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Chambers
2010-07-23, 12:17 AM
Hey all, I'm starting a new homegame and thought I'd share it with you all. I titled this campaign journal "Introduction to Dungeons & Dragons" because 3 out of the 4 players have never played Dungeons & Dragons before. They're all familiar with the concept, being a pretty nerdy bunch and involved in other fandom, including Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and World of Warcraft.

Here's the list of characters so far. I think we might be getting a new player, but it's not sure. They are all level 1.


Jungle Dwarf Dragon Shaman. This is the most experienced player besides me. He's played AD&D and a little bit of 3rd edition. Extensive WoW experience.
Mongrelfolk Barbarian. This player hasn't played D&D before but has significant WoW experience.
Elf Druid, Shapeshifter variant. No RPG experience but is familiar with the concept from fandom movies. Was actually the player that requested I teach her how to play D&D.
Human RogueThief. Not sure about experience with fandom related things, but hasn't played a RPG. Also asked me to teach her how to play.



Mongrelfolk Barbarian - Power Attack, Hide armor and a reflavored Great Club made of bone.
Elf Shapeshifter Druid - Combat Reflexes, Hide armor and a sling.
Human Thief - Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, shorbow, masterwork studded leather, masterwork thieves tools, an assortment of alchemical items and a generic trap kit (rope, twine, bells, etc).
Jungle Dwarf Dragon Shaman - [Forgot the feat], Scale Mail, Steel Shield, and a Dwarven Waraxe [ignoring proficiency requirement]


We got together the other night and spent about two or three hours going over character creation and explaining some of the basic mechanics of the game. I wasn't planning on actually starting the game that night because of time restraints (only had a few hours). I explained the various core mechanics as we filled out character sheets and helped them choose feats.

Feats

Point Blank Shot / Precise Shot for the Human Rogue
Power Attack for the Barbarian
Didn't get to feats for the Druid or Dragon Shaman.


The dragon shaman player I trust to finish his character without my help, while I'm going to help the druid finish her sheet later.

I'm probably going to run a DMPC cleric or some kind of healer just so they don't have to worry about that right now. Once they get a better idea of how the game works we can start talks about roles in the party and the like.

I'll note that all of the players are either in their 20's or older and I don't foresee any personality problems cropping up. One of the players is my girlfriend, another two are husband and wife, and the fourth is a girlfriend of one of our friends.
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So. Has anyone run a game before where the majority of players were brand new players to D&D? What things helped you and what hindered you?

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Adventure: A Dark and Stormy Knight.
Session One (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9032630&postcount=8).

balistafreak
2010-07-23, 12:53 AM
So. Has anyone run a game before where the majority of players were brand new players to D&D? What things helped you and what hindered you?

My group (that I DM, that is) is/was full of complete noobs. Well, some of them had familiarized themselves with the basic play rules, but that was it. None of them had ANY experience with character building.

Hinderance: the paradigm of "pick a class, jump into play" from FPSes and a lot of console/computer/whatever RPGs is unfortunately far more widespread than you think it is. Instead of treating the sheet as 95% of the battle, they just want to go in and get into the game/smash heads.

This is both really good, because this amount of apathy towards the sheet means they don't blink twice when you present an initially strange looking build that is supposed to mean "rogue", but for obvious reasons it is really bad as well.

Helped: Handbooks, handbooks, handbooks. They take maybe 85% of the work of building a character archetype - the familiarization with printed material and research to find "what works" - and complete it for you.

Chambers
2010-07-23, 01:19 AM
I went over their general concepts for each character in terms of what the class is good at doing. Druid shifts into animals and fights, Rogue has lots of skills and shoots people in the back, Barbarian rages and hits stuff, Dragon Shaman breathe fire and provides minor buffs.

For the first session I'm considering running it almost free form style. When we finish the characters I'll go over the concepts again so they have an idea of what they are good at and can be expected to do well. Then I was thinking of playing the first session without much attention to the rules. Basically it'd be a free form session where I'd make a reference or two to "this what you'd roll in this situation" when it comes up. I'm thinking of doing this to get them used to the idea of playing a character in a party and role-playing their character without having to deal with lots of rules and numbers at the same time.

I've run games for players that haven't played before and getting them into the mindset of playing their character can be a real hurdle for some. I described D&D as an interactive storytelling game that uses rules for combat simulation. I think everyone understood that.

Greenish
2010-07-23, 01:22 AM
Dragon Shaman breathe fire and provides minor buffs.Have you considered Dragonfire Adept instead? That way the player can breathe every turn if he wishes, and has a few other tricks. Dragon Shaman doesn't get much to do other than the breath, and it can't be used every turn.

Chambers
2010-07-23, 01:33 AM
Have you considered Dragonfire Adept instead? That way the player can breathe every turn if he wishes, and has a few other tricks. Dragon Shaman doesn't get much to do other than the breath, and it can't be used every turn.

Yeah. We went with the Dragon Shaman because it can tank better.

balistafreak
2010-07-23, 01:53 AM
Yeah. We went with the Dragon Shaman because it can tank better.

I'd argue that DFA does it better due to the debuffing it throws out like no tomorrow, not to mention its SAD dependency on Constitution. Wooo. :smallcool:

Also, not having shield/armor proficiency is Not A Problem if you know what you're doing/dip as little as 1 level somewhere else.

AslanCross
2010-07-23, 07:22 PM
My first campaign was full of noobs, including myself. I'd studied the game the entire summer and came up with an introductory chapter to our campaign set in Forgotten Realms. The players I'd recruited were my students, and they managed to learn enough to play in a couple of months.

Chambers
2010-07-29, 03:28 PM
We had our first session last night and it went pretty good. We finished up character creation and got to play for about 2 hours. We would have played longer but we had a surprise birthday party for one of the players planned for that night.

Final character loadouts. I gave everyone 2 healing potions (Cure Light Wounds) and generally ignored starting gold, making sure everyone had whatever equipment they needed for their party role as well as general adventuring gear.

Mongrelfolk Barbarian - Power Attack, Hide armor and a reflavored Great Club made of bone.
Elf Shapeshifter Druid - Combat Reflexes, Hide armor and a sling.
Human Rogue - Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, shorbow, masterwork studded leather, masterwork thieves tools, an assortment of alchemical items and a generic trap kit (rope, twine, bells, etc).
Jungle Dwarf Dragon Shaman - [Forgot the feat], Scale Mail, Steel Shield, and a Dwarven Waraxe [ignoring proficiency requirement]


I ran the adventure A Dark and Stormy Knight (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20050329a). Inside the Hightower main room they found a human priest of Kord that was seeking shelter from the storm as well [NPC healer]. I started them together with a fairly simple start up. They were with a larger group of random travelers and pilgrims going to the city of Falindor for the annual harvest festival. The rest of the travelers stayed behind to wait for the weather to clear but the PC's had gone forward until it got really bad. That's when I started the box text and they went into the Hightower.

I had them introduce their characters and most gave a simple Name / Race / Class / Appearance description. When I introduced the priest, a few started talking OOC about taking whatever he had. :smallsmile: Seems they already know the second part of the golden rule from MMORPG's: Kill things and take their stuff.

The more experienced player convinced them [OOC] that the priest was an NPC and would help us, so the party didn't gank him. I thought it was pretty funny.

We only got through 3 of the encounters due to the short playing time. I had the rats attack them after the doors broke open. The Dragon Shaman fried three of them, then the Barbarian charged and smote another one. The druid shifted and tried to bite one but missed and the rogue shot an arrow but missed. She was a little disappointed and I explained the difference between weapons that target a single opponent and the Dragon Shamans breath weapon that affects multiple opponents. Then I reminded her of the acid flask she had, so we retconned her action and she threw the acid flask at the rats, melting two of them.

Rats turn and there's only two left. They both try and bite the Barbarian and one does, for a single point of damage. Then they tried to scamper past them, so the druid and the barbarian got attacks of opportunity. I'm glad I suggested combat reflexes for the druid because she got to make two attacks of opportunity, one on each rat. She missed once and hit once and the barbarian hit her rat. So both the rats were killed. Oh yeah - the druid decided that her Predator form for Shapshifting is a Polar Bear. Okay. :smallsmile: She still only gets the bite attack, and her animal companion is a badger.

I have the priest Cure Minor Wounds on the Barbarian, which allows me to explain a little bit about healing spells. They then decide to split up and investigate the different passages. In my mind I shouted [B]"Don't split the party!", but just smiled and said okay. The thief and the barbarian went down into the chamber with the trapped chest and the dragon shaman and the druid went into the chamber with the lesser vargouille (http://www.balo42.com/conans_iron_coc/Journal/images/MM35_PG254.jpg) in the sarcophagus. I described the sarchophagus and then switched scenes to the barbarian and thief. Oh yeah - they left the priest to guard the main room. The thief didn't trust him. :smallsmile:

I fudged the thieves roll so that she found the trap when she searched the room, but she rolled good on the disable device [23 I think?] so she disabled the dart trap. I could have let them get hit by the darts, but I wanted her to see what happens when you successfully find and disarm a trap before showing what happens when you don't. They found the magic headband [which the barbarian put on], 100gp and 2 pearls worth 100gp each. In true thief fashion she lied to the rest of the party later when she told them what treasure they found. :smallsmile: I explained that treasure is usually split by the party, but let it go at that.

In the other chamber I didn't have the vargouille immediately attack but let them try and roll different knowledge checks and search around the room. Eventually the brought the rest of the party into the room to check it out, noticing that the face on the sarcophagus looked different than the rest. Then I had it attack, screaming and paralyzing the druid, priest, and thief with fear. The barbarian won initiative after the surprise round and one-shotted it. So I added more HP to it and described that it was hurt but not dead. The dragon shaman attacked it and hit it, and I waited till the other characters were not paralyzed anymore and they had attacked it a few times before I declared it dead. It did a few points of damage to the barbarian, and I suggested to the druid that she could heal the barbarian with one of her Cure Light Wounds spells.

That was the end of the session due to the surprise party.

I think it went pretty good. I talked to everyone afterwards and everyone said they had fun, which was the most important thing for me. I had told the experienced player that the first couple of sessions would be handled with kid gloves so that the new players could get it into it, so he knew to expect a less than lethal game. I think next time we play we'll be able to get through the rest of the chambers in the tower, and I'll probably run it a little tougher than last time.

Another_Poet
2010-07-29, 03:54 PM
You made a lot of good GM calls in that session.

balistafreak
2010-07-29, 10:28 PM
Sounds like a good first session. :smallsmile:

... gods, my sessions on a regular basis are worse than this...

Starbuck_II
2010-07-29, 10:38 PM
My first time running Dark and Stormy didn't go as smoothly back in the day.

But you have a large party which helps their combat ability.

BooNL
2010-07-30, 12:37 AM
Like Another Poet said, good DM calls there.

When I learn the game to new players I usually fudge some rolls as well. There's a lot of stuff to learn in DnD that might not be as obvious to outsiders as to us, so handling the kids gloves and showing what happens when is the best way to do it.

As for the Thief, for someone who's never played an RPG before he's dangerously in character. Not trusting DMPCs and lying about loot is justifiable, but make sure he learns the concept of team play and that the object of the game is to work together.

Endarire
2010-07-30, 02:38 AM
When I taught D&D newbies- people new to tabletop games but experienced in video games- I made their characters after getting their feedback.

I started with the rules from day 1. It set a strong precedent of rules adherence and what the 3.5 system can do.

The players trusted me because I rolled openly. Whatever happened is whatever happened, and they soon realized that death was possible.