Hello! I've been lurking around the forums for a little bit and absorbing a lot of information, it's been a hoot and I just keep learning new things. My questions aren't so much mechanical, but more in the nature of updating my skills for helping players. The last game I ran was a homebrew 2.0 game back in 1997, and the guy who taught me how to DM just kind of shoved two books and the homebrew printout at me and told me to run the next game after we finished our first ever game, my second game total.
This has kind of given me a few bad habits as far as being a DM to others, I am used to giving people the basic rules and I expect them to sink or swim. Which has so far made for several very confused first time players and I don't want to ruin the gaming experience for them especially since this is something we are all doing for work (it's a long story), I've started by using some decent beginner D&D videos, linking and making some pregen characters and creating a Facebook group to organize and that's working so far.
My hope is that someone here might have some more tips for being a better player and DM for 5e, or at least some awesome videos I could use to better my skills. Storytelling isn't an issue, this is more of a me issue and trying to update my D&D teaching skills. Anything would be appreciated and thanks for reading this, also I hope I posted this in the right forum.
If you are using 5e and have players who have never played D&D before - I'd suggest going with the Basic Rules, the Lost Mines of Phandelver set and get them to use the pre-gen Characters (they have cool back stories tied to the plot).
Get them to understand the rules at first, and the game play - and most importantly, get them into Roleplaying. Then you can get them to start a different adventure or home brew something once they have the basics down.
If you are using 5e and have players who have never played D&D before - I'd suggest going with the Basic Rules, the Lost Mines of Phandelver set and get them to use the pre-gen Characters (they have cool back stories tied to the plot).
Get them to understand the rules at first, and the game play - and most importantly, get them into Roleplaying. Then you can get them to start a different adventure or home brew something once they have the basics down.
I probably should have prefaced this with, I have no intention of doing homebrew anytime soon. Just canon stuff for now. I did pick up the starter set, but I'm kind of worried about the length of that campaign. Weirdly this is a work activity so session number one does have a time limit. I was thinking of just running a simple, you must go to this dungeon to save these kids campaign to start them off with and get them into the spirit of role playing.
Edit; they are all on board with the pre-gen with just two of the people with at least one game under their belt opting to make their own characters.
Given the time restrictions you have, I'd still go with Phandelver. If you cut things down to just the town of Phandalin and tweak the story a little, you've got a quick dungeon crawl with clean motives. I'll spoiler the info I'd change for the sake of others:
Ignore all the "mines" stuff and just have the PC's be acquainted with the Dendrar family. Mirna and her two children are captives of the Redbrands in the ruins of Tressendar Castle (they are in room 5). Her husband, Thel, has been murdered by the Redbrands (body in room 8). They ran the herbalist shop in town - so perhaps the PC motivation was to travel to Phandalin and buy/deliver some alchemical/herbal supplies or potions. Only to discover that the family has recently gone missing.
Tweak the Redbrands to be bullies, running the town and whatnot (no real change), but remove the link from their leader (Glasstaff) to the "Spider" and the mines of Phandelver. That will let you intro things as a fetch quest (You got in town with the goal of transacting with the Dendrar family, but they have gone missing. The townfolk aren't sure what's happened, and they are all evading the question. Any time you see a Redbrand around people go quiet. Perhaps the family ran afowl of the local gang?
That gives you enough to send the party to Tressendar and then in for the rescue. Adventure is complete when the remaining family is rescued and the Redbrands are defeated.
Given the sandbox nature of LMoP, cutting the rest away is pretty easy. You get a single dungeon crawl with a simple, but heroic mission.
I’m just back to the game since probably the early 90’s, and I’m DMing for a bunch of brand-new players too. I gotta say, these forums have been AMAZING as far as getting encouragement, inspiration, and answers to every question I’ve asked.
Are you able to do a Session Zero where you can get everyone on the same page with basic rules, combat actions, and things like that? That really helped my group. We set expectations for things like the mechanics of the ability checks, proficiency bonuses, rolling to hit vs. rolling damage, and all that. We also talked about the way the group wanted to play, in terms of whether we were going to use character voices and speak in-character, or just say things like “I ask if they have any info.” We also had a general Q&A thing too, it was great. The nice part was as some players started to get the hang of it, they helped the others. That was nice to see.
Not sure if the parameters your workplace is putting on you would allow for this kind of “intro” session, but it helped my group a ton.
I’m just back to the game since probably the early 90’s, and I’m DMing for a bunch of brand-new players too. I gotta say, these forums have been AMAZING as far as getting encouragement, inspiration, and answers to every question I’ve asked.
Are you able to do a Session Zero where you can get everyone on the same page with basic rules, combat actions, and things like that? That really helped my group. We set expectations for things like the mechanics of the ability checks, proficiency bonuses, rolling to hit vs. rolling damage, and all that. We also talked about the way the group wanted to play, in terms of whether we were going to use character voices and speak in-character, or just say things like “I ask if they have any info.” We also had a general Q&A thing too, it was great. The nice part was as some players started to get the hang of it, they helped the others. That was nice to see.
Not sure if the parameters your workplace is putting on you would allow for this kind of “intro” session, but it helped my group a ton.
You are absolutely right, this forum has been so ridiculously helpful especially with inspiration and just good feedback. I read through a lot of of the forum posts. though this is like my third or fourth time posting. In regards to a session zero, I've been thinking about that something easy for them to get behind and get the feel of the game before I plunge them headlong into a big campaign (like the above Starter Set Mines of Phandelver). I've been watching some DMing videos on youtube and was thinking about designing a mini campaign just to get everyone into the basics of the game. It's possible for us to do a session zero, as I have pitched this particular event as a "team building" and "digital content" program, I'm just not allowed to destroy any property. I've got my boss on board (not to play but for the game itself), and I've been adding links to the character sheets, and online material to the facebook group as well as answering questions and posting some videos. I'll ask them if they want to do a Zero session with the books and stuff where we can go over the material in depth, we can probably do it for lunch one of these days, the nice part about this is they are librarians and library workers so reading the material isn't an issue.
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Hello! I've been lurking around the forums for a little bit and absorbing a lot of information, it's been a hoot and I just keep learning new things. My questions aren't so much mechanical, but more in the nature of updating my skills for helping players. The last game I ran was a homebrew 2.0 game back in 1997, and the guy who taught me how to DM just kind of shoved two books and the homebrew printout at me and told me to run the next game after we finished our first ever game, my second game total.
This has kind of given me a few bad habits as far as being a DM to others, I am used to giving people the basic rules and I expect them to sink or swim. Which has so far made for several very confused first time players and I don't want to ruin the gaming experience for them especially since this is something we are all doing for work (it's a long story), I've started by using some decent beginner D&D videos, linking and making some pregen characters and creating a Facebook group to organize and that's working so far.
My hope is that someone here might have some more tips for being a better player and DM for 5e, or at least some awesome videos I could use to better my skills. Storytelling isn't an issue, this is more of a me issue and trying to update my D&D teaching skills. Anything would be appreciated and thanks for reading this, also I hope I posted this in the right forum.
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ModeratorIf you are using 5e and have players who have never played D&D before - I'd suggest going with the Basic Rules, the Lost Mines of Phandelver set and get them to use the pre-gen Characters (they have cool back stories tied to the plot).
Get them to understand the rules at first, and the game play - and most importantly, get them into Roleplaying. Then you can get them to start a different adventure or home brew something once they have the basics down.
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Given the time restrictions you have, I'd still go with Phandelver. If you cut things down to just the town of Phandalin and tweak the story a little, you've got a quick dungeon crawl with clean motives. I'll spoiler the info I'd change for the sake of others:
Ignore all the "mines" stuff and just have the PC's be acquainted with the Dendrar family. Mirna and her two children are captives of the Redbrands in the ruins of Tressendar Castle (they are in room 5). Her husband, Thel, has been murdered by the Redbrands (body in room 8). They ran the herbalist shop in town - so perhaps the PC motivation was to travel to Phandalin and buy/deliver some alchemical/herbal supplies or potions. Only to discover that the family has recently gone missing.
Tweak the Redbrands to be bullies, running the town and whatnot (no real change), but remove the link from their leader (Glasstaff) to the "Spider" and the mines of Phandelver. That will let you intro things as a fetch quest (You got in town with the goal of transacting with the Dendrar family, but they have gone missing. The townfolk aren't sure what's happened, and they are all evading the question. Any time you see a Redbrand around people go quiet. Perhaps the family ran afowl of the local gang?
That gives you enough to send the party to Tressendar and then in for the rescue. Adventure is complete when the remaining family is rescued and the Redbrands are defeated.
Given the sandbox nature of LMoP, cutting the rest away is pretty easy. You get a single dungeon crawl with a simple, but heroic mission.
View my StartPlaying.Games profile to see my games!
Thank you! I didn't even think about tweaking it down that would actually work much better for them!
I’m just back to the game since probably the early 90’s, and I’m DMing for a bunch of brand-new players too. I gotta say, these forums have been AMAZING as far as getting encouragement, inspiration, and answers to every question I’ve asked.
Are you able to do a Session Zero where you can get everyone on the same page with basic rules, combat actions, and things like that? That really helped my group. We set expectations for things like the mechanics of the ability checks, proficiency bonuses, rolling to hit vs. rolling damage, and all that. We also talked about the way the group wanted to play, in terms of whether we were going to use character voices and speak in-character, or just say things like “I ask if they have any info.” We also had a general Q&A thing too, it was great. The nice part was as some players started to get the hang of it, they helped the others. That was nice to see.
Not sure if the parameters your workplace is putting on you would allow for this kind of “intro” session, but it helped my group a ton.
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
In regards to a session zero, I've been thinking about that something easy for them to get behind and get the feel of the game before I plunge them headlong into a big campaign (like the above Starter Set Mines of Phandelver). I've been watching some DMing videos on youtube and was thinking about designing a mini campaign just to get everyone into the basics of the game. It's possible for us to do a session zero, as I have pitched this particular event as a "team building" and "digital content" program, I'm just not allowed to destroy any property. I've got my boss on board (not to play but for the game itself), and I've been adding links to the character sheets, and online material to the facebook group as well as answering questions and posting some videos. I'll ask them if they want to do a Zero session with the books and stuff where we can go over the material in depth, we can probably do it for lunch one of these days, the nice part about this is they are librarians and library workers so reading the material isn't an issue.