What are you giving to new players to get them started?

At DragonCon, we'll be using the attached file with a set of 4 Black Hand Starters to help new players stick with the game and get an idea of what they can do.

What are you providing to new players to get them to return and grow?

Did the same at Ropecon just few weeks ago.

Demoed the game on Sunday for around five hours with Demo Dekcs and Player's Kit and handed out Demo Decks and BH starters to particvipants as well as flyers that had info for all the weekly games that are organized in these necks of woods.

Had around 12 newbies try it out and at least I got the impression that people seemed to be having fun with it.

BTW Noticed that several MtG players had problems with separating attacking pool (bleeding) and attacking minions (rushing/combat).. Not familiar with MtG myslef so this was a surprise. Apparently explaining to MtG players that VTES is kinda like Planeswalkers might help to roughly clear hopw VTES works.


Many thanks for Jesper, Jari and Petrus for helping out on the demo, especially when there was more people than one table could take care of -you guys rule!

Lönkka wrote:

Many thanks for Jesper, Jari and Petrus for helping out on the demo, especially when there was more people than one table could take care of -you guys rule!

I just regret not making the girls at my table to promise they'll register here or join our Facebook group - it'd be cool to catch up with people you've demoed the game to! I'm pretty sure it'll be hard to come back to a game you've had a demo of at a 'con if someone's not there afterwards to ask if you've had a peek at the internet stuff and the local gaming group yet.

Also it was irritating to have to leave early from the demo table. Thanks for the someone who took over! The girls seemed to have fun enough, since they insisted to get to finish the game even though I had to leave for home.

And yeah, making a difference of a vampire's resources and player resources is hard for MTG players, as is the concept of Intercept and Stealth. It's hard to give a good first demo and cover even half of the stuff of the game.

I'll be trying to make my demos a series of demos instead of a single one once I start them again in September - first game should take half-an-hour, and it covers only influencing, masters and bleeding for one - all the actions are unblockable at this point! Next game introduces +bleed modifiers and stealth/intercept. The third game adds bounce and other actions, such as equipment, and the final game introduces different kinds of strikes as combat cards. I'll have to prebuild decks to make this work, however. Let's see if it works or not.

I have 8 prebuilt starters, enhanched from my own card pool, to sell or hand out for newbies, and there's a huge pile of free cards we've gotten as a donation at our local store, just next to the Magic card pool of commons.

Kraus wrote:

Let's see if it works or not.

Sounds a bit time consuming and complicated.
"OK, now forget the X, Y and Z from the last game(s) since in this game we'll use slightly different rules". Might end up with verily confused newbies.

Do let us know how it goes if you try it out.

Lönkka wrote:

Kraus wrote:

Let's see if it works or not.

Sounds a bit time consuming and complicated.
"OK, now forget the X, Y and Z from the last game(s) since in this game we'll use slightly different rules". Might end up with verily confused newbies.

Do let us know how it goes if you try it out.

Yah, the plan includes stating in at the beginning of the demo that we're NOR playing with the full set of rules, but going through a walkthrough of sorts to properly familiarize the lot with a single aspect of the game before going to the more complex aspects.

But yeah, it's risky, and time consuming. I'll contemplate on this.

Golden rule of demoing is FFF
Fast, Furious and Fun.

Fast = the game moves on instead of being played at snail's pace
Furious = plenty of things happen
Fun = duh

So keep it simple and try to get to playing the game pretty soon as not to bore or overconfuse players with humongous initial infodump. Also when going through the rules take into account (ask!) their experience with CCGs or boardgames.



In order to achieve this perhaps the following might work (I'm just writing this without giving too much thought so there might not be all the relevant stuff in here):


Preferably get enough newbies to play the game by themselves so you can be the power behind everyone's throne and help them out. If not enough noobs are not to be found fill with more experienced players -luckily this leaves you more time for each noob.


1. EXPLAIN THE GOAL OF GAME IN A SENTENCE OR TWO
-For example: "Players represent age old vampires who fight for the contest of World of Darkness by ussing younger vampires to remove each other's resources which are represented by 30 pool. The same pool is used to bring into game your own vampires, but if you remove the player on your left from the game you get 6 additional pool and a victory point.


2. EXPLAIN THE CRYPT CARDS (show a sample card)
-Vampire cards look like this.
-Explain Capacity (& influencing), text box plus Clan and Disciplines.
-Explain that some cards require Clan in order to be played. Same goes for Sect.
-Explain that some cards require Discipline(s) to be played and the difference between inferior and superior Discipline.


3. EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF LIBRARY CARDS (show an example of each, one by one as you go through them)
-Explain the different card types (you can skip Combat Cards for now)
-With Political Actions exxplain that some vampires have different amount of inbuilt votes.
-Remeber to tell which card you are able to play when it is not your turn (out-of-turn-masters and Reactions)
-Exlain the two different card costs
-Explain how "play and replace" works (=always replace unless told not to by the card)


4. EXPLAIN CONCEPT OF STEALTH AND INTERCEPT (& BLOCKING) BY GIVING AN EXAMPLE
-For example (show each card): Govern the Unaligned, Wake with Evening's Freshness, block attempt, Cloak the Gathering, Telepathic Misdirection inferior, Lost in the Crowds, Conditioning = succesfull bleed. (remember to tell how card costs are handled -Reactions and Action Modifiers immediately and Action card only after the action is succesful). Finally tell how Telepathic Misdirection superior could also have been used (had it not already been played for inferior) and why it, or another Lost in the Crowds, couldn't have been used, but another (superior) Cloak the Gathering could've been used by another minion.
-Explain Undirected and Directed Actions (=who is eligible block).
-Explain inheritent actions (Bleed, Hunt) and tell that Hunt has built in +1 stealth and that you can bleed only your prey.


5. EXPLAIN COMBAT
-Go back to previous example and do a "what if" stopping the cards at Telepathic Misdirection (=action blocked & combat ensues).
-Finally explain Combat cards.
Explain different combat specifics: before range, maneuver/range (short assumed) as well as ranged (R) damage, strikes (assumed built in hands for 1, "hand" strike cards, Steal Blood, Dodge, Combat End), Prevent, Additional Strikes, Press, End of Round.
-Explain how vampires go to torpor ("Send to Torpor" such as Coma / no blood and gets damaged / Aggravated damage) where their action options are very restricted. Tell that torpor isn't the end and vampires can be rescued from there, but tell that that'll be covered during the demo if someone is torporized.
-TO LESSEN INFO DUMP IN THE BEGINNING YOU COULD SKIP THE WHOLE COMBAT EXPLANATION IN THE VEIN OF TORPOR RESCUE AND EXPLAIN IT WHEN YOU GET TO COMBAT DURING THE DEMO GAME.


6. GO BACK TO BASICS
-Each player has 30 Pool which is used to influence out vampire and also sometimes to pay for cards. If Pool runs out, you are out of game = ousted.
-Pleyer to you left is ousted = gain 6 Pool and a VP.
-Last one standing gets 1 VP.
-The one who has most VP wins.


7. ANY QUESTIONS?


8. GAME ON!
-Keep the atmosphere friendly and light by being polite and helpful.
-Remember to let the players choose what they play themselves. You can present them with options but avoid choosing the cardplay for them. Most people tend to learn from their mistakes.
-Try to explain what is going on but keep the game flowing by avoiding unnecessary infodumps.
-Sometimes it is helpful to let the wookie win (= if participating yourself, or having an experienced player fill in, don't kick the noob's ass badly, but try to let her win instead. Just don't make it too easy so she has to fight for the win. Thus it would be better to make it a battle between the noobs.)


9. POST GAME CHAT
-Discuss the game with the players and try to let THEM talk. Good way to start is to ask "So, what did you think of the game?". Explain their questions and be helpful.
-Hand out freebies, if you have access to them (demo decks and such).
-Hand out contact info to local playgroup(s) and to vekn.net and possible local forum(s) etc. Preferably you've printed such infoflyers beforehand.


I probably missed something here -just try to keep it short and sweet but kinda comprehensive too (but not too complicated/detailed)...