Warning: Novel incoming
Do we have any discord bots? Would it be possible to have one of them respond to things like !newplayers , which would give a list of links to..
- A solid, concise, easy-to-follow new player page that introduces the setting, key concepts, rules, etc
- List of active plots and what they're looking for. Each plot should have 2-3 sentences explaining what it is, what faction it belongs to, be well-linked, etc so that people can dig in deeper if something catches their eye. The 'order' of the plots could be determined by most recent plot, plot that needs people the most, random, whatever
- New player guide (which would cover factions, species, etc, in a similar fashion to plots above)
Something like that could be a great way to reduce bias and make it so anyone who is on can give a new person all the resources they might need to get started.
The wiki itself could use an overhaul in some places to focus on specific, actionable content and then fluff second. Look at how D&D/Pathfinder/etc handle their creature and item blocks. They begin with short, easy to understand descriptions, then go into all the relevant stats you need for gameplay,
then go into all the fluff. The more that the fluff is 'optional reading', the better, when it comes to getting new players in. Compare the current experience to something like making a character in a tabletop game. D&D 5e has seen a huge surge in players precisely because of how easy it is to get started. We don't have to simplify things all the way down, but there's a lot of opportunity for reducing friction.
The forums and wiki sometimes disagree on how you should proceed as a new player. The forum specifically says you don't need to make a wiki page.
In the above recommendation, the flow goes..
- I join the Discord server
- Someone (or automatically?) calls up the New Player stuff
- I look through the initial guide and get a feel for if Star Army is right for me. If it is, then I want to play!
- I look at the list of plots. Something catches my eye. I click on the 'Create a Character for this Faction' link (or something like that)
- That link gives me all the relevant info I need to be in that faction.
- A basic faction overview at the beginning that covers all the most important details
- Species are called out with quick blurbs and basic histories so that I can see what interests me and come up with a way to fit in.
- If I choose one, I should be able to get everything I need, at a basic level, without having to scroll.
- Occupations, etc, are likewise called out with simple explanations.
- Same. All the basics should be there without a need for scrolling.
- Occupation skills should still be front-and-center here
- I start to work on my character sheet at this point. The existing template generator is pretty good.
- I should know enough from my faction, species, and occupation's basic premise that I can make an okay first-pass history without help
- Skills should be straight-forward. "Get skills from your occupation, then add skills to customize. Optionally add information about how your character uses those skills that makes them special."
- Likewise equipment. I should already have a selection of them called out from my faction, species, and occupation. ('Weapon Familiarity: Elves are proficient with longbows (including composite longbows), longswords, rapiers, and shortbows (including composite shortbows), and treat any weapon with the word “elven” in its name as a martial weapon.' ...)
- And then I'm done
That's
still a lot of steps! Compared to the 5E example where you go 'Race', 'Background', 'Class', 'Equipment'. Class even gives you recommended equipment loadouts, which is something we could (and already, to an extent!) do. This flow should be a bit easier.
We could even take it a step beyond that and
really optimize things by making pre-made blocks to paste into your character sheet. The species one could be pre-filled with the age, size, etc ranges, as well as any other pertinent info, with instructions for the player to follow. Same for Occupations - "Copy and Paste this into the area where it says 'Occupation', this into the area where it says 'Skills', and this into the area where it says 'Equipment'. And in each of those it could say, 'Pick three more skills from the list at
www.stararmyskills.com' 'You have an extra 3000 spacebucks to buy things, go to this page to see what is commonly available in your faction', and so on...
Somewhere along the way there should probably be something like Wes' timeline, especially if it's aimed at recent events. Timelines could (should?) be faction specific. ("All members of the Star Army, even new recruits, remember the war against the Mishhuvurthyar, a terrifying alien race that used its technological prowess to..." ... "In recent years, the Star Army has begun to repel a new invader, the Kuvexians, who use slave races to make up their vanguard." ...) etc etc. So long as I don't try to call out specific events, that gives me enough to say "Fought valiantly in the war against the Mishhu.." ... "... now seeking a new home aboard the SS Plotship".
Heck, even the way the ranks are setup right now, where you start at the lowest rank, is designed to help new players, right? "Yes, you're new, but so is your character! We would only expect a newly-minted Neko to know the things that you saw in the guide.." "As a new member of the NDC, there's a lot of history that you - and everyone else - simply doesn't know about the NDC's origins unless you went looking for it. You
do know that.." And so on.
At any point, we can tell players that there is plenty of other stuff on the wiki. We can encourage them from the start - but we should make it clear that new players don't have to go any deeper into the 'waters' than what the initial guide offers them.
I'm new and all, so I don't have the experience you guys have with trying to get new people in. What I can say is that there's nothing about all the information here that
requires it to be hard for new players to get started. If we care about it enough, I'd challenge us to find a way to get the whole process into the 30 minutes to an hour range with a high degree of success. That's still a big time investment for someone, but not any more so than writing a post.