Designing a game for 2 new players and 1 other

[lytokk]

So, coming up soon I'm going to run a game for 2 brand new players and one thats had a little bit of play experience. The brand new players are dating right now, and the girlfriend convinced the boyfriend to play. I know he'll give it his best shot, but I'm not holding out any hope that this is going to be a reoccurring thing. I'm having some problems thinking of anything fun and engaging for a simple one shot that isn't go into a dungeon, kill things, get the macguffin, come back and be rewarded, which is pretty much my standard when it comes to introducing new people to the rules of the game since it can cover all of the basics.

Since this is more than likely not going to be an ongoing campaign (though I'm going to try my darndnest to make sure they want to come back), I'm going to be building the characters for them. Right now, the party make up is completely undetermined, but I figure the girlfriend will be playing either a bard or a watered down Elsa from frozen. Boyfriend, more than likely whatever requires the least thought, so maybe a fighter. I send them the link to d20srd and asked them to come up with concepts and I'd build off of that. I'm not limiting it to core, but no need to tell them about EVERY starting class in the game. Just the basics.

Anyway, when I said I'd run it, I promised it would be fun and not too serious. My mindset right now is them going off of a gnome wizard who heavily uses divination spells who scryed into an area he really shouldn't have, went mad, and escaped. Highlight if you don't get the joke ==>small medium at large I'd like more ideas like that, but with the rest of the stuff I have going on, I really can't think of anything. I know everyone in the group is a Zelda fan so I could always borrow a dungeon setup from there to take care of the dungeon design, but dungeon design will wait until characters are made.

I've been thinking level 3 for the group level, as you get some basic items by that point according to WBL and don't have the short lifespan of a level 1 character. But this could get changed depending on any ideas that come up, though I don't want to exceed level 8. Things can really start getting complicated at that point.

[EyethatBinds]

As someone who has taught hundreds of people how to play, I would suggest against making their characters for them. Your first character is always something special (kinda like losing your virginity only in reverse) and they should definitely be a part of creating their avatar.

I always sit down with the new player and give basic descriptions of their options (thought I stick to core at first too). Likewise, I also disagree that a bard and a fighter are the best options for new players. Bard is a support class. They don't get to steal the spotlight and in combat often feel left out (unless built just right) and fighters are some of the toughest classes to play well to start.

I would suggest a sorcerer for the female player or druid, possibly a ranger so combat experience would be their primary thing they learn. I'd then suggest the man play a barbarian. They are simple, hard to kill, and when they hit do impressive two-handed damage.

For the experienced player request they play a buff focused wizard and then make an NPC cleric. You won't have a perfect party (as you're missing a trap finder/scout) but it would work for a start.

And if the newbs like the game they can experiment more with new classes.

Never make another person a character unless running a very short campaign or one-shot.

[lytokk]

Well this may be a one shot. THey may decide to never play again. But I'll give them the option.

And I think that's the only time anyone's ever used the words druid and simple in the same sentence. I'm hoping the guy plays a barbarian. He's a marvel fan so when I tell him the whole schtick is hulking out he may enjoy it.

I want them to be involved with the character creation process, race, backstory, class, personality, alignement. But when it comes down to the actual mechanics, such as skill points, and attributes, I'd go ahead and do it for them. Feats could be another headache.

[Troacctid]

Character creation needs to be fast. You want to get into the actual action as quickly as possible. If they spend half the session doing bookwork, it'll turn them off of the game. Especially if it's just a one-shot.

You should have premade characters ready. Make sure there's a good variety to choose from.

[EyethatBinds]

Druids at low level are pretty simple. You help them pick equipment, show them some basic spells and build their companion. A druid is pretty powerful without much effort and at 3rd level you don't have to worry about Wildshape.

I suppose I misunderstood. I do help the first time players by working with them to build their character, choosing the best feats to accomplish how they'd like to play.

When I hear making their characters, I think that they show up and then play a given character. "Here's your character. Your name is Titania."

[lytokk]

Oh no, just the mechanicals. They get to take care of everything else. I should have been more clear when I said concept, meaning everything not in the stat block.

[Honest Tiefling]

I would suggest a sorcerer for the female player or druid, possibly a ranger so combat experience would be their primary thing they learn. I'd then suggest the man play a barbarian. They are simple, hard to kill, and when they hit do impressive two-handed damage.

I strongly advise against this, because the lady friend might look over and wonder why she didn't get the greataxe berserker. It'll be the quickest way of discouraging her that I could think of, honestly, and I wouldn't be surprised if it even affected your friendship. I cannot stress enough that I think this is an incredibly awful idea.

These guys must play videogames like Skyrim or the like? Try to build characters that appeal to the archetypes they play. If the woman enjoys FPS, give her a gunslinger. If the man enjoys mind control from WoW, give him an enchanter. The idea of giving them a choice of multiple characters is stellar, I think, and I would shuffle in characters that might appeal to them into the mix.

[lytokk]

I know they play video games, thought I'm not 100% on what she plays. I really haven't spent a great deal of time getting to know her, so I really just know the basics. I know she's really wanted to play a table top game, so the expectations of me as a DM are going to be high. Which is why I need help crafting a good session. When I do get more information as to what their character concepts are I'll really flush out the encounters, but until then, focusing more on the story of the session.

I'm only letting them see core, since its the smallest infodump I can give them at this point. If their concepts will be better served by a class/race not in core (say, Ironman) I'll go outside of the basics (warforged warlock being the simplest).

[EyethatBinds]

Actually I concur. I'd ask the players what they want to play. I presume that since OP knows them though, his Bard/Fighter suggestions fall within their personality types.

I have encouraged more than a few female players to start with Barbarian so they could crush skulls and scatter entrails.

[Honest Tiefling]

Would they consent to a short questionnaire regarding preferences? As in, what sort of story and tone and lethality they would enjoy?

[lytokk]

They probably would, but I'm not sure what to ask.

I told them it would be fun and easy going, probably with a few puns thrown in the mix. AS of right now thats all they know. She did mention that she'd probably end up playing a bard which is the only reasonI suggested that one for her. I just said fighter for him since its generic and in a low power game is easy to plan and play.

[Honest Tiefling]

Bard + Cleric. Fighters are immensely easy to screw up buildwise and have oodles of traps, while the cleric has spells he can just re-prepare the next day if he doesn't like his current selection.

As for the campaign...Hrm. Perhaps they get called to a middle sized town (So they can buy gear). A bard does well in an urban environment, and the cleric can have a friendly church (Not necessarily his own, but a friendly one) to nudge him with hooks for a new player. The Lord of such wants help thwarting some rivals who have some schemes to embarrass him, steal his stuff, or general scheming. Not the most combat focused campaign, but one where you can drive to that direction if they seem to desire it.

Add in a swashbuckler antagonist for puns who might break in through a window during a ball or the like.

[lytokk]

Punning Swashbuckler antagonist... Thats a great way to make them want to kill the guy.

[Gandariel]

I am very unexperienced in this too, but when I started a campaign for my group with all new players, I did this:

Charachter sheet: I invited them to read the manual, choose a class, and make their sheet themselves before the session.
I personally approached and helped those who had no idea on how to do it.
Still had to so some quick checks etc before we started, but it was pretty quick.

Party ended up being Bard, Factotum, Druid, Barbarian.

First session: they all are in a city (they get to decide if they know each other or not, and whether they live in the city or just happened by).
there's a party, they get to know the name of a weird wizard guy. After party, a sister/mother/relative of one of the players is kidnapped. Weird wizard guy is also friend to this person, and hires them to rescue her. He also gives them a small "trinket " or magical help. (In my case, he enchanted the Factotum's sword with a Disintegrate spell, and gave him a command word to activate the spell, one use. During the final fight, he uses it against the boss... and the sword disintegrated. ) (the command word was also "the", so he had to avoid saying "the" for the whole game.)

They had to track the kidnappers to a cavern, fight a couple animals on the way, fight or distract two guards at the entrance and in the end faced the kidnappers, a Sorceress and a Fighter.

Reward, some random small upgrade for all. Don't remember them, nothing too big. The Factotum had his sword rebuilt by the wizard, with unknown weird magical powers that would unveil later on.

Also, they got some foreshadowing and a new mission from the wizard (for the next time)

It all ended up pretty well, everybody got to do something important, and we all had a laugh.

Feel free to take whatever you want from this :)


Also, don't suggest a caster class to a guy who doesn't look like a guy who would enjoy scrolling through ALL the 1st level spells and pick.

Fighter is perfectly fine, suggest Power attack and Weapon Focus. Don't worry about balance.

Barbarian and Rogue are IMO good starter classes. Straightforward and cool. Sorcerer, too. Depends on the player.

[EyethatBinds]

My best advice to avoid the concern about too much info: When you show them the PHB, make sure to mention that they need to know approximately three pages of information, maybe less to play their character, the rest is the DM's or other player's jobs. It seems to significantly put them at ease when they know they aren't expected to be out of the box experts.

It isn't like playing an online game where people will frequently mock them for small errors. The DM and other players are there to help new people.

[lytokk]

So, a bit of an update. Talked to both of them last night. The girlfriend does in fact want to play a bard. She likes the idea of a half-elf or a human, CG shortbow and rapier wielding, so weapon finesse is definitely going to be a thing.

The boyfriend wants to play a CG paladin, so a paladin of freedom. Human race. We talked a little longer last night and he ended up with some pretty good stats. 18, 18, 17, 16, 14, 14. I let him know about the code of conduct he would have to follow and he seemed alright with that. I'm normally pretty loose with my rulings regarding the code of conduct so he should be fine, but I've never dealt with a pally of freedom, so I'm not sure where the differences should apply. His basic bio seems appropriate, with a few small exceptions but we'll hammer those out. He also wants to keep his special mount.
I imagine my guy as kinda a cross between Snake Plissken and Liam Neelson from Taken .. His allegiance falls where it falls .. but once it does .. he'll live and die
for it. He's never waivering in his allegiance .. but he's just as likely to do nothing
as he is to save the day. He's kind but he'd hate if you knew it. Not bad with the ladies but kinda a goofball.

quote: Some would say I've hard life. I'd probably say it isn't so bad.
Some say I'm looking for a good way to die. I'd say I'm looking for a good reason to live

They've also both agreed that they'd prefer dungeon delving to fighting a war or messing with politics.

The third player (who is my wife) isn't sure what she'd want to play yet, but she did say she'd like to play the snow elf duskblade she made for another game which never really got anywhere. All in all, a pretty decent team. Perhaps a little lacking in the blasting department, but good nonetheless. I'm still not sure on the level. Its going to be at least level 3, but I'd like to make sure the pally got some spells, so I'm thinking 5. What I do need to still figure out is a deity for the paladin, preferably something from straight core.

[Sam K]

Kord would be decent for a paladin of freedom with the bio you described. Honorable, but not adverse to a bit of fun.

I would say lvl 6 is the sweet spot if you want to showcase the mechanics a bit more. The paladin gets spells, the bard gets a good selection of spells without it being overwhelming, and the full BAB classes get iterative attacks (showing a difference between single attacks and full attacks). Most classes have access to a fair amount of abilities.

I would suggest that your wife also play a core class. Duskblade is a class very high on "cool", and since it's not in the PHB, it might frustrate the new players if the experienced player get something that seems much flashier. Just my opinion though, it may also be that they get interested in learning more about the available classes.

[lytokk]

I told her the group could probably use a rogue, considering this is going to be a dungeon diving campaign. She's giving it thought. With the current game she's in, she has some negative feelings toward rogues. I know there's a trapsmith barbarian, but is there a variant in another class for opening locks and disabling traps?

[Sam K]

I think ranger has a variant.

Otherwise, just trade out some skills and replace track with find trap (or whatever it's called).

[lytokk]

Just found it, trap expert from dungeonscape. Lose track, gain trapfinding and disable device as a skill

[Brendanicus]

I strongly advise against this, because the lady friend might look over and wonder why she didn't get the greataxe berserker. It'll be the quickest way of discouraging her that I could think of, honestly, and I wouldn't be surprised if it even affected your friendship. I cannot stress enough that I think this is an incredibly awful idea.

I can greatly attest to this. I'm planning on running a majority-female game, and half the girls in my group really jumped at the opportunity to play barbarian and other martial classes. Likewise, the only guys in my party wanted t play support classes (Bard and Cleric). Really, statistical preferences for classes don't shift because of gender.

EDIT: I'm also planning on making a Dungeon themed-campaign, and nobody in my party wanted to play a class with trapfinding. What I did was give everybody Trapfinding, and I gave the most Rogue-ish classes in my party (A ranger and a Bard) Disable Device and Search as class skills. There is no need to make players play a class they don't like when you could just make trapfinding a group experience. Especially when they are new players who most likely won't know/care about the rules.

[Jermz]

I told her the group could probably use a rogue, considering this is going to be a dungeon diving campaign. She's giving it thought. With the current game she's in, she has some negative feelings toward rogues. I know there's a trapsmith barbarian, but is there a variant in another class for opening locks and disabling traps?

How about beguiler? Trapfinding, opening locks, disabling devices and a smattering of good utility/bfc/charm spells as well.

[lytokk]

She seems to be having a lot more fun with the higher BAB classes. She's only ever had 2 characters, the duskblade and a druid. A lot more fun with the duskblade. But that could have more to do with having less options and feeling overwhelmed in combat. She's been having more fun with the druid since I made her a spontaneous divine caster.

[EyethatBinds]

She's been having more fun with the druid since I made her a spontaneous divine caster.

You mean she's been having more fun since you gave the second most powerful class in the game a significant boost in power. You don't say.

[lytokk]

You mean she's been having more fun since you gave the second most powerful class in the game a significant boost in power. You don't say.

no, she's got a chosen list of spells now, like a sorceror. But can cast them sponteneously.

[EyethatBinds]

no, she's got a chosen list of spells now, like a sorceror. But can cast them sponteneously.

Oh, that's actually a significant downgrade. Do you calculate them just as a sorcerer too?

[lytokk]

Just using the rules on d20SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm) Yeah, its a downgrade, but she wasn't overwhelmed with spell prep anymore.

[Honest Tiefling]

I'd be upfront about the Duskblade. "I limited you to core classes to make things simiplier. However, she would really like this class outside of core. I am alright introducing non-core material for you guys, but I'd like to do it slowly as there was a lot of stuff published. If someone is unhappy with a class, I'll suggest another from non-core." And see what happens.

[lytokk]

I did let the other players know there were other classes out there, and that I wanted concepts more than anything. The girlfriend likes so sing, so she wanted to do a bard. When the boyfriend said he wanted to be a chaotic paladin, I pointed him toward PoF, and he likes the idea. I didn't want to show him the crusader, as I've barely had the chance to do a ToB class and don't feel right throwing that on a first time table topper.

I did tell them there were other options, they just didn't want to pursue them.