Help me teach others D&D

DungeonMaester

First Post
On another Forum, im trying to get people in a game by teaching them how to play. I found out the hard way that its far more simple to teach in person then over the web.

They way its set up, i have six pages to do it,and I want to keep it seperated in pages by Race, class, definations, battle, spells or something like that. Please, help me out here.

---Rusty
 

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This is the format I have selected to explain the rules

A) Stats and what they mean
1) Ac
2) HD
ect

B) Race
1) Humans
ect ect

C) Classes
2) bard
3) barbarian

D) Puttin it all together
1) Race bonuses and the character sheet
2) Class abailties and the character sheet
3) Others
4) Items, buying and useing.
5) Rounding it out: Role playing

I think this should be the best format for teaching people the game. What do you think?

---Rusty
 

Uhhh. Tell them to buy the player's handbook and read the first couple of chapters?

Why not point them in the direction of the SRD? That contains most of the rules, without the actual information on character creation. You could walk them through that.
 

helium3 said:
Uhhh. Tell them to buy the player's handbook and read the first couple of chapters?

Why not point them in the direction of the SRD? That contains most of the rules, without the actual information on character creation. You could walk them through that.

Ive tried that. They didnt get anything out of it from reading it, so I want to make a easier to read.

Any constructive ideas?

---Rusty
 

Have you tried getting together with voice chat? That helped up to really discuss and get up to speed on rules online when we were getting started with this stuff.

It might help to understand who you are trying to teach. Are these mostly MMORPGers looking to learn to play tabletop? If so, then a document relating their online experience to tabletop might be helpful way to orient it.

I really liked the D&D Basic Set (Black Dragon edition) for teaching people who were new to the game. I haven't read through the new edition to see how it compares, but perhaps MerricB can jump in here, or you can look for his review. Then you could transcribe the contents of the player info sheets into something usable for them to play with.
 


Festivus said:
Have you tried getting together with voice chat? That helped up to really discuss and get up to speed on rules online when we were getting started with this stuff.

It might help to understand who you are trying to teach. Are these mostly MMORPGers looking to learn to play tabletop? If so, then a document relating their online experience to tabletop might be helpful way to orient it.

I really liked the D&D Basic Set (Black Dragon edition) for teaching people who were new to the game. I haven't read through the new edition to see how it compares, but perhaps MerricB can jump in here, or you can look for his review. Then you could transcribe the contents of the player info sheets into something usable for them to play with.


1) A Vc may work, if AIM has VC that is...
2) Jr-high school kids, Mtg players, Free form rpers, mmo rpg
3) The 3.5 box set is 40 bucks and hard to share in the internet. :confused:

Hammerhead said:
I liked using Baldur's Gate to teach people how to play.

I have Baldur's gate. Not sure they do though...
-----------------------------------------------
How about the format? Will it work? Is there a better one?

---Rusty
 

helium3 said:
Uhhh. Tell them to buy the player's handbook and read the first couple of chapters?

Why not point them in the direction of the SRD? That contains most of the rules, without the actual information on character creation. You could walk them through that.

A 300+ page rulebook can be overwhelming for a lot of people, especially if they've only played things like Monopoly and other similar board games before. Going from a couple of pages of rules to hundreds it a big jump. Some people might pick it up all by themselves. Others might benefit from a little more help.

Olaf the Stout
 

I find the best way to teach the game is to walk them through creating a character, once you've explained the basic d20 premise: to do stuff, roll 1d20 + mods. Everything else is just determining the mods.
 

If you're doing it online, you want a PowerPoint presentation or equivalent. The associated materials they need is the sample character sheet you'll be using in your examples and a full set of dice.

Slide one should have a picture of the Character Sheet in the centre. It should then bring up arrows pointing to all the various sections with subsequent "Move Forward" presses. This shows them where to find things on the sheet.

Slide two shows the core mechanic (d20 + modifiers), then walks them through some simple checks. Do a skill check, an attribute check and a saving throw. Don't do an attack roll at this stage.

Slide three walks them through a very simple combat round. Start with an initiative roll. Then an attack roll/damage roll sequence for one side. Then the same for the other.

Slide four: talk about movement. Ignore AoO for the moment.

Slide five: action types.

Slide six-eight (nine?): Attacks of Opportunity.

I've found that the best order in which to explain these is as follows:

1) An attack of opportunity is a free attack caused when one side does something to drop their guard.

2) How to make an attack of opportunity.

3) When the AoO occurs - directly before the event that caused the AoO.

4) What you can do as an AoO (basically, anything you can do as an 'attack', so includes trip, sunder, etc. And yes, an AoO can provoke an AoO in turn.)

5) Threatened areas.

6) Actions that cause an AoO.

7) Movements that cause an AoO.

8) Consequences of an AoO (basically, you lose hit points, but generally continue as before)

9) Special cases: feats to negate AoOs, casting defensively, Grapples, etc.

I think that's it as the basic primer, although I'm sure I've missed some crucial elements.

You probably need an expansion to the presentation (or perhaps another presentation) that goes into character creation. In my experience, though, it's best to get them through the basics of the game, and have them play a session or two with pregen characters, and then hit them with chargen.

You then have a more advanced presentation that goes into things like DR, SR and other effects, but it's generally best to introduce these things gradually as they crop up.

At some point, you need to point them to the PHB, though, and have them read it.

Oh, and a thought occurs: why don't Wizards have this sort of thing on their website?
 

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