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D&D help : ground zero
JeffH
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey everyone, I'm looking for advice - I'm somewhat interested in starting a D&D campaign, but herein lies the problem - I've never played D&D ever, nor have any of my friends, and my only familiarity with it is with PC games like planescape torment and neverwinter nights.
Where do I start?
What should be the required reading material I pick up?
Will I need anything other than books/dice?
How many players is good for a campaign?
How much reading can I expect to do before I'm ready to go as GM?
How much reading can my friends be expected to do before they're ready to play?
Thanks for answering these noob questions in advance.
Where do I start?
What should be the required reading material I pick up?
Will I need anything other than books/dice?
How many players is good for a campaign?
How much reading can I expect to do before I'm ready to go as GM?
How much reading can my friends be expected to do before they're ready to play?
Thanks for answering these noob questions in advance.
JeffH on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Try to encorage the other players to use simple classes and simple builds.
Basically have a melee and ranged combat game with simple spells, ignoring the more complex interactions of spells.
For example don't let complex taks like a sorcerer using Ventriloquism to attempt to distract an enemy come into play. Instead just stick to the magic missile and other more simple interactions until you get that down.
Prestige classes should not be allowed for your first campain either.
Also think about setting and where you are at. A pregenerated adventure provides all of this for you so it can be really easy, but anouther thing to look at is to know where you are at (a forest for example) and then find an appropraite encounter using the back of the monster manuals table where it sorts creatures by level, (an excellent and game saving table for when things get boring) and looking for ones which would be in a forest.
Or use a monster filter like that here: http://www.d20srd.org/filters/monster.php
Also where are you at for real?
Maybe some PAers who play DnD live nearby and you could drop in for a game. I for one would welcome teaching someone else to play.
The contents of the Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide provide a lot of options even for advanced players. For people just getting started it's more than enough. And you can be pretty darn sure that if what a player chooses is OK by the core books it's not going to be game breaking.
Even the spiked chain thing is not all that great in a lot of cases. If you don't have room to back up and manuever (which is very common in dungeons) it's not at all easy to take advantage of.
My advice would be to get the core books. Read em. If you like what you see have the players each get a players handbook if possible. At the least you will need more than one or you'll end up with long wait times for people to look at the book.
Maybe get a pre-generated module or a campaign setting book. The downside of the campaign settings (especially Forgotten Realms) is how overwhelming they can be at first. Just get the "core" book for the setting (whatever it may be) and pick one small area of the world for your game. Read up on that one place and get maybe a general overview kind of understanding of the surrounding areas. But don't overdo it all at once.
Finally get yourself a battle mat (vinyl mat with 1" squares that you can write on with dry-erase markers and some counters or miniatures. The WOTC line of pre-painted minis are quite servicable but even just cardboard chits or stuff you printed off your computer is fine. Having a battle mat makes combat much easier to run. Especially attacks of oppertunity and flanking.
BTW: I have found that DMs who do not use a mat or minis are way too stingy in allowing flanking. It is actually absurdly easy to do but when running combat 'in their heads' DMs tend to make it seem much harder to set up than it should be. Especialy experienced 2nd ed DMs (they often have an initial dislike to the current sneak attack rules based on how hard it was to backstab in 2nd ed).