9/27/09

Introducing New Players

Hello everyone! So, today I am going to be showing a friend of mine how to actually play the game. If you remember from my Gorten vs Grim post, that game was actually played because a friend of mine named Dan wanted to see how the game was played. After thinking about it he decided he wanted to give it a shot. So, on Monday he went online and bought himself the Circle Orboros boxed set, with Kaya 2 Argus and the Warpwolf.

Today will be the first time he has ever actually played. Its gonna be at least 1 if not more games with our Battle Box contents, which means of course he is going to face Madrak, 2 Impalers and my Axer. I told him that I am going to go "easy" on him in a sense, as I will explain any moves I make if he asks. I am also going to let him take back his moves if he wants so he can learn.

I don't want to pummel him into the ground for his first game, but at the same time I still want to pose a challenge and make him have the most fun he can have. He is a competitive person actually. Much more then me in fact. For example, he tends to enjoy PVP on games like WoW and Champions Online. I don't.

So I wanted to ask you all: How do you introduce new players? Do you let them win their first games? How do you treat them on their first games?

I know I won my first game but I don't feel like it was given to me either. I took a chance and won. The guy I was playing with also refused to use Sorcha's feat, but that's besides the point.

Today is gonna rock!

3 comments:

  1. You give them 1 or 2 battlebox games and introduce them to the community while giving them the information they need (whats the average game size etc). The community will welcome them in and offer them chances to play which leaves it up to the newbie to play if he wants to.

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  2. I usually set up a bunch of different situations that allow me to show how rules work, and run through those before playing an actual game.

    Like, for example: here's how a charge attack works... set up a warpwolf 8 inches from madrak, then go through what happens when it wants to charge him.

    I always make sure that I'm demonstrating how their models can do stuff to my models.

    And I do that for all the basic mechanics of the game. Spellcasting, movement, feats, power attacks, and so on. That way, they're learning boosting, fury, etc.. while still doing something.

    Plus, this way there's no pressure to get it right the first time, because it's not like there's an actual game happening.

    I find people respond pretty well to this method, as it lets them learn one or two things at a time, without needing to keep a half-dozen other things in mind at once. And showing them how their models can be successful/cool/bad-ass gives them the confidence to try more stuff on their own when they actually start playing.

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  3. Basically it comes down to your own evaluation of how your friend takes winning/losing. I have played with people who can get the crap beat out of them and end the game smiling and asking for more, because the experience was still fun for them.

    I generally try to let a new player win on their first try, but of course not let them know that :). I remember the first few times I tried to play I was happy just figuring out how to get two models into combat and damaging each other. Now all that stuff seems very straightforward to me so I have to remind myself what it was like starting off.

    So I say let them win their first game, make sure they're excited about the game and what their army can do, then ramp up the difficulty and show them what YOUR army can do and how they're going to have to adapt to defeat that.

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