B/X Newbie Demo

Most folk know that I am a teacher and that I run a small roleplaying club within the school I work at.

Recently I’ve had the opportunity to run some demonstration games for newbies and give them a taste of roleplaying games.

On school Sport’s Day, I was given the further opportunity to take small groups of totally random students through a demo.

Initially, I was told I’d have 16 players per one hour session (leading to my earlier plan to use DCC) but later I found out the group would be divided into those playing Magic: The Gathering and those who could roleplay. We’d also have one hour and twenty minutes per session.

As I expected, on the day, those playing the collectible card game were made up of experienced players who formed an exclusive clique. I got the leftovers… the newbies.

I planned to run two sessions using B/X Dungeons & Dragons. I took along my 1981 game books to show to folk, but at the table I used B/X Essentials. While they are definitely not needed for this older game system, I also cracked open a box of the Dungeons & Dragons Essentials range of dungeon tiles and dug out some miniatures with a view to improving the visual and tactile appeal of the game.

Prep

I spent maybe 15 minutes coming up with a scenario. The premise was an old favourite of mine: a local wizard wants a group to retrieve a spell scroll from a nearby ancient barrow.

I laid out a dungeon using the dungeon tiles and photographed it:

I dropped the dungeon photo into Microsoft’s OneNote app on my iPad, and annotated what I needed. I decided to use Undead as the opposition and chose Skeletons and a Wight (yes, I know, the Wight is 3HD and deadly… bear with me).

Then I rolled up six characters to make a party: one each of the classes, excepting the Halfling, which gave me a Magic-User, a Cleric, a Fighter, an Elf, a Dwarf, and a Thief.

I decided the Magic-User would be the apprentice of the patron wizard. I gave the Magic-User a Knock Spell Scroll to allow them to enter the dungeon and demonstrate the existence of magical items. I also gave all the heroes 2000 XP, making the Cleric and the Fighter Level 2 heroes.

The Cleric at Level 2 allowed me to give him Cure Light Wounds and boosted his ability to Turn Undead to allow an attempt (all be it 11+ on 2d6) to turn the Wight. The Fighter was designed as a swordsman and would be able to use a silver sword found in the dungeon to help defeat the Wight. The Elf and the Thief could also potentially use the other silver sword.

I also decided that I’d improvise a “Bottle of Pinky-Red Liquid” if the party got into trouble. I made a mental note to allow heroes on zero hit points to bleed out and die after 1d6 rounds, just to allow a chance to save a comrade.

I made a copy of each hand-written character sheet, aiming to allow newbies to name their hero and take the sheet home after the game. Always a nice touch because it helps people feel good to own their own character!

Game on!

The sessions went well! I won’t go into details (to protect the innocent) but the first group was three girls and two boys, not the full six players. They left out the Cleric and dove into the barrow. Victory was had in a hard-fought exploration of the tombs. The Wight was killed, the tomb looted, and cheers erupted from the table space (which upset the card players, but what did we care?)

The second group started small – just three players, one of them another teacher who had never really played. I redesigned the tomb on a whim because that teacher had watched most of the first game. They took two characters each and dove in.

Within a few minutes, after a noisy first battle in which the Cleric turned the skeletons and chased them into a first tomb (which had the silver swords), three more players joined us. The players shared out the characters.

Pressing into the second tomb, they fought ghouls and the Dwarf was paralysed. Breaking into the last tomb, the heroes faced off with the Wight and… two heroes were level drained to death! The four remaining characters beat the Wight but it was a close thing. Cheers erupted as the last swipe of the silver blade in the Elf’s hands took the evil creature down.

Outcomes

After each game, I told the players about the regular after-school club. The three girls asked if they could bring their characters to the next session after the holidays – of course they can – and stated intention to come and play more. Two of the lads from the second game asked similar questions and committed, while one of the other boys declared himself interested in finding out more. That’s maybe six new gamers… although experience tells me that maybe two will actually come to the next session in September.

For me, it was a good day of gaming and I was pleased to give some new young people a taste of the game. Some experienced players stopped by and commented on how quick B/X D&D turned out to be. They were also pleasantly surprised at how “only having 2 hit points isn’t really that big of a problem”. Nice to see them re-thinking the idea that simpler games can’t be good games.

As for me, I think B/X is perfect for the school club environment. It’s quick to play and I have run a whole dungeon in the time we normally have each week – one and a half-hours. It’s also quick and easy to roll up heroes – about 15 minutes for a newbie to do it – which gets us past pre-gen characters and increases engagement. Finally, B/X is easy to learn and play which makes it appealing to young minds who are intimidated by big rule books.

I am considering creating a short series of related adventures among the barrows… and maybe I’ll loot “Barrowmaze” for some ideas. I foresee a small group of players starting at Level 1 and exploring the heck out of some light-hearted old school dungeons!

Game on indeed!