Ideas for a Gateway Game

A few design ideas to incorporate into gateway style games to help introduce people to role-playing.:

1. No prep.
2. Easy to learn the basics or it doesn’t take twenty minutes trying to explain how to play. “Appealing and quickly playable.” “Few minutes to learn, lifetime to master.” Not “rules-lite” or “dumbed-down”
3. Add a board or some physical representation of the imagined space. “What kind of game is it?” “Oh, it’s a little like a board game?”
4. Lose the term “role-playing.” It’s a game.
5. Somehow reduce or remove a central power figure or no GM.
6. Include more items to spark creative imaginings or you don’t have to make stuff up and play pretend.
7. Shorter playing time, and no expectation of multiple session play.