D&D 5E 5e for teen game: need advice

[Rya.Reisender]

You could also just start with Lost Mine of Phandelver and use the 5 character that are included with the adventure and already perfectly blend into the story.

There are also some good pregenerated characters on the official WotC website: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/character_sheets

 

[SharnDM]

First of all, awesome to hear someone else is running games for kids at their local library! It's great to hear about someone taking on the role of an ambassador for our hobby.

I currently run a game at my local library for a revolving group of about 15 kids (typically about 9 show) so I am very aware of the difficulty of keeping things moving fast and and keeping the difficulty low.

The first thing I did was use the Pre-Made characters pulled from this site: http://www.tabletopping.net/dd-5e-pre-made-characters.html I pulled levels 1-10 for every single one and had the kids choose their favorites. That way when they level up they simply grab the next character sheet. Some of the kids have since graduated onto making their own characters and I simply inform them that if they really want to do that they just need to have that character ready for game that day.

I play fast and loose with the rules some. For me this is about introducing the game to these kids, if they get really attached to it and start running\playing in other games they can then get really invested in the rules. I'm up front about this to them, I've let them know for instance that I'm leveling them up on a "this feels like a good spot for it" basis rather than keeping detailed notes on 15 kids point values. It's important to me that they know this game can get much more complicated if they want it to.

For combat I've been using a lot of gridless combat. It speeds things up dramatically. I've demonstrated using the grid though.

A few other tips I've found useful:

- If a kid wants to bring a different character every week, I typically let them.
- Have your library purchase one or more PHBs for the kids to use. My library has a bunch of RPG books on hand now.
- Document your successes, I'd love to hear about them
- Here is a link to my blog, specifically the page where I've stored articles I've written about this stuff: https://melsmifgames.wordpress.com/volunteerismadvocating-the-hobby/

 

[Shendorion]

2. no feats

3. no multiclassing

If he's starting them at 1st level, that's not going to make character generation any quicker. It also has the potential to bog down combat later in the game, as the best feats tend to excuse the heroes from unfavorable conditions, hazards and restrictions you'd otherwise have to track (bypassing cover, concealment and difficult terrain, denying opportunity attacks, and so forth).

Sharpshooter, for instance, shaves time off every combat round by removing the need to track cover, concealment and range. An archer with the feat only has to determine if the target is within range, simplifying target selection and reducing the amount of calculation for each shot.

 

[Eltab]

Bring pre-gens for the first few weeks. Bonus for Perfect Attendance: you get to design your own L1 PC after 6 weeks of play. So kids who only show up sometimes have to wait longer.

Besides using LMoP, make up a mini-campaign fighting a Standard Villain. (I am writing one using 100 Bandits and 6 Bandit Captains.) After a few fights, they know what the enemy can do to them, and can concentrate on their own characters - picking out goals, getting effective weapons. And coordinating tactics / teamwork. And learning how ( / how not) to use terrain to advantage.

Introduce the teens to 'natural pairs': a Paladin can make a Rogue more effective by enabling Sneak Attack every turn. The Ranger can provide cover fire while the Barbarian dashes across the room to melee.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I would just go with 5E. I was ten years old when I got AD&D 1E with all the weapon speed and idiosyncratic shenanigans that went with that setup. I think that if ten year olds in the early 80s can grok that then without the advantage of the internet, then teens can manage 5e today.

 

[S'mon]

As mentioned above, ditch the personality traits/ideals/flaws/bonds part of the character creation process. Rather than having them choose backgrounds, just let them each pick two additional skills that don't need to be on their class list and one additional language, and give them all the option of being proficient in one set of tools if they want it.

I just give the PCs every skill on their class list & 10gp, this seems to work fine.

 

[Azurewraith]

I do wish someone in my area was doing something like this or that i had the time to its a great way to spread the hobby to the new generations.

 

[dmnqwk]

While any race/class combination is possible there are a lot more options for good (A Gnome Cleric is an option, but you're going to start out weaker than most other clerics using the standard point-buy system).

For character creation, whip up a bunch of Race/Class Combos that work, as well as putting in the stats for them (I don't feel choosing your stats is as inherently necessary for roleplaying as people think, but it can often be one of the toughest parts of creation. With the standard point buy system it's much easier to assign people a sensible set of stats to use). Leave the 1st level choices only as blank as needed (cleric domains are left completely blank, but Natural Explorer can be filled in with everything but the terrain choice).

For backgrounds, just have the character fill in a personal backstory (as much or as little as they want), then let them choose 2 skills plus either 1 tool proficiency, 1 musical instrument or 1 language of their choice which they feel match the background. After a session or two, get them to fill in the ideals, traits, bonds etc. That kind of info is often best filled in AFTER you play, rather than before.

For starting equipment I think the best is to:
Give them a choice of Studded Leather, Chain Shirt, Scale Mail or Chain Mail (chain shirt is for medium armour users who want to stealth)
A 2 handed melee weapon, 2 melee weapons or a melee weapon and shield
A ranged weapon or 5 throwing weapons.
An explorers pack, or pack of their choice.
Any tools, musical instruments they are proficient in
50 gold pieces.

That should cover their starting equipment, and allow them a choice of weapon, plus I dislike the starter equipment being leather armour because it penalises light armour wearers too much (their dexterity already cannot begin above +3 with standard point buy so their AC is certainly not overpowered to begin with, like allowing plate mail would cause)

 

[Gabriel Pendragon]

Play Living forgotten realms at your local game store, if they don't have it start a LFR group.

People suggesting dropping background mechanics? Might as well not play 5e, one of the big things about 5e is to focus more on roleplaying and creative choices.

Char gen moves along pretty nicely in 5e, and does a great job of turning a blank piece of paper into a living breathing person in a fantasy world. A good place to start is asking them what do you want your character to do in a fight. This will guide race, class, stat array, weapon/spell choices and background to a degree. Then work on why they do things that way to further solidify the above options. To make it fast you could make them all play humans with the 15 15 15 8 8 8 array, making their stats 3 16's in their primary stats and 3 8's in their dump stats. Given a basic character concept I can knock out fully fleshed out characters in about an hour. Many of the details of backgrounds can be chosen as they play and get to know the character better. I've had days where i spent the entire day knocking out an army of fully fleshed out characters, once you get into the swing of things it goes fast.

I suggest LFR as one of the rules is that until 5th level or so you can change anything about the character you want other than the name. Play a game as a human fighter and didn't like it, ok, change it to a gnome wizard, no problem.

If you want to start them off with pregens for their prefered class it wouldn't be a bad idea, as they get into it more and better understand the game i'm sure they will come up with their own ideas for characters pretty fast. Be happy to share the sheets I use for char gen, the fillable pdf's help a lot.

 

[Warbringer]

Seriously, why switch from Savage Worlds?