So, through a series of events, I ended up in a small M:tG discord group in which I was probably the only person who was not already an IRL friend, but they're a pretty chill group of friends and we're getting along well. The subject of D&D came up and I mentioned how this site has been a great RP outlet since I haven't been able to play a real-time game in quite a while. My old playgroup drifted apart with work/family/etc. Turns out only one of the people in that discord group had actually played D&D before and his experience wasn't much to speak of. One thing led to another in the conversation and I ended up volunteering to run a game for them. We worked out a bi-weekly game schedule and would do everything through a combination of Discord chat for audio and D&D Beyond for character sheets and rolling.

The first session was the "session zero" where I went through a general description of the setting and tone as well as how the story would be starting so they could get an idea of the sort of character they would like to play. I had a conversation with each of them about the characters' overall personalities and what sort of capabilities they would like to bring to the group. Going through discord made it pretty easy to share screens and walk them through the DDB interface. By the time we were done, they each had a pretty clear vision of their character and were excited to get started in the next session.

In the second session, I spent a bit of "spotlight time" with each of them doing a bit of role-playing of how they spend an average day before presenting them with each of their plot-hooks to involve them in the main story. It gave me an opportunity to give each of them moments to see how the general flow of incorporating role-play and dice rolling would work out. Some of their rolls were successful, but they also got to see how unsuccessful rolls can still lead to interesting story moments. This also gave the rest of the players to get a clearer picture of the other characters and how they might interact with one another once they were gathered. With the story underway, I gave them a brief exploration moment and we had a combat encounter. Nothing too crazy. It served more as a tutorial for them to see what all the numbers on their sheets meant. I also surprised them by having a battle map ready. As I mentioned, this was a M:tG playgroup, so I already had a camera setup that would show my desk and just showed that through the discord. I had terrain and miniatures for visuals and moved the pieces to match their actions. XP was awarded and we ended the session. We had a bit of a debrief about what fit their expectations and what was unexpected. They enjoyed themselves and left excited for the next session.

We just had the third session last night. Going into this one, I had a plan of the various story elements that were going to be introduced as well as the branching paths the session would likely go. My plans, I now realize, were heavily influenced by my previous experiences with more seasoned players. Remember that 4 out of the 5 players had never played before. They actually went in a direction I did not anticipate and the story has taken a slightly different turn. They had some information now that I had planned on revealing at a later time (but they definitely earned it now) but also ended up having a key NPC die and they're pretty certain that death was not in my original plan (which it definitely wasn't, but here we are). We ended the session after a pretty chaotic action sequence. In spite of the mishaps (or perhaps because of them) everyone had fun and they're all looking forward to the next session.

I say all that to say this: I know some GM's who do not like having new players in their game. Perhaps they feel like the new players won't know the "established etiquette" and will ruin the experience by treating the story like a video game with no consequence (fortunately, none of my players are acting that way). Maybe they're concerned about the new players buying into the narrative when there aren't the same visual/audio elements that get them immersed into a movie or video game. Whatever the reason, I wanted to encourage GM's to welcome new players. Yes, it takes a bit of patience to work with the learning curve, but the reward of the experience is certainly worth the risk of frustration.

You are blessed.
Good to hear you are rolling with their divergence and not trying to force a direction.
Sounds like the seeds are sown for long term play.

Sadly for me DnD has came with a bad history. Whereas I'm an experience rper some systems I'm still a noob. In that instance I created a character based on what the DM said they needed. Only for theDM to throw me in a "squash" arena type fight. It felt like I had done something wrong even though I hadn't. Haven't played since.

I'm the type who learns by playing and have a few would love to play.Dnd, VTM and ASOIF being the top , but as you said most GMs aren't open to new players. Even if said noob is older than dirt.

On the face of it, that sounds like poor GM'ing but some games despite their popularity can be pretty horrible to players without a degree of mastery (I have a view that if D&D and it's clones were not designed as early as they were, they'd never survive a modern audience).  I'd also say that any GM who isn't welcoming of new players is possibly one I would avoid anyway, whether it's an experienced roleplayer or new to the hobby.  Hope you get the chance to learn and play the games you want!

I am a firm believer that any hobby will simply die out without new people feeling welcome. I play card games at my LGS and have had conversations with someone who takes way too much joy in absolutely demolishing and demoralizing people who are clearly new to the game. I'm not saying he had to let them win, but the way he handled it definitely wouldn't motivate them to keep coming back. I've played online games with toxic communities and never picked up that game again. I've gone to sports bars and been made to feel like I shouldn't be there because I didn't know the entire roster of the team, their stats, their hopes and dreams, or the name of their 3rd grade teacher's pet cat even though I enjoyed watching the game. I used to work part time for a karaoke company and would go out of my way to make new people feel welcome even if some of the regulars were acting elitist about their spot (especially if the regulars did that) because, if new people don't come in, the thing we enjoy doing goes away eventually.

I find it funny that a group of people (nerds / geeks / whatever label you want to use) who have a reputation of not being welcome in so many things are some of the worst offenders I've ever met when it comes to new people showing an interest in something they enjoy. Not all of them, but definitely more than there should be.
This message was last edited by the user at 21:15, Wed 13 Sept 2023.

In reply to T.S. (msg # 5):

Many people want to feel in a position of control, even if it is "gatekeeping".

New players should be a treasured resource.

I haven't tried DM'ing a game on RPoL yet, but it might be fun to run a 1e AD&D campaign for new players only. It would be easier for me to be patient with them, because I would need them to be patient with me. I also would run 1e the old school way (which, contrary to popular opinion, is NOT rules-intensive), and I think that would make it a bit easier on new players.

Could be a total disaster, but if it would expose new players to the game for the first time it would definitely be a worthwhile endeavor, and sometimes chaos can be fun, if you embrace it with the right perspective.

I will give that some serious thought.

In reply to T.S. (msg # 5):

Unfortunately, the excuse of "they did it first!" is all too commonly used to rationalize really atrocious behavior in a LOT of situations.  People feel that just because it was done to them, they are somehow justified in doing it to someone else.  Gatekeeping hobbies and Fandoms are just a couple of ways that shows up...

In reply to T.S. (msg # 5):

I shouldn't be posting to public forums, but I'll quickly chime in.

The comment about card games at LGS. I haven't read past that (yet). I would often let players play with my "dragon" deck in Warlord TCG or CCG, whichever acronym your prefer. I'd always play a viable deck, never anything "easy" but the dragon deck was built to show three things; levels, ranks, and build. It is much more difficult to beat a "build" deck without blitz. So my deck was some blitz. As in it had some blitz cards in it, but it was mainly a focused foil of the dragon deck, dealing extra wounds, equipping dragons as armor. Stuff like that. Those were my go to decks. The Dragon deck was, I'll admit, a harder deck to learn on, but it really taught you the basics to the extreme. I guess it would be like MTG and having ramp with 12 CMC creatures, to show mana values, but also let the player speed through it. I never, not once, beat my dragon deck with my Uthanak deck, which was paired to face it with newbies. Players new to the game sometimes felt overwhelmed, and so in that way it wasn't best, but those that naturally worked their way through asking questions and figuring out their own strategy were able to sit down with bounty hunter (an official judge) and be able to play their first tournament.

Another player I knew, great guy up until he got "too cool for us" and just went through a total 180; he had three decks he would use to teach new players. Each was a bane to the other side, so he'd let them pick and then pick the one that was weaker, but still had a good chance. Deck building can be complicated, and I applauded him for figuring out a 70%/30% win rate. Sometimes new players would lose, that was part of what was better about his set up, because a little less than a third of the time this guy's deck would win. That's part of learning too, so he'd urge them to retry.

As for welcoming new players, I haven't the skill to explain rules like I used to, but I welcome new players if they know, coming in, I have aphasia, or to simply put bad communication. It's my failing, not their putting me off. That said, some games, like was said of D&D, do cater to a certain level of brutality. I agree 100% were they not editions, but originals they'd not make it with contemporary audiences getting into new systems. Unlike many editions of games, D&D is more namesake than anything. SR, L5R, HERO, etc... many of these are updates on systems, more than totally new systems that rely on the same lore.

This group is a bit unhinged in the most delightful way. They searched the dead body of the NPC they had killed. One of the things they found was an upper arm tattoo their knowledge checks informed them belonged to some sort of secret society. The Ranger attempted to carve out the chunk of skin to preserve the tattoo for later inspection (instead of simply drawing it for some reason) but ended up deciding to just sever the arm at the shoulder and take it with him.

Fast-forward to where they are confronted by someone wearing a cloak similar to one found in the dead NPC's belongings asking why they were late and what they brought as tribute. The Bard, realizing they were being mistaken for someone who had not yet arrived and not knowing what sort of "tribute" was being expected here, decided to offer the weapons they took from the dead NPC lying profusely about their quality. The cloaked figure, skeptical, questioned these claims. The players suddenly remembered they had a severed arm and decided to try and make it look like these weapons would cut off a limb cleanly in a single stroke. They (through some clever role-play and very lucky rolls) made it appear as though they cut off the Ranger's arm right then as a demonstration. The cloaked figure indicated he was more impressed that they brought tribute in the form of a new acolyte so devoted as he was willing to go through personal mutilation without question just to prove a point. He opened a portal and granted them entrance.

I did not expect them, as new players, to attempt what they did. The Bard player admitted that he had forgotten about the arm when he first made the claims about the weapons and wasn't expecting to have to perform a demonstration of his claims.

We ended the session on a bit of a cliffhanger shortly after their initial passing through the portal and just enough exploration of what was on the other side to have them speculating what they got themselves into. I'm happy to find that they do well with the bits of breadcrumb information here and there without having to fully spoonfeed them what's going on. There wasn't any combat in the last session, but they didn't see that as a bad thing. They're just having fun exploring the story in whatever form that takes in each coming moment.

I'll say it again. I love new players.

Count me as another person who absolutely delights in introducing new players to games I'm familiar with, TTRPG or otherwise.  Especially when they're unfamiliar with previous editions and all the baggage and/or tropes that came with them.  They can have the most creative solutions that make perfect sense to them that just... blow the mind of experienced players who might overthink things or have gotten stuck with a certain line of thinking.

And the character concepts!  I have seen more new players make what is normally considered the equivalent of D&D's "generic human fighter" and give the character such life and flavor you'd never know.

I certainly agree that having newer players can be a real boon, especially if you've been involved to some extent for a greater or lesser time and have become a bit burned out and cynical - there's something nice about seeing a mechanic or a faction you've taken for granted through someone else's eyes and either see something new, or just rediscover that moment of 'holy hell, that's cool'.

On the topic of 'getting people into the hobby', I do think it's important to be as accomodating as open minded as possible, both in terms of being faithful to rules, championing your particular set up as 'right' or indeed setting a specific tone or mood for your sessions - it's a very broad church, especially when you look at the overlaps from freeform into creative and collaborative writing or indeed re-enactment at one end and wargaming/board-gaming at the other, and it's important to let people find their niche and comfort zone.

At the same time, I also don't think there's a 'right' way to bring someone into the hobby, especially in terms of systems, and I do occasionally worry that for all the good that the current profile that 5E and similar products are enjoying is for the hobby, it's perhaps creating a very set pathway for people to come into and indeed what to expect, and unless someone has a particular game that they want to aim towards, I don't think there's anything wrong with a GM reaching back to an older edition or something more obscure and niche if it'll bring the best out of the group [and I'm absolutely not saying this just because I refuse to abandon my hacked 1E NWOD as the high point of RP design ;)]

I'm saying this as someone who learned the basics on HERO and then very much moved over to WoD, but have probably ended up playing for my longest stint on Ironsworn while gazing longingly at Blades in the Dark, and while I'm not saying that some systems aren't better than others for getting players in, those first games are about building the toolkit and getting the bite, and a GM can make most things work to a new person as long as they're enthusiastic and, above all, patient.

But yeah, new players are great (for the most part, there's always going to be a couple who are more like hard work) and it is important for people in both the wider geek and RP communities, and specific ones such as RPOL, to keep things as open and welcoming as possible, if nothing else for our own sakes and for that of the site Patreon.

Well, they did it again. After the cliffhanger from the last session, this time they learned what cargo they had been previously escorting. There was a dragon's egg and, due to the events of the previous sessions, the egg had been damaged and the dragon inside appeared dead. Many "experienced" players would look at the mechanics of the game and see that there was nothing they could do about that and immediately turn their attention to how they can make sure they don't get blamed for this. Some of them did just that. The Ranger and Cleric were much more focused on finding a way to save this dragon. After exhausting any possibilities that exist on paper (mesicine skill checks, healing spells, etc) the Ranger started asking the Cleric if there was a way he could transfer some of his own life energy into this dead baby dragon. It's worth noting that, as new players, I only gave them access to the core books. The player was unaware of any mechanical options outside of the PHB. I asked him to tell me, on a scale of 1-10, how serious he was about that request. He gave me an answer of 10. I told him he could do this but would take a loss to his CON score which would affect his HP, saves, and have other potential ramifications. Again, more experienced players thinking in terms of pure numbers might decline. He, with no hesitation, agreed. He took a 2 point loss to his CON score (taking it from a 10 to an 8) but the baby dragon started showing signs of life.

After the session, I had a private conversation with the Ranger player and opened up an option to him because of his roleplay choices that would not have been available to him otherwise (they were only given access to the PHB). He's lvl 1 right now (they actually just hit lvl 2),  and will be taking the Drakewarden archetype at lvl three. He's super excited about this, and I believe it is so much better that this happened organically in the narrative rather than just pointing to it in the book at character creation.

Oh, yeah... I also let him know that the CON loss would eventually come back over time. He was fully prepared to accept it as a permanent loss.

I love new players.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the user at 11:43, Tue 10 Oct 2023.

It's always a pleasure to have a new player in a game.   Where the "you meet in an inn" doesn't feel cliche and the human fighter with a greatsword isn't done .... again!

Of course, it's also a reminder that for every good game out there that you're going to run into a bad one.