Troll Lord Games

Hello. I'm new to the boards. But bigger than that, I'm new to pen and paper RPGs. I was pointed to C&C by my local comic book store as I was looking for an easy-to-understand system for me and my little brother (I'm a part of Big Brothers, Big Sisters). He wants to become a video game designer, but I'm worried about his imagination and his ability to think outside the box, so I thought a pen and paper game would be good for him mentally and help him come out of his shell a little bit.

Any way, seeing as how we're both new at this, is it difficult to learn all the rules and effectively CK a game if you've never done it before? Are there any tips you can provide or helpful resources to point me to? Or should we enlist the service of an experienced CK?

Thanks for your help. I look forward to seeing what happens with C&C!

Todd

With this game, no its not complex to learn. I've taught complete neophytes to rpg's how to play this system in under 10 minutes. At one time, all of us were 'new' to rpgs. Back in the 70's my entire game group was completely new to the concept, but we taught ourselves.

One thing you might do, however, is to check out the local comic shop and see if they don't have game days where folks play in the store?

Chances are, if they don't, one of the other local game shops does. I'm fairly certain there are some in your area that do actually. One of our module writers lives up thataway. I'll see if I can get him to chime in as well.
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"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

This is better served by opinion and allowing response, hence, it has been moved.

As to what to do: do not let the rules control you. Always use your imagination, and play with fun as the goal... You can always go back and reread something if needed, after the game - don't let the game bog down because you think you need the books to tell you what to do: just do it, and move on.

I think C&C is a great choice for a simple game to introduce someone to the hobby. Compared to other RPGs, it's easy to learn and can be run very simply without a lot of complexity. It's also easy to add more complexity down the road when everyone is comfortable with it.

I think the idea of observing a game and learning from other game masters is a fine one. However, I learned when a friend of mine got a Star Frontiers RPG box set for his birthday and we all opened it up and figured it out together. So, it's not difficult at all to pick it up by yourself and with a little practice.

A peculiar thing about RPGs in general is that two groups can play the exact same game, but have entirely different dynamics and styles of play. I'm going to recommend the "do it yourself" approach to learning C&C simply because it allows you to learn the game and run it in your own way. Like I said, I learned that way and I've been enjoying the hobby for 20+ years now.
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Rusty

There's always FUDGE - which is free.

Howdy Todd and welcome to the forums!

Oh and kudos to being a Big Brother!!

If you decide to get the PH and I hope you will, the forward and introduction contain some good advice for playing the game ~ and there is also a Castle Keeper (DM) & the Game section that has some great info for first time CKs and players!

Good luck and enjoy!!

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Count Rhuveinus - Lejendary Keeper of Castle Franqueforte

"Enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" ~ Gary Gygax

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:" - Macbeth

Use a module to help you learn. There is a free module or two downloadable from the TLG website.

Plus I believe the "Quickstart Rules" are still there as a free download, it will help you learn and run the game for the first few sessions and find out if buying is something you want to do.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

Thanks for the comments everyone. I've actually purchased the PH a bit impulsive perhaps. I've read through the introduction and how to create your character. I feel pretty confident about that. I'm more concerned about how to run a game both from a rules standpoint (minor) and a fun standpoint (major). I want to keep him as engaged as possible.

Any helpful guides on that? I haven't read the CK section of the PH yet, so maybe my posting was a bit premature.

Thanks!

ToddPBC wrote:
I'm more concerned about how to run a game both from a rules standpoint (minor) and a fun standpoint (major). I want to keep him as engaged as possible.

Any helpful guides on that? I haven't read the CK section of the PH yet, so maybe my posting was a bit premature.

Thanks!

Two things

Suspension of Disbelief. Its a fantasy game. Impossible things happen.

Dynamic tension. Consider any story or film and all the plot turns. To keep a player engaged, the environment and the people in it need to react to the character.

Adventures tend to start out with simple actions leading to more complex consequences as the story continues. Bilbo, reaching out into the dark in a cave generated all kinds of involved plot.

Depending on the type of character being played, it could be hero's rescuing the daughter of a wealthy merchant to a thief who's trying to relieve a wealthy merchant of the burden of his wealth.

In any case, the above plot hooks have action and consequence that ripple out into the events of the game.
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"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

Keep the age of your Little Brother in mind. If he is younger than 12, I'd suggest fudging your dice rolls if necessary to keep his character alive. It can be rough on a kid when his or her character is killed. Also, especially with younger children, be prepared to completely chuck the rules if you think it will lead to a more fun or engaging result. If your Little Brother comes up with a cool idea and it would normally require a dice roll to see if his character succeeds, you might want to just decide that the attempt automatically succeeds and run with it. As players get older, they are better able to handle dice failure, but when they are young the goal is to get them to have fun rather than learn to properly play the rule system.

Hope that helps!

If your Little Brother is young, you might want to check out this thread:
http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

The thread is a journal written by a CK about his experiences running a game with his young children.

Welcome ToddPBC.

You can easily run a C&C campaign and make it fun. You can get as creative as you would like and push their imagination as well as keep it simple to help them along when needed, all while having a stable and simple platform to work with.
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Ruler of Castle Scorpion in the Kingdom of the Scorpion

Duke Stinger, Lord of the Battlemasters of Nighthammer Keep, Castles & Crusades Society

You just think I missed you, give it a sec.

Awesome thread! Good idea, pen & paper role playing games not only helps a child's imagination but also his vocabulary and math skills.

My suggestion is don't worry so much about the actual rules concerning some things but focus on telling a cool and exciting story.

I suggest you use a typical module in the beginnig but opnly as a rough guide to structuring an adventure.

Don't worry if you miss some details or brush over some rules.

Just keep the narrative description elaborate so it paints a picture in the childs mind.

For instance, instead of saying, a black dragon clings to the cave's ceiling say this...

The large dark scaled creature is half hidden by darkness as it hangs upside down clinging to the ceiling.

Black acid drips from the creatures mouth as a long serpentine neck stretches to it's full length. It's claws scrape against the stone like nails on a chalkboard as it moves along the ceiling. Suddenly it drops!

Huge leathery wings expand as the dragon drops from the ceiling onto the floor before you. Cold evil eyes stares straight thru you as a chill runs down your spine. In one swift action it rushes toward you...

What do you do?

This paints a better picture in his imagination rather than "A black dragon drops from the ceiling."

ToddPBC wrote:
Any way, seeing as how we're both new at this, is it difficult to learn all the rules and effectively CK a game if you've never done it before? Are there any tips you can provide or helpful resources to point me to? Or should we enlist the service of an experienced CK?

Thanks for your help. I look forward to seeing what happens with C&C!

Todd

Learning _all_ of the rules will definitely take a few sessions, until you become familiar with what various spells and monster abilities actually mean, and so on

Given that this will be your first exposure to paper role playing, setting out to be the DM right out of the gate can be a bit daunting.

I would strongly recommend that you have at least one session as a player, so you can see the pace of the game, how combat works, how the "story" of the module can be broken into discrete "scenes" and so on. Playing a session will make this much clearer

Unfortunately, it can be a bit difficult to find a face to face game to try it out. If there is no avenue for this, through the shop where you bought the game etc, there is an alternative.

There are various games played by members of these boards over the internet. Many of these are fully stocked with players, but a DM may be willing to let you listen in to the session and hear how it goes. (Inevitably, the session you listen in on will be the most atypical roleplaying session imaginable, but what can you do )

They are found in this part of the troll lords board here:
http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewforum ... llordgames

If that does not work, there are a few sites where people post audio recordings of their games. These tend to be for Dungeons and Dragons, so ignore the specific rules, but listening to them might show you the pace of the game, and how a DM describes a battle with orcs, or a cluttered library in an abandoned tower.

One such site is here:
http://www.rpgmp3.com/

Note: like most roleplaying sessions, the start of many of these tapes are full of talk about mountain dew and cheetos and so on. Feel free to jump around. You are just trying to get a feel for it after all

After you get the feel for it down, remember some simple rules

1) everyone is there to have fun.

2) Don't sweat small rules issues, just make a reasonable guess and figure it out later

3) you will want to have a basic handle on some of the rules like:

how attacks work

how Armor Class works

how saving throws work

how skill checks work

how initiative (who attacks first) and surprise works

and so on. After reading the book, post any questions in the rules forum. There are no dumb questions. When I first started (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons), I got some rule interpretations so catastrophically wrong, it is a good laugh to think back on it now

Finally, as some have mentioned, starting with a pre made module is probably a good idea. Here are a few good ones
http://trolllord.com/files/knight.pdf
http://www.tower.newcenturycomputers.ne ... beacon.pdf

Good luck

(Also, role playing games really shine when players can cooperate together as a team. If you can, encourage him to bring in a few of his friends. This will really multiply the enjoyment of the game for all involved)
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

I have been gaming for over 20 years. I am still learning things, just the finer points of gaming at this stage. Unless I am learning a new system, like L5R or Shadowrun 4E, but I find new systems easier to learn because irregardless of the core mechanic a certain amount is always similar to other RPGs.

Like I learned Twilight 2000 a couple of months ago. It may have been percentile based and had a variety of rules specific things about it, but it was still an RPG, and certain things were still similar enough that I quickly understood them.

So once you learn C&C, if you move on to 3E, 4E, or any older edition of D&D, there will be a high degree of "familiarity" to them, so you will pick up the new rules variances much faster than you would if they were your very first RPG to try.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

Since you mentioned that the child said he wanted to be a video game designer, you might take one of his favorite video game settings and play a game set in that world. He would be familiar with the setting and would be able to put some of the concepts into a structure that he is already comfortable with. Some video games already have sourcebooks out for pnp role-playing that you could use with C&C.

Hey everyone. Quick update. My little brother, one of his friends and I got together for the first time this morning. We created our characters and walked through some of the basics which took two and a half hours.

They were both really excited about the game though. We poured over the possible characters and the races. Each knew what they wanted to be before they got there my brother a stealthy assassin (not unlike the main character in Assassin's Creed) and his friend wanted to use magic, ending up with a cleric. My little brother had some ridiculous rolls, scoring a number of 16s and 14s, with his lowest being 13.

We then selected their weaponry (we'll do the other equipment next time, once I have a better idea of the module we'll be embarking upon). They loved picking that. After the weaponry was done (we had to make some adjustments the dirk became a wristblade and darts throwing knives), we worked on their backstories. The assassin saw his parents slaughtered by a mysterious murderer. He was too afraid to do anything, so he just hid and watched it happen. He's vowed to find the individual responsible and take his revenge.

The cleric was abandoned by his parents and was instead raised by priests of Vorlock (I had to make up a deity on the spot). He grew up, eventually becoming a priest himself, but never having an opportunity to speak with the god until his 22nd birthday. He walked into the sanctuary and heard a voice. The voice told him to seek out his parents and once he found them, great power would be available to him. To begin, he needed to meet an elf (the assassin) at an inn in Malforten.

All in all, it was a wonderful morning. The boys are pumped and are actively engaged. I can't wait for our next, real session.

Thanks everyone for the ideas. I'm definitely going to put them to good use.

Great! Glad to hear that everything got off to such a good start.
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It is a joyful thing indeed to hold intimate converse with a man after ones own heart, chatting without reserve about things of interest or the fleeting topics of the world; but such, alas, are few and far between.

Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350)

I take enjoying picking their weapons as a very good indicator!

"We had to make some adjustments" is a very good gaming practice and philosophy. Don't ever feel "locked in" by the rules.

Good luck! Remember that the name of the game is "fun" and you won't go wrong.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

Awsome! I look forward to hearing how this goes for you!

My boys, 9 and 13, love gaming. Sometimes I think it's strange how my boys learned rpg's from me, Dad, but back in the day, I learned it from my buddies. Back in the day, I wouldn't have been able to imagine getting my Dad or Mom to play an rpg, but for my kids, that is simply one of our quality times together. Their is a lot of magic in seeing their eyes light up as you describe the scene and you know they are there, and really enjoying the newness and novelty of it all. It's very rewarding!

Real quick question everyone: I'm using the Rising Knight module for our first adventure and I've started putting together the game for us. But I don't know how to display the town and the dungeon. Are there any grids or tiles that I can use to build my dungeons and towns? How does that portion of the game work in C&C?

Well, if you have a ton of tile products like I do you can likely lay it out with them. If you don't your best bet is to get a vinyl map and use dry erase markers.

Until then just use paper to draw them out on, to scale. Generally one inch per 5 foot square works well when using miniatures or tokens. You definitely don't need to be exact. Just good enough to be able to point and say, "I am here.", "Creature X is there", etc... works perfectly fine. So even "to scale" isn't necessary.

Plus, another thing I hate when scales are used, don't lock things in to those squares. Be cinematic/realistic. What I mean is don't let the squares limit actions and results. Use your imagination and memory. If you think they should be able to do something, but the squares would limit them, go with what you think should work. Not the squares.

Like a certain pet peeve I have is "charging". The rules say you must run in a straight line for the whole length of the charge. I don't like that. I saw too many charges by individuals in military training. I can see straight lines being mandatory for group charges, but not on the individual basis.

So I just ask my players to tell me they would like to charge. I look at the map and think about the terrain they are fighting in. If I think they can get up to a good running speed and reach their target while doing it, I allow the charge. I don't allow myself, or my players, to be straight jacketed by the rule as written. I go by what I think makes sense.

Now others don't think I make sense. Thats fine, I live with it when I have to.

Anyways, my main point is don't let the rules limit you if you think you have a better sense of what or how it would actually work or play out. Go for the fun whenever possible.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

Here is a mat with the dungeon walls written with a dry erase marker, and some miniatures.

Don't go crazy with miniatures, buttons are fine at the beginning. But the kids might each like a mini for their character

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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try"

Homer Simpson

ToddPBC wrote:
Real quick question everyone: I'm using the Rising Knight module for our first adventure and I've started putting together the game for us. But I don't know how to display the town and the dungeon. Are there any grids or tiles that I can use to build my dungeons and towns? How does that portion of the game work in C&C?

I just loved the town and environs, so I drew the map (of the city and road up north to the dungeon and tower - although I didn't let my players see the road portion of the map) based on the descriptions in the mod.

I let my players map the dungeon with much help from myself (it was there first time doing this).

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Count Rhuveinus - Lejendary Keeper of Castle Franqueforte

"Enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" ~ Gary Gygax

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:" - Macbeth

Aramis wrote:
Here is a mat with the dungeon walls written with a dry erase marker, and some miniatures.

Don't go crazy with miniatures, buttons are fine at the beginning. But the kids might each like a mini for their character

Yep, great idea.

We started using a map just after running through RN. Not all the time, but it's great for certain dungeon or wilderness encounters and easy to draw up.

Either the players can do it, or the DM.

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Count Rhuveinus - Lejendary Keeper of Castle Franqueforte

"Enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" ~ Gary Gygax

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:" - Macbeth

The excellent (and more importantly, inexpensive) flip mat products are perfect for use as battle mats.
http://paizo.com/gameMastery/maps/steelSqwireFlipMats

or
http://www.trollandtoad.com/p155805.html

Where can I find some inexpensive miniatures for our characters?

Those mats are great by the way. And those Fat Dragon tile sets are sweet. I think i'll start with the mats though.

If you feel you absolutely must use miniatures (something I oppose, by the way) there are countless options: chits (pieces of paper folded and cut with a name written on it) to WotC plastics to others, including freely available paper ones you can print out (that aren't like the chit idea.) If you're using a wetboard, you can also just write something on it, erase, and write again - that is cheap.

So, what it comes down to is - how reliant on a physical product do you want to be? And, this answer, generally, is why I am against miniatures as mandatory - it cuts a huge factor of the imagination out (the visualization.)

Aramis wrote:
Given that this will be your first exposure to paper role playing, setting out to be the DM right out of the gate can be a bit daunting.

I would strongly recommend that you have at least one session as a player, so you can see the pace of the game, how combat works, how the "story" of the module can be broken into discrete "scenes" and so on. Playing a session will make this much clearer.

This is great advice; I second it.

I couldn't imagine trying to CK straight out of the gate (although it doesn't take long to jump from player to referee once you've started playing).

If your little brother/sister decides they like it and they want to continue, try swapping the reins back and forth between who is the player and the CK once he/she gets used to the game. This can make for fast learning for both of you and is a great way to exchange imaginative ideas.

-Fox

Quote:
Some video games already have sourcebooks out for pnp role-playing that you could use with C&C.

In my opinion, the best for this is Morrowind. I would avoid the others (EverQuest and World of Warcraft) because they hinge on the d20 system, which, I am not ashamed to say, is not a good game for new players.