Completely New, please help

[IamTheTest]

A few (4) of my friends want to get into D&D. They've never roleplayed before and want to start. Since I am the only on who has any experience in this I will be GMing. I came up with a simple enough hack and slash dungeon crawl for them to learn the basics on (skill use, saves, general combat...). I was wondering if anyone had some advice for a new GM or anyone new to the game in general. Thanks for your help.

 

[Crothian]

Keep it simple, don't worry too much on the rules, just have fun. I hope it goes really well for you and the group, starting new people out is a fun and exciting time.

 

[Jdvn1]

Have a good grasp of the rules, but don't be afraid to ad-hoc your own rules if necessary.
If the players think of something that you didn't think of, or come up with a way to stack the game in their favor, go with it.

I had to run a game for a party of six before, four of which were newbies. I ran each of them through a minor battle -- two or three of them versus two bad guys. Just so they could get the hang of rolling dice and adding the appropriate numbers. After that, I threw them in full-swing and they kept up. I kind of rushed through 1st and 2nd level, though, because I don't you start to get the feel for different character clsses until the casters have a few spells to burn and the fighters have some hp to burn.

Oh, and if any of the players have some experience, use them to lighten the load teaching-wise. One knowledgeable player can really help out the rest a lot.

EDIT: And feel free to always ask more questions! We enjoy answering them.

 

[IamTheTest]

Thanks for your help and support. Our second session is on Thursday; I look foward to implementing some ideas. I think a couple more rooms in my cavern will suffice as a tutorial before the good stuff comes in.

 

[Umbra]

When we converted over to 3.0 we spent 30 mins to an hour at the start of every session practicing an aspect of the rules in a 'flashback' to the characters training years. So one session we might practice grappling, the next bullsrush, the following attacks of opportunity. Until we had practiced it, none of their opponents would use that skill. It helped ease us into the new system.

If only we could remember what we learnt .

 

[tec-9-7]

There are a lot of pretty good introductory modules floating around as well if you don't feel like throwing something together. I like the WotC Sunless Citidel pretty well, and KenzerCo has several good 1st level modules set in Kalamar (I'm thinking specifically of The Root of All Evil, Stand & Deliver, and The Invasion of Arun Kid), and I think Necromancer Games has a nice 1st level adventure free for the downloading at their website. All of these provide some decent non-dungeon opportunities as well as a decent amount of hackage.