In the last six posts I’ve been exploring the concept that maybe dropping all the cool things you’ve learned to do with RPGs on a new player might not work because it overwhelms them.
Simplicity
Choices
Limit Your Player’s Options but Not Your Players
Clear Player Paths
Take Care of Your Pet
Player Goals To Help Them Grow
There are a lot of suggestions and a lot of questions that I still can’t answer. The one that really bothers me is, does having a new player mixed in with experienced players automatically break this principal because they need to be handled differently? Alternatively is there a way of GMing a game where simple choices are presented that won’t make experienced players think they’re being held back?
In any event, using this idea will require a drastic change in how I GM. I can envision guiding a player through these stages, but as an “experienced” GM I’ll want to make things fun the way that I’ve come to see it and that won’t work for some of my players. It comes down to more handholding and walking newer players through the game even with things that the other players feel are obvious and simple.
The new players go through stages of development. Some may hit a certain point and never advance past it. Here, to the best of my ability are those stages.
New – this would normally apply to children who don’t know how to play a game at all
Simple Choices – board or video game experience, the player understands making basic strategy
Imagining – learning to imagine simple tactical choices and what an imaginary world looks like, miniatures and maps are helpful at this stage
Connection – the player starts to “reward” his character with better tools.
Pet – the character becomes a virtual entity in the players minds, logically they may have needs.
Goals – the player starts thinking of what the character would want and gives them direction without GM involvement.
There are likely substeps in there. I don’t really know if a player can be sped along moving through these steps, but they do seem to be distinct and they have to be crossed like bridges into the next step.
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