Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 54 - Supporting First Time Players and GMs

Episode Date: January 3, 2021

We all remember our first time, nervously fumbling about.  Maybe it was with someone you know well, perhaps a stranger.  Maybe it was with a group of people you went to school with.  And if we do things the right way, maybe we can be there to support someone's first time having sex...er...tabletop gaming.  In this episode we talk about how we support these new players and new Game Masters at our tables.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Studio 54 episode of the Taking 20 podcast, how to support first-time players and GMs. This week's sponsor, Showerheads. They keep you clean and double as fake microphones for the concert that you're giving in your head. Good news, everyone. I received an email from a podcast statistics aggregation site that we've made a top 100 podcast chart.

We are currently number 54 of all gaming podcasts in Greece on Spotify. It's oddly specific, but hell, I'll take it. We all start somewhere, right? To those of you in Greece who listened, epharisto. If you like this podcast, by the way, please help me spread the word. Tell a friend, tell an enemy, accost a stranger on the street and tell them about it. Post a link on social media. I would love to see this podcast continue to grow and be able to dedicate even more time to it. Thank you, by the way, to everyone who listens to my little podcast. Making this is truly a labor of love for me. Researching topics, interviewing friends and colleagues

about gaming topics is just pure joy for me. So thank you to everyone who listens and makes it possible. If you do have any feedback for me, I'd love to hear it. If you have an episode suggestion, I would love to hear that as well. Please send it to feedback at taking20podcast.com. That's taking20podcast.com. Happy New Year, everyone. The fecal tire fire that was 2020 is finally in the rearview mirror, and here's hoping that 2021

turns the corner for us, and we have a great year. Hopefully 2021 doesn't tell 2020, hold my beer, and I'll show you how to give humans a bad year. If we are lucky in this hobby that we love, we get to play with people who have never experienced tabletop RPGs before. Oh, let me say, watching someone experience the hobby for the first time is one of my favorite things. Being there while someone discovers that they truly love rolling dice and playing characters and feel the joy is just rewarding on every level. Being a player for a new DM who at first is standing up like a foal on unshaky legs but winds up leading a stune adventure and feels the satisfaction of a good session with smiling players is just a wonder to watch. To see a new DM at the end of the session, eyes exhausted and smiling but realizing that yes, they can do this,

warms the cockles of my cold, dead heart. But how can we support these new players and new DMs so we give them a positive experience their first time out? Well, I broke my advice down into different sections, and I want to start out with the advice that would apply to both DMs and to players. The first thing I want to preach to our veteran players and DMs is patience. New players may not know the rules. New DMs may not know how to adjudicate the rules properly. The rulebooks of some of our popular gaming systems are just enormous. Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition Core rulebook is 308 pages long. The D&D 5th Edition Player's Handbook is 316 pages long. Shadowrun's 6th Edition Core is 320 pages.

1st Edition Pathfinder Core Rulebook is 578 pages long. And the 2nd Edition Pathfinder Core Rulebook? A whopping 638 pages. None of that includes the supplemental material put out by publishers that add more abilities, feats, spells, items, and options. It's a major commitment to read all of that material, and there's no way we can expect new players to do that. New players probably won't use the right terms. I want to run up to the goblin and grab him. He's talking about grapple. You know it. I know it. We all know it. Just

execute the grapple rules without going all, yeah, the word you're looking for is grapple. You want to grapple the goblin, not grab him. Grab, yes. How trite. Oh, eat a bag of dicks, you pompous gas bag. You're not proving how smart you are. You're trying to make the new player feel dumb, and that could put them off tabletop RPGs forever. So be patient explaining the game to them. Remember, you want them to come back, even if it's not to your table. You still want them to come back to the hobby. Be patient with new players because they may not know what they can and can't do.

A lot of new players may have played computer RPGs like Skyrim, Dragon Age, or Fallout. They're used to invisible walls limiting what they can and cannot do. A lot of new players may have played computer RPGs like Skyrim, Dragon Age, or Fallout. They're used to invisible walls limiting what they can and cannot do. With RPGs at the table, theoretically, the sky's the limit. You can do whatever you want to. New players may think that combat is the only solution, or that you can't make a hole in the wall, or you can't negotiate with vendors. They have to learn that tabletop RPGs takes those shackles off of them and they are wide open. So be patient with new players. Second piece of advice I would give is be in the moment. To help new DMs and players, don't be on your phone watching TV or being distracting to the other players or DM. Show them that you're committed to the game and you're in the moment with the DM and players. It leads by example and it helps to keep a morale of a new DM up when everybody's actually paying attention.

Third piece of advice that applies to both. Help them find the fun. Let new players experience a variety of aspects in the game and encourage them to play the parts they enjoy. Combat, skill checks, traps and puzzles, heroic choices and actions. Show new DMs you're having a good time. Don't just sit there with a dour look on your face like someone just farted next to you. You staring off in the distance, wondering what they had for dinner that could possibly smell like that. Engage with the players and the DM instead.

Again, be in the moment. Another piece of advice I would have for both. Think of yourself as an emissary for the game and act accordingly. What do I mean? You're effectively introducing them to this new hobby. Depending on the way you treat them, it may be the first game in a lifetime hobby for them, or the last time they ever try tabletop RPGs. Treating new players and DMs poorly or making them feel stupid might mean losing them forever.

Be there. Support them. Make them feel welcome at your table or any other table they may sit at, and bring someone new into this wonderful hobby. Now at this point I want to narrow focus. I want to go behind the screen and give you some advice for supporting first-time DMs and GMs. I want to go behind the screen and give you some advice for supporting first-time DMs and GMs.

If you're a player and you want to support the first-time GM, support their decisions no matter what. Even if when you were DMing, you would make a different call than they do. Well, I would have ruled that the Minotaur has disadvantage. Really? Why don't you DM the next game? While not true for every DM, I've watched some quote-unquote forever DMs try to become players again. There's a few of them that have a hard time giving up control of the table. They want to chime in on rules. They make the DM feel uncomfortable, thereby making her have a bad time. And then they lament later that no one else wants to DM. I play, and I DM both. Remember that the DM's rule interpretation is law. There's nothing wrong with asking about an interpretation during a break,

but that DM might not adjudicate the rules the same way you do. They might house rule some things. It's their decision. Go with it and support it. Supporting their decisions makes the GM feel comfortable in their chair. For those of you that have never DM'd or GM'd, you have no idea the stress there is for new GMs behind the screen. The fear of failure. The fear of being underprepared. Doing it wrong. That worry takes up way too much of new GM brains.

I remember my brain was running 100 miles per hour and my mouth couldn't keep up. I flubbed descriptions. I messed up rules. I lost track of bad guy hit points. I made mistakes and really beat myself up over it. To the credit of my experienced players of the time, they supported me, went with whatever decision that they made, and they helped set me up for success. It really set me on a track for a hobby

that now has stretched going on 40 years. I love it, and it's largely because of the first experience I had with it. Those experienced players talked about my interpretations after the session, and I learned from them. So if you have a new GM or DM, support their decisions, let them be the DM, and give them a positive experience for their first time out. As a player supporting your new DM, don't just murder hobo everything. Do you know what's annoying as an experienced DM? I stab the king.

I murder the sheriff and set fire to the potion shop to cover the evidence. Uh, I don't like this gate guard's questions. I shoot an arrow at her. Do you know what's crippling as a new DM? Same thing. Inside the DM's head, they're thinking, I can't give them a roleplay encounter because they just straight merc everyone. If your players just murder every NPC they come across, it makes DMs nervous, especially new DMs.

So take your cues from the DM and have social encounters when she obviously wants you to do so. Don't just solve every problem by stabbing a face. Some NPCs are obviously there to advance the story, not just to be your next victim. Speaking of story, to support your new DM, buy into the story 110%. Say yes to what's offered. Avoid the, well, I wouldn't go along with the adventure because that's not what my character would do. Oh, come on. You're there at the table to go on an adventure with friends. Accept the fact that your character is going to go along no matter the reason. So to support your hardworking DMs, go along with the story.

Support your fellow players and support the DM in encouraging the story to advance. Another way you can support first-time DMs, minimize the amount of stuff they have to worry about. Take the time, take the effort, and know your character's abilities. Keep your character and your actions fairly vanilla. Don't try to play with fringe rules that aren't used often. Now isn't the time to try to pull that weird character that's a grapple specialist. It's a mash-up of three different classes or contains third-party material. Keep it light, keep it simple for the new DM. Another way you can support him is to ignore any errors that the DM makes.

He gives advantage when you don't think it's warranted. She allows flanking bonuses more often than she should. Who cares? If you want to talk to them about your concerns or feedback between sessions, great, but during the session, ignore those errors and just move forward with the game. Last piece of advice I have for supporting the new DM, at the end of the session, thank them for DMing. Here in the South, it's just being polite to thank someone who's doing something for you or going out of their way to help you. Being a GM is a ton of work,

and most of us don't get paid for it. DMs are very much putting in work that you don't see to make the session go well. Newer DMs will likely over-prepare and put in too much work for the session. So give them a little thanks for letting you show up with a character and just play and not have to worry about all the rest of the world. Okay, enough about behind the screen. Let's move out in front of it because there's more players than there are GMs. How do you support the first-time player, whether you are a player or you are a GM? Ask them what they want their character to do, independent of the rules. Again, they may not know what the rules allow them to do. New players can get overwhelmed and worry that they're holding the rest of the group up with their indecisiveness. No, no. Make them welcome. Allow them to relax.

Don't put them under pressure to do things immediately. Simply ask them, what would you like to do? They may say something that isn't possible within the rules. If so, get as close as you can within the rules of the gaming system. A new player I had at my virtual tabletop recently asked, Can I cast a spell without using my hands? She wanted to try to make a town guard like the party by casting a charm spell on him. That was our opportunity to help her understand what somatic components of spells are.

Since the spell she wanted to cast had somatic components, I said she could try to deceive the guard that her hand motions weren't casting a spell. She rolled, the guard didn't notice she was casting something, failed its saving throw, and they entered the city without being harassed. That dovetails into my second point for new players. Explain the rules to new players as they need them, instead of a massive rules dump all at once. As I mentioned earlier, the sheer bulk of information that the player could possibly have to sift through can be daunting to new players. Support them by helping

them with specific aspects of the game as they come up. Focus on assistance that is specific to their character in that moment. There's no point in talking about prepared spell rules for a player who's playing a rogue, or there's no point to talk about grappling for a sorcerer. If your sorcerer is grappling, you're going to have a bad time. Keep it simple for them. That will help them have a good time. Encourage the new player to ask for help and provide it when they need it. Don't provide them help unprompted.

Let them know that you're there and can help, but don't quarterback them. It should go without saying, don't get frustrated when they take longer on their turn, or don't know what they can and can't do, or take a long time to add the dice numbers up, or they can't remember what armor class is. This is their first time playing. You had a first time too, if you remember. In short, be the type of player you wish you'd had the first time you played. Another piece of advice for supporting new players. Make sure the players know that they shouldn't be anxious about embarrassing themselves.

I mean, let's face it. You're a bunch of people sitting around a table or on a computer playing a make-believe using stupid voices. Oh my, Sorliore, you scamp. I won't go higher than 55 gold pieces! Now, do we have a deal or not? No one's going to judge you if you talk in a weird voice, even if that weird one I just gave. Do something crazy, or even act rationally in stupidity.

No one's going to judge you, and don't judge them. Let them know that this is a very safe place to take chances, to be themselves, to roleplay the character the way they want to. And it should go without saying, do not, do not tease them about any flub or mistake. You know how neuroses form? Well, me neither. I mean, I'm asking. I have so many to possibly catalog. What I do know is making fun of people for making mistakes sure as hell doesn't help. Oh, I should have added plus two to that last roll. I forgot about flanking.

No worries. Correct as needed and we'll remind them next time and move on. Also supporting new players. Give them the spotlight at least once, but hopefully more than once in the session. Note, I said give them the spotlight, but don't force it on them. I think I've mentioned before that I've been part of multiple stage improv troops. Now, before you turn off, I'm not about to invite you all to my improv troops performance this Friday night. One of the tenets of improv comedy is that you support your scene partner 100%, no matter the choice they make. Even if you have no idea how this could possibly be made

funny, or how the story could possibly progress with the choice they made, you go with it. You support them, no matter what. Another way I've always thought about how improv should be performed is that you should do what you can to make the spotlight available for your partner to step into it. Don't just stand in the spotlight and soak in the glory while they're relegated to the dark areas of the stage. The same is true for new tabletop role-playing game players. Anytime I have the pleasure of playing D&D or Pathfinder or Cyberpunk or Shadowrun with people who have never done so before, I do whatever I can to give them the biggest chance for success. I do whatever I can to give them the biggest chance for success.

I will make choices that are suboptimal to my character to give them a better chance at a greater outcome for theirs. I'll forego a second attack to move into flanking position. I'll heal their character instead of damaging the big bad guy. I'll make sure the baddie they're fighting is in a debilitating area of effect spell even if that means that two others closer to me aren't. I've been roleplaying most of my life. I've had the highest highs and the lowest lows as a player. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and scars to prove it. God willing, I'll be gaming another 40 years. I would love to be running RPG games in the retirement home. I hit the goblin with my hammer for 14 points of

damage, bringing it down on its shoulder with a sickening crunch sound. You know, a lot like Mildred's hip when she and Marcus were hooking up in her room. Yeah, we all heard. Yeah, you go heal up and get you some loving, Mildred. No judgment here. For those of you who are shaking your head while listening, in a recent study of sexuality and health among older adults in the United States published by the New England Journal of Medicine, 26% of people aged 75 to 85 describe themselves as Yep. The chances are 1 in 4 that Nana and or Papa

are laying more pipe than a plumber in the retirement community. And by laying pipe, I don't mean hitting monsters with a pipe. I mean sex. Old person, bumping uglies, playing at the rump scuttle and clapper to pouch. You know, when they do, it probably sounds like you dropped a bag full of antlers down a staircase. But enough about geriatric nug-a-nug for now, anyway. Let's get back to supporting new players. This new player has never saved an innocent, struck down a baddie who was about to kill their partner, opened a treasure chest to reveal the goodies inside. Give them the chance to experience these thrills while gaming. Gaming, at its heart, is a series of encounters and experiences.

Support these new players so their first ones are positive. As a subset of allowing them the spotlight, DMs encourage new players to do something. Don't let them become the backpack that gets carried around by the rest of the party. Ask them what they'd like to do and maybe even suggest something their character could do to help the rest of the party. And as a subset of that, allow the new player to contribute to the narrative if they feel comfortable doing so. Start small. Hey Michael, what's this elf look like? They'll probably shrink away at first, but give them the opportunity to

help shape the story, even if it's in small ways. If you've listened to any other episode, you know how important I think it is that we bring new people into the tabletop RPG hobby. It's a passion of mine. This is how the tabletop RPG hobby expands. It's how we get new voices at the table and new GMs designing adventures. It's how we grow as players and, more importantly, as people. New experiences and different perspectives make our games better. So support the new players and new GMs at our tables. More players and more GMs mean more opportunities to play and run games, and that will never be a bad thing.

Thank you so much for listening to episode 54, how to support first-time players and GMs. Once again, I want to thank our sponsor, Showerheads. Like most of us, they get turned on by naked people. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.