Saturday Q&A (apr 13)

Bob writes,

The HS where I teach has a gaming group that meets after school one day a week. The some middle schoolers (7th and 8th graders) have inquired about someone running D&D for them! Eventually word got 'round to moi and I'm contemplating it. The question is - how would YOU start. Assume players knew nothing of the game except what they've stumbled across in mass media. I'll have 1-2 hours per session.

Answer: After introducing them to a collection of the odd shaped dice, letting them play with them for a bit, as they are quite strange, I'd briefly explain that each person was going to invent an avatar or persona, preferring to use the modern term for a representation of themselves. This avatar, I tell them, is a "character." The character is rolled, I explained, with some things chosen. Then, without explaining why, I'd go through the process of having them roll each of their characters, in tandem. Going around the table, everyone would roll their stats, according to the system I outline in my wiki. I would not invoke the wiki; I've memorised everything there, and I look more like an authority if I appear to be comfortable in the knowledge I have.

So, as each person rolls their stats, I don't give them a choice about class. That can be offered later, once they know what the classes are; these characters are temporary training wheels. Thus, based on the stats, and what I can learn about the people from their communication and general appearance, Holmesian fashion, you're a thief, you're a fighter, you're a cleric, you're a mage and so on. I tell them not to worry about what these names mean, but to write the words at the top of the character sheet. We use blank sheets for the characters, NOT some pregenerated sheets that only serve to overwhelm the newbies, which we don't want to do.

We let everyone choose their gender and their race. We go through a quick run down of the races; depending on the crew, we may just limit the races to three options, dwarf, elf and human. If they seem sharper at this point, we can allow halfling and gnome, but probably not half-orc or half-elf. Being a young crowd, and having a preconceived notion of "half-breed" instilled in them by a "well-meaning" educational system, I wouldn't suggest going there until they show an affinity for the game's structure.

We get them to pick a name. We explain hit points. Then we assign 15 basic pieces of equipment for them. We don't pregenerate these lists and hand them out - this looks conformist and fails to teach an important lesson: that D&D is very much about acquiring and storing knowledge. They must learn to make notes. It's absolutely best if we can just rattle off things a fighter, thief, mage or cleric ought to have, apparently off the top of our head. Money doesn't matter, so we give the fighter half-decent armour, not great armour, and leather to the others who can wear it. I can easily rattle off as much equipment off the top of my head, and being able to do this, waiting while the individuals write these things out physically, makes me look like in control and deserving of the authority I have to establish.

Good. Now we put them in a very basic location. I would probably put them at the front door of a cave. Do you go in? I would ask. If they did, I'd have the party fight an exactly equal number of goblins, with a minimal set up: "The smaller human-like creatures rush out of the dark with swords that look like long knives; they're ugly with long ears and knobs all over their faces, and they're green. They are clearly trying to kill you."

If they didn't go in, the goblins would come out and attack them. The goblins would attack 1:1. Then I would patiently explain initiative, which I use only once a combat, to tell who goes first. I'd explain that one person has to roll the initiative for all, which is how I do it. That person, I say, is picked by me. Then I'd make them wait a few seconds, to show they cared to know who I was going to pick, and then I'd pick someone basically at random. We'd both roll a d6 and then we'd play out the combat.

I'd run everything from memory, so no books. At each point, I'd explain hitting and missing, and damage, and so on. I would use my stun system, unless I'd been expressly asked not to do so. I'm not interested in teaching anyone a lesser game. But another person should just introduce the game they think these kids would want to play, according to how that other person wishes.

My reasons for poisoning the minds of new players comes from many experiences in my childhood where I was introduced to games and many other things "in the wrong way" ... only to realise after the fact, when discovering the "right way," that they were trying to teach me more than just rote. D&D is one of those things that I was "taught wrong" from the first time I played the game.

After the combat (which the players are almost certain to win, with the extra hit points I give them and the use of negative hit points), I'd instigate a table discussion about it. I'd get people to ask if there was more to the game. Then I'd award treasure and explain experience. Then I'd ask if they want another combat, and tell them that if they do, they need to go further into the dungeon. If they didn't want another combat, I'd ask if they wanted to buy something with their new loot. That would probably be a "yes" if the combat answer was no. They'd all be gamers. They'd know that after taking treasure, you spend it to get stronger.

So, that takes us to town, which has to be explained. And they have to be shown equipment tables, which they can peruse and buy from. Coin has to be explained, and now we can introduce them to encumberance and food ... and that is probably enough to manage a three-hour session. They've learned a lot and all of it has been done without books.

Chris writes,

The caving post was great! And the one before that, about Conan. Show, don't tell and all. But a movie is a one thing — night after night, delivering a complex, comprehensive experience somehow coherent, with its own up-and-down moods in distilled improv, without the sudden increase in artificial power level to amp things up, takes cunning, experience (when to hold back, when to stir up a speech), and no shortage of reread labor.

The actor is without their script; there is only the darkness vast, some glimmer of audiential eyes by the stage lights; this threadbare costume on a madeup budget itches; the cardboard tube of a sword could unravel at any moment—

But they lift their eyes and raise their arms, and cast the bardic spell into the still silence; they carouse among the words imprinted by heart; they bring forward some synthesis of a lived life and anguish and silent readings, they briefly sojourn in the unreality of belief, and we are caught up in that instant, swept unto a verbal tide.

It all comes down to practice, I guess. Needing to get better. Wanting to. You've touched on that often, in tough ways.

There is a scene in "I, Robot" TV where the evil guy looks in the mirror and smiles, greeting someone. He slaps his face. Not good enough. And he tries again. Again.

Or even that movie with the drummer, looking for tutelage under the unforgiving professor. Blood, sweat, and tears replaced with the rote rhythm of empty robotics. Yet human, elevating somehow from skin and bones to a brain performant.

But yeah. Reading the caving post made me feel you could write forever, the ink just the trailing breath of a living pen, a conscious engine driving--driven--from the digest of book-mulch and winter, ideas fetched in quantum time and emerging from the mix of a life, a life, a life.

The writer, having lived in the skin of other lives, for each moment prized by observation, to feed it forward as artists do.

Answer:  Thank you.

_____

Thank you for your contributions.  If readers would like to reply to the above, or wish to ask a question or submit observations like those above, please submit  to my email, alexiss1@telus.net.  If you could, please give the region where you're located (state, province, department, county, whatever) as it humanises your comment.

Feel free to address material on the authentic wiki, my books or any subject related to dungeons & dragons.  I encourage you to initiate subject material of your own, and to address your comment to others writing in this space.    

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/user?u=3015466.