HOW DO YOU HAND-HOLD THE PLAYER?

Strongly depends on the definition of hand-holding. Most players would probably say games should not hand-hold the player at all.
And in "visible" ways this is often true. You don't have to do a tutorial level. You don't have to tell the player that he can move with the D-Pad (or directional keys or whatever), players can easily figure that out themselves. Even talking to npcs, opening the menu, etc., you just try out the buttons see what they do and easily figure that out yourself in some seconds.

What is however good is secretly steer the player into the correct direction.

It also depends on how well you design your game. Try to make your game 100% intuitive. That would be the perfect situation. If it's fully intuitive, you don't need to tell the player anything. And he can come back years later and still play the game without having to start from the beginning.

A complex non-intuitive, tutorial-based approach is always worse. Not only makes it getting into the game very hard, it's also often impossible to get back to the game at a later time, because you wouldn't remember all the key combinations needed.

The point is that if you watch people playing your game and they don't even use one your core mechanics then you probably did something wrong.

And this happens more often than you think even with professional games. There might be a small tutorial about a feature and you might use it in that coming battle but because it's not intuitive enough and the game won't tell you again how and where to use it, you will simply neglect using it at all as a player. I'm sure any of you has experienced something like this already (unless you don't play many games).

Hand holding is the wrong term here. Because it does not mean what you think it means. Explaining the rudimentary functions of a game is not hand holding. Having a short totorial or text message telling you how to play is not hand holding.

Hand holding is taking the player by the hand and leading him through the game making sure to never let go no matter what. In an RPG that would be like allowing the player to continue after losing a battle and giving him time to refill his stock while lowering the toughess of the enemy he failed to defeat so tht the player can try again and defeat them.
Hand holding is making sure the player never gets lost or off course so that he can have a smooth ride through the game.
And those are thins you REALLY should not do!

A good design guides the player until the player can play the game on its own. It guides the player without the player even knowing they are guided. It makes things intuitive and smooth without ever resorting to shoving the player along because he isn't catching on.

A great example for this is a bit of linearity early in the game. Show the player that there are other ways he can traverse later but for now he is confined to a small space with only one way out. You do that by creating a closed space that has a bit of freedom to wander around in but ultimately only one exit. That ay the player automatically learns that he can walk around the world freely and he is happy to find the exit on his own without anybody telling him. Same goes for menus. Solid descriptions make sure the player doesn't need to learn how the menus work, it comes to them by simple and good design. The best example for this is the very first Legend of Zelda, funny enough.
Just look at the very first room you start in. It is an empty room with three exits and a cave. You can walk around freely but every other room except this one has enemies and you are unarmed. You WILL check out the cave and there you get a sword. BAM you learned that you can move around freely, that you might need to find a certain object to progress and that you can get stuff from people in caves. And you learned that without anyone ever telling you.

Handholding is a bad thing. It is lazy design and a cheap imitation of intuitive design. Keep away from it as much as possible and instead try to design your game as intuitive as possible. Give your player a reason to investigate the game on their own instead of telling them everything. Have them learn by failing without being brutally punishing. Have others playtest your prototype before going into production to see what they do, how they react. It will save you A LOT of time and work :)

While that's true, every RPG could be someone's first, so I prefer to at least have the game ask "Do you need basic instructions" at some point, even if its just in a book near where the player starts.

Hand holding is making sure the player never gets lost or off course so that he can have a smooth ride through the game.
And those are things you REALLY should not do!

Why? I dunno, I wouldn't see hand-holding as inheritly bad because not always do I want to be challenged. Sometimes I just want a smooth ride through the game.

Also as stated above, guides at the start are in my opinion a bad idea, because it requires you to remember everything they tell you, even if you haven't played the game for a few weeks and just want to jump in where you last stopped. Better make the game intuitive enough so that guides aren't needed.

author=RyaReisender

Hand holding is making sure the player never gets lost or off course so that he can have a smooth ride through the game.
And those are things you REALLY should not do!

Why? I dunno, I wouldn't see hand-holding as inheritly bad because not always do I want to be challenged. Sometimes I just want a smooth ride through the game.

Also as stated above, guides at the start are in my opinion a bad idea, because it requires you to remember everything they tell you, even if you haven't played the game for a few weeks and just want to jump in where you last stopped. Better make the game intuitive enough so that guides aren't needed.

Here's why: Simple work/reward psychology. Games that are too easy are usualy deemed not as good as harder (not too hard) games because the reward for overcoming an easy obstacle feels dimished. You might not know that but your brain does.

As far as guides go, it's in the same concept as design. If you haven't played the game in a while and forgot how to play it was not intuitive in the first place.

Another term for handholding is spoonfeeding. Too much handholding/spoonfeeding would mean making the game too easy. Thus, there shouldn't be too much spoonfeeding/handholding involved.

And like Eze mentioned, things like basic, necessary early tutorials are not handholding, but if you have too many tutorials describing every single thing of the game, you are basically spoonfeeding the player. You are not allowing the player to explore the game on his/her own.

So in short, you should really only have basic tutorials, and preferably early in the game.

Too many means if something gets redundant or obvious. Like in Ocarina of Time when Navi tells you how to open a door. THanks Navi, I know how to open a fucking door. Or games like Remember Me that always highlight the correct path with orange markers. Thanks game, how about letting me figuring that out?

That is why you should let others playtest your game without tutorials. Don't tell them anyhting unless they spend mroe than 15 minutes without having a clue. And then ask them where the problem is first. Most of the time you'll learn that they can figure most things out on their own...

author=EzekielRage
That is why you should let others playtest your game without tutorials. Don't tell them anyhting unless they spend mroe than 15 minutes without having a clue. And then ask them where the problem is first. Most of the time you'll learn that they can figure most things out on their own...

This is my opinion, yeah. (With the caveat that you'll want to tailor your testers to whatever audience you're looking for: if your game is for new players- or at least a general audience- you're gonna want to focus more on unseasoned testers, rather than super pro people who're used to all the usual button combos and stuff.)