What I’d like to share with you today is my experience with introducting Wolsung to new players. I’m planning to write it down as a two- or three-part series, beginning today with two ways to smoothly teach new players the rules of this game. As stated in the title, those two ways are completely opposite to each other, but they both have worked at my table.
Option one: long creation
The first option is rather mainstream and I’ve already had time to test it well. It’s very simple: don’t fill the whole character sheet at once, instead fill it gradually over the course of first three sessions.
It’s nice to see a character gradually coming to life.
On the first session distribute only attributes, skills and archetypes. Players should choose race and profession of their characters, but these choices won’t influence the rules – not yet. They get no tokens and they get only five cards for the entire session: Five, Ten, Dame, King and an Ace. The color of these card doesn’t matter yet – they can be used with any aspect of an Archetype, ex. a club can be used as “suspects” by an investigator even thought “suspects” are normally associated with spears. The Game Master gets no cards and no tokens. It’s up to the Game Master if the Extraordinary Ladies and Gentlemen start with an Achievement and thus if they have 2d10 dice pool.
Those limitations serve many purposes. First and foremost they ensure that players won’t be overwhelmed with the whole ruleset of Wolsung. My introductory sessions using these rules always run much smoother than those with full mechanics. Second, more specific aim is to ensure that players won’t have to use the cards too often. When they use them only when they really need them they’ll have a better chance to learn to use them in an interesting way. And, last but not least, not introducing cards and tokens at the same time ensures that players will understand the difference between them – after all, they both add to the roll and it’s important to know when to use and how to describe each of them.
On the second session introduce professional and racial abilities, gadgets and feats. Give them to players in typical amounts, including 20 XP that every character should get at its creation. However, don’t introduce tokens and limit the use of any token-relying abilities to once per session.
I think that using gadgets, feats and magic is easier than using a full suit of cards, so this order of character creation seems the best for me. It also has a huge advantage when it comes to spellcasting characters. They aren’t able to renew their powers using tokens, so from the very start they have to focus on more lively and interesting option of renewing them using the rules of their sort of magic (using one’s primary element for Wild Talents and so on). Let’s hope that this habit will stay with them once they get a bunch of tokens.
On the third session full rules apply – give the players regular number of cards and tokens and finally have them yourself.
If your players learn really fast, you may give them half this amount (three cards and three tokens) during the second session. On the other side if they need more time to understand Wolsung, you can give them half the amount on the third session and wait until the fourth with the full amount.
This way of teaching Wolsung is really well-tested, I have taught something like a dozen players using it and now they all use the rules very easily and creatively. my second idea lacks these virtues but it can be really fun to some players.
Option two: Lots of cards!
In this version a player chooses only his Archetype for the first session. His character has no stats, but he gets three cards and draws another three each time only one is left in his hand, discarding the worst of the four. He can play this cards as any other player, with one exception: if he uses card value as a result of his roll, other players can increase this result with their card bonuses.
Because such a player has no stats, he can’t be a target of an attack during a confrontation and his failures only have consequences to the story, not the mechanics.
That’s why I consequently write “player” instead of “players” – this option is best suited for adding a new player to an already formed group. This is the way I’ve used this rule in my sessions (only once so far, but with good results). A character created this way is not only very simple to run but also invincible, so he gets a period of protection that allows him to get involved in the plot more smoothly. Getting new cards when he still has one left allows to hoard an all-powerful deck towards the end of the session. I think there should be such a possibility because Wolsung is, after all, a tactical game and players should be taught to rely on their own wits, not only sheer luck from the first session.
The obvious drawback is that the player has to use many, many cards on the first session – but since he doesn’t have to do anything else, it shouldn’t be a really serious problem. I think that a player who begins with such minimal rules will use cards more interestingly during later sessions.
What to do with such a character after the first session? I suggest creating him using long creation rules, but simplified: the character gets three tokens on his second session (along with attributes and skills) and on the third one he is ready with full suite of both stats and cards.
Using these rules to create an entire team is a very interesting option both for new players and for experienced ones wanting a fast-paced, fun game, but it requires to tweak other rules of Wolsung in quite a serious way. If somebody is interested in this home-brew version of Wolsung I’ll gladly write about it.
In next installment of this series I’ll write about introducing the world of Wolsung to the players and helping them find their place in this Victorian society. However, first I’ll finish A Game of Shops an review Operation Wotan. I know that this week has less new posts than the last one and I’m sorry about it but I can’t write more for you because of my exams.
I’ll be glad for your opinions on these ideas!
Steamagination 