Splainin’
We touched on this unfortunate tendency back in “General Disarray.” But what’s going on in today’s comic isn’t really quarterbacking. It’s that closely-related but distinct behavior known as “patronizing.” And if you think of yourself as a tabletop veteran, you know what a razor’s edge it can be. That’s because today’s comic is all about teaching games.
Those of us who have played for years or decades know what it’s like to take a fresh young gamer under the wing. We want to share a love for the hobby. To peel back the layers of arcane mechanics and reveal the fabulous kernel of fantasy adventure underneath. But teaching is an art, and it’s all too easy to go in with a heavy hand.
When I observe successful games gurus out in the wild, I’ve noted that they usually rely on a light touch. They explain everything once, and they explain it clearly. They hand out the cheat sheet. Then they let the eager young padawans come to them with questions. That’s because learning a new game is a process of discovery. It’s all about finding patterns and grokking mechanics on your own. And when you’re confused, you consult the rules (or the more experience gamer) for clarification.
That means that, as a teacher, the real key is allowing the newcomer to make the first move. Remember: you can’t beam new knowledge into a new player’s head, no matter how clearly you explain. You can lead ’em to mechanics, but you can’t make ’em think.
That leads us to our question of the day! What are your favorite tips, tricks, and techniques for teaching new games? Have you ever been the victim of a patronizing, over-explainer? Sound off with your tales of practical games pedagogy down in the comments!
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I admit, I have a problem with over-explaining things, though i am getting better over time. When it comes to the teaching I think I actually do do well though, I think that I am definitely good at helping with initial character creation. Usually I just ask what they see as wanting their character to be like, how they want them to function, and then give a few suggestions for classes and archetypes that work with that, and things go pretty well from there. Its more later where i get more into the over-explaining and backseat driving problems unfortunately.
You mean during the course of play? Like, you’ll explain what they ought to do in combat…?
Yeah, unfortunately. Its a really bad habit, though i only occasionally do stuff like that now.
I’ve gotten pretty good at asking “the right questions”, according to my partner. It really just goes back to the Fiction Writer thing though. I’ve done a lot of writing experiments on trying to figure out how much information to give the reader without overwhelming them with details, and that gave me a pretty good eye for what’s important to a story. So when my wife wanted to build a Changeling, I started a series of questions that helped her set up her human part. Then I launched into a series of questions about what she wanted to be, then I teased the story of her Keeper and daring escape out of her with a few other questions and she realized suddenly that she had actually come up with all of it herself, despite my prodding.
As far as mechanics go, I go with a similar approach that starts with “What do you want your character to be good at?”. After making sure the character is skilled at their “thing”, you tease out other details and point out interesting synergies a few times. I find that most people start picking up the concept of what you are doing and will then start looking at things from that perspective. My proudest moment is still the Half-Orc Paladin that my wife built that turned out to be the most durable thing we’ve ever seen in Pathfinder. The best part is that it was all her. She decided on half-orc for flavor, then noticed their “Orc Atavism” trait and after a brief moment to ask me what Orc Ferocity did, it was on. She then proceeded to show my entire table a group of Half-orc feats that they had never really paid attention to and saved their lives more than once.
Do you tend to separate the two? Is there ever a moment where you hear about a story beat and think to suggest a related character ability?
I focus on story when it comes to a new character, cause story informs build. That being said, if I hear a bit that sounds like a particular trait, I will point players to it. In the recent Mutants and Masterminds game we’re planning for, I actually built an entire spell for a guy who wanted something that worked just like the game he was basing his character on. So I don’t separate them, but I like to get the story first so that i know how to direct the build. That make sense?
It does. Like we talked about last week, this is an interest for me: figuring out the intersection of mechanics and narrative. I just brought it up here because it sounds like you start the process on narrative, then move over to mechanics to make that vision work.
Have you ever tried the opposite approach? Finding an interesting M&M power, for example, and then trying to craft a super around it?
Oh, many times. I build two entire characters off the Fey Heritage and Fiendish heritage feat chains in D&D 3.5 that have graduated on to bigger things and other systems now. I have an assassin character in Anima who exists purely to start the game able to use Mono-filiament wires as weapons, and I’ve built so many Mutants and Masterminds builds off of the concept of a power suite that it isn’t funny. The part that I work hard on it to make sure that the character has a good story too, in that case. Alera wasn’t “just a Fey Heritage Warlock”, she had a whole story of how she had been promised to a fey by her parents and taken and raised by them, resulting in her having this weird, alien fey mindset and the capricious nature that comes with the theme. She even had this thing where she was willing to sacrifice actual material gain for the best joke that turned out to be an amusing plot point later.
And so do you have a preference in terms of starting with narrative or mechanics? Which method seems to have made stronger characters? Or does it really make a difference?
Summoner better hope that there isn’t a way to break that control over Eidolon. Because she’ll stomp him flat in a micro-managed second.
Am I the only one who imagines Summoner will find his death when he has to jump from a great height, expecting Rouge to catch him only to land on her horns because she ‘accidentally’ took one step forwards too many…?
Naw. The fantasy BASE jumpers wouldn’t accept his puny hit die into their midst: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/falling-damage
Maybe she would ‘accidentally’ kick him off. “Oopsie!”
While I really enjoyed helping newer players i have had two similar roles that I have excelled at in the past- 1 is when everyone is learning a new system or game all at once, I tend to be one of the best at getting a fast read (not skim) of the new rules and distilling it into normal people speak and 2 similarly being a “translator” for some dms that need a thesaurus. so SO many times my ex would explain something, get a glassy eyed look, then just re-explain something using the same language to much player frustration to which i would paraphrase the same thing and get an “ooooh!” that comes with a comic emoji lightbulb
This hobby would be so much easier if I was psychic. Why can’t I just beam knowledge directly into other players’ heads?
I actually have to correct new player’s dice an alarming amount. The biggest offender is them rolling a d12 when they need a d20.
“Roll 2d6.”
“Um…”
“Roll two monopoly dice.”
I find spell-cards or a spellsheet helps a lot.
Last time I ran a caster I had great fun with this one:
http://www.thegm.org/perramsSpellbook.php
Nothing quite like having a literal book of spell cards.
If Rouge is the Eidolon of Summoner, why is his player explaining things to himself? o_O
Player of what now? There are no “players.” This is an internally consistent fantasy universe. >_>
Yes there are!!! They exist and i am gonna prove it, because that is my dream. Now i am gonna go on an adventure to find the legendary players and show you i was right.
Nice adventure hook, thanks Colin 🙂
You should check out the “Master Assassin” and his “Character Assassins” from Magellan webcomic. Its a supervillain who believes he is trapped in a story and is trying to find the main or “Alpha” character so he can kill them and thwart the Narrator.
http://magellanverse.com/comic/daily/
I will check it later, thanks 🙂
What purpose do d8s serve in-combat in this “internally consistent fantasy universe”?
That is just an abstract representation of Fortune, the goddess, and her influence on the world. It just like in Exalted, you don’t see Anathema running around screaming: “Check this guys i got a big stunt and i am awesome.”, they say: “Check this guys i got a big exaltation and i am awesome” 🙂
I’ve seen this before. Four guys practically fighting each other to teach me, the new member of the group, but most experienced player there (and they weren’t unaware of that. I’d told them I’d been a DM for nearly 10 years), while ignoring the confused newbie.
And they tried to teach me a lot of wrong stuff, too!
…Don’t worry, I helped out the new guy. He made a fun Spiritualist and played better than most of the more experienced folks who’d tried to teach me.
Was one of the people “teaching” you the GM? I ask because it can be tough when the most system-knowledgeable person is not the GM. You wind up splitting authority at the table in a sometimes-uncomfortable way when there’s “rule guy” and “everything else guy.”
If Summoner is always riding piggy-back on his Eidolon, always giving up his turns so she can fight in melee, contributing very little on his own… is he a Synthesist who just happens to not be inside the Eidolon’s skin? Like a Venom who just holds hands with his symbiote and tags along?
He’s not giving up his turn. He’s failing at an aid another check. 😛
Hmmmm. Honestly not sure. It’s been ages since I taught anyone a game because either I’m playing with people who already know the rules or I’m one of the people learning the new rules too.
In the one relevant case that’s happening right now/in the near future I’m having two people learn Blades in the Dark. But…. well Blades is a special case of a game. Where in most systems there’s a lot of text you don’t really need to read and new players might feel lost in all that and just try and have experienced players explain if for you…. Blades doesn’t work like that. You pretty much have to read almost the entire book to understand the meaning of the mechanics and the setting and playstyle and there’s just no way trying to explain it verbally is going to take less time and/or be more precise than just having the new person take the time to read the book on their own. If they’re still not clear on some things after, but there’s a good chance the logical thing at that point is just going to be to refer them back to the book and ask which sentence they weren’t clear on rather than what concept they don’t get.
Really the big hurdle is getting people to not approach the game like they would approach things in a game of D&D. And that’s just a matter of doing it until the concept gels for them.
You ever read The Alexandrian? The bit I quoted reminds me of this article:
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/43568/roleplaying-games/game-structures-addendum-system-matters
Hmm… Personally I’ve gone a little back and forth on this over the years.
When it comes to Pathfinder 1e character creation, I’m a really good ‘splainer. Both as a DM and as a fellow player, I’ve helped people new to the system (or such games in general) figure out what they want to do and how to do it. I have been fortunate to strike a good balance on the optimizer scale – I possess keen optimizer powers, but lack the “if it’s not 100% optimal, it’s garbage” mentality of internet munchkins. Thus, I can take suboptimal character concepts and optimize them enough to be relevant. When I’m helping someone and they say “I want to make something with an utterly absurd movement speed” I say “Okay, you can use these things and also here’s Spring Attack so that movement is useful for something.” When there’s a player who wants to be John Wick and knock people over before shooting them, I go “Here’s how to make a decent trip build and also have a gun.” It probably helps that my personal preference is ludicrous multiclass builds anyways (making “normal” builds bores me). But I always make sure when helping a new player build a character that I ask them what they want, give them several mechanics options for doing it (with the pros and cons of each option) and then let them choose which one they like best.
At the table itself, though, I can sometimes be a little controly. I think it comes from my strategic mind combined with my desire for the party to succeed and a desire to let other players know all of their options (since I have better rules knowledge than most anyone I play with). The worst bit was when I was a player in a campaign run by a new DM where I started stepping on his toes, answering rules questions (like “what skill check should I do for this?”) from other players for him and otherwise acting more like a DM than a player. He talked to me about it and, with this added self-awareness, I became much better at catching myself and everyone’s experience was improved. But this issue has also been tricky as a DM in a campaign where I run a support GMPC. I am pretty good at separating my player knowledge from my GM knowledge, but usually to be on the safe side I ask the party what they want the GMPC to do. (Helps that I wrote out her stats on a sheet of paper, so at any time anyone can “play” her in combat.)
I’m horrible at this.
I was the dungeon master for five fledgling groups at one point in time, with most players having zero experience with ttrpgs and the only phb they had access to was mine. They’d routinely forget which die to roll for skill checks and the like (not a bother by any means).
But now i’ve got two groups i run for and the players are far more knowledgeable and I can definitely get more hand-holdy than I need to be out of habit.
Also, finished reading all the hover text i initially missed.
Huh. By the way they’re talking, I’d almost assume it’s actually two players behind ‘one’ character. That must make it extra awkward at the presumed IRL table!
Then again, I’m not gonna lie. I’d absolutely love to play as someone’s eidolon in a game. Lots of RP potential there.