MrEdwardNigma
2010-09-13, 07:38 PM
A while ago some friends asked me to run a D&D game for them. Unfortunately, none of them have any experience with the rules, and I only have a very limited amount of experience playing and no experience DMing. This is why I have decided to build a tutorial dungeon for our first session to explain certain rules. However, I could really use your help with building it.
The idea to the tutorial dungeon is teaching my players the game while playing, instead of forcing them to just read the player's handbook. I also want to familiarise them with the D&D world.
I plan to explain a couple of rules in each small section of the dungeon. For instance, one of the battles could have someone with a reach weapon as their enemy, which would allow me to explain those rules, a trap could require a will save, a section might feature difficult terrain, etcetera... I would like to fit as many as possible rules into the tutorial dungeon to be able to explain everything, though at all times I would like to stop it from becoming confusing. That is to say, I don't want them to be introduced to so many rules in a single section that they interfere with each other and get confusing. Before explaining combat with reach weapons, combat with regular weapons needs to be explained for example.
My players are a human fighter with a hatred for paladins, an elven ranger with rather low rolls (but high dexterity so he'll be focusing on archery) and a halfling rogue. There will also be a fourth player but his character has yet to be built.
The dungeon they will be traversing is called the Hell Pit. It is located in the middle of a sprawling city but predates it by a long time. When the humans settled there they discovered the deep dark hole full of monsters and placed constant guards around it. It soon became a habit to toss attacking monsters into the pit, as that was the easiest method of getting rid of them. Some of the monsters tossed in survived and thrived in the Pit. Eventually the Pit was accepted into the justice system as an alternative to the death penalty. Since there was a faint possibility of surviving the Pit (it hasn't been explored properly and there may thusly be an alternative exit, in fact, legend has it that there is) it was a punishment reserved for those whose conviction wasn't beyond a shadow of a doubt. The logic was that if the gods favoured you, you would find the fabled exit.
I've already decided my players will start out without weapons, lowered into the Pit shaft by rope. They will have to wriggle free, at which point they'll find out about falling damage. The bottom of the shaft will feature some sort of combat (explaining unarmed rules) and afterwards they'll be able to pick up some weak weapons from the corpses of people whose ropes broke before they were all the way down and of whatever foe they just beat.
The Hell Pit is supposed to be utterly difficult but the PCs were preceded by a rather epic character who has killed most of what was in there. This means they will be following in his wake, fighting the leftovers.
The setting in this game is a planet used for figuring out which race is the toughest for scientific purposes. The Hell Pit actually used to be a laboratory of the advanced society that started this research. This explains the variety of monsters in there and could also explain any sort of magical (or actually technological) healing in there, which might be needed considering the PCs don't have a healer. The advanced technology is this dungeon's variation of magic. It's all very dilapidated but a lot of traps and stuff could still be in working order.
So, can you help me, Playground? What should I do after the unarmed encounter? How should I even flesh out that first encounter?
The idea to the tutorial dungeon is teaching my players the game while playing, instead of forcing them to just read the player's handbook. I also want to familiarise them with the D&D world.
I plan to explain a couple of rules in each small section of the dungeon. For instance, one of the battles could have someone with a reach weapon as their enemy, which would allow me to explain those rules, a trap could require a will save, a section might feature difficult terrain, etcetera... I would like to fit as many as possible rules into the tutorial dungeon to be able to explain everything, though at all times I would like to stop it from becoming confusing. That is to say, I don't want them to be introduced to so many rules in a single section that they interfere with each other and get confusing. Before explaining combat with reach weapons, combat with regular weapons needs to be explained for example.
My players are a human fighter with a hatred for paladins, an elven ranger with rather low rolls (but high dexterity so he'll be focusing on archery) and a halfling rogue. There will also be a fourth player but his character has yet to be built.
The dungeon they will be traversing is called the Hell Pit. It is located in the middle of a sprawling city but predates it by a long time. When the humans settled there they discovered the deep dark hole full of monsters and placed constant guards around it. It soon became a habit to toss attacking monsters into the pit, as that was the easiest method of getting rid of them. Some of the monsters tossed in survived and thrived in the Pit. Eventually the Pit was accepted into the justice system as an alternative to the death penalty. Since there was a faint possibility of surviving the Pit (it hasn't been explored properly and there may thusly be an alternative exit, in fact, legend has it that there is) it was a punishment reserved for those whose conviction wasn't beyond a shadow of a doubt. The logic was that if the gods favoured you, you would find the fabled exit.
I've already decided my players will start out without weapons, lowered into the Pit shaft by rope. They will have to wriggle free, at which point they'll find out about falling damage. The bottom of the shaft will feature some sort of combat (explaining unarmed rules) and afterwards they'll be able to pick up some weak weapons from the corpses of people whose ropes broke before they were all the way down and of whatever foe they just beat.
The Hell Pit is supposed to be utterly difficult but the PCs were preceded by a rather epic character who has killed most of what was in there. This means they will be following in his wake, fighting the leftovers.
The setting in this game is a planet used for figuring out which race is the toughest for scientific purposes. The Hell Pit actually used to be a laboratory of the advanced society that started this research. This explains the variety of monsters in there and could also explain any sort of magical (or actually technological) healing in there, which might be needed considering the PCs don't have a healer. The advanced technology is this dungeon's variation of magic. It's all very dilapidated but a lot of traps and stuff could still be in working order.
So, can you help me, Playground? What should I do after the unarmed encounter? How should I even flesh out that first encounter?