Observations on Onboarding

The few chances I had to crack open the dusty ol' tomes and partake in adventure gaming has been on the refereeing side of the table. Normally with some green recruits on the other side. Checking my notes on the number of sessions I participated as a Player versus the ones as a Referee, there is about a 1:3 ratio. So I'm more often than not running.

Albeit me favoring the take from someone arriving fresh and new to the hobby, rather than a veteran grognard, I ran into some friction when on-boarding new players. This post is collecting some of my personal Observations on Onboarding (new players, that is).

People come to the table with all kinds of backgrounds and expectations. I've had players that have never watched Lord of the Rings/Game of Thrones/Harry Potter - these are rare but they happen. Even cultural pillars of entertainment media as they were. We need to adjust your Common Framework to the media and stories your players are familiar with.

I still don't know if it's better to a) play on Middle Earth. Or b) Middle Earth with the serial numbers filed off - a la Sword of Shannara. Or c) something completely mashed together from different sources - either kitchen sink style, or with a strong vision from the Referee and buy-in from the players.

And let's face it - TTRPGs are a very strange medium and form of entertainment:

• There are rules, but they are constantly modified and interpreted by the play group during (and outside of) the act of play itself.
• It is assymetrical, because the Referee/Game Master is a special player that carries a lot of weight in the whole experience.
• Depending on the Common Framework, the expectations and knowledge taken by the player to the game will be wildly different. If you have watched or read LotR, you will expect dwarves and elves to be a very particular way in the game world.
  

Accept that you as the Referee/Game Master are the most invested player in the game, by a wide margin. This is the way of things. Accept it! instead of trying to herd cats. You spent hours understanding the rule book. Bought an adventure module, or even worse spent more hours creating one. Even a simple dungeon will take time to muster or understand. Players, especially new ones, see TTRPGs as an alternative to boardgame night. Or chatting over a Netflix show. It's just another form of collective entertainment.

Allow for tactical infinity. Combat is very codified in most Old School systems. It has more rules to it, owing to the wargaming roots of the hobby. Which in turn means that the flow of the game is changed to a turn-by-turn sequence with codified options. The beauty of RPGs however is that you are not constrained by a set of actions (attack/move/cast spell). New players come to the table with a lot of creativity, and few or none bad habits. So outside the box solutions will flourish. Encourage creativity and ad-hoc refereeing. Otherwise we might as well be playing a videogame like WoW or similar.

Stop fussing or sweating about character and story continuity. Say a PC dies mid-dungeon. Don't waste time explaining why their cousin suddenly appears as a replacement character in the middle of the dungeon - they just do. Having Hirelings help in this regard, since they are just replacement characters waiting to rise to the opportunity. If we have 2h to play per week, the last thing needed is time and momentum wasted.

Some questions and situations that have come up in my games more than once:

• "How do I/we win? There is no win condition!? WAT!"
• "Why are rolls so different? Why is opening doors 1d6 roll 1 or 2 (low), but Thief rolls d100. And then hireling reaction is 2d6. But combat is d20 roll high? Why?"
• "What happens if I kill the Mayor?"
  "But hold on, he's hiring you to rescue the orphans from the <Insert Mook type>."
  "I don't care, he's an ass, I stab him."
• "Why do we need Torches? Can't we just use sticks on the floor?" - What follows is an awkward explanation on ressource management, realism, and outdoor survival.

OSR: The Calaveras Campaign 1, 2, 3

As I already touched on here, a new campaign has started where I try to run Knave in Spanish. The players, old friends of mine, have never played a TTRPG before. So I can proud myself on being their first contact with the hobby, and hopefully a worthy ambassador?

To keep things lean and simple (one of my selling points for Knave has been the 7-page-long rules), the only additions I allowed were an extra item at character generation (choose between extra weapon, lockpicks, or random spellbook), and Snacks (once a day consume a ration during a turn of rest to regain some HP). Hopefully these help counterbalance the group being 2 3 players.

As for how I'm organizing this game, there are two main changes:

1. I switched to Micro$oft's OneNote to keep my notes in one place. So far Markdown text notes were my jam, but the need to embed images and other media in one place made me give this a try. Let's see.
2. On top of that, keeping an analog journal after each session has been a refreshing change. The reports below are expanded mentions of what I have in these notebook pages.
   

Let's look at the characters:

Pancho (Copernico) - a guy with a crossbow and a tendency to grab shiny stuff in front of him. Zemalayou (iagson) - carrying a bow and a spellbook, Zem has showed good and bad judgement alike. Heavily scarred after this first adventure so far. Nerisse* (Mo) - a redhead bow-woman, who wakes up in the first visited dungeon without any memory of how she ended up there. New Hirelings** - Daniele (man-at-arms, sword & board)

*Nerisse joined the group at Session 3.

*Daniele was hired at Session 2 in Rietikon.

Session 1

• A trip on the road from Walfalkon to the hamlet of Rietikon. Word of floods and landslides in that region serve as a hook for the adventurers, with rumors of ancient ruins and sites with potential treasure.
• They travel with a family wanting to try better luck West, and a dwarf called Gunther who's reserved and bookish. The family reduces their travel speed, so Gunther decides it's better to haste to Rietikon rather than be forced to spend the night camping, so he gallops away with his pony.
• Zem and Pancho decide to camp with the family instead of pressing on after the dwarf. Why wouldn't they risk going on? That's their prerogative.
• During camp, they question the family (Honk & co) to get a sense of the current mood in the region, and their motivations to moving. Selling boots and moving on, it seems?
  
• Marching continues with the break of dawn, and close to Rietikon they find Gunther's saddlebags discarded near the road.
• Copernico rolled a spyglass at character creation, so Pancho makes good use of it to scout ahead.
• Investigating the area yields some clues. It looks like this was a violent attack perpetrated by a group. Valuables as coin and books were left on site. So of course, Pancho pockets that.
• They decide to continue to town, escorted by the family, to check out those 3 tomes.
• Once in Rietikon, the Pfaff Lake stands ominously by the fishing hamlet. The lake hosts an endless fog at its center, together with constant lightning. Its nature a mystery, yet it doesn't seem like a threat?
• They get room and carp stew at The Satyr & The Carp, little more than a side cottage with some bunk beds for rent. Lon Abio, both host and major, gives them a sense of the area (and provides some rumors):
• Landslides down South have stirred things up. Why is Walfalkon not sending help yet?
• Beastmen are roaming the region, sprouting out like vermin after the floods.
• A wizard passed by town going South-West to the marshes, about 2 days away.
• There's someone in town (Enric) who might be interested in those books of yours...
  

Referee Commentary

• I'm perfectly aware that this way of warming new players up is sub-optimal. But I knew these friends would be hooked, and decided to take a softer start to facilitate a broader sandbox scope.
• Gunther's dilemma is what Phandelver's start should have been like.
• They were given meaningful choices and a few hooks. Let's see how this continues.
  

Session 2

• Books are dropped to Enric, a sick-looking fella that accepts transcribing them for profit, in the span of weeks.
• With the profits they hire Daniele, a woman-at-arms ready for some mercenary work, and get some provisions. All is ready to venture to the nearby Biber Hills!
• Half-way a couple with their throats cut out is found, killed on site. Few monetary valuables still on them.
• Getting into the hills proper, the trio spends the night and gets some nearby hints but no action:
• Beastmen seen from a distance (again Pancho's spyglass comes in handy), accompanied by a woman.
• Landslide and unsteady terrain not far from their sleeping spot wakes them up at night.
• An owl of titanic proportions flies nearby during the darkest of night.
• The next day, they decide to go for the Dragon Skull of Xaxalar, a known site within the hills.
• On their arrival, there's a column of smoke coming out of the skull's nostrils. Is someone there? There's also a tied dog at the entrance. It starts barking as the group approaches, but no one comes out with the warning. After feeding it some dried fish (a ration), it can be bypassed.
• Inside there are some logs, furs, and discarded bones. Pancho and Daniele investigate the area, whilst Zem serves as lookout with his bow. They find a sizeable sack with teeth and fangs (priced possessions of sorts?), as well as a hidden passage below the furs!
• Following that tunnel, after some minutes of crawling and going underground in this structure, they find the stone ruins of a complex. The closed door has a stone hand, open, instead of a handle. Zem thinks it appropriate to give it a shake. It instantly animates, crushing his hand bones and tendons. Hand is unusable from here on out!
• Pancho takes an iron hook, gets the "shake" on the piece of equipment, but can get the door open.
• Inside, there's a corridor with tapestries left and right, with images of serpent folk, dragons, and other creatures. Serpentine Empire, anybody?
• The next room has a lizard skeleton, impaled on the skull by a javelin. Eyes are glowing. Shelves with moldy old tomes and parchments to the eastern wall.
• Pancho pulls the javelin out, as Zem is investigating the books, which makes them ignite and throw a flame tongue at the already injured bowman! He passes out, face disfigured by the burn marks.
  

Referee Commentary

• Glad that the group chose to feed the dog and not escalate the situation. They also took their time to check the interior out.
• Glad that iagson learned to be more cautious from here on out when encountering bizarre dungeons.
  

Session 3Nerisse (Mo) joins from this session #3 on

• Zem has been burned and is currently down. A reinvigorating Snack and attending by Daniele gets him back up and capable of adventuring, hand still a mess of broken bones.
• Pancho scouts ahead, and in the next room finds a column with 4 sets of chains and manacles. One of them contains a sprawled skeleton, the other a ginger woman, Nerisse. Quickly freeing her with his lockpicks, Pancho questions her, but little she remembers of this place, or what brought her to it.
• A scaly crimson lizard the size of a fat cat crawls through the ceiling, upside down, and attacks the recently recovered group.
  
• Nerisse tries tossing the femur of the skeleton to another direction: "Doggy, fetch". Didn't draw the desired attention, instead the skeleton animated asking "Well, that is rather impolite. Do you mind?"
• After a feral exchange, Pancho goes down, but it's Daniele who deals the final sword blow to the creature, that turns to ash and smoke, and disappears as quickly as it came to existence.
• Time to question the skeleton. Nerisse takes the lead, hoping the bony figure can give some clues. "Name is Daer the fool, I used to brighten up this slumber temple in times past. I remember... a great betrayal. A thief and a mother!". He points to the Western doors claiming that the place of worship is in that area.
  
• Zem moves to the North with Daniele, whilst Pancho fiddles with some locks (lockpicks! equipment!). The archer has 1 unusable arm, and a disfigured face (permanent -1 to Charisma): the (momentary) torchbearer. They find a human size stone statue of a cobra, with a red ruby on one eye socket, and a green emerald on the other. Also some stairs in front, moving down. Too psychologically scarred, and weary of any traps, Zem decides to move back to the group.
• From here on out, moving West thanks to an unlocked door:
  
• There's a chapel area with rotten benches, and a red curtain separating the room.
• A stone tub with goo and liquid reveals to have regenerative powers. Zem quickly puts his hand in, and splashes some on his face too. Hand is fixed! But face scars get lizard scales?
• They get attacked again by the same red lizard, bigger and stronger this time.
• Nerisse and Zem push the basin together, dropping the liquid. The lizard vanishes as it came. Where to?
• Behind the red curtain, a prayer room with a second stone cobra statue (this one without gems in the eye sockets), and a prayer book at the lectern. With riddles and cryptic messages, and some magic even?
  

Referee Commentary

• Very happy with the group's engagement with the game and the fiction.
• In the couple of combats we had, the players' first reaction is to look at their character sheet to look for equipment to use: net, glue, fire, etc. This fills my OSR heart.
• I'm glad the first point of interest was a dungeon of my own design. Means it's rougher on the edges, but it gets playtested.