NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 8830446" data-attributes="member: 50987">I mean, that's assuming the player has at least heard of D&D--which wasn't always the case back in the 1980s.  And it assumes that the new player has at least heard of elves and dwarves, and alreay knows the differences between a sorcerer and a warlock and a wizard.  These names and assumptions are not always intuitive.Because if you've never played D&D before, it can take hours to bring you up to speed.  The first thing you'll need to do is read 32 pages of the Player's Handbook and pick the Race (and possibly Subrace) you want to play.  Then you need to read through 74 more pages of the Player's Handbook and decide on a class to play.  Then there's another 19 pages of reading (but let's be honest, you're only skimming now) to decide on your Background.And then there's weapons and equipment to decide on, maybe some cantrips and spells to select, some feats to read through, etc.  Everyone else at the table will strongly discourage you from playing a spellcaster, and from buying your own equipment, and from rolling your ability scores, etc., because it's been two hours and everyone is frustrated with the delay.  (I hope you wanted to play Lancelot or Conan, because that's what everyone at the table is going to tell you to play.)YMMV, and of course I'm exaggerating...but my point still stands:  it takes considerably longer today than it did in the 1980s.  5E is worlds better in this respect than it was back in the era of 3E/Pathfinder, but it's still not as easy as B/X or BECM.  Not even close.</blockquote>

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