5th edition starter set

[Maryring]

Soon I'm gonna start gaming with a new group, which has brought on the question on 5th edition DnD. Specifically, the starter kit.

I was looking for some user feedback from people who have grabbed the starter kit, and ideally who also have experience from 5th edition itself. Is the starter kit worth it? Does it give you all you need to create your characters and play the game? Apparently it's rather limited in scope. How does it handle character advancement? Treasure and other rewards?

Essentially. Does it have all I need to run a good first session? Or do I need to grab other stuff to bring along?

Thanks in advance.

[Man_Over_Game]

Soon I'm gonna start gaming with a new group, which has brought on the question on 5th edition DnD. Specifically, the starter kit.

I was looking for some user feedback from people who have grabbed the starter kit, and ideally who also have experience from 5th edition itself. Is the starter kit worth it? Does it give you all you need to create your characters and play the game? Apparently it's rather limited in scope. How does it handle character advancement? Treasure and other rewards?

Essentially. Does it have all I need to run a good first session? Or do I need to grab other stuff to bring along?

Thanks in advance.

I think the Starter Kit is fine. I think it gives you the resources you'll need to do a lot, but I don't think it tells you how to think too effectively.

Namely, it doesn't cover DCs very well, it doesn't cover how to make decent plots, and it doesn't cover mechanical balance very well.

Those are all things you'll have to learn separately, either through experience or through places like this.

Otherwise, I'd say it's good enough, especially for a level 1 start.




For all that you need to know that isn't covered in the books:

Requiring more DCs is better for your players than requiring higher ones. It gives your players an idea of how much they succeed, and what kind of reward they deserve. I can go into the maths, but 3x DC 15 is a lot better than a single DC 25.

Make skills exceptional. Beyond human capabilities, as otherwise they'll always be overshadowed by magic.

If someone asks if they can do something, find a reason that it doesn't make sense. If you can't, let it happen.

That being said, if someone creatively solves a problem once, they'll do it every time they'd be allowed to. Don't allow creativity to be so effective it's boring. Require an opportune circumstance, a cost, or a gamble for every creative solution, and then make those creative solutions better than doing the simple alternative of "I Attack" (Or whatever the basic solution was for that situation).

Don't feel bad about being cliche or silly for your plots. Forest is blighted, valley-girl-esc Nymph is kinda ditsy and tries to get the players to do a bunch of weird things to cure her friends, which all fail until one of them randomly works. Group goes to where the blight originated, which is being guarded by some Warlock.

When making up new enemies, guess the max 1-turn damage and the max health of one of your players. Multiply those for each player. Then make an enemy party who's total requires 3 turns to kill, and would kill all of the players on turn 4. Then just make sure none of the units on the enemy team can deal enough damage to kill a player in a single hit (which may mean that you divide its attacks over multiple turns, or have multiple units), and that's the perfect recipe to DnD monster creation. The official bit on monster creation is a bit overboard and somewhat unnecessary.

[KorvinStarmast]

Soon I'm gonna start gaming with a new group, which has brought on the question on 5th edition DnD. Specifically, the starter kit.

I was looking for some user feedback from people who have grabbed the starter kit, and ideally who also have experience from 5th edition itself. Is the starter kit worth it? Does it give you all you need to create your characters and play the game? Apparently it's rather limited in scope. How does it handle character advancement? Treasure and other rewards?

Essentially. Does it have all I need to run a good first session? Or do I need to grab other stuff to bring along?

Thanks in advance.
I would recommend down loading the free 'Basic Rules" from WoTC's web site to help with Rules Interpretations if you are just starting out.
If one of your players, or you, has the Players Handbook, use that.