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[D&D 4e] Recommendations for a Beginner
zfleeman
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi all,
I'm very new to D&D. So new, that my core rule books are in the mail! I have some miniatures, and loads of dice (gifted by a friend), and I'm ready to start a campaign with a few of my buddies.
Thing is, I have no idea which campaign to run for a group of beginners.
I joined this forum, because I was pretty sure that Penny Arcade would have a great tabletop community. So, if you all could shout out, or link me to some of your favorite easy, yet intriguing campaigns/stories, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Thanks.
I'm very new to D&D. So new, that my core rule books are in the mail! I have some miniatures, and loads of dice (gifted by a friend), and I'm ready to start a campaign with a few of my buddies.
Thing is, I have no idea which campaign to run for a group of beginners.
I joined this forum, because I was pretty sure that Penny Arcade would have a great tabletop community. So, if you all could shout out, or link me to some of your favorite easy, yet intriguing campaigns/stories, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Thanks.
zfleeman on
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For my story though, I just went to the D&D Encounters Program on a whim last night (First time playing since about 2000, and lucked out on the first game of the new season) and well, rolling dice is awesome and addictive. I just want to go play more, and one encounter is just too short.
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4news/20090428
I'm doing the Encounters thing as well, and so far I think it's a great way to find people to potentially start a live game with. I'm currently just doing PbP's because I relocated to a new state last year and don't know any friends around that share an appreciation for imaginary fantasy adventures.
Spaceships are better than relationships
Funny that's the one you recommend.
Try the Character Creator. Much painless way to experiment with new characters, and it's free upto level 3.
Also, yes, I would highly recommend paying for 3 months of DDI and splitting the cost with a couple of your friends, and using the Character Builder to make your characters. It is much less painful than going through tons of books, and if you update it, it remains up-to-date on all available feats, items and powers.
I looked this up on your suggestion and it looks like it's an adventure that is downloadable for DDI subscribers only, anyone with a sub care to clarify?
Article detailing the adventure here
The PA Podcasts are great at giving you an idea of how to form or deliver narrative, giving descriptions of objects or environments and the like. Also they're good at explaining rules, when I was at the end of the first season I had an understanding of the basics of taking a turn, skill checks and basic mechanics with no previous RPG or tabletop experience.
If you take a DDi subscription (which I recommend for getting an up to date character builder if nothing else) you can download the mini adventures they bring out, as well as a full fledged adventure that takes characters from level one to thirty by the end.
There is also a one person adventure there as well Dr Face. It's short, but it is designed for one character and then has a sidekick the DM can play to assist. I don't recall the name but you could use it to base other adventures off.
What's the online thing about?
The character builder will walk you through everything for character creation, including stat point allocation, Race, Class, Feats, Skills, and other things like chosen Deity.
After all that is chosen it generates a full character sheet already filled out with the appropriate information AND generates cards for you that display all of your at-will, encounter, and daily powers. Oh and another which is a stat card for your quick reference, and a Action Point card to track it's use as well.
Oh and I looked up that adventure about the race through the city, it is offered through the D&D insider program in Dungeon Issue 176.
DDI is $10 for a month and from what I've gathered, it's an astounding amount of information that you can have access to for such a small amount. Character builder updates are behind the velvet curtain of DDI as well, so if you download the free version you won't have all of the updates of new feats/skills/etc. available in the latest books like the upcoming Dragonborn/Tiefling expansions.
EDIT: Character Builder Demo can be found here. It's full featured enough that you can make an entire party from level 1-3. If you want to go past 3 though it requires a DDI subscription, which was already mentioned also gets you updates to the latest info.
It's generally not a good idea.
That's amazing. Thanks for the info.
In my experience, a DM running a Player Character only works when they have no substantial decision-making ability, usually being detached by either ignorance or indifference to the party's goals. Hired muscle, essentially.
That'd still be difficult to do with only one real player in the party. I suppose it'd function okay on a mechanical standpoint, but the big draw of RPGs is more than one person putting their heads together to deal with a challenge. Even then, designing combat for two PCs is rather difficult and finicky; I would say you need a thorough & impeccable grasp of encounter-building to know how to scale them down and avoid unintended monster synergies. Ideally you'd design 2-player combat more like skill challenges than straight-up fights.
One way of mitigating the burden of the DM serving as half the party might be to play it exclusively as a dungeon-crawler and generate dungeons randomly. I did that once using a deck of index cards; the DM rolled on a chart to generate a room, then drew a card that was either blank or contained a lists of monsters and/or treasure to be found within. It allowed both me and the DM to play with our own PCs and not know exactly what was in the next room.
I also recall there was a Dungeon/Dragon magazine article that featured a one-person adventure. It was more like a choose-your-own-adventure with combat and skill checks, but it was playable.
As a DM, it can be tough at the beginning -- I know I had one dude who min/maxed nonstop and wouldn't roleplay, one guy who thought it would be funny to smash everything in every room, and a guy who thought it was funny to have his fighter have a CHA score of 20. It's crucial at the start to lead by example, and help people out in their decisions while not being overbearing. For instance, to start people roleplaying, REALLY get into character as NPCs.
Also, no total party kills for like the first two weeks, they'll hate that
I understand if it's a Npc that helps the team or an example of it was when When I was playing a Teifling Bard the village we visited was raided previously by some gang of thievies in the woods. Because the village did not trust us they sent someone to make sure they got the items back and to make sure we were not part of the gang or going to run off with the goods.
They did help with hinting where the gang was since they knew the area and other problems
But this was two players and the DM.