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Thanks. Nothing too complex (i.e. the survival elements) and I'll go light on them in combat. It's more to get them (and myself to be honest!) familiar with the basic mechanics in addition to the basics of roleplaying in general that doesn't involve a controller or keyboard.

 warboss wrote:
Thanks. Nothing too complex (i.e. the survival elements) and I'll go light on them in combat. It's more to get them (and myself to be honest!) familiar with the basic mechanics in addition to the basics of role playing in general that doesn't involve a controller or keyboard.

In session 0, after they make their characters, draw out a little map of a cave with some woods outside of it, and have the group fight a Grey bear.

Just a pre game test fight so that everyone can get an idea for how the mechanics work so that when they play the actual game they understand the risks before leaping into a fight. I did that with my most recent group and when one of the players was crushed to death in a bear hug they all realized how dangerous the game can be.

I think that's a great way to start generally but in this case time is limited and they have effectively zero experience with RPGs and even just making up a character and explaining basic rules would take up most of the roughly three hours we'll have. I'm basically piggy backing this onto a "kids" (they're 16-24... but always kids to me!) family birthday get together. When I simply mentioned tabletop roleplaying a few months ago, one of them said he had no idea how you could make it work without a PC or console. I sent him a link to Critical Role but no idea if he actually watched ti.

I'm going to bring some very simplified sample characters (midway between the NPC stat block and a normal character sheet) and throw them into a very simple adventure similar to what you're suggesting. Basically, the mists have receded and a set of ruins that was just out of range for a safe day trip is showing signs of activity (torches in the distance) for the first time in centuries and excited villagers are heading out to check it out. I'll start with a basic intro to the mechanics and tenets of roleplaying in general and then offer them a small nugget or RP'ing in town before they need to set out for the ruins. It'll basically be a tiny dungeon (three or four rooms) with a minor environment obstacle, some rats, a minor puzzle, and a pair of restless dead.

edit: After writing it out above, I'm thinking that I may have to pare it down further for them to feasibly finish it in time with some sort of satisfying conclusion. One other thing I didn't mention is that I'm not bringing in magic just yet to not have another set of mechanics to explain to just one person.

It was fun and definitely interesting. It'll take some getting used to with the push mechanic damaging players so easily though. Coming up with narrative ways they're taking attribute damage was a bit odd. I did like the various splits of damage between attributes, skills, and equipment.

Thematically/narratively, how do you repeatedly justify stat damage from pushing? Do you use the same reaskning or always mix it up? A player yesterday was repeatedly getting paper cut almost to death just trying to get a success in his primary role (archery hunter shooting his bow) due to bad rolls. Due to the brevity of the session both ingame and IRL, we weren't able to take a rest to heal it and I could see him getting discouraged a bit more each time.

I generally explain it as a ind of exhaustion. You get tired of thinking on a problem and need to let yoru brain recharge. You burn out on other peoples problems and start getting snippy with people. Muscles get sore, you need sleep.

Yeah, I definitely want to try it again but this time with more experienced roleplayers (as in any level of experience whatsoever!) to see how they react to it. It was fine with me as GM but obviously I wasn't invested in the skeletons and swarm that I threw at them.

 warboss wrote:
Yeah, I definitely want to try it again but this time with more experienced roleplayers (as in any level of experience whatsoever!) to see how they react to it. It was fine with me as GM but obviously I wasn't invested in the skeletons and swarm that I threw at them.

Yup. And the danger and survival elements of the game only really have a place in something longer than a 1 shot. PCs suffer over time. Are broken down by lack of resources and degrading health from critical injuries. That needs room to breathe.

 Lance845 wrote:

Yup. And the danger and survival elements of the game only really have a place in something longer than a 1 shot. PCs suffer over time. Are broken down by lack of resources and degrading health from critical injuries. That needs room to breathe.

Very true. I basically ignored the survival elements for this time limited one shot as I already had enough to teach them. They were even sheepishly asking if they could talk to an NPC I was obviously setting up for roleplaying (literally having one NPC tell them "Hey, you should go talk to Avaris... he's actually been there long ago!"). I don't think they were the best focus group to further degrade by fleas and cold.

How did YOU enjoy it?

Here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DX5ImjDRZ5YHQC8kXLctAmJVaaQcGVRu?usp=sharing is the section of my G Drive with some assets I made. Has character sheet (one with my house rules support and one without) some GM screen sheets and card images I made and had printed for monsters/randomtables/spells and what not.

Happy to share them if any of that is useful to you.

 Lance845 wrote:
How did YOU enjoy it?

Here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DX5ImjDRZ5YHQC8kXLctAmJVaaQcGVRu?usp=sharing is the section of my G Drive with some assets I made. Has character sheet (one with my house rules support and one without) some GM screen sheets and card images I made and had printed for monsters/randomtables/spells and what not.

Happy to share them if any of that is useful to you.

I did enjoy it but I do have concerns. I've always been partial to graduated success resolution over the more typical binary with possible crit you find in d20 systems. My biggest concern is the gradually degrading character but I fully admit that I did NOT test it out in a fair scenario given that the system is built with the expectation that a rest will return some or all of that damage. At first glance, I was a bit hesitant due to what seemed like a scarcity of opposed rolls but simply having a higher stat that takes more time to whittle down is a sort of sliding scale difficulty as is the imposition of penalties to the dice pool instead of requiring a certain number of successes in the first place. I appreciate the link and will take a look at it tonight!


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edit: Do you primarily play in person (and print out the various guides/cheatsheets) or use them online instead? Are those customized off of the various card packs they offer? I appreciate the links.

Finally got to play this game (twice so far) and it's been a fun change from D&D. It definitely scratches a different itch that D&D leaves ignored. The "self harm" from pushing rolls (you can reroll but you risk taking equipment and stat damage on 1's) is alot more frequent than I expected but resting/sleeping heals it all up just as quickly. I like the stricter encumbrance rules as well as using up valuable resources like food/water/arrows in an unpredictable way that doesn't allow you to micromanage those aspects unlike in D&D (assuming that you're not completely ignoring it in the first place of course!).