Starting With Nothing

Recently, deliberately, I've been running for people who have either never or rarely played RPGs before. For these players I think that having new PCs start with no equipment, and no more than say 5-25 coins, is a good thing. It's probably good for all players in fact.

By giving the characters ownership of no things, and then presenting with a problem that threatens to take what's left, they are led neatly to a) investigating and interacting with the environment, and b) thinking of interesting solutions. This is Good. It trains them to play the game properly.

The End.

BONUS Extra benefits: 

- Cheap crappy stuff on the equipment list gets looked at; 

- Crappy cheap stuff gets used in interesting ways; 

- All the work you put into making an interesting and expansive equipment list isn't wasted; 

- You can use all sorts of shit as treasure now;

- Treasure is fucking great; 

- Desperate PCs who see themselves as victims of vast relative inequality will, like real life, turn to crime which, unlike real life, is almost always hilarious and fun;

- You can do really fun quests with stupid NPCs who have great accents and no real power, since whatever meagre rewards you're offering for dealing with those morons is better than anything the PCs own;

- Playing NPCs who are basically variations of the peasants from Monty Python Holy Grail is lots of fun;

- PCs will scavenge the dead with voracity;

- Some other stuff;

- Girlfriend is on the phone now.