Simplified D&D
My goal with any new players is to get them to understand the feeling of TTRPGs with as little friction as possible. To do this, I strip away many systems that add complexity and don't contribute to the core feeling of these games. Proficiencies, languages, hit dice, all add significant explaining time, but don't run core to the experience, and so are easily cut entirely.
For example, since I choose the difficulty classes (DC) for any roll, I can simply lower the DC for the rogue picking locks compared to other characters doing the same. This mathematically emulates proficiency without the player needing to track it.
It's also important to me that players feel a sense of ownership over their character. So wherever possible, I like to have them create their character.
To keep this process simple, I use an exaggerated version of skill arrays: +4, +3, +2, +1, -1, -2, which they can put in any skill. These larger numbers with -2 and +4 at the extremes allow players to quickly and clearly see the difference between a physical class and a magical one.
Then I simply give them feats from a class that matches those skill distributions. If they have strength and constitution as their highest stats, I give them barbarian features. If its wisdom, they get magic spells.
This whole process takes only a few minutes per player and gets them into the meat of the game without a repeated: "don't worry about it, this will make sense when we start.”
Death Mechanics
A problem I noticed with the current mechanics for 0 HP in D&D, where characters are knocked unconscious and must roll death saving throws, counting successes and failures, is that it caused players to simply sit out of the game for a long time, and if they did die, it rarely felt narratively satisfying.
Instead of having players roll death saving throws, I created a new condition, “Wounded”
Wounded players are forced prone and have only one action during their turn: no movement or bonus action.
They can use their action to attack, cast spells, or move at half speed without provoking attacks of opportunity.
The wounded state ends whenever a player is healed by any method, or if they complete a short rest.
Any damage taken while in the wounded state kills the player.
With this change, the player is almost always killed by something. Instead of withering away from rolls, it's the final blow of an enemy, or fire engulfing the room, or a spell gone wrong.
Death is slightly more likely within this system, but in compensation, the player has more agency to protect themselves. Gaining an action to drink a healing potion, cast healing on themselves, or simply flee.
In practice, this caused my players to react to deadly combat situations with a more realistic lens and exercise more caution. They report the wounded state feeling more risky than the D&D unconscious state, and it aligns with my narratively focused campaign.
Collective Initiative
A simple but highly effective rule change at my table is that initiatives next to each other share their turn.
Oftentimes the entire party shares a turn where they all still have only their movement, action and bonus action, but now they can coordinate. Move out of the way of the wizard's attack, then move in for your own attack. The players immediately started organizing their moves into combos and working more closely as a team.
Additionally, when their turns were split up, they often felt more isolated, and this gave me a greater way to force disorganization or confusion in the story. But players also could always delay their own turn to line up with another player's turn, gaining coordination back, but giving the enemy one free turn in the meantime.
This also made combat feel much faster as there is less time where any one player cannot do anything. If it's the team's turn, they had to pay attention as they could act. Instead of being on their phone during another player's turn.
Custom Classes
With a heavily narrative table, my players always wanted to explore creative character designs. But the available classes rarely could support their specific wants. It has become common practice for me to create fully custom classes for any player with a clear idea of what they want to play.
Features would be wholly unique to their character and would be created only when they are gained, not ahead of time.
Characters could find themselves inside the game and change directions for what they wanted to grow into. And players found themselves getting far more invested with characters that reflected their unique expressions.
Even characters who wanted to be similar to an existing class, such as one player who wanted to be a tactician barbarian, I created variations on classic features to express this new outlook.
Instead of rage, a state of losing intellectual skill and gaining physical damage resistance, we gave the barbarian a “Focused” state, where they could choose at the start of each turn to apply an effect on a creature in melee with the barbarian, imposing one of the following:
Disadvantage on any attacks from the creature against anyone but the barbarian,
All attacks against the creature from the barbarian are at advantage,
Or all attacks from creatures other than the barbarian are at advantage.
They are either distracting the creature causing allies to hit harder, or defending their allies, or going all out on attacks.
These sorts of personalizations made characters feel unique and personal, and created greater investment and engagement with my players.