I’ve been wanting to try BitD recently with my “I get to test shit out on you guys” group. I really enjoy PbtA, so they’re generally familiar with the engine, but they’re not familiar with bitd. They’re also not trad players, so they’re not accustomed to digesting a lot of crunch.
I’ve come across the issue, though, that BitD seems a lot more crunchy than other PbtA games, to the point where I got some push-back from my group when they saw the “assigned reading” (I shared the 7.1 document with them so they could get a feel for the system). I think part of it was the quantity of crunch, and part of it was perceived “density” of reading.
Any tips on ways to communicate the rules to not-so-new players in a stream-lined way?
Also, I guess if this isn’t an isolated occurrence, maybe it’s something to keep in mind for composing the final version of the game.
I’m only loosely familiar with BitD as of yet (only played in one-shots, no campaigns, and I haven’t deeply read the rules to run it yet), so everything I say will be more general than specific.
TLDR: Lots of pre-prep hand-outs and delegation of information.
For me whenever I am teaching anything, it depends on the recipient. One of the biggest problems I have when learning something new is being overwhelmed, so I try to keep that in mind when I end up teaching. I try to understand what their capacity for knowledge is and keep it manageable and fun. What this ends up looking like is I do a lot of prep ahead of time to make sure I know what is important and have lots of homemade sheets to keep me in line and remind me what to do. For something like an RPG I delegate information. I let them know, “Hey, don’t worry about all the info, but since you’re playing X, I would love it if you’d be responsible for Y.” I still need to know how information connects and interacts. But as play continues, players will pick up more and more.
Also some players love knowing all the information ahead of time, having a greater capacity than I do… so I just let them have at it… though this doesn’t sound like your problem.
It’s really not that crunchy. And the vast majority of the 7.1 doc is NOT crunch.
All you really need to do is cover action rolls and resistance rolls. And the fact that you don’t want to take too much Stress. That’s it. Everything else can be brought up as it comes up.
I’m actually a little bit astonished that an experienced group has so much trouble. The game has a “do a thing” roll like so many other games, and an “avoid having a thing happen to you” roll, and everything else is just a variant of one or the other.
Mike Pureka
My impression was that the rules around desperate/risky/controlled + effect/quality/etc. was the biggest hurdle. It really just systematizes “pay attention to fictional positioning,” but I think it was a crunch-distraction.
Also, it’s definitely not an experienced group. They’re not really gamers – they’re people I’ve slowly lassoed into trying out various new RPGs with me. They haven’t ever really played much other than PbtA games, and none of have been playing for >1 yr. I think to them the various PbtA games are largely one game w/ genre-specific playbooks and slight rule variants.
I dislike assigned reading. I’ve also found it to be the quickest way to turn new players off of new a game, even ones familiar with RPGs.
Sit down together as a group, explain the basics, make characters, then explain the rest of the rules as they come up in play. Provide enough information for players to make informed decisions, but don’t overwhelm them.
Also, while BitD may be similar to PbtA games, the core mechanics are somewhat different.
Well with any gaming group it requires “buy in” to try a new game system. It may need for you to be like “hey I know it seems daunting, but I will walk you through it.” for them to agree. But sometimes no amount of proding will convince them to try it. Just be positive and if the answer is no then respect them for it.
J Stein
Ah, okay; I must’ve gotten the wrong impression from the original post, leaving with the idea that they’d tried a bunch of games.
That said, the controlled/Risky/Desperate thing isn’t really even crunch. It’s barely even player facing except that the GM is giving them a “read” on how crazy he thinks this idea is. The players literally don’t have to do anything different between the three positions. So I think my earlier assertion about how much stuff needs to be introduced is largely unaffected.
I DO agree with Chris Stone-Bush – assigned reading is seldom a good idea, and if you gave them the whole PDF, you gave them a huge pile of stuff, so this isn’t really the best way to introduce people.
Sit them down. Explain action rolls and resistance rolls and how they complement one another, then step through character creation and get right into the thick of it.
My group recently moved from Shadowrun to BitD. Most of the group really didn’t like the crunch of Shadowrun, and complained that it was too complex basically from the get-go.
So I found this game and read it with a friend of mine. I was really concerned about this problem that you’re facing, though, so I didn’t let the rest of the group read the book. I made random characters for them to pick from (using the random NPC tables–they were hilarious), a basic one-shot score, and gave them simple explanations of rules as they came up. Plus, since it was a one-shot, they didn’t have to care about their characters’ well-being.
The point was to demonstrate that the game was really simple, and I probably went a bit overboard in my approach, but overall it seemed to go pretty well. I think if you print out and give them the two Rules Reference pages (36 & 37) and tell them “these are most of the rules, and this second page is for downtime and doesn’t even matter right now,” then maybe dramatically throw it over your shoulder, you can make a pretty good case for how little crunch there is in this system.
I swear there was also a section in the book about just addressing rules as they came up, but I can’t find it now. I know your question was “any tips on communicating rules to players?” and my answer was “don’t,” so maybe not the most helpful. But it can work. Like other people have said, the only really important thing is explaining position and effect.
In keeping with the ideology to K.I.S.S., my handout for new or one-shot players is this collection of 6 extracted pages from the text. The fiction I discuss by summarizing The Situation through narration. Then into character with them. A look at the character sheets plus the info there will get you going.
I also fall back on the wisdom of the Starting the Game section as needed and point players to the pages I am referencing (I am using the same doc).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzNN7yL3u8NaExLZmJ4dThKUGc/view?usp=sharing
I considered adding the Engagement roll rules to this handout, but after a few games without,I found it smoother to just summarize the purpose of the Engagement roll is like initiative for the Thing they are doing, and how its not based on an action roll, but the other special kind, the fortune roll. And that it measures the quality of their plan via details’ quality. Which of course would naturally lead to the question “What is a fortune roll?” And they will learn because they learned things when they were useful. Much better reception when I run it this way than to throw the document at the players too early (it’s blossomed to nearly 100 pages).
Thanks for the feedback, J Stein.
Introducing a new game is so very tricky, and depends utterly on specific player needs and group dynamics. I’m trying to give good tools in the book (and with the unfinished ‘player one sheet’), but they will be insufficient no matter what. Successfully getting your group into a game is ultimately on you. I will help as much as I can and cheer you on.
Definitely don’t expect anyone to read a book (or a nearly 100 page PDF) before playing a game. People just don’t do that kind of thing. Mark Cleveland Massengale’s collected pages are good. You might want a different set for what your players need, so go ahead and extract those. (I hope my future one-sheet will serve this need well.)
Personally, before the first session, I’d only give them the Overview page. For my current series on RollPlay, I told them that their prep was to watch Peaky Blinders and play Dishonored (or watch a YT video).