I know but 20-40 is an incredible amount of people to try to convey gameplay concepts to. Next time I've got a bunch of young adults I need to teach I'm just going to hand them sheets. Because it took a very long time to help them make characters.
i tried that but it's very hard to get people attached and to role play characters they have no choice in making. one of the big draws to D&D is "you can do anything" and choosing random shit is not the best experience imo. what i ended up doing is training some of them to help the others before the game then explaining the main concepts as concise and quick as possible without going into the details.
a lot of people already have a idea of what they want to do and be in their head and one or two sentences per race/class can usually let them know how close to that idea it is.
using the stats are X + buy system works great for groups as it requires little effort from you and you can quickly and easily see if their is a problem.
also having a npc or two around to try to lead the group down a specific path or quicken things up helps a lot. very large groups can spend hours arguing over the split up of loot or the what to do in a situation without someone/thing to push them in a direction, unlike normal D&D with 4-6.
I had one experienced player help another player while I was teaching them, but for the most part I only do that If I know they wont make any mistakes on the character sheet. However I find what I call an 'adult figure' NPC leading to the group to be a must for difficult parts of a campaign where they need leadership. Right now I have a group going without one but once things start picking up they'll start having NPCs with them.
yea young people have trouble figuring out the most logical thing to do as a group in quick and efficient fashion, but hey even us old people do! look at the government.
althou it is fun to see them figure out a complicated problem and problem solving is fun for them when they dont fuck up. but ridiculously large groups get too loud and the voice of reason is lost in the clatter. too many captains sink the ship.
Yeah, but I'll take a group of loud disorganized people over a group of power gamers any day.
PM if you'd like my steam u/n. And I can put you in touch with my group's DM (who has been making do with Roll20 assets, btw) on there.
Yes I have been playing since 1991 started with second edition and still playing today. My group is currently loving hackmaster as well as warhammer I personally prefer sci fiction but alas no one else in my group douse. We play weekly all via google hangouts now because we have moved all over. I am in reno nv, one is in redding ca, one is in phoenix az, one is in houston tx and one is in medford or. We have fun granted in person is much better but this way we keep the fires of rpging alive.
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Yeah being in person is much better but something is better than nothing. Since 1991 is a long damn time