Campaign Starting Points

[skaxophone]

I've just committed to running a 4e campaign for some friends of mine who have absolutely zero experience with tabletop RPGs. So in addition to running the campaign, I'll also be responsible for teaching them the game. I've been toying with the idea of railroading each of them through a short (3-5 encounter) solo adventure while I show them the ropes. All of these adventures will lead up to a bigger encounter where the PCs will meet for the first time.

Does this seem like a good idea to you? Or would I be better off teaching the group as a group, and avoiding the extra work that putting these adventures would entail?

[Ravens_cry]

This could very well work. It means you can spend the time to actually teach them individually, focusing in on their difficulties with the system as they comes up, without being distracted by the needs of the other players.
Definitely a lot of effort, but could be rewarding nonetheless.

[Katana_Geldar]

Go and watch Chris Perkins videos, they're on youtube and he was in the same position as you.

[mobdrazhar]

I do like this idea due to being able to concentrate on each players issues and you won't be bombarded by all players at once. It's also good for party get together.

The only issue that i see there is the time consuming essence of it.

[evirus]

I am in a silimar situation, however I ran the 2 sessions with the whole group. I "pre built" a selection of 8 characters using the monster builder for simplicity and had them each pick 1 (discarding the others). I used the monster builder since it does a nice job of compacting information into an easy format to read and simplify power choices.

I ran a simple "search and recover" style mission where as city guards were looking for a missing caravan. At the end of the 2nd session, these guards were all killed.

The players then had the chance to build their PCs having learned the basics before and went off on their 1st mission to discover what happend to the missing guards (and avenge their deaths).

[Kurald Galain]

I've been toying with the idea of railroading each of them through a short (3-5 encounter) solo adventure while I show them the ropes. All of these adventures will lead up to a bigger encounter where the PCs will meet for the first time.

Does this seem like a good idea to you?

No, not really, because a solo adventure will not prepare them for the roleplaying part of the game, nor for the teamwork part.

[Bagelz]

I did that in a campaign I started last fall (1 session with each player before the first group session). It let me introduce the basic combat rules, give some back story to the campaign world and actually work the players into meeting each other instead some lame trope like "you already know each other and are sitting in a bar" or "you all wake up in a prison".
It worked great for my players, but it was a lot of extra work. I mean a lot. Its preparing for 4-5 sessions instead of 1.

[skaxophone]

No, not really, because a solo adventure will not prepare them for the roleplaying part of the game, nor for the teamwork part.

Yes, but if they're prepared on the mechanics, the other parts will be easier, at least in my opinion.

[Trog]

It depends on what the adventure will be like. I've done this before with a group of players both new and old. At the encounter where they were all together and supposed to come together as a group... they chose not to.

I had a good part of the rest of the whole adventure with each of them running around separately until various plot threads led them all back together again against a common foe now and then. That group was odd. Always breaking apart again and again. Then again it was all set in a fully detailed city so them doing their own thing might have been inevitable.

The good part is that it gave each of them a clear motivation and background outside of the group. One was attacked, one was hunted, one witnessed a murder, one was investigating a disappearance and each of these things became part of their character's motivation.

Since they kept separate, being the evil DM that I am sometimes, I arranged it so one of them would have to make an assassination attempt on the others from atop a nearby building in order to get membership into the theives guild. A firefight ensued and I was running one side in one room and another in a distant room. Only the attacker and myself knew that he was the one attacking them. The group attacked suspected he was involved somehow but had no idea they were directly attacking his character.

Serves 'em right. Heh!

[Ignatius]

I would do a combination... have all the players together in one location, and run 1 small encounter per person as a solo encounter that you have designed carefully to cover most of the rules they need to know.

Then use their plots and results to join the party together.

This means that with the first encounter you could teach the whole group about basic attacks, on the second, encounter powers & combat advantage, third - second wind & dailies, etc. etc.

[tcrudisi]

(The following is my opinion, not fact.)

4e is sooo big on teamwork. A solo adventure is really going against the tactics and teamwork that 4e represents. I would, instead, run a single LFR module. That will properly railroad them while allowing them to get a feel for the mechanics.

[DragonBaneDM]

Kobold Hall, brother. Start it off with them getting jumped on a road to Fallcrest, and finding some sort of battle-plans for an attack on Fallcrest.

That mini-adventure model is pretty sweet. It has every basic "type" of DnD in it, roleplaying, a skill challenge or two, a dungeon crawl, traps, and a dragon fight.

[Fuzzie Fuzz]

I'm with tcrudisi on the teamwork bit. 4e can be made to work for solo adventures, but the character and adventure must be specially designed for it, and so throwing a character made to be part of a group into an adventure by itself will be problematic. Not to mention the fact that I don't think it would be very helpful anyway.

The game is pretty easy to pick up, mechanics-wise. I'd say run a short, simple adventure (Kobold Hall is a great suggestion) for the lot of them and let them experiment with the teamwork and RP. Then reset, and get feedback from them, discuss the game, and let them drop out if they decide it really isn't for them. Let them either create new characters now that they've had some real experience under their belt or let them keep their characters if they still like them. Then go do a real campaign.