, of not having time to chat or ask questions.  No one else does, not now, because I'll shut them down if they choose this moment to talk about anything except the combat going on, in the order their names are called.  You don't feel "new."  Just like that, as puzzled as you are by all the terms and choices being made, you feel like a member of the party.  And as you learn the terms, hearing them used again and again, it all becomes comfortably familiar.

But suppose this is not how you're introduced to the campaign.  Suppose the party's still in Ipswich when you join the game.  "This is Horace," I say; "He's been listening to your conversation and you've gotten to know him."  Again, we skip over the introductions.  The party is talking about what they want to do next.

Allie says they ought to hurry back to Cirencester and fetch the book they need before heading north.  Taber worries that the wizard won't part with the book unless something is done about the situation with the wizard's daughter.  "We ought to fetch her back from St. Albans first," he says.

Jimmy says that before they do anything, cash is getting low.  "There's a dungeon right there in Thetford Forest," he says.  "We know where it is.  Why don't we hit it now?"

You ask, "What's a dungeon?" and I say, "It's an underground set of catacombs where monsters live."  And Jimmy instantly adds, "With lots of treasure."

You're really a noob so you ask, "Treasure?"  So I say, "Yes, loot.  Plunder.  Gold coins, jewellery, magical items ... fun stuff.  You need 2,251 experience to reach next level.  A dungeon is a way to get it."

"Oh," you say, not really understanding, but getting a sense that it's a place to go.  I quickly explain how the wizard's daughter has run away from him to marry her lover, but he's abandoned her and now she's sheltering in St. Albans and is afraid to go home.  The party was hired to find her in Ipswich, and they've just learned she was jilted here and that she's left for St. Albans to hide from her father with a cousin.

Allie says, "First, we go tell the wizard where his daughter is; he gives us the book, goes and fetches her and then we can hit the dungeon before going north."

Taber says, "We get the daughter first, take her back to the wizard, exchange her for the book and hit the dungeon before going north."

Jimmy says, "We hit the dungeon first, and then we can figure out what to do after that.  If we die in the dungeon we've saved ourselves some trouble."  He laughs.  The others laugh.

You ask, "Die?"

I say, "You lose all your hit points and your character is dead.  But that's not likely with this crew.  They'll have your back."

And Jimmy tells you, "Not to worry, I'm just kidding.  What do you think of my plan?"

Because they've been trained to think as a group, they want your opinion.  For one thing, you're the deciding vote.  It doesn't matter to them that you're new; in reality, one choice is as good as another, and once they've made up their minds, they'll move on.  This whole resentment thing you hear about with selfish people who stew that they didn't get their way?  They got turfed out the door months, years, decades ago.  Besides, you've never played before.  You have no idea that people actually get upset when they don't get their way.  It all sounds interesting to you.  So when you say, "I think we should get the girl," Taber cheers and the others go, "Okay, fine.  But we're definitely checking out the dungeon after."

Everyone says "agreed" and as the party heads for St. Albans, you feel like YOUR voice matters to these people.  That you've made the decision for them where to go.  That it's okay to speak up, even if you are a johnny-come-lately.  That taking part is something that's acknowledged as a good thing ... and at the same time, there's a feeling that no one's trying to freak you out about what might happen.

I really hate negativity in a campaign.  I dislike unneeded mind games, or people deliberately making up stuff to get a reaction from others.  And woe betide anyone who catcalls or shows the slightest glee at another player's misfortune.  You won't believe how fast I'll come down on someone who does that.  Everyone gets my attention and everyone is subject to misfortune if they try to get my attention for them personally when I'm giving it to someone else.  Everyone waits their turn.  When the party wants to hash something out, I shut up.  I wait until information is needed, but I don't wade in and tell anyone what to do.  I don't care if the party goes to St. Albans or Cirencester or Thetford Forest.  It's all the same world, all the same campaign to me.

No one is "special" ... because everyone is treated with grace, consideration and according to their needs at a given time.  Players who come in, new players especially, see and recognise this almost instantly, making the game easy to run.

Savvy players, on the other hand ... those who have learned a lot of bad habits from other campaigns ... they can be a fucking pain in the ass.

I'll talk about them next.