[RPG] New player decision paralysis

decision-makinggm-techniquesnew-playersroleplayingsystem-agnostic

I'm introducing a new player to RPGs. She struggles to put herself in the mindset of her character and make the decisions the character would make, which is the essence of role-playing.

She can get by by going along with others' prompting, but if she alone must decide what action to take, she stops and thinks until I get impatient and any sense of game flow is lost. I don't expect all decisions to be made instantly, but I expect routine "what do you do next?" decisions to be made in under a minute and get faster with experience.

I tried prompting/pressuring for decisions, directly and by using game characters as a proxy. The feedback after the session was that she found it stressful and unhelpful, not motivational.

I haven't been able to break down my own in-character decision-making process to pass on to her. I'm practiced enough to just do it somehow.

I strongly favour rules-light games that emphasise game-world focus rather than abstract mechanical focus, so all mechanics must really carry their weight, but this is such a burden that I will consider including mechanics that will help.

In summary, please share something to help with fast in-character decision-making:

  • A breakdown of the process that a new player could follow.
  • Game mechanics (from any game) which could help.
  • Advice in how to deal with this; for me or for her, I don't mind.

(This is not a duplicate of How do I get my players to be more decisive and take the initiative? because that is about structured vs unstructured scenarios, whereas my question is about single decisions within any scene.)

Best Answer

Psychology

The phenomenon of overchoice may be the root of the problem. Particularly for a new player having a large number of options for her character to take is not helpful. Since you specifically say "[s]he can get by by going along with others' prompting" suggests this cognitive effect since she has no trouble choosing from a smaller list of options.

As game master, you deal with this the way that marketers do consciously and experienced players have developed subconsciously: manipulate the choice architecture. Specifically:

  • reduce the number of choices - this is why new players in fantasy RPG are wise to choose fighters over spellcasters;
  • establish defaults - having a goto choice in different pre-planned situations gives a basis for comparing the other options to something concrete;
  • partitioning - these are the damage options, these are the battlefield control options, these are the social options, these are the nuclear options etc.;
  • translating options to common attributes - e.g. average damage etc.

In general, saying "what do you want to do now?" without having previously established what the character's can do now is not a helpful thing for a GM to do. Give the player a short list to choose from of what you think would be good choices but always add as the last option "... or something else?"