Has anyone ever proposed or has Gen Con ever had the following:
A "new player" room: A place for people who have never been to Gen Con before or have no to little experience playing the most ubiquious games (D&D, Magic, etc...)
I'm running Beginner D&D this year (three sessions on Saturday) and wondered if it would work to have a room dedicated to teaching new players.
I've taught hundreds of games over the past few decades and there is a vast difference between new players and regular players. The phrase "this is a lot like Catan (or other random game)" is very helpful with regular players but lost on new players. Ideas like monopolizing a resource, hate drafting a card and engine building are known to us but new territory to the new players.
Thoughts?
This seems like it would take a fair amount of coordination. It'd be either a single group teaching multiple games, or multiple groups that would have to coordinate.
But that's not a criticism, just an observation. I'll say that the idea is compelling. There will always be people looking to cross over into new territory, and definitely there will be people who are newbies to non-video gaming altogether.
The question would be how to get the word out beyond the ticketing system. Because a lot of new gamers and attendees can get very, very lost in the event ticketing system, and not necessarily realize that such a thing for newcomers would exist. But that's an issue of execution if you or someone else ever decides to do this; it's not a planning-level issue that should factor into whether you do it to begin with.
I think it's ultimately a good idea. I don't know if I'd ever want to be one of the ones behind getting it off the ground, but the idea merits support and consideration.