Session 0 necessary resources when dealing with new players?

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all,

Im facing a dilemma. Im about to join an IRL gaming group, and they would like me to run 3.5. None of them have played it before. Now, while I have dealt with totally new groups before, they have been close friends and I could share my PDFs of the source books ahead of time. I cant do that this time. I also cant guarantee people will have tablets with them on the day.

So, how do you deal with this? What resources are necessary? Should I go out of my way to find a physical PHB (anywhere from £40 to £80, second hand!)? Print out the SRD for each and every class? Go with pregen classes?

Its frustrating because I want to utilize all the resources, but I dont want to overload everyone, so I feel like I should stick to PHB, maybe PHBII classes and books (and simply say "here are all the other books, feel free to dig around in your own time. Also, please visit the Playground for advice"). I feel I can help them step by step through character gen in the sense of "first up, roll for stats (or point buy), or pick a race and class idea, OR in reverse order, whichever, then move on to HP, saves, skills, equipment, AC, attacks, spells", but with 5 or 6 people, it would be hell going "Ok, at level 1, rogues get sneak attack, so write that down. No, not you, you are a cleric. You get turn undead. Oh, and this list of spells. No, Mr Wizard, your list of spells is this." I wont have a chance to babysit each and every person. And with 3.5 out of print, they might struggle to find the resources to do it themselves (especially the older ones, or the ones with a more.... lawful good.... alignment).

Please help.

[MeimuHakurei]

A list of features each character gets?

1. Racial Traits
2. Alignment
3. Class Features
4. Spells (if any)
5. Class Skills and Skill Points
6. Feats
7. Equipment and Gold

And don't worry about class complexity, there's a condensed list of spells and an overview of its effects for each class in the PHB and the vancian casting is honestly not that complex (think of prepared casting as a card deck where you have to add each card to prepare and then play them out to cast them - if your players are familiar with Mage Wars, that's how it works).

If the topic of splats comes up, note that they're mainly additional sets of options and don't add any new core rules to the game for the most part - though manifesters, meldshapers, initiators et al have a unique resource mechanic.

[Mike Miller]

The PHB would be nice to have, but if you can get the essential information for character creation to them you will be fine. Don't overload them in session 0. What do you plan for their first game?

A short "campaign" is best for a completely new group. That way they can try whatever and make lots of mistakes while learning the system. Stick with a game that is 1-3 sessions long initially. Perhaps even 2 or 3 short ones so everyone can try different builds.

I don't recommend showing them the playground until they have more system mastery. This place could really overload them on information and splats, etc. No need to set the bar that high for new players

[Gnaeus]

So, it’s an existing group, used to RPGs but just not 3.5?

That’s easier than a group of newbies in most respects. Have they played other D&D variants? If yes, you are already most of the way there. Find out what kinds of characters they are interested in and throw out some early options for each player. They may already fall into set roles. Like in my group, one player commonly plays archers and skillmonkey, one is commonly our melee guy, and a couple like casters. If a guy says “I like to hit things in melee”, you could point him towards Barbarian, Totemist and Warblade and let him pick. Don’t give them 30 class options, give them 3 or 4 that are solid for their concept. That may also help you nudge them into a 2-3 Tier range to avoid the Druid/monk problem. Once they’ve started, they can probably do their own research.

What we really don’t know is the generic system mastery of the players. If some or all are experienced in/enjoy complex rules, nudge them towards the harder subsystems, like vancian casting or Tome of Battle. For those who aren’t just point out the traps. Experienced players who don’t know this rules system will still understand that some options are better or worse than others.

[Albions_Angel]

Its not an established group. Currently 2 people are interested. Its a local gaming and book club. One of the people jumped in and went "Awesome! Rise of the Rune Lords?" Which I have said yes to, if hes ok to run (I didnt jump in with me having to run being a stipulation). Second guy said hes up for it. Hes new, played a game of 5th. Wondered how different "old D&D is to real D&D". Make of that what you will. Waiting for a few more before I organise anything.

Ok, Ill try and get a physical copy of the PHB (it will be useful) over christmas. And yeah, when the group is better selected, Ill start asking about roles (if I end up DMing). That probably is best. I dont think I need to worry too much about power (unless someone tries to go for truenamer). Ive seen monks do fine. i dont think I have to worry about batman wizards and CoDzilla.

[Palanan]

Are you going to be running RotRL in 3.5, or in Pathfinder?

Also, do I understand correctly that you don't have a full group established yet?

[zlefin]

these days, alot of people have internet capable handheld devices. it's possible everyone could just access the SRD from one of those; which would help supplement whatever books you have.

[ericgrau]

They should use their own PHB or the SRD. I'd stick to just that for now. If in the future everyone agrees to buy a book like the PHB II then you could add that to the book list. Or in the future you might provide a short list of allowed books, and say anyone can pick just 1 or 2 if they want. That way they only have to pick up the book they want, or none if they don't want.

[Uncle Pine]

The two times I've had to introduce groups of players entirely new to 3.5e (and some of them to d&d in general) as a DM who likes to use all or at least most of the official printed resources of this edition, what I've done was to inform them that since they were new players and this was 3.5e, the only things they required was a character concept. "Because if something can be conceived, there are probably at least a couple ways to do it in d&d. From archers who shoot fireballs, to Egyptian transformers, to anthropomorphic bears who turn into bears while riding bears and summoning more bears, we have it all." Feel free to tweak the examples to your preference.
Then I would simply describe in a thematic and only vaguely mechanical way each of the 12 base classes, just to furtherly set mood and expectation. A few examples:
- Barbarians: strong, potentially noble warriors who hit hard and can enrage themselves to become even stronger and hit harder;
- Bard: magical musicians, singers, and/or tip tappers who can either kill people with their art of greatly improve the effectiveness of their allies;
- Cleric: emissaries of their god or ideals (whether for good or bad), wielding divine powers and usually wearing heavy armor (important in case someone is more familiar with WoW clerics, although cloistered clerics exist);
- Druid: that guy who keeps bears giant bats, bears, wolves, trees, and so on as pets. Druids can also cast spell, and eventually learn how to transform into various creatures, mostly animals;
- etc. .
Also mention that with more than a hundred splatbooks of resources, there are many more base classes and hundreds more prestige classes that can you can combine together to get the wildest results. But they don't really need to learn all that. [I]You do though, and that's the important part.
What they need to know is to decide on a character concept. That's something everyone can do and requires 0 amount of system mastery, so it shouldn't be a problem. Guide their concept, feel free to make suggestions while at it: you can always "add more lasers" to a character later on, but a player needs to be hooked in the first place.
Then, once everyone has their character concept in mind, simply make their sheets on the fly. If you start at 1st level (as you should with brand new characters) it shouldn't take long for each character, which means you'll be ready to actually start playing in a reasonable amount of time.

The advantages of this approach is that since you are making the characters, you don't need to teach the players how to build one themselves. Moreover, unlike pregenerated characters, players will be guaranteed to feel attached to these ones because you used their concept to create them. On the other hands, this will be more taxing on the DM (you) than an usual d&d session because the players will have to rely on your knowledge all the time while they build theirs as they play and encounter foes and obstacles. From experience, it gets easier soon. :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: For example, I find the best way to introduce many of the character creation tooltips you skipped during session 0 is to do so at level up, as throughout their first level players will have usually gotten a better grasp of their character and the game in general.

EDIT_2: I've realised I haven't mentioned how to handle resources at all, so let's fix it: in the aforementioned scenario you don't really need to hand out books at first since you've fully taken on yourself the mantle of referee. In this case, if a player has a question he or she can just ask and you can just quote the relevant paragraph (and page, if you remember it). Linking the SRD to your players is always handy, but not terribly necessary. As your players grow in expertise and eagerness, you can just... well, work your flash drive magic and distribute more resources.

[denthor]

Session 0

Introduction
Creation of characters. So that they and you know what the party strength and weaknesses are.

Explain ground rules for wizards and other casters. Go over the charts.

For fighters how d20 works with each weapon and Which dice go with which weapon how strength bonus works.

Rouge what your idea of a sneak attack is. Again which dice how many.

That should take 2 hours. Let them know where in your game world they are starting. Give local town what church stores, blacksmith names, inn. General horizon.

Mountain sea lake plains the like in what direction.

If they want to meet and greet town folk. Role play

General idea of what they want to do. Which direction they want to strike out in.

[Quertus]

A short "campaign" is best for a completely new group. That way they can try whatever and make lots of mistakes while learning the system. Stick with a game that is 1-3 sessions long initially. Perhaps even 2 or 3 short ones so everyone can try different builds.

This is pretty much what I came to say.

Run several short adventures, and let them run several different characters, to find out what they like. They might not care about character creation, and be fine with being handed pregens.

Then, once everyone is comfortable with their characters and the system, you can talk about running a longer campaign.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Necessary resources, IMO, are the SRD (d20srd.org/index.htm), a set of "DND tools" you can find on the net (google it and it should be the first result), and a solid understanding of how the system actually works so you can guide your players through getting started.

If the players are already familiar with the classic fantasy tropes (the classic 4 party, men at arms, wizards, magic and monsters, etc) then it's a simple matter of hammering out details of the system wrt those things and helping each player fill out his sheet to create a character that fits what he wants to play.

I lean pretty heavily toward encouraging certain classes for the classic four; a barbarian for the beatstick, a rogue for the skill monkey, a sorcerer for the mage, and a shugenja for the priest. None of them is the most powerful variant on its role but they all have much greater ease of play than most of their contemporaries with minimal role crossover. If someone has no idea which one he wants, I point toward ranger since it does a bit of everything (notably, none of it as well as a character dedicated to each core mechanic.)

Then it's just a matter of putting them through their first adventure and the clanking and stumbling of learning the system as they go.

If they're -not- familiar with the classic fantasy tropes, however, then you may need to give them a primer on that before character gen.


On the subject of option overload; don't worry about it. If you simply point out that the SRD resources are the core of the game around which everything else is built, players will tend to gravitate toward those options unless you point out stuff from outside it. That is, unless they're the type that would chafe at being restricted to core options in the first place. Such people aren't prone to option overload paralysis IME. At most, restrict the alternate subsytems like incarnum, psionics, martial maneuvers, and the ToM systems until they've got a firm grasp of the basics.

[ericgrau]

Rouge what your idea of a sneak attack is. Again which dice how many.
If new players learn anything about rogues it should be...

J/k.

I'd tell the players to read the basics/ability scores, skills, equipment and combat sections of the PHB (or SRD) from start to finish. If playing a caster, the magic overview too. Give the players a rough idea of what each class does. Help them through the process and re-explain exactly what you told them to read, but both an explanation from you and reading those will be helpful. Once they pick a class help them more with class and feats, and make suggestions. Note that without non-core books a lot of "underpowered" feats in the PHB aren't that bad. Besides skill feats, proficiency feats, usually save feats, and ultra niche feats like toughness (level 1 people) and endurance (very particular nature circumstances). So do steer them away from bad choices, but don't tell them ubercharger pre-reqs are their only option when they can't even do that well. I might not even bother with power attack without cleave or improved sunder, and I'm not saying cleaving or sundering are super great either. But they do work in core.

I don't think new players should play bard, druid or monk. Casters can work with a lot of your help. Sorcerer especially if you help a lot with the spell list. Again, any style is good, not necessarily blaster. And probably not any single style including that one. Prepared casters can work almost as well if you help with a default prepared list. Ranger and rogue are a little difficult but you can help a lot with skills, read them yourselves, and be lenient with DCs, taking 10s and taking 20s. And please don't ask for 10,000 spot checks. The enemy should have both ranks in hide and suitable cover 95% of the time. Barbarian, fighter and paladin are the easiest but not necessarily the most fun. Like I said help with the build. Be sure to hand out plenty of cool & fun but not overpowered magic items if you get them. After they get a level or two to try out the basics.

[SLOTHRPG95]

For the most part, I think just point them in the direction of the SRD, while also maybe giving a quick one or two sentence summary about every core race and class. You can throw on more if you want, but when you're first playing 3.5e, there's no harm to first just exploring the basics.

[Mordaedil]

I can recommend one of my friends' rules for DMing, if you don't own the book, you can't play it or if you play locally, "bring the book over so I can see it".

I spent a lot of money just completing my 3.5 collection and then realized I had yet to buy all of the Forgotten Realms and Eberron books. :smallsigh:

[Crake]

I can recommend one of my friends' rules for DMing, if you don't own the book, you can't play it or if you play locally, "bring the book over so I can see it".

I spent a lot of money just completing my 3.5 collection and then realized I had yet to buy all of the Forgotten Realms and Eberron books. :smallsigh:

Do pdf copies count? I paid good money for my pdfs after all.

[Mordaedil]

Do pdf copies count? I paid good money for my pdfs after all.
By his old rules? No.

In modern times we can pretty much easily find PDF's of all of the books by using Google, even if there is a legal option of buying them on DriveThruRPG, so I'd say as long as you bought them and have a receipt, otherwise no.

Pay-for-entry privilege, in a way.