Newbie DM + group experience

[draquila]

I just played my first ever game of D&D (4e) in my life. I was the DM, and all 5 PCs had never played before as well. I had fun and I think most of them did, but man it was painstakingly slow just trying to figure out how it all works!! And only afterwards did I realise I got half the rules wrong!

I was using the D&D 4E starter kit and I found the starter rules it came with woefully inadequate in terms of rules and clarity. I guess I should've done a lot more research beforehand, but as a starter kit that claims to have everything you need to run your first adventure, I'd say it's a bit of false advertising.

Only after the game did I realise that:

• adjacent includes diagonal squares, by default I assumed it was only 4 squares!
• if an attack roll exactly equals the defense score, it was still considered a hit (I guess this is implied in the Core Mechanics section, but under Attack Rolls all it said was "Your result is compared against the target's defense score" , WTG on the clarity!)
• When an ability is Str vs AC or something, the Str includes weapon proficiency bonuses - I guess this confusion could've been avoided if we'd just used the premades.

The net result was a really slow game since the players kept missing plus they didn't know enough about their abilities to maximise their efficiency.
I kept getting asked questions that I didn't know the answer to (can I shoot if I'm blocked by an ally? Do I get OA against me if I move around the other side of the goblin? etc) and so I just house ruled it all (mostly incorrectly) so as not to bog down the game further. We were suffering rule overload as it is, in the end it took nearly 4 hours to get through 2 encounters.

I guess WotC really sold that starter kit so they'd force you to buy the PHB once you tried to play using it. But either way, now that I've read more about the rules (grabbing, bullrushing, ready actions, line of sight/effect, cover system etc etc...) I'm afraid we'll just have the same rule overload problems again next session.

So after such a TL;DR whine, my question is, how did you guys reduce this feeling of being overwhelmed by rules when you guys first started playing/introduced the game to other people? What advice do you have for me when I run the next game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Mainly practice makes perfect. I think everyone who's ever started with D&D has had a somewhat similar experience (although admittedly I started with the original rules back in '70s which were a lot simpler, still we made tons of mistakes). The PHB is a little clearer than the quickstart rules, but it also has extra stuff. Luckily a lot of it doesn't come up every game.

One thing you could try is check Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Events and see if there is a D&D Encounters event going on in your area. Also just maybe playing a game or two in a regular group at your local game store or something like that could be a good idea. Playing a time or two with people that know the rules well helps a lot, you can ask some questions and just generally see how they do things.

Don't get discouraged though, after a couple sessions you'll be up to speed on the combat rules and it will seem pretty easy. In any case it sounds like you did pretty well to me. Having fun and playing the game is more important than anything else, so making a quick ruling on the fly when something is confusing for instance is the right way to go. Have fun, rules mastery will come, there's no "wrong" way to play as long as its fun.

There is a bit of an art to making combat go quick. Obviously familiarity with the rules really helps there, but also being organized about how you track initiative order, effects, and conditions can make a big difference. A lot of people use a white board for that, but any system that works is good (I have used a stack of cards for instance). Making power cards for each character's powers is handy too (try downloading the Character Builder program, the demo version works up to level 3 and it prints out a set of cards for the PCs powers that you can cut out). It takes a bit of experience to get it down, but you can cut encounter times down to between 30-90 minutes depending on how complex the encounter is etc. with practice.

Mostly just have fun! Feel free to ask questions, there are definitely areas where the rules can get a bit tricky and there are some people here that can really help you out with DMing quandries.

 

[Dragongrief]

Until everyone has a decent grasp of the basics (hopefully only a couple sessions), I'd recommend ignoring most of the "alternate attack" options (bull Rush, Grapple, etc).

Look through the PCs powers and make notes about any statuses they cause (Slow, Immobilized, Dazed). This is good combined with the power card idea because you can write what the status does on the card as well.

Once everyone is good to go on the basics, then allow the other attack options back in, but have the players look up/write down the rules for it (make sure you know them as well, but most people remember better if they have to actively learn something - rather than being told "roll X add Z").

Line of Sight and Cover are easiest if you use miniatures and something to represent the field, whether it's a wet-erase grid or unused dice stacked to show trees and walls.

As Abdul said, it's mainly practice and patience. The direct idea behind succeed or not is simple: d20+stuff vs Target Number. It's remembering what "stuff" is that takes time.

 

[Aethas]

The first time my group played, we had a copy of the Player's Handbook (from a friend who had played an earlier version and had picked up the 4E book) and the DMG. By the start of our first session, our DM had read about half of the DMG and skimmed the PH, and this was more than most of the players had read. So there were a lot of combat situations where noone really knew what to do. But he just made up some quick houserules to keep things moving and we all had fun. Eventually we would start looking up combat actions over the course of our sessions (like delaying, grabbing, rushing) and gradually adding them in. In the end, we ended up with a pretty firm grasp on the rules and our combats run fairly quickly now that everyone knows what they can do. Like the posters above said, it's all about practice.

 

[draquila]

Thanks for the replies so far! It's good to know there is hope (although we're kinda aiming for monthly sessions, so I probably won't see whether we're going to get better at it for a while yet...)

So in the first combat round of our game the Fighter goes "OK I'm going to toss the Ranger at these goblins" For the more experienced DMs here, how would you handle unconventional/silly stuff like that? Do you simply disallow it as against common sense and ruin the player's idea of how "free form" D&D can be, or do you let him do it?

In the end I told him he could try to roll a strength check but keep in mind it would be against a pretty impossible DC and unless he rolled a 20 it was unlikely any good would come of it. He rolled a 3, and I said he dropped his teammate and did 1d6 damage to him (kinda just pulled that out of my head). Was that too harsh?

I didn't want the game to degenerate into an uncontrolled mess by allowing silly actions but I think some players come in with an expectation that D&D allows players to be "smart" and do free form actions, and it's a bit of a nasty shock to find that it's really just a really elaborate board game with more rules than you could imagine.

 

[Aethas]

If you wanted to be strict about the rules, you probably could have checked the ranger's weight against how much the fighter can actually lift (determined by his STR) and use that to determine if he could even make an attack with his far too trusting ally. I'm a fairly new DM myself, so this might not count for much, but I'd have handled it pretty much the same as you. We're pretty open with what we can and try to do in my group, though, and I know some DMs that wouldn't even entertain the idea of letting you use that poor ranger as an impromptu weapon. Also, if you wanted to seem fairer or less harsh with the drop damage, you could give the ranger a savig throw or an acrobatics check to lessen or negate the damage.

 

[vagabundo]

I'd suggest focusing on the fun, storytelling and roleplay and not the rules for the first few months. The rule knowledge will come, abet slowly.

Sure my group has been DND gaming together for nearly twenty years and it took us a month or two of weekly DND session to get comfortable with 4e - and this was coming directly from 3e.

In between sessions work on the learning what you can about the rules and work on the campaign - you can never have too much stuff worked out on the campaign. At the beginning of each session share any rule updates with your players.

The starter set sounds like it needs some work, though...

Oh the Character Builder is free on WotC's website for the first three levels. So download that and make a few character replacements - always handy.

And welcome to the club!

Thanks for the replies so far! It's good to know there is hope (although we're kinda aiming for monthly sessions, so I probably won't see whether we're going to get better at it for a while yet...)

So in the first combat round of our game the Fighter goes "OK I'm going to toss the Ranger at these goblins" For the more experienced DMs here, how would you handle unconventional/silly stuff like that? Do you simply disallow it as against common sense and ruin the player's idea of how "free form" D&D can be, or do you let him do it?

In the end I told him he could try to roll a strength check but keep in mind it would be against a pretty impossible DC and unless he rolled a 20 it was unlikely any good would come of it. He rolled a 3, and I said he dropped his teammate and did 1d6 damage to him (kinda just pulled that out of my head). Was that too harsh?

I didn't want the game to degenerate into an uncontrolled mess by allowing silly actions but I think some players come in with an expectation that D&D allows players to be "smart" and do free form actions, and it's a bit of a nasty shock to find that it's really just a really elaborate board game with more rules than you could imagine.

DND can be silly or serious and sometimes both as the same time. I doubt there are many groups who haven't had character's using each other as weapons. I had a player put in to a barrel and thrown off the battlements at enemies on the ground below - I'm really not sure what the logic was behind it, but my brothers, who did the deed, found it hilarious.

Your ruling and damage are perfectly fine. You'll find it gets easier to do on-the-fly stuff once you have a few session under your belt. There is a section in the 4e DMG for stunts, it gives DCs and damage recommendations (p42 of the 4e DMG). I doubt it is in the starter rules, they probably wanted to keep things simple. For the moment just keep things simple and go with your gut; check out the common modifiers for different stats on the character sheets, that will give you an idea for setting easy, moderate and hard DCs. And have a look at their HPs, you should get an idea on how much damage they can usually take.

Oh and sometimes a group of new players will go on a rampage, the sudden release of consequences will go to their head and they will go mad in the game. This happened to me - again with my brothers - in a a super hero game. They started using their powers on everything they could; cars, people, the cops and finally the army. My whole storyline down the toilet and it had taken a week to make the characters... Sigh

 

[Aulirophile]

When I first started playing 4e, someone wrote down a question every time we asked one. We never popped open a rule book during play and the DM just went with the answer that felt right to him (me, in this case).

Between games, the questions were posted on an forum thread (and later a Google Wave), and we made sure each question was answered before we started the next session. You can flip through the books yourself to figure it out, and I recommend doing that, but asking here or in the "Ask a Simple Question, Get a Simple Answer" sticky on the official rules Q&A or CharOp forums. Both have a thread. CharOp's thread is, in my experience, faster and more accurate, especially for difficult rules questions. Like "Which applies first, vulnerability or insubstantial?" The answer is in the Monster Manual. Not a whole lot of people read that front to back, but asking the question on CharOp results in an answer in like 5 minutes. Identical question in rules Q&A can be ~24 hours, with 1-2 wrong answers in the mean time. Again, just in my experience, regularly reading both forums.

We also have an errata wave. Any time something the group is actually using changes, I'll post it. Some general changes apply to every group, but the stuff that has specifically applied to our group is basically nil.

 

[LordBill]

Relax. Just keep playing and the rules will become really easy. Its a lack of familiarity, not the complexity of the rules, that is painful when you first play. And pay more attention to the story and roleplay than the mechanics of the rules. Sure, you want to know what penalty cover gives an archer, but don't panic if you get it wrong. Just play and the rules will sort themselves out over time.

 

[Smoke Jaguar]

I remember my first time playing (3 months ago) and my first time DM'ing (3 weeks ago). Don't get discouraged. It will come with time. You need to find what works for you and your group. There are still times where me and my group do things incorrectly. I am not the smartest rules-wise at the table. We talk things over and make a house rule, if we can't find it quickly in the book. I write down a lot of our questions and my own when they come up. During the week, when I have time I look up the answers.