so i have been asked to run a one shot for someone’s birthday next friday.

so i have been asked to run a one shot for someone’s birthday next friday.

so i have been asked to run a one shot for someone’s birthday next friday. problem is, most of the folks who will be there have never played an rpg before. dungeon world was easy for me to pick up because A) i am familiar with the genre and B) i read the rule book several times. i have, in the past, had a hard time explaining it in other games i have run, where it takes an hour or more to get through half a character sheet. how is a good way to introduce dungeon world to complete newcomers in a time efficient way?

8 thoughts on “so i have been asked to run a one shot for someone’s birthday next friday.”

  1. Mark Tygart​​ yeah, i have read tight dw1shots, but that assumes players know what they are doing. uzing that advice i once stumbled through half of character creation which took more than an hour.

  2. I’ve had great success by just laying the character sheets out, asking brand new players “What looks cool?”, and building characters right there. I asked lots of questions, helped people pick moves and arrange stats, and provided enough information for people to make informed decisions without overwhelming them.

    That’s the trick; not to explain absolutely everything, as brand new players will get confused and bored. Keep things short so you can get to the action ASAP. Don’t worry too much about explaining moves. Instead, show them in play. Say things like “Sound like you’re trying to do [X]” and then briefly explain it.

  3. If you are doing character creation, one thing that might help speed things up is to underscore the fact that the story will be reactive to the players. They don’t have to try to second-guess which options will be “best” for the pre-planned adventure… rather, emphasise that the game will focus on what they do best, so they should make their choices based on what they want to see.

    That said, the allocation of stats does kind of have a “right” and “wrong” way to do it based on the choice of class, as well as being one of the more dry parts of character creation. Peter J ‘s quick start sheets make that simpler, as Jeremy Strandberg says.

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