I Learned That Teaching Role Playing Games Begins With Simplicity
Releasing the players imagination
I have recently changed by gaming philosophy when it comes to teaching others role playing games. I recently taught a few dads and their daughters to play dnd 5e and made them go old school and had them roll up their characters from scratch.
Yes, this took more time but this was designed to be a teaching session combined with game play. I did not hand out pre-generated characters, and this is wear my gaming philosophy shifts, because I think a fully filled out sheets actually stunts the creativity of the player.
In my opinion, there are two kinds of new dnd players, those who want to play dnd and those who want to learn dnd.
Those who want to play dnd
Pre-generated characters are great for those wanting to learn how to play dnd. All the stats and pre-done back story gives players something to jump right into, if they want.
Pre-generated characters show players how a character sheet is filled out and what goes where. They are a good template to future character creation but they have no idea how the numbers got there or why.
Pre-generated character sheets are great for conventions where you have limited time or weekly learn to plays at your local gaming store.
If you have players who want to play an adventure, use pre-generated character sheets, teach the basics of how to read the sheets and get on with the adventure.
Those who want to learn dnd
As I said earlier, the dads and daughters wanted to learn dnd. Rolling up a character is the most basic of skills in learning an rpg and teaching them to roll up a character allows them to keep rolling up new characters.
It’s the old “teach them to fish vs giving them a fish.”
The best parts of rolling up a new character is deciding
race/ancestry/species
class
backstory
quirks
A pre-generated character does not afford the player the opportunity to explore their imagination they are cast into a role versus creating a characters. This does not mean a player has to play their character a written but new player can feel the pressure to do so.
Simplicity in teaching an rpg begins with the character sheet
After inquiring about simple character sheets, LinkedIn friend and fellow DM, Chris Toth, shared a link with me to his re-imagined 5e character sheets. They were exactly what I was looking for.
Even if you’re not playing 5e, I think these are great examples of character sheet simplicity.
Chris’s character sheets offer simplicity and opportunity for players to create what they want without all the noise. Chris’s sheets offer a main page and a secondary sheet for backstory, spells etc.
Chris also invites the player to be creative with the open space in middle to draw their own character or put symbols, signs, etc. if they want to.
Conclusion
The hour spent walking this group through the process of rolling up their characters was worth is to me, as a DM, because it helped me see their creative process and get to know them a little better.
Getting to know you players is the best way for Pro DMs, like myself, to become more comfortable in running a game for new players.
The dads and their daughters had a great time rolling up their characters and had full buy in to their characters. Some of the things that came out of their creativity were,
a wizard who collected rats and bought them costumes to disguise them
a warlock who said her patron was a Pig God and her Eldritch Blast looked like a giant pig head ramming into it’s victim with a giant “Oooooooiiiinkkkkk”
A cleric and fighter converting to the Ham God
I don’t believe any of this would have happened if I had handed them a pre-generated character sheet.
These dads and daughter created THEIR characters and took THEIR characters home with them.
Simplicity creates an abundance of creativity and those are two things I want in abundance of in my games.