New Dm, New Group, New Players! Help!

[EternalMelon]

Kay guys, out of sheer luck and nerdyness(TM) I managed to get a group together that consists of about 7 people (myself included). Now, onto the problems.

1. I plan on meeting about once a week at lunch for ~40 minutes. I fear this is to little. I might be able to raise this to twice a week, but probably not. Is this going to be as big as a problem as I foresee it? Will an average combat take up the entire session?

2. I have to teach all 6 of them the basic rules of the game. Including character creation, combat, skills, feats ect. Could some one give me a quick and easy rundown for me to give them, to not blow their brains out the first session?

3. I was pondering on showing them the SRD, but I might wait till after our first campaign. As not to overwhelm them. Is this a good choice? Keep in mind I don't have any of the books. (Lie, I have the PHBII and the ToB, sue me.)

4. I plan on running the Dark and Stormy Night adventure(?) I was thinking of following this up with a couple more dungeon crawls. Is this a good Idea for a first time group?

5. Big group, should I bring snacks? If so, which ones?

6. Should I let them build their own characters? Providing help if they need it? Or should I walk with them to cover a concept, Ex. One of them might want to play a dwarf throwing fighter. Let him build or give my advice?

Thank you in advance!

[BIGMamaSloth]

:smalleek:you're in for a rough ride. I had this exact same problem with almost exactly the same time constraints when I took place in a campaign as part of a club in my high school. The best advice I can give is too see if anyone else, not necessarily in the pre established group would be willing to DM another group, take half the people. IN 40 min. with 7 absolutely new players you might not get one encounter done in 40 min, You might get 2 maybe 3 rounds done.

[EternalMelon]

:smalleek:you're in for a rough ride. I had this exact same problem with almost exactly the same time constraints when I took place in a campaign as part of a club in my high school. The best advice I can give is too see if anyone else, not necessarily in the pre established group would be willing to DM another group, take half the people. IN 40 min. with 6* absolutely new players you might not get one encounter done in 40 min, You might get 2 maybe 3 rounds done.
*I'm the 7th player, I know the jist of what I'm doing.
:smallfrown:That's what I was dreading... I might be able to split the group... but probably not. I don't want to push the DM responsibility on anyone just because they want to play, and most of the people in the group are in the group because we're friends. Only the previously mentioned dwarf thrower really had any background in d&d, and hes never played before... I'll see if we can do the sessions after school, but I doubt it. Maybe Introductory sessions at lunch, and if their still interested we move to longer sessions...

[Metahuman1]

Unless game is being held at your house, the most your responsible for is pencil, paper, sheets, folders, and maybe drinks for the players. If you have books and they don't those should also be shared.

Do your Players a HUGH favor up front. Show them some builds for casters that aren't direct damage, and show them how to get the cleric/druid to effectively balance healing and another job. Then show them the TOB and teach them it's mechanics at the get go. (If they can learn core blaster wizard they can learn TOB.), and make sure they know the game is not, in fact, balanced in rules as written, so they should keep that in mind as they learn, and plan accordingly.

Also, remember the above yourself. Doing these things will in the long run make it more fun since it will help avoid unnecessary character death, and will allow you too not have to Lobotomized EVERY encounter/Do major stuff like hand a Gift wrapped dragon too your Melee characters after 5th lvl so they don't feel small in the pants, in order too keep everyone mostly relevant a fair amount of the time.

Also, be aware that some items in the SRD aren't 3.5 there, 3.0 with a 3.5 update out there but not in the SRD.


And yes, any way you can get them too have more time at the table per session/week that does NOT require you too cut a player so his schedule won't be an issue is a thing you should do. (Within reason, of course. Don't skip those work days and what have you to play and other common sense items apply to that tid bit of advice. )

[Metahuman1]

And if you need to see some of these builds/get ideas for some of these builds/ do a bit of Google-Fu, and poke around here/post a topic about it. You'll get what you need.

[true_shinken]

Man, 40 minutes a time is rough...
Can't you have sessions at someone's home?
If you can't, I'd stick to simple plots.

[The Glyphstone]

in no real order:

-40min, 1/week, will not be enough time, really. A single short combat can take that time up, particularly for new players. It sounds like you're looking to play around a school day (or maybe workday, if this is in an office environment)...in both cases, try to arrange out-of-[school/work] time to play instead. You'll need at least an hour or two, otherwise you'll have just gotten people focused when it's time to pack up.

-Dark and Stormy Knight is a bit simplistic, but good for a one-shot with regards to 'ok, this is how you play the game'. I'd recommend The Burning Plague as your second adventure, since it adds the elements of plot and RP (more in-depth villain motivations, for instance). They're also written for 4 people, so if you run 6, up all the fights by about 50% in numbers.

-Though do be warned - while advice like using ToB and non-blasty spellcasters or warrior clerics will make the game easier and more fun, it will almost certainly wreck any prepacked adventures you use - they were designed for the 'core paradigm' of tank/heals/blast/sneak in most cases. Start off with Fighters, healer Clerics, and wizards who shoot Magic Missiles at stuff, but do broach Tome of Battle and more versatile magic early on.

-On that note...for your first few games, have pre-written characters. Summarize them briefly as "fighter with big sword", "thief with twin daggers", "warrior-priest with mace and healing magic", etc. Just describing the cleric as a 'warrior-priest', for instance, will go a long way towards leading them to fight instead of healbot. Use the pregenned sheets to explain to them what everything means - 'everyone find the HP box, that's how much damage you can take. Where it says 'melee attack bonus', that's what you add to your roll when you hit someone over the head'.' etc. I'd start the session with a 'let's-go-over-character sheets', then recap important details as they happen - a trap will trigger an explanation of what a Reflex save is and how you make one, for example.

-Once they're comfortable with the rules and have a few sessions under their belt, leave the option for learning how to build a character themselves. Some may take you up on it, others may have gotten attached to their pregens by now, especially if you've encouraged them to RP and think up backstories and stuff.

-If there are snacks involved, it should be bring-your-own, or bring-enough-to-share. Preferably, everyone should take turn handling the snack issues.

[EternalMelon]

I fear I'm treading on water here... Over loading them with too much info and they might not be too interested... Although, as long as I explain it correctly (Ex. like they're spells.) It shouldn't be too hard to understand... right? I planed to at least show them the awesomeness of casters. But how do I do that without opening Pandora's box... now that I think of it, ToB's anime feel might just save me. We did spend an hour talking about anime today even though we we're supposed to be dead quiet where we were...

[EternalMelon]

Sorry for the double post. I just thought this might need its own


in no real order:

-40min, 1/week, will not be enough time, really. A single short combat can take that time up, particularly for new players. It sounds like you're looking to play around a school day (or maybe workday, if this is in an office environment)...in both cases, try to arrange out-of-[school/work] time to play instead. You'll need at least an hour or two, otherwise you'll have just gotten people focused when it's time to pack up.

Got this one fixed. We're having our sessions once a week, but I might be loosing one of my players.



-Dark and Stormy Knight is a bit simplistic, but good for a one-shot with regards to 'ok, this is how you play the game'. I'd recommend The Burning Plague as your second adventure, since it adds the elements of plot and RP (more in-depth villain motivations, for instance). They're also written for 4 people, so if you run 6, up all the fights by about 50% in numbers.

I'll look it up, and keep that in mind. I'm assuming that smart monsters up the CR, would they be enough, or should I add mooks?



-Though do be warned - while advice like using ToB and non-blasty spellcasters or warrior clerics will make the game easier and more fun, it will almost certainly wreck any prepacked adventures you use - they were designed for the 'core paradigm' of tank/heals/blast/sneak in most cases. Start off with Fighters, healer Clerics, and wizards who shoot Magic Missiles at stuff, but do broach Tome of Battle and more versatile magic early on.

Hmmm... maybe next campaign? This campaign I'll hand out pre-gen characters, maybe take some advice to fill character concepts, a few games from now I'll give them free reign.



-On that note...for your first few games, have pre-written characters. Summarize them briefly as "fighter with big sword", "thief with twin daggers", "warrior-priest with mace and healing magic", etc. Just describing the cleric as a 'warrior-priest', for instance, will go a long way towards leading them to fight instead of healbot. Use the pregenned sheets to explain to them what everything means - 'everyone find the HP box, that's how much damage you can take. Where it says 'melee attack bonus', that's what you add to your roll when you hit someone over the head'.' etc. I'd start the session with a 'let's-go-over-character sheets', then recap important details as they happen - a trap will trigger an explanation of what a Reflex save is and how you make one, for example.

-Once they're comfortable with the rules and have a few sessions under their belt, leave the option for learning how to build a character themselves. Some may take you up on it, others may have gotten attached to their pregens by now, especially if you've encouraged them to RP and think up backstories and stuff.

Keeping that in mind, thank you.



-If there are snacks involved, it should be bring-your-own, or bring-enough-to-share. Preferably, everyone should take turn handling the snack issues.
I'm thinking of bringing the snacks and drinks, but asking for a pool of money ($1 or something) to help pay for the costs.'

Thank you every one who has posted!

[faceroll]

Try and keep it simple. There's no reason to get into optimization with newbies. The fewer books required for a player, the better. With 40 min available, you're going to have to be super efficient. Make sure you have multiple copies of rulebooks, cheat sheets of things like grapple, turning, tripping rules, and that no one will waste their time eating or chatting or making jokes.

Seriously, 40min once a week? Not enough time.

[EternalMelon]

Try and keep it simple. There's no reason to get into optimization with newbies. The fewer books required for a player, the better. With 40 min available, you're going to have to be super efficient. Make sure you have multiple copies of rulebooks, cheat sheets of things like grapple, turning, tripping rules, and that no one will waste their time eating or chatting or making jokes.

Seriously, 40min once a week? Not enough time.

Whoops, in my last post I ment to say we were going to have the sessions after school, for an hour or two. And because of the fact that Roy could be mistaken for our king, traveling has ment we might loose a member.

[erikun]

I was going to just recommend another system - between character creation and combat, D&D just takes too long - but it sounds like you've managed to find more time. You may find that combat still chews up a lot of time, though.

Giving them only basic classes to work with might be an idea. For example, start everyone off as a level 1 commoner or something. You can keep things simple with just the attack roll and combat maneuvers, rather than fancy class abilities. (Be sure you are familiar with them yourself.) When they want to progress in a "real" class, they'll learn about the features in-game from someone of that class, and perhaps exchange their commoner levels for proper class levels.

[Metahuman1]

I fear I'm treading on water here... Over loading them with too much info and they might not be too interested... Although, as long as I explain it correctly (Ex. like they're spells.) It shouldn't be too hard to understand... right? I planed to at least show them the awesomeness of casters. But how do I do that without opening Pandora's box... now that I think of it, ToB's anime feel might just save me. We did spend an hour talking about anime today even though we we're supposed to be dead quiet where we were...

If your group members will have time, it might be a good idea to lone them books, particularly none core books like the TOB, and have them read them over and tell them up front "Ok, first few adventures are going too be just here for purposes of learning the basics. But I want you guys too read this and familiarize yourselves with what's in them becuase were going to be learning it properly once everyone's comfortable with the basics."

If they like Anime, they'll almost certainly like TOB once they know the basics of the game, read through it, and then get some at the table training to make sure they know it properly. (Seriously, who doesn't like anime and want to do the whole "I scream every special attacks name/name of my fighting school/style out every time I attack!" thing when they play a table top game?)

This will also help them be more comfortable with learning the none core based systems, others including Psionics and the Magic of Incarnum, which, when the day comes that your all seasoned players/Dm, will be very nice since it will give you all a lot more room to do not traditional characters.

Early on, maybe keeping it very basic is good (In marital arts they do require you too learn basic block and punch before learning too paralyze the other guy by touching his presser point after all.), but just be ready too get them going on other things once the basics are learned.

And good going on getting more time, that's gonna be a life saver. =)

[Mayhem]

I second the burning plague, there's a lot of good stuff there. The thing about upping fights is though: don't add extra ranged mooks(crits are deadly and occur often), so either up the strength of individual monsters or add a couple melee mooks( just to waste a round or two cleaving through them). The first fight in the burning plague has 9 kobolds behind cover with crossbows so it's quite hard, 3d8 damage crit is pretty serious for a 1st level character. Remind them of defensive fighting, it could very well save them from the crossbow volleys.

[Greenish]

The first fight in the burning plague has 9 kobolds behind cover with crossbows so it's quite hard, 3d8 damage crit is pretty serious for a 1st level character.Crossbows have only x2 crit. Still potentially lethal, of course.

[Mayhem]

Oh, 19-20 right. Still that's a 1 in 10 chance. Heh, x3, no wonder my badass tank got absolutely destroyed.

Also, when you say you only have two books+SRD does that mean you haven't read the DMG and MM or does it mean you just don't have them avaible to play with? Because you can't play beyond a few levels without at least some of the rules from the DMG since most of it isn't in the SRD. Unless you're playing a conan-esque 'piss all my money away' game with mostly RP and combat.

[EternalMelon]

-snip-

Like I said, keeping it simple. Can't wait to add the different systems, but it will wave to wait.

I second the burning plague, there's a lot of good stuff there. The thing about upping fights is though: don't add extra ranged mooks(crits are deadly and occur often), so either up the strength of individual monsters or add a couple melee mooks( just to waste a round or two cleaving through them). The first fight in the burning plague has 9 kobolds behind cover with crossbows so it's quite hard, 3d8 damage crit is pretty serious for a 1st level character. Remind them of defensive fighting, it could very well save them from the crossbow volleys.

Im DLing the Burning Plague right now, when I'm done reading through the adventures, Ill post the changes I'm going to make.

Oh, 19-20 right. Still that's a 1 in 10 chance. Heh, x3, no wonder my badass tank got absolutely destroyed.

Also, when you say you only have two books+SRD does that mean you haven't read the DMG and MM or does it mean you just don't have them avaible to play with? Because you can't play beyond a few levels without at least some of the rules from the DMG since most of it isn't in the SRD. Unless you're playing a conan-esque 'piss all my money away' game with mostly RP and combat.

I heard about this. I guess I'll see if I can find a DMG somewhere.