Hi. Just wanted to share my experience with 2 new players and me as DM.
I have prepared by making 4 pre-generated characters and very short dungeon with entrance and four rooms filled with bandits.
I have decided to give them pre-generated characters to learn basic game mechanics. After we have played this "tutorial" dungeon I will offer them chance to create their very own characters. I dont want to bore them out with all small details and get into action quickly. As someone saied starting D&D by creating character is like beginning skateboarding by building your own skateboard before you even know do you like skateboarding at all.
I will update this thread when we have played the session.
Definitely agree with having characters pre-made for players, but I think if you know what concept a player thinks they want to play, you could make them that in advance. Or just have a couple extra sheets for a little more variety.
I definitely found it helpful the first few games using premades before I took the plunge into playing with the character creator here on Beyond. Not having to worry about the how this character got their stats made it easier to learn the mechanics. :)
We just just finished our first game. (2 players + me as gamemaster)
- Players picked two of the pre-generated characters: fighter and rogue. We got game started very easily because all modifiers were calculated already.
- I forgot to pick up my whiteboard pencils with me so we used Pathfinder gridmat and lego blocks to draw walls, doors etc.
- First two hours we used to clear bandits from warehouse. Warehouse was filled with bandits and barrels of wine and characters spend lot of time playing with barrels. They lifted, throwed and smashed barrels for fun. They really loved to use improvised weapons and were not afraid to try many combat related things.
- I had no premade content prepared after first warehouse but they wanted immediately to play more so I improvised second warehouse that was quite same as first one. We spend about one hour with that.
- We had really fun! Lots of laughs.
- My players are hack & slash players for sure. They literally kicked in doors and charged towards enemies.
- I offered them chance to create new characters for next game but they wanted to continue with pre-made characters.
- For next game we will update characters sheets for level 2. They only asked for more monsters and traps for next game.
- We were talking about idea to restrict amount of short rests for each dungeon. For example 2 short rests per dungeon.
We just just finished our first game. (2 players + me as gamemaster)
- Players picked two of the pre-generated characters: fighter and rogue. We got game started very easily because all modifiers were calculated already.
- I forgot to pick up my whiteboard pencils with me so we used Pathfinder gridmat and lego blocks to draw walls, doors etc.
- First two hours we used to clear bandits from warehouse. Warehouse was filled with bandits and barrels of wine and characters spend lot of time playing with barrels. They lifted, throwed and smashed barrels for fun. They really loved to use improvised weapons and were not afraid to try many combat related things.
- I had no premade content prepared after first warehouse but they wanted immediately to play more so I improvised second warehouse that was quite same as first one. We spend about one hour with that.
- We had really fun! Lots of laughs.
- My players are hack & slash players for sure. They literally kicked in doors and charged towards enemies.
- I offered them chance to create new characters for next game but they wanted to continue with pre-made characters.
- For next game we will update characters sheets for level 2. They only asked for more monsters and traps for next game.
- We were talking about idea to restrict amount of short rests for each dungeon. For example 2 short rests per dungeon.
I think you can restrict short rests by adding risk or other limitations besides just 'you can only rest x times'.
What if instead you had the players roll whenever they took a rest, and then if they rolled a certain amount they had to deal with a random encounter?
Roll a d4 on the resulting rest ambush them. That's how I handle non plot encounters when my players travel(may or may not get attacked based on perception and how they react)
Hi. Just wanted to share my experience with 2 new players and me as DM.
I have prepared by making 4 pre-generated characters and very short dungeon with entrance and four rooms filled with bandits.
I have decided to give them pre-generated characters to learn basic game mechanics. After we have played this "tutorial" dungeon I will offer them chance to create their very own characters. I dont want to bore them out with all small details and get into action quickly. As someone saied starting D&D by creating character is like beginning skateboarding by building your own skateboard before you even know do you like skateboarding at all.
I will update this thread when we have played the session.
I played a loooonggggg time ago and decided to give it a try again. Being board of the other activities I have been doing and wanting some added socialization with new people. Your approach is quite good. I was stressed at all the modifiers and other info. Don't get me wrong, It was fun to a point but the time to play was short and with myself and a few others working on new characters (two new people including me) we pretty much stopped when the action started getting good due to that delay. I would have been happy reviewing a few p remade character sheets and choosing one to start. (the game was a one shot anyway) However, like your new players, I liked my character and would like to continue using him.
Definitely agree with having characters pre-made for players, but I think if you know what concept a player thinks they want to play, you could make them that in advance. Or just have a couple extra sheets for a little more variety.
I think that is something to consider. For a DM it should be trivial for a pre-made character sheet to be created and even easier with the tools on this site :D perhaps leave some of the personality and background (for DM Flexibility and to give the player some flexibility) but focus on the core components. ) In fact, that might even benefit the process as the DM would know the character sheets are solid and what they have while starting to be able to get to the meat of the game sooner. :D
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Hi. Just wanted to share my experience with 2 new players and me as DM.
I have prepared by making 4 pre-generated characters and very short dungeon with entrance and four rooms filled with bandits.
I have decided to give them pre-generated characters to learn basic game mechanics. After we have played this "tutorial" dungeon I will offer them chance to create their very own characters. I dont want to bore them out with all small details and get into action quickly. As someone saied starting D&D by creating character is like beginning skateboarding by building your own skateboard before you even know do you like skateboarding at all.
I will update this thread when we have played the session.
Definitely agree with having characters pre-made for players, but I think if you know what concept a player thinks they want to play, you could make them that in advance. Or just have a couple extra sheets for a little more variety.
I definitely found it helpful the first few games using premades before I took the plunge into playing with the character creator here on Beyond. Not having to worry about the how this character got their stats made it easier to learn the mechanics. :)
We just just finished our first game. (2 players + me as gamemaster)
- Players picked two of the pre-generated characters: fighter and rogue. We got game started very easily because all modifiers were calculated already.
- I forgot to pick up my whiteboard pencils with me so we used Pathfinder gridmat and lego blocks to draw walls, doors etc.
- First two hours we used to clear bandits from warehouse. Warehouse was filled with bandits and barrels of wine and characters spend lot of time playing with barrels. They lifted, throwed and smashed barrels for fun. They really loved to use improvised weapons and were not afraid to try many combat related things.
- I had no premade content prepared after first warehouse but they wanted immediately to play more so I improvised second warehouse that was quite same as first one. We spend about one hour with that.
- We had really fun! Lots of laughs.
- My players are hack & slash players for sure. They literally kicked in doors and charged towards enemies.
- I offered them chance to create new characters for next game but they wanted to continue with pre-made characters.
- For next game we will update characters sheets for level 2. They only asked for more monsters and traps for next game.
- We were talking about idea to restrict amount of short rests for each dungeon. For example 2 short rests per dungeon.
I think you can restrict short rests by adding risk or other limitations besides just 'you can only rest x times'.
What if instead you had the players roll whenever they took a rest, and then if they rolled a certain amount they had to deal with a random encounter?
Good idea Zorag_the_Mighty! I think I will create house rule for ambushes during rests.
Roll a d4 on the resulting rest ambush them. That's how I handle non plot encounters when my players travel(may or may not get attacked based on perception and how they react)
I played a loooonggggg time ago and decided to give it a try again. Being board of the other activities I have been doing and wanting some added socialization with new people. Your approach is quite good. I was stressed at all the modifiers and other info. Don't get me wrong, It was fun to a point but the time to play was short and with myself and a few others working on new characters (two new people including me) we pretty much stopped when the action started getting good due to that delay. I would have been happy reviewing a few p remade character sheets and choosing one to start. (the game was a one shot anyway) However, like your new players, I liked my character and would like to continue using him.
I think that is something to consider. For a DM it should be trivial for a pre-made character sheet to be created and even easier with the tools on this site :D perhaps leave some of the personality and background (for DM Flexibility and to give the player some flexibility) but focus on the core components. ) In fact, that might even benefit the process as the DM would know the character sheets are solid and what they have while starting to be able to get to the meat of the game sooner. :D