How to Run:Iron Heroes

One from the second run of the original thread, posted by Bankuei.

How to run Iron Heroes

Part One- Kick in the Door!

Sure, you could spend hours doing deep roleplaying before getting to the action, but honestly, you've got a bunch of players who are asking themselves why they aren't playing vanilla D&D, or Nobilis, or some other game. Like any salesman, you got to show off the best parts ASAP. Get to the action, then build up story if you want to go there.

Part Two- But Not Just Any Fight!

Fighting orcs is boring. Fighting orcs while on a raft careening down rapids is fun. Steal implausible and crazy fight scenes from movies or pulp novels. This isn't just for the hell of it- this is because these kinds of fights are the ones that best show off what Iron Heroes is about- Stunts! Jackie Chan never has fights in open areas with nothing neat to do, and neither should your PCs. This is where players can see where Iron Heroes makes its biggest departure from D&D, and also what makes things fun.

Part Three- Help out the slow kids...

Some of your players won't "get it" at first. Don't sit there and hope they'll magically figure out that taking Challenges and Stunts will help them- point it out during play. In an interview with Mike Mearls, he said that he would set up Action Zones and tell the players outright that "pushing over the barrel of flaming liquid will do 5D6 damage in these 4 squares... and guess what happened?

Think of it as the "tutorial" part of a videogame. If your players don't take advantage of any of the things that make Iron Heroes unique- they might as well be playing straight D&D. Show off and give advice initially, until players get the hang of things.