ITT: Things one should know when switching from computer RPG to PnP RPG

[Balor01]

Basically, I am starting a campaign for a small, yet utterly noobish group of long time computer RPG players. (we'll play 3.5)

Since I know they will see things in a specific way I'd appreciate for playground to summarize the advice they should get beforehand.

For an example, that they will meet statted, yet unkillable things. Some people just do not get that.

[Hunter Noventa]

There are no dialog trees. Your character can say whatever they want, but they'll suffer the consequences.

[Volos]

You can try to do anything. Yes, anything. There are no limits unless your DM is terrible. You may try to kill the mayor, even though he is an important NPC. That dragon that is terrorizing the nation? She could become your consort. That god that pissed you off? You can become drinking buddies and/or kill one another. There are no limits of what you can try to do, and therefor no limits at what you can fail at.

[Red Fel]

For an example, that they will meet statted, yet unkillable things. Some people just do not get that.

This bothers me. If the players can come up with a method that would otherwise kill it, why should they not be able to?

Not rhetorical; that's a serious question.

Now, onto more specific suggestions:

1. Running away is always an option. (DM Note: Keep running away an option.)

2. Bigger damage numbers are not the only tactical decision. Flanking, Grease, Web, and other methods are perfectly viable.

3. Understand the action economy. Once you do, you can abuse it.

4. In computer RPGs, you had tanks. There are no tanks here.

4a. There are, however, roles. Find a role you like and embrace it. Optimize around it. Don't try to do everything unless you can do so effectively.

5. Never split the party.

6. In computer RPGs, you could not see the programmers, dev team, or random number generator. Here, you can see the DM. When he smiles, run.

7. In computer RPGs, you had designated quest NPCs. There are no designated quests here (unless that's how your DM runs games). Events unfurl as they unfurl; make your own quests.

8. In computer RPGs, you occasionally had to have NPCs tag along; they were a pain and needed to die. There were other NPCs who were unkillable. Neither of these is true here; a tag-along NPC may be almost as powerful as you, or at least useful to keep around; and anybody you run into on the street can be killed (although society frowns on such an action).

I hope these help, and I hope your players enjoy.

[Yora]

Depends on the GM of course, but in a tabletop game, you don't neccessarily have to kill any hostile people and creatures. Sometimes you actually should not, and possible even can not.
Again, it's up to the GM, but you can turn around and try another way in, as environments don't have to be a single corridor where any guard can be bypassed only by killing it.

[GungHo]

There are no invisible walls or skyboxes that keep people from wandering away from where you planned your adventure. Just because you set up a bunch of deathclaws and cazidors to the north of town and a bunch of molerats and radroaches to the south of town doesn't mean the adventurers aren't gonna go north anyway.

[Squark]

Right, so, I'd say there are four big things.

1) There are alternatives to violence: You get the exact same XP reward for avoiding or talking your way out of a fight. Depending on the campaign, violence may not be the best choice.
Corollary: Violence is an alternative to many things: While it's generally not a good idea to go around picking a fight with everything, apart from Eldritch Abominations and Major Deities*, most things can be killed. Not easily, by any means, but clever trickery can help a lot. If it has stats, Someone (not necessarily you, but someone) can kill it. *Technically, Major deities can be killed. Of course, most of them have abilities that can literally shut down most player characters. That being said, unless your players are REALLY high level, deities shouldn't really be taking an interest in them. GM Note: Use Gods sparingly. Do not use them to lead the players by the nose unless you want PHBs thrown in your direction.

2) You can break the plot: The primary emphasis in Pen and paper RPGS is that there are no dialogue choices. You can say anything and do anything (or at least try anything). This includes really bad ideas.
Corollary: Fragrant stupidity will still get you killed. And annoy everyone else.
Corollary 2: GMs need to plan for the unexpected. Make sure you have exit plans for major villians, but also avoid GM fiat. If the players manage to get a killing blow in, don't fudge it. He's dead, Jim. Incidentally, have you considered mummy-dom or some other form of unlife?

3) You can go anywhere: You have the whole world. There are no skyboxes or invisible walls.
Corollary: Deliberately going places you know the GM hasn't planned for you to go for no other reason than to do so is a jerk move.
Corollary 2: GMs should try to have alternative routes available. Also, if your players consistently move away from your "plot," it's probably a sign it doesn't interest them. So, ask them what would, and take that into account.

4) This is a turn based game with a wide variety of effects: Battlefield control tends to get a lower priority in video games due to the lack of tactical perspective provided by the camera and the real-time nature of most combat systems. In RPGs, this is not the case. Spells like Grease or Solid Fog are frequently far more versatile and effective than a fireball spell
Corollary: While researching the best spell choices is never a bad thing, avoid over optimizing and blowing through everything. Also, at the end of the day, it's your choice. If you MUST play a monk dual wielding bastard swords, you're not really wrong for doing that. NOTE: However, you should try to contribute. If said Monk is constantly a liability, that player should probably look into ways to build a more effective character.

Also, I'd like to emphasize that running a campaign is not like writing a video game. Your players SHOULD have a lot of freedom, and you can't count on the villian being able to run away in a cutscene. Running your game like a video game is a mistake. If your players wanted to play a video game, they'd play a video game. Give them the full benefit of the medium.

[Balor01]

This bothers me. If the players can come up with a method that would otherwise kill it, why should they not be able to?

Not rhetorical; that's a serious question.

Not a plot armor protected creature. But if you end up talking with an adult dragon at lvl 3 ... dont expect to get out of this alive if you charge him. Or polymorphed into a platypus. Or Geas-ed.

Thats what I meant.

[Red Fel]

Not a plot armor protected creature. But if you end up talking with an adult dragon at lvl 3 ... dont expect to get out of this alive if you charge him. Or polymorphed into a platypus. Or Geas-ed.

Thats what I meant.

But there's a difference. Even players who've never played a pencil-and-paper game, and limited themselves only to computer or online RPGs, know that you don't engage monsters who "con red."

You can, but you will lose.

I acknowledge this means the players are extremely unlikely to kill it. But if they choose the suicide mission, let them run with it.

Which raises (pardon the pun) another point:

9. There are no respawn points and no corpse runs. If you die in the middle of a dungeon, and nobody in the party survives, roll up a new character, because you're not getting this one back.

[erikun]

Several of these points do depend a lot on the RPG, though. There is a massive variety of RPG systems out there, probably far more than there are computer RPGs. The above point - "no respawn points" - is contradicted by Eclipse Phase, a game where characters can back up their personalities onto a computer and thus be downloaded into a new body if they do die (although they don't keep anything new since the last update).

Probably a good rule for pen and paper RPGs is: "There is always an exception." Because such games use player imagination and player decisions, there is always going to be a game that can defy the standard rules. And there is always the ability of the players to defy the printed rules, if it makes the game better for them.

That's really the big difference between pen and paper RPGs and computer RPGs. Computer RPGs are created by someone and do not allow a player to deviate from what has been planned, regardless of how wide that planning was (i.e. sandbox). Pen and paper RPGs can allow anyone to do anything even without planning beforehand, because it has a human who can make decisions based on the situation. (Of course, this does depend on how skilled the person running the game is...)

Other than that...

1.) Not everything needs to be a fight. Running away from fights is a possibility.

2.) It is not just you and your HP against the opponent and the opponent's HP. Allies can gang up on an opponent. Opponents can be disarmed. Characters can take superior ground. Characters can hide and attack from surprise. Characters can use stuff in the area to injure or block an opponent.

3.) You can do anything you want to. This doesn't mean that you should do anything you want to. Being a jerk means that the "game" (and the other players) remember it.

4.) The world (ideally) reacts as you would expect the real world to react. If you're a wanted criminal, then you're a wanted criminal in all cities that have heard of you. If you disguise yourself, then nobody would notice you as a wanted criminal. If someone "sees through" your disguise, then they know that you are disguised - they don't automatically notice that you are a wanted criminal. Events and actions are reacted to sensibly.

5.) You are playing a game with other people. As such, try to avoid being a jerk to other people. Yes, stabbing someone in the back can be fun in a short action game like Call of Duty or when you can just reload from your last save, but it gets annoying when done it permanently kills a character that they've played for several months. People running the game are generally not omnipotent, and so until you know that they can improv well, try to avoid breaking or derailing the plot too badly.

[veti]

There is no such thing as scenery. You can interact with anything. A popular favourite is to aim your spell at the floor the enemy is standing on, rather than the enemy with stupid saves.

[Slipperychicken]

If I were you, I'd actually start them off on something like Dungeon World: a mechanically simplistic game (character creation takes maybe 5-15 minutes, and you only need 1-2 sheets to make and play your character) which captures the essence of D&D, strongly encourages imagination, roleplaying, and party dynamics, yet doesn't have much broken nonsense or drown the players in rules. It'll also give them some degree of perspective for when/if they go into 3.X.

You can try to do anything. Yes, anything. There are no limits unless your DM is terrible. You may try to kill the mayor, even though he is an important NPC. That dragon that is terrorizing the nation? She could become your consort. That god that pissed you off? You can become drinking buddies and/or kill one another. There are no limits of what you can try to do, and therefor no limits at what you can fail at.

Corollary: Try not to use your freedoms to rape PCs too much. That sort of thing tends to be unhealthy for the game.

Also, you really should read the DMG (dungeon master's guide) and PHB (player's handbook). There really is a lot of good advice in there, as well as useful things like random weather tables and such.

[The Grue]

Red herrings.

In a CRPG, every NPC, doorway, switch etc was placed deliberately. Usually things that seem interesting but you don't get to interact with immediately is an example of Chekhov's Gun, and will be important later on.

In a PNP RPG this is not necessarily true. Because it's trivially easy to add details like the above, a good GM will do this a lot in order to create the impression of a larger world that isn't centred on the party. Don't feel the need to exhaustively interrogate any NPC who gives you the time of day, or to open every door that isn't unlocked in search of The Plot.

[Knaight]

Don't think of it as switching from computer RPG to PnP RPG. Think of it as starting PnP RPG, and on a completely and utterly unrelated note you also play(ed) computer RPGs. They are different enough that it's not a matter of conversion.

As for advice: Be willing to fail. Playing RPGs is a set of skills. GMing is that set of skills, and then another set on top of them. They have to be learned, and you will have a dud character or dud game if you play or GM for very long. You'll probably always have some, particularly early on. Accept this, and when they come up move on and do better next time.

[Brookshw]

There is no save point.

There is no "one way" solution.

Not everything is necessarily "win-able" for a certain value.

You shouldn't try to "grind".

Edit: because autocorrect hates me.

[mucat]

You should try to "grind".

If by "grind", you mean "do boring things in order to strengthen your character"...I'm not seeing why you would want that to be part of a tabletop game.

Am I missing an alternate meaning of the word?

[Knaight]

You should try to "grind".

There are systems that encourage this. Personally, I tend to avoid them, and would recommend that others do the same unless they actually like "grinding".

[Dawgmoah]

To add to what has already been written:

To turn one of the old computer corollary around: You can put a square peg in a round hole.

Anything is possible in an RPG compared to a computer game. It is up to the DM how things may react to the crazy and unorthodox things the players may do. Everytime I think I've seen the craziest thing another player comes along and proves me wrong.

Don't try to hold to your carefully written plot and keyed sequences with NPCs. The party might decide to take the OTHER road out of town and miss the important clue the little old man waiting on the other road was meant to tell them. Build for flexibility.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

That they are not CRPGs; approach them on their own terms, instead of trying to cross-apply your knowledge. Once you have a good idea of what a tabletop RPG is like, use your CRPG knowledge to enrich that.

[Brookshw]

If by "grind", you mean "do boring things in order to strengthen your character"...I'm not seeing why you would want that to be part of a tabletop game.

Am I missing an alternate meaning of the word?

Actually what you're missing is my phones auto correct kicking in. Should have been "shouldn't"