D&D 5E Making the 5E Starter Set Come Alive for New Players

Jake Johnson said:

Our new group will begin by playing through the new 5E Starter Set. We have a mix of new and returning players (Pathfinder, stopped playing, etc.). I want to get us off to a great start, so I'm looking at ways to enhance the experience. I'm thinking of playing thematic music and maybe printing high-quality copies of Mike Schley's Starter Set maps. I had a brief though of serving beef jerky and dried fruit, in an effort to approximate the rations enjoyed by characters in-game, but perhaps we will stick with pizza and beer/soda.

Are you doing anything like this? If so, I'd be interested to hear about it.

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Jake Johnson said:

Our new group will begin by playing through the new 5E Starter Set. We have a mix of new and returning players (Pathfinder, stopped playing, etc.). I want to get us off to a great start, so I'm looking at ways to enhance the experience. I'm thinking of playing thematic music and maybe printing high-quality copies of Mike Schley's Starter Set maps. I had a brief though of serving beef jerky and dried fruit, in an effort to approximate the rations enjoyed by characters in-game, but perhaps we will stick with pizza and beer/soda.

Are you doing anything like this? If so, I'd be interested to hear about it.

Click to expand...

pkt77242 said:

I think the maps are a great idea and you can't go wrong with the pizza with beer/soda (though you could theme the beer around the game if players are open to different beers such as wychwood Hobgoblin or King Goblin). There would be nothing wrong with having beef jerky and dried fruit as snacks depending on how long you will be playing. Overall I think you have some great ideas and are off to a good start.

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Quickleaf said:

Hi Jake, welcome to ENWorld!

I recommend checking out syrinscap for ambient mood music suitable for D&D. Benjamin is a great guy and is active on these boards. While the basic setup is free and works on computer and tablet, to really getting much out of it you'll need to spend a couple bucks on sound sets. Fortunately most of them have previews.

As for printing maps, if it's bigger than whatever printer you use can handle, there is a program called PosteRazor (IIRC) that will chop up an image file into printable bits. Alternately, if you want something really big and fancy, gamerprinter has a whole site devoted to printing for gamers.

Cheers!

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