While presenting “why a tutorial is needed in every game”, is very interesting and educating by itself, it is something that has be done by others many times, so I will not waste time that could should be allocated elsewhere. You can search, or ask me to provide you with many sources on the subject if you want to, but the focus will be strongly related to TGTSNBN and the wonderful data that it so unknowingly and unintentionally provided.
While this is indeed one of the purposes of a tutorial it is not an exclusive one. A good tutorial should be part of the means that the developer utilizes to introduce the game to the player: story, aesthetics, game mechanics, or button functions. It’s up to the developers to chose which of those points to focus on. I am certainly not claiming that it should contain all of the above, but thinking of some of my most memorable tutorial experiences while typing this, I can assure you that the most engaging ones managed to effectively present all of the above. So what did TGTSNBN do and what did I learn from it?
It – unsurprisingly – managed to once again set the perfect example of what should be avoided. There are three important goals that TGTSNBN didn’t meet because of its lack of a proper tutorial:
- Presenting the type and goals of game to be played
- Presenting the rules of the game and providing examples of their usage
- Presenting the setting of the game
During the game’s first year of running, we were lucky enough to have a strong majority of players that had experienced other tabletop role-playing games before TGTSNBN. It was during the second year that the new players outnumbered the veterans and took over the majority role. The game was not (and still isn’t) new-player friendly. These new players were not told how a tabletop RPG is played, what is the goal, what assumptions are made, what is considered unacceptable player behavior, what role-playing is about. All of that should be provided by the game designers for every game, even it is about a type of game much more known than tabletop RPG. Only after having explained the very essence of the game can then the new player be introduced to the details.
And by details I mean rules – or lack thereof. I will not be repeating myself, just referring to my earlier points. The introduction sessions were never designed to help newcomers understand the mechanics of the game. On the contrary there was such an effort being put by the designers on those sessions that they specifically ordered the game masters to “play an awesome session” – as if this was only affected by the GMs – or even to change the game’s rules just for this one time, in order for the game to become more captivating.
Instead of keeping the game as simple as advertised (it was one of their main design goals) the designers made it more complicated. Instead of introducing their product through simple steps and then by increasing complexity levels until players got a hang of the rules, they put the newcomers through this different-from-the-real-thing experience, thinking that they would be attracted by the random mechanics involved in each introductory session. As a result most players were baffled rather than amazed and captivated, yet most stayed and tried more sessions and eventually adapted to certain situations.
But it wasn’t only the new players that were annoyed by this unreasonable presence of complexity and difficulty. Veteran players too were affected by this. Not only were they introduced to situations that should normally be very easy to handle, but suddenly became impossible because of new mechanics, but they also had new players that were so unfamiliar with the rules and expected behavior that they often ruined the atmosphere and interactions with the in-game world. This annoyance was often made apparent enough to affect the new players even more. Others tried to adapt, others preferred the safety of the silence and others just did whatever because they did not care for a world that was not introduced to them in a proper manner.
And that brings me to the final point, which – according to its results – is the worst of the three. Introducing the players to the world and vice versa. Think about it. Older players could explain the basics of tabletop role-playing to others. Through player communication, experimenting with the online application and consulting the incomplete game rulebook, most rules and mechanics could be understood. What no player could replace in any way though was the presentation of the world itself. And this led us to the famous potato paradox.
Let’s just say that our characters had somehow managed to travel and live in Greece in the year 10,000 B.C. and despite that fact, most role-played the most absurd things about their characters: golden hand woven cloaks, sharp Japanese katanas and of course French fries, chips, fried potatoes that were served to them at taverns (without any GM or designer approval). And then there was the other side, players that were paying attention during history class that knew that potatoes were firstly brought to Greece around 1800 A.D. give or take. Instead of pointing the error out, they decided to role-play accordingly, accusing the other characters of being crazy in-game, mocking them and all kinds of stuff.
At first it was kind of fun but after around a month and a half of always bringing up the argument and pleas to the developers to answer whether or not potatoes really existed in the world, the potato had become a symbol. A symbol of anything silly setting-wise that anyone mentioned: from the existence of other fruits and vegetables to the existence of wire and perfectly shaped crystal lenses.
It was this unwillingness by the designers’s part to form and present the world that was the major flaw. The only presentation of the world that was oficially given was how much citizens and weaponsmiths each city the only city in the world had. Despite player pleas they refused to even answer simple questions only when they arose. It wasn’t just silly things but details that greatly affected the persistence of the world and the time-line. And yes, when one introduces a time-line altering scenario he or she has to be very careful to details such as crops appearing displaced in the space and time continuum.
By not introducing a detailed world description to new and old players alike they ruined the very setting they should be trying to build on. The potato paradox could have even been a great quest line for those that cared if handled properly. Instead the designers yet again opted for the “do minimal work” path, without really pleasing any side, or taking that dispute and turning it into something good for the game, since players had definitely shown interest. Soon afterwards inconsistent descriptions about NPCs and locations took over and players had once and for all lost any interest for that world.
The tutorial is just another design tool. It should be something that eases a player into a game, that explains what a game is about, that maybe provides a setting, that shows the player how basic tasks are done. It should be a sample of the of the game that follows and should captivate players by giving them a little taste of what the rest of the game could be and not about what it will never provide.
One might argue that the game wasn’t ready and was still in beta, but the fact that beta testers were not provided with basic info on how the game should be played makes them unfit testers to begin with. And that brings up another point that is not often made. Tutorials should be a game element that a designer must – at the very least – plan ahead for, if not implement early. It can provide not only the game’s feeling and basic rules to anyone so that they can get into it, but even data on whether the original game idea is being executed properly or whether there are problems that clearly arise during early gameplay and testing, issues that must be tackled instead of ignored.
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