next »

[VoidKnight]

Sometime in the near future I will be teaching a group of my friends how to play Anima. None of them have any experience with the game or games of this type. One of them owns the Core book but that is all they have between themselves. I need advice on how to describe certain aspect of the game to them.

1. The Classes. They all are used to the type of game that relies heavily on traditional roles such as tank/DPS/support/etc and games where your class defines your character and what they are capable of. How would you explain the more versatile system Anima uses?

2. The rules in general. Having each of them read through the whole core book would be a little bit awkward and time-consuming. I was considering just explaining the various difficulty levels for skills checks, opposed skills checks, and combat and kind of go from there.

3. The setting. I actually have this one covered pretty well but any input is still welcome.

4. Character creation. They more or less have ideas of what they want their characters to be like. I think it would be best to walk them through character creation individually based on what they want to be able to do. I'll still go over a general idea of the different possibilities each types of powers have and how they compare to each other but go more in depth in certain areas depending what their characters specify in.


I will the GM for their game and we will be playing in a post-by-post forum since we are all going to be starting at different colleges (ironically we have almost the same majors) so it will be easier to keep the game going. Due to the nature of PBP the game will be more roleplaying oriented than combat. This is all I have time to post right now as I am headed to work so I'll check back either tonight or tomorrow.

[alphawhelp]

Sometime in the near future I will be teaching a group of my friends how to play Anima. None of them have any experience with the game or games of this type. One of them owns the Core book but that is all they have between themselves. I need advice on how to describe certain aspect of the game to them.

1. The Classes. They all are used to the type of game that relies heavily on traditional roles such as tank/DPS/support/etc and games where your class defines your character and what they are capable of. How would you explain the more versatile system Anima uses?

I would just explain that despite that there are classes and levels in Anima, the bonuses you actually receive from your class and level are marginal at best, and that Anima is at heart a point-buy game, like Shadowrun or Hero, and that you decide what your character ultimately has, not your class and level.  Every option is available to every character, regardless of their class, for example, fighter's can't have magic missile in D&D, but in Anima, they can.

2. The rules in general. Having each of them read through the whole core book would be a little bit awkward and time-consuming. I was considering just explaining the various difficulty levels for skills checks, opposed skills checks, and combat and kind of go from there.

For the most part, when dealing with new players, I just kept all the rules in my head, and explained them to players as they came up in game.  I also did a mixture of explaining how things work, and "You just need this, trust me on it."  For example, when I had a new player who wanted to dual wield, I didn't bother explaining to him what it would be like if he wanted to dual wield without Ambidextrous, I just told him he needed it to dual wield.

3. The setting. I actually have this one covered pretty well but any input is still welcome.

I generally describe it as Supernatural European Renaissance, to sum things up in a few words.  Explain it further that this means there is a church with an inquisition, primitive guns, and so on.

4. Character creation. They more or less have ideas of what they want their characters to be like. I think it would be best to walk them through character creation individually based on what they want to be able to do. I'll still go over a general idea of the different possibilities each types of powers have and how they compare to each other but go more in depth in certain areas depending what their characters specify in.

Just explain that nearly anything in Anima is possible, so just explain that they should come up with a character concept first, and then worry about how to make it work within the rules later.

I will the GM for their game and we will be playing in a post-by-post forum since we are all going to be starting at different colleges (ironically we have almost the same majors) so it will be easier to keep the game going. Due to the nature of PBP the game will be more roleplaying oriented than combat. This is all I have time to post right now as I am headed to work so I'll check back either tonight or tomorrow.

Good luck.

[vytzka]

Sometime in the near future I will be teaching a group of my friends how to play Anima. None of them have any experience with the game or games of this type. One of them owns the Core book but that is all they have between themselves. I need advice on how to describe certain aspect of the game to them.

1. The Classes. They all are used to the type of game that relies heavily on traditional roles such as tank/DPS/support/etc and games where your class defines your character and what they are capable of. How would you explain the more versatile system Anima uses?

"Classes in Anima are not combat roles. They're more like templates describing a character's style or outlook in life. You can implement any number of different character concepts with one class, or do the same concept in different classes, although some things will be different about them."

Archetypes also make classes easier to understand and differentiate.

2. The rules in general. Having each of them read through the whole core book would be a little bit awkward and time-consuming. I was considering just explaining the various difficulty levels for skills checks, opposed skills checks, and combat and kind of go from there.

At a minimum, describe ki, psychic powers, magic, summoning and elan in very broad strokes, ask the player which of those do they find most interesting, then tell them to stay the hell away from sections describing the rest. Depending on how you build characters (see below) you could get away with not describing very much of the system upfront, and introducing it gradually during situations in-game. Like tutorial stages in Fire Emblem if you've ever played any of those ^_^

3. The setting. I actually have this one covered pretty well but any input is still welcome.

Alphawhelp's magical Rennaissance works pretty well as a description. You could also say that Anima is a high fantasy look at the Three Musketeers in the same way that Final Fantasy Tactics was a reimagining of War of the Roses.

4. Character creation. They more or less have ideas of what they want their characters to be like. I think it would be best to walk them through character creation individually based on what they want to be able to do. I'll still go over a general idea of the different possibilities each types of powers have and how they compare to each other but go more in depth in certain areas depending what their characters specify in.

Try to get them to describe their characters and make some initial builds, then tweak them together as necessary. Allowing them some remakes as they start understanding the system better in the first couple sessions may be a good idea.

[VoidKnight]

Thanks for the help guys, its really appreciated. I like the idea of Anima being something of a magical Renaissance. I know these guys and the concept of classes is very ingrained in their system, I'm sure it will take some convincing to pull them away from that mindset. Calling the classes 'archetypes' and 'templates' is a good start in that direction.

[vytzka]

I meant archetypes as defined in Anima, as a sort of super-classes (Fighter, Mystic, Domine, Prowler).

[The Dread Polack]

Sometime in the near future I will be teaching a group of my friends how to play Anima. None of them have any experience with the game or games of this type. One of them owns the Core book but that is all they have between themselves. I need advice on how to describe certain aspect of the game to them.

1. The Classes. They all are used to the type of game that relies heavily on traditional roles such as tank/DPS/support/etc and games where your class defines your character and what they are capable of. How would you explain the more versatile system Anima uses?

If they've tried a point-buy system before, then tell them that their class determines the costs of their abilities. If not, tell them their class sort of steers them toward a "role" without pidgeon-holing them. This game doesn't have "Class abilities" like D&D, so you should think about what abilities you want, and then pick a class that will get them for you the best way.

2. The rules in general. Having each of them read through the whole core book would be a little bit awkward and time-consuming. I was considering just explaining the various difficulty levels for skills checks, opposed skills checks, and combat and kind of go from there.

Given the complexity of Anima, I'd recommend that everyone eventually reads all the rules for what their character does. Having said that, most of my players haven't. I've had a hard time with one player in particular who has gotten frustrated with me, claiming I told him one thing at one time, and another later. I finally told him "Don't get mad at me because I don't know how to play your character. Read the rules, figure it out." The lesson is: if you plan to teach the rules as you play, let the players know that it will go much slower, and you are likely to make more mistakes.

Also, rules-summaries and cheat sheets are helpful. Here's one I made:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nd7jvbaf8pyv5ke/Combat%20Cheat%20Sheet.docx

3. The setting. I actually have this one covered pretty well but any input is still welcome.

Just throw in that it's "as through the eyes of a Japanese manga/anime writer". This will explain the unique take on the more traditional Euro-style fantasy setting and also prepare them for some surprises. They'll hopefully not take too much for granted.

4. Character creation. They more or less have ideas of what they want their characters to be like. I think it would be best to walk them through character creation individually based on what they want to be able to do. I'll still go over a general idea of the different possibilities each types of powers have and how they compare to each other but go more in depth in certain areas depending what their characters specify in.

That's what I did.

I will the GM for their game and we will be playing in a post-by-post forum since we are all going to be starting at different colleges (ironically we have almost the same majors) so it will be easier to keep the game going. Due to the nature of PBP the game will be more roleplaying oriented than combat. This is all I have time to post right now as I am headed to work so I'll check back either tonight or tomorrow.

Oh, so you will want to ignore 90% of the rules I think Anima is a great setting for roleplaying. I just wish the rules actually reflected that a bit more.

[FearlessElbow]

On the setting stuff, it's worth pointing out to them that it's a (very distorted) reflection of the real Earth, geographically and religiously.

Old Continent / New Continent split is basically the same as here (including the fact that Arlan, which is clearly the equivalent of England, is seen as the main shipping route to the New World).

Each of the lands in the Old Continent represents a real-world country.  The names of the inhabitants are obviously big indicators, as are some of the religions or stranger characteristics of the place.  One of the clearest examples of this would be Moth.  The typical names of Moth residents are Romanian, and the horror-style of the place is clearly linked to Transylvania (which is in Romania).  Likewise, Estigia is Egypt, Ilmorra is (Ancient) Greece, etc, etc.

[Pneumonica]

The same is true for much of the non-magical setting. The Enneath is based on Islam, for instance, with a strongly Sufi bent.

[llaletin]

I fully intend to run a quick prequel for my players when we begin playing (some point in the next year or two), giving them pre-genned characters just so that they can see how characters have been put together and play around with what they have for a session before they then create their own PCs in the next session.

Also ran the Nightmares Become True adventure some time back, which has characters and slightly-lighter rules provided; some of the text did need re-translating but I issued each player with details of their character's abilities and how to use them as well as the generic rules i.e. only the magic user got the 'how to use magic' crunch and a printed out list of his spells, only the psion got the rules on their powers.  But in using them the other players could see how the abilities functioned and whether it was something that they would be interested in.

[Arikail]

I fully intend to run a quick prequel for my players when we begin playing (some point in the next year or two), giving them pre-genned characters just so that they can see how characters have been put together and play around with what they have for a session before they then create their own PCs in the next session.

Also ran the Nightmares Become True adventure some time back, which has characters and slightly-lighter rules provided; some of the text did need re-translating but I issued each player with details of their character's abilities and how to use them as well as the generic rules i.e. only the magic user got the 'how to use magic' crunch and a printed out list of his spells, only the psion got the rules on their powers.  But in using them the other players could see how the abilities functioned and whether it was something that they would be interested in.

The game I'm starting tonight has almost everyone using the pregenned characters from the GM Toolkit. I say almost as one wanted to try out the Ki Summoning rules, so we had to do up the character from scratch, but still using the history from the Technician in there. They've all had a sample combat against a small group of zombies for experience with the basic combat system and to see how their powers work. The Warrior Summoner really likes his Emperor Arcana Invocation. I think everyone is pretty excited for the night.

But that's how I do basic introduction. I'll help with characters, but suggest pregenned for the first timers. Then a quick combat scenario that has no impact on the real game (in case somebody messes up really badly), with environmental elements that they can utilize if desired (pyromancer had a nearby building on fire, so we could experiment with how that would work). I need to sit down and do up a stripped down history into a handout, so they can read that over quickly, instead of me giving a long spiel on What Came Before, but I think that's all that I'm missing for my basics. Then dump 'em in and let 'em go. When they've got a better idea of how things work, they can redo characters to more suit them, or bring a new one, if this one isn't working out.

[VoidKnight]

That is an interesting idea there Arikail. I'll be meeting up with the player Monday to teach them the basic rules and I'll propose doing that with them.