DMing Beginners

[Passive Pete]

Salutations, Playground!

So, I've got quite the predicament. I've got this group of friends, 6 to be exact, who don't know how to play DnD. Like, not a thing. But they still love it. And being the only one who know the rules for 3.5e, they always rely on me to DM. In the past couple months, I've been leading them in wannabe campaigns, with no dice, no sheets, no nothin'. This is really starting to bug me; it's frickin' chaotic. So talk has gone around about starting fresh, with a new campaign. I'm really hoping this is gonna turn out to be an official campaign, 'cause I haven't participated in one of those for months. I need some SERIOUS advice concerning how to lead 6 newbies in an actual campaign. I've tried to teach them to make character sheets twice now, both times utterly failed, as they are easily distracted. To solve this problem, I've already decided that I'll ask them each what they want to play, then make the characters for them. These are the problems I haven't figured out yet, and help you guys can solve:


Anything can distract them. I need them to get drawn in to the campaign, so they don't go off doing something else.
None of them know squat about the actual rules of DnD; this will be the first official campaign they play.
They don't understand the "R" in "RPG". They'll all just play dwarfs who make bombs, unless I can help it.
They think they can do whatever they want in DnD, with no consequences and no boundaries. This has lead to the belief that their character will have god powers.
There are 6 of them. 4 is my maximum.


I really don't want to sound lame or restricting! I want them to have fun! Thank you so much in advance!!! :smallsmile:

EDIT: Also, what are some good, detailed-but-simple, free-to-choose plots and stories that they would be able to enjoy without doing much roleplaying?

[person29]

If they all really love the idea of being dwarves, make it a dwarf centric campaign.

They are members of a dwarven military unit or mercenaries or something fighting against ancient dwarven enemies. They get to kill goblins, orcs, giants. As they level up give them lots of little goblins to destroy so they feel the power of a higher level, but they still have challenges from the goblin chief and his ogre body guards or something or other

It focuses on what they want, but it also introduces a plot to them, some ongoing war, or goblin clans uniting and becoming an actual threat to their dwarven city/region

If someone plays a non-dwarf they can still be a part of it as an emissary from another land, an adventurer who got caught up in the drinking and killing lifestyle of the stereotypical dwarf

[Captnq]

Show them THIS (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=9479.msg153181#msg153181).

Kinda why I wrote it.

The Noob DM Guide is gonna be a while.

OH, and send them to the EVD. The link is in my sig.

[GoblinArchmage]

If the fact that they don't know the rules is making it less fun for you, you could maybe tell them that if they don't put some effort into learning the game, then you won't DM for them. I'm not sure if an ultimatum like that is a good idea, but there it is. I know what it's like to have to play with people who don't know the rules, and I personally find that it eventually stops being fun.

[Endarire]

Work with them. You're putting forth a massive effort.

Also, what game do you want? It matters. A lot.

"As the leader goes, so goes the nation." If you're confident and cool and engaged in a game, others will be too. If you feel disinterested or scatterbrained, others will sense it. You have to be playing a game you want to play to inspire others to play the game and want to play.

[Starchild7309]

My suggestion and take it for what its worth. You can do 6, its not a problem. once you have 4, 6 is not that much harder. Ask them what they want to be and maybe make up that character sheets on an individual basis to get that one person to focus on learning something. Once you have that all done I would find simple module to just run through as a "practice". Let them see the game mechanics and rules in action and be patient and explain why throwing a bomb at something doesn't make them a god. Hell, even kill one of them during the practice to press the point that they will not be invisible. You may find a few of the 6 have no desire to play by the rules and that may shrink your player pool too. Its not as much fun, but in the beginning run a very linear plot. Reward them if one of them stumbles into Roleplaying and let them know thats why they are being rewarded. Maybe you should run a comedy campaign....seems like they may like that sort of thing. And if all else fails and none of it works out at least you tried, though it may be frustrating, sometimes tabletop rpgs are not for everyone.

[ScubaGoomba]

Oh, okay! I do this (run games with new players) a lot! I'll go down each bullet point:


Anything can distract them. I need them to get drawn in to the campaign, so they don't go off doing something else.

That's pretty much true of every group and there isn't a whole lot to do to fix it. Players' attention spans will absolutely wander; you're asking them to be actively engaged in something that can last upwards of four hours. That's a hard task for pretty much anybody. When I play, I let my players use their laptops to manage their characters and, although I do ask them not to spend too much time putzing around, I also absolutely know people are browsing the web or working on other stuff.

When it boils down to it, if they aren't slowing down gameplay and you're doing your part to keep things up and running, things will be fine. Just model good playing and participation and they'll likely respond. If any players are particularly difficult to get involved, then directly engage them. Come up with a reason for the NPC to only be interested in one of the PCs.


None of them know squat about the actual rules of DnD; this will be the first official campaign they play.

That's not a problem at all. I've found that sitting down with each player and talking through concept, individually, is a good way to get the players involved in the character and knowledgable of the rules that pertain to him or her. Help make a character sheet for the player and maybe also include either page numbers to the relevant rules, links to the SRD page, or direct text from the books. The less aimless flipping the players have to do, the better. They'll get the hang of the rules as they go.

If you want to teach them how certain things work, then build a session around it. Rather than say "oh, by the way, you can do X, Y, and Z," have them square off against an opponent that does those things. They'll see how it works in action and will either want to try it on their own or will not want to try it on their own. Either way, it's better than dumping everything on them all at once.


They don't understand the "R" in "RPG". They'll all just play dwarfs who make bombs, unless I can help it.

They will. They're coming off a game with no rules and just kind of "I DO THESE THINGS," so of course it was a little off kilter.


They think they can do whatever they want in DnD, with no consequences and no boundaries. This has lead to the belief that their character will have god powers.

They can, if you let them. That's not about them, that's about you. As the DM, you've got to choose whether or not you want to present them with consequences for their actions.


There are 6 of them. 4 is my maximum.

Psh, that's dumb. If you're going in with that attitude, then you may be better off having one of them DM, instead. All more players means is that you have to put more things into an Encounter.

For plots, just rip off movies! I actually get a big kick out of adapting film plots to games and seeing how long it takes the players to pick up on it.

[cakellene]

Distracted as in little kids or adults playi g with phones?

[Divide by Zero]

This has lead to the belief that their character will have god powers.

I think this might go along with what sort of game everyone is expecting. Are they just screwing around, or do they actually like the idea of playing extremely powerful characters? If the latter, you might consider trying an epic-level game, or maybe even a different system entirely (for instance, player characters in Exalted start off more powerful than many of the setting's gods).

[Scarey Nerd]

I'd almost be tempted to say that D&D is not the game for this group, if they get easily distracted and have no patience even making a character sheet. However, that's just my thought on that. As people have suggested, either run a simple premade adventure like The Burning Plague (Though Something's Cooking would be right up this group's alley, methinks), or a simple linear plot that will allow them to explore roleplaying and rollplaying alike. If you want to avoid distraction, perhaps you could try doing things like playing atmospheric music, dimming the lights when in caves, etc. Make them understand that a combat round is 6 seconds, so they can only say about 25 words to each other on their turn.

If they think there are no consequences to their actions, you can either get the town guard to hang one of them after they kill the tailor because he was wearing a red shirt, or you can allow them to get away with it but become hated by NPCs. The former might be a bit of a shock/they might see it as unfair, but the latter might make them getting adventures a little difficult, but either could work to teach them that what they do matters.

If they're completely new to dice, it shouldn't be too difficult to show them which dice are used when (Though having said that, I remember many sessions of "So do I roll a d20 for listen?" "Still yes.") d20 for attacking, saves and skill checks, the other dice for damage. Grappling, charging, bullrushing etc might get a little boring for them/completely out of hand when they constantly try to throw people out of windows.

Lastly, if you give one a magic class, write an example spellbook for them. Choose their skills, then give them a sheet of paper with a sentence or two for each spell that explains what it does and what its rules are. For example, "Shocking grasp - Your hands glow with electricity and you can touch someone by going up to them, rolling a d20 to attack and adding your base attack bonus and strength modifier, to deal 1d6 of damage. If they're wearing metal armour or carrying a lot of metal, you get another +3 to your attack."
In fact, doing that for pretty much everything would be laborious but it'd give everyone a personal cheat sheet that explains how to do what their character does best. Even if everyone has the same sheet saying "How to throw bombs".

[Passive Pete]

All I can say is WOW. Thank you guys so much!!! :smallsmile: You have so many good suggestions! I feel like kicking some campaign ass right now!


For example, "Shocking grasp - Your hands glow with electricity and you can touch someone by going up to them, rolling a d20 to attack and adding your base attack bonus and strength modifier, to deal 1d6 of damage. If they're wearing metal armour or carrying a lot of metal, you get another +3 to your attack."

This will go wonderfully. Two of them like to play casters, but don't know spell mechanics. Showing them the technical rules of spell casting in the spell description should be a big help.

I never even considered doing a module. . . which one do you think will fit? It could be PF or 3.5? I think a structured adventure should really warm them up. It should have enough freedom so they can do what they want, but enough story so they can't do everything they want.

[Scarey Nerd]

In that case I'd definitely suggest The Burning Plague. It has multiple examples of plot hooks to get the players interested, a town with people that they can interact with, very standard bad guys, traps to disarm, creatures to skill, non-combat hazards to think about and avoid, a very obviously awesome effect when beaten, and can be tied into future games. Personally it was my first ever game as a player, and my character's uncle was from the town, he sent me a letter telling me to come and help, so something like that might give a personal connection to at least one character.

[veti]

If they're all that distractable, I suggest one more tweak on top of ScubaGoomba's excellent suggestions above:

Make the game competitive.

Don't just give everyone the same XP at the end of each session - give individual awards, differentiated on the basis of how much they contributed or how much they achieved in the session. Read out the awards in reverse order, in the manner of an awards ceremony. Perhaps come up with some trophy or privilege (free bag of Doritos, exemption from washing-up duties, whatever) for the top scorer.

That will definitely make them pay more attention to what's going on in the next session. As the campaign goes on, publish the XP (gained and running total, in two separate columns) after each session.

How much spread you allow between the 'winner' and 'loser' in a session is up to you, but I would suggest at least 2x (to make it interesting), probably not more than 3x (to keep the PCs within reach of each other).