Article Written the : 31/12/2018
Project Made in : Octobre 2017
My most ardent passion would be game-mastering tabletop RPGs without a doubt. It's an extremely fun hobby and it turn game design, story telling and world building into a game. And it's as a newly formed GM that I created my first tutorial level.
Tutorial levels are in my opinions some of the most important levels in every game (along with boss battles and climaxes). They teach you how to play, what the game will throw at you and should convince you that the game is fun and worth your time. They are to video games what introductions are to dissertations.
Tabletop RPGs have a lot of similarities with video games, and I felt that my extremely unexperienced players would need a tutorial level. But, because nobody like a patronizing and gameplay-stopping tutorial, I wanted an "invisible" tutorial. Not some questgiver who would tell things outloud for my players, but an organi way of helping them learn. I wanted to show, not to tell.
In 1985, Miyamoto and Tezuka had to teach to players who knew nothing about video games, goombas and plumbers. I had a way easier time, because my player knew what was the point of DnD : you go into dungeons, kill everything that isn't a princess or a child, steal the treasure and get called heroes. But I still had to teach the Warlock how to use its spells, teach the Fighters when to use second wind, teach the Rogue how to make best of his skills and a whole plethora of other game mechanics.
The quest was simple : 10 children were missing in a village, kidnapped by kobolds. The goal was to find the missing kids and get them back, as alive as possible.
I decided that this first dungeon would be short, 4 quite small floors with a "half floor" just to give a rest to the player characters. I also wanted to set up plot hooks in that dungeon, to pique the interest of my players and guide them to the next important place.
Difficulty was going to be progressive. The first floor only had two groups of enemies, all in fewer numbers than my players, all surprised. It would also contain two lonely enemies. The first floor would teach the very basic ideas :
1) game tiles appear as you walk forward, as you see them, in fact, and disappear when you don't see them anymore, forcing you to sometimes draw a map.
2) some enemies aren't conscious of your presence. Being stealthy is a huge advantage.
3) how basic fight mechanics work. How do you know if you hit the enemy, how to roll damage, how you take damage.
The first floor also contained a bit of treasure and a whole lot of letters written in draconic, a tongue none of the player character talk, encouraging them to go seek for an academic into the nearest town, where I prepared the next plot hook.
The second floor was very similar to the first, but it contained one big group of enemies with an enemy stronger than the others, a locked door and a very basic alarm trap. With a good enough roll, the rogue could have just forced the door, but in case he failed, the key was guarded by the big group. The different enemy introduced variety in the threats the players would face, and also a hint that not all foes are equals. The trap would tell the players that the dungeon did have traps, but it wasn't harmful, it would just attract enemies. Provided the players take the clue, they would stay vigilant and looking for traps in weirdly long corridors, without having the frustration of paying a "health point tax".
Like in the first floor, the second floor held more informations in draconic, and a spellbook hidden in a little personnal library. While I had no mages in the group, I had set up the next plot hook in the lost library under an academy of mages. The spellbook was a good way of guiding them and the library a subtle hint setting up the next chapter.
The third floor was the aforementionned half floor, intended solely for resting. The tougher fight that may have happened in the previous floor could have weakened the player characters too much, and this little room would give them just the right amount of rest to get back on track. It's important to note that I knew my group only needed one hour of rest to be back at full resources. If I had any player needing a full night rest, I would have ended the dungeon here, strongly hinting for another one a day's travel away.
A very important thing to keep in mind when designing tutorial levels -and levels in general- is to create them with the players in mind. In the case of a TTRPG, where each character is different, it's even more important. And as a rule of thumb, it's important to make players feel empowered. If someone is particularly stealthy, give him occasions to sneak behind enemy lines.
The fourth floor is the bigger one in this dungeon. It is also quite tentacular, and also filled with various, harmful traps. It introduced an even stronger enemy who was designed to challenge them quite a bit. This foe would also be smarter, encouraging them to be more tactical. And his race, some kind of half-dragon man, was another clue in the mystery that I was slowly putting in place.
The fifth and last floor was the boss room. In truth, it had no real gameplay-teaching purpose, but introduced a recuring enemy and the recuring game pieces of the obelisks, enabling enemies to teleport in and out. It was also a fun little moment for the players, and an opportunity to make them fight a unique foe.
Finaly, in the cages behind the boss room, the players would find 4 people, while 10 were supposed to be missing. It would set up the stakes, lives were still in danger, and they had to act quickly to find who was behind those kidnappings and where were the still missing children.
In the end, and after playing in that dungeon with my group, I think I did a good job. Nobody died, everyone had fun and my players learnt the basic rules of adventuring in the wild. Like I had planned, they quickly departed for the next big city to find the mage academy, and organicaly started the second dungeon.