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WISH 59 asks:

Name three games you might use to get someone who has never roleplayed before into roleplaying.

Well, it depends on the someone, of course. The games I’d use for my 12 year old nephew might not be the games I’d use for my mom. But, hey, here’s a shot at it.

Feng Shui is a strong first choice. Character creation is really simple, especially if you stay away from the martial artists. The genre is one that’s perfect for cutting straight to the action, and PCs are likely to succeed. The chances of a negative experience right out of the gate are pretty slim. Of course, it’s also a fairly violent game, so maybe not the best for Mom, which leads us to…

Trollbabe. Incredibly simple system that puts a lot of power in the hands of the players. A lot of more experienced players are weirded out by this, so I’m curious to see how total newbies would respond. I think it would tend to provide a sense of ownership. Also, Trollbabes only have one stat, so there’s not much to remember. But the babe factor might be a bit much for Mom, so…

Screw it, I’ll go with Everway. (Thanks to Dorathea for the reminder. I swear I thought of Trollbabe independently!) It’s visually-oriented, which would be good for Mom, and not too complicated. Despite WotC’s terrible marketing, it is nonetheless an excellent game for New Age-inclined types as well as people who just like spiritualism. In fact, I’m now really tempted to make Mom play a bit next time I go visit.

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Every now and then someone writes a really good document on interacting with non-techies for techies. Here’s one about giving status reports. As I changed from a techie into a manager with delusions of techieness, I could feel myself beginning to want the strange things Richard Threadgill talks about therein.