by Dan Bromberg
 

-	-	-	-	-
Dragon #28	-	1st Edition AD&D	-	Dragon magazine

Introduction: Mr. Bromberg looks at D&D from an angle some of us
sometimes forget: instructing newcomers to D&D roleplaying. When
the newcomers number 55, one runs into certain mechanical problems.
How does one instruct an entire class of new role-players? The following
is Mr. Bromberg’s account of just that experience:
 

Dungeons and Dragons is very popular at Cranbrook Prep School.
At the beginning of the school year, a lot of sophomores and juniors
played D&D. And most all of the returning freshman had heard of D&D.
However, none of the new freshmen knew how to play. Well, one day
last fall a friend of mine, David Baxter, began to talk with Sean McCarthy,
a new student and Tolkien fanatic, about D&D. David taught Sean
and some other new students D&D. Slowly but surely, D&D spread
until, incredibly, there were no more than four or five new freshmen
who did not know how to play.

Obviously, there was much interest in D&D at Cranbrook. Interest
not only in playing, but in learning it. So, a couple of experienced
players began talking about having a D&D course in Interim. Interim at
Cranbrook is a two week period where people either go on trips or take
unusual courses at school. For example, there were trips to London,
Mexican ruins, New York, etc. The courses ranged from Tutankhamen,
computer programming, chamber music, to SAT preparation. Anyway,
despite talking about having a course, none of the experienced players
did anything about it. Well, one of the new Freshmen, Mark Middleton,
did. He talked to the director of Interim, Carol Lebo. She told Mark that
he needed a faculty member to sponsor and supervise the course, if it
got off the ground. This is where I got involved. Since Mark hadn’t
played for very long, I decided to lend my knowledge to the course.
Mark and I talked and we decided that we should have 15 beginners for
the course. Then, through a friend of mine, we recruited Dr. Welch to
supervise the course. After that we wrote up our course description and
waited for the sign up.

We got an amazing turn-out. Over 60 people signed up for D&D.
We had figured on getting many new freshmen students, but not the
number of day students, juniors and seniors we did. At first (to keep the
number of people down), the course required instructor approval. After
a talk with Dr. Welch, it was decided that everyone would be let in.
(Fortunately, our number was reduced to 55 by the time the course
began). Then we went to the list and picked 10 Dungeonmasters.
Originally we wanted DM’s who were experienced players, but hadn’t
DM’ed before, but the number of people in the course forced us to use
everyone we could. Each DM had a group of 5 players, except one,
David Albrect. He took care of the people who “died” by putting them
in his game. I was THE “ROVER” who went around and helped solve any
problems that arose.

The number of people in the course also allowed us to adjust the
scheduling of the course. Since we had some players who had already
played, we had to interest them without penalizing the beginner. So, we
had a “random dungeon” in the first week and a “method-to-yourmadness”
dungeon the second week. In the first week, we used the first
day to discuss the rules. I stumbled through the first 15 minutes doing an
excellent job of confusing even the DMs until Mark stepped in and woke
everybody up. Then, we divided up into the DMs’ groups and let the
DM’s explain the rules. We broke up into groups because the players
were getting restless and we thought that the players learn D&D best by
playing it. Then, we began to play the “Random Dungeon.”

Money. Well, we did need some money to run the class. We decided
on $1.50 from everybody except the DMs for the course and an
optional $1.50 for low impact dice. We wanted to let people have an
opportunity to get dice because polyhedral dice are essential to D&D.
We used the other $1.50 per person to buy more dice and books. The
DMs used the high impact dice during the two weeks, and then sets of
high impact dice were given out for our tournament. The books we
bought, a Basic D&D and a Player’s Handbook, were to be donated to
the Cranbrook Library. However, Dr. Welch pointed out that books
would not last a week in the library. So, we decided to give the books to
the club we are forming.

The club, it was decided, will have a limited membership while it is
being formed, to make it’s set up easy. We are going to use the books for
the club. We will also subscribe to The Dragon and other wargaming
periodicals.

The dungeon we used the first week was, according to its designer,
Paul Dworkin, “sickeningly normal.” The dungeon was randomized
except for a few things, like a treasure room that was guarded by ogres
on the first level. The dungeon also had some interesting rooms: like one
with bottle caps and another that had lead pieces! The dungeon introduced
the characters to high level monsters with low hit points or other
problems. There was a beholder with only two eyes and a baby white
dragon with seven hit points. I’m not sure now if this was good, because
it might have given some players the wrong idea about high level
monsters. Also, fighters and thieves were started as 2nd level so they
could have more hit points. M-Us and clerics were started as 3rd level so
they could use 2nd level spells. Again we weren’t sure that this was the
best thing to do, but at least it kept the beginners alive.

To give the players a chance to develop, the characters they rolled in
the first week were used during the second week. The tournament
winner would be the person who was either 1) the most improved or 2)
helped the others to learn how to play. We toyed with another interesting
system, but rejected it. In it the winner was the one with the best
experience over hit points lost ratio. This system equalized the classes,
because although a fighter kills more monsters than an M-U, he also
loses more hit points. We did not pick a winning group for a couple of
reasons. First, the characteristics were random, so one group could have
better characters. Secondly, the DM’s all play differently. Finally, some
groups had more experienced players than others.

In the second week we divided the nine DM’s into three groups of
three. You see, we wanted to try out a system whereby the three groups
were in the same universe in the material plane. They could meet, join
up, and/or kill each other. It was an interesting idea. It did not work,
however. We wanted the groups to meet later in the week. For that
reason each group was given a different objective. This was done for
two other reasons: 1) to prevent “cheating” outside of class and 2) so no
objective would already be taken. Despite this, two groups met on the
first day. It was a disaster. Everyone was mad and felt cheated, mostly by
me. As I sorted out this mess, I realized the main reason for the players’
irritation: for some reason, it’s all right to be killed by a monster, but not
by a PC. As soon as we could, the DMs and I agreed it
would not work and stopped it.

Letting groups meet was not the only problem we had. In fact, the
biggest problems were death and paralyzation. When people died, we
put them into the dungeon that David was running because, this being
an “official” school course, the dead people wouldn’t be allowed to
leave the room 30 or 40 minutes early. The problem was, that as the
week progressed, too many people died. Not all could be put into
David’s game. To compensate, we put some dead people into other
groups if someone were absent there. Nobody liked that situation. The
dead people were usually not accepted by the players in the group he or
she was put into. However, dead people were better off than those
paralyzed. The paralyzed people couldn’t be put into David’s game,
because they could possibly be cured, either that day or the next.
Unfortunately, they usually weren’t cured quickly. Dr. Welch suggested
that we do away with paralyzed players. From the view of running the
course it was the right thing. However, from a D&D purist point of view I
didn’t like it. We had already departed from D&D guidelines in character
levels and in monsters and I was afraid that we were giving a wrong
idea of D&D. Finally, after talking with Dr. Welch and Mark, I was
convinced that either giving people 2 characters or having servants, who
could be taken over by the players after death or paralyzation, was the
best idea.

Despite the problems of death and paralyzation, I feel the course
was successful. The course taught over 30 people how to play and
cleared up many misconceptions about D&D. The course was enjoyable
to almost everyone and most of the complaints, I feel, were from
the tensions created simply by playing D&D. With the success we had this
year, I’m sure we will give an even more successful course next year.

*    *    *    * 

'New freshmen'
To the Editor,

I am writing this letter to clear up some
problems that appear in my article in the August
1979 issue of “The Dragon” A rather dull part of
my article was edited out. While this made the
article more readable, it created a small problem
with my description of freshmen. In the article, the
first paragraph states “. . .most . . . of the returning
freshmen had heard of D&D. However, none
of the new freshmen knew how to play.” Before
my article was edited, it stated dryly that all of the
returning freshmen who had gone to Cranbrook
in the eighth grade were “day” students (not
those who flunked!). The “new freshmen” of the
article are the boarders, none of whom were at
Cranbrook in the eighth grade. Since the boarders
had a lot of free time together, D&D was the
perfect thing for them. So, there were only four or
five freshmen boarders who did not play D&D.
There were more than four freshmen “day” students
who didn’t play D&D. Whenever the article
says “new” freshmen it means freshmen
boarders.

Another thing that was edited was the names
of the DMs. They did a superb job and deserve the
credit of being mentioned. They were: David
Albrecht, David Baxter, Chuck Chung, John
Dennis, Paul Dworkin, Paul Gamble, Todd
Golding, Tod Leavitt, Robert Nederlander, and
Marshal Eisenberg. The last thing about the article
is about our club. We would appreciate any assistance
or suggestions on club charter, constitution,
by-laws, etc. A copy of an existing club’s rules
would be greatly appreciated.

Dan Bromberg—MI