D&D people may you help me?

[nuba km]

I asked some of my friends and we are all interested in trying D&D.

now I'm wandering whether you guys could tell me what you need to get started? how many people to you think you would need? and just general advice. I also saw a video of someone playing D&D online and I saw a race called the warforge could someone tell me about those guys they looks interesting. the reason I asked you not google is because you are nicer better looking and just awesome and I can ask you more detailed questions. all I know is to always search for traps and it involves dices with many sides

(I made this topic in the wrong section due to confusion)(could someone also tell me how to get a thread moved)

I got some basic stuff out of the way like what starter set to get. (4 edition). I mainly would like to know stuff about the races, classes and game-play mechanics all help is appreciated.

detail questions

1. what is a good race/class for a first time player?
2. any information to do with the warforged?
3. what to do if everyone playing is playing for the first time including the game/dungeon master?
4. useful alternatives to figurines to represent your character on a battle grid?
5. how long should the average game session be?
6. how often should you check for traps? (joke question)

question for fun
1. what race would you want to be able to play as in D&D

edit: please leave a small description of the class you think would be good so I know what they do.

edit2: I was thinking of playing a warforge druid from my limited knowledge is that a good idea or a sure plan for failure

edit3: with vengeance: I play rpg so i know a lot about normal rpg elements and using abilities just useful info but I don't know any D&D slang (I'm normally a magic user)

edit4: the re-editing: check this forum once in a while because I'll be editing a lot.

edit5: the editor: the group size is 4 including the dungeon master. I don't want this to be a fight over edition I have heard that 4 is better for new players while 3.5 can be more fun but no matter what we are going with 4 to begin with so stop the fight. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!

edit6: insert subtitle: this is what we will get if everyone chips in
http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Core-Rulebook-Gift/dp/0786950633/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280277658&sr=1-3
http://www.amazon.com/Keep-Shadowfell-Dungeons-Dragons-Adventure/dp/0786948507/ref=pd_sim_b_3
I live in northern Ireland if someone could tell me a shop to get this cheaper that would help.

edit7: the question for fun means if you could play a race that isn't in D&D but use it in D&D what would it be.

 

[The Amazing Tea Alligator]

Be a bard. They're badass - in a more diplomatic campaign, at least.

 

[Saint_Zvlkx]

Legos, or scraps of paper for figurines.
Good classes for first time gamers are fighters and clerics.
Average game session is up to you- I'd recommend at least 2 hours, though.

 

[P.Tsunami]

Mind you, older D&D fan here, so I'm not -big- on 4th edition. But I'll do my best to answer your questions.

Here's a list of things you need to get started.
*Imagination.
*Core D&D books. Player's Handbook (PHB from here on), Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG) and Monster Manual (MM).
*Set of dice. d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20. You'll want a lot of these when you get hooked, but that can wait. Alternatively, you can use an online die roller. I know, blasphemy.
*Pencils, notebooks and a battle grid; google image explains that well.

Aside from that, if you decide you like it, I suggest picking up supplemental books. PHB II and III is a good place to get started. Besides, 4th Edition is designed from the ground up to be played with miniatures. So they would be handy. If you don't have miniatures, use the battle grid mentioned above, and use whatever as markers. Or just draw on the grid. Warforged, I don't know much about. They're in a supplement I don't have yet.

1. What you want to look for is what ability modifiers a race gives, and what ability scores are useful for specific classes. Example follows. The Rogue class specifies that Strength, Dexterity and Charisma are their key abilities. A halfling gives +2 Dex, +2 Cha. In other words, probably a good match. In general, you can't go wrong with Human, though. As to classes, some are a bit harder to learn to play 'well' than others. For a first time player, I'd advise going for a striker class. Rogue, for example. It's not that much to it. With that said, you want to make sure that the players have a -mix- of classes, so someone should figure out the wizard (or a similar controller class).

2. Sorry. They never caught my interest, and I don't have a sourcebook with 'em.

3. Take things a bit slowly, take the time to learn the rules, but not too slowly. Keep in mind you're all there to have fun, ultimately. Try to make sure that everyone's included, and that everyone gets a moment to shine. And go easy on your poor first time game master; he's probably flooded already, so be nice to him. Yes, I'm a GM, why do you ask?

4. Any piece from a board game will do.

5. That depends entire on taste. Some groups gather to play for four or five hours. Some to play an entire weekend, barely stopping to sleep or eat. I recommend four-five hour sessions at first.

6. Always.

I hope this helps. More questions? Put 'em up!

 

[Continuity]

3. what to do if everyone playing is playing for the first time including the game/dungeon master?

The dungeon master at least should have a fairly good idea of the rules and various monsters, he'll/she'll have to do some reading up before hand.

 

[P.Tsunami]

The dungeon master at least should have a fairly good idea of the rules and various monsters, he'll/she'll have to do some reading up before hand.

Yeah, I definitely missed this. The GM will be the final adjudicator of the rules. As a result, he should do his best to familiarize himself with them.

 

[mynahbd]

1. It really depends on what you're interested in and what you'd like to do. Like The Amazing Tea Alligator said, bards are pretty badass. They're also not very difficult to play. Fighters aren't bad, either, and they're really easy.
2. I know hardly anything at all about Warforged, sorry.
3. Read the Player's Handbook. It will tell you all about the game dynamics, and it will tell you all of the other basic information that you need. Since it's all new people, everyone should read it, and I would suggest getting a copy for the whole group to share. And the DM should read the Dungeon Master's Guide, too.
4. When I play with my group, we don't use figurines or battle grids, so I can't help you there, either.
5. As long as your group feels comfortable playing, really. There's no minimum or maximum amount of time you need to play. Sometimes sessions are over in an hour, sometimes they're still going after 10 hours (for real, that happens to us a lot.) Just go until you don't feel like playing anymore, or until people have to leave to do other things.
6. As often as you possibly can

Also, yes, you do need dice, but if none of you are really sure about whether or not you're going to want to play often, or if you don't know if you'll really get into it, there are online dice rollers you can use instead of buying a dice set that you'll never use after this first session. You can find one here: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm

You'll also need character sheets and lots of pencils. You can find character sheets here: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/tool.aspx?x=dnd/4new/tool/charactersheet

A good amount of people is somewhere between 4-10 or so, in my opinion, but... again, it depends.

I guess the best advice I can give you is really just read the books and have fun with it. You don't have to follow the rules exactly if you can all agree that something needs to be changed, and you don't have to take it super seriously, either. It all depends on the group, and if you're all having fun, that's all that matters.

 

[Chipperz]

detail questions

1. what is a good race/class for a first time player?
2. any information to do with the warforged?
3. what to do if everyone playing is playing for the first time including the game/dungeon master?
4. useful alternatives to figurines to represent your character on a battle grid?
5. how long should the average game session be?
6. how often should you check for traps? (joke question)

question for fun
1. what race would you want to be able to play as in D&D

edit: please leave a small description of the class you think would be good so I know what they do.

1 - Human Fighter, Elf Ranger or (if you're cool with it - it's in the Monster Manual) Doppelganger Warlock. All kick ass, are fun to play, and give some decent abilities - even humans are interesting in 4th Ed.

2 - They were in the Eberron campaign setting, where they were the "look at us, we have robots to distinguish us from other settings!" macguffin. They were hilariously overpowered in campaign, but only slightly too strong for one-off games (not needing to sleep, eat or maintain armour is insanely good if cash is in short supply)

3 - Concentrate on having fun. Don't let rules bog you down, and don't be afraid to improvise. If your players want to grab someone and slam them into the floor, don't spend ages looking up the grapple rules, just get them to roll to hit and then pick a dice to roll for damage (as an example). Keep a character sheet in front of you and, whenever a character wants to do ANYTHING, decide on an appropriate stat or skill, and come up with a difficulty that they have to roll (with the modifier from the stat/skill) above in your head. For new first level characters, easy is about 5, average is about 10, hard is about 15 and very hard is 20+. This is one of the core skills of being a GM, and it's something you'll pick up quickly.

4 - I spent £5 for a set of 20 really old 40k Orks to use as bad guys, and painted them different colours in groups of 5, so long as I'm clear about what each thing is in each combat (Red and Blue are basic Kobolds, Green have rifles and Yellow is the healer, for example), it doesn't matter what they actually are. I've heard stories of people using chess sets to basically the same end which works if you have large hordes with few specialist monsters, which is a good idea if you're just starting anyway.

5 - 2-4 hours is about right. If people are starting to phase the game out or talk over the action, that's a good cue to start wrapping up for the night - don't throw a hissy fit though (I've seen it happen and it's not pretty), people just get bored of sitting around in front of a sheet of paper and a few models when they're just starting out.

6 - Every five feet of movement. Check for invisible traps every ten feet.

Question for fun - I once played an undead rat. That was an awesome campaign, I'd love to see more mental stuff like that in D&D proper

Also, one last piece of unsolicited advice - Get a rough idea of what players want to play, and then make the characters before hand. Character creation is long, boring and confusing for many first-time players and they will unknowingly thank you if you get an idea of what they want and then just dive in to the action with that.

 

[Jack_Uzi]

I don't play D&D for a while now, but I used to play quite a lot (back in the 'ol days ;P) so here goes from what I remember.

1. As a first time player, just start with a human fighter. It's quite generic, I know, but it isn't very difficult to play.

2. Warforged? Oh yeah... ehmm.. they probably snuck up on my character while it wasn't paying attention.. dunno.

3. Best rule!: have fun! Just improvise and see how far it takes you. I've been DM in quite a few sessions and my friends were doing things I didn't expect most of the time. It's good to have a main storyline, but you can not dictate/expect every move (and that wouldn't be fun for the players). So sometimes two pages of work went to straight to the bin after playing.

4. Use a chessboard if you have one. It helps. Or maybe you still have heroes quest around?

5. Time for a session? Doesn't really matter. Most of the time we played for hours after hours, for me, it depended on the fun we had. Sometimes a few hours could be like 40 mins. or so.

6. Just as much as I would ask you if that is a trick question (?) Most of the times when you go dungeon crawling, checking for traps is a fery solid plan all the way.

7. Most of the time I played a chaotic/neutral half-elf fighter/thief. I just wanted to know I hade the muscle to back up my shenanigans.

 

[mynahbd]

Looks like I need to refresh before posting. Man, P.Tsunami, you did a way better job explaining it than I could.

 

[alloneword]

I haven't been playing D&D for as long as some of my fellow Escapists, but 3.5 has been my mistress for longer than I care to tell. I remember trying to get a game started when I was in high school, and there were some challenged presented that I was unaware of at the time. But as for your questions...

Q: 1. what is a good race/class for a first time player?
A: For first time players, I always recommend Human, for many reasons. First of all, there are no special abilites that you have to keep track of so it makes gameplay move alot faster at first. If your group is heavy on actual playing of rolls, then an all human party also makes this more believable, and players will spend less time thinking about the motivations of their race as a whole.
As far as classes, any one that you have a good grasp on. Alot of people will say that Fighter or Rogue is a good beginner class, and they are, but all of the classes can be good if you understand how their abilites work, and how to use them to the best of your ability. Most of that will come with learning, but once you get the hang of it, making a Fighter/Wizard/Monk actually turns into a really good idea.

Q: 2. any information to do with the warforged?
A: Ah the Warforged, one of my favourite races. I'm not really sure on how they got changed in 4th, but in 3.5 they are just shy of broken. Having no need to eat, drink, or sleep, they make good PC's for a GM who keeps forgetting about those things. Their natural immunites are pretty nice, but they are all about balance. Tread lightly.

Q: 3. what to do if everyone playing is playing for the first time including the game/dungeon master?
A: This is exactly the situation that my friends and I found ourselves in when we first started. I had glanced over the rules enough to be able to run a game, and I just made a habit of explaining all of the rolls and whatnot to my PC's as we went along. This got tedious after a while. But soon everyone had their own PHB and were reading the rules on their own time. That sped things up.
The best thing I can recommend here, is to pow-wow before the first game and make sure that everyone understands how the game works, and even run some trial battles and situations. Then when it gets time to actually playing, everyone will be much better off.

Q: 4. useful alternatives to figurines to represent your character on a battle grid?
A: There is nothing more useful (especially in 4th) than representing your characters on a battle grid. In fact the build behind 4th pretty much relies on you doing so. NOT having a battle grid can cause more problems than you think. Suddenly you have players arguing over who was in front, or if they were in range of that Beholder's gaze attack, etc, etc. Do yourself a favor, and make sure you have a battle grid.
Alternative figurines? Coins. Lego pieces. Colored stones. So long as everyone understands what is what on the grid, you'll be fine.

Q: 5. how long should the average game session be?
A: Try not to set a limit, just play for as long as people can hold on.

Q: 6. how often should you check for traps? (joke question)
A: Never stop checking for traps.

Hope this helped.

 

[Akalistos]

I asked some of my friends and we are all interested in trying D&D.

now I'm wandering whether you guys could tell me what you need to get started? how many people to you think you would need? and just general advice. I also saw a video of someone playing D&D online and I saw a race called the warforge could someone tell me about those guys they looks interesting. the reason I asked you not google is because you are nicer better looking and just awesome and I can ask you more detailed questions. all I know is to always search for traps and it involves dices with many sides

(I made this topic in the wrong section due to confusion)(could someone also tell me how to get a thread moved)

I got some basic stuff out of the way like what starter set to get. (4 edition). I mainly would like to know stuff about the races, classes and game-play mechanics all help is appreciated.

detail questions

1. what is a good race/class for a first time player?
2. any information to do with the warforged?
3. what to do if everyone playing is playing for the first time including the game/dungeon master?
4. useful alternatives to figurines to represent your character on a battle grid?
5. how long should the average game session be?
6. how often should you check for traps? (joke question)

question for fun
1. what race would you want to be able to play as in D&D

edit: please leave a small description of the class you think would be good so I know what they do.

Many debate about what the best edition, and i'm still a 3.5e guy. But all you need is 3 friend and a dungeon Master and a good campaign. Don't over-crowed them with beast and make a decent, well told story. If you need one, i got one that would be fun. PM me and I'll write you the jest of it.

 

[Actual]

3. what to do if everyone playing is playing for the first time including the game/dungeon master?

The dungeon master at least should have a fairly good idea of the rules and various monsters, he'll/she'll have to do some reading up before hand.

Ideally yes,but a noob can DM without a full knowledge of the rules, he just has to be willing to make some common sense calls when put on the spot.

Being able to make shit up quickly is great for a DM because the players will break your plans. And it's more fun if you don't rail-road them through the plot you planned to much.

I'd say 3 players and a DM is the minimum and this will work fine. Don't go above 6 players unless you're an experienced DM, keeping them all involved, interested, and under control will be a challenge.

1. what is a good race/class for a first time player?
There's no right answer here. Human is easiest and gets some extra feats and skills so can be customised better. But a lot of players will get more excited about an exotic race, as long as they make sure to learn their race specific skills it's fine.

I do recommend you only use races from the players handbook at first, at least until you have plenty of books so no player can choose a race that the others have never seen.

2. any information to do with the warforged?
Ehhh don't know specifics, they're basically golems/robots, really tough, killing machines but pretty rubbish at anything else and need to be played by a person with some character as the race has none.

3. what to do if everyone playing is playing for the first time including the game/dungeon master?
Pick a DM who can make judgement calls and the players won't argue too much (a little arguing is fun). You're not all going to know all the rules in your first campaign.

I recommend each player writes down all their abilities and how exactly they work and makes a copy for the DM otherwise they'll be looking them up every round of combat.

This includes if they're planning to make a specific type of fighter, eg. they make a wrestler/grappler and then can't remember the rules of grappling. Same goes for the DM if you're going to use a monster with interesting attacks, have this information close at hand.

Use your characters passive perception score. The DM takes all these after character creation. Say they walk down a corridor you've place a trap in. None of them are actively looking for it, you could say "everyone roll perception" to see if they spot it, but this ruins the surprise. See if their passive perception is high enough and if not don't tell them till they spring it, try to make them jump too.

This should be used lots, creepy person at a window, thief pocketing their goods, kobolds hiding in the bushes.


4. useful alternatives to figurines to represent your character on a battle grid?
Chess pieces, coins, warhammer models, toys, whatever. As long as each player (and the DM) remembers which piece is theirs.

5. how long should the average game session be?
A couple of hours at first, then however much you think the players can take and you've got plans for. If your group is like mine they'll drag it out by having random bullshit conversations and forgetting what they're doing while they dissolve into giggles.

6. how often should you check for traps?
Any time the DM is smiling.

One more piece of advice: the noobs won't know how to roll a good character at first. Play one or two sessions and then let them rebuild the character. When you don't know how the game works you might take a spell thinking it's awesome and find that in practice it's not, having to stick with that decision can upset the noobs so give them a one time offer to remodel characters. The Dm decides the imitations of this, when I did it I made them keep the same race, class and character backstory and just allowed them to fiddle with the mechanics; stats, skills, feats, spells, and abilities.

 

[Tenrin]

Oh nuba km, flattery will get you everywhere.

Ugh, 4th edition. Forget that mess, even the creators are giving up on it. If you want to get started on the cheap, I'd say look for used 3.5/3.0 (3.x) edition books. Or if you're really really cheap, all the core rules (and a few extras) are all still up on the SRD (System Reference Document)for 3.5 edition at d20srd.org. One problem with that is it doesn't have an experience table so you won't know when to level up (pm me and I'll give yo some non-copyrighted alternatives). There's also a bunch of free 3.x adventures floating around and since SRD is "free to use" there's a bunch of free player-made material too (it all ranges from very crap to very awesome, even the official stuff so watch out).

Easy starting classes for 3.x are the Barbarian (I hit stuff!) the Rogue (I sneak around and backstab!) the Sorcerer (I cast Fireball. Not dead? I cast Fireball.) and the Cleric (Armored first-aid kit.) Keep in mind that this was made by the same people that made Magic the Gathering (a trading card game) and they basically had the same mind set making this game. That means there's alot of crap options, which is what makes things like the Fighter, Bard and Druid hard to play for first timers. My first character was a fighter and he was pretty useless after about 3rd level because I had no idea what I was doing.

For a miniatures and battle grids, well LEGO, poker chips, bits of paper and spare change all work great, as has been said. For a battle grid, go to Wal-Mart or w/e and grab a cheap white board, a ruler and a permanent black marker and grid it out yourself. White boards (aka Dry Erase boards) are great, you can draw a whole map on them then erase it for the next battle sequence, using anything from markers, crayons, to soft-lead pencils (4h and above) and just wipe it off with a towel.

About Warforged, well they aren't public material so I can't give you any actual statistics without getting sued, but for the 'fluff' (non-rules stuff), they're basically magical robots that were originally created as war machines (Terminator style) that had so much intelligence and magic programmed into them they gained sentience and souls. Now that 'The War' is over, they're all confused and trying to find their place. They're in an odd place with gender, as their bodies are all very similar and androgynous/asexual (no robot-boobs for you) but their personalities and voices can range from very masculine or very feminine giving them a sort of 'gender'.

Well, that's a big enough wall of text for now, I could post later with some DMing tips if you want. I'm almost always the DM so I have a lot of experience.

 

[Flamespeak]

Get 3rd edition stuff if you can. Easier to mess around with, honestly and mages are the glass canons that they should be.

More importantly, if you are brand new to the game as a DM, consider getting a few pre-made adventures to help you get a feel for the kind of stuff you should building for your players. Also, it would be a good idea for your players to all be on the same page for how you are going to be playing. Is it going to be a serious game? A light hearted game? Will you be meta-gaming (meaning acting like you are playing a traditional game with limited character acting)? Will you be staying in character for most of your conversations and interactions?

 

[P.Tsunami]

I -knew- this thread would slowly turn into a tiny edition war. Always happens. Personally, I think 4th Edition is an okay game to start with. The Pro of it (compared to its predecessors) is that it's a very easy system. It's logically consistent, extremely well balanced, and easy to pick up and play. Plus, character creation takes like minutes. The Con, well, it's not inherently a roleplaying game. When they wrote the books, they seemed to kind of "forget" to point out a lot of things about roleplaying not relating to the rules. As a lot of people like to point out, it tends to play like a computer game. It's severely limited in anything non-combat, and in my view a bit sterile. I think it's a decent first game, nuba km, but I also recommend moving to another, funner system when you get the handle of it. I personally recommend D&D 3.5 (the all in all best D&D system to date, in my view), Mutants and Masterminds or Legends of the Five Rings. White Wolf systems (Vampire: the Requiem, for example) is fun, too.

 

[Tenkage]

1. what is a good race/class for a first time player?: I always found the human or Half elf to be good starters, they are easily adaptable for different classes

2. any information to do with the warforged?: They are living Mechanical beings, like a robot, think Shale from Dragon Age Origins

3. what to do if everyone playing is playing for the first time including the game/dungeon master?: Well help each other and have fun

4. useful alternatives to figurines to represent your character on a battle grid?: I guess legos I suppose

5. how long should the average game session be?: depends on what you are doing, I do DnD encounters which is free and provided by Wizards of the Coast, we meet weekly to do one encounter I.E. monster attacks us and we fight them, we loot and then call it a night, it can llast to 3-4 hours depending on group size or enemy size (once got nomed by a giant freagin bug, no joke)

6. how often should you check for traps? (joke question): Not enough times (joke answer LOL)

 

[wunderguy]

1. what is a good race/class for a first time player? Elf Rogue (best ever) on a serious note human fighter. Beasty damage can use basically everything. loads of feat. Humans are easy to work with if you want something a bit more fun, (is it orc or ogre now?) or it might be half-orc, barbarian .

Put it this way if you want something to later on thats badass and amazingly fun. 10 lvls rogue then start going shadow dancer at least that was in 3.5 aint played for a while

2. any information to do with the warforged? metal men think michael jackson from moonwalker

3. what to do if everyone playing is playing for the first time including the game/dungeon master? Try to keep things simple and follow a capaign guide if you can get one if not google one

4. useful alternatives to figurines to represent your character on a battle grid? we used warhammer and a squared drywipe board

5. how long should the average game session be? 2 hours is usually saturation point

6. how often should you check for traps? (joke question) Depends, search for hidden doors is way more important.

 

[Tenkage]

I recommand going to Wizards of the Coast's website and looking up DnD Encounters, it will help you find shops in your area where groups play campaigns provided by them. You can get nice awards like a drink holder with +1 to defense against cold (from your bottled soda)

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Stay away from 4th Ed - it's a pile of balls. The 3.5 system is much better, so first piece of advice - play 3.5.
To answer your specific questions:
1) The really good classes (bards, monks, paladains, etc) are good because of their ability/spell sets which can be a bit confusing at first, so try to stick to the more traditional classes (fighters, rogues, mages, clerics) at least for your first campaign - familiarise yourself with the game before delving into the trickier character sets.
2) "Originally built to serve as mindless war machines, the creatures known as warforged developed intelligence as a side effect of the arcane experiments that sought to make them the ultimate weapons of destruction. With each successive model that emerged from the creation forges, the warforged evolved until they became a new type of being?living constructs." - From the Monster Manual vol III (EDITED - for some reason I put V, not III. Brain fail)
3) You will be able to find pre-generated campaigns either online or in some of the suppliment books - experiment with one or two of those first to let your GM settle into the role.
4) You can use anything to represent your character really, chess pieces are probably the most useful if you don't have a selection of miniatures available.
5) The group I'm in plays for around about 3 to 3 and a half hours. We get together around 7ish after everyone's finished work, and play 'til just gone 10 usually.

EDIT -
6) All the time. Not a joke.