D&D 5E First time D&D player

I have the opportunity tonight to introduce a fella (he's 25) to D&D for the first time. He's an avid MMORPG player (like, 6 nights a week he raids) but I've been showing him some of the Lost Mine write ups and he's very curious. And he's seen the PHB and Monster Manual. So he asked me to show him more, so I think tonight I'm going to help him roll up a character, break out some dice and a Chessex map and go old school with a solo-dungeon crawl like me and my little brother did when we were 12.

So, I think I'll have him make a 1st level character, and then bump that character up to 3rd, A) just to make him tougher, and B) give him a feel for how advancement works.

I don't know what class he'll be interested in. I'm fairly certain any of them will be sufficient for a simple dungeon crawl, depending on how he approaches the situation. And we're talking giant rats, or a green slime, or a dart trap, you know things that most likely aren't going to skewer him to death in the first 10 feet.

I'm very curious as to how someone with an ingrained computer game mindset and experience will approach a pen and paper game. I'll probably create an NPC to go as well, just to round it out a little bit better. As of now, I think I'm just going to make it up as I go along, but man, the DMG random dungeon tables would be sweet! I've actually never, ever in my life used those before, in any edition.

Edit: Ya'll know the Dungeon Alphabet by Goodman Games? I've thought about using that as a random dungeon generator, starting with the A's. It has charts for the whole alphabet.

My nephew played one session of 3E when he was about 12 years old. He's also been playing a ton of MMORPGs since then. This last January at age 26, he started playing 4E with us. He has now moved on to 5E. He has one of the most optimized PCs in the party (variant human battle master fighter level 4 with heavy armor master feat and sentinel feat), so that is one aspect that he has gotten from MMORPGs. He considers his PC to be a boss since he can absorb and do so much damage with his maneuvers.

MMORPG and Video Game players are used to a high level of detail, and interaction, but low amount of impact-able choices. They are used to seeing the meta of the game, examining the game components to understand what to do next.

To really capture D&D for these players it is important to show them a living, breathing, adapting world. They live in it, and nothing is static. Ive DM'd for players like this and tried to emulate the game style and it met with limited success. Once these players were more able to change the world, and saw that it responded to their actions they were hooked.

Astrosicebear said:

To really capture D&D for these players it is important to show them a living, breathing, adapting world. They live in it, and nothing is static. Ive DM'd for players like this and tried to emulate the game style and it met with limited success. Once these players were more able to change the world, and saw that it responded to their actions they were hooked.

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That's sorta what I was telling him last night. You can literally do anything you want; or rather, you can try to do anything, you might not succeed, but you're only limited by your imagination. I think he grasps the story aspect of it, and he's familiar with the fantasy tropes from the online game.

I can see him poring over ability score attributes and optimization, because that's probably what he's used to doing. But I don't know. Maybe he'll just throw the dice and roll with the result and not nitpick.

Nebulous said:

That's sorta what I was telling him last night. You can literally do anything you want; or rather, you can try to do anything, you might not succeed, but you're only limited by your imagination. I think he grasps the story aspect of it, and he's familiar with the fantasy tropes from the online game.

I can see him poring over ability score attributes and optimization, because that's probably what he's used to doing. But I don't know. Maybe he'll just throw the dice and roll with the result and not nitpick.

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Which is fine if he wants to be involved in that aspect of the game, its interesting, detailed, and strategic. I would recommend starting him out as a single class character to start, and see how he goes. If he likes it, he can get involved in larger groups, which adds the social element to the game which is paramount to everything else. Or if he wants to continue solo. a gestalt char for him would probably be ideal and fun.

Another player actually has my PHB, so we're just going to use the Basic Rules. 4 races, 4 classes, no multi-class. Keep it simple.

Yep, that's what I've decided to do. Run him through the Dungeon Alphabet.

Astrosicebear said:

MMORPG and Video Game players are used to a high level of detail, and interaction, but low amount of impact-able choices. They are used to seeing the meta of the game, examining the game components to understand what to do next.

To really capture D&D for these players it is important to show them a living, breathing, adapting world. They live in it, and nothing is static. Ive DM'd for players like this and tried to emulate the game style and it met with limited success. Once these players were more able to change the world, and saw that it responded to their actions they were hooked.

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I'm actually trying to re-educate my veteran D&D group about the whole "living world" thing.

One of them keeps pushing for long rests after every non-trivial fight. I haven't explicitly called him out on that yet, but I am doing my best to have the world respond to his slugabed ways.

I can't tell if they haven't noticed, or if they just don't mind the increased difficulty as long as the berserker gets to frenzy whenever he wants to. They aren't really getting anywhere storywise, though, so I'm hoping it will sink in soon.

I thought about making the extra encounters even deadlier, but as I write this, I realize that's not a game of chicken I need to play. Instead I think I'll just have other adventurers start stepping in to steal their thunder when they delay. THAT will totally stick in their craw. Gods, I'm a genius.

Thanks for reading this mostly unrelated stream of consciousness. Back to your regularly scheduled forum thread.

Joe Liker said:

I'm actually trying to re-educate my veteran D&D group about the whole "living world" thing.

One of them keeps pushing for long rests after every non-trivial fight. I haven't explicitly called him out on that yet, but I am doing my best to have the world respond to his slugabed ways.

I can't tell if they haven't noticed, or if they just don't mind the increased difficulty as long as the berserker gets to frenzy whenever he wants to. They aren't really getting anywhere storywise, though, so I'm hoping it will sink in soon.

I thought about making the extra encounters even deadlier, but as I write this, I realize that's not a game of chicken I need to play. Instead I think I'll just have other adventurers start stepping in to steal their thunder when they delay. THAT will totally stick in their craw. Gods, I'm a genius.

Thanks for reading this mostly unrelated stream of consciousness. Back to your regularly scheduled forum thread.

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Depends on the situation.. If they have the time, no rush no worries, exploration at their leisure can be very old skool. But if time is important, make them aware. If they dont get the magical idol from the dungeon within 4 days the princess will be sacrificed and all will be lost.