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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Corinth" data-source="post: 1253481" data-attributes="member: 497">It's not complex.  That is an illusion.A player needs to know how to make an attack roll, a saving throw and a skill check.  He needs to know the basics of combat actions and manuevering.  He also needs to know how to use his character's special abilities.  The first three fit nicely on a 3x5 index card; the rest need nothing more than some page numbers for easy referencing and either a brief explanation or a brief reading of the cited pages.A DM needs to know those same basic rules, have a basic familiarity with those special abilities and a similiar familiarity with the combat rules.  He can wait for the XP and treasure rules until he needs to deal with them.  However, what he needs most is the understanding--one shared by the players--that he is new to the game and as such he ought to take it slow and keep it simple until he gets the basics.  This ought not to take more than a session or two, especially if he reads the PHB & DMG as he ought to do.I did this over 20 years ago with AD&D1e, when I was younger than that 10 yr. old novice, and today's novice is certainly able to do this with today's superior rules manuals.  It doesn't take a lot of time--a couple of hours will do; even less if you're not the DM--to read and assimilate the rules these days.  Keeping that first session or two down to the basics of D&D gameplay will allow all involved to concentrate on playing the game and learning the rules; they can get creative after that's accomplished.  Again, this won't take a lot of time--about 10 hours at most--and you can break it down into easy-to-digest pieces to make this an easier task.Nevermind that we're talking about children playing an adult's game--and D&D is an adult's game, as Dancey make clear back in 2000--so the fact that a child plays at all is a good thing.  Most hobbyists enter in college, as adults, and they certainly have both the time and the money then to spend on learning how to play.  All of this means that there is no need for a Basic D&D set anymore; that one is on its way doesn't change that fact.</blockquote>

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