DM Advice

[KahlessNestor]

Soon I will be starting a run of Lost Mines of Phandelver for conceivably brand new players to TRPGs (or at least 5e), college students in the Board Game Society. I'm wondering how simple I should keep it.

Already decided I'm not going to even consider multiclassing.

Should I just use ASIs and not Feats? Anyone with experience playing that way? I have only played AL, and they use the feats.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Also, ability score generation. Should I use the default 4d6 and drop, or standard or point buy? I'm considering doing 4d6 drop and if you don't like it then default to standard.

 

[BoldItalic]

Why not use pregen characters and dive straight in?

Newcomers don't know what matters in character generation until they have actually played the game.

You can move them on to the basic rules (limited options, no multiclassing, no feats) if and when they lose their first characters and need to create new ones.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I underline BoldItalic.

See what I did there.

 

[darjr]

Yes, first session go with pregens. Make some if you think you know the kinds of characters they might want to play. Other than that if you still want to do char gen then use the Basic Set PDF from the wizards site and use the standard array.

 

[Luz]

For ability scores, go with the a standard 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. It saves players a lot of grief when rolling lousy scores and saves DMs even more grief when players roll "miraculous" scores. Set scores also keeps everyone on a fairly even playing field.

 

[Rabbitbait]

I agree. Definitely use the pre-gens. Character creation ain't that fun until you understand the basic concepts of the game.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

Skip the feats. Optional rules are for people who know what they're doing. Besides, I hear the game runs fine without them.

 

[Eltab]

LMnoP is supposed to take the characters to 5th level, so there will be only 1 ASI / Feat to worry about anyway. Plan to default to an ASI, unless somebody impresses you during play and you want to reward them with a cool trick their character can do.

+1 to pre-gens, if the players have never done anything like this at all before. Standard array for replacement characters.

Let the players use anything in the Players' Handbook (have a copy out where they can peruse it). You should limit yourself to the adventure, the Monster Manual, and the Dungeon Masters' Guide.

If the group decides they like this game and want to check out more options, then open new pages to them as needed.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Thanks for the advice. I'll have to make more pregens possibly then. Not sure how many players. I just thought maybe rolling stats kind of evoked the "this is D&D" vibe.