So, I've been DMing for about 2 years now, but I've always had the luxury of running for a group of experienced players who knew the game. Now, my nephew, at 15, is requesting a chance to play D&D so I am starting a new game for him and some of his friends. Originally I was going to make pregens for them, but they were all excited and interested in making their own characters, so tomorrow I am going to walk them through character creation.
What I am struggling with though, is whether or not I should steer them one way or another in character creation. The big one is for classes that I know generally tend to lack in player satisfaction; should I tell someone if they are interested in a Four Elements monk (a seductive option for those who don't know), that it can turn into a frustratingly un-fun class to play?
I'm mostly concerned about the classes that I know tend to turn out not fun; Four Elements monk, Champion Fighters (fine if they don't mind utter simplicity), rangers (unless I steer them towards revised, which has its own issues), even sorcerers depending on who you ask.
But even beyond those; what about classes that some people think are too complex for first time players? Personally, I do not think that you should tell new players to stick to 'simple' martial classes, but there are a few that are outliers and can be hard to play unless you know certain things; Warlocks are the most obvious that come to mind. But, in a way bards as well (though they are my favorite class), and even monks.
What do you think?
TL,DR; should I steer my players away from frustrating classes?
It depends on a lot of factors, but I'd generally advise against it.
I have played "bad" classes before (in D&D and other systems) and had tons of fun because they were matching the idea I wanted to play.
I would consider hearing a player of mine go "I wanted to play a violinist, but my DM said it is a bad class, so I went for a berserker instead. He can deal a lot of damage, I guess." severely demotivating.
But then what?
What indeed. It's up to you (the DM). Make a class fun.
You may feel comfortable subtly homebrewing a class. It's easy to "fix" a lot of minor inconveniences for home play.
Or you may not want to homebrew. There's a lot of creative space in fun little items that you can make that turn an unfun class on its head, and make it exciting (just careful not to overcorrect. Or overcorrect evenly, at the very least :p )
Or your players may not care about the mechanics of the thing, and just want to go for the style and the RP, and they may consider limitations a good way to flesh a character. I see this less often in younger players, but it's not particularly rare.
I suppose my point is "a class is only as unfun as the DM and the player make it".
When I played a champion fighter when I got back into d&d, I had a blast. Yes it’s a simpler class to play, but I made it mine, which is why he was awesome. I found ways to make him interesting and did things outside of combat even though I didn’t always succeed. That was part of the fun of creating a non perfect character. Adding feats helped as well.
As far as more complicated classes go, there are a tons of guides out there. If they want to play one just have them do some homework to know the ins and outs. I have played with newer people before that don’t know how their class works very well. One of my favorite DMs would do a quick de-brief at the end of sessions with him, letting him know what he could (not should) have done in certain situations to possibly get a different result. He caught on quick and was off and running in no time. I liked that it happened after a session vs during ,as that can slow the continuity down too much and can seem like the DM is co-playing that PC.
Heck they can always die/move on/get thrown in prison, etc and roll a new character if it’s really not working.
Rather than steering, I think you should just give frank and honest advice about what to expect from each class. Let the player make up their mind. For all you know, maybe they can handle and enjoy a more complex class. I'd also give some leeway early on. Let everyone have a "cooling off" period where if someone doesn't like a class or a choice made in character creation, just let them re-do it and fudge the narrative as if the current state of affairs had always been like this.
I recommend you to play a short "tutorial" session with classic fighter, rogue, cleric and mage.
This also reduces required time to create your own character when you understand basic game mechanics. Players also learn things from other characters that they are not playing themselves. So to make things easier create 4 "pregenerated" characters and make tiny dungeon with some spiders for tutorial session.
Most of the complaints about classes that aren't fun are coming from min-max players who have a need to play the most powerful character in combat. If you don't need to be the most powerful character in combat, all of those "inferior" classes can be fun to play. One example of that is several of the Warlock's invocations are useless out of combat but are a lot of fun. I enjoyed having a Warlock who was amphibious by taking Gift of the Depths but that meant I didn't take Repelling Blast so he was less effective in combat.
The only thing that I'd do to steer them is discuss their expectations with them. In a heavy role playing campaign characters who aren't as effective in combat will still be a ton of fun to play. In a heavy role playing campaign characters who aren't as effective in combat won't be much fun to play.
As most people here have said, pushing/steering a person into a class is not really a good idea. I say this from personal experience as well (incoming anecdote).
A friend of mine leans on the Rogue like an old drinking buddy so I thought to challenge them by saying they'd need to pick a different class for a short adventure that we were going to play. The idea was to give her an idea of other classes, potentially giving her some ideas to play around with, broaden the horizons. I heard every complaint under the sun, sideways remarks about being forced into a class, and so on. It wasn't pretty, she didn't enjoy it nearly as much as if she'd made the choice herself. The adventure was short, only lasted a couple months since it was just a filler to waste time with, but I learned well not to steer a player's choice.
As to the rest of the advice given here, most definitely work on building their characters to reflect what they want to play. They want to play Harry Potter, give them a wizard and explain how it works, then add in elements while DMing to give it a bit of that flavor. They want to be like "that one guy on the show where he uses a sword and moves really fast, but he can also teleport around", well now you'll have to work on what best fits the idea. Give them the limitations and how tos so they can achieve the special tricks they want to have. Make the character creation as much part of their story as the module/adventure you'll be playing.
I recently started a group that was entirely new players (ages 20-35) and none had played anything like dnd. The only steering i did with them and their character creation was asking them questions about what kind of person they want to be or if they have any favorite fictional (or real) characters that they would like to use as a starting concept. One of the characters decided they wanted to be like Kimpossible, which was a great place to start from. Started showing them some of the more dextrous classes rogue, monk, ranger, fighter and letting them know what areas they would excel in. they narrowed it down to rogue or monk for her since she is pretty darn acrobatic and the like. Started talking to them about where they want their character to go and began weeding out subclasses that didn't jive with the things they wanted to be able to do and helped them narrow that list down to a couple options. Ended up with them choosing thief as where they wanted to go towards (we started lvl 1). We just got to level 3 and I posed similar questions I was asking during character creation to see if their plans were still going in a direction they enjoyed and they were happy with things so far and looked forward to using some of the thief skills to become a battlefield medic with fast hands and using potions on other players when not stabbing things in the kidneys.
Where I am going with this example is, try not to steer them, instead guide them. What do they think is cool, cool leads to fun especially if its something they are interested in. Ask them questions and give suggestions based on their answers. Even vague questions can be useful when they flesh out their reasoning. An example of this is giving advice on spell selections for casters. Asking if you want more supportive spells, attack spells, disruption spells, etc. Then taking their answer and showing them some of the options that would fall into that category, even giving them examples of ways it could be used in combat or out of combat. Create Bonfire is a good example of multiple potential uses like blasting enemies, setting a house on fire, creating a distraction before an ambush, or even helping to heat a home during a horrible blizzard.
Start by prying more information out of the player and inspire them to do things they find fun.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
If the class they want to play is lacking, fix it. I've tweaked a few things in my game already and I've only been back into D&D for a couple of years, mostly as a player. As an experienced DM used to experienced players, you should have the know-how to understand how to adjust the class or sub-class to suit your needs.
Listen to WHY your Nephew likes whatever class they're considering. Even a sub-par class might be fine for what THEY want to do with it. If, for example, they want more of the wire-fu style then blend the class with some of the other Monk abilities and build your own.
As long as the result isn't an OP Mary Sue type of thing, it's all good.
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So, I've been DMing for about 2 years now, but I've always had the luxury of running for a group of experienced players who knew the game. Now, my nephew, at 15, is requesting a chance to play D&D so I am starting a new game for him and some of his friends. Originally I was going to make pregens for them, but they were all excited and interested in making their own characters, so tomorrow I am going to walk them through character creation.
What I am struggling with though, is whether or not I should steer them one way or another in character creation. The big one is for classes that I know generally tend to lack in player satisfaction; should I tell someone if they are interested in a Four Elements monk (a seductive option for those who don't know), that it can turn into a frustratingly un-fun class to play?
I'm mostly concerned about the classes that I know tend to turn out not fun; Four Elements monk, Champion Fighters (fine if they don't mind utter simplicity), rangers (unless I steer them towards revised, which has its own issues), even sorcerers depending on who you ask.
But even beyond those; what about classes that some people think are too complex for first time players? Personally, I do not think that you should tell new players to stick to 'simple' martial classes, but there are a few that are outliers and can be hard to play unless you know certain things; Warlocks are the most obvious that come to mind. But, in a way bards as well (though they are my favorite class), and even monks.
What do you think?
TL,DR; should I steer my players away from frustrating classes?
It depends on a lot of factors, but I'd generally advise against it.
I have played "bad" classes before (in D&D and other systems) and had tons of fun because they were matching the idea I wanted to play.
I would consider hearing a player of mine go "I wanted to play a violinist, but my DM said it is a bad class, so I went for a berserker instead. He can deal a lot of damage, I guess." severely demotivating.
But then what?
What indeed. It's up to you (the DM). Make a class fun.
You may feel comfortable subtly homebrewing a class. It's easy to "fix" a lot of minor inconveniences for home play.
Or you may not want to homebrew. There's a lot of creative space in fun little items that you can make that turn an unfun class on its head, and make it exciting (just careful not to overcorrect. Or overcorrect evenly, at the very least :p )
Or your players may not care about the mechanics of the thing, and just want to go for the style and the RP, and they may consider limitations a good way to flesh a character. I see this less often in younger players, but it's not particularly rare.
I suppose my point is "a class is only as unfun as the DM and the player make it".
When I played a champion fighter when I got back into d&d, I had a blast. Yes it’s a simpler class to play, but I made it mine, which is why he was awesome. I found ways to make him interesting and did things outside of combat even though I didn’t always succeed. That was part of the fun of creating a non perfect character. Adding feats helped as well.
As far as more complicated classes go, there are a tons of guides out there. If they want to play one just have them do some homework to know the ins and outs. I have played with newer people before that don’t know how their class works very well. One of my favorite DMs would do a quick de-brief at the end of sessions with him, letting him know what he could (not should) have done in certain situations to possibly get a different result. He caught on quick and was off and running in no time. I liked that it happened after a session vs during ,as that can slow the continuity down too much and can seem like the DM is co-playing that PC.
Heck they can always die/move on/get thrown in prison, etc and roll a new character if it’s really not working.
Rather than steering, I think you should just give frank and honest advice about what to expect from each class. Let the player make up their mind. For all you know, maybe they can handle and enjoy a more complex class. I'd also give some leeway early on. Let everyone have a "cooling off" period where if someone doesn't like a class or a choice made in character creation, just let them re-do it and fudge the narrative as if the current state of affairs had always been like this.
I recommend you to play a short "tutorial" session with classic fighter, rogue, cleric and mage.
This also reduces required time to create your own character when you understand basic game mechanics. Players also learn things from other characters that they are not playing themselves. So to make things easier create 4 "pregenerated" characters and make tiny dungeon with some spiders for tutorial session.
And excellent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk
Most of the complaints about classes that aren't fun are coming from min-max players who have a need to play the most powerful character in combat. If you don't need to be the most powerful character in combat, all of those "inferior" classes can be fun to play. One example of that is several of the Warlock's invocations are useless out of combat but are a lot of fun. I enjoyed having a Warlock who was amphibious by taking Gift of the Depths but that meant I didn't take Repelling Blast so he was less effective in combat.
The only thing that I'd do to steer them is discuss their expectations with them. In a heavy role playing campaign characters who aren't as effective in combat will still be a ton of fun to play. In a heavy role playing campaign characters who aren't as effective in combat won't be much fun to play.
Professional computer geek
As most people here have said, pushing/steering a person into a class is not really a good idea. I say this from personal experience as well (incoming anecdote).
A friend of mine leans on the Rogue like an old drinking buddy so I thought to challenge them by saying they'd need to pick a different class for a short adventure that we were going to play. The idea was to give her an idea of other classes, potentially giving her some ideas to play around with, broaden the horizons. I heard every complaint under the sun, sideways remarks about being forced into a class, and so on. It wasn't pretty, she didn't enjoy it nearly as much as if she'd made the choice herself. The adventure was short, only lasted a couple months since it was just a filler to waste time with, but I learned well not to steer a player's choice.
As to the rest of the advice given here, most definitely work on building their characters to reflect what they want to play. They want to play Harry Potter, give them a wizard and explain how it works, then add in elements while DMing to give it a bit of that flavor. They want to be like "that one guy on the show where he uses a sword and moves really fast, but he can also teleport around", well now you'll have to work on what best fits the idea. Give them the limitations and how tos so they can achieve the special tricks they want to have. Make the character creation as much part of their story as the module/adventure you'll be playing.
I recently started a group that was entirely new players (ages 20-35) and none had played anything like dnd. The only steering i did with them and their character creation was asking them questions about what kind of person they want to be or if they have any favorite fictional (or real) characters that they would like to use as a starting concept. One of the characters decided they wanted to be like Kimpossible, which was a great place to start from. Started showing them some of the more dextrous classes rogue, monk, ranger, fighter and letting them know what areas they would excel in. they narrowed it down to rogue or monk for her since she is pretty darn acrobatic and the like. Started talking to them about where they want their character to go and began weeding out subclasses that didn't jive with the things they wanted to be able to do and helped them narrow that list down to a couple options. Ended up with them choosing thief as where they wanted to go towards (we started lvl 1). We just got to level 3 and I posed similar questions I was asking during character creation to see if their plans were still going in a direction they enjoyed and they were happy with things so far and looked forward to using some of the thief skills to become a battlefield medic with fast hands and using potions on other players when not stabbing things in the kidneys.
Where I am going with this example is, try not to steer them, instead guide them. What do they think is cool, cool leads to fun especially if its something they are interested in. Ask them questions and give suggestions based on their answers. Even vague questions can be useful when they flesh out their reasoning. An example of this is giving advice on spell selections for casters. Asking if you want more supportive spells, attack spells, disruption spells, etc. Then taking their answer and showing them some of the options that would fall into that category, even giving them examples of ways it could be used in combat or out of combat. Create Bonfire is a good example of multiple potential uses like blasting enemies, setting a house on fire, creating a distraction before an ambush, or even helping to heat a home during a horrible blizzard.
Start by prying more information out of the player and inspire them to do things they find fun.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
That's brilliant!
Professional computer geek
If the class they want to play is lacking, fix it. I've tweaked a few things in my game already and I've only been back into D&D for a couple of years, mostly as a player. As an experienced DM used to experienced players, you should have the know-how to understand how to adjust the class or sub-class to suit your needs.
Listen to WHY your Nephew likes whatever class they're considering. Even a sub-par class might be fine for what THEY want to do with it. If, for example, they want more of the wire-fu style then blend the class with some of the other Monk abilities and build your own.
As long as the result isn't an OP Mary Sue type of thing, it's all good.