DnDWorlds

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Erfworld today has a good example of what I mean about rules, ignoring them, and having fun. What's happening here is a use of the spirit of the game, and not necessarily the spirit of the rules. When you worry about whether the rules let you do something, or not, you give up inventive thinking. Let your imagination run, throw stuff at your game master, and EVERYONE can have fun. Good game masters will never say 'no'. It's not that they'll let you do anything, but they'll have something they need you to do before it happens. There's a reason you can't just tunnel through the wall. Maybe it's magma, or too much noise is attracting monsters, or whatever. But they should never, ever just say 'no'. I'm going to mention one more thing about rules, and using them in games, because it applies to setting creation which I'll get into next. This is another something I picked up from reading about video game development: People can really only process 5 to 8 ideas at a time. That concept there is very, very important. Using an example, we'll take driving a car. When driving, you - Watch for other drivers - work the gas pedal - work the breaks. - watch your speed - steer - listen to the radio - talk to people in the car - check your mirrors. You'll notice I'm at 8 right now, and that's just for standard driving. Not anything fancy like Y-turns or toll booths. So, how does this hold true with what I just said? Because when you first learn to drive, your focus flits between all these things. You steer for a second. Check your speed. Adjust your pedals. Look around again. Steer. check your speed.... rinse & repeat. Eventually though they start to blend together. Instead of seeing your speed and working the pedals being separate things, they eventually just become 'adjust speed'. They're something that happens together. Eventually looking around and steering become the same thing. As you get more comfortable with a complex task, it stops becoming lots of little ones and just becomes 'driving'. This applies to gaming too. Lets take 3.x D&D combat: - movement - feats - skills - to hit rolls - damage - my defense - my taking damage - the other people in my party - role-play and god forbid if you're a mage - arcane failure chance - magic resistance - spell range - spell duration - spell effect This is OVERWHELMING for someone new to the genre. Eventually to hit and damage become 'attacking'. Eventually all those spell things become 'casting'. Eventually it all becomes combat. And eventually it just becomes 'gaming'. If you've got a group that's familiar with the gaming system, it's pretty easy to just presume they're at 'gaming' and start having fun with your setting. If they aren't, you're going to have to keep the setting very, very simple to start with because players learning a new setting have to worry about: - magic - monsters - technology - people's names - government - terrain - history - their character's background - the other character's backgrounds Again eventually this all blends to 'setting', and only takes up one of our 5-8 things, and with enough time it just becomes 'gaming' and fits in with the rules, and those two things only take up one. Until then, especially with new people, you're giving them 18 things (by my count) to worry about. More that I probably haven't considered. Just to put a further crimp in your plans, Some of our little brain slots there are taken up by real life concerns. Jobs, spouses, kids, what you did last night, why that guy sitting across from you is giving you the eye. I mean it's not like you KNEW it was his girlfriend. Hell you probably did him a favor since now he knows who she is. You know? Some people... man... Anyway... So what can you do? First, keep your setting as simple as possible. Have it be something everyone at the table can quickly get in tune with. Don't shoot for a Lord of the Rings fleshed out world to start. Give them some flavor to chew on, but don't delve into every detail right away. For the first night it's just 'the blacksmith' or 'the wizards tower'. Only describe pieces you absolutely need to. Next week, add a little more flavor. With the rules, try to keep things simple once setting is introduced. I like to start with a battle before I even get into setting too deep. Let them chew on the rules for a second, and get a feel for things. Keep it simple, don't have the opponents be to 'different' than the characters. Bandits are GREAT for this. Mimic the party and drop the power in half. It gets them working with the rules and starting to blend the pieces together. You'll need to do a couple more battles before things really start to set. But, it will have definitely taken some of the fear of the game out. If you're planning a good old dungeon crawl, just start them right at the dungeon. Skip town the first time. If that's not the plan, keep the community setting to something they can all relate to. Maybe the village they met at before heading to the city where the adventure takes place. Limit the moving parts to as few as possible initially, and add flavor to taste.