(I’m running three six-hour adventures as part of my volunteer duties at the 2006 A-Kon. The third adventure, when all the characters are advanced to high powered versions, has a player who tells me that it is her first time ever playing a tabletop RPG. Two of the players have played both the earlier adventures choosing the drider-girl and FBI agent each time, and another two are long-time friends of mine. The remaining two players are friends of the newbie.)

New Player: “Is it going to be hard?”

Me: “Not at all. The hardest part about this game is making the character. But I use pre-generated characters at conventions to avoid that.”

Agent Player: “And he’s been a really good GM. I love this story line.”

Drider Player: “We’ve been in both of his other events. And this is a really great system.”

New Player: “I’m just worried about keeping track of all the information.”

Me: “Well, I put info on all your dragon-girl’s powers and abilities on the sheet. I’ve done all the math already. Also, I have a copy of your character so I can make sure you’re good. This is basically the same as playing cops and robbers as a little kid. The rules and dice only exist for two reasons, really.”

New Player: “Oh? What are those?”

Me: “A: if there is a dispute they prevent things from falling to endless ‘No I’m not,’ ‘Yes you are’ arguments. And B: when you roll a high number it gives you an excuse to go ‘Ooooooh’ and say how cool and awesome you are.”

(The experienced players agree with me. Later, the new player decides to have her dragon girl do a strafing run on a bunch of banshee-like space invaders and she rolls a bunch of successive critical successes.)

Me: “Your fire breath cuts a line straight through the oncoming hordes and incinerates everyone it touches.”

New Player: “Ooooooooooh”

Table: “One of us! One of us! One of us!”

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