Tips for D&D first timers

[MrEdwardNigma]

Okay, so the deal is this. I used to be the only kid in town willing to do anything as geeky as roleplay and anyone I found willing to game along only did it because they had nothing better to do at the time. Consequently, they weren't very invested in the whole endavour and refused to learn the rules. In fact, the whole thought of rules disgusted them. I didn't mind terribly, as I myself have a lazy streak, and I tend to view the endless chains of dicerolls some systems bring with them as something that bogs down the game. This is why I'm used to playing (and more importantly, GMing) freeform games.

Things have changed. I found a new group, willing to actually play the damn game in time they could be using for something else, and not just when they happen to be bored. We played three or so freeform games, and they really liked my style, but two out of three of the players are engineers and soon I was asked if we could play something other than freeform. The idea of dicerolls and stats understandably appealed to them.

So far so good, but now the tricky part. All of these players are completely new to D&D. So brand spankin' new that they don't have any idea what a kobold is, most (and I fear all) of their ideas about fantasy are built on Lord of the Rings, the concept of a D20 boggles their minds and they've never heard of the gazebo incident.

I myself am fairly informed of the D&D world but lack proper knowledge of the rules, which is an issue as I would be DMing. I've played in the start of, let's say, three campaigns very briefly (say, several hours each, most of which time was probably spent listening to lame puns) but these were very long apart and I needed plenty of help simply building a character for myself. Also, I believe one of them was 4th E.

So, yes, we're rather new at this. Still, I'd like to please my group by learning D&D 3.5 with them. So my question to you is, how do I get started?

[The Pressman]

I would recommend starting with getting the rulebooks.
You can however use this, the d20 SRD. (http://www.d20srd.org)

[akma]

and they've never heard of the gazebo incident.


Me neither.

Anyways, more to the point: introduce the rules partelly, one by one. Don`t put everything in at once, that would just make them (and probably you too) want to go back to freeform. Start with skills, for exemple. Skills are not usefull in combat (generally speaking) so if you have a misunderstanding of the rules with them it will not be a fatal mistake (again, generally speaking), and it would introduce them to how rolling d20 works. Explain to them the basics of classes.
Adding dice based combat will be tricky, since you will have to add HP, AC and weapon damage at once.

[Xefas]

First of all:
Perhaps try a comfortable medium between freeform and the morass of rules that is D&D?

Something like this? (http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/product.php?productid=16594&cat=0&page=1)

Mechanics: Your character has a few traits. Whenever he goes into a new scene, he declares what he wants out of the scene. During the scene, when it becomes important to know whether that character will get what they want out of the scene, you draw a card from the deck, or you can activate your relevant traits to draw an additional card. If you go high, your character gets what they want. If they go low, your character doesn't get what they want.

Essentially freeform but with a few guidelines and a simple mechanic for when there's a conflict unresolvable by player moderation.

If not...well, to get started, you'll probably want to drop $125 on the core books. (http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Rulebook-Roleplaying-Slipcased/dp/0786934107)

Then you'll probably want to make a few sample characters to familiarize yourself with character creation.

A few guidelines: Amongst knowledgeable players, casters are far-and-away better than non-casters. In actual play, this tends to not even be noticed by most groups unless they seriously immerse themselves in the minutia of combat. (And if you *do* seriously immerse yourselves in the rules like the game seems to intend for you to do, if you get into combat, well...there goes your session! Expect to spend 2-3 hours fighting some random gnolls.)

The Core three books are pretty much the least interesting and least balanced mechanically set of books, but you still need them to be able to play.

There are thousands of pages in 3.5 D&D about physical conflict, but a small handful of bits about social or intellectual conflict resolution. Not to mention, the only way to improve at anything is to solve "encounters". The game simultaneously heavily implies that encounters should be combat based while also telling you that "No, no, use our wonderful plethora of interesting mechanics to solve social encounters as well for XP! I mean...we have...Diplomacy checks! Yup. A thousand ways of doing X+Y damage, but you solve every social encounter with a diplomacy check. Have fun."

You cannot, for instance, get better at sculpting by...sculpting things. You can sculpt for 50 years, not get a single point better, go out into the woods, murder some monsters that scale linearly with your power for 2 weeks and be a master sculptor when you return.

The only roleplaying support you'll be getting is from the Dungeon Master's Guide (its been a while since I read it, but if I recall it makes quite a few laughable and/or condescending suggestions as well). Mechanics and roleplaying are divorced so heavily in 3.5 D&D that you could play it as a boardgame with no roleplaying and not notice a difference.

Most importantly of all: If you're looking for roleplaying groups, D&D is a wonderful thing to know. *A lot* of people know it, so it makes it much easier when you work on common ground and understanding.

[Hallavast]

Remember that rules are simply a medium used to interact with the story and simulate some kind of mechanic for conflict resolution. The rules can be a fun little game in and of themselves, but it sounds like you use them in a similar fashion as I try to; as tools. I'm not going to give you specific mechanics advice, because you only really need the basics (which can be found online and in the sourcebooks). Other specifics can be found all over this forum if you need detailed analysis of which classes are easily broken or what feats arent worth taking or how powerful monster X is compared to party Y.

Some basic DM guidlines that bear emphasis are:

0. As DM, your job is to make sure everybody has the opportunity to have fun. If you make a decision that leads to less fun for one or more people at the table, it's probably a decision that bears re-examination.

1a. If a rule gets in the way of fun, reconsider using that rule. However you decide, make sure you are consistent in that ruling. If the falling damage cap is too low in one circumstance, then that cap should be too low in all future circumstances of that campaign (unless there's a good explicit reason for it not to be).

1b. Circumstance bonus/penalty rule: if a DC is too low or too high, add a circumstance bonus (or penalty) to it. This value should usually be between 2 and 10. This goes for attack rolls, saves, skill/ability checks, and other roll vs Dice challenge rolls.

2. If your players like your style of running free form games, then try to keep as much of that style as you can. Players should play a big part in your noncontent decisions. Try to get an idea of what your players want to play before and during your campaign design.

3. This is more of a specific fluff thing, but try to stick to what your players are comfortable with for the first few sessions. LoTR may seem like a tired old cliche to fantasy nerds, but to others it may still be fresh. Try not to drag them away from classic tolkien tropes if it interferes with what they want to try for the first time.

4. A good campaign should usually have a clear beginning and a clear ending. For a first timer adventure, don't be afraid to use a one-shot. Keep it short and simple, and use it to teach some of the basic mechanical points of the game (the core mechanic, attack rolls vs AC -> damage, skill checks & systems, basic character generation [keep this simple], how to cast spells, ect.).

5. If you want to keep their interest, you have to prove that there is nothing they can do that the rules don't cover. While there may not be a hard rule for every situation the characters can come up with, there is always a DM ruling. Use logic and be creative for this, and never say that there's no way to do something.

6. Help your players with the mechanical aspects of their characters. Don't make decisions for them, but suggest what class or feat might be good for what it sounds like the player wants his character to be able to accomplish. Once you and your players have the characters complete, create (or find) a quicksheet for basic combat actions, feats/spells/abilities aquired, skill summaries, and suchlike. Having to thumb through the book every time a player uses one of his feats or abilites is time-consuming and boring.

7. Establish a group template. Having each character meet in some bar as complete strangers is a horrible idea. Collaborate with them to create a brief backstory for each character, give them the basics of the recent history of your campaign world, and try to weave these elements into one another to create a reason for these people to travel together and risk life and limb for one another.

8. If you're going to railroad the game (and believe me, you will), try to do it subtly. Give your PCs at least the illusion of choice. If a road splits into two directions, and you've only planned one destination, then decide which road leads to it after the party decides where to go. Don't ever tell your players they can't choose to do something. And don't unjustly punish them for it either.

9. The Dungeon Masters Guide may be the only book you'll ever actually need access to. It has good advice for basic DMing in the first two chapters, and it has some really good guidelines for building cities, encounters, npcs, political systems, and other campaign world stuff. Everything else in core D&D 3.5 can be found in SRDs and other open source content online.

10. Be ready for anything. Make plans and keep detailed notes on your game, but know that your players WILL frustrate these plans. Roll with it. As a DM you will always work harder and invest more time and energy into the game. Just remember that the interest of the players is more important than whatever encounter, plot arc, campaign material, or NPC you can come up with. You should play through the flow of your campaign in your head, but know that about half of what you plan (if not more) will never translate into the actual game. It's a pain in the ass sometimes, but a good game will be worth the sacrifice.

I hope this helped. Good luck.

[Prodan]

Show them the Gamers movies, if they understand English.

[MrEdwardNigma]

Mechanics and roleplaying are divorced so heavily in 3.5 D&D that you could play it as a boardgame with no roleplaying and not notice a difference.

Do you feel there is a system more suited for first timers? My players weren't so much itching for D&D as for any system, so GURPS or something might do as well.


8. If you're going to railroad the game (and believe me, you will), try to do it subtly. Give your PCs at least the illusion of choice. If a road splits into two directions, and you've only planned one destination, then decide which road leads to it after the party decides where to go. Don't ever tell your players they can't choose to do something. And don't unjustly punish them for it either.
I've never in my life railroaded. This is probably my best strength as a GM, my ability to think on my feet and cater for whatever direction my PCs wish to go in. However, I fear that when playing D&D more preparation will be in order and thinking on my feet won't be as easy anymore. Are my fears justified?


Show them the Gamers movies, if they understand English.
I'm not sure which movies you mean.

[Xefas]

Do you feel there is a system more suited for first timers? My players weren't so much itching for D&D as for any system, so GURPS or something might do as well.

Personally, for my fantasy games, I like to use Burning Wheel (http://www.burningwheel.org/?page_id=2) (the link goes to a page on the creator's website that explains a bit about it).

It has quite a bit of rules, but without a lot of the things I didn't like about D&D. For instance, to get better at sculpting, you sculpt a lot of things. To get better at fighting, you fight a lot of things. To get better at cooking, you cook a lot of things, etc.

It also doesn't have the weird, often controversed "Alignment" system that D&D has. Your character has Beliefs and Instincts that they choose to define their character with, and when they use those Beliefs and Instincts in interesting ways to advance their character development or make the game more fun for all, then they get mechanical benefits.

There are, of course, the fantasy staples; Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Magic, etc.

You can buy it from their site here (http://www.burningempires.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=32) for $25. I honestly wish I'd met this game before I spent several hundred bucks on D&D books.

However, I will say, HUGE DOWNSIDE: Very few people have ever even heard of Burning Wheel compared to D&D's already substantial fanbase. If you ever leave this group, you would probably have to teach others how to play all over again.

[Kylarra]

GURPS lite (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/) might be something worth looking into. It's both free and simplified for ease of use.

[ericgrau]

As said, get the 3 core books. A spare Player's Handbook would be handy too. Have the group chip in, or at least cover the spare Player's Handbook.

Read the Player's Handbook cover to cover (except maybe for spells). Read almost all of the Dungeon Master's Guide, minus any random lists like magic items. Try to get players to print, bookmark, or write notes on their spells, feats or other special abilities. Do likewise for monsters and NPCs. Start with a well recommended pre-made adventure (see forums). Avoid the other 80-90% of pre-made adventures. That should get you started. Any additional tips you glean are gravy.

[devinkowalczyk]

This doesn't help you alot, but the easiest way to get any game is to play with one person who has played before. That starting knowledge, even if not 100% correct is a great help.

I would suggest picking up WoD (Hunter the Reckoning to begin with). A very good, very different game sytem.

[Kurald Galain]

Do you feel there is a system more suited for first timers?
Yes, absolutely. Pretty much every system on the market is easier to learn than either D&D or GURPS. A sytem with ten pages of rules (and systems exist with less) is by definition easier to pick up than one with hundreds of pages of rules. Look into rules-light freeform things, where you can get into your role without rules mattering.

[Prodan]

Do you feel there is a system more suited for first timers? My players weren't so much itching for D&D as for any system, so GURPS or something might do as well.
Paranoia.


I'm not sure which movies you mean.
On (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTEHqAeanw) Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwtH5oQqHPg&feature=related)

[Tyndmyr]

I've never in my life railroaded. This is probably my best strength as a GM, my ability to think on my feet and cater for whatever direction my PCs wish to go in. However, I fear that when playing D&D more preparation will be in order and thinking on my feet won't be as easy anymore. Are my fears justified?

You'll be fine. Improv in any system translates well to another. There'll be an adjustment period, where you learn what an appropriate encounter is and get the hang of the mechanics, but that's true for any system.

[Hallavast]

I've never in my life railroaded. This is probably my best strength as a GM, my ability to think on my feet and cater for whatever direction my PCs wish to go in. However, I fear that when playing D&D more preparation will be in order and thinking on my feet won't be as easy anymore. Are my fears justified?


For any game involving a planned storyline or encounter structure, there will be railroading. It's not a bad thing when done correctly. If your game is likely to be completely sandbox with the PCs taking up all responsibility for generating plot and/or setting with the DM being strictly an arbiter and referee, then you likely won't railroad. D&D is set up for a more traditional game, of course, but sandbox games are easy to achieve. If that's the case, then most of what I said above either doesn't apply or you've figured it out already anyway. Heh.

[cdrcjsn]

Are there any game stores near you?

Is there a gaming convention in the area coming up soon?

Both are excellent places to try out various game systems without needing to invest a lot of money.

Both D&D 4e and Pathfinder have organized play networks that usually run games for the public on a weekly basis at these events.

Might be worth checking out.

[Savannah]

You don't need to get simpler rules if you want to play D&D. Your players all smart, they can figure it out. (This is coming from someone who taught herself D&D 3.5 and how to DM simultaneously after playing a bit of AD&D.)

I always start true newbies by helping them build a character one-on-one. (Briefly explain classes and races, ask what they want to play. Briefly explain stats, tell them what the best order is likely to be for the class they want to play. Briefly explain their class skills and help them buy ranks. Briefly explain the most useful feats for them and let them pick. Etc.) This may be a bit problematic if it takes you a long time to build a character, but if you go over the rules first and start at first level, you can work it out together.

Then I give each player a d20 and the damage dice for whatever weapon/spells they have. I pretty much tell them to roll the d20 and hope for a high number whenever they want to do something, and I show them what their modifiers are whenever they roll so that they can start to add them themselves.

[arrowhen]

Things have changed. I found a new group, willing to actually play the damn game in time they could be using for something else, and not just when they happen to be bored. We played three or so freeform games, and they really liked my style, but two out of three of the players are engineers and soon I was asked if we could play something other than freeform. The idea of dicerolls and stats understandably appealed to them.

So far so good, but now the tricky part. All of these players are completely new to D&D. So brand spankin' new that they don't have any idea what a kobold is, most (and I fear all) of their ideas about fantasy are built on Lord of the Rings, the concept of a D20 boggles their minds and they've never heard of the gazebo incident.

What an awesome opportunity! Introducing new people to a hobby is always neat; introducing new people and getting to learn a new aspect of your hobby with them at the same time sounds amazing!

Don't be afraid to start them out with D&D if you want, it's really not that hard for beginners to grasp... and your players aren't exactly beginners in the traditional sense. If they've freeformed with you they should already understand the essential concepts of RPGs -- how to portray a character, how to get into a shared imagination frame of mind, the different responsibilities of players and GMs. That's the hard part, really, because it's so different from any other kind of game. Understanding "I know this but my character doesn't" is new and strange for most people. "Roll the big round die, add it to the number on my character sheet, and see if it's high enough or not" is really just a slightly more complex form of Monopoly.

[Janus]

I'm pretty new at D&D myself. I've read the books and whatnot for a while now, but have little play experience. But I finally DM'd my first session a couple of weeks ago.

My advice is to just play. If your group's like mine (and it sounds like they're pretty mature), they'll be patient with you if you don't know a rule and need to look it up.
Cater to their interests, and go from there. Have some simple, but varied encounters so that they can learn the rules themselves.

[MightyTim]

Things have changed. I found a new group, willing to actually play the damn game in time they could be using for something else, and not just when they happen to be bored. We played three or so freeform games, and they really liked my style, but two out of three of the players are engineers and soon I was asked if we could play something other than freeform. The idea of dicerolls and stats understandably appealed to them.


Maybe I'm a bit biased here, my group consists mostly of engineers, and we picked up the basic mechanics pretty quickly.

All the dicerolling and stat addition and stuff really just boil down to this:

There is a certain amount of chance involved in any situation. That element of chance is represented by the rolling of dice. When a dice is rolled, the result is compared to the difficulty of the action it represents. A more difficult action requires a higher roll to succeed because the chance of failure is greater. In D&D, your character's skill in a particular action is represented by the modifier you add to the dice when you roll. A more skilled player has a higher modifier, making them more likely to succeed in their endeavors.

Everything beyond that is just numbers. And engineers... we do well with numbers.