Tabletop DnD Questions

[Daedin]

For a long time now, I've wanted to play table top Dungeons and Dragons. And recently, I've been more and more tempted to actualy do it, as I believe I can conver- I mean convince family and friends to join in.

That being said, it is somewhat of a daunting thing to contemplate, as it is a very old game with a lot of rules and variants and I dont know what else. I imagine that being used to playing rpgs, and specialy Arelith, I will be more or less at ease, but, I still felt like this was, likely, a good place to ask:

-Where to start?
-What are the must haves?
-Tips and advices (specificly for someone thinking of DMing a campaign).

Thanks in advance guys.

[Ebonstar]

since your playing nwn your best bet is to avoid anything past 3.5 in table top as wizards though playtested alot of things, still made drastic changes to the game itself.

the easiest way to start some total newbies is go either get the 3.0 core books which are very cheap and then they can easily move to nwn if they so choose, or take them to what started it all, B2 keep on the borderlands. it can be found very easy on amazon and grab the basic rules to go with it, roll some base characters and away you go. the module also has dm tips all through it to help novice dms as well.

[Hunter548]

All of these questions are going to depend on what edition you're planning to play. Personally? Fourth edition is going to be the easiest to learn, since you can get a program that will walk you through every step of creation and make it much more easier to learn. 4e's also way better balanced and put together from a game mechanics standpoint. If you're planning to play a different edition, then I fully recommend you pick up a pre-made adventure path/module to play through, rather than trying to go it alone. The various SRDs also make good rules references; They contain all the non-copywrited sections of the rules for various editions, and more than enough to actually play.

[Urch]

I only just started DMing my first group a few months ago. I didn't even have a main story plot.
I just said, orcs were invading Cormyr, here defend this bridge that will be outflanked by goblins and had a peasant on it, which fell in the river. Eventually one orc ran off to a cave, which contained a trap, a loot pile (with disease based fortitude saves!), and a cleric boss.

Basically, I gave them each a combat (a bunch of orcs and goblins), a trap (tripwire and rocks), a challenge (rescue the peasant from the river), something that triggered saving throws (the diseased lootpile), skill checks (tracking the orc to the cave and rescuing the peasant), and a strong boss type (casters are good as it introduces spellcasting). Makes for a good introduction into the mechanics of DnD, and isn't too difficult.

Mind you, that is if you were going to make your own adventure. It seemed to work and the players were happy.

[Daedin]

Thanks guys, already a lot of useful stuff.


And Urch, yeah, I was thinking of doing something of the sort too.

Just come up with a rather stereotypical dungeon, a treasure-hunting quest, and use those simple ideas to introduce everyone, myself included, to the game.

Oh, also, a question..miniatures! Essential? Where do you guys prefer to get yours?

[Orian_666]

Tough question to answer, lol. The first thing you need to decide is what edition you want to play, playing NWN you already have a fair grasp of 3 and 3.5 (3.5 is better), 4 isn't too different to 3.5 so that would also be easy enough to pick up. In saying all that 5th edition is still very new so theres a lot less to learn right off the bat and quite a bit of your current knowledge is transferable so there's that.

Second is the literature, the books are a must, which would lead me to advise going with 5th edition, there's a lot less books out there so it will feel and be less daunting, 3rd - 4th editions are both finished and as such have a lot of literature with rules and manuals and what not and will require a tonne of work to get the ball rolling.

Miniatures aren't essential but having some sort of physical "battlefield" and both monster and player characters to place on it does make things easier and often times more fun, its also possible to use a whiteboard to keep track of things like that though, my groups uses both whiteboard and the physicals.

Back to the books, they are fairly pricey but luckily its possible to get them all in PDF format, which is good because they can then be passed on to your players too really easily, myself and a few people in my group that dont have the physical copies invested in cheap tablets (think they were around €45 each) to have the PDFs on so we always have the rulebooks on hand.

But the best bit of advice I can give is to read over the books a bit when you get them (physical or PDF) and simply get the game started, for new players its really actually quite easy to simply pick it up as you go along, and a lot of fun too the great thing about tabletop D&D is that even though the books do have rules and whatnot in them they're more like guidelines, make the game how you want it and fill in the gaps as you play and learn, that's how I learned it

As for what version I'd personally say 3.5 for familiarity or 5th for an easier start. I'm 50/50 on both so leave it to you.

[Urch]

For miniatures, you can just as easily print off a small portrait, and stick it to a piece of card to use, but miniatures do add a nice feeling to it.

I like to use miniaturemarket (they are based in New York.). For individual character models my players like to use Heroforge, but it gets kind of pricey for non US based people (US$15 for shipping international, US$5 for shipping US).

[Orian_666]

Oh yea, forgot to add, like Hunter said, starting the game with a pre-made campaign is a great way to learn how to play and how to DM. It's entirely possible to customise the "ending" so that your players can carry on a custom story with the PCs, or you can just start a new game after it

[Irongron]

Oddly Dungeons & Dragons was one of my least favourite RPGs, though the advice I would give is that for beginners the rule-set really doesn't matter so much, and anything too complex can have you constantly having to interrupt the RP to check things in books.

Go for a few core, basic, books and expand your resources as you both become more familar with the game.

As an aside my choice of fantasy role-play would normally be...

For ease of play and unbeatable world setting - Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (NOT the 3rd edition)

For complexity in characters, magic, and most of all combat - Rolemaster (this is easily my favourite fantasy RPG). With this one you are best creating your own world, or using one from another system. Not many people are familiar with Rolemaster, but it really is absolutely excellent.

And finally, for full out comedic fun, outside of the fantasy setting, the sublime, and rightly revered 'Paranoia'

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/T ... e/Paranoia

[Rwby]

I would advocate the 'GURPS' Fantasy setting for ease of play, personally.

[Ork]

Can confirm. 5e is super easy to learn, fun, and engaging. I played 3.5 knowing only nwn and found the experience frustrating because of what I "know" from nwn is not quite 3 5, but close enough to confuse the two.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I'm typically a big advocate for Pathfinder, but I was raised on the sweet milk of 3.5. 5th edition looks and plays really cool - really back to the roots of DnD.

For playing with a new group, I always advocate for using a premade adventure. It's a great learning tool for new DMs because it includes the "content" that you will want to later produce by you. It also outlines some of the ways you can build plot and character. They're also typically fairly comprehensive, and you don't need to buy 5 rule books to understand what they mean.

I also like Pathfinder because all of their mechanics are open-source and online. It's all totally free. Paizo makes their money off of adventure paths.

Your first Dnd campaign should always be overly generous- more loot, more xp, more forgiving encounters, more humour, more epic. I always go with the mantra of should the highest fantastical adventure possible, then proceed to roll it back to the gritty pseudo-realism that I typically enjoy - where the cast of NPCs rivals the character index of A Song of Fire and Ice novel.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

D&D 3.0 & 3.5 are, in my opinion, easy to get into. If you start with an srd it includes all the mechanics from the phb, dmg, and monster manual. That's all the core knowledge you need in one easy file.

From there, you can just pick the core campaign setting of whatever world you'd like to play in, and replace specific data with relevant lore-based data from that world.

You can make everything up on the go from there, or expand into extra material (and there is a ton of it, which I believe to be a positive more than a negative).

Urch's methodology of generating a checklist of things for the party to achieve and tailoring your adventure to the 'checkpoints' works very well, IMO.

Finally, I definitely agree with the self-contained modules for your first run. You can usually get by with just the srd plus the module- it will include information on everything you need to know about things relevant to the adventure you're running- as long as your players don't suddenly decide they want to go outside the sandbox- usually by that time, however, it's time to move onto the next module, so it works out.

[HurinWillSmite]

My suggestion would be 5th edition or Pathfinder. Which one you choose depends on the players of your game. Are they new to dnd/tabletop/d20/rpg? If yes, then it's probably best to take 5th edition. I'm guessing you've played plenty of Arelith so Pathfinder won't be such a big change for you. 5th edition is of course simpler for newcomers but I've realised that the lack of rules actually surprised me (for example: Flanking is only an optional rule and you don't get attack of opportunity against a caster who casts in melee) and made it harder to play the game correctly. I'll echo Seven sons of sins that Pathfinder is opensource and that makes it VERY handy when you and your players want to search up a rule, feat, spell etc. on the internet. You can't do that with 5th edition so your group is almost expected to have several player's handbooks at hand when playing 5th edition.

It's been some times since Pathfinder came out so they've made a lot of supplements etc. But in the end to start playing you only need Core Rulebook and one Bestiary. If more people need to check something most of it is on the web

If the choice is 5th edition dnd then you need a player's handbook, a Monster manual and a dungeon master's guide. Multiple player's handbook might be required because of the lack of free search engines online.

On the subject of miniatures I'd say that's probably not something you want to start out with getting. Definetly not essential. And you gotta paint them! Urgh..

[Razmo_de]

Shadowrun.
What?
It certainly has dungeons and dragons.

[Tyrantos]

It even have Dwarves, orcs, and elves.. Yeah. Shadowrun. (Never actually played it.)

[P Three]

AND DECKERS

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I'd also actually encourage to try to avoid using miniatures as much as possible. With a new group, you can do this (with not so new groups, it's much harder). A lot of combat can really be described, and no physical representation, means characters are more engaged,

From what I've seen and played, without minis, combat changes from less of a 3hr game of Risk, to an intense 10 minute Quick Time Event.

Ironically, the latter is a lot more engaging and fun in this context. Narrative comes first, not sitting around a table and moving pieces and waiting 10 rounds for someone to roll a 17.

However, ignore all of the above if it's a dungeon. I like battlemats, evolving layouts, and minis if it's a dungeon.

[Daedin]

Alright, a lot of good stuff. Thanks a lot guys.

And yes Seven, for a first playthrough, I was thinking just a very very basic, stereotypical dungeon, something to last maybe a couple of hours of game time, but leaving things open for further sessions, if everyone has fun and wants to.

One thing to keep in mind, is that two of the players will be my parents. They've always enjoyed tabletop stuff, but nothing remotely close to DnD, Cluedo being the most marginaly similar experience.

With that in mind, I want to keep things as apealing and fun as possible and avoid too many dice rolls after dice rolls. I am also thinking of, perhap,s even give them some hints at classes they would likely understand better, like a monk for my father, due to his martial arts' background.

Stuff like that. Coming up with an adventure, a setting, and fitting monsters and a narrative, all of those things will be the easiest part.

What I worry about is my ability to keep them engaged.

[Lorkas]

Dungeon World is a game system that I've played recently that minimizes a lot of the dice rolls, and puts it in the DM's hands to control how things go. It's really easy to focus on narrative and action over dice rolls in that system.

All of the rolls aside from damage are 2d6+modifier, and the modifiers range from -1 to +3 for the 6 stats. The level progression is less about becoming godlike and more about gaining more flexibility and options.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Engagement comes through intensity, high energy, and acting. All DMs, after a certain point, should arguably feel comfortable doing improv in front of a crowd a people - it's essentially being a DM.

It's always making a very comprehensible plot; some cool characters/settings; and vivid detail. People play this for fantasy, they want to -feel- the fantasy.

[Daedin]

Alright, I've read more or less half of the player's handbook and though it is veeeery thorough, I have questions, which I am sure you guys will be able to explain to me. Very slowly. And with simple words.

Alright,first, ability checks/rolls. I am not quite sure yet when I am supposed to ask for a straight ability roll, or its modifier. Someone wants to push something. Do they roll a d20 + ability modifier, which is oposed to the situation's dc?

Second, taking feats. I make a lvl 1 Barbarian named Cucu. I roll for his stats, and do all the stuff. I then have class feats and general feats to chose from. Do I get rage,fast movement,iliteracy AND a general feat, or is it a choice between them?

Sorry to keep bothering you guys, but though I am rather enthusiastic about trying d&d,there is a lot to keep track of.

[Ork]

On the nature of ability checks. The DM creates a DC appropriate to the challenge he is trying to convey. It is sometimes completely arbitrary. The player rolls a d20+ability mod to see if they succeed/fail.

On the issue of class creation, what edition are you using?

[Daedin]

Gonna go with 3.5 , cause I got my hands on pdfs.

[Hunter548]

Alright,first, ability checks/rolls. I am not quite sure yet when I am supposed to ask for a straight ability roll, or its modifier. Someone wants to push something. Do they roll a d20 + ability modifier, which is oposed to the situation's dc?

Yes.

Second, taking feats. I make a lvl 1 Barbarian named Cucu. I roll for his stats, and do all the stuff. I then have class feats and general feats to chose from. Do I get rage,fast movement,iliteracy AND a general feat, or is it a choice between them?

Yes.