D&D 5E First time Dad DM has some questions!

[smokerdragoon]

Welcome to the game...
Over at Critical-hits blog, chatty made a series of blog posts about running a game with his son. It's a couple of years old. But, much should still be relevant.
Link:
http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2013/08/23/rpgs-for-kids-castle-death-revisited/

 

[Tony Vargas]

1. What does a weapon's Atk Bonus mean? I see this used but I'm not sure - is that something you add when you try to figure out if you "hit" someone, or is it something you actually add to the attack? Failed to write down where I saw it, so sorry if it's a nonsensical question...

4. On the goblin stat block, what does "+5 to hit" mean exactly?

In 5e, all actions that the DM doesn't decide succeed or fail automatically (other than spells) are resolved with a d20 roll to try to match a Difficulty Class. So, if a goblin tries to hit a PC, it rolls a d20, adds 5 to the result, and if that equals or exceeds the player character's AC, the goblin hits.

By the same token, a character sheet will have a spot for attack bonus, by weapon. Usually it's the sum of the character's Strength or Dexterity modifier (depending on the weapon) plus the Proficiency bonus for the character's level (+2 at 1st level, for instance).

Rarely, an weapon can be a magical item that adds a bonus of its own, usually +1, to that total. Players can't start with, make, or buy magic items, they're something the DM gives out as a special reward.

2. When you miss an attack due to not meeting or beating AC you just... do nothing? Cause that kind of stinks

Yes. In some other games, like 13th Age or the previous ('4e') version of D&D, at least some attacks do a little damage on a miss. In 5e, only attacks that force saving throws have an effect on a 'miss' (that is, on a successful save by the target), and, not all of them. If you have a player who doesn't want to feel like he's 'wasting' his actions due to bad dice luck, you could steer him towards a caster, and towards spells that are 'save for half' and the like.

3. What should a sorcerer or Druid be doing in their first battles? My daughter (druid) ended up just grabbing a shovel from the supply wagon and - very successfully - whacked a goblin that had run up to the wagon. Fun but I'm sure she should be... using spells? And my youngest boy is a sorcerer - what should he be doing?

5e casters have cantrips that they can use every round. If it doesn't look like you want waste a spell when it's your turn, you can always toss a cantrip.

5. I only have 3 players, so I deleted a Goblin. They barely got hurt, though, getting rid of 3 goblins. How should I balance the rest of the encounters? Just try to remove the minimum number of enemies to keep it "proportional" to 4 players?

There are encounter guidelines in the DM's Guide and in the free pdf. It's not as simple as reducing monsters proportionately to the number of missing players, but it's close. The encounter guidelines don't give very consistent results, one of many reasons why it's usually better for experienced DMs to run 5e, or to get a fair amount of experience playing with folks who already know the system before trying to DM. You learn the system, and you get to see (or at least infer) some DM tricks in action. On the WotC website, check out the Adventurers League, especially the Encounters program.

- and please point me to any learning-the-rules / first-time-DM kind of books / videos / podcasts out there. I would really, really love it if there was something TRULY step by step that I could follow, preferably written. The starter set is great, but doesn't really tell you everything you need to know

The starter set is as close at it gets. The learning curve on a game like D&D can be pretty steep. Playing in established games with an experienced DM is probably the best way to pick it up.

 

[GameOgre]

I love D&D but as a dad who taught all his kids how to play and grew his own gaming group, there are better games to play with children that young.

Far Away Land is aimed for just such a thing and really it's fun for the whole family. I would wait till all the kids are at least eight or nine before moving on to D&D.

Just one dads two cents.

 

[Kalshane]

I love D&D but as a dad who taught all his kids how to play and grew his own gaming group, there are better games to play with children that young.

Far Away Land is aimed for just such a thing and really it's fun for the whole family. I would wait till all the kids are at least eight or nine before moving on to D&D.

Just one dads two cents.

I honestly think it depends on the kids. I was 12 and my siblings and cousins ranged between ages 5 and 10 when I first started running a D&D game.

I'm running 5E for my 7 year-old son now and he's having a blast. Plus, I have him doing all the math, so we're working on his addition and subtraction as well.

 

[Shaunobi]

Hey all, quick update. Here's my list before our next session (hopefully) this weekend: watch combat video a couple times, read both campaign and rules again, review character sheets.

Re: organized play, I'm in Portland so I could go to Guardian Games, but I have limited time so I usually go there with my kids. In some future month, though, I'll try to get some "real world" experience. Too bad I can't just "rent a DM" to come run a game for us at my house

Finally, in terms of my kids ability to play the game, my 8 year old girl is more than up to the task. She's writing 10-20 page "books" already, though, and read the entire Harry Potter series in less than 4 weeks from book 1 to finishing book 7. She's also good at math and doesn't struggle with that. Middle boy is less focused but comes up with some great, off-the-wall story ideas; he doesn't struggle with the math either in spite of being 6. Youngest one doesn't really understand the gameplay mechanics but is a good sport; he tends to follow along with the story and comes up with some great ideas himself. It seems to work; they're having fun and like it better than Hero Kids from what I can see (they just like the story better I'm pretty sure - agnostic about mechanics as far as I can tell.)

Hey - thanks everyone for the great ideas. I've been following links, doing my homework, and I really, really appreciate it. You folks rock. Good community here; that's half the fun.

Cheers!

 

[Shaunobi]

Alright - I've been spending more time digging into D&D with my kids - watched videos, read through resources people posted, and made some notes. Due to school, camps, and general weekend usiness haven't spent more time on our main campaign.

Here are some notes I've made after following up on several resources people suggested; hopefully they help other beginners:

• Figure out the PCs goals, create a natural obstacle, let the story tell itself
• Use a short "game session 0" to establish expectations about setting, PC back-stories, etc. Some of this seems covered by 5E character creation (ideals, traits, etc.)
• Story happens during play, so prep situations, not story. Situation formula: an event with a question attached. If you want to create a story, then create a "box" for it and let it evolve. Example: for a murder mystery, start with the crime, move to interrogating NPCs, then they confront suspect.
• For players: answer the question "what do you do?" by thinking about your character and motivations.
• Be active, not passive. Show your character, don't tell. Don't say "my character wouldn't...". Embrace failure into the narrative and try to tell a story you remember for years to come.
• Say "yes, but" instead of "no". Invent ways to allow PCs to do things together. Try playing like an NPC - no long-term motivations, just pure story-telling. You are agreeing with the other players to create a fun and interesting story. Pick between Brecht (self-aware role play) and Stanislavski (always in-character role play).

One interesting consensus seems to be that mechanics are secondary to the DM's main job. I'm learning mechanics, and they seem pretty important, but the sources I've read seem to indicate that guiding the story is a more important skill.

I actually have spent some time over the last 9 months doing something like impromptu role playing with the kids. Awhile back I read this post: http://www.quora.com/Is-reading-too-much-fiction-bad-for-children and more specifically the section where Ellen Burchett talks about how her mom would give her "what if?" scenarios:

One painless way to do that is to turn car rides into "what if" rides. My mom would do this for me when I was younger, and it really sharpened my reasoning skills - especially my ability to think quickly and respond. "What if you were in a room with no windows and no doors. How would you get out?" "What if you had to pick a career tomorrow. What would you pick and why? What would you do if you couldn't choose that career?" "What if you saw a baby animal lying on the side of the road. What would you do?"

I have spent the last 8 months or so doing that while we're on walks. The kids now ask to play the game while we're walking, driving, or eating dinner. I think it's great for three things so far: first, it teaches them improv; to embrace the scene as presented and run with it. Second, it teaches them critical thinking as every scenario is really a problem to solve, though honestly this is probably a weak effect. Third, it teaches them to be creative and just open up and start inventing.

---

Anyhow, didn't get a chance to play with kids last weekend, but it's looking like I will this weekend! Will report back on second session.

 

[redrick]

Hi [MENTION=6792321]Shaunobi[/MENTION]! I'm not gonna repeat any of the good answers that I've seen here, but welcome to the game and glad that you are your kids are giving it a spin. I started playing D&D when I was 7 or 8, though I never had an adult who played with me, so I think I got an awful lot wrong, rules-wise.

I recently re-opened my AD&D 2e player's handbook, which I hadn't touched in close to 20 years, and there was so much in there that I'm sure I never touched in a game.

And that's all I'll say — when you're first playing the game, it's pretty easy and common to mess up the rules or to completely ignore certain aspects of the rules that you don't understand or find too boring or tedious to worry about. As long as you and your kids are having fun and able to make it through the adventure without throwing your hands up in the air in total disgust, that's great! I'd think, with kids, just focusing on the aspect of the make-believe would be the best way to go. After all, D&D just provides us some mechanics to those imaginary games we played as kids where we told stories and then argued about who's spell hit who. So if your kids are able to use their imaginations and inhabit the make-believe world that you're all creating, I'd say you're doing it right. Eventually, somebody will start worrying about things like spell components and concentration and feats tracking inspiration and understanding stealth and all the other things that we argue about here. And that'll be cool too.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Low level casters are likely to be casting one or other cantrip over and over (spamming)

In my experience, low level spellcasters are actually better off with a crossbow than a cantrip. Better range, and if you have good Dx (not uncommon) it is better damage. Plus, it's nice to have crossbows around anyway to launch grappling hooks, set tripwire traps, and prevent monsters from realizing you're a wizard.

 

[transtemporal]

Welcome to D&D! RPG (and D&D in particular) is awesome for kids. It sparks their imaginations, helps reading & writing, basic math, lateral thinking, helps confidence and negotiation in social situations. In fact, its awesome for people of all ages really.

1. An attack bonus is added to the d20 when you roll to hit something, and it can vary for different attacks depending on how good you are with that type of attack. Broadly, the types of attacks are: melee (str), ranged (dex) and spell (casting stat which varies depending on the class). The basic formula is proficiency bonus + stat modifier.

2. Yeah, if you miss, you miss. If you have any movement left after your attack, you can move.

3. Spellcasting probably. Let them discover it for themselves though.

4. The +5 means "when the goblin uses this attack, it rolls a d20 and adds 5 to the result".

5. That result is fine. Not every battle should a desperate life and death struggle, and not every battle should be a walkover either. My rule of thumb is 1 monster of a CR of the average party level for 4PCs is an easy to average difficulty. 2 monsters is average, 3 monsters is average-hard and 4 monsters is deadly (meaning its likely one or more PCs will die). In other words, 1 monster is easy to focus fire on but the more monsters there are, the more spread out the parties damage will be and the more attacks they'll be subjected to (which can make hordes of slightly lower CR monsters deadly).

 

[Shaunobi]

Questions - ROUND 2

Alright all, had another session with kids. Before the session I had to work with each of them to upgrade their character sheets. I did that one on one, and honestly it took longer to move them from level 1 to 2 (we're doing the second Phandalin session) than we spent playing the next part of the campaign. In fact, I started to bog down making the changes and it turned into a slog because I wasn't sure I was doing it "right". Which brings me to my next question:

6. When characters level up, do you ONLY need to reference their "class" section in the PHB? Put another way, it seemed to me (after the second one or so that I did) that I would never really have to reference outside of the charts and info in their class section. Am I correct?

Thanks for all the help - greatly appreciated. If any DM dads (or just DMs in general) live in the Portland area and want me to buy them a free beer so I can pick their brain, that's a trade I'd gladly make

Later,

--Shaun