Hi

Love playing Descent, painted minis are looking good.

I'm attempting to teach new players how to play the game. Some have experience of this type of game, some have experience of Monopoly. I've started by letting them choose their characters, issued their health and fatigue tokens and explained their use. Let them select their skills and then let them shop. I then run a small battle to let them get to grip with the battle system.

I then set up the board and kick off.

Generally I'm met with blank faces until they open the first door. Then the players just seem to become lost. Too many pieces, cards and stuff to keep track off seems to be the feed back.

Does anyone have a good method for teaching the game to novice players ?

When a co-worker of mine was looking at starting an RPG group with a bunch of people with no experience in anything like this, he asked the guy behind the counter his opinion on Descent vs Tomb, and was basically told Tomb would be a much better choice for that group, because it is basically "Descent Lite".

So if you are willing to money for another game, I'd say start with that.

mooks said:

Tell them its just one of those 1st person computer games put on a board. Each turn you get 4 special moves to choose from (Advance, Battle, Run and Ready). Then you run round the board trying to complete a goal (usually kill the big boss monster at the end). Monsters and traps and seemingly random events pop up trying to interfere with the heroes. The heroes collect treasure, cash and potions and can use those to improve themselves, buy other equipment and be better in combat. Their health and energy (fatigue) go up and down as they get hit, hurt by traps, exert themselves, drink potions, Rest etc. If they die their team loses some points and they come back to life almost exactly as they were (new location, town, and lost half their cash).

The main difference is you get to play with each other in a social environment, rather than all sit in a dark room staring at computer screens.
And the bad guys are run by another player rather than an AI system.

mooks said:

Certainly. Everyone I've played with has played the computer game Diablo. I compare it to that, and they understand immediately how it plays conceptually. In Diablo, you search for random treasure, weapons, potions for healing and "mana" (fatigue). You have Town Portals (glyphs), when you die you respawn in town, there's a shop there, etc. There's usually one big baddie to fight, like the Butcher, or even Diablo himself, etc.

It seems to work so well, I'm surprised no one has created a Diablo version of Descent. Maybe I'll tackle that after I'm done with Doom's Advanced Campaign

-shnar

I would also suggest selecting the starting skills, equipment, and characters for your groups first time game. Make them ones that are simple to use and easy to understand. Then do a small introductory scenario, something like "The Rescue" from the list of Descent made scenarios on this website would work nicely. Also, don't play with feat cards on the first time through (and you may as well do without treachery to compensate for it). Remember to take it easy on them as you teach them.

Once they have a few games under their belts you can start going a little harder on them. Just make sure when you do start to kill them repeatedly (even if you go so far as to win the quest) that you do so to punish mistakes and point out to them why it happened (i.e. "How many times must I tell you? Don't stand right next to a corner or a Beastmen War Party will spawn 9 times out of 10 and eat your face....")

Rajamic said:

Tomb is a fun game, but it has pretty much nothing in common with Descent except theme. Descent is really all about tactical combat, but Tomb is more focused on building a party and then having semi-random encounters. When you have a battle in Tomb, the combat is a back-and-forth "Take turns bashing on each other until one party is eliminated". It's like Final Fantasy combat compared to the Zelda- or Diablo-style combat in Descent.

And while the basic rules of Tomb are simpler, I think Descent is actually much easier to learn because the cards in Tomb have extremely varying effects and it's often unclear how one card interacts with another.

Also, believe it or not, the Tomb rules (at least, the Tomb-Cryptmaster rules; haven't played the original) make the Descent rules seem well-written and comprehensive.

mooks said:

I'm assuming you've already dealt with the question of "do they actually want to play this game?" If you're trying to convince them it's a great game and they should play it when they maybe don't want to, you're probably not going to make much distance. Descent IS a great game, but it's not the sort of game people will enjoy if they aren't into this sort of thing already. If that's the case I'd suggest starting with easier games like Carcassonne or Puerto Rico to get them into the "gamer" games arena. Come back to Descent later.

Assuming that's not a problem, though, and their biggest complaint seems to be the number of bits, then maybe try cutting out the number of things to keep track of. I'd start by ignoring Order tokens and the Ready action in general. Let them get used to the other three first. Of course, losing guard is a huge blow, losing rest and dodge is pretty bad too, so as the OL you should probably dial it back a few notches to make up for that. Also, maybe forget about the backpack to cut down on the number of item slots they need to manage. Again, don't use these cut backs to slaughter them, but let them get the hang of the basic to and fro before introducing the other options. When somebody gets to the point that they ask "what if I want to carry an extra weapon?" or "is there any way I can sit here and be ready to attack the first thing that moves?" then you re-introduce the stuff you ignored before. Let them learn gradually.

Pre-picking heroes, skills and starting town equipment before people arrive is also a good thing. Give them a good, nicely balanced party with all the options pre-picked that they can use to get the hang of things. Try to avoid heroes with complicated or situational hero abilities. Astarra is a good learner hero, whereas One Fist might generate too many questions first time out. Later, when they're more comfortable with the flow of the game, they can try their hand at picking their own stuff.

Go easy on the spawns. Use a few for sure, but maybe not as many as you might normally. If these players can predict and control groups of monsters more easily, it will help them wrap their heads around how the system works. When you spawn, tyr to pick positions and monster groups that exewmplify aspects of gameplay the heroes should watch for. Spawn a tleast one group of beastmen right around the corner if they miss their LoS coverage (but don't savage them too badly.) Make sure at some point to spawn a group of skellies behind the party. Even if they never catch up or do much of anything, it'll show the heroes that monsters can come up from behind.

Lastly, don't be shy about pointing out options. If someone goes to do something that would normally be considered a bad move, try to explain the reasons why that's normally not good and even suggest a better move for them. Let them make the final decision, but show them the kind of things they should be watching out for. This is not how one plays the game "for keeps" of course, but it sounds like your group needs a bit more hand-holding than a typical gaming group, probably because not all of these people are typical gamers.

In addition to choosing the heroes for them, also choose their starting gear. You might want to try playing your first few games with no character feats/skills, and basically no overlord cards (you still draw them, but the only cards you play are spawn cards and only if the dungeon is low on monsters, and you don't ditch them for threat, either).

Remove all the obstacles except for rubble (you can add more types later, but add slowly) and completely forget about areas, just deploy everything on the map, and you as overlord dont activate anything that isnt in an area with heroes in it.

Oh and forget about Conquest Points at first, just give them a solid going thru of the basics of combat and turn sequence. Once that's out of the way, you can slowly add more stuff in.

Fizz said:

I agree with you on the heroes and starting gear. Let them pick or help them get a setup that will assist them in being really successful. (At least help with balance so they aren't all one type of dmg...)

But I play everything as is from then on out. The obstacles, monster spawns, traps, are what make it fun. I find that if you give the group a fun experience - even if they lose - they want to try the quest again - sometimes right away - to fix the mistakes they may have made the first time through. It is the unexpected that can make the game the most fun... I don't like the idea of easing them into game play one obstacle at a time. Help with a strong setup - and play as is - it is the fastest way to get them to understand the mistakes they might make and to learn to get better faster. It's a lot easier to catch on as a hero player - than it is the overlord player.

With one exception - I do not play the dark glyphs with all new people on their first dungeon. I tell them I am leaving them out for them this first time - that it'll be painful enough when I kill them - they don't need that other penalty at this time as well.

Well thank you for your brilliant advice, I read it all and I pleased to report that William (49), Craig (26) and Carol Anne (21) (with Andrew 912) jumping around they table helping) found the red Rune key and came so close to killing Narthak tough they have said they want to play again. Craig drew Plate Mail as a teasure giving him armour of 5 early on and his base speed was already 3. Carol Anne used Kara and Mata very well, opening doors, sending them into to grab something, closing the door and then calling the back to her the next turn. Even with the familiars and the "all the bits" they got their heads round it pretty quick.

At one point Craig inventively used "Telekenisis" to move a Beastman into a pit which I thought was brilliant play. I allowed it to happen though a rule clarification would be nice.

Having the painted miniatures helped a lot as well. They're big video gamers all three of them and I think they enjoyed the social aspect of it as much as the game play.

I have no doubt they'll set sail on the Sea of Blood one day.

mooks out

Using Telekinesis to throw monsters into pits (or lava, or traps, or Auras) is a very common play. In the case of pits, it's barely even worth doing, since you can usually get 1 damage for 1 fatigue simply by spending it to add a black die to an attack, but it is occasionally helpful.