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I've got 3 months to plan a kick-ass DnD 4e info session
Sipex
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've been cordially invited to a mini con at our local University to demonstrate Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition for a bunch of gamers who are of the "4th Edition?! KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!" type. Fortunately for me, the con is in 3 months so I've got time to prepare. It's only a mini-con so I only get one day.
From what I understand, these people have played pretty much everything but have little experience with 4th Edition (and what experience they do have was bad due to bad DMing). I have a player of mine who goes to said university and tells them stories about our sessions so they're cautiously optimistic.
I'm dealing with the usual complaints:
"It's just a MMORPG on paper."
"All you do is fight all the time, there's no roleplaying."
"It's too generic, you can't do anything with it."
Now, I've got some ideas of my own but I was wondering if any of you have some tips on how to really sell the system to these guys. Show off the new bits and make it look fun.
Also, any ideas on what I can fit into a day's worth of time? I was thinking some quick one off sessions with a large in depth session later but I'm not sure how it'll work out. To my knowledge I will be the only 4e DM there.
Some ideas already:
Show off skill challenges, but in a good way. I'm thinking of stealing Tastydonuts' formatting for skill challenges because it was those that first convinced me Skill Challenges could be built right and built fun. It will be in person though, so I'll have to tweak it a bit.
Show off non-combat utility powers, this way guests aren't totally convinced 4th edition is all about combat.
From what I understand, these people have played pretty much everything but have little experience with 4th Edition (and what experience they do have was bad due to bad DMing). I have a player of mine who goes to said university and tells them stories about our sessions so they're cautiously optimistic.
I'm dealing with the usual complaints:
"It's just a MMORPG on paper."
"All you do is fight all the time, there's no roleplaying."
"It's too generic, you can't do anything with it."
Now, I've got some ideas of my own but I was wondering if any of you have some tips on how to really sell the system to these guys. Show off the new bits and make it look fun.
Also, any ideas on what I can fit into a day's worth of time? I was thinking some quick one off sessions with a large in depth session later but I'm not sure how it'll work out. To my knowledge I will be the only 4e DM there.
Some ideas already:
Show off skill challenges, but in a good way. I'm thinking of stealing Tastydonuts' formatting for skill challenges because it was those that first convinced me Skill Challenges could be built right and built fun. It will be in person though, so I'll have to tweak it a bit.
Show off non-combat utility powers, this way guests aren't totally convinced 4th edition is all about combat.
Sipex on
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How experienced are these players? D&D in the heroic tiers is kind of the "training wheels" phase of the game. Some people might enjoy the sense of progression you get going from 1 to X, which is fine, but for a one-shot being stuck with one encounter, one feat, one daily, and two at-wills could make things pretty boring.
The more experienced your players, the more you should consider starting at levels 11 or higher. A level 11+ character is very customizable, a level 1 character is not.
As for your encounter design, I find the strengths of 4E are:
-- Fast rules allow for easy resolution of complicated scenarios
-- Variety of modes of movement and zones of attack make movement and positioning very important
-- Focus on combat stats means players don't need to invest "character points" or "levels" or experience into flavor-only abilities.
How long do you want these encounters to last? How complicated do you want them to be? I imagine your best bet will be a sort of enclosed objective + scenario setup, something that gives the players a clear objective but no rules for approaching it, giving them free reign to be as creative or straightforward as they want.
Really vague example off the top of my head: Some sort of masked party for nobility is being used by <insert evil creature here, vampire? demon? cultist? whatever> to subvert minor nobles into supporting their evil plan to <subvert important national interest / be generally evil>. The party knows that <bad stuff> is going down tonight but isn't certain who the responsible party will be.
The party can infiltrate the ball however they see fit, and can be as patient or reckless as they want in trying to ferret out their target. Securing information or allies beforehand can make ensuing fights harder or easier, or can provide "bonus objective" style successes after the story (maybe having no civilian or soldier fatalities earns the players a prestigious award or ally in the epilogue, etc.)
Design fights with appropriate madness in mind. Chandeliers should be swung upon and crash, fancy tables of hot food provide bizarre terrain hazards, at least one cart contains food served flambe. Reinforcements come and go during the scene, at some point some villain makes a break for it and that segues into a horse-drawn-carriage-car-chase with party members fighting inside and outside carriages on the move.
The above isn't an explicit suggestion, just an off-the-cuff conceptualization of the kind of framework I'd use.
Level 11 is a good idea but I don't know if people will be able to make their own characters in time. They're fairly (very) experienced in other systems but it might eat up too much time making characters.
Focusing on abilities which use a lot of positioning is a good idea as well though.
Thanks!
If you set up your scenarios correctly, you can let roleplay and legwork change combat scenarios and outcomes without totally derailing the plot. Do the PCs manage to convince some noble soldier to help them before they set their ambush? That's a friendly NPC on the board, or maybe they trick the host into moving most of the party outside before they start the big fight so they don't worry about accidentally exploding civilians.
On the other hand, maybe they accidentally give away their plan to someone already working against them, and their "ambush" doesn't go according to plan.
In a short session like that its hard to create big rewards for long-term character progression and plotting. Small but tangible rewards for simple but entertaining plans and roleplaying is the way to go.