I DM'd for my mum, dad and sister around Christmas time. I drummed up a short christmas one shot about possessed toys sneaking into stockings which turned into a dungeon crawl through the toy makers factory. My dad rolled a lot of natural ones, my mum went full evil which I did not expect and my sister mostly laughed at my silly voices. When I was last there my mother even suggested playing again. I think it went well.
It's fascinating to see different sides of people come out when playing with them - some of the nicest people I know have gone full "murderhobo" when given the slightest opportunity - yay roleplaying!
I played 'dragons of stormwreck island' with my kids and my wife. I was especiaily worried that my wife would hate it, but they all got really into the game really fast.
I started DMing a game for my old friends from high school who, while they are nerds, aren't (yet) the TTRPG type of nerds. One of the things I did when their characters were only just meeting up was do several contested deception/insight checks between players as narratively appropriate, and it's amazing how their faces lit up and got into things with such an early excuse to roll dice and incorporate the results into their interactions, as opposed to having to wait for the first combat! Also provided some early structure for the role play when I otherwise left it pretty open as to how they were to interact to form a party 😊
That sounds fun! I'm generally cautious about PvP rolls, especially with new players as I'm always wanting to focus on the teamwork side - great that it worked for you though! Also excuses to roll dice straight away are always a good idea: the lore can come later.
My dad was absolutely impossible. He didn't understand the difference between player and DM, he wanted to "best me" and _win_ at TTRPG, by telling a superior little story of his own 😂
- Starting small is also really good. Suggesting to play a lengthy campaign to first timers might be a little intimidating. They will accept a one shot with much more tranquility. - I also like to have pre-made/ready-to-go character sheets in case they find it too complex to create one on their own. The first time someone pitched DnD to me, they started by showing me the book! Smh, of course I didn't understand a thing and my first reaction was not wanting to play, but eventually I was introduced to Critical Role and other shows and that was a much better way to get into the TTRPG world. To sum up, try not to intimidate them with the complexity of the game. Keep it simple.
pro tip to help new people is to etheir have a copy of their charecter sheet or colorcodeing the chareecter sheet so if they are looking for something you could say the "area colored green" or something similar
Great advice! I used the .PDF's from DnDBeyond, which are ok, but not the most intuitive. I found myself saying things like "middle column half way up" ...the fact it spreads everything over four pages is a pain as well, I'd love to see a condensed version with maybe one page for everything you might need in a rush.
My wife dms for the in-laws and me. It took us about a year to find out rhythm as a table. Early highlights included miscalibrations about the boundaries of improv: while we're talking in the village store owned by the joint lost cousin of one of our party, the wizard wanders outside. A bit later he comes back in and announces: "I've just been and paced the building. It's 8 feet bigger on the outside than on the inside" causing the DM to yes-and onto existence a hidden treasure room, which we then, a mostly lawful party, then rob for the randomly rolled magic goodies.
I didn't take it too seriously, started my game as a comedy game, got my players comfortable (had them travel through the "Forest of Pure Evil" while playing Mr Blue Sky on a bluetooth speaker). Highly silly, good time, until they turned a corner and I dropped the party into a silent hill level horror setting in full earnestness. Probably the most successful story transition I've ever done, my players told me they were actually scared. That sprawled into the best campaign I ever ran.
That's amazing! It's great when you have players that are willing to go along with you for the ride! The dissonence of playing Mr Blue Sky through a Forest of Pure Evil is excellent work!
You're welcome! Ratigan makes everything better... unless you're a Mouse Detective I suppose? It was such a fun twist in the session that I hadn't expected: in that situation the challenge is to go: "wow! yes! I love it!" and not: "you're not playing with my toys right!"
Speaking of Communism in gaming,. My International Relations instructor at West Point actually had us plot and roleplay a Marxist revolution to overthrow the Academy as our class project. It was really fun. Granted, we didn't have to live through the violence, starvation, etc. that has traditionally followed real world revolutions, but it did teach me that, man, there were a lot of legitimate grievances to exploit...
Unfortunately for me I had at least one arrogant prick at the table when I dm'd who thought the silly voices were a bit much. They didn't "get" it. Everyone else followed their lead, not wanting to annoy this person by not agreeing with them and that made me become the weird guy nobody wanted to be around. I was in my 20's at the time. We were all adults. My suggestion would be to first ask the table if silly voices would be ok. Maybe things would have ended up differently for me but who knows.
That must have been really frustrating - it's interesting how one player can dominate the vibe at a table sometimes. I've had the exact opposite happen before: where I've been pitching a bit of a grimdark vibe, and a player has gone for a joke character even though I explained beforehand what I was going to run. Were you able to salvage the session? And did you manage to play again with the others?
@@RenegadeRolls No to both. Wasn't even able to salvage the friendships. Becoming a serious adult really does mean putting all that sort of stuff behind them and apparently I made them realise that. Sorry for wrecking the good vibes you've got on the channel. Hopefully this doesn't get anyone else down who reads it.
@@KarmaSpaz12In my early 20s, I had learned that the friends I had at the time were not good people for me and where I wanted to go in life. I can tell you from experience, that's not a bad thing in the long run. I left them all behind and my life is way better for it and I have amazing friends now.
@@KarmaSpaz12 "Becoming a serious adult means putting silly things away forever" is exactly the sort of thing a dumb kid would say. That person's loss dude, hope you find a better group.
super cool video! i have only played with people who knows about the game before but your video really encourage me to introduce the game to some people in my life
As one of Rich's normie* guinea pigs**, I can say this approach worked for me and I'll be back for more. * as normie as can be expected doing what I do and not RPGing for 2^4.x trips around the sun. ** I'm not the one that befriended the rat.
I DM'd for my friends twice during the holidays and they were too good at avoiding encounters. After they avoided 3 plot hooks, 4 random events, and ignoring my warnings at least twice I ended the session adter an hour and reluctantly told them they "won". Their characters avoided all danger and lived the rest of their life at home base eating goodberries and avoiding the outside world.
Glad this went well for you. About a year ago, I introduced a number of people who are new to the game to it. All of them had been exposed to some degree of nerd culture, but one of them was definitely not a nerd by any conventional definition, and he had a blast
I have been DM'ing for my group of girl friends for more than a year now. I had two girls in the group who had played before and the other three were brand new to the concept of the game. Originally, they agreed to play as long as I removed some fantasy aspects from the game (like gods and some races they weren't comfortable with). I had about a month of prep time and came up with a "mod" inspired by games like kids on bikes using memes and TV show tropes to reskin the classes (eg. Barbarian is a "Karen", Rogue is an ankle-biting "Lil Sh*t" etc.). I set them up into a suburban town where nobody remembers the name of the town and anytime someone leaves, they're forgotten by everyone within it. They've been enjoying playing so much that I've found out that they have a secret group chat to talk about their theories for what's happening in the town. I couldn't be more proud than in the moments when they're talking to each other in character and trying to flirt with all of the single dads and their favorite "cringe fail male wife", Jeremy.
I pitch TTRPGs differently to different people. To the gamer nerds I say it is like a coop RPG with little to no limits and to theater nerds I say it's like improv with dice and strategy.
That's really smart - the gamer friends had a much easier time with the mechanics (as so many systems in games were taken from TTRPG's in the first place) - their biggest challenge was understanding that you really can do anything: Skyrim doesn't have an option to seduce the dragons... although I bet someone has made that mod!
Thank you! That's lovely to hear - I'm planning a bit of a series of DM/GM tips, as well as some guides on being a good player, and some of my favourite non-DnD TTRPG's.
I am in a college DnD group where just the DM and one other player had actually played extensively before. I had only played in one other campaign, where everyone is my family was new, including the DM.
Just started an episodic/west marches campaign worh coworkers about 5 weeks ago. Most of them are locked in wanting to play, Having a great time Now its just a matter of logistics😅 One thing i would add is to try to build their characters in advance if you can. Get some ideas of what they want, guide them to a relatively simple build and have it ready ahead of time if you can. They can always change it later once they have a good handle
"It's just a matter of logistics" is always the killer! +1 on the building characters with folk in advance: one less thing to worry about on the night, so you're able to get straight to playing.
I'm sure the rest will be great, but as soon as you gave props to Communist monopoly, I knew I had to subscribe. The creator of that is a twisted genius!
Why thank you! It's a small niche I'm carving out here, of VERY left wing TTRPG content, but I like the people it seems to attract. I'm planning a video on the Eat The Rich modules in the near future too!
I run sessions for new players all the time. My DOs: I start without character sheets, keep the preassure up and the mission clear, make the dice judge all actions, and improvise the hell out of the outcome. My DONTs: No character sheets, just a class archetype for reference. Use flashbacks, like in Blades in the Dark, a lot. No railroading, let them explore. Dont go over 90 minutes. Have fun!
@@hawkname1234 the DM keeps track of what each character is good at, or bad at, according to their rolls during their first adventure. A very simple sheet with those abilities is a present for the second adventure, if the player liked the character and want to keep developing it. Character creation is done during play, as they play, not before. I have a sample sheet and pointers in my comunity tab if you are interested (no idea how to link it here). But that's the jist of it.
Not any more - my non-nerd friends have been well and truly converted! We're doing monthly games in a boardgame cafe that brings you burritos while you play: it's peak civilisation!!
Hi - this reply really surprised me and got me thinking, so thank you. My aim for that segment at the start was to be a bit silly: overly dramatic and slightly manic and nonsensical. The rest of the video is much more measured, and at the end I share that I'm now running a regular group for folks who are very much outside of the usual stereotype of TTRPG enthusiasts. Among lots of my friends, family and people at work, TTRPG folks are a tiny minority and we tend to embrace the "freaks and geeks" thing of claiming back those words usually used as insults for us, and embracing the role of outcasts. In that world, the word "normal" becomes an insult, which I think is the direction I was going for with the intro. Hope that made sense, and that you still enjoyed the video. Cheers, Rich.