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Setup for Success: Failure Through Experience

When you’ve been roleplaying for decades, it’s understandable that you may not be able to remember what it’s like to start out. It’s also understandable that you’ve got a plethora of habits you’ve developed over the years.

Experience can be great for self improvement. However, experience can also go in the other direction. There are players with experience, and then there are experienced players. The difference is that players with experience still maintain contact with their good habits, and are aware of how their behavior impacts their tablemates. Experienced players, on the other hand, let their forged habits rule their behavior at the gaming table.

It’s important to clear away those habits and remember what it’s like to play this hobby without decades of expectations and established beliefs. This week, we’re looking at what new players can teach us about roleplaying.

New players take rules at face value

New players aren’t familiar with the rulebook. Because of this, they tend to accept rules at face value. This attack targets all creatures, so that means my allies are going to be targeted. This rule says this, so it means that. New players ask for a quick ruling on anything ambiguous, and they go with the answer they receive.

Experienced players, however, are familiar enough with the rules that they now feel comfortable picking them apart. This attack targets creatures, but doesn’t the connotation of creature indicate an animal, or living entity without higher thought? We’re really more sentients than creatures, wouldn’t you say? This rule here doesn’t explicitly call out this boundary, so technically I can use this loophole to justify tripling the damage on all of my attacks.

New players can remind us to view the rules as a framework for having fun. Don’t play the system, play the game. Don’t obsessively look for loopholes and then exploit them over and over until the other players are sick of the system. Don’t mechanic the game to death.

New players do things their class doesn’t excel at

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I dunno. He's just a very angry cat. I'm not sure convincing him you're a noble is going to help much.
I dunno. He’s just a very angry cat. I’m not sure convincing him you’re a Noble is going to help much.

When was the last time you saw a fighter make a Handle Animal check, when there were characters in the party “more appropriate” for the task? New players decide what they want to do and THEN check their sheet to help with the roll. Experienced players have learned to check their sheet and tailor their behaviors and choices ONLY to do what they can stack the numbers on. “I wouldn’t be able to calm that animal down on an average check, but I do have ranks in this skill instead, so how do I handle this with Knowledge Nobility?”

New players can remind us that we’re playing characters who think of solutions first, rather than stop to assess their skills and stick only to things at which they’re guaranteed to succeed. Get over your sheet, and do what makes sense in the moment, not in the mechanic.

New players make characters, not built on a gimmick

New players make a fun character built with simple rules. Over time, they add in personality. When they level up, they make quick choices that sound fun. Experienced players agonize over mechanical choices and pathways. Experienced players bored with a system build their character around a gimmick. You begin to see extremely complicated characters, min-maxed characters, or obsessively optimized characters at your table.

New players can remind us to make FUN characters that are rounded out. Quit the optimizing and planning. Stop building on a loophole.

New players ask party members what they’re planning to make

New players make sure their character will fit in with the rest of the party. They get some communication going to make sure they’ll fit in. Experienced players have an idea already about what everyone else is going to make, and do their own thing when they build a character. Lone-wolf characters and badly balanced parties tend to come from experienced groups, not new groups.

New players can remind us that we’re part of a group, and that we need to start acting like it again.

New players never argue with the GM

A new player understands their position with the GM. This is the person running the game, and who has a lot of experience doing so. The GM is respected, and is given the benefit of the doubt in any disagreement.

Experienced players argue with GMs at times. It’s just a fact. This doesn’t have to take the form of, “You’re wrong, and an idiot.” It can be a snide comment like, “That’s not how I would read that rule, but whatever you say.” Of course that’s not how you would read the rule, but who cares? What’s the real point of making that statement? You’re just letting your GM know, in a passive-aggressive way, that you think you understand the system better than they do.

New players remind us to stop being arrogant jerks who think we’re smarter than everyone else.

New players are considerate of other new players

A new player understands what it’s like to be new at a table, and to not know the rules. They have compassion and patience for others who are new to the hobby. Experienced players stop being patient, and start having expectations. Rigid ones, more often than not. Experienced players uninvite people not based on their behavior, but because the people aren’t up to the experienced player’s standards of excellence.

New players remind us that this hobby is about inclusion, patience, and cooperation.

Stop being an experienced player, and be a player with experience. And, maybe, act like a new player again.


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