Experienced player giving advice to new players

[Cinna]

I'm a more experienced player, just recently joined a new group of friends playing 5e, and was billed as the guy with the most experience, who could help the party "succeed," generally. This is the DM's first time DMing instead of playing, and I've been treading lightly, just focusing on my own character and running an NPC added to the party in combat. I love DnD, and it's been a bit since I've played, and I love reading up on combat and class optimization, spell rules, etc for fun in my spare time, while the rest of the group seems more in the "fun night once or twice a month" category, which is great. But I'd like share the knowledge a bit with the group without seeming like I'm demanding the sessions be run a certain way.

For example, in a recent session, our bard player (who seems fairly shy) took a number of passed actions in combat, and seemed confused about what to do, and discouraged that he wasn't dealing the damage of our wizard and rogue were or soaking up the damage our moon druid was. I'd like to offer advice on what he could do, and highlight how helpful he's already being (even his single vicious mockery was super helpful in keeping things under control, but he just got bummed about the low damage), but don't want to come across as patronizing or overbearing.

Any advice from folks who have had to navigate this type of conversation/general situation would be super helpful, especially since I met most of these folks just a few sessions ago!

[Corpsecandle717]

I always get people to start talking about their characters and thinking about them as an actual entity rather than a puppet. What does your character want to do with all the money? What magic items are you hopping for? What are some of their favorite strategies? This seems to get most people to start thinking ahead about their character and get them interested in figuring out what they can do vs what the DM tells them they can do.

Sometimes people don't bite though at which point I tell them point blank they should look into some stuff for their character. I rarely try to phrase it, "You need to do this thing" and instead I offer a suggestion, "If you liked that, you should really look into this combination..." Then I point them at the DM so he/she can work with them to optimize a bit and still be within the bounds of the DM's game.

[dmteeter]

I run into this quite often.

I've been playing d&d for 15 years and most of the people i play with have been playing less than a year.
The way i handle it is i'll make suggestions on how they could handle certain situations I.E what their best attack spells/ buff spells are, What their skills can be used for etc.

I find that most of the time newer players are happy to learn new and better ways to run their character.

Also in regards to the bard i would probably sit down with him and let him know that his role isn't so much damage dealer or tank as it is support mage and skill monkey. Show him ways to control the battlefield and make everyone else better at their roles.

[Millface]

In my experience newer players won't feel patronized by help and suggestions. Really, the only thing to watch out for with new players and experienced players mixed at the table is making sure you don't talk over the newbie or make them feel like an outcast out of combat.

In combat, if they look confused by their kit, I've never once had a bad reaction from throwing a gentle reminder now and then on which dice to use or what abilities they might have for the current situation.

[Jerrykhor]

Firstly, which subclass of Bard is he playing? If i were you, I'd remind him that musicians,dancers and performers generally aren't expected to fight. It takes a bit of common sense to be able to tell which class can dish out the pain, and which does not.

Most new players have trouble with spellcasting. If he is Lore Bard, he can pick Fireball as one of his magical secrets at Lv6. Otherwise, go all Treantmonk on him and recommend the good control spells. If he's not interested in that, he'd have to roll up another class. Bard is not the class for going full munchkin in terms of DPR.

[DevilMcam]

You could do that in character :

"hey buddy, remember that time when you had that dude roll on the floor for ages while we destroyed the other dudes?
That was awesome you should keep doing that.
Or that time when you lit them all up with your fire spell that made them real easy to hit, It was very cool."

[Resileaf]

Hmm, probably not the same kind of situation, but I once played with someone who constantly forgot what his abilities did and what tactics he could use in combat. So I went ahead and wrote a sheet to describe how best to act in combat so that he wouldn't have to check what each abilities could do, and how best to use them. He seemed to appreciate it.

[Bel-Torac]

What kind of bard is he playing? Bards usually stand back and control/support. If he wants to deal damage, he could use a melee subclass like valor or sword. My sword bard is pretty amazing in combat. I stood back most of the time to control/debuff and meleed when necessary.

[Pelle]

Unless the player makes it so, dealing tons of damage or doing the optimal move isn't important. It could help though to show the player what his options are: for your 1 Action per turn, here is a list of your abilities and standard actions like Dodge, Attack, etc that you can take, and what they do. For your 1 Bonus Action, you can cast these spells, etc. You can use color coding to illustrate different type of options. As long as he knows his options, you can ask him what he wants his character to do, and let him figure out himself what he 'should' do.

[Pex]

Same here. I take the cue from the DM. If he wants my input into the game I'll give it. If he frowns on rules lawyering I try to limit my advice to combat tactics to help new players learn what they can do. Sometimes I slip and comment on the correct way a thing should happen, whether it helps or hurts the party. If I don't do it too often the DM won't mind anyway. However, I silently cringe when a new player makes such a suboptimal choice either in game play or especially in character build. They don't have to do my level of optimization and tactics, but argh those really poor choices irk me.

[strangebloke]

'help' roughly falls into four categories:


Rules Help: This is, to my mind, the least essential form of help. It can be useful, but you need to be mindful of how you direct it. The DM decides on how the rules work, not you. Don't undercut him or argue with him. Offer advice to the DM outside of session. ("Its not really critical, and you might have noticed this, but Gary wasn't using mage hand according to the rules.") Offer help to the players with basic stuff like putting their sheet together, adding up bonuses in combat, etc. Always ask before offering this kind of help.
Playstyle Help: This encompasses advice on which spells to pick, what class to pick... all that good stuff. This you can be a bit more free in dispensing, so long as you don't fall into the trap of second-hand playing another person's character. The key here is to give general advice. Don't say: "Hit that orc." Say: "Its almost always better to focus fire an enemy down than to spread out damage between the group of enemies."
Social Help: This is the most important, and the hardest type of 'help' to give. If a player is shy, have your character approach theirs. Make OoC plans about how your characters might interact. Plan out little skits. If a player is disgruntled because their character is 'underpowered' just act as their hype train. The bard hits someone with vicious mockery? Get really excited and be like "Whats the insult, whats the insult?" And then when they say something, (it will likely be a little funny, even if only ironically) smile and nod. Compliment their character on little, non-mechanical things, like looking cool or being really well-armed.
Support Help: You play a support character like a bard or a cleric. If someone is having trouble shining, cast a powerful buff on them and let them be cool for a while. Enlarge Person and Haste are great for this. This is pretty simple, and if you're in a group of newbies, you should definitely consider it.


With all these methods, you can turn a lame table of shy newbies into a badass team of adventurers.

Thinking of it another way, just think of every toxic player you've had in the group and go as far as possible in the opposite direction.

[GlenSmash!]

I've found direct offers of help are not as well recieved as pointing other people to 3rd party sources of help. Largely because direct help can be seen as an attempt to control.

I'm currently playing with a lot of newbies, so I refer them to here https://critrole.com/filter/handbooker-helper/ and tell the group whenever a new video shows up.

[DMThac0]

I'm a DM and player in the same group of friends, so one weekend I'm trying to kill them, the next I'm along side them trying not to die.

I have 2 players who are not very quick with their characters and I've learned how to handle both of them over time. I have one player who's good at making decisions, but not always the most optimal. The 4th player is pretty tactical and I generally don't have to do much to help them, just the occasional pointer on optimal vs in character decisions.

Player 1: The I don't wanna memorize anything player. It took me weeks of walking this person through attack rolls, damage rolls, bonus actions, and so forth before the solution pretty much leapt out at me: 3x5 cards! I just started writing down the sequence of events as a flow chart for each basic action and how they interacted. The player took their own initiative after that and started making 3x5 cards for each weapon and skill based on the same flow. Now they just flip through the cards, choose the one that matches their actions and the steps are laid out for them to follow.

Player 2: There's so much stuff I'm lost aka decision paralysis. Imagine your first combat with a Land Druid, you'd generally expect some interesting things...I got "I poke it with my dagger". Second round "I poke it with my dagger." Third round...yea..I had to take this player aside and talk about the role of the Druid. Then we hit level 3...I started to have to talk about how the Druid's spells and shapeshifting worked together, how they could manipulate the battlefield, how they can help the party...basiclly showing the different tactics that could be adopted. Then they chose a Warlock as their second character, the process was taken up again, but it was all about defining what roles the classes could fit in to.

Player 3: I'm smart, but not experienced. This describes one of my players and the other player/DM. This is the hardest player to give help to, their pride/ego tends to get in the way. I have found, with this player, the best approach is to talk about it as if it was a workshop project. "What if...", "Does this ability do anything with that ability?", and so forth. Basically you're presenting a question for them to answer by posing it in a way that it feels they're helping you. Sometimes anecdotes will work, it's a tricky business since you don't want to come off as bragging or presenting yourself as the better player.

All in all, the best thing to do is just open it up as conversation and ask if they'd like your input. If they're amiable, have fun, if they're on the fence, explain your intent, if they're defensive, just leave it as an offer to talk about how to approach the harder challenges coming up.

[MThurston]

I would simple tell them that there are a few things to remember. Bards are support. So they should be doing something to help the group. Making an enemy attack with disadvantage is more important than the damage. Also sometimes healing may be more important than doing damage.

You have to feel what the party needs.

[NaughtyTiger]

This is a challenging situation because we are only seeing it from your point of view.

Given the situation as you described it, then out of game (before, during a break, whenever) ask his thoughts on how he wants to play. the ntalk to him about default things to do in a combat: inspiration, fairie fire, mockery (if they fit his style)

in my experience, bards are not the damage dealers (they can be). if he wants damage, then maybe a direct power class would be better. fighter, barb, warlock.

however, at my table one lady was always telling people how to play their characters. she thought she was being helpful, but the newbies and shy folks resented it.

it is a delicate balance.