D&D 5E Pickup - and -play kit - suggestions?

[GadgetGirl]

Hi all! Other than the starter set (which I have) are there any other pickup - and - play kits out there? I'd like to have something to pull out for family reunions, campouts and such without bringing all the paraphenalia that travels with me to my regular game (Its a huge bag with all the rulebooks and such)

Any suggestions for what to put in a DIY version? I know what I'd put in, but I'd like to see what the crowd says. Most of the people playing probably have never played before. I'd like to make it simple enough that I could hand it to my 11yr old niece for her to use. Thoughts?

 

[EarlyBird]

Nothing out there like that, that I know of, but a suggestion would be to build your own to suit.

Get a binder with a few pocket folders and add everything you need to play condescend down. A 5e version (lvls 1-3)...

- pregenerated characters(4)
- map on graph paper of a dungeon
- description of spells known by characters
- combat sheet describing actions/effects
- monster sheets
- paper, pencils, dice

Real old school and you could add to it as you go. You can trade out dungeon for a tavern for the typical RP/bar fight. You can overload kids with to much at once so slowly add in other actions/spells/ and abilities. It is all about killing monsters and grabbing the gold.

 

[woonga]

Off the top of my head, I would recommend:

• Pregen character sheets: The ones on the WotC site have a good variety or race/class combos for the first few levels, but I find them a pain to read the way they are formatted. I might recommend transcribing these over to a more traditional character sheet format (and maybe someone has already done that? If so I need to download because I still haven't gotten around to doing it myself...)
• Spell descriptions: Either spell cards, printouts, or the PHB with the spell section bookmarked. Trying to understand what spells do will definitely require look-up
• Extra dice: self-explanatory
• notepad/pens/pencils: Something that players can use to jot down backstory or take adventure notes
• Monster manual: I like to have this on hand. Assuming players won't be levelling up in the middle of the single session you may get along without the PHB, but I'd still want the MM or at least a binder full of monster stats to be able to reference
• Action Cheat Sheet: I can't recall the specific one that I downloaded (I believe from ENWorld), but there are good cheat sheets that let players know the ways they can use their action, what conditions mean, some of that basic info. I had several of these laminated and throw them on the table each session. Characters always forget they can dodge!

That more or less covers the materials I'd consider essential. I'd recommend having the bones of an adventure already in mind (new players don't necessarily need to be railroaded, but having some strong adventure hooks in mind helps), keeping the rules overview very light (it's amazing how few rules players really need to know to get started at the table) and having fun!

 

[Blue]

[MENTION=6873789]woonga[/MENTION] covered most of what I said. Try to condense for the players so they have a good cheat sheet, and a pre-gen that includes things they would otherwise need to look-up like spell descriptions. And space for them to scribble notes. That plus dice and pencils and you're set on their side.

For a DM there's plenty of cheap/pay-what-you-want/free adventure PDFs out there that you could fit on a cheap tablet. (Look, now that I can buy a 7" kindle-with-ads for $50 new and often cheaper, I don't feel like it's an imposition.)

Put the Basic rules and SRD on the tablet as well and tell them "keep your character sheets and level up for next family reunion". They can do it there, or have a reason to go online and download them - maybe leading to wanting to pick up more and a new enthusiast to our hobby. (So I guess make sure you put the URL somewhere on the character sheet.)

One last thing - cheap dice are cheap. Here's a link to 7 sets of dice (though only has one d6 each) and it's $11 for seven sets. It's far from the only option out there if you don't like that one. A small investment can give you everything for a party, maybe padded with extra d6s.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M0QBOTE/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[GadgetGirl]

Some great Ideas here, thank you so much. I forgot something like spell cards, or the cheat sheets. Multiple sets of dice are a great idea. I rather like the mixed colours I got with my 3.5 starter kit. For kids, it might be as easy to say "roll the D20 - that's the green one" until they learn all the shapes. The D&D 3.5 edition box with the minis and the colour character sheets, and the map were a great way to hook my kids, but I actually really enjoy the 5e system to run, especially a beginners game. I just wish the box had more - oomph. I think I'm going to try recreate that feeling. If you can have resources you can recommend that I might find helpful, I'd love to hear it. I'm going to crawl the downloads section later to look for ideas. Oooh, I may need a map. Hmmm.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Not 5th Edition but....

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/products/beginnerbox

 

[aco175]

I would make sure that the adventures are short enough to play in a few hours since the next time you play will be a long way off and maybe with new players. You can find some shorter 4-5 room crypts and dungeons to have. Some may follow a base town/ tavern you set as the home base. The Dungeon Magazine had the Restwall Keep tied to the Chaos Scar line. It was the base where the other shorter adventures sprang from.

 

[robus]

I would make sure that the adventures are short enough to play in a few hours since the next time you play will be a long way off and maybe with new players. You can find some shorter 4-5 room crypts and dungeons to have. Some may follow a base town/ tavern you set as the home base. The Dungeon Magazine had the Restwall Keep tied to the Chaos Scar line. It was the base where the other shorter adventures sprang from.

Agreed - just have the PCs be part of an adventurers guild and be given short commissions to help out local people with quests. I want to recommend this:

Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters, EGP42001
by Engine Publishing et al.
Link: http://a.co/3qTZQbh

But it was not as awesome as I'd hoped. They kind of put themselves in a bit a straightjacket for idea creation by using a classical system of conflict generation.

However it did inspire me to come up with a small adventure where the PCs had to retrieve a healing vial from a wrecked ship to save a Waterdeep nobel's daughter from imminent death. The twist was the ship was wrecked on a cursed island so the local sailors refused to go near it. Adventure ensued (giant crabs, kuo-toa etc). Wrapped up in about 3-4 hours. (I should probably post it on DMs Guild at some point...)

 

[green_destiny]

Most suggestions made were valid and has substance so as both a D&D player and a boardgamer, I'll focus on player/crowd expectations.

In my experience, D&D works best if players or curious to-be players agreed that they will play it on an agreed game sessions. Not something I can just bring out and hand it over to players in a party (literal party) or reunions - it can drag the mood down to your dismay if not everyone wants to try a rules 'heavy' game, theater of the mind, miniatures game.

If your crowd are just casual gamers in a party, its best to bring out games such as Avalon, Coup, CodeNames, Werewolf etc.

But if your crowd are all game to try D&D, then great and introduce them to this game/hobby!

 

[GadgetGirl]

I can see where you are coming from. In this case, for example, my family likes to run a couple game days around Christmas. When the nieces and nephews were younger (and closer) they liked to watch us play D&D. My sister has played before, perhaps once. All are fantasy fans. If we have a game night there would be a mix of participants from people that have never played before (my Dad) to those who've played maybe once or a few times, a few that play regularly. If there's enough interest we might run a second night. The more fun they have, the more willing they'd be to play again, or seek it out on their own. What we like about it in particular is the evolving plots and scenarios, It never plays out quite the same way. Many of the other board games can get old after a while. I have a cupboard full of games we just don't play anymore. That said, I'd like it to be complete enough that if my niece says hey, I want to play for my birthday party, I want to encourage rather than discourage that behaviour.