For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews 5:12–14.
Reading YouTube comments is usually a mistake. Every creator hopes that they have an audience that will offer thoughtful, constructive criticism and that their comments won’t devolve into a cesspool of idiocy. Unfortunately, it happens to every channel, size not withstanding. In my conversation with James Streissand from a couple weeks ago, he put forward the idea of tutorializing early sessions of RPGs to teach new players how to play the game properly. Specifically, he recommended telling players that they would not be able to leave town without acquiring the needed resources for the first dungeon. One commenter under the stream took specific issue with this recommendation, stating that it was an awful idea. Well, I hope that commenter is reading this article, because today I’ll be discussing why James’ idea is actually a good one. What James is advocating for is not hand-holding or coddling as some may say. Rather, it’s a strategy designed to help new players grow in their knowledge and understanding of the mechanics needed to play the game right. Not every player is ready to rock and roll immediately and you will have to give them milk until they are mature enough in playing to be given meat.
The metaphor I used in the title of this article and in the last paragraph is an ancient one. It can be found in multiple places in the Bible, including in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, Peter’s first letter to the church in Asia Minor, and in the book of Hebrews as quoted at the start of this article. The metaphor contrasts the initiation of new converts into the world of Christianity with the introduction of food to newborns. In the same way that you give milk, puree and other nutritious liquids to infants to help them grow, you introduce simple foundational concepts to new believers who are still learning. Over time, you have to introduce more solid foods to infants, including meats, vegetables and fruit, and they have to learn to feed it to themselves. Likewise, a Christian will eventually need to dig into deeper spiritual concepts and pursue their own spiritual nourishment through regular prayer, reading, and discussion of theology with spiritual leaders and fellow laymen alike. This process of growth is called Sanctification in Christian doctrine, but nowhere in scripture does it say that nobody can help you along in this process. Quite the contrary, in fact. Scripture encourages us to help our weaker brothers and to build each other up in Christ. This help does not constitute shoving meat down the throat of a baby though, but giving them what they need to eventually eat meat on their own.
Why should this metaphor not apply to RPGs as well? Many of us desire an elite class of player who longs to ascend the Adventurer, Conqueror, King ladder, but the reality of our hobby is that very few players are in that place right now. If that’s the case, how do we find those elite players? Well, the most realistic option is to take players who are completely inexperienced or only experienced in conventional play and initiate them into The Way. Doing this requires patience and a fair amount of hand-holding as you introduce new concepts. When it comes to BrOSR style, The Way, or whatever you want to call the adoption of domain play, timekeeping and other similar forgotten mechanics. When you bring new players into a campaign built around these concepts, don’t be surprised when they don’t immediately intuit how these concepts work. You’ll have to introduce them to the resources they need, namely the Players’ Handbook, show them how the mechanics work and even wall off early parts of the game until they’re ready. If you have experienced players in your group, you should urge them to also make suggestions to the least experienced players. Have iron sharpen iron at your table.
The common objection to this assertion is that this would constitute letting the players win. While I can see where this objection is coming from, namely that players need to learn to think and play smart, telling your players what resources they need in the beginning and giving them a general overview of how to interface with the game is a long way away from letting them win. Firstly, the dice are still in play. While you are assisting the players in letting them know what resources they need, you should never, ever fudge the dice. Again, our objective here is to level the playing field, not eliminate it entirely. Let the dice fall where they may. Secondly, you should still let the players make decisions, even if they’re bad decisions. Again, you’re teaching players how to play, not playing the game for them. In the same way that tutorial levels of video games can still kill your characters, early levels for players should still teach them hard lessons about making bad decisions. You’re also telling the players that, even though they’re new, you trust them to make decisions for themselves. If the players fail, they fail, but at least they fail on their own merits or due to the dice turning against them instead of because they didn’t know what they didn’t know.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting a challenging game for your players. Hell, I would even call that a virtue in RPGs. However, there’s challenging and then there’s shafting your players by not giving them all the information they would need to succeed. Part of your job as a Game Master is to prepare your players for the game. If they’re brand new, you can’t just shove them into a meat grinder and expect them to succeed. Don’t be the GM equivalent of Charlie Zelenoff where you sucker punch the players until they give in. Give them their handwraps, give them their gloves and run them through some basic bag work before you put them through a ten round boxing match. Once you let them in the ring though, don’t pull your punches.