Getting payed to play D&D (the dream is real)

[Dalenger]

(tl;dr at bottom)

Long story short: So it turns out one of my PnP DnD nerd friends (for whom I DM, as mentioned in a prior thread) works at a pottery/crafting store who's patrons love to make little figurines. The boss decides that it'd be cool if they started running regular gaming sessions there so they'd get a chance to use a few of the crap tons of figurines they have laying around, and perhaps inspire the patrons to make yet more figurines. So my friend gets in contact with me to see if I'd be interested in working for them and running a DnD session every now and then. Naturally, I say yes.

I post this tread to A) Brag about how I'm going to be getting paid to play DnD and B) Ask for some tips. So here goes:

The most important thing to remember is that everything must be EXTREMELY stupid simple. I'm still not sure on the demographic, but we're not talking about particularly nerdy people here. Probably low-teen to thirties... basically, the type of people you'd expect at a craft store. I must be able to take a group of people who has never played DnD before and explain to them pretty much everything they need to know within 15 minutes. How would you suggest I go about this? Naturally, all character sheets would be pre-generated. v2-pathfinder are out of the question due to complexity. Unfortunately, I only have v2 and v3.5 rule books, and I'm not about to go out and buy a bunch of v4 or v5 books. What I did find in my closet, however, is the a DnD Basic Game box. I feel like if I managed to explain this well, it could work as a swell base game. Any tips for teaching DnD to non-nerdy n00bs? If you are or were in the past a non-nerdy n00b, was there anything that you found particularly confusing or overly complicated about DnD?

The second hurtle is how to make figurines a strong part of the game. Remember, the reason why every is doing this is because they want to play with their little clay whatchamathingys. I've never played DnD where we've remembered to use our figurines (those of us who have them) for more than five minutes, as we're usually too lazy to set up a grid. My questions are: Do you know of any good grid pattern generation sites? What kind of adventures are usually figurine-friendly? Any tips for how to make using figurines more enjoyable?

Honestly, none of us are that sure if any of this is a good idea; however, it sounds like fun and worse case scenario we all waste an afternoon. If it turns out to be a success, I might just land myself a part-timer to sit around a play DnD. Thanks in advance for any tips, links, advice, comments, etc. If you actually read the whole thing, kudos. I probably wouldn't have.

tl;dr: A craft store wants to pay me to DM dnd sessions so they can use their clay figurines for something. How do I make dnd enjoyable for someone who usually wouldn't be into nerdy things, such as dnd? How do I incorporate figurines into a dnd session?

[livingNPC]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S39NeK3Ho10

Make it fun, funny and have themes they can relate to. Don't make it super accurate to the source material.

[Cortex]

make cowadoody figurines

[furryn]

Right. So i had some previous experience in the past, in the RPG union (yes, no kidding) i was a part of around these parts, promoting D&D to school kids.

Now, I have a few pointers to you, out of my own experience. Take it or leave it, if you can use my tips, this was worth the time it took writing.

1. Start out easy
Do not set them off on the journey of epicness. One of the hardest things to learn about tabletop RPG is to view the world through your characters eyes and make a decision. if their long term quest is known to them from the beginning, they will have a difficult time making meaningful decisions, because they'll be too focused on the end goal.

My favourite is: The sheep has been going missing from a small village, it is your job to investigate, and find out what is doing it, and put a stop to it.

The players, even if new to RPG's will have an easier time relating to this, because they will have at least SOME idea how criminal investigations are conducted. If they have a hard time getting started, ask them in turn, something like:
"Joe the pally, you are standing at the field looking out over it. try rolling a spot check" *player rolls* "You notice the fence is broken at the far side from where you stand, would you like to go over there?"

The last bit is a leading question, but that's alright, the goal is to make the players understand that they can try to do anything, and get them comfortable with the idea.

Remember: following your leads is more difficult that you think it is, because you know everything, they do not, and they WILL miss obvious leads.

Let them fight the boss: Usually, the villain when i do this one turns out to be the farmer himself, seeing as he's a werewolf, and people are usually surprised, and excited to fight such a creature.

Let them learn the rules along the way, gradually "enforcing them" more and more as they become familiar with the mechanics.

2. Make fights interesting AND meaningful
It's pretty straight forward. When they don't know the system they'll have a hard time knowing what to do: "Do you want to try hitting a goblin with a schorching ray?" "You believe the orc with the wolf pelt to be chanting, he might be some sort of shaman, you are pretty sure he is about to cast a spell, would you try and hit him with your sword? or perhaps grabbling him, to prevent somatic components?"

also out of combat, let them meet interesting creatures and chars, such as dragons

3. Dumb down the game
Remember: these players do not know how to abuse the rules, they don't even know that it's possible. Let them be heroes, and let them feel powerful. Most things will be challenging enough in the beginning. Also, a thing i've found really useful is "working around the rules" whenever the story will benefit for it. Not majorly, but if they do something amazingly creative and unexpected to take down a boss, that would never work because of the rules, but that you'd imagine would be effective, why not let it work?

If you put emphasis on story and excitement over rules, your players will too, and you'll get Role players rather than roll players.

let them try things in the beginning, even if they are not good at it, and they'll figure out, and come to work with their characters strengths and weaknesses.

4. The grid
Right. I'd get a large sheet of soft plastic, that is transparent (you can get it where you'd buy a table cloth most likely, because these are made for families with children in them) and draw a grid of one inch squares. then turn it around, and draw all landscapes i'd need, at the time i need them with a whiteboard marker. We've done this for years, and it's quick and works incredibly well.

Then, just because i'm curios:

v2-pathfinder are out of the question due to complexity

Do you mean pathfinder RPG (from paizo) is out of the question due to complexity as compared to D&D 3.5?

'cus that sort of baffles me a bit.


Also: before i knew pathfinder i introduced new people to 3.5

[goldengrae]

If it's an option, I'd consider a different, lighter system like Savage Worlds and either graph paper or a battlemap with markers.

[RockandRollOutlaw]

Typically I find it best not to focus the exact details like measuring movements (except for a scenario where exact movement speed might be vital) and other rules that simply bog down the game and make everyone at the table bored. As a general rule, keep the game moving so everyone stays interested rather than dig through the book for twenty minutes to find a rule that really doesn't matter in the long run.

However, since the whole reason you are able to (I still have a hard time saying it) get paid to play dnd is because of the venue wishing to show off their figures then they certainly should be used. When it comes to figure combat the best thing my group ever did was buy a giant 8' x 5' white board which came with 2" x 1" grid across the whole thing. We set it on the table and draw out the battlefield and move the figures across the grid. Having a white board as a table also comes in very handy for things such as initiative orders or status effects.

[CragOrion]

Pathfinder has some decent gridmaps

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Chessex battlemats!

I DMed for years without them, and yearned for something of a higher calling-
then I got Chessex battlemats, and I weep in joy.