Hey everyone, thanks for your patience with me going forward, you're going to need it! As my Title suggests, I'm BRAND NEW to D&D, my son and a few of his friends are avid players, and in an effort to build my relationship with my son, I agreed to join him in some adventures. But, I have no idea what I'm doing! They helped me build a character, it died a HORRIBLE death early on, unlucky roll for me and very lucky for the enemy attacking me, cest la vie. Now I have somehow managed to get my second character up to Level 2 status, still don't know how I did it, but I'm bumping along. So, I guess what I'm asking is, is there anyone out there with the patience to teach me at least a basic working knowledge of D&D? I have read through lots of pages, watched videos, tried building characters, but it just doesn't seem to be sinking in. I don't mind sharing my character sheets, building new ones with my new Tutor, even joining a game or two on here, as long as you're PATIENT!

I can help. You'll need discord and we can go over things if you like. So download discord and add me as a friend.

Avohei#1946

The one thing I've learned above all else with DnD is that no amount of research teaches as much as actually playing. I was in the same boat for a while and so anywhere I could possibly play I would. I've done in person games, games over Steam using Tabletop Simulator, text-based games in Discord using the avrae-bot, and have even looked into doing the play-by-post games right here on DDB. Another thing that helped me a lot was watching others play. Check out critical role's youtube and see them in action - it just really helps give an idea as to how everything works.

I'd say if you can join a play-by-post on here or even find a discord server that offers games, join those. The great thing I've seen with DnD is how helpful people are and how much they want you to learn so that they have one more person they can play with.

Tried adding you, no luck, it isn't finding you.

Instead of asking for a tutor on the internet: why don't you ask your son?

You sound like you want to play D&D because you want to have fun with him so he would probably the ideal tutor. :-)

The first few levels are really difficult, though. Especially if your DM runs official adventures as written, since those modules are often incredibly overtuned during the first two or so levels.

If you have some time, I would recommend watching the first few episodes of "Critical Role" on YouTube, just search for "Critical Role Season 2 Episode 1". They are really awesome and you should get a pretty good idea about D&D there. :-)

And maybe talk to your DM if he can go easy on you and help you a bit with all the rules (e.g. by pointing out possible actions during combat, like "this is a trained knight and he will probably cut you down with his next attack. You could use Disengage and move away from him so you stand behind your group's warrior who can then intercept the knight".)

Also, I would recommend you start as a Paladin or Cleric. They wear heavy armor and have a whole lot of healing spells / abilities, so surviving should be way easier. :-)

Oh, he is trying to teach me, he really is, but youth can only handle the shortcomings of us elder folk so long before their patience starts to wear. Which is why I'm here, if I can at least get a better working knowledge of the game, he can focus more on his role as a new DM and less on his future role of caring for his elderly father. LOL

FordOtwin#8320

Wasn't able to find you, I'm FordOtwin#8320 if you want to add me, or if anyone else does for that matter.

YouTube has a bunch of information, tutorials, walkthroughs, live play sessions you can learn from. Simply put in D&D 5e. 

Cudos to you!

My first thought was just the same as others said before me - watch videos - for instance Critical Role. However I see that you've already done that.

If it is the rules and mechanics you don't get. You could try the old fashioned way: Print out a blank character sheet, and try to build the character from scratch just using the Players Handbook (or the basic rules). That way you might get a little more understanding of what "hides" behind the numbers. (I'm guessing that you've built your characters using this site or an app). I think people on this site would be happy to answer questions when they arise!

I see that Paladin or Cleric was recommended. I also think fighter could be a good alternative. The spell casting classes requires a lot more "knowledge" of what your character can do than a fighter who's main thing in combat is hit enemies with something sharp.

You could also try your local game store (if you have one), or a shoutout on Facebook - perhaps you do know someone who plays RPG, and might sit down with you.

Is your character here on DDB?  If so, you could post a share link here—or in a private message to me or someone else who volunteers to help you—and we could offer some pointers. 

If you can make connections with Avohei on discord, that’s probably a better offer to pursue, but I’m happy to answer questions or try to give you a rundown of things here or by private message; I sort of prefer to do it in the forums because it benefits more people, but I’m willing to work by private message.  I could also do so through Discord, but it sounds like finding folks on Discord hasn’t worked for you.

Also, do you have specific things you know you struggle with, or are you struggling to grasp the over all concepts.  Or is it both?

I’d be happy to help as well. To be honest, for the most part the DDB Comunity is super friendly and helpful. I’m pretty sure that if you post a link to your character here and start asking questions about the parts you don’t understand you will have no shortage of people offering advice.

Here is my “abridged” advice though. Pick a race you like, pick a class you like, pick a background you like, put all the numbers on the character sheet wherever your son tells you to, and then just have fun. Your character doesn’t need to be “optimized” (all the best stats in all the right places), it just needs to be a character that you enjoy playing.

Start with a non-Magic user at first if you can. You can learn the basic rules that way and then add on the more complicated stuff on your third character.

Passing familiarity with Chapter 9 from the PHB will help you make decisions more easily in combat so things don’t get slowed down. Outside of combat you have way more time to look stuff up if you need to. If you focus your learning there in the beginning you will get a lot of “reward” (a lot of the most frequently used information) with the least amount of effort.