Moab2 said:
Since everyone is so helpful, I have another question: Do you think 1- to 2-hour sessions are too short? I think my wife would be much more receptive to playing if the game wasn't going to take our entire evening. Don't get me wrong, if we ever build up to a marathon session, I won't complain, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
Two hours seems too short. Four hours seem just about right for working adults who are pressed for time.
Also, what adventures would anyone recommend for after we finish the Basic Set. I've played the Sunless Citadel adventure for Neverwinter Nights, and it seems like a great start, especially since it has so many follow-up adventures. But that is for 3.0, and I don't know enough to know how hard it would be to adapt for 3.5.
Again, thanks for any insights.
I think any of the RPGA mods are great starters, specifically because they're geared for the possibility of new players.
Lots of points have been made here already so I'll try to add something new.
I just introduced my brother's girlfriend to gaming. She never played D&D before but has played EverQuest. I now have a completely different perspective on MMORPGs and their beneficial value on D&D. EverQuest did all the hard stuff for me: introduced a fantasy race (the cat people, whatever the heck they're called), the concept of "killing monsters and taking their stuff" and the use of magic, experience points, classes, and levels.
We reproduced the character she played on EverQuest. She played a fihali (catfolk in Arcanis, although technically from another world anyway) druid named Bijoux. I used eTools to generate the character based on a couple of questions. Mostly, I explained the skills and feats she could choose from and recommended a few. She was already familiar with the statistics.
That was it. No "read the Player's Handbook." No, "awww, here you go silly woman, pretend it's a catalog." Nothing like that. We just started playing. 15 minutes. Saeviomagy had it right.
My advice: ask her what character she likes most from Lord of the Rings and that's her race/class. Then it's abilities, skills, and feats, but that's up to how much she's interested in learning all at once (my recommendation, explain abilities, summarize each skill in a sentence, and forget feats until later).
Here's the rules she had to understand:
1) How to hit a monster and inflict damage (new concept).
2) How many Hit Points she had (EQ took care of this).
3) What her spells could do (EQ helped, as she knew what healing spells did).
4) How to make skill checks (new concept).
Whenever her character needed to do something, I picked a DC and told her which skill to use. She immediately picked up on that. Everything else was up to her.
I have to agree with Von Ether, the most off-putting part of D&D is the rules themselves. But like Oryan77, I think you should never say, "you can't do that!" to a new player. There's nothing more off-putting than playing a game about your imagination and having someone tell you over and over, "no, you can't do that."
You'll see all this fold out in my Arcanis Story Hour. Incidentally, Story Hours seem to be a fantastic recruiting tool for new players who want to be "part of the script":
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=2272394#post2272394