I live in Southeast Asia and want to start a weekly tabletop group. My players consist of
>one near-fluent English speaker from the Czech Republic
>two Vietnamese English teachers who speak conversational but limited English
>zero people who have ever heard of DnD
I painstakingly created an extremely visual, very beginner-friendly combat/leveling system and plan to use free-form role play with a bit of dice rolling for the storytelling segments.
How fucked am I? Would really like input from more experienced GMs on how to make this game work. The theme is Pirates of the Caribbean-esque swashbuckling with supernatural elements throughout.
>>44709290
>zero people who have ever heard of DnD
How is this a downside? Just make up whatever system or use something simple like Savage Worlds and have fun. Don't weigh players down with mechanics unless they are of the very specific type of person who like that kind of thing.
DnD is a pretty shitty game for beginners.
Try to begin as rules-lite as possible, and slowly ease them into the system.
Encourage and reward both creative thinking, and problem solving as much as possible.
As a DM, try to incorporate their ideas as much as possible, and try not to resort to, "You can't do that."
>>44709342
My system is similar to Savage Worlds but requires even less in-depth explanation. Keep in mind that my group is basically like a bunch of ten year olds who will get discouraged and quit if the concept isn't extremely easy to grasp.
Basically there's an HP pool and a mana pool ("action points"). When your HP comes up you can do as many actions as you have the points for, with each action costing a certain number of points. So if you MOVE (two AP) and ATTACK WITH CROSSBOW (three AP) you will exhaust five AP, which you don't get back without a potion or letting your character sleep-- basically the end of the session. There is a game board for every combat sequence, and the enemies also have finite AP, so it's like the tabletop version of a MOBA. There's no dice rolling or contextually dependent combat stats. Attacks do a certain number of damage unless you have the defense stat required to block/avoid them, and the only decision you make us when and how to use your two point pools.
>>44709351
How can I further distance my game from the dnd formula?
>>44709408
What do I do if they ask for me to just give them some game breaking ability because the game is hard?
>>44709567
>How can I further distance my game from the dnd formula?
Look at games other than D&D and steal from them...?
>>44709567
>What do I do if they ask for me to just give them some game breaking ability because the game is hard?
In-Game example?
>>44709290
BRP is very beginner friendly due to %.
>>44709613
Best example I can think of
>character dies
>player doesn't want to go through character creation process again
>have to either make my game so easy characters never die, lose a player who can't be replaced (trust me this thing was hard to organize), or destroy immersion by reviving the character
>>44709567
>What do I do if they ask for me to just give them some game breaking ability because the game is hard?
Laugh. Laugh harder when they protest.
OP here, hoping this thread stays alive till I get up tomorrow. I'm going to sleep so this is now a GM/game creation/system discussion general.
Will read all feedback on my questions and summary of my system.
>>44709816
To be perfectly honest my group of first-timers didn't even make their own characters. I gave them a large pool of prefabs on toned-down sheets with a spot for them to draw/write in their version of the character, with the most rules-light need to know shit on it. Anything that needed more was on a couple index cards that came with the prefab.
If one died, they went and recruited someone. Whoever they found and liked was the one who the player picked to replace their old character.
>>44709816
Make it a quest to go and get that person revived. (how does that ruin immersion).
Heck, make it a reincarnate for funsies.
Don't "make it easy", but you can put training wheels on without players knowing. "People get KO'd without dying, people get captured, permanently scarred, etc.
