Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;786330I think the trickier things with non-gamers (at least, those not from a videogame background) can be the level of violence. Takes some time to get desensitized so start out with less human adversaries, or at least people or things that are clearly bad.

Giant spiders often work as good initial adversaries, familiar enough, yet strange and terrible and people usually have little remorse in their being killed, or killing them themselves.

Quote from: danskmacabre;786297Well I mean the illusion of danger in that you could fudge dice rolls so monsters don't hit as often etc..

Just give the monsters lower attack bonuses and damage, probably lower hp too. This is very easy to do just by changing out their equipment for humanoids, or saying beasts are young or aged or sick. You shouldn't have to fudge dice in play. For instance, just changing d6s & d8s to d4s makes the game much less swingy without making it feel 'safe'. When I run games for my 7 year old son I typically give him an NPC companion & halve monster hit points (or in 4e Gamma World quarter monster hit points), otherwise run as-written.

Edit: The 5e D&D Starter set adventure is good. Take a look at that if you haven't already, should make a good jumping off point and you can add stuff you like or she likes. I'd recommend that for 2 PCs you reduce monster numbers & stats appropriately.

Think back to every time she has quit a game early and what was going on in the preceding half hour. Don't do that stuff...

Subject to the above, it seems what's ignited her interest is detecting your passion for the game. So, include things that you're passionate about...

And finally, max out the personal dilemmas for her PC. Make her make tough choices.

Personally, I would lay off the non-human PCs too (elves or half-elves might be OK), but that's just me. Big up on weird, unpredictable magic items instead.

I had a similar game happen recently, worth my wife who's tried once or twice before with just me and not been convinced, two other female friends who have never played, and a long time player friend and his first time player wife. The other long time player and I felt some pressure to play the "right" sort of game that would get the new players into it. My solution was to go for a simplified D&D which emphasised social and exploration aspects, and set up interesting inter-party dynamics from the start.... And the ideal game for this is Beyond the Wall. I highly recommend picking it up. Group character creation with class/archetype play-books reminiscent of Earthsea/Prydain fiction make for evocative and rounded characters that are linked together and, in the basic version, grew up in the same village together. They share relationships and back-story. The life path mini game took us half the session and was thoroughly enjoyed by all, giving us plenty of adventure hooks, and the impetus of defending this home village from encroaching dark forces... It felt really organic and tied together. The new players loved it, and one of them did mention how happy she was that it wasn't just all about combat.... I know it's a cliché, but sometimes there's truth to the idea that women are less into that.

So here it goes . . .

I would avoid the Cult aspect completely. May be to personal an experience to enjoy in the game. We game to avoid that sort of thing. Her hate of those figures may be too strong.

Second I would definitely do a city adventure. And for reasons I don't think anyone else is sited. If you are concerned about killing characters then a city provides reasonable outs a dungeon does, not, Medical care and healing are close, the city guard can rush  to aid a character etc. Help that does not seem like hand holding is reasonable close.

Also people understand a city as such, Who has seen, read or experienced a dungeon all that often in comparison. Yes there are examples but compared to life in the big city not many.

It is much more relate-able.

Also character interaction is also something people "get" more so than combat.

I would analyze not only what shows she watches but which episodes she liked.  What part of Charmed did she like, The butt kicking fights, The way magic worked, The depth of world building with the light and dark side (Which now expends what I know about charmed), the family aspect, the save your sister parts, what?

With shows like that what part does she like since they actually have several facets.

I understand the asking her part, My wife can't pin down concepts like that either. You will have to bet on your own observations.

Don't be afraid of Cliche either, Its not Cliche the first time you play through it and experience it

Basic psychology -- don't ask open-ended questions. When you say 'what do you like?' people's brains have a habit of just shutting down. 'Uuuh. uh. uuuuuh.'

It's better to give _closed_ questions -- offer a small selection, and go from there. This is one reason a lot of 5e design is fucking genius -- it gives a variety of flavorful options to choose from, and those options easily suggest lots of variations and tweaks if you so choose.

So, instead, give a few themes:
* You are on the run in the aftermath of a massive battle. Wreckage of cities lies all around you, while things howl in the distance.
* You have crossed the wrong person. Now, you'd better gather some good dirt on your rivals in the city, or things are going to get rather uncomfortable around here.
* The lost tomb of Tenebril is around here... somewhere. You'll need to talk to the locals, uncover clues (sometimes literally), and perhaps you can be the finder of lost secrets!

I'd also encourage her to select personality trait/ideal/bond/flaw from her background instead of randomizing it -- that might give you a large clue as to what she is interested in doing.

Like Will said, feed her some suggestions, throw some hooks her way and see what she hits on.

Think about the sort of Sci Fi and Fantasy she is into and write a quick list of common themes and setting elements. I would also second having her create her character ahead of time and hand pick her trait/flaw/bond.

For your first adventure with them I would give them an obvious hook with a fairly straight forward adventure, just give them a bit of room to go off the rails and see what they do.

I typically start people with no gaming experience with an opening adventure that is short but tightly focused. I try to structure it so that it will introduce game and setting elements to them but give them ideas about what they may want to do later. A sort of intro to the sandbox so to speak.

I tend to agree with the idea of making it a city-based adventure (an old saying in my group is that the city IS the adventure). Maybe a caper, something involving a McGuffin that your wife can get hooked on, with enough manly derring-do that your kiddo can get into the swing of things, as it were.

Another thought:
Do you know how you do non-lethal damage in 5e?
'Your target is at 0 hp. Knocked out or dead?' "Knocked out."
That's it.

There's no inherent reason why enemies might not 'down' PCs rather than killing them outright, and you will not disrupt 'balance' if you simply have PCs pass out due to injuries rather than facing death.

Start with this thread OP posted by Daztur.

Quote from: Silverlion;786321Rather than assume women, or your wife, wants something specific. Why not sit her down and say "Hey, you re trying this again, and I'd like to make it fun. What would you like to see as challenges/enemies/interests in play?"

+1. When in doubt, ask

So, how did the game go?

Sorry for the delay, this week's been rough.

So my wife and son played this weekend. We spent a long time making characters so we didn't have much time to play on Saturday. My wife offered to play again on Sunday.

The two characters are Annaka, a Tiefling Barbarian (who will multiclass as a Warlock), she rebelled against bonds, traits, and other roleplaying elements, but I was able to get out of her that she and the other character, Dragos, were childhood friends.

She also decided that she was on the run from a church- on her own, so fears regarding that were unfounded. I created a church called "The White Flame" to serve as a main enemy for this campaign.

I'm doing my best to pretend that she's playing the character when she does this, but every time an NPC talks, she mocks him or her.  She's really just not into it. She thinks the whole process of roleplaying is ridiculous.

My son's character, Dragos the Dragonborn, is a Way of the Elements Monk, and he's really, really into it. He's got a voice for his character and everything. Just a note, my son's 15, but he's got autism, so it's nice to see him get openly passionate about something other than the things he's always been passionate about.

He decided that even though his group of Dragonborn are descended from chromatic dragons, they were slaves, and seek out good dragons to serve in order to redeem his people. This told me that they were rare in the setting, and it has become his main quest. The White Flame is involved in their disappearance.

The characters had recently had a run-in with the White Flame, and escaped into a lost city. The world was coming out of a dark age, and so cities like this are just lying empty and largely unlooted. They took refuge from the rain in a library, which it turned out had a zombie and the ghost of the head librarian in it. The ghost was/is harmless unless they abuse the books, but the zombie attacked on sight. I don't think they used a single traditional weapon in the fight, starting a fire on some shelving material they had gathered (they didn't harm the books), and trying to wrestle it into the fire. Eventually, Dragos ripped the zombie in half with a creatively described unarmed attack.

They didn't grab a hook I laid out with the librarian, but they decided they needed to talk to him when he manifested the next night about something unrelated. I might be able to give it to them again.
The next day they decided to loot the city museum. The failed the door's riddle (magic mouth), and the automated system made them pay an entry fee. Annaka doesn't trust the mouth, and we left it up in the air whether they'd be going in.  

The adventure went slowly, as they had to discover things like alternating watches while they slept and spent a lot of time talking these things out. I was fine with this, and tried to feed the ambiance and reinforce the spooky tone of the first game.

I'd be content to continue the game with just my son, but my wife insists on playing. I suppose this could be good news, in that I have more time to get her to engage.

Thanks for all the help everyone.

Very interested to hear the update! Please keep them coming!

I can't help but wonder whether maybe your wife might actually get a lot out of the game, not necessarily on its own merits, but from watching you and your son enjoying it, especially with your son being on the autistic spectrum as you describe. I've met a good few roleplayers (maybe 6?) who I've positively known to have some form of autism or Asperger's syndrome (mostly in Vampire: The Requiem MET-LARP games), and some of them have been amazing roleplayers and really into the game. I did have an awkward moment once when my character told a young woman's character to bite another female character (she was a vampire after all, and the other character was human), and I didn't realise that the player in question had quite pronounced autism, and she actually bit the other player, then got terribly and unnecessarily embarrassed about it when she realised she wasn't meant to actually draw blood in the real world... but I guess people can be at very, very different places on the autistic spectrum.

You might find that as you carry on with the game and your wife gets more out of seeing how you and your son enjoy it, she may do more of what you consider to be serious roleplay. Give her the benefit of the doubt though - maybe her character is just a smart-ass. Here's a random idea. Get the PCs in conversation with a truly terrifying and bad-tempered NPC, someone they could never kill in a straight fight. Signpost the encounter from way off in the distance. Make sure they've heard the NPC's reputation beforehand, seen the dead body of the servant who spoke out of turn, etc. Then you might see a different side to her character. Or she might lose a limb :-)

Just a thought.