Newbie Teaching D&D Next/5e

[AndyZ]

Some of the fine people of Elliquiy have seen me put up various posts similar to this one where I was planning to try to run stuff.  At the time, I didn’t understand what my RL schedule was going to be for dealing with my cancer.  I apologize for the various botches along the way.

The big difference now is that I know exactly when and where things are coming, so I can post this up when my life has calmed down while I already have everything set up.  I should be good to work on getting things started now.

So now, without further ado:

I would like to run a game of D&D Next for people who are new to the game.  You see so many games with very experienced people, and I imagine there are plenty such who’d love to get in but keep getting blown out of the water in the attempt.

Now, two things need to be set for a D&D setting; location and pantheon.  We need to know if it’s Forgotten Realms or the like, and we need to know which gods are there.

The answer is that if you want it, it’s there.  If you want to make a Cleric of Thor, for example, we can make that happen.  The only location point I have set in stone is that there’s a huge desert to the west.  It’d be best not to have specific areas, but you can file off the serial numbers, have something just like it, and get an equivalent background.  (Like Waterdhavian Noble but Waterdeep is called something else.)

I tend to be very iffy on UA stuff, but I’ll allow the UA Ranger as a complete swap.  (I will not allow a mix and match of the PHB and the UA options.) Here’s a link: https://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_RevisedRanger.pdf

Now, I know that more experienced folks are going to want to play, and I have this compromise: is there something you can do to work as an Assistant DM to make my workload easier?  Maybe I’ll have someone keep track of all the monster HP, which would help a lot.  Making maps would be cool.  I don’t intend to have maps unless someone else can assist in making them.  There’s plenty of other such possibilities and you’re free to suggest your own on what would be helpful, and while you wouldn’t be able to adjudicate specific rules, you can certainly answer questions about what the book says are the rules.

Character creation will be completely by the books.  Please submit character sheets via Myth-Weavers.  Level 1 and 27 Point Buy, and I found a good calculator for it here: https://chicken-dinner.com/5e/5e-point-buy.html

Given game attrition and how a lot of people just seem to vanish, I intend to take on a large group, and we can just say that people get called away or whatever for nearby problems.  In all likelihood, we’ll lose a few people along the way and fall down to a reasonable group number.

Now, one of the changes that started with the Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything book is that they stopped mandating specific racial bonuses.  For example, half-orcs used to only give +2 Strength and +1 Constitution, which made them a bad pick if your class didn’t focus those abilities.

The way it works now, you can just switch your bonuses to whatever ability you want to get them.  If that half-orc was a monk, they could choose to get +2 Dexterity and +1 Wisdom instead.  You can just do this automatically and don’t have to ask.

Other common requests are to roll for GP for equipment instead of getting the default standing, and some further just want to take the average instead of rolling.  Both are allowed.  I’m also good with customizing a Background but I request to be informed in what way it’s changed, ideally with some backstory on that.

I also intend to set up a Discord server, and rolls made will be accepted either from the bot or from Discord for that particular roll.  If you don’t have Discord, want to play in this, and want help in setting up Discord, let me know.  If you refuse to use Discord but want to play in this, understand that you’ll be slowing down the game for everyone else but we can discuss it.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate.  We were all new once, and the whole idea of this is to help new players who want to get pulled in on a common system.

Finally, I’m dropping the hint that it’d help for at least one person in the party to have a land vehicle proficiency.  You absolutely do not have to; I would just end up annoyed at myself if I didn’t say this and then nobody had one.

Now, for actual gameplay: the game is designed for live tabletop, whereas we’ll be using a forum.  As such, a few minor changes can be expected.

First, initiative.  There are a few ways to do it, and I’m going to go with the one where we don’t roll it.  All the players take a turn before all the monsters, and then all the monsters will go, and then all the players will go.  I’ll go this way because with the conventional init roll, people often feel left out if they don’t beat the monster’s init even though the effects are still the same.  As such, why have it at all?  Easier to skip the init rolling altogether.

Now the monsters are complaining that it’s unfair that they always go last, but I don’t care.  They’ll be dead soon anyway.

Since we’ll have an established Discord server, it’ll be easy to help players through their combat turn.  When your turn is done, you’ll be able to post up your turn in the E thread, and after every player has posted, I can make one big post for all the monsters.

Now, many of you have heard the catchphrase “How do you want to do this?”  What it means is that a PC has downed an NPC and the PC gets to describe the death in full detail.  Obviously you can do that in your post.  “Describe the death” may not quite be as catchy, but it gives players a chance to be fun.  Just try not to bring us into the Extreme category.

Reactions are a little trickier.  Please make sure I know what viable reactions your character has so that I can ask you about using them in such situations.  For things like opportunity attacks, O may just ask about rolling for someone if they tend not to be online a lot.  Some people are very cool with that and others not so much.

Anyone who has questions, feel free to ask.  For those who want to apply for newbie status, if you can apply with race, class, and background along with a writeup of your character concept, that works for me.  (If you can’t do that, you’re perfect for this game, so post whatever you can.) For experienced players, I’d additionally ask for what you can contribute in regards to Assistant DM.

Finally, here is the link to the Discord:
https://discord.gg/cQ4TKvng