D&D 5E Good Lord - I'm Taking Over 20+ Teen D&D Players

[pogre]

The key for my high school D&D club was too help the kids learn to DM. I started as one of the DMs, but I just became a rules resource. Letting the kids take over the club led to explosive growth in my school club.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I estimate that I've taught somewhere around a thousand people to play D&D (various editions) over nearly thirty years of owning my comic and game store. All ages (even grandparents).

It's going to be a big job, but it should be fun and rewarding. I can't think of anything off the top of my head to add to what others have said. You sound like you have it under control, though.

Oh! One piece of advice: Always use pregens for first-time players. There's nothing I find more annoying than watching (or hearing about) people trying to teach a new player the game by starting out making them make characters. You can't make decisions for your character when you don't know what any of it means. Get everyone to play at least one solid session first before they make their own character. (You can, however, get them to choose from a stack of pregens, but I'd limit each player to choose from two or three, tops.)

I agreed to be the advisor to a high school D&D club, and while I was amazed to see the turn out at the first meeting (including athletes, student leaders, etc…not like in my day!) it was a total cluster$&#% because they insisted on starting with character creation.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I agreed to be the advisor to a high school D&D club, and while I was amazed to see the turn out at the first meeting (including athletes, student leaders, etc…not like in my day!) it was a total cluster$&#% because they insisted on starting with character creation.

Yeah, I feel you. Don't get me wrong - character creation IS one of the very best highlights of the game - it's just not for first-timers. The 5e Starter Set may have been the first "learn to play" product that properly understood this fact. I honestly think that it's part of 5e's success story. I had a volunteer run a Learn-to-Play at my store a few weeks back that started with CharGen, and I spent the whole time cringing. I didn't want to tell the guy how to do it, but I could just see the poor kids wanting to play instead of waiting around while he explains options to four other people, none of whom understand what he's talking about.

Don't do it! Give 'em pregens! They'll have a hard enough time understanding what they're looking at when you walk them through their character sheet! Get 'em playing as fast as possible. Heck, I'd go as far as to practically "cold open" with a combat!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A little background. I'm a librarian by trade, and word has gotten around that I'm experienced in the RPG hobby. A library in a neighboring county has created a successful D&D program with over 20 teenagers participating on a biweekly basis. The problem is that their staff member/resident DM/etc. has resigned his position. So now I've been asked to teach others on their staff how to DM (many the first time playing the game) to be ready in a couple weeks. I'll be there to help transition the club to new DMs, show them how to run, etc.
Has anyone been in a similar situation? Or do you have words of encouragement? Or just want to laugh at the predicament of the resident ENWorld pessimist who regularly laments "I'll never be able to run an in-person game of D&D ever again."

It might be easier to teach some of the older teens to DM, rather than try to train an adult who has no background in fantasy. Teaching someone the genre tropes may well be more difficult than teaching the rules.

Speaking as a teacher, delegating to students both makes life easier, and is educationally more valuable.

 

[SJB]

Course design rather than DM-ing.

1. Make sure it does what it says on the tin: so, based in the dungeon and fighting (interacting) with dragons (or analogous mythical creatures).
2. Prepare handouts on one side of one sheet. Avoid blocks of text.
3. Ignore anything published more than five years ago: it’s an experience of now.
4. Turn off all channels involving grognards (including this one): they are just noise.
5. Review and Report at the end of the season.

 

[Professor Murder]

A possible strategy:
Run a one shot game with your prospective DMs as players. The entire time, pause to explain why you are doing what you are doing. Basically, run an annotated adventure.

 

[Retreater]

One thing I am trying to find is a good list of 1-2 hour adventures that could be run in the timeframe of their meetings. I know Adventurers League has some of these, but I can't find a good way of filtering them from the 4 hour adventures.
Otherwise it's chopping up an adventure to fit in the timeframe or risking one group getting ahead of the others.

 

[payn]

One thing I am trying to find is a good list of 1-2 hour adventures that could be run in the timeframe of their meetings. I know Adventurers League has some of these, but I can't find a good way of filtering them from the 4 hour adventures.
Otherwise it's chopping up an adventure to fit in the timeframe or risking one group getting ahead of the others.

I think it was from back in 3E but did they ever update Hollow's Hope to 5E. I recall those being pretty short intro adventures and free.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

did they ever update Hollow's Hope to 5E

I've run it in 5e, it's pretty easy to convert.

 

[LordEntrails]

One thing I am trying to find is a good list of 1-2 hour adventures that could be run in the timeframe of their meetings. I know Adventurers League has some of these, but I can't find a good way of filtering them from the 4 hour adventures.
Otherwise it's chopping up an adventure to fit in the timeframe or risking one group getting ahead of the others.

Check out one-page dungeons. I've never used any except for Dib, but these are all pretty short and straight forward. BUT, they rarely include maps, so you'll have to address that as maps will be important to this group since many/all of them have their own minis.

Knowing a bit more about the situation now, what I would do is leave off the old campaign, Have them use it as a learning session and now try to get the ids to step up and have some of them DM.

Have a bunch of pre-gens available and the AL rules for character creation. Everyone can do one or the other. Then have 5-6 one-shots with maps prepared. Have volunteer teens pick one to run as the DM. Let them go run them with whoever joins their table. Have some of the adults around to run or help if you don't have enough teens to DM.