I encourage you to check out these articles if you are new to the game, or share them with someone who is.

D&D for Beginnings – Roleplaying 101

D&D for Beginners – Understanding Dice Notation

D&D for Beginners – Player vs. Character Knowledge

Beginner’s Guide to Creating a D&D Character

Enjoy!

Barbarians – fierce fighters from the wilderness

Bards – entertainers who use music to cast spells

Clerics – priests who use their divine connections to cast spells

Druids – protectors of nature who use their connection to nature to cast spells

Fighters - combatants who dedicate their lives to being proficient fighters

Monks - fighters from monasteries who have perfected the art of combat without armor and only basic weapons

Paladins - fighters crusading for the glory of their deity

Rangers - hunters who fight to protect their home from their sworn enemies

Rogues - jacks of all trades who can open locks, disable traps, and pick pockets

Sorcerers - spellcasters with innate magical abilities

Wizards - spellcasters who study the arcane arts

We’ll delve into greater details on these soon, so check back soon for the next orientation.

Round 1: The Introduction

I started out with just my husband (then fiance) Dante, and our friend, Chuck, who was the DM. Just the three of us… so if I screwed up, I wasn’t too embarrassed. I had a lot of random knowledge from miscellaneous myth systems, folk lore and legends; I figured I could handle the story side of things, though I was a little nervous about the mechanics of it all. After consulting the PHB, I opted to play an elven bard, so the guys helped me roll up my character and place my stats and all those little things that go into creating a character.

Dante & Chuck made things so easy for me in those first couple of session that I was brave enough to accept another friend (Boyle, another long time gamer) into our little group. The very first Evensbrook campaign was my very first campaign, and I had a marvelous time saving the world from the evil Drow.

Round 2: Big Isn’t Always Better

While our little campaign was my only campaign, Dante & Boyle were playing in another campaign that Chuck was running with a bigger group. Both stories ended up about the same time, and they guys encouraged me to join in with the rest of the group for the new campaign. And that’s when the nerves really set in for me.

This group was composed of long-time players from the early days of D&D; I felt like a D&D-infant having just started in the early days of 3.0. And I distinctly remember the fears PM described: I was sure I didn’t know enough of the rules, but I was more sure I didn’t know enough of the everyday-kind of D&D things that we would encounter. I was terribly afraid of embarrassing myself in front of the seven or so guys I didn’t know very well.

The Verdict

In the end, I didn’t make a huge fool of myself, but probably because I’m such a shy person. I played a support character; I stuck to the bard class into which I had already been introduced and offered support in the form of healings and Inspire Courage bonuses. I didn’t put myself in the spotlight, mostly because I was nervous about saying or doing something wrong, but in the end, it didn’t matter.

I came to realize throughout that campaign that all of these guys – most of whom I did not know prior to the campaign – were willing to put up with my inexperience because, in the end, we were all there to enjoy ourselves.

The Moral of the Story

I highly encourage new players to get their feet wet because it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Stick with it, play more than one session at least, and try to suspend your nervousness. Don’t let the rules scare you; in the end, it’ll be just fine. Have fun, and welcome to the family.

Don’t make them feel stupid

In most areas of the Nerd Pantheon, new people are made to feel inadequate. It is basically a power trip from those who maximize their involvement in a subculture, and special care must be taken not to alienate people who are making their first foray into our azure waters. Oftentimes, new people to roleplaying are work acquaintences, friends, significant others, or relatives and none of these people will respond well to being made fun of.

Before you start in with cries of “DUH!” and “that’s obvious” I would have you stop and do some self-examination. I can distinctly remember a group of my own friends berating someone that screwed up Star Trek with Star Wars, to the point where they ended up saying “you guys are too intense for me” and left.

In this same vein, expect to have to explain the basic rules many times, including identifying what a d20 is, and which is a d8 and a d10, and various other commonplace elements of our hobby. This should be done with extreme patience, with special care not to sound exasperated if they don’t get it right quick enough to suit you. Being new at something that you want to get into SUCKS, and support is a nice thing to have.

Give them some things to do they can handle

When bringing a brand new player on board, it is good to give them some simple tasks to do that will let them cut their teeth with the gaming system, roleplaying, and basic system elements that they will be expected to handle.

My all time favorite multi-user dungeon (MUD) Gemstone IV has a system that indoctrinates new players by having guided assistance in simple tasks like moving around the town, purchasing gear, interacting with NPCs, and fighting simple creatures (in their case, it was rats). These concepts can be creatively applied as an episode in the plot that can draw the new player into the group, while having them play out some mundane activities to get them used to living in the world that you have created.

Have them interact with an NPC and be sent on an errand to purchase some supplies, and jump them with a Rodent Of Unusual Size and walk them through the combat. They’ll get the jitters out of the way and feel awesome about themselves for having beaten something, and then meet them up with the rest of the party. This is merely an example, any focused attention on getting them comfortable using the rules is crucial.

Give them a partner

This may go along with the previous point, but you should be sure to provide the new player a partner, both in-game and out of game. The in-game partner should take the form of an NPC and will be there to bail out the character should that ROUS get a particularly nasty bite in (this shouldn’t be required, but we’ll cover that later), or help the player to navigate around the town and find the appropriate location where they need to be.

The out of game partner should be there to help them with game mechanics, such as where on their character sheet to find armor class, attack bonus, skill checks, etc. They should be willing to help them determine what to add to their Spot check, and what to do when something unexpected happens. This will make them feel like they’re not all by themselves, which is a powerful thing in the early stages of gaming.

Finally, cut them a break

This is a special message to all you elitist DMs out there: don’t be an asshole. If you pride yourself on running a realistic campaign where conscripts die readily and its every man for themselves and you intend to apply these rules to everyone that plays, chances are very good that you are an asshole and you should not be allowed around brand new players. If you enjoy having NPCs swoop in in the last second and squash the bad thing to death every time, please see the previous statement.

We’re looking for a positive psychological experience out of their first encounters, do what you can to make that happen. It is of *utmost* importance that new players have fun in their first game session. I don’t have real scientific evidence to back this up, but I’m willing to wager that 90% of new players won’t come back for session #2 if they didn’t have one shining moment of feeling as if they did something awesome the first gaming session.

Use your option as a DM to fudge rolls such that the ROUS doesn’t crit them to death their first time. If it does happen to get them into low hit points, all of a sudden it had a blood disease and the next strike will render it unconscious. These players know nothing of our ways, they don’t know that most creatures have X hit points and one shot couldn’t possibly have killed it, they’ll just feel like they squashed that scary rat and life will be good for them.

These recommendations work for seasoned players too

Nothing is preventing you from applying some of these concepts with your seasoned players as well. You may not need to explain mechanics to the players that are longer in tooth, but you should still strive to give them that satisfying moment in every session.

I know there are some other seasoned vet DMs out there… how do you handle brand new players? Any recommendations that I didn’t cover?

As detailed in Chapter 2 of the PHB, these are the 7 standard races:

1. Humans - no mysteries here. Humans are humans, with the same general characteristics you already know and love. They are considered very adaptable in the D&D realm, and as such, they gain 4 additional skill points and a bonus feat at first level. (Don’t worry, we’ll go over skills and feats in another Orientation session).

2. Dwarves - stone-working, ale-drinking, war-loving dwarves. Dwarves are shorter than humans, averaging 4 to 4-1/2 feet in height, but that doesn’t make them weak… oh, no. These guys and gals are hardy folk that can take a lot of damage; they have a +2 to their CON, but they have a -2 to their CHA; they’re not the most attractive of races, but then, they don’t have to be.

3. Elves - beautiful, and usually a little distant from others, these elves are not Santa’s helpers. They are often denizens of forested regions, living nearly as long as the trees around them. Elves are graceful, and as such, have +2 to their DEX, but, they are not the sturdiest of races, as reflected by the -2 to their CON.

4. Gnomes - thinkers and innovators, gnomes are inquisitive inventors with great senses of humor and an odd penchant for collecting names. Gnomes are shorter than humans, elves and dwarves, averaging 3 to 3-1/2 feet in height. Gnomes are hardy folk, like dwarves, and have the same +2 to CON; being smaller in stature, though, they have a -2 to STR.

5. Half-Elves - children from the marriages of humans and elves, half-elves live between these two races, not as adaptable as humans, not as graceful as elves. They don’t gain any bonuses to stats, but they don’t lose any either.

6. Half-Orcs - you may have guessed, half-orcs are the result of humans and orcs. Half-orcs are tall, short-tempered and not always personable, but they are strong. The have a +2 to STR, but a -2 to INT and -2 to CHA.

7. Halflings - mischievous and clever, halflings are curious and love adding to their collections, whatever those collections may be. Slightly shorter than gnomes, averaging around 3 feet in height, halflings are nevertheless very nimble; they have a +2 to their DEX, but a -2 to their STR.

As I’ve mentioned, many of these races have modifiers to their stats. After rolling your d6′s to determine your stats, as briefly mentioned in the previous Orientation session, you apply the modifiers for the race you’ve selected. But don’t worry about all that right now; we’ll review the steps for rolling up a character later, and I’ll remind you about these modifiers then.

Now, there are other benefits and drawbacks to each of these races, and they are all outlined in Chapter 2 of the PHB. I recommend now that you’ve had a bit of an overview, grab your (friend’s) copy and get a feel for the personalities and quirks, as well as the other racial traits, for each of these races.

Next time, we’ll start exploring the classes.

Limited Pretend

I decided to show her how to roleplay just by doing something very simple. No rules or anything, just pretend you’re a person in a hotel room. She then tells me something I’d heard before, and oddly enough I’d heard it before from oldschool dungeon crawlers. The DM describes your surroundings and says “What do you do now?” and the player says “I don’t know, what am I supposed to do?”. It was a valid question, especially since there really wasn’t any objective. I just wanted her to interact with her environment, maybe talk to the bellhop or something.

My first mistake came by telling her “well, you can do whatever you want”. She thought about it a minute, and then said “I pull out my magic broom and start sweeping the floor”.

“You can’t do that, you don’t have a magic broom.”

“I thought you said I could do whatever I wanted?”

She had another good point. So then I explained to her she could do whatever she wanted with certain limitations. Roleplaying is like telling a story, whether you’re the DM or a player — whatever you’re doing has to make sense. In D&D and other tabletop fantasy games, an additional part of whether or not a character’s actions make sense or not depends on whether the rules say what they’re doing is possible.

That helped her understand how things worked a bit better, and soon she was stabbing evil in the back as Goudy.

Hey, Can I Drive?

A few months later in the campaign, we ran into another unexpected roleplaying issue. We had a blog set up for the campaign, and in her post for the week, Efreak posted about mysterious things happening to Goudy during the night. (I would love to tell you about them, but it would ruin the comic!)

It was cool, but when I asked her about it she hadn’t cleared it with Dante (who was DMing). Since we blogged all the time about our characters’ experiences and frequently made up stuff about character interactions that happened out of game, it was easy to see how she blurred the line detailing who was in charge of writing the story. To make a long story short, Dante decided to just run with it and it ended up becoming an integral part of the story. (One that I can’t wait to draw!)

These days, the players usually run off-the-track things like this past the DM first, but we also love it when this happens. We’ve had several stalled-out characters receive new life when the player is allowed to take the wheel for a second.

So What Have We Learned?

• Assume Nothing – D&D is some seriously abstract stuff to some people, and stuff that seems like common sense to a seasoned gamer might not to a new player.
• Players Like To Steer – and sometimes they have really good ideas too. We’ve run into this a couple times with a couple different players in the last few years. It’s the DM’s job to make sure everybody has fun, so if you have a player who wants to steer the story a little and it seems like it’d be fun for everyone, go for it! Nobody says you have to follow the script to the letter. Nobody says you have to let these things completely derail your campaign, either. Make a call, and do whatever you think will be the most awesome for everyone.
• My Wife Plays A Great Gnome – She totally does. For real. But she’s way cuter in real life!

Anybody Else?

We’d love to hear your experiences introducing new players to gaming, good or bad.

That’s all for me today. Until next time!

Welcome, New Players!

One of the greatest things about D&D is that it’s time you can spend with your friends. And most D&D friends are very supportive of sharing their addiction with newcomers. So, don’t worry. They’ll loan you dice, then help you figure out which ones to roll when needed. While they are pretty great about answering questions, it’s still nice to know a bit ahead of time so you know what’s going on.

Before all the adventuring starts, you’ll have to create your character. This character will start off as a series of numbers on a piece of paper, but I think you’ll find that after awhile, your character will be like a best friend without whom life is less interesting.

A Series of Numbers?

Yes, a series of numbers. Each of the following abilities will have a number (or statistic) assigned to it. The higher the number, the “more” of the trait. So, here’s your overview:

Strength (STR) - your physical.. well, strength. A high STR will give you an advantage in melee fighting and allows you to carry more stuff.

Dexterity (DEX) - your agility. Your DEX represents your coordination, your ability to dodge out of the way of danger, and your precision when using a ranged weapon, such as a bow.

Constitution (CON) - your stamina, your health, your ability to withstand tests of endurance. A high CON score equates to more hit points, meaning you can live through more of your enemy’s attacks.

Intelligence (INT) – your education or “book learning.” Your INT represents how much you’ve learned, and how much you are capable of learning.

Wisdom (WIS) - your common sense and intuition. A high WIS means you’re more aware of your surroundings, and you’re more likely to resist temptations.

Charisma (CHA) - your charming personality and dazzling good looks… if you have a high CHA. Your CHA helps determine how well you get along with others.

(You can read more about these abilities in Chapter 1 of the PHB.)

To create your character, you will roll six-sided dice (d6′s) to determine the numbers for each of these abilities. You’ll then assign those numbers to your abilities, a process generally known as “placing your stats.” But before you go randomly assigning numbers, you need to consider what character you want to play. So, next time, we’ll start exploring the race and class options available, and how best to place your stats.