Running a game with new players

[Squark]

So, I'm going to be running a campaign through my university's Gamer's association. However, most of the people who expressed interest have no experience with d&d of any kind. So, I have a couple of questiins about what I should do to introduce them to roleplaying games.

1) Are there any classes I should encourage people to try, like barbarian, cleric, or sorcerer? What about classes I should recommend against? Monks, wizards, and druids?
2) While I should definitely try to limit the number of supplements I use to a minimum, are there any classes that don't add much if anything to the learning curve of the game? I was thinking maybe PHB II and the warlock.
3) I'm planning to run the Savage Tide adventure path from Dungeon's final Paizo days since I don't think I have time to write own adventures especially if I manage to land a second job. Are there any things I need to be wary of, like encounters that are really newbie unfriendly or the like?

EDIT: To clarify a few things;

1) Some of these players will have RPG experience.
2) I'm actually coordinating getting 3 groups together, at least to get them started (Different DMS, of course, but as Vice President I'm in charge of figuring out whose schedules match up).

[bjoern]

Well, I'd try to stay PH . Keep it real simple for the first campaign until they learn the mechanics.
Talk to the players and see what kind of guy sounds fun to them. Ask then which character from a movie, book, or game they'd like to play and use that as a baseline.
--the large, loud brute that smashes stuff
--legolas
--Tim the Enchanter

[Shining Wrath]

Druid and wizard require the most bookkeeping. Those have the capacity to confuse people.

Start at level 1 with a melee, a rogue, a sorcerer, and a cleric. Have the most apt pupil run the cleric.

[Oryan77]

I always say that with new players, you want to keep it as simple as possible. A lot of it also depends on what each player is like.

Definitely stick to the Core books and start at level 1. Introduce more books as they are leveling if you want to. The thing is, you don't want to overwhelm them right off the bat or it could cause some players to be put off. I know it can be exciting to an experienced player to tell new guys ALL about D&D. But don't do it. Relax and take it slow at first. Feed them bits of information at a time, but make it sound amazing. If you overload them with information, some people will get burned out and feel that D&D requires way too much effort & time. Then they quickly lose interest. I've seen it happen more than once.

If you can tell that a player is gung-ho about learning the rules of the game, let them play whichever class they want if he is willing to learn it.

For the players that seem more interested in just playing, but not so much about the rules, then suggest to them that they play an easier class at first, just to get the hang of it (fighter, barbarian, paladin, or a sorcerer if they really want to cast spells). The other classes require either being tactical to use their abilities (rogue), have a more complicated set of abilities to learn (Druid, Cleric, maybe Monk & Bard), or require a whole lot more book keeping and referencing of the book (Wizard, Cleric).

Like I said though, a lot of new players can handle any of those classes right away. So use your best judgement on a player by player case.

Other than that, keep it rules light. Let them know that you are not going to force a lot of the rules on them, but explain to them that these rules will come into play as the players get more comfortable with the game. Even mention some of these rules as examples of what to expect (grapple, trip, bull rush, attack of opportunity, firing into melee, various bonuses & penalties like flanking or using improvised weapons).

The first few combats should be straight forward attack, damage, and saving throw rolls. Then start showing them things like flanking, attack of opportunity, etc, etc the more encounters you have.

I've taught a lot of new players how to play D&D and these are the things I have always done. It seems to work for me.

[Oryan77]

Ask then which character from a movie, book, or game they'd like to play and use that as a baseline.
--the large, loud brute that smashes stuff
--legolas
--Tim the Enchanter

That's an excellent suggestion. I always do that myself and just didn't think to mention it.

Also, a really great 1st level adventure that is not only fun, but is purposefully written in a way that helps a DM introduce various rules to new players is Sunless Citadel. Each encounter introduces a new tactical rule so that players can see first hand what is possible via the rules. It's pretty clever and even helps new DMs learn the rules.

[Red Fel]

So, I'm going to be running a campaign through my university's Gamer's association. However, most of the people who expressed interest have no experience with d&d of any kind. So, I have a couple of questiins about what I should do to introduce them to roleplaying games.

Congratulations on taking up the mantle! You will find DMing to be alternately an unparalleled joy, a creative rush, a surge of authority, and an onerous burden nobody should have to bear. That said, let's address your questions:


1) Are there any classes I should encourage people to try, like barbarian, cleric, or sorcerer? What about classes I should recommend against? Monks, wizards, and druids?

Yes and no. First off, abandon the notion of "party balance" - you should not be encouraging or discouraging a class because you need to "fill a slot," for example. Let people play what they want to play.

That said, and others have mentioned this, the Tier 1 classes (familiarize yourself with the Tier System) require substantial bookkeeping. Any prepared caster can potentially eat up huge chunks of preparation and in-game time for a new player. If they want to play a Wizard, of course, let them, but advise them of the complexity, and - and this is important - offer support. Make suggestions as to easy ways to select or track various bookkeeping problems.

Most importantly, try not to give a flat "no" to your players. If they want to play Druid, fine. Bard, fine. Monk... really? Okay, fine. Whatever they choose, offer suggestions as to how they can get the most enjoyment out of their classes.


2) While I should definitely try to limit the number of supplements I use to a minimum, are there any classes that don't add much if anything to the learning curve of the game? I was thinking maybe PHB II and the warlock.

It's not a question of classes, it's a question of material. As others have mentioned, simple is better. PHB, despite its balance issues and broken spells and abilities, is self-contained. If you tell the Fighter or Bard, "Everything you'll need for my campaign is in here," they'll manage. The Wizard will manage. The Druid will manage. The Monk will flail helplessly manage. Keep it simple.


3) I'm planning to run the Savage Tide adventure path from Dungeon's final Paizo days since I don't think I have time to write own adventures especially if I manage to land a second job. Are there any things I need to be wary of, like encounters that are really newbie unfriendly or the like?

I don't know that adventure path from experience. But if its name suggests what I think it does, it sounds like an aquatic- or nautical-themed adventure. I would discourage such a module, for the simple reason that swimming is (1) an added wrinkle in mechanics that are already overwhelming for new players, and (2) potentially highly lethal.

If it's not aquatic or nautical, of course, completely ignore that point.

[Sir Garanok]

Some people respond well when dnd is introduced like a theatre where you are an actor with a role.

Keep it simple with PHB stuff,don't explain much of the mechanics,try to keep the action going.

Also give them some straightforward quests,they will be a bit lost at start not knowing what to do and how to do it.

Try to avoid pc deaths as far as it is possible.

[draken50]

Introduce mechanics slowly.

Start at level 1.

Assume no optimization. Don't spend time trying to optimize their characters.

Assuming you don't want a ton of deaths, gradually increase relative challenge. You can see parties wipe against a far lower CR because players have no idea what to do.

No New players need to play casters. Sorc can work. Clerics have immediate access to spells that will confuse the hell out of people. Instead provide Wands/Potions of cure light wounds ect.

My general rule of thumb is: New players should spend more time playing, than learning.

If you want players to use certain tactics, have the enemies use them. Disarm? Trip? Aid ect. Demonstrate it in game.

Don't avoid tropes. These players haven't' been around long enough to be annoyed by them yet. Dragons flying over villages, goblin armies. All the stuff is something they've never played with.

Honestly, new players are some of the most fun to run for. They're less obsessed with breaking your game, or catching your logical fallacies than ones who have been around for a while. They are also going to learn the style of play that you run, I run an RP heavy game with quite a few combat free sessions, tactical players can get annoyed by that. The biggest pitfalls for new players tend to be confusion, or feeling like they sucked because of rules ect. they did not know about. A knowledgeable player playing a batman wizard will often make them feel crappy about their contribution.

So basically, do every thing you can to avoid frustration, and increase activity/fun.

[HighWater]

I don't know that adventure path from experience. But if its name suggests what I think it does, it sounds like an aquatic- or nautical-themed adventure. I would discourage such a module, for the simple reason that swimming is (1) an added wrinkle in mechanics that are already overwhelming for new players, and (2) potentially highly lethal.

If it's not aquatic or nautical, of course, completely ignore that point.

Edit: this was me with my brain half-sleeping! Comments reflect Sunless Citadel, which is not the adventure path Red Fel was referring. Nothing to see here, move along!
thin casus belli for the adventurers against the goblins (who "ransom" (auction, really) an apply that Cures Disease once per year, whose saplings mysteriously vanish). I'd suggest upping the Goblin Menace a bit before you entice your adventuring party to slaughter all the goblins, unless you prefer Evil to Always Be Evil. :smallwink: ]


Short DM advice:
Keep the rules and material selection simple (as suggested above). Inform players that normally choices are permanent, but that you'll be lenient in character revision for a while since they're making uninformed choices.
Don't outlaw any classes, in my experience, Druid and Cleric goes over well enough. Sorcerers may feature some choice-anxiety (because spell selection is so damn irreversible). Wizard can be a bit tough at the start...

[Lightlawbliss]

Do your players have experience with online games or other tabletop games? If yes: see if you can use those games to help them understand concepts. Also, be ready for players to expect concepts like agro.

I would recommend the first few fights at-least be week animals/vermin: tactics kill people who don't understand what is going on. Don't be afraid to stretch out the levels with low cr fights (I tend to start new players off with a stray/spooked/"wild" donkey attacking them) and be vvveeeeerrrry careful with x3 or x4 critting enemies.

[Squark]

Right, thanks for all the replies. For the record, I have DMed before, although real life has gotten in the way of my attempts at PbP games, and the last time I DMed a game in the flesh was a long time ago when I was a lot less familiar with the practices of good GMing. It looks like I should hold off on the Savage Tide adventure path at least for a little while, since the early encounters focus on the cinematic (Retaking a stolen vessel, rampaging "exotic pets" in the hold, a Hecuva playing hit and run, and the like). I'll have to find another level 1 adventure or make one myself.


It's not aquatic or nautical. It's a buried fortress.

It does feature a very thin casus belli for the adventurers against the goblins (who "ransom" (auction, really) an apply that Cures Disease once per year, whose saplings mysteriously vanish). I'd suggest upping the Goblin Menace a bit before you entice your adventuring party to slaughter all the goblins, unless you prefer Evil to Always Be Evil. :smallwink:

No, he meant the Savage Tide adventure path I mentioned, Which is rather nautical. The first adventure less so if I avoid having anyone try to bull rush the players off the one encounter on a boat, but that encounter still ends up being problematic since most of the party ends up in a rowboat while one or two players are on the ship itself. A good first encounter to start off a campaign, perhaps. A good introduction to fights in D&D, not so much.

[HighWater]

No, he meant the Savage Tide adventure path I mentioned, Which is rather nautical. The first adventure less so if I avoid having anyone try to bull rush the players off the one encounter on a boat, but that encounter still ends up being problematic since most of the party ends up in a rowboat while one or two players are on the ship itself. A good first encounter to start off a campaign, perhaps. A good introduction to fights in D&D, not so much.
Ack, I'm unsure how that happened, though I strongly suspect that being tired has played an important role in that... Brain went "whatevs" and started auto-correcting stuff that should not be auto-corrected... :smallbiggrin:

There are a fair few 1st level modules lying around. Making your own is pretty easy though. The standard "retrieve a kidnapped child", "avenge a murdered farmer", or "protect a church/travelling merchant"-plot can make for a very nice introductory adventure. Throw in some mysterious undercurrents to set the tone (, nasty weather, people in the village behaving a bit off, a leaky roof), a reason for the kidnapping/murder/planned attack etc. and you're pretty set.

I should sleep.

[atemu1234]

Congrats on being a new DM, of course. No, there aren't really any classes I'd encourage (but a few stand for being discouraged, such as Monk and Paladin [sometimes]). You'll do great, though.

[Squark]

Right, so, I just sent out the introductory e-mail*. I talked a little bit about players and DMs, as well as a little history of the game and what an RPG is. Is there anything else I should mention in a subsequent e-mail?

*I'm actually matching up players with DMs, so I've got 3 other DMs and about a dozen players at the moment. I know the DMs and probably a few of the players have some experience, but on the other end of the spectrum some of the players have no experience at all with tabletop games.

[HighWater]

Right, so, I just sent out the introductory e-mail*. I talked a little bit about players and DMs, as well as a little history of the game and what an RPG is. Is there anything else I should mention in a subsequent e-mail?

*I'm actually matching up players with DMs, so I've got 3 other DMs and about a dozen players at the moment. I know the DMs and probably a few of the players have some experience, but on the other end of the spectrum some of the players have no experience at all with tabletop games.

A quick summary of what the classes are and what their strengths are can go a long way in preparing newbies for their first character creation session. If they arrive at the scene thinking "holy warrior sounds nice, I want to bash evil in the face with my sword, so maybe Paladin?" or "I want to be at peace with nature, heal some people, do some nice magic, maybe Druid?", they'll have escaped at least one part of the tremendous informationwave that hits first-time players. I remember my first time at D&D: I was lucky that I had a good grasp of RPGs ánd that I wasn't contaminated by WoW or other MMORPGs, which allowed me to grasp at least the function of each class instantly... My girlfriend had a bit more trouble, but the picture of the Druid looked nice, so... :smallbiggrin: As I've introduced others to the game later, the true impact of the pressure (and time) involved in even picking a class hit home, anything you can do to take the edge of that would probably be welcome!

[Diachronos]

My only advice is to avoid basing their first experience with D&D around the "optimized" way of playing the game. And by that I mean don't discourage them from playing a class just because that class is "bad."

They're new players. Nobody is going to have any idea about how to optimize their characters without outside help, so nobody's going to have an inherently large advantage over anyone else. If there's one situation where people should be allowed to play a "bad" or "subpar" class like Monk or Paladin, this is it.

[_felagund]

when i DM to newbies i like to teach combat mechanics in game. For example a guard captain may display some moves about simple atacks, fighting defensively or power atacks etc..

[Firest Kathon]

I would suggest running the first few games with pre-made characters (e.g. those (http://paizo.com/download/pathfinder/PFS-Pregens.zip) for Pathfinder), until they get a hang of the mechanics. This will help with a few things:

They will not be able to make the characters they want without your help (unless they dedicate some time to learn the rules before). Unless you are willing to spend an hour or so with each player, just offer them pre-made characters.
You will be able to start the game quickly on the first meeting. If you start the meeting by telling them that they will now spend a few hours to make characters, half of them will leave.
Pre-made characters usually come in around the same level of optimization, so you won't have the issue of someone accidentially making a God wizard.

Then give them a brief run-down of the character sheet and the most important rules (D20 + bonus vs. set DC is pretty much all you need to know) and start the game. At best, that would be one where you have a few skill challenges (for each character) to get used to the basic D20. Only then have a combat, first against unintelligent enemies (e.g. animals) which they can easily defeat. After that, you can scale up to intelligent enemies and/or higher CRs (which would actually be a challenge). After concluding the game on the first meeting, offer to stay behind and answer any (basic) questions that people may still have.

Run the first few meetings with pregens and allow players to switch the characters if they don't like them or if they want something new. Only afterwards start with "real" characters and possibly the campaign itself.

Coming to actual adventures, I really like the 1st level Pathfinder Society (PFS) scenarios (see here (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Category:Tier_1_scenarios) and here (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Category:Tier_1-2_scenarios) for the "official" beginner adventures, though you can run all tier 1-5 (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Category:Tier_1-5_scenarios) scenarios). They are cheap, designed to last around 4 hours, and I find most well done in the sense that they do not require much GM preparation. Of course, if you play D&D instead of Pathfinder you will need to make some adaptions, but it won't be too much. A good one I played and ran is The Confirmation (http://paizo.com/products/btpy92ci?Pathfinder-Society-Scenario-5-08-The-Confirmation).

I've also heard good things about the Pathfinder Beginner Box (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/products/beginnerbox), which uses a reduced set of rules, but I have no personal experience with it.

[Squark]

I suppose I could try pregenerated characters, but the thing is I know at least some of the players do have experience with the game or at least RPGs in general.

Also not really a fan of Pathfinder, but I will take a look at the adventures you linked to; While I won't be using them specifically, they should be a good reference point for what to start with.

EDIT: Oh, something that just occured to me now; Would it be better to try and group the newbies together so they can learn together, or should I mix veterans and new players so the DMs don't have to teach everyone at once?

[Red Fel]

I suppose I could try pregenerated characters, but the thing is I know at least some of the players do have experience with the game or at least RPGs in general.

If you know that some have experience and others don't, then it might be a good idea to start with a character generation session and a quickie mini-session afterwards. Have those with experience help those without, and you can make the rounds among the players to make sure that everyone understands what's on their character sheet. Then you can run the mini-session, which would essentially cover a basic combat, a social encounter, and some skill checks, just to get the feel for everything.

Alternatively - and this is my preference - do one-on-one chargen sessions. This has the disadvantage of not having the players communicating their concepts amongst themselves, but you can smooth that over. ("I don't think your concept would work well in this particular party, can we maybe do...?") More importantly, it means your attention isn't divided six ways when chargen is going on, and it means that once everyone is at the session proper, you can sit down and get to it.


EDIT: Oh, something that just occured to me now; Would it be better to try and group the newbies together so they can learn together, or should I mix veterans and new players so the DMs don't have to teach everyone at once?

It depends on the players, but my instinct is to say no mixing. Several reasons. First, if your new players are the type to quickly yield to experience, you'll have a few experienced players basically running the party (whether they intend to or not). Second, if you rely on the veterans, your new players may be overwhelmed when opinions differ (and they will); it's much easier to have a single voice of experience than to decide between several. Third, growing into the game together is part of the social experience, and when there's one veteran in a group of newbies, it can sometimes create a sense of distance. Fourth, if your veterans have enough experience, it's possible they'll be bored if/when you have to explain things to the newbies for the umpteenth time.

Let the newbies be new together. Let the veterans move quickly together.