I'm a new DM and new to table tops in general, playing 5e (Lost Mines of Phandelver). As both products were designed with me as the target audience and I haven't seen any reviews from new players, I thought some may find the information interesting.
To give a little background, I've played Baldur's Gate and other d20 RPGs before, but prior to 5e had almost zero table top experience. The group I'm with contains two players with even less experience, a third player who made it to lvl 3 with one character in an earlier version (3.5, I think) and hasn't played since, and a fourth player who had also played a couple of sessions but in a previous version, years ago, and couldn't remember much more than that it was fun.
I read the PHB and the DM basics pdf ahead of time, along with the Phandelver booklet.
To get started, I created a half-elf barbarian and found the process confusing, but manageable. Reading through the Player's Handbook, it had a fairly nice walkthrough of what to do, but did not explain everything perfectly (for instance, passive wisdom was confusing for me at first). Mostly what bothered me was how many times I had to flip from one chapter to another and back again. I really wished there were some basic tables of information on a separate sheet of paper, like the racial bonuses, so I didn't have to keep flipping back and forth every two minutes.
We began the campaign (and I began DMing). Right away I realized we needed battle maps. 5e is supposed to make them optional, but in Cragmaw Hideout, the characters kept asking what they could do: "Can I run up and hit that goblin?" I didn't know, because I didn't know how much space was around the goblin in question. This led to improvised battlemaps with me marking positions in the Phandelver booklet, but I couldn't show the players without giving away information about areas they hadn't seen yet.
Except for that, the players and I all had fun. There was of course a great deal of rules that we looked up and spellcasting in general was rough, but things went reasonably well.
For the second session I prepared a hand-drawn battle map on graph paper. Using sticky notes, I hid areas they hadn't seen yet. This made the Redbrand hideout much more enjoyable for everyone, as we tracked where people were in pencil and everyone could keep track of what was going on. I'm considering making some kind of small token to reduce the erasing time as characters move around, but overall it worked well.
I'd say 5e is certainly easy enough for a complete beginner to pick up and play, but only if that beginner is willing to stick with it. In no way is it as accessible as a video game. Some things I would have liked to see:
Separate quick-reference sheets for character creation (racial bonuses, class bonuses, etc)
Separate quick-reference sheets for battle reminders (surprise, half cover, when attacks of opportunity happen, etc)
Some tips on DM preperation (how to make maps, suggestions on how closely to follow the campaign as written, etc)
To add to my thoughts, I decided to create a half-orc monk using 3.5 rules. It was much more complicated than creation in 5. There was more page flipping and several things I had no idea what to do with on the character sheet. I had to ask for help from some experienced players just to finish the character and I am convinced I would never remember all the rules involved if I tried to DM in 3.5. This strongly suggests that 5e, if nothing else, succeeds in simplifying the core rules and making the game more accessible to new players.
Hopefully folks find this at least a little interesting! If there are specific aspects of 5e that you wonder how well newbies deal with, feel free to ask.
Thanks for the review. It's interesting to see things from the perspective of someone new to the hobby. When I was new, Milli Vanilli was blaming it on the rain so it's easy to forget what it is like to just be learning things.
I use visual maps for just about everything including scenes that primarily focus on social or exploration pillars. Only for very simple scenes (of which I don't have many because... well, why bother with lots of those?) do I go without some kind of visual aid. It cuts down on questions which I think bogs down the game. I don't want to play 20 Questions - I want players to say what they're going to do so I can narrate the results, ya know?
I've never found any D&D materials particularly well-organized. I guess I'm just used to it.
(This is what my Redbrands hideout looked like.)
Taejang wrote:
taejang, i've been playing even longer than iserith so it's really cool for an old-timer like to me see your experience. thanks!
Hello Taejang!
Thank you for a well written review of the 5th Edition of 'Dungeons and Dragons'. Your write-up was both interesting and enjoyable. I'm very glad you and your friends worked through the initially confusing parts of the rules and had an enjoyable experience! Thank you for your observations and solutions to using maps for gaming, I am actually going to run my first session of 5e tonight and will prepare some maps and tokens for figures after reading your review. I hope Wizards of the Coast gets to read your suggestions, and that it helps make the game more new-player friendly.
I take it you'll keep playing? Wishing you and your group many years of great glory and grand adventure!
iserith wrote:
Great report, Taejang. It is nice to see what trips up new DMs and players and it is nice to see how you dig in and make it work. Enjoy the rest of your sessions.
I read your review, and am glad you found 5E to your liking. I noticed you mentioned difficulty keeping track of spells. Some of my players did as well, not to mention abilities that must be recharged by resting etc. To remedy this I handed out cards to my casters 1 for each spell slot their character had (ie 1 for each first level spell slot, 2 for each second level spell slot etc). As the players 'spent' their spell slots they handed back their cards, and when they regained them [short/long rest etc.] I would hand them back.
For theitr rechargeable abilities ( ie rage) I had them write out there ability with description, and requirement for recharge, on a 3X5 index card. If they could use the same ability more than once between rests they got multiple cards for the same ability. like the spell cards, when they use an ability they hand me their card, when the recharge requirement is met they get their card back.
this has eliminated alot of confusion for the players, and as a bonus it helps me keep track of their remaining ability/spell slots, wich as they level can be quite alot to track. I hope this helps.
p.s. the spell cards are just plain playing cards.
blake_marlowe wrote:
For tokens you may want to look at some of the pre-packaged ones out there (if you don't want to go full on minis which with the way they sell them now are a real money sink if you just want certain ones). I have a little drawer full of monster, player, and status tokens from 4e products that work well with a 5' = 1" grid for maps (I have a table with a dry-erase laminate on it that's got the grid on it permanently I'm that much of a geek). It's all a matter of how detailed you want to get.
As for the cheat sheet stuff for character creation that's a good idea and I'm sure someone (maybe even me if I can get the time lol) can create a digital reference for people, also there's the upcoming Dungeonscape app (web, iOS, android) that'll allow for character creation and eventually running a game (including private notes between players that have the tool). It's still ramping up it's beta right now (I'm still waiting on my invite and I signed up the first day but they got 3,000 people that day and haven't sent out that many invites yet).
Also there will likely be a DM screen at some point and I found them useful in older editions. Of course you could make your own as well. In 2e I had the official DM screen then taped a lot of sheets on to it for other information or updated versions as more books came out.
Feel free to send me a private message on here with the types of things you felt you had to flip back and forth a lot for during character creation and I'll see about working up a printable document with the charts and other basic information. I'll be going through character creation with friends this Friday for the 5e campaign we're about to start (I'm DMing). Of course I've been playing for 3 decades so other than the nuances of this edition I'm pretty experienced with table-top games.
You don't need battlemaps. Just imagane the scenario in your head and explain it as best you can to the players.
Thank_Dog wrote:
Taejeng, thanks for posting your experiences. I would say your first time is very similar to that of most people. This is kind of a strange game and you've got to be cut from a particular cloth to deal with the complexity of a roleplaying game. While 5E is one of the simplest versions of D&D, it is exponentially more complicated than just about any other sort of game out there.
Another old-timer here who was glad to see that you enjoyed your first experience into DMing. Comments below:
Taejang wrote:
Most of the comments match my experience when starting to play 1E, including using a grid. Back in the day, I had an old pool table that I layed out a 1 inch grid pattern on and drilled holes at each line intersection. Then I used golf ball tees and rubber bands to draw out rooms. The game is what you make it. Enjoy!
If you find you really prefer maps, here they are.
Here is also a tutorial on making your own maps and tokens.
Thanks everyone for the comments! iserith, how did you make that "show" "hide" button?
Mistwell wrote:
Several people asked about my thoughts on additional resources, so I'll elaborate more. I split this and my last post into two posts because of the size. EDIT: Hid things.
Separate quick-reference sheets for character creation
This meant flipping back and forth between each race and each class several times. "Elves get a bonus to charisma, right? Or was it dexterity? What about half-elves?" The following information, organized into a table, and on a seperate sheet of paper, would have been great:
Each race with all game-altering things: where they get a bonus, what if any abilities they get (like dark vision), what classes are usually compatible with them, and any "common" alignments.
Each class with each bonus it gets, what stats it relies upon, and the usual alignments. For subclasses and subraces, indent, like this:
Gnome <stats/abilities common to all gnomes>
Forest Gnome <stats/abilities specific to forest gnomes>
Rock Gnome <stats/abilities specific to rock gnomes>
A list of things applicable to each background (folk hero, hermit, etc)
The quick reference allows easy stat comparison when deciding what character to build and matching the race and class together. Once a player picks what character to build, they can open the Player's Hand Book up to the examples and walkthroughs in Chapter 1 on how to make a character, using the reference sheet to build all the numbers on their character sheet without flipping between the creation guide and the races and the classes and back to the guide every few minutes. They will still have to flip to the class section for things like languages, spells, and abilities (which are not likely to fit on a single reference sheet), but that could easily be done last in character creation and not require going back and forth.
Taejang wrote:
Intersesting post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
If you can ignore all the numbers and just read them for their advice, try looking at the previous editions of the Dungeon Masters Guide. A lot of the advices found in the first few chapters of any of the editions is universally useful.