Recently I had watched some videos on DnD and became quickly enthralled by it. I wanted to learn all I could in order to play a session with my friends. Since I am decently creative I decided that I would DM and my friends could run through a campaign I created. We all got together and sat down to create characters and that's as far as it got. I watched probably 10-15 different videos on the character sheets and i still could not tell them how it all applied in game. We spent about 2 hours on the character sheets and never even finished. I printed out all types of material, bought all the books, and watched tons of videos. I even watched a step by step guide with them on how to plug in all the numbers to the sheets. But i cant find a video that actually gives detailed examples of how to use these numbers in the world. And im even further lost on casters. A friend of mine wanted to be a warlock and looked at her lvl 1 stuff and understood non of it. Our first session felt like a big failed attempt. I feel bad bc i roped them all into this and didnt realize how little i knew. Can anyone walk me through this step by step so i can understand what im looking at and how it applies to the actual game?
You could probably use the character creation tools right here on this site. It will walk you through a step by step system on creating a character. There are tooltips that will help you make your choices.
I would recommend that your players also take time to play around here on their free time.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
The character builder on D&D Beyond would definitely help, as it highlights what the choices are and populates the character sheet for you.
Warlocks are a popular choice, though I feel they are perhaps the most complex class, as invocations can change how the character plays so much.
Consider running the starter adventure "Lost Mines of Phandelver" - it does a good job of explaining to the DM how the early scenes involve and what rolls they might want to ask the players to make.
Did the players watch any RP videos? Or any character creation videos? As you said, there's tons out there, but many are conflicting. Try to avoid those "How to build the most bad-ass _____ player ever" builds, because they are so limiting, and then the players basically HAVE TO play them a certain way.
Stormknight's right, DND Beyond's character builder goes pretty step by step, but doing some prep work is good, since some backgrounds can offer abilities that you may have overlooked, or doubled up on.
As far as how those numbers are used in game, it depends. Fighters. etc need lots of strength, and anyone melee needs CON. Casters tend to need INT or CHA, if a Sorcerer or Warlock. Sneaky types and Rangers need DEX.There's numbers you can willingly lowball, to be better at something else.
Beyond that, climbing a wall needs an Athletics check, keeping a Concentration spell going after taking a hit requires a CON save, Poison requires a CON save, finding the hidden loot after a fight requires an Investigation check, being the night watch for your party requires an Perception check... Best thing is, nobody has to be awesome at everything. You can have dedicated Investigators, Healers, thieves, etc.
I have attempted the creation on here. I have made a warlock just to goof around, and so has 2 of my other friends. I think i spent too much time creating a campaign as opposed to learning how the stats affect gameplay.
Ive really been considering just printing off a couple of characters for my friends and then getting the starting adventure just so we can see how everything is done before doing the campaign i created.
I watched all the videos and i sent some videos for my friends to watch. more so based on the classes they picked. But i highly doubt they watched all the videos i sent lol.
My best advice is to invest a lot of hours into reading the players handbook. The DM guide is just that, a lot of guidance, but the rules and mechanics of the game are almost all in the PHB. It's long and you might get sleepy a lot. Read it in stages.
I suggest reading it like this, for speed and understanding:
Chapter 1 step by step characters, read it all.
Chapter 2 choosing a race, just the intro for now, skip the details of individual races.
Chapter 3 classes, skim the descriptions of each class, skip the details for now.
Chapter 4 personality and background, read all of it.
Chapter 5 equipment, read all of it.
Chapter 6 customization options. You can skip multiclassing for now and come back to it later, feats are optional but most groups use them, so read them.
Chapter 7 using ability scores, now you are learning the core rules. A lot of this will have been referenced in earlier chapters, thing start making all sorts of sense. Read all of it.
Chapter 8 adventuring, more important core mechanics, read it all.
Chapter 9 combat, you really need to read it all, at least one person in the group needs to be solid on how combat works, that person should be you.
Chapter 10 spell casting, read it all, its 5 pages and really important.
Chapter 11 spells, you can skip this, just reference spells as needed. Reading this start to finish is fun or mind numbing depending on your perspective.
That's all of it, then you can go back and check out races and classes, they will make way more sense once you understand the mechanics of the game.
As a player, PH is critical. I read chapters 1-5, decided to be a Warlock, so I read 10-11. Then, went back to read 7-9 to understand game play, after I knew "who I was."
There are a number of ways to get introduced to the game.
Having someone who has played before can help. Some local game stores run introduction to D&D sessions where you can go and they will introduce you to the game and run you through a short adventure.
Another good approach can be to obtain a reasonably good short adventure and use pre-generated characters to play through it. This requires some familiarity with the rules so can be a bit challenging for a first time DM. You could take one of the introductory mini campaigns like Lost Mines of Phandelver which has a reasonably good reputation and I think also comes with pre-generated character sheets as an option.
Finally, reading through the Players Handbook and possibly some parts of the Dungeon Masters Guide will likely help with putting the rules together in a playable context. Unfortunately, it is quite a bit of reading for the DM but it will help in the long run though the most important aspect is having fun and enjoying yourselves ... you don't need to get every detail of the rules precisely correct the first time around (though when you do find something you aren't doing right ... just fix it up later).
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Recently I had watched some videos on DnD and became quickly enthralled by it. I wanted to learn all I could in order to play a session with my friends. Since I am decently creative I decided that I would DM and my friends could run through a campaign I created. We all got together and sat down to create characters and that's as far as it got. I watched probably 10-15 different videos on the character sheets and i still could not tell them how it all applied in game. We spent about 2 hours on the character sheets and never even finished. I printed out all types of material, bought all the books, and watched tons of videos. I even watched a step by step guide with them on how to plug in all the numbers to the sheets. But i cant find a video that actually gives detailed examples of how to use these numbers in the world. And im even further lost on casters. A friend of mine wanted to be a warlock and looked at her lvl 1 stuff and understood non of it. Our first session felt like a big failed attempt. I feel bad bc i roped them all into this and didnt realize how little i knew. Can anyone walk me through this step by step so i can understand what im looking at and how it applies to the actual game?
You could probably use the character creation tools right here on this site. It will walk you through a step by step system on creating a character. There are tooltips that will help you make your choices.
I would recommend that your players also take time to play around here on their free time.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
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D&D Beyond FoundersThe character builder on D&D Beyond would definitely help, as it highlights what the choices are and populates the character sheet for you.
Warlocks are a popular choice, though I feel they are perhaps the most complex class, as invocations can change how the character plays so much.
Consider running the starter adventure "Lost Mines of Phandelver" - it does a good job of explaining to the DM how the early scenes involve and what rolls they might want to ask the players to make.
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If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
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Did the players watch any RP videos? Or any character creation videos? As you said, there's tons out there, but many are conflicting.
Try to avoid those "How to build the most bad-ass _____ player ever" builds, because they are so limiting, and then the players basically HAVE TO play them a certain way.
Stormknight's right, DND Beyond's character builder goes pretty step by step, but doing some prep work is good, since some backgrounds can offer abilities that you may have overlooked, or doubled up on.
As far as how those numbers are used in game, it depends. Fighters. etc need lots of strength, and anyone melee needs CON. Casters tend to need INT or CHA, if a Sorcerer or Warlock. Sneaky types and Rangers need DEX.There's numbers you can willingly lowball, to be better at something else.
Beyond that, climbing a wall needs an Athletics check, keeping a Concentration spell going after taking a hit requires a CON save, Poison requires a CON save, finding the hidden loot after a fight requires an Investigation check, being the night watch for your party requires an Perception check... Best thing is, nobody has to be awesome at everything. You can have dedicated Investigators, Healers, thieves, etc.
I have attempted the creation on here. I have made a warlock just to goof around, and so has 2 of my other friends. I think i spent too much time creating a campaign as opposed to learning how the stats affect gameplay.
Ive really been considering just printing off a couple of characters for my friends and then getting the starting adventure just so we can see how everything is done before doing the campaign i created.
I watched all the videos and i sent some videos for my friends to watch. more so based on the classes they picked. But i highly doubt they watched all the videos i sent lol.
My best advice is to invest a lot of hours into reading the players handbook. The DM guide is just that, a lot of guidance, but the rules and mechanics of the game are almost all in the PHB. It's long and you might get sleepy a lot. Read it in stages.
I suggest reading it like this, for speed and understanding:
Chapter 1 step by step characters, read it all.
Chapter 2 choosing a race, just the intro for now, skip the details of individual races.
Chapter 3 classes, skim the descriptions of each class, skip the details for now.
Chapter 4 personality and background, read all of it.
Chapter 5 equipment, read all of it.
Chapter 6 customization options. You can skip multiclassing for now and come back to it later, feats are optional but most groups use them, so read them.
Chapter 7 using ability scores, now you are learning the core rules. A lot of this will have been referenced in earlier chapters, thing start making all sorts of sense. Read all of it.
Chapter 8 adventuring, more important core mechanics, read it all.
Chapter 9 combat, you really need to read it all, at least one person in the group needs to be solid on how combat works, that person should be you.
Chapter 10 spell casting, read it all, its 5 pages and really important.
Chapter 11 spells, you can skip this, just reference spells as needed. Reading this start to finish is fun or mind numbing depending on your perspective.
That's all of it, then you can go back and check out races and classes, they will make way more sense once you understand the mechanics of the game.
As a player, PH is critical. I read chapters 1-5, decided to be a Warlock, so I read 10-11. Then, went back to read 7-9 to understand game play, after I knew "who I was."
There are a number of ways to get introduced to the game.
Having someone who has played before can help. Some local game stores run introduction to D&D sessions where you can go and they will introduce you to the game and run you through a short adventure.
Another good approach can be to obtain a reasonably good short adventure and use pre-generated characters to play through it. This requires some familiarity with the rules so can be a bit challenging for a first time DM. You could take one of the introductory mini campaigns like Lost Mines of Phandelver which has a reasonably good reputation and I think also comes with pre-generated character sheets as an option.
Finally, reading through the Players Handbook and possibly some parts of the Dungeon Masters Guide will likely help with putting the rules together in a playable context. Unfortunately, it is quite a bit of reading for the DM but it will help in the long run though the most important aspect is having fun and enjoying yourselves ... you don't need to get every detail of the rules precisely correct the first time around (though when you do find something you aren't doing right ... just fix it up later).