Hey, I'm looking to start tabletop gaming with a group of friends(all of us will be new to this) as the DM. The plan is to start with DnD 4th Edition.
What are some things I should know/focus on to make it fun for everyone?
Anything you want to say will be appreciated.
pic maybe related
Do your very best to ensure everyone is having a fun and memorable time.
>What are some things I should know/focus on to make it fun for everyone?
Are you capable of thinking?
If so, you already know the answer.
Stop asking retard questions.
Don't start with 4e, it's too gamey.
-How it's abilities are set out encourages combat focus over role play more than any of the other D&D system.
-The combat scales poorly, get ready for combats that will take hours
If you really want to start with D&D start with 5e, it's reasonably balanced, it's still supported, there's a bigger community for it, it's a better game and the mechanics are just better. I'd also argue how they've set up the game encourages a better player and dm mentality if you read the stuff early on.
4e to me just feels like ttrpg mmo edition.
Ignore people like this, they're just angry that no one wants to play with them anymore.
In 4e, try to minimize the amount of encounters, but make those encounters memorable. Battles take a long time, make them special.
Also, don't worry about being the next Tolkien if you're building the world. Sure, plenty of people have done the evil necromancer invading the western European fantasy-culture-counterpart before, but it's done because it's an idea that works. As long as you make it fun, it's fine.
Remember the number one rule of DMing: When someone asks you if they can do x in game, say yes. Don't say "sorry i didn't plan for that" or anything, let them do it. DnD is about being able to do whatever you want. If you want a limited experience, make a video game.
Finally, remember that you are not the player's opponent. You are not the bad guy necromancer attacking the land. Your goal as the DM is to present the players a challenge and allow them to conquer it. You yourself are not the challenge. Remember to make everything beatable, and never make a player feel like they've lost control.
That's basically the basics. I hope you guys have fun, RPGs can be the most fun you'll ever have if you guys mesh together.
>Don't start with 4e, it's too gamey.
>4e to me just feels like ttrpg mmo edition.
For starters OP, let me point out a good example of how to spot someone who's opinion is safely ignored.
Yes, no one wants to play with me, which is how I'm somehow paying my rent & bills as a D&D streamer and running/playing RPGs nearly every day of the week.
Nah, what would I know.
Ok buddy, good for you.
Shut the fuck up. I don't care how many people like the way you run games. That's beside the point. When new players who know nothing about RPGs come in, don't assume they instantly know how to make things perfect. Maybe you've been DMing for 20 or 30 years, maybe you're the best DM on earth, but everyone knew nothing at some point and by being an asshole to people willing to learn you contribute to the lack of knowledge.
>I'm somehow paying my rent & bills as a D&D streamer
Sure you are bud.
>Doesn't offer a counterargument
The only real counterargument to meme spamming is just laughing and ignoring them. Especially tired old memes that not even Pathfinder defenders actually believe anymore.
>counterargument
That relies on there being an argument in the first place.
And thanks to you, we will continue to have these threads every single day, and you will continue to answer them every single day.
Because god forbid anyone think for themselves ever.
It doesn't stop people from thinking for themselves if they get advice.
OP isn't asking for advice, advice implies he has an idea of the options and wants input.
OP want's to be taught how to read, what to think, and will never actually consider googling shit himself or opening a rulebook on his own.
Give a retard and answer, and you teach him where to go for easy answers.
It's almost like the community is made up of individuals that join at different times and want to get advice from people who are into the hobby at the time they join.
>Being a meme, means it isn't true
As for arguments the person wrote more
-combat focus over roleplay
-poorly scaling combat
-5e being better
>offer opinion
>offer opinion about ignoring opinion
>no counter argument
retard in action, proves his opinion is shit.
google some guys opinion from whenever
or
ask for an opinion from some guy in a place where those guys would be.
wtf?
its almost like he was asking people he incorrectly assumed to be knowledgeable about the topic of his interest for advice.
oh well, welcome to Veeky Forums.
>google some guys opinion from whenever
Yes, called "learning to find answers on your own" and not "posting a shitty thread about every hurdle you encounter".
Saying someone opinion is shit, isn't offering anything to a thread unless you back it up with substance.
OP is clearly asking for advice, I mean straight up, pointing out the hp bloat in 4e isn't something you're going to find straight away normally and as a new player they will probably be in the mindset of, this is how I have to run the game.
>Being a meme, means it isn't true
Mostly just misinformation and being dumb.
to refer back to >How it's abilities are set out encourages combat focus over role play more than any of the other D&D system.
Untrue. If anything, the mechanics just being laid out like that makes it more open to roleplaying since you have more freedom to flavor your abilities, instead of like 3.5 where it had written down set in stone how exactly each of your abilities worked, which finger motions you had to do, and what the position of your left pinky toe is while casting something, with so much flavor text you need to take a magnifying glass just to find which part of the spell description actually tells you what the spell itself does.
>The combat scales poorly, get ready for combats that will take hours
Combat doesn't drag on any more than previous editions. HP on either side doesn't get quite as ridiculous as it does in 3.PF and there's isn't as much spells to keep track of. Even at level 25+ I've never had a fight in 4e go over 45 minutes unless it was some Level+9 boss fight against the BBEG and half of his army from hell that we spent all campaign building up to, which is the sort of fight I would already expect to take all session.
>too gamey
>mmo edition
Just consolewar baiting buzzwords that just exist to stir up arguments.
That said, I would like to point out 3.PF have literally had video games and video game expansions, whereas the closest thing 4e has is the Neverwinter MMO, and even that's a stretch.
his arguments are all personal opinions from his experience. they are subjective, therefore not facts.
i loved 4e, yes combat was long, but most of the group i played with wasn't into combat. we spent most of the time exploring and roleplaying. i play 5e now with a new group, and they like combat more, so our 5e game is more "combat focus over roleplay".
and yes, these are my opinions, not objective facts.
Christ, are you this much of a cunt to all new players?
Veeky Forums is a slow moving board, it's not like he's pushing something else off that wasn't already gone to create this.
There's hundreds of places he can look for advice, all of which will have different and conflicting opinions to each other. Only plus side is that assholes like you would have been banned from them. I mean even on here, there's currently no 4eg so he can't even ask those guys.
The most important part is to build a story or open world populated with characters and encounters your party will remember. The stats can come afterword, monster manuals and the like usually are a bad place to start as their balance is pretty poor and, in 4e in particular, many enemies are virtually identical.
Just relax and have fun with it, make attack rolls and saves more than just "you hit," or "you fail." Players like descriptions, sure not for every single thing, but personality and details are what tend to lodge something in someone's head. On the practical side of things, try to have basic stats laid out for everything, even if you have to raise or lower them during play. Nothing is worse as a player than realizing your rolls don't matter and things only happen because the dm wants them to.
I know it isn't all that helpful considering the question, but this user kinda right. Having played every edition since second, I've found 4e to be the least creative and most boring. 5e is a good way to introduce the group to dnd, though not my personal favorite.
Idk how anyone falls for bait hanging that low.
>I've found 4e to be the least creative and most boring.
This all depends on the person really. No edition is better or worse for creativity.
>I found
>This all depends on the person
Gee...
Fuck off 4rry, you're edition is fucking shit.
Hey look you added to the thread, unlike people going "Hurr Durr shit opinions"
>Misinformation and being dumb
You do realise meme's, and I'm not talking about the ludicrous amounts of images passed off as memes, but actual memes, become such because of the logic behind them?
>freedom to flavor you're abilities
All of which only list in combat uses, just because one persons pushes someone 1 square with their hands and the other with a shoulder barge, doesn't change it being combat a 1 square push in combat.
HP bloat in 4e is a known problem, I would guess that if you're DM isn't using standard encounters or the stat blocks form the books which I would assume a new player would
Difference between 3.5 getting games and 4e is that the games for 3.5 were created to emulate 3.5 where as 4e feels like a game.
It's something I thought before coming on Veeky Forums, when I first played D&D 4e and after playing a bunch of other ttrpg's it's something that still sticks, altered it would make a decent wargame but it's a pretty terrible ttrpg.
4e is a great edition for new players. Everything is straightforward and easy to understand so players can focus on roleplaying rather than getting lost in strange and unintuitive mechanics.
There are a few things to be aware of however. 4e's combat math was a bit off at launch, with a couple of 'tax' feats being required to keep up and monster math making battles overlong.
The Monster Manual 3 and all the books after it fixed the math for encounters, pic related is a simplified reference that's useful if you need to make things up on the fly.
On feats, it's generally a good idea to let everyone take an Expertise feat and Improved Defences for free. Expertise provides +1 attack per tier plus a unique minor benefit for the weapon type you choose, while Improved Defences is just +1 to each defence per tier.
Also, look up cbloader. It's a fanpatch for the old offline character builder which updates it with all the relevant options to make chargen really quick and easy.
funin.space is another resource which you'll find useful, a searchable index of all 4e content.
Link your stream then.
Maybe Veeky Forums will get a new spoony.
>All of which only list in combat uses
Because combat is the most rules heavy part of the game, that's where the most rules are needed. This is why we don't need rules telling us that fire makes flammable things catch on fire, we're assumed to already know this and have the brainpower needed to make the connection.
Yeah right, last thing thing I need is 4rries getting an army to troll and harass my normal viewership just because they're assblasted over their dead edition.
Fuck off.
>fire makes flammable things catch on fire
Not in 4e.
>B-but it does
Show me where in the rules it says so. I can wait. But you won't because there isn't any in your dumbshit game.
Why do you need rules to tell you that? Are you that stupid?
Rules are what make the game. And you 4rries love your fucking mmo games. if it's not in the rules, you can't fucking do it.
Look out everyone we've got an internet badass here.
>prove you're doing what you say you are
>"no I'm too much of a pussy"
>mad because I'm not giving you the chance to stalk and harass my stream
Sorry kid, better luck next time.
Ohh, you're a troll, got it. Decent job, you actually had me sincerely replying for a bit there.
Well, a troll or truly astonishingly stupid, but either way stopping replying at this point is the smart thing to do.
>smart thing to do.
Why start being smart now? If you were, you wouldn't like 4e.
THE FIRST "KID" HAS BEEN THROWED
good thing dms and players through the dm can add or edit those rules. rule zero. everything can be in the rules, even common sense. just ask the awakened rat psion that ran with our group.
>rule zero
And the 4rry is reduced to buzzwords and memes. Typical.
>just ask the awakened rat psion that ran with our group.
if there's rules for it, fine.
if not, me and my group would just laugh at you, then wait for your REAL character, then probably kick you out if you keep forcing that meme shit.
The only advice you need that pertains directly to 4e is Make another thread in a few days that doesn't state a system and ask for general advice there.