Video game mentality (healer+tank+dps), scamming NPCs for pennies, murderhobo stuff
Basically just trying to play skyrim or an mmo in dnd
I’ve only ran games online so far and these were the most disruptive new player behaviors, but thankfully they have been easy to get over
Yup this. And to add to that, unless they’re a writer, artist, or voracious fantasy reader (in general), most new players I’ve gotten have trouble recognizing they’re playing in a living word and either don’t interact or think they can only do what’s on their sheet.
The hero’s journey utilizes a mentor at the start of the adventure, since the viewers have no idea about the story and world yet so they need this mentor to help them - maybe it’s a good idea to steal this and have the mentor offer them a solution but in a way emphasize that it’s not the best one
For example the “quest giver” tells them that if you blow up the cave you end the goblin threat, but the innocents they have captured will also die - and then ideally if your players engage in rp they wouldn’t want that, but even if they’re all out of options they have something that’s obviously not the best solution but at least there’s something to cling on
And then if they do blow the cave up you give them those heavy consequences from other NPCs “my parents were in there! You were supposed to save them!” It’s light mental torture, but it’s pretty effective in making them think “maybe we should have saved the innocents first”
This can happen with experienced players too if they are unsure about the situation or they are no clear hooks. Not saying it must be the DMs fault, but it definitely can be on the DM. I try to often provide 2-3 prompts and end with "...or anything else that comes to your mind" or something like that. I often also adress one player in particular instead of the group, that also helps.
The thing with the sheet needs also worked on by the DM. I try to hammer it in to not look on your sheet to decide and whenever someone says something like " I roll athletics to do XY" I answer "please tell me what your character wants to do in the narrative and how they does it, what is their approach, their angle. I decide if you need to roll something and what to roll if yes" Exceptions are of course specific actions like casting a spell or channel divinity
I disagree. People in real life can and do try to use their talents to solve problems, if possible. The number on the sheet are what they are because the player already made tradeoffs during character building, and the character sheet effectively is serving as a guideline in what you want your character to excel and what not. Generally this will match up with the character they decided to play, so there's no contradiction.
Playing deliberately *against* your strengths is possible, but that's rather advanced roleplaying and not something that first time players need to try out immediately - in particular because the game also has a base assumption of striving for a goal, in team, and by gimping yourself for the lulz or for RP reasons, you're letting the team down. Unless they agreed it was going to be this kind of game, but that's session zero stuff and not something to burden first timers with.
People in real life have not spread their talents over a handful of skill checks and some class feats that are almost all only relevant in combat. The sheet is an abstraction, if you only look at it for ideas, you will get only abstract ideas. Whenever you are in a problem in real life you think about the specific, concrete problem and not yourself (except if the problem is yourself ofc.). When players always look at their sheet they get insanely uncreative, because they only see the 3-5 skills they are proficient with and get really limited with their ideas, because they want to try to solve everything with their 3-5 buttons. They begin to videogame the game which sucks because it is not a videogame. Since I changed my opinion which was similar to yours a few years back and changed the game the way I described my previous comment - the game and the roleplay become much, much better.
>People in real life have not spread their talents over a handful of skill checks and some class feats that are almost all only relevant in combat. The sheet is an abstraction, if you only look at it for ideas, you will get only abstract ideas. Whenever you are in a problem in real life you think about the specific, concrete problem and not yourself (except if the problem is yourself ofc.).
No, when *I* have a problem I try to find the best way in which *I* can address it with the resources that *I* have. I don't care that the optimal way to get out of a burning building is to knock the glass window to pieces with a fire hammer, *if I have no fire hammer*.
Remember that the whole point of roleplaying is to experience how different characters arrive at different solutions for the same problems because of their different methods. Yes, you can add a layer of preference over it, but Willy the Wizard is going to use his spell of Unlock rather than the sledgehammer to bash the door in, even if you're RPing him as an aggressive guy.
>When players always look at their sheet they get insanely uncreative, because they only see the 3-5 skills they are proficient with and get really limited with their ideas. They begin to videogame the game which sucks because it is not a videogame. Since I changed my opinion which was similar to yours a few years back and changed the game the way I described my previous comment - the game and the roleplay become much, much better.
If you want to roleplay, why are you still using a system that is 90% focused on combat?
Classic "I roll to investigate...Nat 20! You *have* to tell me what it says now!" when the illeterate barbarian picks up a demilich's spellbook written in infernal.
Sorry, this is really long. TLDR, don't try to inflate prices because your players have more money, tell your players to roll insight when they want to haggle and make it plain to them that the NPCs are not trying to fleece them.
I don't know how this is for others, but here are several reasons why I haggle:
- I have had several experiences where my DMs didn't understand the value of money in their own world and unintentionally tried to scam me in my opinion. It doesn't matter how much money I have, I'm not paying 10gp for a kg of grain when no NPC would pay that amount. I wouldn't buy a normal ice-cream for €10000 if I were a billionaire, that's just wasteful. Prices of goods going up because PCs have more money reduces the legitimacy of the world. PCs don't live in a private inflationary bubble and taking the latter approach makes it feel as if the NPCs are trying to fleece them.
- in most markets of the style that I've played in (medieval) I'd expect haggling to be the norm. If you don't think that that's true, speak with your PCs.
- your PCs don't know that they're being given normal prices, they are not you, so I usually assume that a shopkeeper is going to see a rich adventurer and slap on a premium, which I don't like. If your PCs are haggling when always being presented normal prices, ask them to roll insight or something to determine whether the NPCs are trying to fleece them or not.
- the interactions I get with NPCs by haggling are often the most "real" in the sense that they are completely relatable. I have no idea how my characters would actually feel if their friends died or if they killed a mythical evil dragon overlord, I have no experience in either. I do know how it feels to have been screwed over in a deal and how it feels to have gotten a good one. I can play my characters more authentically when haggling than I can when trying to RP the emotions experienced and words said when the drunken cleric fails in trying to bring back Agamemnon the snail who held the key to defeating the BBEG, which was stepped on by one of his goons and now the world is fucked.
> I wouldn't buy a normal ice-cream for €10000 if I were a billionaire
I've experienced this in game too. 1gp for a pint of ale? My character took offense and walked out.
> PCs don't live in a private inflationary bubble
While in principle I agree with your whole comment, some adventures and adventuring parties realistically would have a Mansa Musa effect on their surroundings. Claim a dragon's hoard, become ridiculously wealthy, spend lavishly and make the entire town wealthy...and then suddenly everyone in town raises prices because *everyone* is sweating diamonds as a result of the adventurers.
This is a great way to impart un-fun realism into your game, though. Unless your party is composed of EVE Online players.
That's true, I made an absolute statement and your counterexample is completely valid. I'd extend my argument in this case to include the conditional: if travelling in the world of your PCs is easy (i.e. they travel around), if they are not always buying at the same town or if they themselves don't exhibit lavish spending habits.
If your PCs spend lavishly then I'd also suspect that they don't haggle, since those two properties are at least partially mutually exclusive.
One reason they would be spending lavishly is because of the inflation. If the private inflationary bubble isn't forced upon the players by the DM, then the town really wouldn't get enough wealth spread around through regular adventuring activities. Another five people buying potions, food, and a bed for the night isn't likely to meaningfully affect an economy.
The biggest issue I have with this is that the Dnd economy is notoriously difficult to manage because of a lack of standardized prices and a huge disparity between PC and NPC access to wealth.
>Tell your players to roll insight when they want to haggle and make it plain to them that the NPCs are not trying to fleece them
I really agree here; I do think haggling has a place in dnd if your pc would want to scam someone, intuits that someone is trying to scam them, or the vendor doesn't know the value of what they have etc., but I wouldn't do it just bc you think the scale of the cost is inaccurate.
>PCs don't live in a private inflationary bubble
You may be the only person in that market who could pay 10GP for something mundane and so you don't want to, but you're also the only person who can loot a dragon's horde, so why bother shopping at all if you'd rather have all prices be insignificant to you; just play without rations, or monetary rewards need to be pretty limited.
>DMs didn't understand the value of money in their own world
Haggling for this reason is weird because the DM chose to give you access to the quantity of money you have. A monetary reward is meant to represent what you can gain for that money and the cost of an item represents what it is worth to you as a player; if the party is going to need x amount worth of rations, a y priced magic item, or z amount for a bribe, I can give them the opportunity to earn that much, or if I want something to be a significant drain to your resources, it's cost can be proportionate to those resources. With that said, I don't think you should just inflate every price as you get more money, and for a seasoned adventurer, buying rations shouldn't be hard, but there should be other items worth buying if you're getting a lot of gold.
While it is fair to want your DM to balance the economy and rewards for you, it's pretty boring and difficult to maintain an economy in Dnd, and as a DM and a person, I'd much rather spend my planning time on elements other than item cost and job reward. If your DM is your friend, would you really rather that they spend hours over spreadsheets every time you want to hit the market or get paid for a job?
Plus, the harder you make it for your DM to price things, the less likely they'll be to have interesting things for sale.
TLDR: Dnd isn't a video game or real life; the cost of things should be proportionate to YOU the player's ability to get them, and requiring that your DM micromanage the economy is a big boring task you're assigning to someone else. I'm not saying it should get totally tossed out the window, but I don't think it should be something you need to investigate too deeply
I wholeheartedly agree that the DnD economy is difficult to manage, DMing a global or even local economy accurately with the input given by the DM guide is a really tough job.
I think you have the wrong impression about the point at which I advocate haggling for game logic or inflationary bubble reasons:
I don't haggle in character when I think that the scale of costs is wrong, I speak to my DMs directly and usually out of session unless they are inflating a price accidentally by literally 25000% (10gp per kg instead of 4cp, I needed 50 kg which would have been all of my characters money). That particular example felt really annoying because my character needed the grain for RP reasons (baker) and bread was always available at the standard prices (a couple of coppers), so it was clearly only I who was getting fleeced (though my DM claimed he didn't realize that he was doing this but wouldn't lower prices in session). Grain costs went up between towns as I got money, despite travelling to different kingdoms so I went 8 sessions without baking my second batch of bread because I didn't want to cause a scene at the table by haggling for 30 minutes for a kg of grain.
\^ this is also what I meant by "DM doesn't understand the value of money in their own world". The raw ingredients for something where I can buy the product easily and everywhere should not be extremely rare and should not be several times the cost of the common thing I can buy.
I don't advocate for making 50% of my DMs job coming up with the costs of items I may or may not want, I don't think that players should haggle when buying items which amount to less than 0.5% of their net worth (which should be most common items) for non-RP reasons.
I do think that DMs should put a little thought into what they reward their players with though. You as the DM know how difficult you want to make the acquiring of items for your players. If you want buying a kingdom to be difficult, don't give them a billion plat, if you want buying a castle to be difficult, don't give them 200000 GP, want to make buying magic items or consumables difficult? You know how much those will cost, how much your players will approximately need, don't give them more than 20 times as much money as they need if you want buying to be a challenge, otherwise you'll have to . If you don't want them to be able to afford a sack of grain, don't give them 4 cp.
I disagree with your statement about the world scaling to me as the player where economy is concerned. The prices of things shouldn't change, the things a player buys should change - i.e. you start buying the more expensive potions because you need the more expensive potions. This obviously transcends potions and applies to magical items, scrolls, tomes, tattoos, whatever. To ME specifically as a player I find a scaling world extremely frustrating. If the purchasing power of my overall wealth barely changes when I get that dragon's hoard (because a DM inflates all prices commensurately), then why would my character go through the trouble of trying to find a dragon's hoard, putting himself and his friends in danger. DnD isn't a videogame, there are so many more things you can do with money in this game and if a DM gives their players too much money, then there are more elegant, fun and interactive solutions of dealing with that than by just inflating prices:
Scenarios:
1) your players are good-aligned and have too much money. Have representatives of some worthy cause (orphanage, almshouse, center for taking care of mistreated gnomes, whatever) approach them and explain that they really need a certain amount of money to feed people or do whatever it is they do and that they'd be extremely grateful if the party could support their cause. Maybe have your player's names inscribed on that \[institution\] to reward them somehow.
2) Your players are evil and have too much money: Have the city watch fine them and put them in jail, have a crime-lord rob them of part of their money, approach them with a seemingly great investment opportunity and then have the instigators run away with all of the investment, make it a plot thing.
3) Neither of the above sound fun to you? No problem, don't just give your players all of the magical items they need, make them buy them or make them pay to have them crafted. You still want them to do go onto adventures for those items? Make them get the parts: that dagger they want needs the horn of a dragon and the tears of a mermaid, but the mermaid's tears have to be fresh and gathered by the future wielder of the dagger.
TLDR: I agree with you on many points, explained why I won't back down on grain and disagree on scaling economies because they devalue player effort - I also gave some examples of why I think excess money in DnD should be used for.
No idea. I have had so many "money hungry" PC's that will waste half a game session trying to save 8 copper when they have a 100 gold payday on deck. I've actually had a table where the players were so worried about getting the best deals on gear and wasted so much time that once they finally went to track down the bounty target they met another adventuring group who had already bagged the bad guy and were turning him over to the guards. Congrats on saving a gold piece, it only cost you a paycheck.
Every time I play with new players "okay so if we gather all these dead bandits weapons and Armor and sell it..."
I usually give them a choice of they don't do this penny pinching or we track carry weight. Discussion is usually over right there
I don't remember if it's the DMG or PHB that says post-battle loot is usually too damaged to be worth anything. But threatening with carry weight is probably a more guttural reaction for most parties XD
That's similar to what I told my players. "I'll give you two options. One, you can gather and resell all the enemy's gear... but I'll be making that part of the loot. Or two, we can assume that their gear is mostly junk and I'll only point out when it isn't. Magic weapons and armor will be flagged for you, but you don't need to fence every Bandit's half-rotten boots. From your perspective, it will be exactly the same except I'll be wasting time calculating the value of their junk and you'll be wasting time trying to sell it."
Saves me a hellova lot of time.
To the video game mentality, one of my players wanted to kite, and froze up when he realized the grick he was trying to goad into chasing him attacked the nearest PC instead. He told me I broke his brain because he didn't consider there was no algorithm set up to make him the target of choice.
There is a way to draw aggro for sapient, prideful enemies: insulting them. In my experience as a DM and player, it works a decent amount of the time. Video games call the mechanic taunt for a reason.
I'm kind of the opposite when it comes to money. I enjoy the shopping episodes and the haggling and the scamming stuff. (As a player and dm). I track carry weight so if the player wants to take stuff back they can choose to do that. Plus I don't like the idea of something that happens at 1st level being totally ignored at even early tier 2 since character ability to do those things improves.
But I can understand why some tables might not find it fun
Yep, I've experienced so many of these types of behaviors. This is from a previous post of mine, but it highlights how extensive they really are:
* inside the box thinking - the only way through the room filled with goblins is to kill them all
* treating NPCs as dialogue trees without intelligence, thoughts, emotions or motives
* the town is a video game level, complete with blocked alleyways, expressionless NPCs, and a couple quest givers and only a handful of buildings you can enter
* we can just fast travel!
* the idea of "grinding" for xp
* thinking about gold only in terms of what they can buy in a store
* treating combat like a numbers game rather than another chance to express your character's identity or try cool shit (which in turn blinds people via min maxing and optimization at the expense of everything else)
* less focus on lore and history
* metagaming rest mechanics
* the idea of "respawns"
* the idea that a dungeon will scale to the player's level
* stupid enemies that just auto-attack
* skyrim style inventory management (carry as much junk as you can)
* skyrim style reselling (the Smith back on the village will totally buy all of these dull, rusty goblin blades for tons of cash)
* but I rolled a 20 for persuasion!
* darkvision means I can see in the dark
Some of these are more common than others, for sure, but all of them stem from behaviors learned from years of playing video games.
A good player will learn to "unlearn" these behaviors, and in turn, enjoy the game to its fullest.
I have an aspiring tank and pickpocket player. His pickpocketing sucks and annoys everyone at the table. But dude is killing it with his tank build. At level 4 he plans to have 20 con (rolled 18), he has 19 ac due to chainmail, shield and defensive fighting style.
Tank usually implies the ability to force focus on oneself rather than allies, not just "heavy armor". Attacks of Opportunity can force this, Paladins get Compelled Duel, but that's about it. What's stopping the enemies from just ignoring the Beefcake and focusing the Wizard/Cleric?
Not saying to ruin the players' fun (*Absolutely* put the party in a narrow tunnel at least once so this guy can body-block a horde of goblins for the party), but just worth keeping in mind if they get "too good" at their role.
When I was new, the hardest part was learning how real 'role playing' worked. I had played many RPG video games already, mainly JRPGs, which very rarely gave me any real choices as a player. So when I heard a DM say 'What would your character do?,' I had no idea how to answer that.
This is the answer. I've been playing a couple of years now (i've dmed just 1 campaing), and most players just doesn't know how to interact with this imaginary world. Luckily, this is easily fixable by just playing, so thats what i tell them: "Just play, try to participate and have fun, the role playing will come along".
I agree the best way to learn is to play, but it will still help to use a session 0 to clear up some misconceptions people may have from playing video game RPGs.
I agree, I just tell my group of new players “it’s no different than you right now…. If I said ‘go get me a glass of water?’ How would you respond?” … “what do you do when you enter a house? Do you take off your shoes? Do you go sit on the couch?” Now enter the brain of this character that you made and say to yourself “what would they do?” when presented with stimuli in a fantasy world like a tavern bartender asking if they’d like a drink, a goblin holding a creature hostage to save its own skin, or finding a magical object in a cave their exploring.
If they don’t know then have them spend time actually fleshing out the characters personality and the best tip is to make a character who is similar to yourself unless you believe yourself a good actor. Don’t make shy or problematic characters. You want someone who will work well with a group.
And if they really wanna be good they should practice a little by thinking of common situations for adventurers and brainstorming how their dwarven cleric would respond.
> If they don’t know then have them spend time actually fleshing out the characters personality and the best tip is to make a character who is similar to yourself unless you believe yourself a good actor.
This is what I tell my wife. She enjoys the fantasy combat and feeling like a hero, but overthinks the roleplay. Just roleplay as "yourself, but with magic/combat training/wilderness skills/[your class here]" if you don't wanna dive headfirst into writing your own high fantasy backstory.
It was this for me, and also never getting to put a word in edgewise anyway, because my party consisted of guys who'd been playing for like 20 years or something and did voices and everything. They're good players, and I'm holding my own a bit better now, but it was unbelievably frustrating for a really long time. I basically only talked when it was like "I roll to hit the dude in the back, I guess" during combat.
One of my friends is just a really charismatic type, and he has a habit of taking charge of the conversation whether or not he really should be.
One time our DM friend told him “since when is the Druid the face of the party? You have a paladin right there!”
> mainly JRPGs, which very rarely gave me any real choices as a player
The fact that they're called RPGs is travesty, along with all the crpgs that are just glorified combat simulators with no narrative decision making.
It makes it so hard to find actual RPG game where you play a role (think vampire:bloodlines, piranha bytes games, witcher), when most people mean 'equipment has pointless stats and numbers go up' when they say RPG.
Would be useful, though to be fair I'm not a fan when there's no mechanics, just like I don't like when there's no roleplaying to be made.
It's like a good kebab - if there's too little meat then it's just a salad wrap, if there's too little veggies then you will get meat shits. A good kebab has balance.
I honestly don't understood your comment. I answered to you because you said that JRPGs being called RPGs is a travesty.
I mean those games, that have roleplaying only in the mechanical sense and are basically no full roleplay experiences. Thats what I would like a specific name for.
I actually find it quite depressing how the human imagination appears to be dying.
Your answer makes me sad.
Some of us have been pushing against restrictions and boundaries, longing for freedom from the boxes our minds are put into. The liberation presented by free and open choice is an event to be celebrated.
But for most? They've lost the ability to perceive reality outside of the box. To them, the box is the universe and there is nothing outside. When allowed to leave the box, they just... Go all Plato Cave.
And that is sad.
I've been DMing a homebrew campaign for about 3 years now, so I'm out of the box. I think most players don't have trouble using their imagination once the roleplaying aspect of the game is explained to them. D&D wouldn't have seen the surge in popularity the last 10 years if people weren't eager to use their imagination.
The staggering amount of rules.
For most people, D&D is the most complicated game they have ever, and will ever, play. By far.
It might seem approachable and intuitive to veteran players and hardcore gamers, but to most newcomers the Players Handbook is as arcane and intimidating as a wizards spell book.
This really can't be understated. People who want to spend their limited free time having fun playing a game usually don't envision poring over complex rules or reading a huge book first. Trying to get into it is very difficult and often frustrating, it's a big reason why many people drop off after playing just one or two sessions, and why the game designers keep trying to simplify and streamline mechanics to the chagrin of more hardcore players.
Facts. And speaking from experience, when I was new to ttrpg's my first game was 3.5 and shortly after that, Pathfinder. Both systems are pretty dense in terms of feats, class abilities, archetypes, subclasses, etc, the idea of building a character was just so overwhelming without being able to understand how all these things linked together. Having a good and patient DM who can guide you through is key.
I learned 3.5e and then immediately after BAM 5e, get that spreadsheet shit outta here, bonuses and negatives to certain actions? Nah fuck that roll two dice, math is for nerds. Only reason I think I was able to pick it up so fast is because my autistic ass spent my free time for the better part of a week reading the PHB and DMG front to back so I was prepared at sessions.
I don’t think half of my table has read the phb outside of when they’re making characters and equipment tables. After a few years they actually learned all the rules just from experience. It was a wild moment when the “always unoptimized monk” guy at the table was perfectly explaining sneak attack and cunning action and how they work in the action economy to a new guy. Like dude you’ve never played rogue and it took me an hour to explain how moonbeam worked to you once
One of the cool things about introducing new players is just dropping them in. You explain the character sheet for awhile and talk about a few important class features.
“Alright time to start”
“But I don’t know the rules?”
“Just tell me what your character is doing. You can do whatever you want. I’ll explain specific stuff when it comes up.”
Their minds are blown. After a few sessions they’ll either be rule lawyers or roleplay guys in my experience.
I learned most of what I learned from watching YouTube content like VLDL’s NPC DnD(now adventures in Azerim) and dimension 20. Which helped understand how the characters role played and then how they used their character sheets (particularly early episodes of adventures in azerim). Then when I sat down and played, I chose a simpler class (barbarian) and used DnD beyond to build out the sheet. And just started playing. It was easy as can be. Then when I finally bought the PHB, DMG, xanathars, Tasha’s, etc, it felt less daunting because I kinda had an idea about what I was looking at.
My most recent couple of characters were sorcerers and rogues and started planning out feats and skill increases and all the little bells and whistles that I would have been intimidated by early on.
I think it’s really tough if you just go to a game store, buy the PHB and try to work it out from there. Understanding what background is vs sub class, how do I figure out my skill bonuses (initial googling often times demonstrates how to calculate the roll, not the bonus) etc etc.
So having context from actual play videos was invaluable for me.
I honestly think with a good DM and a couple of patient players, someone can learn to play it by playing it. It helps if it's a game starting at level 1. DM helps the player to create his sheet and explain each little bit. When I do that, I usually give a very brief explanation of the classes, but then go "think about some character type from medieval fantasy you'd like to roleplay". It's very common that new players will come up with some crazy ideas which are actually more fun than veterans min-max a build. Lend them a set of dives and ask them to keep in order from the smallest to the biggest, so it's easier to remember which one is which one.
Then on the first gaming session, have a roleplaying scene, and then a quick and easy combat. What I have had to this day so far is that I ask "what do you do?" Without actually making the newcomer reading a huge book or explaining a LOT is that he will try wild unexpected things , and then you can, slowly, tell him what that means within the rules.
New players should be guided by more experienced players and the DM. Their action economy should be explained so that know what they can do in a turn and over time they can figure out the extent of what they do. 5e is easy to comprehend compared to earlier editions and it's way more new player friendly. I think sone players think they have to read the entire rulebook but that's not needed. Simple questions like what do you want to do, be upfront fighting, be a shield for your team, use magic, or support your team really cut down on taking in unneeded information in the beginning.
Very much this, IMO. When I was getting my partner into it I had to make her a really easy to digest cheat-sheet of what she could do with her character during her turns.
I think the cool part about DND is that the DM can teach while playing pretty well. You can start by taking over a lot of the mechanics for the players or prompt them to do certain rolls, introducing more complexity as the players learn.
For example it's enough to say " I wanna hit that guy" and your DM can prompt every roll, so a player who has no idea about the combat system can still do combat.
I really wouldn't stress about reading everything if it's overwhelming. Read basic combat, read what your skills do, read resting rules and spellcasting. You're good to go for 90% of the game. Rest DM explains when it comes up.
The big amount of reading comes in when you start really getting into character building and optimization
I agree with you so hard!! It’s turned me off DnD actually, it’s become like playing bridge.
I want a game where character creation is fast and simple, where combat is fast and elegant. Gues I just want it fast and easy.
I'm an alumni member of a university TTRPG club and this is honestly one of the reasons why I try to reassure new members to not worry too much if they don't get a space in the D&D group. D&D is a complex system and while GMs and experienced members will be there to help out, learning other systems is still a daunting prospect for a lot of newer members. I think it's one of the reasons PbtA systems remain popular because it's easier to convince people to branch out if we have some options where mechanical side of character gen can be done quick enough to get some game time during week 1.
One thing I've been enjoying running Pathfinder 2e is the sheer volume of community tools available.
I don't think any of my players have read much of anything about the rules. They put together characters in Pathbuilder and FoundryVTT and were able to build functional players.
The neat thing is really only the dm needs to know the rules, they can either apply a players vague ideas to rules or guide them through options (you can attack, dodge, or cast a spell now) etc
I'm a Mommy DM, and when introducing new players to the hobby what scares them the most is creating the character. Too many options and rules to play something that you won't know if you like can be seen as a waste of time, so I wait for the stars to align and we do group PCs during session 0.
I have a series of questions that I ask new players, from the Young Adventurers Guides.
It helps guide towards what class they should play, then we just look at the table from the beginning of the phb with the six main ability scores where it lists which classes each ability is important for, and which races get bonuses to those stats, that way they just choose one of the races listed.
Then we just follow the quick build suggestions in the class section.
Yeah, I did this for many sessions zero, I already have a script put together that flows well. The PCs end up being family or share a common goal, there were times when at the same table there were antagonists from other PCs like "I must get the McGuffin before Bob to show him that my clan is better" or shit like that. Very organic
Could you please dm me your script? I will be dming for the first time for a group of players that have never played dnd and would love to know how more experienced dms do their session 0.
First, sorry for spelling mistakes, English is not my native language.
What I usually do in session zero is send them a doc with an introduction to the adventure they are going to play, perhaps it can destroy the suspense of what the story holds but showing them a thread to pull will help them create characters related to the story and that they know where they stand.
Using Lost Mine of Phandelver as an example, the introduction can talk about the NPC that begins the adventure (the dwarf merchant Gundren Rockseeker), the mystery surrounding the Forge of Spells (the McGuffin of the adventure) and the dangers that lurk in the region. (the goblinoid tribes, the orc raiders, the undead). Starting with context makes them start to work their imagination.
After having chatted about the adventure and answered questions, I usually do:
- Classes: In general, ask the PCs how they want to play and from there you recommend their respective classes, obviously you are going to have to understand each class. Does one want to function as a tank? barbarian or paladin, does another want to focus on manipulating the battlefield? monk and druid. It's a talk, ask questions and take your time.
What you want to play?
What you want to wield? (Equipment related)
How you want to play this class? (Subclass related)
- Races: The majority usually adapt their race to the class they chose, so it is something that they must read and understand. Give them the options they have, let them read and choose, but make it clear that there are races that carry a social weight. Tieflings and Orcs are races frowned upon due to their reputation, lore is important.
- Backgrounds: The last step before connecting the dots and creating the story, this should be the centerpiece of what the character is like. Asks questions related to class and race:
So being a human paladin, how did you get this divine connection? Was it by witnessing the horrors of war as a soldier, or by finding value in sacrifice by being the hero of your village?
You are a tiefling rogue, explain to me if you got your versatile abilities by fighting to survive on the streets as a vagabond... or were you perhaps recruited by a thieves guild?
- Feats: Perfect opportunity to add flavor and make your characters feel a little more powerful. I allow my players to choose a feat at lvl 1, I give them access to a doc with feats and they choose. Allowing them access to these tools after they have gone through the process of creating a character focusing on the story makes them choose feats related to the story. Perhaps the human paladin folk hero seeks feats related to protecting and sacrificing his life for others, or the tiefling rogue chooses feats focused on theft or enhancing his surprise attacks.
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With those four steps you already have a zero session of a couple of hours. The PCs have the skeleton of a personal story, they need to add statistics and numbers, always trying to make the PCs take into account creating characters within the region in which the adventure takes place. Using LMoP as an example, the paladin may be looking to join the Order of the Gauntlet (a faction stationed in Phandalin) or Gundren Rockseeker once helped the rogue with his debts and now owes him his life.
Think that you are playing with friends, do not behave like a director but like a host who is inviting people to his house to eat snacks. It doesn't have to be a task, if you conduct the session as a chat with friends, everything will be more organic and interesting.
The paladin will feel obligated to protect Phandalin from bandits who threaten his villagers, since he was also once a farmer oppressed by someone stronger. The rogue will feel the kidnapped of the one who saved him in the past as more than just a plothook to kill some goblins, it will be a way of returning a favor.
Yeah I like to do at least one session with prebuilt characters as a little intro.
Having complete newbies start by making a character is very demanding, and one of the big hurdles to get into the game, but it is also really important to have good characters because you're gonna be playing them for months.
Prebuilt characters are the way! If I'm teaching somebody who has never played before, I come to the table with a dozen or so premade sheets that cover the basic stereotypes and mechanically simplest classes (a dwarf barbarian, elven ranger, human fighter, halfling rogue.) I'll ask them who their favorite character is from Lord of the Rings (or The Princess Bride, or some other iconic fantasy book/movie). Then I hand them a corresponding premade character sheet and wham, we're ready to play in under ten minutes.
If they end up wanting more, I'll sit down and walk them through the full character creation process, but when you're introducing a player to the game, keep it simple and get to the fun stuff ASAP.
one thing I've found helps new players with "what die is that?" is having color-coded dice instead of a matching set. "Roll a d20" "Which one is that?" "The red one." "Now roll a d10" "Which one is that?" "the blue one" or whatever. It obviously breaks down if your player is colorblind, but otherwise, I think it helps new players get used to the die shapes.
Pointless online argument time: what color do you think each die should be?
Here's my picks, based on absolutely nothing but vibes:
- D20: sky blue
- D12: purple
- D10: black
- D100: white
- D8: dark blue
- D6: pink
- D4: red
These colour choices are absolutely unhinged. Who hurt you?
Obviously it should be:
- D20: White
- D12: Purple
- D10: Black
- D100: Grey
- D8: Blue
- D6: Red
- D4: Green
If this isn't clear as crystal to you, seek therapy.
^((\/^s ^in ^case ^it's ^necessary)
My husband and I do that too, we talk about stuff and their colours all the time. We had an arguments about what colour math is. But we agree history is yellow. Which means the skill in D&D is yellow as well for both of us. And just yesterday, I told him history skill checks feel like wisdom checks, because wisdom is yellow to me, but he says wisdom is green. I think intelligence is green, but he says it’s blue. I don’t know if we’re really good fits for each other, but we make it work despite those hugely different opinions!
I remember a Youtube video reviewing different game system's Beginner Box setups.
They were very impressed with the Pathfinder 2e Beginner Box. While they were underwhelmed with the material the dice were made of (cheap plastic dice), they loved how the dice were color coded *with a chart showing color and shape for each of them* on the "Action Cheat Sheet". Perfect for a table of first-timers sharing a basic set to get used to the shapes before they invest in their own polyhedrals, dice tower and tray, etc.
I own the PF2e Beginner Box, and while I decided the system isn't really right for type of game I usually want to run, it is probably the gold standard beginner box for me. The color-coded dice, the action cheatsheets & action counters, the structure of the adventure [each new room in the dungeon teaches a new part of the mechanics], the cardboard minis, etc. It recognizes the system it is trying to teach is complex and does its best to make it easier to learn.
As for the dice thing, it’s always been an issue for new players going back decades in my experience. I played my first game 34 years ago and didn’t know what was what. The trick I’ve always used is making sure the players keep their dice on the max number so that’s all they look for. Keeping a d8 on 8 helps make it easy to quickly id until they learn what is what.
Another trick if you have enough dice* for it: color code. If everyone’s d20 is blue, you just say “roll a d20. It’s the blue one.”
Got this from the office My Little Pony game.
* lol of course you do.
I also keep my dice laying on their max number, but I do it so the dice find that position most comfortable and they strive to end up on that number as much as possible.
Realising you can try *anything* can be a challenging first step. Realising what has a chance to succeed is probably the second.
It’s a real skill to be able to ask the right questions, “is there a way I can X” and “do I notice anything that might suggest Y” are the bread and butter of more experienced players.
Personally, I think many of us have brains wired by fiction, where the only plans that work are the ones that don't get explained to the audience. So we get the feeling that, if we state our intentions, it's going to go wrong.
Surprising the other players when they realise what you were trying to do also feels pretty rewarding. Of course, for that to happen, the DM needs to be aware of what you expect to happen.
But they need to learn that! I as a DM repeat tons of time to new players: "please state me your your action and intent, what do you hope to get out of it"
My first DM game with 100% new players, had a monster expel a poison gas in a small cottage. The answer to make it easier was to open a window or the slew of the chimney.
Near TPK until I gave a hint to it. Afterwards they were way better at creative solutions
what helps with these kind of situation with new players IMO that if you try to help them be in the situation: "ok, imagine, YOU are in a normal cottage, as I described it, front door, 2 windows, one chimney, that fills with toxic gas. What would YOU do, if you would be in that situation"
Honestly, the core combat rules. The exploration and social aspects are pretty flexible so you can kinda do anything. Once you get in combat, the rules become a lot more rigid and there are lots of rules and terminology that can become overwhelming, especially if you are playing a complex class
I don't know how many times I've seen new players get confused by the fact that a "bonus action" is not just an additional action.
A simple read through of the combat rules help, but it doesn't fix everything until you've gained enough experience to understand how things work together
Additionally, I find that many new players don't plan out their moves. It gets to their turn and instead of knowing exactly what they are going to do, it's "oh...ummm...ah... i guess I'm going to move over here... And then... Um... Can I use a spell slot here?"
Interesting, I've never seen the bonus action misunderstanding. In my experience new players intuitively understand it as a 'mini-action' or the side dish to an Action entree.
Some players struggle with the idea of roleplay, so having pushier-than-normal NPCs that suggest goals or ask for PC opinions in character can help. Try to avoid overloading the natural introverts when they need time to consider these questions. This is probably the hardest part of the game to teach, and some players just naturally know how to roleplay.
Most players struggle to figure out how to make different types of rolls or plan out combat turns. Helpful reference card handouts for how to take a turn, or how to add modifiers for common rolls can make the difference here. A quick-select card to help casters level up can also help.
Every once in a while, I see players that struggle to visualize skills like Athletics vs Acrobatics, or who steal the spotlight by habitually speaking over other players. Sometimes new players bolt ahead of the party, interrupt narration, or even make rolls without confirming you need one. For these kinds of issues, you really have to understand the player's point of view and address whatever instinct is driving the behaviour. Gentle, but immediate, corrections go a long way in breaking habits or helping a player understand nuances. Assertiveness with empathy is the goal here.
Creativity.
Lot's of new players just accept things at face value.
Did this NPC tell us something? Okay, sure, let's more on. No, no need to insight check, no pressing for more info.
Are there goblins in front of us? The only option is a straight on attack. No negotiations, no tricks, no sneaking.
Oh I got a magic item without a CLEAR purpose like an immovable rod? It will sit in my bags forever, unused.
You gotta have a party that tries to walk up and go, "Heyy goblins, what if we like didn't fight it and you like Joined us? That would be pretty cool, huh?"
*sigh Roll Persuasion*
For me it's the "What can I do again?" during combat. Every *single* turn, without fail, new players will ask what different racial and class features, spells, and attacks do. And, for whatever reason, they only do this when it's their turn to do something. Once they decide what they want to do it becomes, "Which die is that again? Wait, why do I have to roll the big one twice? Okay how many times do I need to roll the regular one?"
The way I manage this is I do for them what helped me when I was a new player. I color code the dice and I recommend they keep them highest number face up. I also print out a "what you can do on your turn" list for every player that describes what general actions, bonus actions, movements, and reactions they can do. I also either print out or give them a notepad where they can write all their spells descriptions specifically since the character sheet doesn't give much room. It saves them from having to constantly look it up in the handbook.
I also start new players with two types of "beginner" adventures back to back. One is more exploration with a bit of fighting, so they get a feel of using their skills. The other is the opposite, a dungeon crawl with a bit of exploration so they get a feel for combat. I sprinkle in plenty of RP, too.
By the time we're done with that they have a pretty good handle on the game mechanics. Or at least the mechanics for their class lol
I second the “which dice again?” and knowing when to add bonuses. Explaining exactly what proficiency bonus is seems to confuse players in my experience
Understanding the concept of “you can do anything”
Understanding that though you can do anything, you probably shouldn’t
Separating in character and out of character knowledge/actions
>Separating in character and out of character knowledge/actions
I honestly prefer this over the "Thats not what my character would do". Thats like the anti-meta counterpart of newbies.
My experience has been that the thing that new players struggle the most with is not any kind of game mechanic or dice roll, but with the worry that they are doing something wrong for the world that they are playing in. What I mean by this is that people are hesitant to write a character background because they worry that they are going to get something about *the lore* wrong, and it will reflect badly on them. There is a lot of lore out there, and it can be intimidating to new players.
I think understanding how much you can interact with the game and how deep you can roleplay and interact with the world that way.
I have a new player in a long running group who never asks questions, and really only roleplays choices she makes. Everybody else talks in character and is pretty deep in it. I realized at a certain point her only tethering point was RPG games and told her “there’s no dialogue trees, just be your character however you like”, totally was a “woah” moment for her.
"Wait, is that my score or my modifier?"
"Why doesn't my modifier go up when I go from 14 to 15?"
"Why do we even have scores, if we always use the modifier?"
And also, players are their own worst enemies a lot of the time, specifically with not writing down things they use a lot. The big ones in my experience being their own spell save DCs and attack bonuses.
I mean these are good questions. We are just used to that modifier/score crap, but its really just a historic relic that I would remove if I were a D&D designer.
As a relatively new player who read thru the Player Handbook to try to learn the game… the book content just isn’t generally articulated in the most accessible way. Character creation in particular feels nebulous. One example is Hit Dice — they felt impossible for me to understand no matter how many times they came up. It’s just not a term I had any frame of reference for.
I think — as someone who learns best by example — I wish there were lots more character creation examples in the book that go step by step, maybe for each class.
I am just now realizing that it no longer makes *any* sense to call them slots.
(In case you didn't know, back in the day you prepared/memorized a spell for each slot specifically, including preparing the same spell multiple times in different slots if you wanted to cast it multiple times.)
Hm, I see it as you *do* slot spells into them when you cast a spell, 'filling' that slot and making it unusable until you empty them all after a Rest. If I cast 1st level Magic Missile 4 times, I've filled four 1st level spell slots with Magic Missile.
I've run a few games for new players, so I like to think I've gotten good at pre-empting a lot of the issues.
my first step was building 15 or so PC sheets; one of each class, and a couple variants: a dex and a str fighter, a swashbuckler and an arcane trickster rogue, and a hexblade and tome/fiendlock, to try and get the "purest" versions of the classes across to the players. I made them as simple a choice as possible, to not overwhelm the players with options, so avoided things like the rune knight, or animal companions, and made sure that the relevant pages were printed and attached (using Homebrewery where needed, to format it where their subclass is actually spelt out)
second step was buying 5 sets of 7 colors of dice, then "partsing" it out, so they might have: 5 red d4's, 5 orange d6's, 5 blue d8's, and so on. that way, I could easily say to them "roll the purple one", when they needed to roll a d20. conveniently, that also meant that I had another 6 sets of those collections, to keep or sell to other GM friends, or lend out to people running campaigns for newbies. total cost of the 35 sets was actually only about $30/set, thanks to buying them through AliExpress/Wish/Temu. they don't have to be fancy, just readable and cheap.
third step was having a "suggested play" card for each of the sheets. a "as a fighter, you probably want to: Attack with a Longsword" type suggestion, as well as a "when it gets tough, try to: use action surge and second wind" type suggestion. it meant that they would look at their sheets to read what the abilities do (which is a wonder in itself) and would inspire them on what their class was capable of.
the fourth step, and this is the only one that you need to do in the game, rather than preparing for it beforehand, is to be open to rule of cool and say "that's definitely not what the ability is meant to do, but that's cool as heck, so I'll let you do it this once". the worst thing to do to new players is tell them "you can do anything" and then gradually shut them down with "except that, that's not how that's meant to work". you establish that it's a one off thing, but let them do it, so as they learn the system, they figure out the things they can/can't do, but have a blast until then.
I also used the cards as mini-trackers (so action surge, spell slots, etc), and as lists/reminders of actions they can take, so Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, and Hide are spelled out for the players.
my advice is to make them a bit vague, so rather than say "you gain additional movement equal to your speed" just say "you can move another 30 feet this turn" or instead of "attacks from creatures you can see made against you are made with disadvantage", saying it as "make it harder for enemies to attack you" for Dodge.
My first ever time playing was a week and a half ago. I have wanted to play for a long time and I really hoped my kids would get into it. So, I decided to get them playing by starting myself and of course I had to DM a homebrew game instead of using the beginner game. I know I’m missing things but it has went pretty well so far. The most difficult part for me is figuring out combat rules and getting a good flow to make it exciting.
Good for you - keep it up, learn as you go and have fun! I have been playing with my kids for quite a while now (I was a long time player before they got into it though).
All of the mechanics. For a 'role playing' games it is super heavy in mechanics. There are so many RPGs that are very light on mechanics, sorry dice nerds.
First person speech seems to trouble first timers I've played with. Also, the urge to treat it like a video game and kill/steal/fuck is fine your FIRST time and FIRST time only.
Good thing you don't need first person speech. If someone has trouble with it I just say "don't worry, you don't need to act it out. You can describe in 3rd person what your character does and how".
Helps shy players and honestly makes for better roleplay, because no one needs to try to act like a CH 20 bard or 20 INT wizard, if they are in real life not like that at all.
And because action and intention are much clearer that way and it comes to much less miscommunication between player and DM in my experience.
From my experience a big one is learning that consequence comes from their actions. Put them in jail for harassing the barkeep and they will soon learn.
another thing is learning they can do more than just what's on their character sheet.
There is the rules piece of it and all the details, but for the most part a new player doesn't really need to know any of that. They can learn that slowly and still be playing just fine for a few sessions without knowing what to roll and what abilities they have.
I think the bigger thing is getting them to take that ownership over their character and be into the roleplaying making choices with a much more open path where they can go and do anything they want. Getting the balance of I can do anything, and figuring out what choices will help drive the story forward and be fun for everyone, and what might lead things in a murder hobo direction and be less fun.
I'm playing with a group of new players, 5 sessions in. 3 of them are over 50 years old with no previous ttrpg experience and very limited exposure to video games. They are all very smart people, very successful in their careers and with a wide range of skills from humanities to math to technology.
They have a really bad time at finding what die to roll and I can't really comprehend why. I've encouraged them to keep dice in the table with the biggest number facing up so they are easier to identify and it seems to be working.
Also, they seem to have a bad time remembering where stuff is in the character sheet, but I think they are getting better at this.
They are starting to grasp the possibilities of roleplay and they are enjoying it quite a lot. At the beginning they just stated at the character sheet trying to find what they could do. I had to yell "Stop looking at that paper, that's just numbers, what do you want to do?"
Fun times :)
A tip for the dice thing, if you play in person, have one or two sets of dice where each die is a different color and have the new players use those sets. It's a lot easier for the player to differentiate the dice and learn them.
"Roll a d8, which is the yellow one" can go a long way and cause a player to quickly pick it up.
So many things, but one that hasn't been metioned yet is D4s. They are super simple now, but when I used the PH to make my first character, I had no idea what to do with the D4. I think I added up all the numbers on each face and then added the total of all three sides or something like that. My kids laughed and explained how they actually work, and I felt kind of dumb. Not as dumb as I did a year and a half later when I finally realized how saving throws and proficiency work. A year and a half wasted, just adding my regular modifier to every saving throw. Switching from paper to D&D Beyond really helped me.
Don't get me started on 6 second turns, 1 minute rounds, and only one reaction per round. "What do you mean I have to just stand there and let it kill me?!"
Honestly, I feel you on D4s. Especially the ones that have the number on the base rather than in the point… why do those exist???
I also don’t know how to tell you this, but… rounds are also 6 seconds 😅
I'm a teacher and I run games for middle- and high school players a lot, and I'd say you mentioned THE two biggest things- which dice and understanding ability scores and modifiers.
Knowing where to look on a character sheet for things and what they need to add together.
Simplest way I've explained it to people is that everything you do will use one of your main stat's at bare minimum, most of the time you'll also add your proficiency bonus if you have proficiency in whatever you're doing, be it a skill, a tool, a weapon, or even a saving throw.
Then, once you've added those numbers up, you're able to add on whatever extra bonuses you might have, a +1 weapon might add an extra one, expertise in a skill might add your prof bonus a second time, etc etc.
1. Finding a time to play that fits everyone’s schedule..
2. Deciding to pick a class that benefits the team the most vs picking a class you like the most
For new players who are actually trying to learn the game, and not just play another video game style rpg, I’d say understanding the flow of what they “can” do (both in and out of combat) is the first big hurdle.
It’s hard to explain what I mean but I’ll try. The notion of “you can do pretty much anything you want” is a very daunting sort of realization for newcomers because it feels like a lot and doesn’t properly explain what that means along with all the sub-notes that come with it. There’s a lot of other moving cogs that go with that; including but not limited to: the setting you are playing in, the DM, the other players at the table, the character they are playing, the dice gods, etc… It feels like “I want to accomplish A, so I have to do B, to achieve C” which it is *sometimes* but the path to get there usually has a lot of twists and turns and other little pieces that you don’t see working in the background which the player might not think of. Which again, is fine. The hurdle really is being okay with not being aware of these other pieces and the effect they have on whatever you are trying to accomplish and still working towards that thing and still being able to work with these things as part of the flow of the game.
The most common example I’ve seen (which even experienced players sometimes do) is continually trying to do something that has pretty much been explicitly shown isn’t going to happen in that manner. For a specific example, trying to convince an NPC to do a certain thing even though they’ve stated they will not do it. Maybe they rolled low on their persuasion, maybe there’s a logical hard stop, whatever. Having some roleplay back and forth is fine to build the scene, but eventually the moment just has to move on because it’s hit it’s conclusion.
I’ve heard it explained as not thinking of it as “yes and” but rather “no, but”. It’s a tough one to get passed because sometimes there’s a thing we really really want to do and coming to terms that you can’t in a game where “you can do pretty much anything” is difficult.
I was super embarrassed that I couldn’t understand how to read most of the dice at first. I also couldn’t visually identify them. Using digital dice really helped.
Creating a character was also just wading in knowing I didn’t know what I was doing. The first page of character creation on DDB was super intimidating. I STILL don’t understand everything that page of toggle buttons is asking me, lol.
A frequent one I run into with new players is assuming their character can do everything and then get upset when their fighter rolls a sneak check poorly or that their bard can't launch fire balls, or their level 1 warlock can't dimension door or misty step every single turn, etc.
I had one guy build a level 1 monk character and couldn't understand why he wasn't Aang from Avatar the last airbender
Ik my current players went the murder hobo route, also thinking every NPC is out to get them, and purposely not following any story cues and off roading. They’ve reined it in thankfully.
For me when I first started playing, I was just stat maxing. Fighter, big sword, trying to find better swords and armor. No unique goals. Also we play with profs so taking completely random profs because they sound cool to me, not because they relate to my character.
The difference between spell *slots* and spell *levels* has come up in every single game I've run for people as a DM - it's annoyingly un-intuitive unless you've dunked yourself into the system for a while.
Combat and class mechanics are probably the biggest thing.
2 of my players got the extra attack feature and I feel like I am failing to successfully explain to them how it works. They sometimes try to roll damage for the second attack without rolling to hit, or roll again for an attack that already hit when they try to invoke an "on hit" feature.
My wizard tends to default to a damage cantrip or magic missile every turn as well even though I tried to help them pick some decent control options.
They are improving but I do feel like I'm fumbling on my part to properly help them because the things they're struggling with I've taken for granted for so long.
The dice thing is definitely accurate but to be fair I've been playing for years and sometimes I still pickup the wrong dice. Another one is the adding of bonuses, roll this dice, add that number, you also have a bonus d6 so roll that, you have advantage/disadvantage so roll again... I've found it to be more prevalent when they use a handwritten character sheet. When using an online char creator it does alot of the additions. But I still prefer a paper version so I fill out the online and print it out and after every session update the online and reprint.
As a new player, for some reason it took me months to understand spell slots. 🤷🏼♀️ Calling them "spell shots" for a bit helped, coming from a family that has guns.
Thinking their first quests are going to get them thousands of gold, negative actions (constantly threatening/murder hobo stuff/attempting to steal from anyone) won’t have negative consequences, not understanding that they need to ask questions or just expecting all knowledge is available to them. I’ve had a few players ask how dead something is or specific information about a situation out of character and get frustrated when I ask them to roll or refuse to say because the character doesn’t know that.
Staying in character.
Most games have the players saying, "My character says to the barkeep...".
I encourage my players to just say it, in character. It adds a realism to the game that makes it a lot more fun. But my game is an oddity.
Do it your way, it's a matter of taste, not "the right way".
YOUR way is the right way for you.
Mostly knowing what their character is supposed to be good at. Like they roll just to roll and keep failing at what their character is bad at, which makes them feel bad. Of course, you can remind and guide them and over time they should learn, but it's Def a struggle.
So I got to play with some players who weren't really experienced with tabletop or video gaming in general.
A lot of people have new players with big ideas of what they want to do in the game and struggle with how to represent that in the system. I had the opposite problem; they had never done anything remotely like it, and really relied on their character sheets to tell them what they could do. That isn't terribly rare, but complicated other issues.
Something they really had no intuition for was the difference between combat and non-combat encounters. Things like trying to cast spells that take a minute to cast despite understanding that combat rounds take six seconds and the fight would likely be over when they're done. So they were extra frustrated because when they had an idea chosen from the fixed list they had, they were told they couldn't/shouldn't use it!
I haven't been able to put this into practice, but I think next time I'll make character sheets that organize player actions by those for combat (or another word for it) and those not for combat. I know those boundaries are fuzzy. These are very very new players. It's not important that they understand exactly how the game system works; what's important is that they have fun and want to keep playing. For those people specifically, having prescriptive options that they know when they're appropriate to use would help a lot. I could easily see explicitly laying out more "default" actions too like insight checks.
Anyway yeah my takeaway is that in some cases, the character sheet is someone's window into the game, and custom laying out character sheets for those people would be really helpful.
For people used to CRPG - the lack of shopping. People come back from their first adventure with a bunch of gold pieces and want to upgrade their weapons and armour
I think this really varies widely depending on their background. For example, I DMed a group a while ago that had a bunch of new players. And when I say, no, I mean, they had never played a fantasy role-playing game before, they had never played a CPG before, they never read fantasy novels before, they had never played any complex boardgames before, just totally new to the genre.
For them, just the sheer complexity was overwhelming.
After that, I would say, the next biggest thing was letting go of the idea that the rules prescribe what you can do in any given situation. Like, it was really difficult to get them to go “can I try to tie a rope to the chandelier and swim across the chasm?”
I imagine the challenges for someone who has played C RPG’s extensively would be a lot different.
Seems simple, but other than murder hobo acts... just finding things on their character sheets. DnD beyond helped, but it is still a struggle for the first few sessions.
It's my players not knowing what to do in any situation lol I told them about the cracked window at the back of the room and the boxes in the corner and they just went and sat around and just hung out and kept passing there turns and just literally not doing anything besides just sitting on boxes and every once and a while getting frustrated because they don't see any way to move forward. At that point I just kept saying "you guys can do whatever you want....there is a window over there" just for them to never even try to go to the window but instead complain that there was nothing to do lol you just did a whole ass encounter downstairs and got some loot and talked to a kidnapped dude and you just went upstairs and decided there was nothing to do up there. I just railroaded and made the kidnapped NPC open the window to see the bunch of guards coming up to investigate. It was the end of a pretty good session but my players just seemed like after playing that encounter that they just weren't feeling it anymore. These players are all new to DND and they seem to be having fun but they're severely lacking in the role playing department. Can't blame them cuz I was once a brand new player once but man I think that's the biggest turn off in DND when you first start playing is the lack of instinct and improvisation that you could run into.
For me it was the role playing. I used to metagame a lot, not because I wanted to not because “I know the things, so how can I act as if I don’t?” Also I didn’t know the game well enough to act without asking permission. Now that I’m experienced, I request rolls, not actions, I say “I want to do this, can I roll (insert relavent skill)” rather than just asking “can I do this?”
Mainly, the role playing was tricky because it just felt awkward sometimes. Am I talking as myself or as my character? Do I physically act like the character or do I narrate every one of their actions?
Things like that took me over a year to get used to
Specifically for D&D, spellcasting, spell slots, and preparing spells are the biggest issues that come up to the point where I suggest to new players to play a sorcerer rather than a wizard if they want to be a spellcaster (but I don't force them at all).
I just started a new game with one brand new person and it took a while for them to understand spell slots aren't something you "slot" spells into.
I find identifying the different dice comes easily enough after a few times of pointing it out.
Shifting between role playing your character and speaking with exposition. I see new people struggle with that at times.
Another big one is thinking “this is the game where you can do anything!” means trying to kill random villagers instead of following the story the DM has prepped and laid out.
I'm fairly new to table top RPGs, started only this year in Jan.
Due to my previous 20 years experience playing Tibia I understood the mechanics and the objectives pretty quickly.
What I find difficult is the IRL roleplay of the character, I sometimes find myself out of character when exploring or during my turn in a fight, and only realize it when I see the Bard or the Cleric going full theatrical (which I actually love doing XD).
There's an Explorer and another Barbarian (I'm a Barbarian) and both of them are still only focused on playing the sheet and the dice, no performance whatsoever.
Definitely the technical things like what dice to use, what modifiers to add and how their feats work.
On the other hand.. I ran a campaign for a group of newbies a while ago, and recently I restarted this campaign again with a group of experienced players. I now noticed that the newbies were much more creative, curious and resourceful than these experienced players, who just seem to do things the way they always do them.
I have the same experience as the OP. At first my players don't understand how to compute the bonus they get based on the ability score involved and when they have proficiency. They quickly begin to understand which dice to roll, but except for the d6, it takes a little time for them to recognize what the other dice look like, so they roll a lot of d10s when they should roll a d8, and roll d8 when it should be a d10. They figure out the d20 before they figure out the d12.
On spell casting, they don't understand they need to announce the ability and the DC for monster saves when they cast. They just say, I cast ### and it does dNN damage. Whoa there cowboy, what's the save?
The bonuses was certainly the hardest for me and my group. Knowing that proficiency is added to attacks, but not to damage, while strength or dex is added to both, I messed that up a lot.
Spell effects was another one that a few people in my group still struggle with a year after we started. We ended up printing and laminating a set of spell cards for each PCs class to keep it moving so they're not flipping around in the PG. When we play online, people usually have a sheet of all their spell cards.
Roll playing and meta gaming are probably the two biggest persistent issues. Half of our group made their characters basically themselves, while the rest of us have traits and things that make our characters unique.
Trying to realize that your friend is playing a part, which doesn't align with who they really are, can be easy to forget.
Meta is an issue always because it's hard to decide what your character would know in game. Is it obvious that undead would be susceptible to radiant attacks? Is a silver dragon that breathes ice likely to be susceptible to fire damage? Would your adventurer figure that out without having faced on before based on context clues and general things they've figured out in their 2 years of adventuring?
New players doing full casters confusing leveled spells with character level and number of prepared spells with number of spell slots.
And they think they get it and you are over explaining and then 30 minutes later they go…wait…what?
I started by listening to my girlfriends campaign. I got invited to play, and when I joined, role-playing was the most difficult. Getting over the idea that I'm playing pretend and what I'm saying is going to sound silly or dumb out of context.
The most helpful solution to that was the DM. She's excellent and does a really good job engaging you in the story, so you can really lose yourself in the character.
Recently joined my co workers for my first time. I love RPGs and MMOs so that helped when making combat decisions on building my character but the part that took me by surprise and was the most difficult was the role playing aspect. To act and improv as your character using an accent and thinking like them and what not. It was the immersion that really surprised me. For my first dialog, the GM turned to me and spoke so enthusiastically with a medieval accent which took me by surprise and all I could say was “Yes?” LOL.
i have very little experience with DnD and my biggest problem is that my characters all just turn into me. like i’ll play a dwarf fighter with a military background and by the 3rd session i’m cracking fart jokes and saying stuff like “ah shit dude these gnolls are wack”
In my case it was understanding when skills and proficiencies came into play, what they were and the measurement systems. Especially the measurement systems 😅
For example, I had no idea what the difference between insight and perception were, the exacts of skills such as acrobatics and athletics were and so on. Let alone when and how to use them. But this was dealt with through questions, reading and a DnD dictionary.
The real trouble was the measurements. The goddamn imperial system. 😭😭😭
Take spells for example. Some last minutes, or even hours. I wasn't sure how to tell how long it had been in game. Then there's distance, whether it be spell range, movement speed or travelling. It's all in imperial so I couldn't conceptualise it. Tbh I still really struggle with it.
If I ever have a physical game I'm going to bring little coloured cellophane cuts for visual reference. Newer players can use them all the time. More experienced players can roll for perception or something I guess. Might just give it to them for optional use. Idk
The issue shows up in character heights, encumbrance weight and the like as well. There's just no escaping it. I was forever asking my DM if I could go as far as I wanted, if it could make it somewhere. I actually started with a monk so I wouldn't have to worry about spell range. I just didn't have the mental space for that extra struggle.
Seriously, if you have any international players please be patient with them in this regard 😔
Spending time outside of play to read the book and learn the rules. Many seem to regard this as "homework" (their own words). Its honestly flabbergasting to me. Makes me wonder how they got involved in their other hobbies. Surely they had to read or study something to get started? If reading about something you claim to like and think is cool is boring to you, why do you want to engage with the hobby at all? I struggle to imagine the cognitive dissonance it would take to say "I want to be a homebrewer and make my own beer at home" but then just randomly mix things together to produce ruined batches instead of just reading recipe books to learn how to do it correctly.
And it goes far beyond a reluctance to merely read. Some people complain that they "can't learn by reading" so I make compilations of youtube videos for them, but then they don't watch those either.
As far as specific mechanics go, proficiency in 5e. People always ask what that means, and I tell them over and over again "its a flat number based on your level that applies to everything you're proficient in." To which they say "what am I proficient in?" Bro, your class literally tells you. 5e is so dumbed down from early editions but not far enough, apparently.
I second the “which dice again?” and knowing when to add bonuses. Explaining exactly what proficiency bonus is seems to confuse players in my experience
Video game mentality (healer+tank+dps), scamming NPCs for pennies, murderhobo stuff Basically just trying to play skyrim or an mmo in dnd I’ve only ran games online so far and these were the most disruptive new player behaviors, but thankfully they have been easy to get over
Yup this. And to add to that, unless they’re a writer, artist, or voracious fantasy reader (in general), most new players I’ve gotten have trouble recognizing they’re playing in a living word and either don’t interact or think they can only do what’s on their sheet.
Yeah. First time running a game and my players would freeze up whenever I asked, "So what do you do?"
The hero’s journey utilizes a mentor at the start of the adventure, since the viewers have no idea about the story and world yet so they need this mentor to help them - maybe it’s a good idea to steal this and have the mentor offer them a solution but in a way emphasize that it’s not the best one For example the “quest giver” tells them that if you blow up the cave you end the goblin threat, but the innocents they have captured will also die - and then ideally if your players engage in rp they wouldn’t want that, but even if they’re all out of options they have something that’s obviously not the best solution but at least there’s something to cling on And then if they do blow the cave up you give them those heavy consequences from other NPCs “my parents were in there! You were supposed to save them!” It’s light mental torture, but it’s pretty effective in making them think “maybe we should have saved the innocents first”
Oh yeah I'm talking about like 15 years ago when I first started DMing - I'm much better at getting new players into the spirit of things these days.
This can happen with experienced players too if they are unsure about the situation or they are no clear hooks. Not saying it must be the DMs fault, but it definitely can be on the DM. I try to often provide 2-3 prompts and end with "...or anything else that comes to your mind" or something like that. I often also adress one player in particular instead of the group, that also helps.
The thing with the sheet needs also worked on by the DM. I try to hammer it in to not look on your sheet to decide and whenever someone says something like " I roll athletics to do XY" I answer "please tell me what your character wants to do in the narrative and how they does it, what is their approach, their angle. I decide if you need to roll something and what to roll if yes" Exceptions are of course specific actions like casting a spell or channel divinity
I disagree. People in real life can and do try to use their talents to solve problems, if possible. The number on the sheet are what they are because the player already made tradeoffs during character building, and the character sheet effectively is serving as a guideline in what you want your character to excel and what not. Generally this will match up with the character they decided to play, so there's no contradiction. Playing deliberately *against* your strengths is possible, but that's rather advanced roleplaying and not something that first time players need to try out immediately - in particular because the game also has a base assumption of striving for a goal, in team, and by gimping yourself for the lulz or for RP reasons, you're letting the team down. Unless they agreed it was going to be this kind of game, but that's session zero stuff and not something to burden first timers with.
People in real life have not spread their talents over a handful of skill checks and some class feats that are almost all only relevant in combat. The sheet is an abstraction, if you only look at it for ideas, you will get only abstract ideas. Whenever you are in a problem in real life you think about the specific, concrete problem and not yourself (except if the problem is yourself ofc.). When players always look at their sheet they get insanely uncreative, because they only see the 3-5 skills they are proficient with and get really limited with their ideas, because they want to try to solve everything with their 3-5 buttons. They begin to videogame the game which sucks because it is not a videogame. Since I changed my opinion which was similar to yours a few years back and changed the game the way I described my previous comment - the game and the roleplay become much, much better.
>People in real life have not spread their talents over a handful of skill checks and some class feats that are almost all only relevant in combat. The sheet is an abstraction, if you only look at it for ideas, you will get only abstract ideas. Whenever you are in a problem in real life you think about the specific, concrete problem and not yourself (except if the problem is yourself ofc.). No, when *I* have a problem I try to find the best way in which *I* can address it with the resources that *I* have. I don't care that the optimal way to get out of a burning building is to knock the glass window to pieces with a fire hammer, *if I have no fire hammer*. Remember that the whole point of roleplaying is to experience how different characters arrive at different solutions for the same problems because of their different methods. Yes, you can add a layer of preference over it, but Willy the Wizard is going to use his spell of Unlock rather than the sledgehammer to bash the door in, even if you're RPing him as an aggressive guy. >When players always look at their sheet they get insanely uncreative, because they only see the 3-5 skills they are proficient with and get really limited with their ideas. They begin to videogame the game which sucks because it is not a videogame. Since I changed my opinion which was similar to yours a few years back and changed the game the way I described my previous comment - the game and the roleplay become much, much better. If you want to roleplay, why are you still using a system that is 90% focused on combat?
Classic "I roll to investigate...Nat 20! You *have* to tell me what it says now!" when the illeterate barbarian picks up a demilich's spellbook written in infernal.
I'll give my players 3000 gold in one session, the next they're haggling the price of rations.
My group loves buying food but won't buy literally any other item
Sorry, this is really long. TLDR, don't try to inflate prices because your players have more money, tell your players to roll insight when they want to haggle and make it plain to them that the NPCs are not trying to fleece them. I don't know how this is for others, but here are several reasons why I haggle: - I have had several experiences where my DMs didn't understand the value of money in their own world and unintentionally tried to scam me in my opinion. It doesn't matter how much money I have, I'm not paying 10gp for a kg of grain when no NPC would pay that amount. I wouldn't buy a normal ice-cream for €10000 if I were a billionaire, that's just wasteful. Prices of goods going up because PCs have more money reduces the legitimacy of the world. PCs don't live in a private inflationary bubble and taking the latter approach makes it feel as if the NPCs are trying to fleece them. - in most markets of the style that I've played in (medieval) I'd expect haggling to be the norm. If you don't think that that's true, speak with your PCs. - your PCs don't know that they're being given normal prices, they are not you, so I usually assume that a shopkeeper is going to see a rich adventurer and slap on a premium, which I don't like. If your PCs are haggling when always being presented normal prices, ask them to roll insight or something to determine whether the NPCs are trying to fleece them or not. - the interactions I get with NPCs by haggling are often the most "real" in the sense that they are completely relatable. I have no idea how my characters would actually feel if their friends died or if they killed a mythical evil dragon overlord, I have no experience in either. I do know how it feels to have been screwed over in a deal and how it feels to have gotten a good one. I can play my characters more authentically when haggling than I can when trying to RP the emotions experienced and words said when the drunken cleric fails in trying to bring back Agamemnon the snail who held the key to defeating the BBEG, which was stepped on by one of his goons and now the world is fucked.
> I wouldn't buy a normal ice-cream for €10000 if I were a billionaire I've experienced this in game too. 1gp for a pint of ale? My character took offense and walked out.
> PCs don't live in a private inflationary bubble While in principle I agree with your whole comment, some adventures and adventuring parties realistically would have a Mansa Musa effect on their surroundings. Claim a dragon's hoard, become ridiculously wealthy, spend lavishly and make the entire town wealthy...and then suddenly everyone in town raises prices because *everyone* is sweating diamonds as a result of the adventurers. This is a great way to impart un-fun realism into your game, though. Unless your party is composed of EVE Online players.
Just read a really interesting book about the Beatles. It is definitely quite possible to live in a private inflationary bubble.
That's true, I made an absolute statement and your counterexample is completely valid. I'd extend my argument in this case to include the conditional: if travelling in the world of your PCs is easy (i.e. they travel around), if they are not always buying at the same town or if they themselves don't exhibit lavish spending habits. If your PCs spend lavishly then I'd also suspect that they don't haggle, since those two properties are at least partially mutually exclusive.
One reason they would be spending lavishly is because of the inflation. If the private inflationary bubble isn't forced upon the players by the DM, then the town really wouldn't get enough wealth spread around through regular adventuring activities. Another five people buying potions, food, and a bed for the night isn't likely to meaningfully affect an economy.
The biggest issue I have with this is that the Dnd economy is notoriously difficult to manage because of a lack of standardized prices and a huge disparity between PC and NPC access to wealth. >Tell your players to roll insight when they want to haggle and make it plain to them that the NPCs are not trying to fleece them I really agree here; I do think haggling has a place in dnd if your pc would want to scam someone, intuits that someone is trying to scam them, or the vendor doesn't know the value of what they have etc., but I wouldn't do it just bc you think the scale of the cost is inaccurate. >PCs don't live in a private inflationary bubble You may be the only person in that market who could pay 10GP for something mundane and so you don't want to, but you're also the only person who can loot a dragon's horde, so why bother shopping at all if you'd rather have all prices be insignificant to you; just play without rations, or monetary rewards need to be pretty limited. >DMs didn't understand the value of money in their own world Haggling for this reason is weird because the DM chose to give you access to the quantity of money you have. A monetary reward is meant to represent what you can gain for that money and the cost of an item represents what it is worth to you as a player; if the party is going to need x amount worth of rations, a y priced magic item, or z amount for a bribe, I can give them the opportunity to earn that much, or if I want something to be a significant drain to your resources, it's cost can be proportionate to those resources. With that said, I don't think you should just inflate every price as you get more money, and for a seasoned adventurer, buying rations shouldn't be hard, but there should be other items worth buying if you're getting a lot of gold. While it is fair to want your DM to balance the economy and rewards for you, it's pretty boring and difficult to maintain an economy in Dnd, and as a DM and a person, I'd much rather spend my planning time on elements other than item cost and job reward. If your DM is your friend, would you really rather that they spend hours over spreadsheets every time you want to hit the market or get paid for a job? Plus, the harder you make it for your DM to price things, the less likely they'll be to have interesting things for sale. TLDR: Dnd isn't a video game or real life; the cost of things should be proportionate to YOU the player's ability to get them, and requiring that your DM micromanage the economy is a big boring task you're assigning to someone else. I'm not saying it should get totally tossed out the window, but I don't think it should be something you need to investigate too deeply
I wholeheartedly agree that the DnD economy is difficult to manage, DMing a global or even local economy accurately with the input given by the DM guide is a really tough job. I think you have the wrong impression about the point at which I advocate haggling for game logic or inflationary bubble reasons: I don't haggle in character when I think that the scale of costs is wrong, I speak to my DMs directly and usually out of session unless they are inflating a price accidentally by literally 25000% (10gp per kg instead of 4cp, I needed 50 kg which would have been all of my characters money). That particular example felt really annoying because my character needed the grain for RP reasons (baker) and bread was always available at the standard prices (a couple of coppers), so it was clearly only I who was getting fleeced (though my DM claimed he didn't realize that he was doing this but wouldn't lower prices in session). Grain costs went up between towns as I got money, despite travelling to different kingdoms so I went 8 sessions without baking my second batch of bread because I didn't want to cause a scene at the table by haggling for 30 minutes for a kg of grain. \^ this is also what I meant by "DM doesn't understand the value of money in their own world". The raw ingredients for something where I can buy the product easily and everywhere should not be extremely rare and should not be several times the cost of the common thing I can buy. I don't advocate for making 50% of my DMs job coming up with the costs of items I may or may not want, I don't think that players should haggle when buying items which amount to less than 0.5% of their net worth (which should be most common items) for non-RP reasons. I do think that DMs should put a little thought into what they reward their players with though. You as the DM know how difficult you want to make the acquiring of items for your players. If you want buying a kingdom to be difficult, don't give them a billion plat, if you want buying a castle to be difficult, don't give them 200000 GP, want to make buying magic items or consumables difficult? You know how much those will cost, how much your players will approximately need, don't give them more than 20 times as much money as they need if you want buying to be a challenge, otherwise you'll have to . If you don't want them to be able to afford a sack of grain, don't give them 4 cp. I disagree with your statement about the world scaling to me as the player where economy is concerned. The prices of things shouldn't change, the things a player buys should change - i.e. you start buying the more expensive potions because you need the more expensive potions. This obviously transcends potions and applies to magical items, scrolls, tomes, tattoos, whatever. To ME specifically as a player I find a scaling world extremely frustrating. If the purchasing power of my overall wealth barely changes when I get that dragon's hoard (because a DM inflates all prices commensurately), then why would my character go through the trouble of trying to find a dragon's hoard, putting himself and his friends in danger. DnD isn't a videogame, there are so many more things you can do with money in this game and if a DM gives their players too much money, then there are more elegant, fun and interactive solutions of dealing with that than by just inflating prices: Scenarios: 1) your players are good-aligned and have too much money. Have representatives of some worthy cause (orphanage, almshouse, center for taking care of mistreated gnomes, whatever) approach them and explain that they really need a certain amount of money to feed people or do whatever it is they do and that they'd be extremely grateful if the party could support their cause. Maybe have your player's names inscribed on that \[institution\] to reward them somehow. 2) Your players are evil and have too much money: Have the city watch fine them and put them in jail, have a crime-lord rob them of part of their money, approach them with a seemingly great investment opportunity and then have the instigators run away with all of the investment, make it a plot thing. 3) Neither of the above sound fun to you? No problem, don't just give your players all of the magical items they need, make them buy them or make them pay to have them crafted. You still want them to do go onto adventures for those items? Make them get the parts: that dagger they want needs the horn of a dragon and the tears of a mermaid, but the mermaid's tears have to be fresh and gathered by the future wielder of the dagger. TLDR: I agree with you on many points, explained why I won't back down on grain and disagree on scaling economies because they devalue player effort - I also gave some examples of why I think excess money in DnD should be used for.
>scamming NPCs for pennies, WHY DO THEY DO THIS lol I seriously could not care less when I play, but my table does it constantly
No idea. I have had so many "money hungry" PC's that will waste half a game session trying to save 8 copper when they have a 100 gold payday on deck. I've actually had a table where the players were so worried about getting the best deals on gear and wasted so much time that once they finally went to track down the bounty target they met another adventuring group who had already bagged the bad guy and were turning him over to the guards. Congrats on saving a gold piece, it only cost you a paycheck.
Every time I play with new players "okay so if we gather all these dead bandits weapons and Armor and sell it..." I usually give them a choice of they don't do this penny pinching or we track carry weight. Discussion is usually over right there
I don't remember if it's the DMG or PHB that says post-battle loot is usually too damaged to be worth anything. But threatening with carry weight is probably a more guttural reaction for most parties XD
That's similar to what I told my players. "I'll give you two options. One, you can gather and resell all the enemy's gear... but I'll be making that part of the loot. Or two, we can assume that their gear is mostly junk and I'll only point out when it isn't. Magic weapons and armor will be flagged for you, but you don't need to fence every Bandit's half-rotten boots. From your perspective, it will be exactly the same except I'll be wasting time calculating the value of their junk and you'll be wasting time trying to sell it." Saves me a hellova lot of time.
This for sure. That video game approach is a challenging one for me.
To the video game mentality, one of my players wanted to kite, and froze up when he realized the grick he was trying to goad into chasing him attacked the nearest PC instead. He told me I broke his brain because he didn't consider there was no algorithm set up to make him the target of choice.
There is a way to draw aggro for sapient, prideful enemies: insulting them. In my experience as a DM and player, it works a decent amount of the time. Video games call the mechanic taunt for a reason.
Yeah, I know. But a grick is pretty much a wild animal. Low int. Not prideful, more instinct.
I'm kind of the opposite when it comes to money. I enjoy the shopping episodes and the haggling and the scamming stuff. (As a player and dm). I track carry weight so if the player wants to take stuff back they can choose to do that. Plus I don't like the idea of something that happens at 1st level being totally ignored at even early tier 2 since character ability to do those things improves. But I can understand why some tables might not find it fun
Trying to "cut deals" with NPCs that are insanely unreasonable is a hell of a vibe
Yep, I've experienced so many of these types of behaviors. This is from a previous post of mine, but it highlights how extensive they really are: * inside the box thinking - the only way through the room filled with goblins is to kill them all * treating NPCs as dialogue trees without intelligence, thoughts, emotions or motives * the town is a video game level, complete with blocked alleyways, expressionless NPCs, and a couple quest givers and only a handful of buildings you can enter * we can just fast travel! * the idea of "grinding" for xp * thinking about gold only in terms of what they can buy in a store * treating combat like a numbers game rather than another chance to express your character's identity or try cool shit (which in turn blinds people via min maxing and optimization at the expense of everything else) * less focus on lore and history * metagaming rest mechanics * the idea of "respawns" * the idea that a dungeon will scale to the player's level * stupid enemies that just auto-attack * skyrim style inventory management (carry as much junk as you can) * skyrim style reselling (the Smith back on the village will totally buy all of these dull, rusty goblin blades for tons of cash) * but I rolled a 20 for persuasion! * darkvision means I can see in the dark Some of these are more common than others, for sure, but all of them stem from behaviors learned from years of playing video games. A good player will learn to "unlearn" these behaviors, and in turn, enjoy the game to its fullest.
I have an aspiring tank and pickpocket player. His pickpocketing sucks and annoys everyone at the table. But dude is killing it with his tank build. At level 4 he plans to have 20 con (rolled 18), he has 19 ac due to chainmail, shield and defensive fighting style.
Tank usually implies the ability to force focus on oneself rather than allies, not just "heavy armor". Attacks of Opportunity can force this, Paladins get Compelled Duel, but that's about it. What's stopping the enemies from just ignoring the Beefcake and focusing the Wizard/Cleric? Not saying to ruin the players' fun (*Absolutely* put the party in a narrow tunnel at least once so this guy can body-block a horde of goblins for the party), but just worth keeping in mind if they get "too good" at their role.
When I was new, the hardest part was learning how real 'role playing' worked. I had played many RPG video games already, mainly JRPGs, which very rarely gave me any real choices as a player. So when I heard a DM say 'What would your character do?,' I had no idea how to answer that.
This is the answer. I've been playing a couple of years now (i've dmed just 1 campaing), and most players just doesn't know how to interact with this imaginary world. Luckily, this is easily fixable by just playing, so thats what i tell them: "Just play, try to participate and have fun, the role playing will come along".
I agree the best way to learn is to play, but it will still help to use a session 0 to clear up some misconceptions people may have from playing video game RPGs.
I agree, I just tell my group of new players “it’s no different than you right now…. If I said ‘go get me a glass of water?’ How would you respond?” … “what do you do when you enter a house? Do you take off your shoes? Do you go sit on the couch?” Now enter the brain of this character that you made and say to yourself “what would they do?” when presented with stimuli in a fantasy world like a tavern bartender asking if they’d like a drink, a goblin holding a creature hostage to save its own skin, or finding a magical object in a cave their exploring. If they don’t know then have them spend time actually fleshing out the characters personality and the best tip is to make a character who is similar to yourself unless you believe yourself a good actor. Don’t make shy or problematic characters. You want someone who will work well with a group. And if they really wanna be good they should practice a little by thinking of common situations for adventurers and brainstorming how their dwarven cleric would respond.
> If they don’t know then have them spend time actually fleshing out the characters personality and the best tip is to make a character who is similar to yourself unless you believe yourself a good actor. This is what I tell my wife. She enjoys the fantasy combat and feeling like a hero, but overthinks the roleplay. Just roleplay as "yourself, but with magic/combat training/wilderness skills/[your class here]" if you don't wanna dive headfirst into writing your own high fantasy backstory.
It was this for me, and also never getting to put a word in edgewise anyway, because my party consisted of guys who'd been playing for like 20 years or something and did voices and everything. They're good players, and I'm holding my own a bit better now, but it was unbelievably frustrating for a really long time. I basically only talked when it was like "I roll to hit the dude in the back, I guess" during combat.
One of my friends is just a really charismatic type, and he has a habit of taking charge of the conversation whether or not he really should be. One time our DM friend told him “since when is the Druid the face of the party? You have a paladin right there!”
> mainly JRPGs, which very rarely gave me any real choices as a player The fact that they're called RPGs is travesty, along with all the crpgs that are just glorified combat simulators with no narrative decision making. It makes it so hard to find actual RPG game where you play a role (think vampire:bloodlines, piranha bytes games, witcher), when most people mean 'equipment has pointless stats and numbers go up' when they say RPG.
I wish there was a seperate genre name for when the decision making is only gameplay and character build related, but not narrative.
Would be useful, though to be fair I'm not a fan when there's no mechanics, just like I don't like when there's no roleplaying to be made. It's like a good kebab - if there's too little meat then it's just a salad wrap, if there's too little veggies then you will get meat shits. A good kebab has balance.
I honestly don't understood your comment. I answered to you because you said that JRPGs being called RPGs is a travesty. I mean those games, that have roleplaying only in the mechanical sense and are basically no full roleplay experiences. Thats what I would like a specific name for.
I actually find it quite depressing how the human imagination appears to be dying. Your answer makes me sad. Some of us have been pushing against restrictions and boundaries, longing for freedom from the boxes our minds are put into. The liberation presented by free and open choice is an event to be celebrated. But for most? They've lost the ability to perceive reality outside of the box. To them, the box is the universe and there is nothing outside. When allowed to leave the box, they just... Go all Plato Cave. And that is sad.
To be far, the comment you answered (and a lot of the answers to it) strongly implied that they found a way out of the cave at some point.
I've been DMing a homebrew campaign for about 3 years now, so I'm out of the box. I think most players don't have trouble using their imagination once the roleplaying aspect of the game is explained to them. D&D wouldn't have seen the surge in popularity the last 10 years if people weren't eager to use their imagination.
The staggering amount of rules. For most people, D&D is the most complicated game they have ever, and will ever, play. By far. It might seem approachable and intuitive to veteran players and hardcore gamers, but to most newcomers the Players Handbook is as arcane and intimidating as a wizards spell book. This really can't be understated. People who want to spend their limited free time having fun playing a game usually don't envision poring over complex rules or reading a huge book first. Trying to get into it is very difficult and often frustrating, it's a big reason why many people drop off after playing just one or two sessions, and why the game designers keep trying to simplify and streamline mechanics to the chagrin of more hardcore players.
Facts. And speaking from experience, when I was new to ttrpg's my first game was 3.5 and shortly after that, Pathfinder. Both systems are pretty dense in terms of feats, class abilities, archetypes, subclasses, etc, the idea of building a character was just so overwhelming without being able to understand how all these things linked together. Having a good and patient DM who can guide you through is key.
I learned 3.5e and then immediately after BAM 5e, get that spreadsheet shit outta here, bonuses and negatives to certain actions? Nah fuck that roll two dice, math is for nerds. Only reason I think I was able to pick it up so fast is because my autistic ass spent my free time for the better part of a week reading the PHB and DMG front to back so I was prepared at sessions.
I don’t think half of my table has read the phb outside of when they’re making characters and equipment tables. After a few years they actually learned all the rules just from experience. It was a wild moment when the “always unoptimized monk” guy at the table was perfectly explaining sneak attack and cunning action and how they work in the action economy to a new guy. Like dude you’ve never played rogue and it took me an hour to explain how moonbeam worked to you once One of the cool things about introducing new players is just dropping them in. You explain the character sheet for awhile and talk about a few important class features. “Alright time to start” “But I don’t know the rules?” “Just tell me what your character is doing. You can do whatever you want. I’ll explain specific stuff when it comes up.” Their minds are blown. After a few sessions they’ll either be rule lawyers or roleplay guys in my experience.
This also helps with the "stares-at-charactersheet-to-decide-what-to-do"-syndrom
It doesn't help that so many learn how dnd works by seeing or watching dnd memes which are some of the most rule breaking stuff ever
I learned most of what I learned from watching YouTube content like VLDL’s NPC DnD(now adventures in Azerim) and dimension 20. Which helped understand how the characters role played and then how they used their character sheets (particularly early episodes of adventures in azerim). Then when I sat down and played, I chose a simpler class (barbarian) and used DnD beyond to build out the sheet. And just started playing. It was easy as can be. Then when I finally bought the PHB, DMG, xanathars, Tasha’s, etc, it felt less daunting because I kinda had an idea about what I was looking at. My most recent couple of characters were sorcerers and rogues and started planning out feats and skill increases and all the little bells and whistles that I would have been intimidated by early on. I think it’s really tough if you just go to a game store, buy the PHB and try to work it out from there. Understanding what background is vs sub class, how do I figure out my skill bonuses (initial googling often times demonstrates how to calculate the roll, not the bonus) etc etc. So having context from actual play videos was invaluable for me.
I honestly think with a good DM and a couple of patient players, someone can learn to play it by playing it. It helps if it's a game starting at level 1. DM helps the player to create his sheet and explain each little bit. When I do that, I usually give a very brief explanation of the classes, but then go "think about some character type from medieval fantasy you'd like to roleplay". It's very common that new players will come up with some crazy ideas which are actually more fun than veterans min-max a build. Lend them a set of dives and ask them to keep in order from the smallest to the biggest, so it's easier to remember which one is which one. Then on the first gaming session, have a roleplaying scene, and then a quick and easy combat. What I have had to this day so far is that I ask "what do you do?" Without actually making the newcomer reading a huge book or explaining a LOT is that he will try wild unexpected things , and then you can, slowly, tell him what that means within the rules.
New players should be guided by more experienced players and the DM. Their action economy should be explained so that know what they can do in a turn and over time they can figure out the extent of what they do. 5e is easy to comprehend compared to earlier editions and it's way more new player friendly. I think sone players think they have to read the entire rulebook but that's not needed. Simple questions like what do you want to do, be upfront fighting, be a shield for your team, use magic, or support your team really cut down on taking in unneeded information in the beginning.
Very much this, IMO. When I was getting my partner into it I had to make her a really easy to digest cheat-sheet of what she could do with her character during her turns.
I think the cool part about DND is that the DM can teach while playing pretty well. You can start by taking over a lot of the mechanics for the players or prompt them to do certain rolls, introducing more complexity as the players learn. For example it's enough to say " I wanna hit that guy" and your DM can prompt every roll, so a player who has no idea about the combat system can still do combat. I really wouldn't stress about reading everything if it's overwhelming. Read basic combat, read what your skills do, read resting rules and spellcasting. You're good to go for 90% of the game. Rest DM explains when it comes up. The big amount of reading comes in when you start really getting into character building and optimization
That sounds like exactly why most people hate dming 5e though lol
I agree with you so hard!! It’s turned me off DnD actually, it’s become like playing bridge. I want a game where character creation is fast and simple, where combat is fast and elegant. Gues I just want it fast and easy.
Switch to tiny dungeons there are dozens of us
I'm an alumni member of a university TTRPG club and this is honestly one of the reasons why I try to reassure new members to not worry too much if they don't get a space in the D&D group. D&D is a complex system and while GMs and experienced members will be there to help out, learning other systems is still a daunting prospect for a lot of newer members. I think it's one of the reasons PbtA systems remain popular because it's easier to convince people to branch out if we have some options where mechanical side of character gen can be done quick enough to get some game time during week 1.
One thing I've been enjoying running Pathfinder 2e is the sheer volume of community tools available. I don't think any of my players have read much of anything about the rules. They put together characters in Pathbuilder and FoundryVTT and were able to build functional players.
The neat thing is really only the dm needs to know the rules, they can either apply a players vague ideas to rules or guide them through options (you can attack, dodge, or cast a spell now) etc
I'm a Mommy DM, and when introducing new players to the hobby what scares them the most is creating the character. Too many options and rules to play something that you won't know if you like can be seen as a waste of time, so I wait for the stars to align and we do group PCs during session 0.
I have a series of questions that I ask new players, from the Young Adventurers Guides. It helps guide towards what class they should play, then we just look at the table from the beginning of the phb with the six main ability scores where it lists which classes each ability is important for, and which races get bonuses to those stats, that way they just choose one of the races listed. Then we just follow the quick build suggestions in the class section.
Yeah, I did this for many sessions zero, I already have a script put together that flows well. The PCs end up being family or share a common goal, there were times when at the same table there were antagonists from other PCs like "I must get the McGuffin before Bob to show him that my clan is better" or shit like that. Very organic
Could you please dm me your script? I will be dming for the first time for a group of players that have never played dnd and would love to know how more experienced dms do their session 0.
First, sorry for spelling mistakes, English is not my native language. What I usually do in session zero is send them a doc with an introduction to the adventure they are going to play, perhaps it can destroy the suspense of what the story holds but showing them a thread to pull will help them create characters related to the story and that they know where they stand. Using Lost Mine of Phandelver as an example, the introduction can talk about the NPC that begins the adventure (the dwarf merchant Gundren Rockseeker), the mystery surrounding the Forge of Spells (the McGuffin of the adventure) and the dangers that lurk in the region. (the goblinoid tribes, the orc raiders, the undead). Starting with context makes them start to work their imagination. After having chatted about the adventure and answered questions, I usually do: - Classes: In general, ask the PCs how they want to play and from there you recommend their respective classes, obviously you are going to have to understand each class. Does one want to function as a tank? barbarian or paladin, does another want to focus on manipulating the battlefield? monk and druid. It's a talk, ask questions and take your time. What you want to play? What you want to wield? (Equipment related) How you want to play this class? (Subclass related) - Races: The majority usually adapt their race to the class they chose, so it is something that they must read and understand. Give them the options they have, let them read and choose, but make it clear that there are races that carry a social weight. Tieflings and Orcs are races frowned upon due to their reputation, lore is important. - Backgrounds: The last step before connecting the dots and creating the story, this should be the centerpiece of what the character is like. Asks questions related to class and race: So being a human paladin, how did you get this divine connection? Was it by witnessing the horrors of war as a soldier, or by finding value in sacrifice by being the hero of your village? You are a tiefling rogue, explain to me if you got your versatile abilities by fighting to survive on the streets as a vagabond... or were you perhaps recruited by a thieves guild? - Feats: Perfect opportunity to add flavor and make your characters feel a little more powerful. I allow my players to choose a feat at lvl 1, I give them access to a doc with feats and they choose. Allowing them access to these tools after they have gone through the process of creating a character focusing on the story makes them choose feats related to the story. Perhaps the human paladin folk hero seeks feats related to protecting and sacrificing his life for others, or the tiefling rogue chooses feats focused on theft or enhancing his surprise attacks. ----- With those four steps you already have a zero session of a couple of hours. The PCs have the skeleton of a personal story, they need to add statistics and numbers, always trying to make the PCs take into account creating characters within the region in which the adventure takes place. Using LMoP as an example, the paladin may be looking to join the Order of the Gauntlet (a faction stationed in Phandalin) or Gundren Rockseeker once helped the rogue with his debts and now owes him his life. Think that you are playing with friends, do not behave like a director but like a host who is inviting people to his house to eat snacks. It doesn't have to be a task, if you conduct the session as a chat with friends, everything will be more organic and interesting. The paladin will feel obligated to protect Phandalin from bandits who threaten his villagers, since he was also once a farmer oppressed by someone stronger. The rogue will feel the kidnapped of the one who saved him in the past as more than just a plothook to kill some goblins, it will be a way of returning a favor.
Thank you very much, this will be very helpfull and is some very good advice. Again thank you :) Also, your english is very good
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Yeah I like to do at least one session with prebuilt characters as a little intro. Having complete newbies start by making a character is very demanding, and one of the big hurdles to get into the game, but it is also really important to have good characters because you're gonna be playing them for months.
Prebuilt characters are the way! If I'm teaching somebody who has never played before, I come to the table with a dozen or so premade sheets that cover the basic stereotypes and mechanically simplest classes (a dwarf barbarian, elven ranger, human fighter, halfling rogue.) I'll ask them who their favorite character is from Lord of the Rings (or The Princess Bride, or some other iconic fantasy book/movie). Then I hand them a corresponding premade character sheet and wham, we're ready to play in under ten minutes. If they end up wanting more, I'll sit down and walk them through the full character creation process, but when you're introducing a player to the game, keep it simple and get to the fun stuff ASAP.
one thing I've found helps new players with "what die is that?" is having color-coded dice instead of a matching set. "Roll a d20" "Which one is that?" "The red one." "Now roll a d10" "Which one is that?" "the blue one" or whatever. It obviously breaks down if your player is colorblind, but otherwise, I think it helps new players get used to the die shapes.
Pointless online argument time: what color do you think each die should be? Here's my picks, based on absolutely nothing but vibes: - D20: sky blue - D12: purple - D10: black - D100: white - D8: dark blue - D6: pink - D4: red
These colour choices are absolutely unhinged. Who hurt you? Obviously it should be: - D20: White - D12: Purple - D10: Black - D100: Grey - D8: Blue - D6: Red - D4: Green If this isn't clear as crystal to you, seek therapy. ^((\/^s ^in ^case ^it's ^necessary)
My husband and I do that too, we talk about stuff and their colours all the time. We had an arguments about what colour math is. But we agree history is yellow. Which means the skill in D&D is yellow as well for both of us. And just yesterday, I told him history skill checks feel like wisdom checks, because wisdom is yellow to me, but he says wisdom is green. I think intelligence is green, but he says it’s blue. I don’t know if we’re really good fits for each other, but we make it work despite those hugely different opinions!
D20 being red feels super iconic, I'm shocked neither of you chose that.
This but no /s
- D20:Red - D12: Blue - D10: Orange - D100: White - D8: Black - D6: Red - D4: Green *This is a reference to a video game*
I remember a Youtube video reviewing different game system's Beginner Box setups. They were very impressed with the Pathfinder 2e Beginner Box. While they were underwhelmed with the material the dice were made of (cheap plastic dice), they loved how the dice were color coded *with a chart showing color and shape for each of them* on the "Action Cheat Sheet". Perfect for a table of first-timers sharing a basic set to get used to the shapes before they invest in their own polyhedrals, dice tower and tray, etc.
I own the PF2e Beginner Box, and while I decided the system isn't really right for type of game I usually want to run, it is probably the gold standard beginner box for me. The color-coded dice, the action cheatsheets & action counters, the structure of the adventure [each new room in the dungeon teaches a new part of the mechanics], the cardboard minis, etc. It recognizes the system it is trying to teach is complex and does its best to make it easier to learn.
Yup. These are brilliant for new players:https://diceofrolling.com/products/dice-of-rolling
As for the dice thing, it’s always been an issue for new players going back decades in my experience. I played my first game 34 years ago and didn’t know what was what. The trick I’ve always used is making sure the players keep their dice on the max number so that’s all they look for. Keeping a d8 on 8 helps make it easy to quickly id until they learn what is what.
Another trick if you have enough dice* for it: color code. If everyone’s d20 is blue, you just say “roll a d20. It’s the blue one.” Got this from the office My Little Pony game. * lol of course you do.
Friendship is Magic is a surprisingly well designed system. I totally stole their two inspirations and a story means auto success.
This is why I'm a [dice of rolling](https://diceofrolling.com/) fanboy.
I also keep my dice laying on their max number, but I do it so the dice find that position most comfortable and they strive to end up on that number as much as possible.
Maybe I started young or have just always been math/geometry minded, but which die shape is which number of sides has always been super obvious to me.
Me too. But as I got older and the players changed. New players came on I learned it was not that way for everyone. So I created ways to help them.
Realising you can try *anything* can be a challenging first step. Realising what has a chance to succeed is probably the second. It’s a real skill to be able to ask the right questions, “is there a way I can X” and “do I notice anything that might suggest Y” are the bread and butter of more experienced players.
I wish more players would just say what their goal is rather than trying to figure out if they can by asking about a bunch of random rules.
Personally, I think many of us have brains wired by fiction, where the only plans that work are the ones that don't get explained to the audience. So we get the feeling that, if we state our intentions, it's going to go wrong. Surprising the other players when they realise what you were trying to do also feels pretty rewarding. Of course, for that to happen, the DM needs to be aware of what you expect to happen.
it also stems often from an antagonistic stance toward the DM, the fear that if you tell them what your plan is, they will make it fail.
But they need to learn that! I as a DM repeat tons of time to new players: "please state me your your action and intent, what do you hope to get out of it"
My first DM game with 100% new players, had a monster expel a poison gas in a small cottage. The answer to make it easier was to open a window or the slew of the chimney. Near TPK until I gave a hint to it. Afterwards they were way better at creative solutions
what helps with these kind of situation with new players IMO that if you try to help them be in the situation: "ok, imagine, YOU are in a normal cottage, as I described it, front door, 2 windows, one chimney, that fills with toxic gas. What would YOU do, if you would be in that situation"
Honestly, the core combat rules. The exploration and social aspects are pretty flexible so you can kinda do anything. Once you get in combat, the rules become a lot more rigid and there are lots of rules and terminology that can become overwhelming, especially if you are playing a complex class I don't know how many times I've seen new players get confused by the fact that a "bonus action" is not just an additional action. A simple read through of the combat rules help, but it doesn't fix everything until you've gained enough experience to understand how things work together Additionally, I find that many new players don't plan out their moves. It gets to their turn and instead of knowing exactly what they are going to do, it's "oh...ummm...ah... i guess I'm going to move over here... And then... Um... Can I use a spell slot here?"
Interesting, I've never seen the bonus action misunderstanding. In my experience new players intuitively understand it as a 'mini-action' or the side dish to an Action entree.
Some players struggle with the idea of roleplay, so having pushier-than-normal NPCs that suggest goals or ask for PC opinions in character can help. Try to avoid overloading the natural introverts when they need time to consider these questions. This is probably the hardest part of the game to teach, and some players just naturally know how to roleplay. Most players struggle to figure out how to make different types of rolls or plan out combat turns. Helpful reference card handouts for how to take a turn, or how to add modifiers for common rolls can make the difference here. A quick-select card to help casters level up can also help. Every once in a while, I see players that struggle to visualize skills like Athletics vs Acrobatics, or who steal the spotlight by habitually speaking over other players. Sometimes new players bolt ahead of the party, interrupt narration, or even make rolls without confirming you need one. For these kinds of issues, you really have to understand the player's point of view and address whatever instinct is driving the behaviour. Gentle, but immediate, corrections go a long way in breaking habits or helping a player understand nuances. Assertiveness with empathy is the goal here.
Creativity. Lot's of new players just accept things at face value. Did this NPC tell us something? Okay, sure, let's more on. No, no need to insight check, no pressing for more info. Are there goblins in front of us? The only option is a straight on attack. No negotiations, no tricks, no sneaking. Oh I got a magic item without a CLEAR purpose like an immovable rod? It will sit in my bags forever, unused.
You gotta have a party that tries to walk up and go, "Heyy goblins, what if we like didn't fight it and you like Joined us? That would be pretty cool, huh?" *sigh Roll Persuasion*
You've just described my party of nearly a year!
Understanding grappling rules.
For me it's the "What can I do again?" during combat. Every *single* turn, without fail, new players will ask what different racial and class features, spells, and attacks do. And, for whatever reason, they only do this when it's their turn to do something. Once they decide what they want to do it becomes, "Which die is that again? Wait, why do I have to roll the big one twice? Okay how many times do I need to roll the regular one?" The way I manage this is I do for them what helped me when I was a new player. I color code the dice and I recommend they keep them highest number face up. I also print out a "what you can do on your turn" list for every player that describes what general actions, bonus actions, movements, and reactions they can do. I also either print out or give them a notepad where they can write all their spells descriptions specifically since the character sheet doesn't give much room. It saves them from having to constantly look it up in the handbook. I also start new players with two types of "beginner" adventures back to back. One is more exploration with a bit of fighting, so they get a feel of using their skills. The other is the opposite, a dungeon crawl with a bit of exploration so they get a feel for combat. I sprinkle in plenty of RP, too. By the time we're done with that they have a pretty good handle on the game mechanics. Or at least the mechanics for their class lol
I second the “which dice again?” and knowing when to add bonuses. Explaining exactly what proficiency bonus is seems to confuse players in my experience
Understanding the concept of “you can do anything” Understanding that though you can do anything, you probably shouldn’t Separating in character and out of character knowledge/actions
>Separating in character and out of character knowledge/actions I honestly prefer this over the "Thats not what my character would do". Thats like the anti-meta counterpart of newbies.
THAC0.
I've been DMing for 6 years now and I still don't know how it works. Luckily, it never came up in my games so far...
It's not a thing for the last 20+ years, so that tracks.
That was the joke here :)
Understanding the different ways spell casters deal with spells and spell books while also learning the spells themselves.
My experience has been that the thing that new players struggle the most with is not any kind of game mechanic or dice roll, but with the worry that they are doing something wrong for the world that they are playing in. What I mean by this is that people are hesitant to write a character background because they worry that they are going to get something about *the lore* wrong, and it will reflect badly on them. There is a lot of lore out there, and it can be intimidating to new players.
I think understanding how much you can interact with the game and how deep you can roleplay and interact with the world that way. I have a new player in a long running group who never asks questions, and really only roleplays choices she makes. Everybody else talks in character and is pretty deep in it. I realized at a certain point her only tethering point was RPG games and told her “there’s no dialogue trees, just be your character however you like”, totally was a “woah” moment for her.
"Wait, is that my score or my modifier?" "Why doesn't my modifier go up when I go from 14 to 15?" "Why do we even have scores, if we always use the modifier?" And also, players are their own worst enemies a lot of the time, specifically with not writing down things they use a lot. The big ones in my experience being their own spell save DCs and attack bonuses.
I mean these are good questions. We are just used to that modifier/score crap, but its really just a historic relic that I would remove if I were a D&D designer.
Started as a forever DM. Letting go of being in charge was hard.
As a relatively new player who read thru the Player Handbook to try to learn the game… the book content just isn’t generally articulated in the most accessible way. Character creation in particular feels nebulous. One example is Hit Dice — they felt impossible for me to understand no matter how many times they came up. It’s just not a term I had any frame of reference for. I think — as someone who learns best by example — I wish there were lots more character creation examples in the book that go step by step, maybe for each class.
I had issues with the term "spell slots." What do you mean I don't slot anything in them!?
I am just now realizing that it no longer makes *any* sense to call them slots. (In case you didn't know, back in the day you prepared/memorized a spell for each slot specifically, including preparing the same spell multiple times in different slots if you wanted to cast it multiple times.)
Hm, I see it as you *do* slot spells into them when you cast a spell, 'filling' that slot and making it unusable until you empty them all after a Rest. If I cast 1st level Magic Missile 4 times, I've filled four 1st level spell slots with Magic Missile.
I've run a few games for new players, so I like to think I've gotten good at pre-empting a lot of the issues. my first step was building 15 or so PC sheets; one of each class, and a couple variants: a dex and a str fighter, a swashbuckler and an arcane trickster rogue, and a hexblade and tome/fiendlock, to try and get the "purest" versions of the classes across to the players. I made them as simple a choice as possible, to not overwhelm the players with options, so avoided things like the rune knight, or animal companions, and made sure that the relevant pages were printed and attached (using Homebrewery where needed, to format it where their subclass is actually spelt out) second step was buying 5 sets of 7 colors of dice, then "partsing" it out, so they might have: 5 red d4's, 5 orange d6's, 5 blue d8's, and so on. that way, I could easily say to them "roll the purple one", when they needed to roll a d20. conveniently, that also meant that I had another 6 sets of those collections, to keep or sell to other GM friends, or lend out to people running campaigns for newbies. total cost of the 35 sets was actually only about $30/set, thanks to buying them through AliExpress/Wish/Temu. they don't have to be fancy, just readable and cheap. third step was having a "suggested play" card for each of the sheets. a "as a fighter, you probably want to: Attack with a Longsword" type suggestion, as well as a "when it gets tough, try to: use action surge and second wind" type suggestion. it meant that they would look at their sheets to read what the abilities do (which is a wonder in itself) and would inspire them on what their class was capable of. the fourth step, and this is the only one that you need to do in the game, rather than preparing for it beforehand, is to be open to rule of cool and say "that's definitely not what the ability is meant to do, but that's cool as heck, so I'll let you do it this once". the worst thing to do to new players is tell them "you can do anything" and then gradually shut them down with "except that, that's not how that's meant to work". you establish that it's a one off thing, but let them do it, so as they learn the system, they figure out the things they can/can't do, but have a blast until then.
The "suggested play" card is a great idea!
I also used the cards as mini-trackers (so action surge, spell slots, etc), and as lists/reminders of actions they can take, so Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, and Hide are spelled out for the players. my advice is to make them a bit vague, so rather than say "you gain additional movement equal to your speed" just say "you can move another 30 feet this turn" or instead of "attacks from creatures you can see made against you are made with disadvantage", saying it as "make it harder for enemies to attack you" for Dodge.
New players really overthink dice. Everything is d20 except damage. Very simple actually.
I would have said pencil & paper character creation.
Showing up for the 2-3 session arch
My first ever time playing was a week and a half ago. I have wanted to play for a long time and I really hoped my kids would get into it. So, I decided to get them playing by starting myself and of course I had to DM a homebrew game instead of using the beginner game. I know I’m missing things but it has went pretty well so far. The most difficult part for me is figuring out combat rules and getting a good flow to make it exciting.
Good for you - keep it up, learn as you go and have fun! I have been playing with my kids for quite a while now (I was a long time player before they got into it though).
All of the mechanics. For a 'role playing' games it is super heavy in mechanics. There are so many RPGs that are very light on mechanics, sorry dice nerds.
First person speech seems to trouble first timers I've played with. Also, the urge to treat it like a video game and kill/steal/fuck is fine your FIRST time and FIRST time only.
Good thing you don't need first person speech. If someone has trouble with it I just say "don't worry, you don't need to act it out. You can describe in 3rd person what your character does and how". Helps shy players and honestly makes for better roleplay, because no one needs to try to act like a CH 20 bard or 20 INT wizard, if they are in real life not like that at all. And because action and intention are much clearer that way and it comes to much less miscommunication between player and DM in my experience.
From my experience a big one is learning that consequence comes from their actions. Put them in jail for harassing the barkeep and they will soon learn. another thing is learning they can do more than just what's on their character sheet.
There is the rules piece of it and all the details, but for the most part a new player doesn't really need to know any of that. They can learn that slowly and still be playing just fine for a few sessions without knowing what to roll and what abilities they have. I think the bigger thing is getting them to take that ownership over their character and be into the roleplaying making choices with a much more open path where they can go and do anything they want. Getting the balance of I can do anything, and figuring out what choices will help drive the story forward and be fun for everyone, and what might lead things in a murder hobo direction and be less fun.
I'm playing with a group of new players, 5 sessions in. 3 of them are over 50 years old with no previous ttrpg experience and very limited exposure to video games. They are all very smart people, very successful in their careers and with a wide range of skills from humanities to math to technology. They have a really bad time at finding what die to roll and I can't really comprehend why. I've encouraged them to keep dice in the table with the biggest number facing up so they are easier to identify and it seems to be working. Also, they seem to have a bad time remembering where stuff is in the character sheet, but I think they are getting better at this. They are starting to grasp the possibilities of roleplay and they are enjoying it quite a lot. At the beginning they just stated at the character sheet trying to find what they could do. I had to yell "Stop looking at that paper, that's just numbers, what do you want to do?" Fun times :)
Jump rules. Even as simple as they are people just don't get them
A tip for the dice thing, if you play in person, have one or two sets of dice where each die is a different color and have the new players use those sets. It's a lot easier for the player to differentiate the dice and learn them. "Roll a d8, which is the yellow one" can go a long way and cause a player to quickly pick it up.
So many things, but one that hasn't been metioned yet is D4s. They are super simple now, but when I used the PH to make my first character, I had no idea what to do with the D4. I think I added up all the numbers on each face and then added the total of all three sides or something like that. My kids laughed and explained how they actually work, and I felt kind of dumb. Not as dumb as I did a year and a half later when I finally realized how saving throws and proficiency work. A year and a half wasted, just adding my regular modifier to every saving throw. Switching from paper to D&D Beyond really helped me. Don't get me started on 6 second turns, 1 minute rounds, and only one reaction per round. "What do you mean I have to just stand there and let it kill me?!"
Honestly, I feel you on D4s. Especially the ones that have the number on the base rather than in the point… why do those exist??? I also don’t know how to tell you this, but… rounds are also 6 seconds 😅
I'm a teacher and I run games for middle- and high school players a lot, and I'd say you mentioned THE two biggest things- which dice and understanding ability scores and modifiers.
Spell management.
Knowing where to look on a character sheet for things and what they need to add together. Simplest way I've explained it to people is that everything you do will use one of your main stat's at bare minimum, most of the time you'll also add your proficiency bonus if you have proficiency in whatever you're doing, be it a skill, a tool, a weapon, or even a saving throw. Then, once you've added those numbers up, you're able to add on whatever extra bonuses you might have, a +1 weapon might add an extra one, expertise in a skill might add your prof bonus a second time, etc etc.
Character sheets. It is the first biggest hurdle for them to overcome in online play.
1. Finding a time to play that fits everyone’s schedule.. 2. Deciding to pick a class that benefits the team the most vs picking a class you like the most
For new players who are actually trying to learn the game, and not just play another video game style rpg, I’d say understanding the flow of what they “can” do (both in and out of combat) is the first big hurdle. It’s hard to explain what I mean but I’ll try. The notion of “you can do pretty much anything you want” is a very daunting sort of realization for newcomers because it feels like a lot and doesn’t properly explain what that means along with all the sub-notes that come with it. There’s a lot of other moving cogs that go with that; including but not limited to: the setting you are playing in, the DM, the other players at the table, the character they are playing, the dice gods, etc… It feels like “I want to accomplish A, so I have to do B, to achieve C” which it is *sometimes* but the path to get there usually has a lot of twists and turns and other little pieces that you don’t see working in the background which the player might not think of. Which again, is fine. The hurdle really is being okay with not being aware of these other pieces and the effect they have on whatever you are trying to accomplish and still working towards that thing and still being able to work with these things as part of the flow of the game. The most common example I’ve seen (which even experienced players sometimes do) is continually trying to do something that has pretty much been explicitly shown isn’t going to happen in that manner. For a specific example, trying to convince an NPC to do a certain thing even though they’ve stated they will not do it. Maybe they rolled low on their persuasion, maybe there’s a logical hard stop, whatever. Having some roleplay back and forth is fine to build the scene, but eventually the moment just has to move on because it’s hit it’s conclusion. I’ve heard it explained as not thinking of it as “yes and” but rather “no, but”. It’s a tough one to get passed because sometimes there’s a thing we really really want to do and coming to terms that you can’t in a game where “you can do pretty much anything” is difficult.
Which dice again?
Apparently for the noob in my group: knowing which dice is which 😅
Which die to roll, and how to play as a team.
I was super embarrassed that I couldn’t understand how to read most of the dice at first. I also couldn’t visually identify them. Using digital dice really helped. Creating a character was also just wading in knowing I didn’t know what I was doing. The first page of character creation on DDB was super intimidating. I STILL don’t understand everything that page of toggle buttons is asking me, lol.
I’d guess roleplaying is difficult or awkward for some, and dealing with an open world/creativity for some
A frequent one I run into with new players is assuming their character can do everything and then get upset when their fighter rolls a sneak check poorly or that their bard can't launch fire balls, or their level 1 warlock can't dimension door or misty step every single turn, etc. I had one guy build a level 1 monk character and couldn't understand why he wasn't Aang from Avatar the last airbender
Thinking dnd is the only ttrpg in existence when they'd much prefer to play something else
Ik my current players went the murder hobo route, also thinking every NPC is out to get them, and purposely not following any story cues and off roading. They’ve reined it in thankfully. For me when I first started playing, I was just stat maxing. Fighter, big sword, trying to find better swords and armor. No unique goals. Also we play with profs so taking completely random profs because they sound cool to me, not because they relate to my character.
The difference between spell *slots* and spell *levels* has come up in every single game I've run for people as a DM - it's annoyingly un-intuitive unless you've dunked yourself into the system for a while.
The rules
Math
Think in terms of endless possibility and action economy was pretty hard for me. Also in "my DM wouldn't do this to me" because yes he will. Lol.
Learning how spell slots and spell slots in general work, i definitely had a lot of problems with this back when i started.
Combat and class mechanics are probably the biggest thing. 2 of my players got the extra attack feature and I feel like I am failing to successfully explain to them how it works. They sometimes try to roll damage for the second attack without rolling to hit, or roll again for an attack that already hit when they try to invoke an "on hit" feature. My wizard tends to default to a damage cantrip or magic missile every turn as well even though I tried to help them pick some decent control options. They are improving but I do feel like I'm fumbling on my part to properly help them because the things they're struggling with I've taken for granted for so long.
The dice thing is definitely accurate but to be fair I've been playing for years and sometimes I still pickup the wrong dice. Another one is the adding of bonuses, roll this dice, add that number, you also have a bonus d6 so roll that, you have advantage/disadvantage so roll again... I've found it to be more prevalent when they use a handwritten character sheet. When using an online char creator it does alot of the additions. But I still prefer a paper version so I fill out the online and print it out and after every session update the online and reprint.
Mostly what i get is that it's not the same as playing baldurs gate 3 or neverwinter
As a new player, for some reason it took me months to understand spell slots. 🤷🏼♀️ Calling them "spell shots" for a bit helped, coming from a family that has guns.
Thinking their first quests are going to get them thousands of gold, negative actions (constantly threatening/murder hobo stuff/attempting to steal from anyone) won’t have negative consequences, not understanding that they need to ask questions or just expecting all knowledge is available to them. I’ve had a few players ask how dead something is or specific information about a situation out of character and get frustrated when I ask them to roll or refuse to say because the character doesn’t know that.
That they can't accomplish everything and they'll die if they try to do impossible stunts
Staying in character. Most games have the players saying, "My character says to the barkeep...". I encourage my players to just say it, in character. It adds a realism to the game that makes it a lot more fun. But my game is an oddity. Do it your way, it's a matter of taste, not "the right way". YOUR way is the right way for you.
Mostly knowing what their character is supposed to be good at. Like they roll just to roll and keep failing at what their character is bad at, which makes them feel bad. Of course, you can remind and guide them and over time they should learn, but it's Def a struggle.
So I got to play with some players who weren't really experienced with tabletop or video gaming in general. A lot of people have new players with big ideas of what they want to do in the game and struggle with how to represent that in the system. I had the opposite problem; they had never done anything remotely like it, and really relied on their character sheets to tell them what they could do. That isn't terribly rare, but complicated other issues. Something they really had no intuition for was the difference between combat and non-combat encounters. Things like trying to cast spells that take a minute to cast despite understanding that combat rounds take six seconds and the fight would likely be over when they're done. So they were extra frustrated because when they had an idea chosen from the fixed list they had, they were told they couldn't/shouldn't use it! I haven't been able to put this into practice, but I think next time I'll make character sheets that organize player actions by those for combat (or another word for it) and those not for combat. I know those boundaries are fuzzy. These are very very new players. It's not important that they understand exactly how the game system works; what's important is that they have fun and want to keep playing. For those people specifically, having prescriptive options that they know when they're appropriate to use would help a lot. I could easily see explicitly laying out more "default" actions too like insight checks. Anyway yeah my takeaway is that in some cases, the character sheet is someone's window into the game, and custom laying out character sheets for those people would be really helpful.
For people used to CRPG - the lack of shopping. People come back from their first adventure with a bunch of gold pieces and want to upgrade their weapons and armour
I think this really varies widely depending on their background. For example, I DMed a group a while ago that had a bunch of new players. And when I say, no, I mean, they had never played a fantasy role-playing game before, they had never played a CPG before, they never read fantasy novels before, they had never played any complex boardgames before, just totally new to the genre. For them, just the sheer complexity was overwhelming. After that, I would say, the next biggest thing was letting go of the idea that the rules prescribe what you can do in any given situation. Like, it was really difficult to get them to go “can I try to tie a rope to the chandelier and swim across the chasm?” I imagine the challenges for someone who has played C RPG’s extensively would be a lot different.
Seems simple, but other than murder hobo acts... just finding things on their character sheets. DnD beyond helped, but it is still a struggle for the first few sessions.
Simple arithmetic, learning the rules
It's my players not knowing what to do in any situation lol I told them about the cracked window at the back of the room and the boxes in the corner and they just went and sat around and just hung out and kept passing there turns and just literally not doing anything besides just sitting on boxes and every once and a while getting frustrated because they don't see any way to move forward. At that point I just kept saying "you guys can do whatever you want....there is a window over there" just for them to never even try to go to the window but instead complain that there was nothing to do lol you just did a whole ass encounter downstairs and got some loot and talked to a kidnapped dude and you just went upstairs and decided there was nothing to do up there. I just railroaded and made the kidnapped NPC open the window to see the bunch of guards coming up to investigate. It was the end of a pretty good session but my players just seemed like after playing that encounter that they just weren't feeling it anymore. These players are all new to DND and they seem to be having fun but they're severely lacking in the role playing department. Can't blame them cuz I was once a brand new player once but man I think that's the biggest turn off in DND when you first start playing is the lack of instinct and improvisation that you could run into.
For me it was the role playing. I used to metagame a lot, not because I wanted to not because “I know the things, so how can I act as if I don’t?” Also I didn’t know the game well enough to act without asking permission. Now that I’m experienced, I request rolls, not actions, I say “I want to do this, can I roll (insert relavent skill)” rather than just asking “can I do this?” Mainly, the role playing was tricky because it just felt awkward sometimes. Am I talking as myself or as my character? Do I physically act like the character or do I narrate every one of their actions? Things like that took me over a year to get used to
Specifically for D&D, spellcasting, spell slots, and preparing spells are the biggest issues that come up to the point where I suggest to new players to play a sorcerer rather than a wizard if they want to be a spellcaster (but I don't force them at all). I just started a new game with one brand new person and it took a while for them to understand spell slots aren't something you "slot" spells into. I find identifying the different dice comes easily enough after a few times of pointing it out.
Shifting between role playing your character and speaking with exposition. I see new people struggle with that at times. Another big one is thinking “this is the game where you can do anything!” means trying to kill random villagers instead of following the story the DM has prepped and laid out.
I'm fairly new to table top RPGs, started only this year in Jan. Due to my previous 20 years experience playing Tibia I understood the mechanics and the objectives pretty quickly. What I find difficult is the IRL roleplay of the character, I sometimes find myself out of character when exploring or during my turn in a fight, and only realize it when I see the Bard or the Cleric going full theatrical (which I actually love doing XD). There's an Explorer and another Barbarian (I'm a Barbarian) and both of them are still only focused on playing the sheet and the dice, no performance whatsoever.
Definitely the technical things like what dice to use, what modifiers to add and how their feats work. On the other hand.. I ran a campaign for a group of newbies a while ago, and recently I restarted this campaign again with a group of experienced players. I now noticed that the newbies were much more creative, curious and resourceful than these experienced players, who just seem to do things the way they always do them.
I have the same experience as the OP. At first my players don't understand how to compute the bonus they get based on the ability score involved and when they have proficiency. They quickly begin to understand which dice to roll, but except for the d6, it takes a little time for them to recognize what the other dice look like, so they roll a lot of d10s when they should roll a d8, and roll d8 when it should be a d10. They figure out the d20 before they figure out the d12. On spell casting, they don't understand they need to announce the ability and the DC for monster saves when they cast. They just say, I cast ### and it does dNN damage. Whoa there cowboy, what's the save?
Mistaking the D12 for the D20.
"Wait, so what do I roll?" A quick calculation for saves/checks should honestly be put right on the character sheet.
Just keeping track it all their abilities/spells. Knowing how to use them but mostly just remembering that they have them.
I would say combat. Still struggling as a dm with all possibilities you have in combat.
The bonuses was certainly the hardest for me and my group. Knowing that proficiency is added to attacks, but not to damage, while strength or dex is added to both, I messed that up a lot. Spell effects was another one that a few people in my group still struggle with a year after we started. We ended up printing and laminating a set of spell cards for each PCs class to keep it moving so they're not flipping around in the PG. When we play online, people usually have a sheet of all their spell cards. Roll playing and meta gaming are probably the two biggest persistent issues. Half of our group made their characters basically themselves, while the rest of us have traits and things that make our characters unique. Trying to realize that your friend is playing a part, which doesn't align with who they really are, can be easy to forget. Meta is an issue always because it's hard to decide what your character would know in game. Is it obvious that undead would be susceptible to radiant attacks? Is a silver dragon that breathes ice likely to be susceptible to fire damage? Would your adventurer figure that out without having faced on before based on context clues and general things they've figured out in their 2 years of adventuring?
New players doing full casters confusing leveled spells with character level and number of prepared spells with number of spell slots. And they think they get it and you are over explaining and then 30 minutes later they go…wait…what?
I started by listening to my girlfriends campaign. I got invited to play, and when I joined, role-playing was the most difficult. Getting over the idea that I'm playing pretend and what I'm saying is going to sound silly or dumb out of context. The most helpful solution to that was the DM. She's excellent and does a really good job engaging you in the story, so you can really lose yourself in the character.
Recently joined my co workers for my first time. I love RPGs and MMOs so that helped when making combat decisions on building my character but the part that took me by surprise and was the most difficult was the role playing aspect. To act and improv as your character using an accent and thinking like them and what not. It was the immersion that really surprised me. For my first dialog, the GM turned to me and spoke so enthusiastically with a medieval accent which took me by surprise and all I could say was “Yes?” LOL.
Trying to figure out what it is
i have very little experience with DnD and my biggest problem is that my characters all just turn into me. like i’ll play a dwarf fighter with a military background and by the 3rd session i’m cracking fart jokes and saying stuff like “ah shit dude these gnolls are wack”
In my case it was understanding when skills and proficiencies came into play, what they were and the measurement systems. Especially the measurement systems 😅 For example, I had no idea what the difference between insight and perception were, the exacts of skills such as acrobatics and athletics were and so on. Let alone when and how to use them. But this was dealt with through questions, reading and a DnD dictionary. The real trouble was the measurements. The goddamn imperial system. 😭😭😭 Take spells for example. Some last minutes, or even hours. I wasn't sure how to tell how long it had been in game. Then there's distance, whether it be spell range, movement speed or travelling. It's all in imperial so I couldn't conceptualise it. Tbh I still really struggle with it. If I ever have a physical game I'm going to bring little coloured cellophane cuts for visual reference. Newer players can use them all the time. More experienced players can roll for perception or something I guess. Might just give it to them for optional use. Idk The issue shows up in character heights, encumbrance weight and the like as well. There's just no escaping it. I was forever asking my DM if I could go as far as I wanted, if it could make it somewhere. I actually started with a monk so I wouldn't have to worry about spell range. I just didn't have the mental space for that extra struggle. Seriously, if you have any international players please be patient with them in this regard 😔
Spending time outside of play to read the book and learn the rules. Many seem to regard this as "homework" (their own words). Its honestly flabbergasting to me. Makes me wonder how they got involved in their other hobbies. Surely they had to read or study something to get started? If reading about something you claim to like and think is cool is boring to you, why do you want to engage with the hobby at all? I struggle to imagine the cognitive dissonance it would take to say "I want to be a homebrewer and make my own beer at home" but then just randomly mix things together to produce ruined batches instead of just reading recipe books to learn how to do it correctly. And it goes far beyond a reluctance to merely read. Some people complain that they "can't learn by reading" so I make compilations of youtube videos for them, but then they don't watch those either. As far as specific mechanics go, proficiency in 5e. People always ask what that means, and I tell them over and over again "its a flat number based on your level that applies to everything you're proficient in." To which they say "what am I proficient in?" Bro, your class literally tells you. 5e is so dumbed down from early editions but not far enough, apparently.
Understanding that the DM is not an XBOX
I second the “which dice again?” and knowing when to add bonuses. Explaining exactly what proficiency bonus is seems to confuse players in my experience