GMing with a group of beginners

If you're new , which it sounds like as you wouldn't be asking this question if you were not , just run the lost mine of Phandelver 5E starter adventure which is actually really well designed for new groups and new GM's. And even old GM's learning how 5E works.

Different user, but D&D 5e might not be best suited for new players. If you're trying to just introduce them to the concept of roleplaying games in general, going for a system that can handle the inevitably odd things that new players often ending up wanting to do is a good idea.

Take combat for example. D&D 5e has an attack action. You roll to hit, you roll damage. A new player who wants more descriptive combat that allow for their actions have a mechanical benefit might chafe under such restrictions. You could house-rule it, of course, so there's a difference between trying to run them through with a sword or knock their legs out from underneath them.

Pretty much every game has different levels of abstraction and depth for different parts. D&D has fairly particular things that it provides depth for, and so using it as an introduction to roleplaying isn't always the best option, because if "what the players want to do" isn't the few things that D&D can handle reasonably well, it can be a disappointing experience. Rather than trying to fit them into the mould expected of D&D, you could instead choose to use a more generic system that handles most things equally well, with a system that's a little bit more permissive in terms of what player characters can do, and let them get the hang of the general flow of roleplaying games.

> trying to run them through with a sword or knock their legs

You don't need to houserule it. It's called the shove action.

>Shoving a Creature

Using the Attack action, you can make a Special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it PRONE or push it away from you. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them.
The target must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Instead of making an attack roll, you make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target’s Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you.

Perhaps read the rules before shitting on them? D&D has its issues but mechanical crunch in combat of all places is hardly one of them.

KISS (keep it simple stupid)

if you're going with 5e, first thing you do is run mines of phandelver, if you are fine with pre-made stuff

if not, then brief your players of their options every time they come across a situation, make it clear they always have more than one possible solution

in combat, dont feel restricted to just attacking, always try to describe something in the environment to get the wheels in their head clicking, if you;re luck one of them might just remember the grapple ability to throw people overboard

players learn by example, if your enemies just swarm and attack, then your players do that too
always try to warm up against weak enemies who try to do things like grapple, throw, or wrestle people into the fireplace
that way, the players understand that they can do some really stupid things, and try it against the real boss

never feel like you should limit your world, each time you feel like a player is doing something cliche or dumb, spin it in such a way that it becomes interesting

Pick up Dungeon World
Have fun

also along that line pick up the Perilous Wilds book and run thru the world creation with your players, there is nothing like having them do the work.
Every group I've done this with has WAAAY more buy-in for the world lore and get more into it then if I where to just run Forgotten Realms or some pre-made thing where most ppl could give two shits about the lore.

Also Dungeon World is a good start for players that have little to no Tabletop RPG experience.

Use a book adventure, seriously, they are usually written to be introductions and leaves you more time to manage players without making up plot on the spot.

The starter edition is usually geared towards beginners too.

or just use one of the many rules lite/narrative RPGs out there and not even worry about all that crunch.

How much damage does that do again? The point is that D&D tends to force you to play it in a particular way. New player has a guy with a hammer, he wants to hit them hard enough to knock them over, that rather implies hurting them, You can take a shove action, you can take an attack action, but an attack can't knock them over, and knocking them over can't hurt them.

That is fine if that's what your players expectations of the game are. But it's been my experience that newer players tend to suggest fairly wild sorts of actions (partly because they've not been "trained" by a system yet to know what sort of actions are expected of them), and D&D is fairly particular about what you can and cannot do. If the players want to do the stuff that D&D does well, you'll end up having a fucking great time.

I believe an Unearthed Arcana added a feat which specifically allows you to knock someone prone with a warhammer if you exceed their armor by 5 or more on an attack. Someone wants to do some interesting new action? Make a feat or magical item that lets them do it. The DM can change the game any way he wants - that's universal to all ttrpgs. The key difference in this respect comparing 5e to other systems is that a lot of 5e is made to bring new players in.

D&D 5e is highly malleable, as are most Roleplaying games. 5e is easy to grasp for new players, however. That was it's express purpose from the get-go. Things like advantage/ disadvantage, simpler proficiency and straightforward combat rules lend themselves well to this.

For new players, concrete, easily understood rules on what you can or can't do help you to learn the system quicker, getting you to the point when you can begin making interesting, dynamic decisions in combat based on the rules you have learned.

Source: DM for a party of 7, 6 were new players, all of them had a handle on the system by session 3. Maybe OP's group is different, but mine wanted to play a classic fantasy game just like he is. Speaking from experience, I believe 5e is the way to go.

>GMing with a group of beginners
Sure, playing with newbs can be really fun, especially if you are long-standing friends.

>what would be the best way to introduce people into the playstyle?
Ask them about what they would like to play, what they would like to do and stuff. You might want to settle for any one tone because there are different ways to approach fantasy games. Some might be looking for a hack and slash game, others for a gritty 'darkest dungeon' kind of thing and maybe others a Warcraft 3 kind of deal. So make sure you know what your players want and make adjustments and suggestions so you have a genre of game you can all enjoy. You wouldn't want someone to be playing rugby while everyone else settled for football, now would you?

>Any suggestions? Should I make it a really wild story so its more fun?
Depending on what your players told you they want on the point before, you may want to make it a really wild story or not. More often than not, though, players will like an over-the-top story to go with their beer and pretzels shenanigans. I know my group liked it.

>t. someone who has played with normies. as a player

>Things like advantage/ disadvantage, simpler proficiency and straightforward combat rules lend themselves well to this.

It is not about how simple and straightforward the game is, although I think the advantage/disadvantage system is something of a godsend for when it comes to 5e and it's probably one of the neatest systems they've got for generally making sure that actions that kind-of define the character happen more consistently.

It's about how the expectations of the players line up with what the game expects players to do; somebody who is brand new to roleplaying games is not necessarily going to come into their first game with a set of expectations that line up neatly with the expectations that D&D places upon players. 5e handles what it handles well, but what it handles is a fairly narrow and specific style of game and style of play.

If what the players want out of a roleplaying game is the style of game that 5e offers then 5e is going to be an excellent choice. You want to try and get new players used to the general flow of roleplaying games, which (tends) to go:

>Player: I want to do X
>GM: Let's resolve X.

If the players want X, and the game does not handle X, it is not going to be a good fit for the players, even if the game has the best mechanics for handling A, B and C.

Lol I knew you'd move the goal posts.

>'you can't knock people over in combat in D&D'

>'yes you can it's really easy here'

>'well you can't knock people over AND do damage reeeee'

(There's actually a huge range of ways in the system you can knock people over and do damage , but let's ignore those too because muh narrative freeform)

Any system you play is going to need some structure to adjudicate actions or it just becomes a random, arbitrary, mother may I cluster fuck.

>I want to kick him over but also shoot his friend at the same time and heal myself with the magic energies in the air
How would you handle this then? In your example, you can take a feat, a maneuver, and I'd allow a crit to let them shove instead of getting extra damage. If they don't take those, they need extra attack, action surge or two rounds, because they aren't good enough at this to do both a shove and an attack at the same time.
You could still allow that but give them disadvantage on both things, which means there's little reason to do it because it's worse than just doing one of them. Which has to be the case, otherwise they're just going to do that every turn because it's better than anything else.
Situational rulings, like dropping from a candelabra and making an attack and wanting to make them go prone since you're falling on top of them, sure. But something as simple as "I want to attack, but ALSO do this other generic action, at the same time" is just going to fuck stuff up if you allow that.

I think OSR is pretty good for introducing new players, but they have to be open to that playstyle so if they're coming from critrole or something then it won't work at all.

>I want to do X
>You can either do Z, or Y, but not X.
>Why?
>Because that's the mechanics of the game.

If you repeatedly run into this situation you are going to have a shit time of things. Every game needs structure and rules, and I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be rules or it should be some kind of narrative freeform bullshit. It's simply a case of how often the rules get in the way of what the players want to do - if the expectations of the players and the mechanics line up, you're going to have a good time.

People new to roleplaying games may not share the same expectations that D&D has. If they do, go for it. If they don't, it's going to suck. D&D's focus is fairly narrow, but it offers reasonable depth within that narrow focus. You could try playing it as a game of courtly romance and jousting and falconry and Arthurian fasntasy, but it wouldn't be a fucking stretch to say that maybe a game like Pendragon would be better off handling that than D&D.

>How would you handle this then?

Off the top of my head? Using a system where you get grades of successes (and failures, if needs be) in an action, rather than the binary fail / success, and then can divide grades of success between different effects. Amount of effects to an action could then be based upon the tone of the game, expectations of the DM / player, etc. etc. So a game of super-heroic ridiculous fantasy would allow for more effects to be stacked on to actions than your gritty low fantasy, what effects there are might be limited to particular character types, what-have-you.

So Jimmy McHammer wants to sweep low with his hammer; he's going for the legs, and the logical consequence of that is Orc A is going to get hurt, and Orc A might fall over. Jimmy's player gets three grades of success, and puts two of them towards damage and one of them towards knocking the Orc over. As I am imagining a system off the top of my head here, I'd assume that there's some sort of generic defensive stat that the Orc would get to consider, so that a one grade of success action is not going to necessarily have the effect it wanted (in other words, so it's not a case of "I will always knock the Orc over with any amount of success").

Point is that you could house-rule it to work reasonably well in D&D, but you could equally play another system that could handle this sort of thing without having to make up new rules for it. D&D's style of mechanics (and the playstyle that flows from that) is not the only way of roleplaying. This isn't to say that D&D is shit (it's really not!), but that if what you want out of a game isn't what D&D is offering, then perhaps D&D is not the right choice for your group at that time.

Again - not saying that D&D is shit. It's not. It's fine. Just that different people are going to want different things out of games, and the best place to start is to find games that let the expectations of the players be met. Which isn't always D&D.

>I want to trip him over
>Cool this is how you do that.

The system by your initial example works perfectly so I fail to see your argument here.

You can increasingly move the goal posts beyond that but if we take it to it's logical extremes then in your muh narrative game a player can say.

'I want to swing my sword so I cut the legs off all 20 orcs infront of us, and they all fall over and die and then I leap.over them and decapitate their leader and throw his head to the moon'

And you say ' lol ok you do it'

Certain mechanical constraints actually create more engaging gameplay as well as a balance and sense of order to things so players can actually make roleplay and tactical decisions in game.

I.E my actions are limited so I can choose to trip over this Orc in order to slow him down so he can't run and grab the magical doohicky or stay in combat with him and try to kill him where he could potentially disengage and get the magical doohicky.

I do agree D&D doesn't work well outside its comfort zone, but when a new player who doesn't know rpgs well at all wants to do two things at the same time, I'd consider it perfectly reasonable to just tell him "sorry, you're a first level adventuring scrub, you're gonna need training to do that effectively". Again they can still try but it should be largely mechanically inferior because otherwise you wouldn't ever do just a normal attack again. Same if a wizard wants to kill someone with a maul, they can try that but it should also be clear that with -1 strength and +3 int their fire bolt is going to generally just be better.

>Certain mechanical constraints actually create more engaging gameplay as well as a balance and sense of order to things so players can actually make roleplay and tactical decisions in game.

I agree, certain ones do, it is a case of making sure that the constraints that the system presents align with the expectations of the players and GM.

D&D has a fairly restrictive set of mechanics that forces players to play in a particular way. If everyone involved both (a) wants a restricted set of mechanics and (b) wants it restricted in the particular way that the game restricts them, then it's fine. Most people will, hopefully, want (a) - as you say, it can make gameplay more engaging! - but might not want (b).

If your players think that it's a reasonable expectation for "hitting Orc in the legs can both hurt and knock him over", then a set of mechanics that do not allow for that might not be suited for those players.

>If your players think that it's a reasonable expectation for "hitting Orc in the legs can both hurt and knock him over", then a set of mechanics that do not allow for that might not be suited for those players.

There's multiple ways you can do that in D&D 5E. A battle master fighter can do it with Trip Attack , any class that gets a secondary attack can use it to trip someone over and then deal damage to them. There's also a feat you can take that lets you do that all by RAW.

You can also house rule in called shots simply enough as I do , which are already a defined mechanic in Pathfinder. Any half decent GM can respond to a player going ' I want to sweep his legs with my sword' with ' sure, you have disadvantage to the roll but if you hit he takes damage and is knocked prone.'

Again I fail to see your argument. You've basically decided that the game is restrictive ergo you won't allow anything that works already in the system.

>Again I fail to see your argument. You've basically decided that the game is restrictive ergo you won't allow anything that works already in the system.

Let me make my argument clear - players (especially new ones) may have expectations about how a roleplaying game works based on things other than roleplaying games (especially new players). A game system that matches these expectations is going to be a better fit than one that doesn't if you are trying to introduce them to the concept of roleplaying games.

If "hitting Orc in the legs can both hurt and knock them over" is an expectation that the players hold (after all, sometimes, you can punch people and they fall over!), then a game that requires some sort of permission to do it ("I've got a feat that lets me do this - so I can do this reasonable thing, but other characters cannot because you don't have it.") might not be best suited for your players. The mechanics of any given game influence what can and cannot be done in the "reality" of that game. I am not suggesting that there should be no restrictions, but rather that the "reality" of the game that the players expect should ideally be aligned with the "reality" that the game mechanics allow whenever possible.

If the player expects every character to be able to swing a sword, a game that says "picking up a sword requires X and if you didn't take X, you can't do it" is likely to make new players unhappy because their expectation (anyone can pick up a sword) is not met by the game (only people who took X can swing swords).

So I guess my argument is:
>D&D is fine for what D&D does
>What D&D does is defined by mechanics
>A new player who is used to films and books and other stuff might chafe under the restrictions imposed by the mechanics
>A different set of mechanics might be a better fit for a group of players
>D&D is still a good game even if it's not for everyone and cannot do everything

dnd has a very simple rule if you want to "order off menu", DM decides difficulty and player tried to get mitigating factors for his character

my players frequently use their action to try and trip or maneuver the enemy, they didnt need a feat

i tell them up front the DC of the check, and I tack on tiny benefits if they can politely and properly state their case

how is this limiting? neither I nor they felt it

Sure but as I already said you can knock someone over and deal damage to them in 5E. If you want to be really good at doing it you can take an option that lets you be in character creation.

>classic Fantasy setting, so I'm using D&D 5e. Any suggestions
Could you please do not use dnd as generic fantasy system.
It is not generic fantasy, and it will fall apart around level 8 and another generation of players will try to tinker with it so they can play in a stetting they want but rules do not work for this type of setting.

tl;dr : make it retard simple but make it clear that there is more than what they are introduced to. Sorry about the tone in this post but i just want to help.

The only mandatory thing is to make the read a short novel (1-3 pages) in a relevant setting before the game. All rulebooks have one at the beginning and they are brilliant.

Don't use stats or a system. You may use the ancient "phy chi psy" to have body, instinct and magic related stats. Briefly talk about the fact that there are as many systems as games (some with dice, some with cards, some freeplay). D&D is bad and absolutely not beginner friendly. It hurts the hobby as a whole imho but that's another topic.

After that you can just make them some archetypes based on what characters they preferred in LoTR or their favorite fantasy book/film. Talk briefly about the rich background you can give you char and all the cool advanced stuff. Briefly.

SPECIFY THAT IT'S NOT A VIDEOGAME some kids just want to bash everything like it's motherfucking SKYRIM on easy. They see an NPC ? They either try to kill him or just pickpocket him as soon as they get the chance.

If you have the time just make them roll some dice against X simple creatures just to get them used to the technical (and scary) part ("you want to hit ? Look at your body attribute and roll as many Dx, oh you hit and kil the critter, voila")

Make it ultra simple and tell them that you make it ultra simple. They travel then they see an old dude getting attacked, he thanks them and some discussion and whatever.

After the game, briefly talk about the complexity of some games and illustrate it with short, excellent anecdotes from whatever source you find interesting. Then ask a fuckload of question about their experience and listen to their questions.

Finally : never talk more than half a minute straight. Don't underestimate the overwhelming feeling some people can get especially in our times of overflowing information. People phase out easily.

Pretty much every game has this, or some variation of it, being as it's Rule Zero. But if you're having to do it a lot, perhaps that might be seen as an indication that the mechanics you've got for a game aren't properly handling the sort of thing you want to do?

But in all the methods by which it's done, it is an exceptional thing that requires expenditure of a limited resource (either a subfunction of a subfunction of a class feature, being of a certain level, taking it as a feat assuming you're using feats).

If the expectation of the players is that doing X is not a particularly exceptional thing, and the expectation of the game is that doing X is a particularly exceptional thing, then it may be worth considering other systems. If players expect a game where folks falling over after being hit in the legs is just an everyday occurrence, just one of those things that happens in combat, a system that makes it a special feature of certain fighting styles is going to be jarring.

Again, it's really dependent on the group and the players themselves. If your group of players is happy playing in the reality that D&D presents, then more power to them. I am not saying that the reality that D&D presents it "good" or "bad", just simply that it is, just so we're clear. It simply is, and that other games through different mechanics present different styles of "reality", and that players (and GM) will have a better time when everyone's on board with it.

As an example - Mage the Ascension begins the game with it being assumed that player characters can perform magic. All of them. Every single player! But they are relatively rare in terms of the global population. If you went into the game going "wizards are ubiquitous in the world!" or "only certain player characters should be able to do magic!", you'd probably not get along with the game, and you might want to try another game, even if what you're into is "urban fantasy".

>But in all the methods by which it's done, it is an exceptional thing

>Roll to hit with disadvantage, if you hit he's knocked prone and takes damage.

So no not at all.

>A battle master fighter can do it with Trip Attack
>any class that gets a secondary attack can use it to trip someone over and then deal damage to them.
>There's also a feat you can take that lets you do that all by RAW.

Yes, you can houserule it and that's fine, but that doesn't mean that any given game is perfect for every group and, well, everything because you can just houserule it.

Again, because this seems to be proving difficult, it is not about a particular set of mechanics, but the assumptions about the reality of the game that the mechanics imply aligning with the expectations of the game that your players have. If your players went into it going "well, my expectation is that you should need to be particularly well-trained fighter in order to move, act, and move again in a turn" (as in, say, some popular miniature wargame), D&D 5e's mechanics that let you act-then-move, or move-act-move, wouldn't align well and so, given enough clashes between expectations and reality-in-game, might indicate that the game is not suited for the player.

>Yes, you can houserule it

RAW the system supports you doing a more difficult action at disadvantage so it's not a houserule. Those additional options just let you do that specific thing more effectively.

I understand what you're saying about player expectation needing to match up with the game but I feel your example doesn't work as the game already supports that action.

I've actually found that using a very rules lite system with beginners can be a problem, they often go "how do I do that?" Systems where everything runs on the exact same mechanic are usually best, and I actually think D&D isn't bad for it. Everything is "roll d20, add or subtract things." I like Cypher a little better, because there's no modifiers, your skills just make the TN lower.

While it might have been a poor choice, and got everyone hung up on the particulars of a given mechanic, I'm glad that I've hopefully managed to make a point.

And although I said I didn't want to get into a rules argument, I was fairly confident that as written, the GM can use advantage / disadvantage to express difficulty, rather than to allow for an action that couldn't otherwise be done by the rules. Again, this is one of those assumptions that D&D makes - it is fairly strict on what can and cannot be done, presumably in part to preserve each class's sense of a niche. If you've got to choose to be a guy who can poke people with a halberd when they approach, letting everyone else do it makes Halberd Pointson a little less special.

Back on topic I've got this to help players learn 5e, keep track of what they can do and understand the action, bonus action, move and reaction of 5e combat.

>You could house-rule it, of course, so there's a difference between trying to run them through with a sword or knock their legs out from underneath them
You don't need to houserule for this. That would just be an opposed arhletics check, which can replace one of the character's attacks. There are also rules for called shots. Did you even read the rulebooks?

Huh, that's funny, I didn't see anything whatsoever about Athletics checks being used to knock people over. Whereabouts is that?

Oh, wait, I get it - this is the Shove action. Yes, you can shove people. Without things that grant you exceptions, you can't knock somebody prone and damage them, which is what I was angling at as a "this is a thing that could be seen as a reasonable for people to do and so a new player might have this expectation of it being something they'd be able to do without needing some special feature".

Premade characters is probably the most important thing that you'll want to do. For new players you want them to actually learn how to play the game first before overwhelming them with character creation.

The rules of D&D 5e are really simple. The DM describes the scene. The players declare actions. If the action has a chance of failure and consequence for failure the DM has the player roll an ability check. If the player rolls above the DC the action is successful, if they roll lower the action fails. In both cases the DM describes the result. Advantage is just roll 2d20 take the higher result, disadvantage you take the lower result. Outside of combat those are all the rules that the players need to know to play. The rules for combat can be taught as they come up.

You can use your move action as a second standard action, which will allow you to damage them once they hit the ground.

Or you can run up to them and shove them to the ground when you get to them.

However, you would not be able to run up, shove them, and then attack, as this would be a move followed by 2 standard actions. Additionally, this wouldn't make much since for a single round of combat even if it WERE allowed per rules. The flow from run->shove puts you in a different stance than you would need to be in to then jump on top of the enemy and stab them.

You're just not thin

>You're just not thin

I could do with a little more exercise and a little less in my diet, yes. The point was, because it seems I've really got to labour this fucking point to get it across, is that the mechanics of D&D are not necessarily suited to match the expectations of new players, or even people who play roleplaying games other than D&D. The suggestion that you should try out a game other than D&D isn't because it's cool to be contrarian, it's because that there are systems out there that have a wider (but generally "shallower") set of mechanics which might make it easier to allow new players to get to grips with the fundamentals of roleplaying, rather than butting up against a system that generally relies on being very explicit about what you can and cannot do.

D&D is an okay game, and if you've got a bunch of new players who have expectations that align well with the assumptions that D&D uses, you are likely going to have a good time of it. People occasionally headbutting against the rules is an inconvenience at the best of times, but in situations where you've got new players who you are trying to introduce to how these sort of games work, you really want to minimise this.

There is more to fantasy than D&D 5e, and trying to shoehorn everyone's expectations into the fairly narrow and rigid mechanics of D&D when there are other systems out there that may more closely match the needs of the group just leads to a bunch of people resenting the game they're playing.

Me and my discord buddies are EAGER to play D&D 5e OP. None of us has DM'd, we don't know exactly how to play but we understand the basic concepts. We have a drawfag that's good and he will be providing us with art for our campaigns. I've been trying to learn how to DM even though I literally never played D&D before (have played Vampire before). We're a rag tag group of lurkers from different boards and different places of the world. I accidentally stumbled upon your thread while looking for the e5 thread so I can get the books. The question is

Do you guys have tips for begginers, or is anyone willing to show us the ropes?

Remember that most people don't like or care about lots of rules. The more time you spend explaining, using, and talking about the minutia of mechanics, the more bored new players will become.