Sometimes, it’s hard to get your mind around a new game until you play it. That first attempt can be halting and fumbly, as you try to work out what it “wants” you to do. Not everyone wants to do that, especially when plot is on the line.
That can create a lot of uncertainty at the table: fear of getting overwhelmed by rules, fear of being confused, fear of someone getting salty over a bad call.
When we started playing Land of Eem, a few of us sat down and ran a mock encounter. Then we ran it a couple more times, with different choices and outcomes.
Because Land of Eem has a lot going on, and it might surprise you the first time you try to run it because it seems so straightforward. But Creature and Critter stat blocks don’t contain static Courage (HP); they adjust with level and type (Goon, Bruiser, Champion). (And the third type of adversary–Creepers–are more like hazards than actual monsters.) There’s a variety of partial successes that play out different ways. Trying to Parley or Wrangle adversaries is a first-class concept in the rules (admittedly, something that would probably help a GM like me who may be too lenient with PCs’ attempts at diplomacy).
This all adds a lot of depth (cinematic duels, monsters that scale as needed, etc.) but you need to get your head around it to use it effectively. For example, on our first test run, we completely forgot Courage is determined by the monster’s role, and we got confused about how a target’s Defense modifies an attack roll.
I can’t imagine how this would’ve gone in the middle of a story-driven session. I suspect we’d have been poring over our rulebooks for longer than necessary. But it was surprisingly quick to work out in a mock session where everyone was ready to test our knowledge and nothing was on the line.
So, if you, your GM, or anyone around the table have serious questions about how a particular set of rules works, volunteer to be a guinea pig in a mock encounter to straighten it out between sessions.
As you play and read a wider variety of games, this won’t be as much of an issue. Once you pick up more patterns, it becomes easier to translate technical rules to gameplay experience. But no matter how much experience you have, it’s always possible to find a game that does something you weren’t expecting.