Teaching newbies

[Fluffy Gryphon]

When I first started playing D&D 3.0, (The first edition I ever touched) the DM of the game I joined told me. "Before you even think about joining a game, get a Player's Handbook and read it cover to cover, then come talk to me."

Naturally, I did, but it wasn't the most effective way to learn and had a lot of trouble understanding some of it. Once I got in the game, I picked things up very quickly.

I now find myself in the shoes of the teacher, and am working to teach by playing through sessions as a teacher with them.

What's the most effective way for someone to learn to play, in your own opinion or experience?

[Fenryr]

A long talk. Explain it's role playing, it's a different game. Summarize the character creation process, let them know that customization is possible. That's how I got into D&D.

Or you may throw them directly to a quick battle of EC 1 with premade characters. Explain them step by step. Attack, AC, damage, the grid and everything else.

[Kenneth]

for myself I take about 10 maybe 15 minutes to do a BRAOD overview of how RPGS work, and expaling to them its not much different that playing coywboys and indians, or cops and orbbers when you were younger


then after helping them build a charatcer (which seems to take FOREVER with new people LOL) I start playing the game. immersion i feel is the best way to learn quickly

[McSmack]

I start off by asking if they've ever played an RPG before - PnP, or video games like Diablo, Final Fantasy, WoW etc. If they have then it's pretty easy to go from there.

If they haven't then I ask them if they've seen LoTR. Most have. I tell them to imagine something like that, but instead of just watching the epic story unfold, they got to take part in it by controlling the actions of one of the heroes. They can even build the hero from scratch, and as the adventures unfold those characters would become stronger and be able to do extrordinary things.

Often times when starting with a group of new players I'll try to feel them out for what kind of characters they'd like to play, asking them questions about which roles appeal to them most - warrior, healer, mage, skilled, etc. Then I'll build characters for them with a bit of input from them and run a short adventure just so they can see how it all works. During and afterwards I encourage them to tell me what they like and don't like as well as answering any questions. Once they have a better feel for the system and how characters work I help them modify the pre-made characters or create a new one.

[Qwertystop]

Or you may throw them directly to a quick battle of EC 1 with premade characters. Explain them step by step. Attack, AC, damage, the grid and everything else.

I've never DMed, but I'd say level 1 wouldn't be good. There aren't enough interesting abilities, and the combat has a good chance of ending too fast for you to introduce more than 1 round's worth of stuff. Try a few levels higher so there's lots of shiny toys (pick simple ones, obviously) and so it isn't rocket tag.

[Gavinfoxx]

Have you given them a rousing speech to get them interested, and then just ASK what they want to learn most, and what sorts of stories they want to do?

"D&D 3.5e is a very...interesting game system. At it's heart, it is a game which started with several assumptions: that fantastically wealthy, violent hobo land pirates go underground to the homes of things that look different than them, kick down the doors to these homes, kill the inhabitants, and take their stuff. Then they go back to town, sell most of the stuff, keep the useful bits, buy things that help them go to newer and different places where things that look MORE different then they, kill them, take their stuff, et cetera. It is a game where the stalwart fighter stands in the front and swings his sword, the rogue looks for and disables traps, or perhaps sneaks around to stab bad things with a dagger, the Wizard stands in the back and blasts things, and the Cleric keeps all of them healed while doing this. This is the heart of the game because that was how the game was played in the past, because it was a competitive, team event played at tournaments where people wargame for points, and there is a single team which is the winner. Every assumption that is 'weird' or arbitrary in the game stems from things inherited from this idea regarding how the old games used to work.

However, that's not often how the game is *played*, and for the most part, we aren't interested in playing that particular game with it. It has been quite some time since 3.5e books started coming out, and people have had lots of time to look at them and think about them and tinker with them and figure things out. They've come up with several interesting conclusions. Namely, that if you look at the toolset represented by all these books, you essentially have a fantastic array of lego pieces to make characters to tell any sort of story you want, because Wizards of the Coast tried to be inclusive of a huge variety of fantasy gaming styles in their writings. People have also figured out that there is a dramatic and huge variation in the power level of the 'lego pieces' -- that is the classes -- when you start doing things with them other than the old edition legacy assumptions. So given that, the question is this: what sort of story do you want to tell with your characters, and what power level and complexity level do you want in the rules? Do you want to be people altering the fabric of reality to fit their very whims, or the gritty soldier for whom death is a real possibility in any fight -- in other words, something lower power level like Lord of the Rings, or the wuxia swordsman who is somewhere in between? Any sort of Fantasy story is a possiblity, but you have to know what you want, first!

Of course, just because anything is possible, doesn't mean that there isn't something close to a consensus amongst experts as to what the system is best at. What they say is something along these lines: the system is best for fantastic characters, fantasy superheroes of some sort, doing crazy, incredible things to the world around them, things which are overtly superhuman. While 3.5e is capable of much lower power and grittier things, it really starts to shine when you accept the power level of 'everyone has superpowers of some sort', provided you make choices of the correct legos appropriate to that power level, especially because of, if you are attempting to actually simulate reality with the game rather than simulate certain types of stories, things get 'wonky'. Of course, if you want to use rules based on D&D 3.5e to simulate actual reality, there are third party products such as Codex Martialis which do this admirably.

Also, there is a reason we aren't playing 4th edition. The reason is this: Wizards of the Coast realized that D&D 3.5e was laughably, rediculously unbalanced. However, in their quest to make something manageable, they have reduced the game to only a miniatures tactical combat system where the scope of the sorts of things the characters can do which the actual rules can cover is very, very limited. This is intentional on their part, and is maybe what they had to do to balance the game. Unfortunately, it does greatly limit the sorts of stories that can be easily told with the rules in the system, even if you know your way around it backwards and forwards. This is not the case with 3.5e -- if you know your way around it, you can make anything for any sort of Fantasy story.

Finally, I thought I should make a note about some of the continuations of 3.5e which you might have heard of, such as Pathfinder and it's lesser known cousin Trailblazer. Some folk may have claimed that these fix all of the balance problems in the game. This is not true; what they do is merely continue support for the game, though they do attempt to fix some balance problems that become issues for several groups, but they for the most part ignore the inherent power and versatility differences of the 'legos' themselves, though they have been gradually adding options that allow improvements in the capability of the lower performing classes, much like D&D 3.5e did in it's actual run. They do attempt to make changes so that everyone has some interesting and fun things to do, and for the most part, they succeed."

[some guy]

I start off by asking if they've ever played an RPG before - PnP, or video games like Diablo, Final Fantasy, WoW etc. If they have then it's pretty easy to go from there.

If they haven't then I ask them if they've seen LoTR. Most have. I tell them to imagine something like that, but instead of just watching the epic story unfold, they got to take part in it by controlling the actions of one of the heroes. They can even build the hero from scratch, and as the adventures unfold those characters would become stronger and be able to do extrordinary things.

Often times when starting with a group of new players I'll try to feel them out for what kind of characters they'd like to play, asking them questions about which roles appeal to them most - warrior, healer, mage, skilled, etc. Then I'll build characters for them with a bit of input from them and run a short adventure just so they can see how it all works. During and afterwards I encourage them to tell me what they like and don't like as well as answering any questions. Once they have a better feel for the system and how characters work I help them modify the pre-made characters or create a new one.

This. Usually I compare rpg's with better known games as Werewolves and Maffia. As for the mechanics, I tell them them whenever they want to do something in the game, they need to roll a d20 and add some numbers, then I will tell if they succeedded in that task or not.

[Amphetryon]

My first step in teaching a newbie? "Tell me about the character in your head."

Then, I point the noob in the direction of the class(es) that best emulate the concept presented. Then we can work out the needed skills and feats, and discuss the mechanics as those skills and feats are selected. Choosing the weapons allows a discussion of how combat works, in general, with specific examples based on specific concepts, so that if the concept is a mounted archer, we talk about how combat, archery, and mounts work in the game.

This approach means I don't spend a lot of time explaining the bits of the system that don't interest a particular player to that player, allowing her to pick those up through watching and playing the game itself.