Hi legions , me and a group of friends just started collecting miniatures and dice . So we are not so sure which book to get to fulfil the DM position and just need a little help here thanks :)
Hi legions , me and a group of friends just started collecting miniatures and dice . So we are not so sure which book to get to fulfil the DM position and just need a little help here thanks :)
Since you're playing physically, I strongly recommend getting the Essentials Kit. It gives.you a printed adventure (L1-7), plus the same adventure and a further set of adventures that will take your characters to L13 on DDB. It also gives you a set of 11 dice which is great for character creation and general play (the quality of the dice are merely acceptable, but the extra 3d6 and d20 is actually really handy), it gives you a DM screen with cheat sheets on, a set of the basic rules and character creation rules. It also gives you cards for magic items. It's not the highest quality gear, but it's everything you need in the short term to play physically for substantially less than most adventures which last about as a long.
The Lost Mine of Phandelver is free on DDB, but obviously doesn't provide all those goodies and it sounds as though you've already somewhat committed to the game.
Once you know that you'll enjoy the game, I'd recommend getting the Player's Handbook. The Essentials Kit contains a voucher for 50% off of the PHB here in DDB. If you do use it, the Essentials Kit will almost have paid for itself. That will get you most of the rules, severalore races and surfaces, all but one of the classes and quite a few subclasses.
After that, it really depends on whether you're going to be doing published adventures or making your own, whether you'll be using DDB or physical books, etc.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Well for a start you should have the Player's Handbook. That's basically the main bible of D&D. It has all of the rules you need to make characters and play them through exploration and combat. The Dungeon Master's Guide has a bunch of stuff that is specifically helpful for DMs but not technically necessary (still really good to have if you're DMing). The Monster Manual is just a big book of all sorts of things for the player characters to fight, so it's good for the DM to have but other players don't need it at all. Other books that aren't adventure or campaign books just have more of the stuff that's in those three books (particularly the PHB): subclasses, playable races, feats, equipment and magic items, more spells, monsters, etc. Adventure/campaign books have pre-planned adventures for a DM to use as a script to run players through an adventure along with any and all information needed to do so outside of the basic rules, though the DM at least should be prepared to improvise when players inevitably do something that that script doesn't have planned out as that is the nature of the game. You can also feel free to make up your own adventures using material from the sourcebooks and your imagination because that's also the nature of the game: whatever you can imagine can have the basic rules applied to it and voila, you have a D&D game.
Also dice. You need dice. At a minimum one of each d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, and a percentile die (a d10 marked with multiples of 10, to be rolled with the regular d10 to get results from 1-100, in lieu of an actual 100 sided die for when something says to roll a d100). If you're like me just one basic set will never be enough and the best ones are metal.
If you are brand spanking new to D&D, I would advise you to NOT SPEND MONEY ON D&D. I would not even spend it on minis and dice, and just use chess pieces, LEGO minifigs, coins, etc. and Google's virtual dice instead. As Hooligan mentioned, all you really need is just the Basic Rules/SRD, and that is free. Despite what some people complain about or tell you, you do NOT need the latest and most expensive books to play D&D, and you sure as hell do not need the core rulebooks either. If you really want to spend money, spend that on a small business and support your local economy instead and order pizza or take out or something. I would only recommend spending money on the hobby after you have at least one or two campaigns under your belt, since you will know for sure by then whether you really like D&D as a hobby.
D&D and TTRPGs in general are extremely niche. Besides me and my friends, I have only met one person who plays D&D, and she is the reason why I got curious about D&D in the first place before introduced the game to my friends. I have not met anyone who plays D&D since. D&D simply is not a universally appealing game, and not everyone finds the idea of playing pretend around a table to be the definition of fun. Out of my group of a dozen friends, only half considered trying it out, and only four out of six continued to play the game. I do not want you nor your group to spend $100 on the core rulebooks and props only to find yourself not interested in the hobby after a session or two.
As for who should be the GM, it is generally the person who is most passionate about D&D who takes up that mantle. Often times, GMs will shoulder most of the financial cost too, but it does not have to be that way. Since you are the one out of your group of friends who bothered to even ask online on a forum, I assume you are very likely to be the most passionate one in the group.
When you first start out, having limited options is a good thing. The Basic Rules and SRD are honestly more than enough for a group of completely new players. From my experience, new players want to read about everything, and I made the mistake of buying the PHB and then the Legendary Bundle shortly after, and I basically overloaded my players with a shit ton of extra information that they simply do not need right off the bat when they are still learning. My first sessions zero took three sessions to finish.
Speaking of session zeroes, MAKE SURE TO HAVE ONE before every campaign, and continue to have them whenever necessary. Session zero is basically a formalized session where the group establishes expectations and boundaries. However, keep in mind that it does NOT have to be formal either, and there is nothing wrong with including a short session zero anytime during the campaign when you need a quick timeout to check on if everyone is doing okay. Generally speaking, off the top of my head, the most important things to talk about are: 1. Boundaries. Are there topics that make people uncomfortable (sex, racism, torture, etc.)? Even if the group wants to include these subjects, how in depth do people want to go? Do you really want to describe how you butcher an enemy's children in grisly detail and subject the enemy to extreme psychological distress, or would a simple statement without going into details like "I massacred the enemy's family to cause mental suffering" be sufficient? Are you okay with your character experiencing those issues and pain? Is there a safe word? 2. Play Style. Is the campaign more of a railroad (Pokémon, Fire Emblem), an open sandbox (Minecraft, Roblox), something in between (Runescape, GTA), arena/tournament (Soul Calibur, Mortal Combat), dungeon crawl (Vindictus, Diablo)? How important is roleplay? How important is combat? Are magic items common? Is min-maxing encouraged or discouraged? 3. Etiquette: What happens when a rule dispute shows up (usually the GM makes a temporary ruling call midsession, and the final ruling will be decided after the session after some research)? Is there a time limit for turns? Are cell phones allowed? What happens when a person does not show up, does someone else play their character, or is the character in the background but does not fight?
Hi legions , me and a group of friends just started collecting miniatures and dice . So we are not so sure which book to get to fulfil the DM position and just need a little help here thanks :)
Everything you need to get started is absolutely free here on DDB:
Hi legions , me and a group of friends just started collecting miniatures and dice . So we are not so sure which book to get to fulfil the DM position and just need a little help here thanks :)
Hello and welcome. Please see my sig for some free resources.
Hi legions ,
me and a group of friends just started collecting miniatures and dice .
So we are not so sure which book to get to fulfil the DM position and just need a little help here thanks :)
technically all you need to play is the basic rules: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules)
If you are brand new, it is very common to run a premade adventure like the following:
Other books that have good DM information
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Since you're playing physically, I strongly recommend getting the Essentials Kit. It gives.you a printed adventure (L1-7), plus the same adventure and a further set of adventures that will take your characters to L13 on DDB. It also gives you a set of 11 dice which is great for character creation and general play (the quality of the dice are merely acceptable, but the extra 3d6 and d20 is actually really handy), it gives you a DM screen with cheat sheets on, a set of the basic rules and character creation rules. It also gives you cards for magic items. It's not the highest quality gear, but it's everything you need in the short term to play physically for substantially less than most adventures which last about as a long.
The Lost Mine of Phandelver is free on DDB, but obviously doesn't provide all those goodies and it sounds as though you've already somewhat committed to the game.
Once you know that you'll enjoy the game, I'd recommend getting the Player's Handbook. The Essentials Kit contains a voucher for 50% off of the PHB here in DDB. If you do use it, the Essentials Kit will almost have paid for itself. That will get you most of the rules, severalore races and surfaces, all but one of the classes and quite a few subclasses.
After that, it really depends on whether you're going to be doing published adventures or making your own, whether you'll be using DDB or physical books, etc.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Well for a start you should have the Player's Handbook. That's basically the main bible of D&D. It has all of the rules you need to make characters and play them through exploration and combat. The Dungeon Master's Guide has a bunch of stuff that is specifically helpful for DMs but not technically necessary (still really good to have if you're DMing). The Monster Manual is just a big book of all sorts of things for the player characters to fight, so it's good for the DM to have but other players don't need it at all. Other books that aren't adventure or campaign books just have more of the stuff that's in those three books (particularly the PHB): subclasses, playable races, feats, equipment and magic items, more spells, monsters, etc. Adventure/campaign books have pre-planned adventures for a DM to use as a script to run players through an adventure along with any and all information needed to do so outside of the basic rules, though the DM at least should be prepared to improvise when players inevitably do something that that script doesn't have planned out as that is the nature of the game. You can also feel free to make up your own adventures using material from the sourcebooks and your imagination because that's also the nature of the game: whatever you can imagine can have the basic rules applied to it and voila, you have a D&D game.
Also dice. You need dice. At a minimum one of each d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, and a percentile die (a d10 marked with multiples of 10, to be rolled with the regular d10 to get results from 1-100, in lieu of an actual 100 sided die for when something says to roll a d100). If you're like me just one basic set will never be enough and the best ones are metal.
If you are brand spanking new to D&D, I would advise you to NOT SPEND MONEY ON D&D. I would not even spend it on minis and dice, and just use chess pieces, LEGO minifigs, coins, etc. and Google's virtual dice instead. As Hooligan mentioned, all you really need is just the Basic Rules/SRD, and that is free. Despite what some people complain about or tell you, you do NOT need the latest and most expensive books to play D&D, and you sure as hell do not need the core rulebooks either. If you really want to spend money, spend that on a small business and support your local economy instead and order pizza or take out or something. I would only recommend spending money on the hobby after you have at least one or two campaigns under your belt, since you will know for sure by then whether you really like D&D as a hobby.
D&D and TTRPGs in general are extremely niche. Besides me and my friends, I have only met one person who plays D&D, and she is the reason why I got curious about D&D in the first place before introduced the game to my friends. I have not met anyone who plays D&D since. D&D simply is not a universally appealing game, and not everyone finds the idea of playing pretend around a table to be the definition of fun. Out of my group of a dozen friends, only half considered trying it out, and only four out of six continued to play the game. I do not want you nor your group to spend $100 on the core rulebooks and props only to find yourself not interested in the hobby after a session or two.
As for who should be the GM, it is generally the person who is most passionate about D&D who takes up that mantle. Often times, GMs will shoulder most of the financial cost too, but it does not have to be that way. Since you are the one out of your group of friends who bothered to even ask online on a forum, I assume you are very likely to be the most passionate one in the group.
When you first start out, having limited options is a good thing. The Basic Rules and SRD are honestly more than enough for a group of completely new players. From my experience, new players want to read about everything, and I made the mistake of buying the PHB and then the Legendary Bundle shortly after, and I basically overloaded my players with a shit ton of extra information that they simply do not need right off the bat when they are still learning. My first sessions zero took three sessions to finish.
Speaking of session zeroes, MAKE SURE TO HAVE ONE before every campaign, and continue to have them whenever necessary. Session zero is basically a formalized session where the group establishes expectations and boundaries. However, keep in mind that it does NOT have to be formal either, and there is nothing wrong with including a short session zero anytime during the campaign when you need a quick timeout to check on if everyone is doing okay. Generally speaking, off the top of my head, the most important things to talk about are:
1. Boundaries. Are there topics that make people uncomfortable (sex, racism, torture, etc.)? Even if the group wants to include these subjects, how in depth do people want to go? Do you really want to describe how you butcher an enemy's children in grisly detail and subject the enemy to extreme psychological distress, or would a simple statement without going into details like "I massacred the enemy's family to cause mental suffering" be sufficient? Are you okay with your character experiencing those issues and pain? Is there a safe word?
2. Play Style. Is the campaign more of a railroad (Pokémon, Fire Emblem), an open sandbox (Minecraft, Roblox), something in between (Runescape, GTA), arena/tournament (Soul Calibur, Mortal Combat), dungeon crawl (Vindictus, Diablo)? How important is roleplay? How important is combat? Are magic items common? Is min-maxing encouraged or discouraged?
3. Etiquette: What happens when a rule dispute shows up (usually the GM makes a temporary ruling call midsession, and the final ruling will be decided after the session after some research)? Is there a time limit for turns? Are cell phones allowed? What happens when a person does not show up, does someone else play their character, or is the character in the background but does not fight?
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Everything you need to get started is absolutely free here on DDB:
To echo the great advice above, DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON D&D UNTIL YOU KNOW YOU LIKE IT.
Then get the “core three” books: The PHB, DMG, & MM.
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