Ok, when you get a total newbie to a genre or a game system into your satanic clutch..., er I mean game group (Damn those chick tracts, you just can't get that bullshit out of your head, it's so stunningly huge..) how do you help him out and how much do you help him out?

I knew one GM who didn't want any player cuaching a newbie for any reason, and really disallowed it. Other GMs let players give advice freely to everyone on game mechanics, but not on anything else.

Others had a totally loose attitude and let players help them with just about anything and everything, or helped them themselves.

Me, it's not too often that players seem to need help, when tney do I try to do what seems fair and balanced without turning them into little lord helplesses.

Not long ago I gave a beginning player a character a weapon with a variety of ammo loads for it. Think a 20mm rail grendae launcher, and when the party was attacked he went to fire on the attackers, but he didn't know what to fire, so he hadn't loaded it.

OK, his character had military experience, so I assumed the character had loaded and locked before going in, then I told the player he'd have to state that he has a round loaded or not from now on. (It was an EM propelled weapon, so leaving a live round in it was usually no problem.)

Then I asked what kind of round he was firing, and he was stuck so I helped him out. "Ok, you're indoors, at close range so the HE round with the frag jacket is kinda contraindicated in these conditons, right? The attackers aren't armored that you can see so you don't need an AP round. The fletchette round is great against unarmored humanoids, especialy at close range, so..."

OK, he picked the right one. The fletchette round also gave a large bonus to hit so was definitely the perfect round for the conditions.

He caught on pretty quick, and didn't need much more help except for game mechanics issues after that.

So does anyone have any ideas they use for helping newbies? I don't want them to become just mirrors of other players by being told how to do everything, obviously, but also things can be tough on them and I hate for them to get ground under and not have any fun either.

I often just tell people what options they can see and let them pick, unless they're total beginners.

Most newbs seem to think there's a big deal associated with playing rpgs.  That's probably down to its esoteric nature and the bigging up resident players/gms do to sell the idea to said newb.

What any rpg boils down to is spod A says what's happening, spod B says what they do in response to that and repeat.  

Sure theres stuff like dice and charts involved, maybe a little acting (which can be intimidating to someone not used to it) but the principle remains that interaction between spod A and spod B.

Quote from: Dominus NoxNot long ago I gave a beginning player a character a weapon with a variety of ammo loads for it. Think a 20mm rail grendae launcher, and when the party was attacked he went to fire on the attackers, but he didn't know what to fire, so he hadn't loaded it.

OK, his character had military experience, so I assumed the character had loaded and locked before going in, then I told the player he'd have to state that he has a round loaded or not from now on. (It was an EM propelled weapon, so leaving a live round in it was usually no problem.)

Then I asked what kind of round he was firing, and he was stuck so I helped him out. "Ok, you're indoors, at close range so the HE round with the frag jacket is kinda contraindicated in these conditons, right? The attackers aren't armored that you can see so you don't need an AP round. The fletchette round is great against unarmored humanoids, especialy at close range, so..."

OK, he picked the right one. The fletchette round also gave a large bonus to hit so was definitely the perfect round for the conditions.

He caught on pretty quick, and didn't need much more help except for game mechanics issues after that.

That doesn't sound to me like anything to do with knowledge of how to play an RPG or stuff. It sounds like that was a situation where the player didn't not have any knowledge of military tech and had to be guided through it. To be honest, if their character is an experienced military one, why not just allow them to assume they have loaded the right ammo for the job at hand? I certainly know very little about guns and when I've been playing military characters inj groups, we've always tended to assume that we're using the right ammo for the job (liek if we're shooting at someone in powered armour, we assume we're using armour piercing ammo or whatever the settinghas for that).

The character might have a lot of knowledge about the miliatry, but the player probably won't. So why spend time focussing on that, when it would be better to help them understand how a game works, what the GM does, how you roleplay your character and so on.

Dunno, just my thoughts on it.

Thanks
Frank

Over time I've learned that most new players are more on top of things than I would think.  If it's a really complex system with a lot of options, say starting out with GURPS, I might build characters and run a session or two just to show them how the system works.

As a general matter, however, I only provide as much support as I think is necessary.  I don't want to "talk down" to other people, so I just wait patiently until there are questions or I have an opportunity to clarify something.