ArwensDaughter
Adventurer
The discussion about "new user experience" in the thread about Kate Welch leaving WOTC got me to thinking about my experience trying to help people learn to play D&D 5e. I thought it would be interesting to sharing wisdom/experience/best practices in helping people new to the game learn it. Here, in no particular order, are some of the things I've learned/experienced. Note that I have only really played in person; not all of these translate easily to online, although I'd be interested in hearing tips for online play.
-Keep it Simple! I shudder to remember the number of times I was trying to explain the basics to a brand new player only to have one or more experienced, enthusiastic players chime in with all sorts of details and complexities (like multiclassing, high level abilities, etc.), and the poor newbie's eyes start to either glaze over or go wide. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but all those complexities can easily overwhelm a newbie
-Emphasize the d20; I've had good luck telling players not to worry too much about all the other dice--I or an experienced player will help point those out when the time comes. (And I provide a dice "cheat sheet" they can use to line up their dice). I tell them the d20 is the most important, and that for most of the things they want to do, they will roll that and then add something to it.
-Mark up the character sheet. A couple of years ago, I started using highlighters to color-code my new players' character sheets: one color for skills, one for AC, etc. Then if they couldn't find something, I could say "look in the X section." This is not a workable solution for color blind players, so I was always careful to ask about that. It's never come up yet, but I would have needed to develop a symbol system for a color blind player.
-Consider using pre-gens. I found pre-generated characters a good starting point; new players don't get bogged down in character generation, but can sit down and play immediately. I have found that pregens printed on simplified character sheets can be particularly helpful. For a few months before COVID hit, I was occasionally DMing AL games at an FLGS. (I went to play, but they were short on DMs, so.....). They had access to some AL legal pregen characters that used a simplified character sheet. The sheets were great for newbies (especially the middle schoolers I was typically teaching there). It used symbols for the most important numbers, grouped skills under the related ability, etc.
-Sometimes, depending on time available and the personality/interest of the new player, instead of pregens, I worked with new players to create the characters: D&D Beyond was invaluable for this, making it quick and easy to create a character and export it to PDF. (ideally, the PDF takes some "massaging" to be more usable for a newbie).
-Go over the most important features of the character, but don't try to cover everything. One night in particular, I had a table full of middle school boys most of whom were brand new to the game; the rest only had a few AL sessions under their belt. I took a few moments to go over what I thought were the most important "special" features of their character: rage for the barbarian, spell slots for the casters, etc. It seemed to make a big difference in their experience that night. (As an aside, both I and the boys had a blast that night; this surprised me; I didn't like middle schoolers when I was one, and I still find them hard to deal with. But somehow things are very different at the D&D table.)
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-Keep it Simple! I shudder to remember the number of times I was trying to explain the basics to a brand new player only to have one or more experienced, enthusiastic players chime in with all sorts of details and complexities (like multiclassing, high level abilities, etc.), and the poor newbie's eyes start to either glaze over or go wide. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but all those complexities can easily overwhelm a newbie
-Emphasize the d20; I've had good luck telling players not to worry too much about all the other dice--I or an experienced player will help point those out when the time comes. (And I provide a dice "cheat sheet" they can use to line up their dice). I tell them the d20 is the most important, and that for most of the things they want to do, they will roll that and then add something to it.
-Mark up the character sheet. A couple of years ago, I started using highlighters to color-code my new players' character sheets: one color for skills, one for AC, etc. Then if they couldn't find something, I could say "look in the X section." This is not a workable solution for color blind players, so I was always careful to ask about that. It's never come up yet, but I would have needed to develop a symbol system for a color blind player.
-Consider using pre-gens. I found pre-generated characters a good starting point; new players don't get bogged down in character generation, but can sit down and play immediately. I have found that pregens printed on simplified character sheets can be particularly helpful. For a few months before COVID hit, I was occasionally DMing AL games at an FLGS. (I went to play, but they were short on DMs, so.....). They had access to some AL legal pregen characters that used a simplified character sheet. The sheets were great for newbies (especially the middle schoolers I was typically teaching there). It used symbols for the most important numbers, grouped skills under the related ability, etc.
-Sometimes, depending on time available and the personality/interest of the new player, instead of pregens, I worked with new players to create the characters: D&D Beyond was invaluable for this, making it quick and easy to create a character and export it to PDF. (ideally, the PDF takes some "massaging" to be more usable for a newbie).
-Go over the most important features of the character, but don't try to cover everything. One night in particular, I had a table full of middle school boys most of whom were brand new to the game; the rest only had a few AL sessions under their belt. I took a few moments to go over what I thought were the most important "special" features of their character: rage for the barbarian, spell slots for the casters, etc. It seemed to make a big difference in their experience that night. (As an aside, both I and the boys had a blast that night; this surprised me; I didn't like middle schoolers when I was one, and I still find them hard to deal with. But somehow things are very different at the D&D table.)
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