How DMs can help new players fall in love with D&D 

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It's me Ginny, I'm the new player who happily read the PHB cover to cover in my first month of playing the game. It's possible I've spent more time creating characters and scrolling wikis than playing the actual game!! I regret nothing

I have become a believer in having a conversation with my players about what makes them uncomfortable before starting a campaign based on a recent experience. I'm 49 and have been roleplaying since I was 14. I've never had "safety tools" used in any game I've played in. While not openly hostile towards the concept or their usage, I always approached the suggestion with an internal eye roll, thinking how "soft" the current generation is. That has changed. I was dming a game with my wife of 23 years and several friends that I have played with for 10+ years. Needless to say, based on my previous opinions, I didn't have a conversation with the group about what might make them uncomfortable in a game. We're all grown ass adults, right? Boy was I wrong. One of my players had his original character die, and brought in a new character into the game. The new character (not the player) was a bit of a narcissist and very manipulative. It was an interesting character concept and I thought it would be fun to bring in. After the first session, my wife's character was very untrusting of the new addition to the party, and as we continued to play additional sessions, her hostility towards that character continued to grow. We talked about it from a role play standpoint as she is a new player and I gave her some advice on how her character the other player's character could find some common ground. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to have any effect and after a couple more sessions, she told me in tears that she was done playing in that campaign. It turns out, she had a family member in her past that exhibited many of the same traits as the other player's character (narcissism, manipulation, gaslighting, etc). Dealing with that character in game brought up a lot of past trauma that I wasn't even aware of. If I had sat down with my players beforehand and had the conversation about what makes them uncomfortable, we likely could have avoided this situation. It's a lesson that took me a long time to learn, but one I won't forget. No more eye rolls from me about "safety tools"

Me to my New Players: "D&D isn't that complicated!" *looks at my bookshelves full of books* "Ignore what I just said, allow me to introduce you to the marvel that is Ginny Di."

Regarding the first tip (about not jumping into the deep end) I can't praise Lost Mine of Phandelver enough as an introductory experience.

"because my first time kinda sucked" - That's how I got into DMing. I was a player, the DM was very lazy, and I thought: there must be more to the game than this... maybe I could do better? Now I've been DMing for six years, have created and run nearly ten campaigns, and have many good memories and inside jokes with friends :)

Story time! I have given the D&D bug to a few people but there was one that happened not too long ago that made me cry. Every now and then I will go to AL game at my local game store and on rare occasions run a game, but I prefer not to be a DM because I run a few games and its my chance to actually play with my PCs. I will often find myself playing with a few familiar faces and after a couple years at this shop, there was a guy who had been coming for years like me and showed up to play AL every week. He was really cool and made fun characters and it was always a treat to play with him although I only really knew him by name. Anyways a few months ago after the game we were chatting in the parking lot late at night and I asked him how long he had been playing the game (he was a little older than me so I assumed he had been playing longer than I have). He looked surprised and also confused and told me I actually got him into D&D! See, years ago, I ran my first AL game as a DM and he was a player at my table. Honestly I had no recollection that he was in that game, and I had no idea that was his first time ever playing D&D. The dude recalled almost everything about that session down to the puzzles and noises and voices I made. Things that I have forgot since it was years ago. He remembered the plot, the encounters, the map I drew, even one of the NPCs I improvised. DMing that game wasn't really a big deal for me. It was just another game I ran but to him, he credits it as the game that got him into the hobby. On the drive home, I teared up a bit. The guy still plays too! I know it sounds corny and existential but you never really know the impact that these games can have on your players, especially new ones. I consider it very high up there on the happy DM memories list.

"Sometimes our own friends have boundaries that haven't come up in our relationship so far." THIS is so important to remember! I'm learning to DM, and I am trying to find that balance of familiarity & respect. Your channel is so very helpful

Unreal, literally started DMing a campaign with 4 new players this week, and was looking for tips on how to get them onboard. This video is exactly what I was looking for!

My first ever D&D session happened when a friend of mine said "hey you mentioned wanting to play D&D, right? Well I have 4 other female friends who have all said the same thing in the last couple of months, if I run an intro session for y'all do you want in?" And it ended up being the PERFECT situation to learn the game. He helped us make characters ahead of time and then ran a low stakes one-shot that taught us the mechanics. None of us knew each other (we all just knew him) but having it be all new players and all ladies made it feel super easy to ask questions and make mistakes even though we didn't really know each other. He did so many of the things you suggest, it was great!

A tip I've seen is color code the dice. Have every dice in a set be a different color (D20 is red, D6 is blue, that sort of thing) and have a little cheat sheet saying which is which. That way when you say "roll a D20" they immediately know "oh the red one!"

I'm an experienced player and Sometimes-GM. Speaking for myself, I LOVE playing with noobs, because they don't know what can't be done. In the beginner's mind, there are I N F I N I T E possibilities.

I'm an English teacher in Brazil and I'm using DnD as an "extra class" to have my students practice their English. We're having our first real session on Friday (already did session zero where I helped them build a character and talked about what content they'd like to see), and I'm starting the campaign in a festival filled with different activities to have a low stake, lighthearted and fun environment to get them into the different kinds of rolls and rp they'll be doing

Just looking at the timestamps, helping players with character creation is a definite plus! Even when I'm DMing for experienced players, just being there helps me as a DM to understand the character better. I get to watch the creative juices flow and work with the player to get backstory and worldbuilding ideas. For me, it's not really a matter of "let me help you," it's more "I want to become a fan of *your* character!" Just being there and watching the player get hyped about there newest creation is a big step in my pre-camapign process.

One of the lines I use a lot in my groups is "technically you can't do that but it sounds cool so I'll allow it" We are all friends and newer and just wanting to have fun so I don't feel pressured to be a rules lawyer. I tell them no a lot too, but if they come up with something cool that they are excited about I let them do it (like letting the 7 year old blow up a ship by shooting a barrel of gunpowder with a flaming arrow after you buffed the hell out of her. Even with the buffs she wouldn't be able to do it but they were so excited so sure, why not, big boom)

The fighting pit tutorial is a great idea. Had a game where everyone started out captured by the setting's evil empire, and were all being forced to fight local champions that were just showing off by fighting prisoners. Every one of the new players got some simpler opponents, and got a chance to see what their character could do in an actual fight. Then, the players got to interact when the fighting was over and even attempt to break out of captivity. I had planned a prison break as the first actual encounter, and it made it that much cooler when I changed the inciting incident to be the other prisoners SEEING the new players trying a jailbreak and pitching in themselves. Everyone went really smoothly into the first encounter, there was still a sense of danger from the jump despite it being a safe tutorial, and it made for a memorable introduction to the campaign and setting. Can't hype fighting pits enough.

Playing with my kids (8&11) taught me how important the rule of cool is. I've added so many mechanics to my games because of them.

I always tell my new players "If you learn what your character can do, then you've learned most of D&D." I find most players just want to know how they can interact with the other players and world. If they know some basic options on their turn they build confidence to then think outside of the box.

Oh, I'm a huge fan of a one-shot "danger room" type session that kind of merges with a session 0 to start any campaign. I always state, "Use your abilities at will and death doesn't count here," up front, but narrative does. So we ultimately get some story going, we come up with a way for the party to be together that feels more organic, and everyone can playtest their character. If they hate something, they can change it, including a new character if need be. That way in Session 1, people feel more comfortable with their characters and they have a reason to be together. :D

I’m DMing for my kids, and developing tools for them. At the moment, I’m creating playing cards for spells, weapons and items, with stat blocks, and 3D printing HP counters, money counters etc… essentially turning the character sheet into physical items. I started on that journey because some of my kids are dyslexic so managing the sheet is a friction point. If some are interested, I might share ressources at some point.

As someone who frequently plays in larger groups, I would say starting someone off in a small group is pretty important. I've seen new players introduced in large groups and they can easily lose interest. Especially during combat, having to wait so long for it to be your turn again makes remembering the rules more difficult. In role-playing scenarios, having a larger group also often means the new player might find themselves less involved

Here's a simple idea that I had and found to work excellently: Take an index card and trace the bottom of the Dice out on it. I included a spot for a 2nd d6 (and 2d8, different weapon system). Then I wrote the dice size underneath. This makes it so that they can find them and put them back quickly and easily so they find them again. I then had my little brother copy the format to a few more cards. I cannot emphasize how much more smoothly it made the dice aspect go. It was great and in just a few sessions they didn't need it anymore. I've busted it out a few times now and it worked every time. Feel free to use this idea, and if you publish it and make thousands of dollars, toss some my way lol.

My first time playing D&D our friend was DMing in highschool. EVERYONE except for the DM it was their first time playing D&D. She did kinda help us make character sheets. But she would get annoyed if we asked what to add to roles, she threw us in the deep end, not giving us any hints on what we could do, and on like our third session, because we didn't "Inspect" a bottle given to us. She blew the bottle up, and killed us all. It was a very poor first time. When I DM'd the first time. Most of our players were new. I had a session 0 where I explained the main setting of the story, I did saftey tools to know what they might be uncomfortable with. i got their input on on some things like if they wanted more combat, exploration, or roleplaying. I helped them all do their character sheets in private 1 on 1 sessions so they understood what was going on, and was able to ask questions. On top of that I asked that they all send me their character sheet that way I could check on certain things if they couldn't find it, or make sure they are adding the right modifiers. On character creation, I asked what kind of character they think they want to play. Then I made suggestions of classes/races they could use. I allowed them to chose whatever they wanted, but I did make recommendations like "That character might be a bit difficult" Or "Might be a good idea to put the highest roll in their strength as opposed to wisdom. During gameplay I did remind them of certain things such as "Hey you can roll a reaction hit here" or "Maybe you have a skill that can help here" Something like that. Also I made it very clear that I will allow almost anything. But that there may be consequences to actions. One of the things they wanted to do, was sneak up on a group of sleeping orc's and poison them (I gave them some poisons flowers that have to be ingested a bit earlier) It kind of made the combat encounter easier than I planned it to be, but it was a super good idea. I feel like our session went very well. To the extent that one of the players wants to try DMing. So she is setting up her campaign and I'm helping her where she needs it.

I love that you used the phrase, "they might not know what they don't know" Definitely true for new gamers, but it applies to all sorts of real-world situations when laypersons find themselves out of their expertise.

Reflavoring really helped the newest player at our table. They really wanted to play an Artificer for flavor but were intimidated by the class. So we reflavored Eldritch Knight to fit what they were going for. Also not being strict about meta-gaming when it comes to players helping each other out on what to do.

[21:13] My last group did this mostly on a whim... and it ended up being one of the absolutely most entertaining character any of us had ever seen. The character itself was a basic halfling rogue I whipped up on the inexperienced players preferences, but she was still intimidated by all of the "homework". So one of our groups' veteran players who had yet to generate a character offered to co-play with her until she felt comfortable. Now, you have to understand, these two players dated & amicably split years ago. The have been good friends since and and constantly antagonize each other in the lovable brother/sister fashion. By the time of the game were each married to people that were not around during our sessions. The interplay between them deciding what their shared character was going to do was hilarious. Especially with the inexperience player willing to try absolutely anything (like randomly licking door nobs) and the experienced player being a Tomb of Horrors, there's death around every corner 3.5 veteran. The group eventually decided that their character had multiple personality syndrome, and the players' conversations where what was actually going on in the character's head.

Back in the 80's I was at a gaming convention and met Gary Gygax. He really explained what D&D was all about. It is all about your imagination and sharing a story that everyone contributes too. By the way, I love old school AD&D. :)

I LOVE that you bring up safety tools. I think it's worth mentioning that these are flexible things too and it's ok to check in from time to time. For me: I discovered I have thalassophobia in the middle of a TTRPG when we were attacked in murky, deep water. shot a message to my GM and he immediately went "cool, no more deep water." Something short and simply but that quick and easy response made a HUGE difference for my comfort at that table.

Re: new terminology, also remember most people don't have the medieval culture or terminology down either. Not just actual names for all these weapons and armor, which aren't often given in movies, but for example the many specialized terms related to castles or types of jobs people have. All kinds of social activity we don't do the same way anymore, all the extra physical labor like water hauling or dealing with working animals. The specialization and stratification where there isn't a "general store" like Walmart but instead there's a leatherworker who sells out of a shop room on the street level of his house and you can pay him for whatever custom pieces you want. People who are already into this stuff via literature, video games, history, and re-enactment societies have a huge leg up.

This is a lifesaver! My sister finally agreed to try dnd, so I'm dm'ing for 4 new players and I've been wracking my brain how to best introduce them. Thank you for the great video!

In Session 0, once I've built a character with a player, new or experienced, I'll do a quick handful of encounters: have them interact with a flamboyant merchant for roleplay and bartering, a quick fight with a kobold for each player for them to get a handle on how their character fights, and a campfire scene between 2-3 players to establish interplayer roleplay. I've had players completely rework their characters or start from scratch because "oh, bards don't have the combat skills I want", etc.

As a noob, who had their first session a few days ago (which was a wonderful experience), let me add what I think made me a bit less confused. The biggest thing: I was allowed to sit in on a few sessions of another campaign, just to listen and get familiar with the energy of the players and the way things generally worked. They also introduced me to critical role and that made me learn terms and basic rules in the background, while I was just watching something for the story. The combination of those two things made me get exited for what made the game so great while also showing me what a more realistic game with their specific group looked like. Only after seeing that I showed continued interest in the game they offered me to play a guest character in another campaign, that just hit level 3, which is a bit less pressure and commitment for me and a fun surprise for the rest of the party. (I know this wouldn’t work with every group, but they knew the people well enough to know that it would be okay for them to be surprised) They also made me come up with a backstory first and worked with the ideas I had while gently pushing me into directions that would translate into mechanics that are easier to learn. I had a lot of fun and am exited to see, how my journey will continue.

Ginny, I came to your channel all by accident searching for something regarding Dragonlance and as an RPG player I loved the consistent message in your content. But it's as a marketing professional that I stayed and subscribed: I SIMPLY LOVED THE WAY YOU WORK YOUR SPONSORED ADS! It's so organic and engaging that's easy to call it art more than business. Caring hugs from Brazil. Please keep sharing your passion for ttrpgs, it's beautiful and inspiring how you do it!

My first experience with D&D was in the mid 1980's under the 2nd edition AD&D system from the original publisher TSR. My friend pretty much had all the books at the time and was looking to DM a campaign. He gave me a few books to look over and said not to worry about reading everything or even understanding all the rules, but to look at the art and get inspired by the People, places and things in this world (Krynn) and see if you can imagine yourself living there. Having that time, a few days to browse over the material, really helped me get inspired to make a character but also wanting to explore this world and learn more about it. That scene in season 1 of Stranger Things was very much us, Young boys around a table playing D&D for the first time. We even faced the greatest enemy of the old D&D System. The dreaded THAC0!

Super useful video as always! I will also say that Critical Role's Handbooker Helper series can be useful for new players to break down some of the core rules and classes

As an ancient RPG player, our group has backed out of all the rules and the focus is on Role Playing. We enjoying starting a campaign at lvl 1 and use all open die rolls to really enjoy the failures and the heroic, against the odds, wins. We have developed our own home brew that makes combat and ability checking a breeze. This video is terrific advice. Well said.

I remember my first few sessions as a D&D newbie. (Back then we used stone tablets instead of books.) I think the most amusing misconception I started out with was thinking that the world of D&D was a giant literal dungeon, and we were all trapped in it by the Dungeon Master-although we apparently could travel to various rooms in this dungeon freely. The d20 my DM used had the numbers 0-9 in red and black with red numbers being 11-20. The first time a rolled a “Red Zero,” he had to explain to me that that was a 20-the best roll possible. In 1st Edition, fighters (and fighter subclasses) with an 18 strength got to roll a percentile roll for “exceptional strength.” The DM had to explain to me that the 18/91 strength my ranger had was better than just a plain 18 strength. I definitely agree with offering to help players roll up their first character-especially since 5th edition has so many more choices-especially as characters advance in level. And maybe taking it easy on them during their first few encounters until they learn the mechanics a bit better. Side note: Of course the hardest thing about 1st Edition AD&D was that we had to roll our d20s uphill-both ways-or the roll wouldn’t count. This especially sucked in winter when we had to roll them through snow drifts.

Two things about low level play: it's much more swingy and dangerous than high level play, and while you can't completely fix that, adding an extra role of their hit die to their max HP at first level is a good way to make them a little less vulnerable to a random crit without throwing off long term balance by too much. Also, Apprentice Wizard is a weak caster listed as CR 1/4 in Volo's. It is not a CR 1/4 caster, there is no such thing as a 1/4 caster. It has 2 casts of burning hands. It can absolutely wipe a low level party.

Can confirm the whole 'can fall in love with DND even with a nightmare first game' thing, the first campaign I ever played ended with the DM stealing my character sheet after I called them out for railroading and relentlessly bullying my best friend and their PC in incredibly cruel ways, but here I am, running a campaign and playing another one too with the same PC as that first game. Take that dickweed, I still had a copy of the sheet!

Glad you mentioned the idea of using a less complicated system for complete newbies. Apart from the stater set, 5E is more complicated than many players will admit and can be a bit overwhelming for brand new players.

For my bf's first character, we actually asked him what kind of character he wants to make story wise first, then me and the DM both quickly ralized that what he would want to play would be a Warlock with the theme being all too perfect for what he was looking for. Spell casting did take a tad bit but for the sake of simplisty and the fact that he wanted a kind of spell sword character, we reflavored his Hexblade to fit what he wanted to play. From there we pretty much gave explinations with some examples, gave him spell and character options, and while we did give him the choices he had at his disposal, he ultimatly was the one who chose what he wanted out of his character. Heck they guy was brave enough to pick the Sentianal Feat at level 4 and had fun with it. He does take a bit with the math still and it's been about a month or so sense we started but he turned out to be a quick learner. I was happy enough that he wanted to try it, now I feel honored that he loves it c:

I'm preparing a one-shot for colleagues, with pre-prepared level 1 characters (players can name). Everyone is a first time player. I'm going to use as many of these tips as I can, to improve our session 0 as well as the game - thank you so much Ginny :) One learning I've had is that you shouldn't MAKE someone play D&D. It sounds like that was the situation for your first game, and others involved! So upsetting. I put a sign up sheet in the office, a callout for 5 heroes. But I've resolved to go ahead with 4 players who eagerly signed up and want to play - rather than 'push' for a 5th player who just isn't feeling it. Probably gives everyone at the table more opportunities and keeps it simpler for me as well.

Safety tools are wonderful, and I'm happy that you are promoting them. Something which would be good to add to that discussion is that it's important to ensure that the tools are working with something akin to safety inspections. Believing that your table has a safety tool then, when it's needed, discovering that it's not working properly can be worse than not having the tools at all. The X-card has a great example of how to do this in the document defining it: "Use the X-Card early, even on yourself, to lead by example, and model the behavior."

I'm playing with my siblings and we've been doing a few one-shots because they've never played before, and I've done some of the stuff you suggested in the video. They've really liked it so far, and my sister has taken to roleplaying like a fish to water with the tiefling warlock I helped her create

I would say that a decent guide for new players is JoCat’s “crap guide” series. The character sheet video is one of the best quick tutorials I’ve found. Also, the various grognards and edgelords that object to psychological safety need to be ignored and banned from tables until they learn…

I’d love to see a video from you about running a game for Level 1 players!!! My experience as a player is that being Level 1 is both boring and terrifying. I just ran a combat for level one characters as a DM and honestly I spent DAYS homebrewing a monster that would be fun and exciting without risk of wrecking any of these babies in one blow. The good news was, it worked; the whole group reported it was the most fun they had ever had at level one. It would be great to know how to accomplish that without home brewing it yourself.

I just finished “Lost Mine of Phandelver” with a group of four new players. I told them at least every session “Hey, I’m not going to really be strict on that. Just know sometimes it comes into play, but I’m not worried about it.” Some things matter, some things don’t.

As a DM I reward creativity!!! This lets me be really flexible and work on my ability to balance the game AND makes my players feel like they have more agency. The biggest example of this in my games is my spellcasters. If a player wants to use, let’s say, mage hand to pick up and throw a person at another person, instead of explaining all the reasons it won’t work instead I’ll say “ok, you can try but that’s not really how the spell works. If you want to try you will have to expend a spell slot, make an arcana check (DC will depend on the level spell slot and I do arcana because the more you know about the spell the better you will be at changing it), then make a range attack to hit the other person”. It’s RIDICULOUS to make that many checks for a simple combat action but the amount of fun I’ve seen my players have trying to do shit like this makes every second worth it!!

Sci-fi conversion for DnD you say? [SHIFTY SPELLJAMMER LOOK] No, but seriously, I’m interested. And I’m loving that you’ve kitbashed a repair tool out of a hairdryer.

You spoke to all the ways I was supported as a new player. Even ones I wasn't aware of at the time. Off to send gratitude to my DM and team xo

I'm currently DMing for my group of friends who are all newbies at DnD. It all started with a one-shot as a fun way to spend New Years Eve, with me helping them one by one with the character creation and explaining the general guidelines. I was super nervous cause i got into DnD only a couple of years ago and it was my first time ever DMing, but they loved it so much that one one-shot became two and before you know it they asked me if we could all venture in a campaign

This is perfect timing for me. I have my first campaign that I'm dming later this week. We have 2 new players!! Thanks Ginny!!! Edit: added information

A big thing that helped me in my first dnd session was breaking the ice, I was so nervous I couldn't even speak a word, it was a room filled with all new people I hadn't met before and they all knew each other and their characters. My DM took this as an opportunity to have a dwarven shopkeeper flirt with me for health potion bartering, it made me laugh and I got to embrace my characters features quickly! One of the most memorable, and best DMs I had was that DM, so sad it got cut off once we defeated the BBEG.

As a new DM myself getting new players into D&D I'm glad to see most of the things I've been doing for my players so far is probably on the right track at the very least. Personally, for character creation I let them figure out the character concept they had in mind, gave them minor tips on how to get there, and whenever I notice something that doesn't gel right I point it out, explain why it stick out to me, and ask if they wanna change it (our first session is this Saturday so I'm still letting them make adjustments before then). I'm just hoping that our first actual session goes as well as prep has.

My first D&D experience was over two years ago. Joined a group with some online friends and it was honestly amazing. We've since started a new campaign that we're currently in the middle of. D&D made us so much closer as friends, and it wasn't long after that me and this amazing guy from the group started dating, and we're still going strong. We're all meeting up in 2023, and I have D&D to thank for bringing us all together as close as we are now. It can be scary as a beginner, but it's such a great bonding experience, whether you're close with the people you're playing with or not!

I'm astounded how useful your videos are! I keep thinking that we've reached a point where everything that can be said about D&D has been said, and any new video that someone comes out with is either reviewing new books or rehashing something 5 vloggers have already hashed, then your videos come out and surprise me!

Today, I DMed my very first time and with three players, who have no D&D experience and very little to no RPG expirience. It was a blast! Even though they derailed what I had planned in the beginning pretty early, I could still manage to get them a good tutorial. I helped them fill out their character sheets in one on one sessions before hand and asked "stupid" questions about their characters. That made it really easy to come up with a good start and sort of pre-quel to Lost Mine of Phandelver. Next time, two more experienced players will join and the actual adventure will begin, but giving them that small setting with lots of space to roleplay and one relatively easy fight, really seemed to have landed well. Of course they won't remember everything, but now they know, what D&D mostly looks like (rolling d20s and adding mods, rolling damage/healing, RP) should help. Additionally, I got to see, how good they vibe with each other, their characters and roleplaying in general. It was a delight! ;tldr: tutorial sessions are great!

My advice, as a GM guiding four newbies through their first campaign: 1) know the players. If they’re the videogamey, numbers crunching nerd type, then a session zero where you’re actively explaining the character sheet and all their abilities is fine. If they’re not so much in the RPG kick, maybe coming to a brief session zero with an already filled out character sheet is for the best (this worked perfectly for my group) 2) amp up the coaching aspect of the GM job gently but consistently through their first sessions. Know their abilities front and back so you can explain it should it ever come into play, and don’t be afraid to ‘remind’ them of certain things they’re able to do. 3) Consider doing the bulk of their character background yourself. I took fairly vague ideas from my players and expanded it to this interesting flushed out PC that I knew they’d get excited over, and asked for their feedback every step of the way to make sure they were on board. And so far, they’ve been enthralled by everything I’ve thrown at them. 4) consider easier encounters for the first five sessions or so. Nothing is tougher than having a new thing crash down bc you got killed and now have to watch your friends have fun. You can always ramp up the challenge later 5) finally, keep things chill and don’t expect too much, especially as they’re getting their sea legs. RP and the game system is a LOT to get your mind around, so they’ll learn in time what they can and shouldn’t do.

I'm slowly working towards being a first time DM but most of my group will have never played the game before and this video has been the most helpful advice. Doesn't matter how awesome or well put together my campaign will be, if my newbies don't even know what they're supposed to be doing

I’m a first time dm and I started my first campaign earlier this year and the party that first started in the campaign all had to leave due to scheduling issues. So I found new players and one of the more recent members told me that they’ve only had bad experiences with rude DMs and players that bullied them. My campaign was their first fun experience playing D&D, I feel great for being able to give them that experience with my campaign!

Great video as always Ginny! Just some contextualisation on the throwing players into the deep end when it was their first time: session 0, safety tools, supporting the players… none of this existed 10 years+ ago. Up until 5th Edition none of this showed up in DnD books. Even roleplaying tips only appeared in more detail around 3.0! The game was crunchy and written directed to people who wanted that crunch. Creating characters took hours even if you were experienced and there was no DnD Beyond around to automate the process either. Myself, I remember developing a semi-automated 4E character sheet on Google spreadsheet using a bunch of macros. Im not saying that’s how it should have remained (gods no!), but many veteran DMs get a bad rep when all they were doing was playing and introducing people to the game the same way they most likely first experienced it. And the books gave them no incentive to think differently. One thing that I do try to tell my new players though: I will help you out, but help me help you out by taking the time to study your character sheet. I won’t make choices for you, I won’t remember every special resistance each character might have, and as a DM I’m juggling a lot of things as is. Players who take the time to study their own character show respect to other players and DM. If they understand that, I’ll always support with clarifications, translating their intent into actual mechanics, etc.

Thanks for your hard work on this, Ginny! As DM to 4 young/pre-teens, enthusiastic support has a required hallmark of our sessions. Rewarded when the literacy-challenged party member spoke to my villain *in voice* for the first time ever, and the whole group was all high-fives and back-pats! Love this game for bringing a rejected young boy some friends and a place to escape himself

I just started dming. I've been doing a once a week Saturday dm game and been streaming. I'm now ending act 1 ( lvl 1-4) this weekend after 7 days! I have binge watched like all of your videos!

Thanks for the video. I run weekly D&D beginner sessions for new players at a local bookstore, so this is very helpful. I also have some thoughts to add. You pointed out that the 5e PHB presents character creation very poorly. I agree. DMs and players who are helping people new to the hobby should recognize and understand this as well. Simple giving someone the PHB and telling them to go at it is a recipe for a very confused player. I hope Hasbro recognizes how poorly character creation is presented and improves it in the future. Spelling out each modifier to a die roll is also excellent and well worth repeating. Skipping over extraneous rules for the sake of new players is an excellent idea. I don't bother having my new players assign skills, roll for initiative, or use opportunity attacks for this reason. Nor do I present the traditional 3-18 ability scores. Instead, I tell players they can assign the following stat modifiers: +3, +2., +1, two zeroes, and a -1 to their ability score modifiers. The 3-18 ability score range is a confusing artefact for new players as is the arithmetic necessary to come up with a modifier that's actually used in the game. Who wants to figure out (X-10)/2 in a game about make-believe elves? As a result, I also skip over racial ability score modifiers both because they are confusing and because they take up a lot of time at the table. As for skills, I use a modification of the background proficiency rule on page 264 of my 5e DMG. This rule assumes characters are skilled in whatever they would logically be skilled based on their class and their backstory (I don't use the background rules, but offer players to develop their backstories instead). This is simple, intuative, and much faster than individually assigning ability scores. I highly recommend it when introducing the game to new players. I wanted to point out a couple important points for anyone bringing new players in. When you bring someone new into D&D, you are an ambassador for the hobby. It's a responsibility. The only way we grow the hobby is by having new people come in to play. Finally, that first D&D adventure for new players (which probably should be a one-shot as suggested) should be geared towards having the players win. This doesn't mean the players aren't challenged, but the adventure should end on a high note with a party victory.

I remember getting a friend of mine into DnD. The whole group was really friendly in helping him make his character (White Dragonborn Bard), helping him understand basic mechanics, reading his spells, etc. Because it was going to be his first ever session, I ran a basic story: They come into a village during a small festival, goblin raiders attack, goblins take captives, party goes after goblins to save everyone. Simple, stock-standard One Shot just to ease him into the game as a whole. He seemed to be having a lot of fun with it, but what REALLY won him over was the completely unplanned plot twist. Through a series of unbelievably high rolls, one of the other characters managed to inadvertently convert almost all of the goblins to Marxism. New guy was absolutely dumbfounded by the realisation of "Wait, you can do stuff like that!? WTF". It just showcased just how creative, random and chaotic the game can truly be.

I had a new player playing a rogue, and we were 4 or 5 sessions in, and he's loving the game. Really enjoying his character. They get into the fight with Klarg, and it's tense, but they're getting him on the ropes. Rogue is right up in there, gets grabbed, gets smacked... And ultimately rolls real bad on his death saves. Afterwards, he remembered - "Wait, I can disengage as a bonus action!" (This actually led to a neat development where he took a warlock level for a chance to come back to life, and has added a neat element for us both to play with.) But we still laugh to this day. "For want of a disengage, the rogue was lost..."

In regards to new players and needing help with forming a new character- I've started a habit of having a session "3.5" in campaigns- basically I'll ask if anyone wants a one-time respec, I'll ask one-on-one about their character's history so I can include more in the game, and if they just want to try a new character all together. I've found that it works a lot better than just a session at the start before people have had a chance to try the game (or character) out

- Ask if things make sense to them or if you're explaining certain things well enough - Go through a session 0, don't forget safety tools - Make the character with the player. Figure out what they're interested in. - Make sure they know what they're walking into, inform them - Let them change up their choices. - Provide cheat sheets - Provide printouts for spellcasters - Highlight or colour code character sheets - Tell them "You tell me what to do, and I turn it into a dice roll - Pitch possibilities. "Do you want some suggestions on what to do?" I've played a little bit of DnD, and I wish my DM did some of these things, and helped me learn better. It made my first campaign very hard to get through combat-wise.

I have 2 new players in my campaign. One is a long time friend who finally gave in to trying it out after her new boyfriend showed interest. Her boyfriend is a previous player and is also blind. that has caused me to go back to my theater of the mind D&D roots. Thanks to him I have learned how to describe things in my game much better than I had before. And trying to impress my friend with my vast knowledge of 3rd edition has given me a full on crash course in memorizing many of rules n spells. I know this is about how to help your new players but my new players help me more than they will ever realize.

This is an awesome vid Ginny; actually covers a lot of what I do as a DM. Another fun thing k do for my games recently to encourage creativity and rp is Hero Points & MVP. Hero points are rewarded to players that do something awesome or heroic in the session; these points they can trade in for a bad roll to reroll again or nullify a critical from an enemy. MVP is something at the end of the night where the players secretly vote for who stood out in that session then that person spins a wheel of random awards that they will get from a butt load of options. It’s really stepped up the games and made them that much more fun

If people are looking for a narrative driven, easy to understand table top game, I can't recommend Elemental enough, it's a d6 system with 1 page of rules on how to play the game. It does have more complexity with the vast amount of customization, but the creators gave loose rules on virtually any kind of game you want to run with monster stat blocks included for each type. The game revolves around player driven role play and I have found using some of its mechanics adapted to 5e helped some of my none role play players break out into role playing more.

So, I'm at a new job in a new country, and since I don't know anyone yet I thought I'd offer to run a one-shot game or two... I have 20 people signed up, half of them newbies xD This video was extremely helpful! I had already decided to make several small groups and play the same one-shot with each. With these tips I hope to give the newbies the best possible start in D&D!

When I wanted to introduce my second Friendgroup into D&D, I first ran a OneShot for them to get some Feeling for the mechanics and test out a class. After that, we started a campagne by having them train under a mentor for an event in honour of some long dead heroes (of course a tournament kind of event). Then they did their first discipline of the event in the sessions 2 and 3, where they learned things like travel-speed, short- and longresting and keeping guard. When they finished that discipline, they finally did a real serious fight against their future rivals and won. By that time, they leveled up to level 3 and learned their features well enough to go on a real adventure with risk of dying and they are hooked. That is my current and FIRST campagne ever. I'm proud to have managed to leave a great first impression

When helping a newbie with making a character, i start by asking for a character in media that the player would like to play. Indiana Jones or Lara croft, batman, Sherlock Holmes, she Ra, and so on. From that i suggest a class (rogue for the first 2, shadow monk for batman, not sure about Holmes, barbarian for she Ra), or usually multiple options for them to choose. And basically taking through options that could be related to that fictional character, so the player gets to choose but it's less options. If nothing sounds good, i give them extra options, but i don't think i ever got to this point

I am about to start a brand new campaign with four brand new players and one experienced player. Most of them are family or friends that we've known for a long time and have never been able to find a group. Your resources are fantastic and I will definitely be referring them to your videos. Thank you so much for this.

As a beginner, one of the hardest things for me to learn was leveling up and how many spell slots my war cleric got each time in each level. I didn't have easy access to the book and the quick explanations I received were not always helpful. I felt stupid at such times and it took me awhile to get it down. I was working with seasoned players and they seemed to think I should have gotten it at first explanation. I finally found some helpful websites in that regard. Other than that, my first campaign experience was fun. They supported decisions I made and how to use my spells, etc., and emphasized that the important thing was to stop second-guessing myself and have fun.

I have 2 new players in my group, we've been friends that have been text roleplaying for a while. The first part of our first session is literally tracking down and getting one of our party's characters (a half-infernal half-centuar pegasus thing who's very flighty) which will be their taste of combat, it's not exactly PvP but it sure is fun. My vet players have been helping them create characters (I highly recommend this tbh, I haven't *played* D&D in a while -forever DM-) and I'm always open to their questions, I'm currently helping one of the newbies make their character on D&D Beyond to make their life a lot easier.

I once made a mistake by not letting one of my players play a barbarian, because she had a pregen character sheet and we were all ready to play but her, she didn't play after that day, put that extra effort the first times, it really can change a person's view on the game

The current table I'm dming were all brand new a year ago. I agree with pretty much everything you said here! I found that while we did the tutorial 1 shot I had one experienced player at the table who was my partner in crime while teaching. They were able to be there as an example for potential things the new players could do. For most of our first short campaign I made sure everyone had a combat actions cheat sheet as well as a big "What you can do on your turn" Sheet taped to my dm screen. Both of these really helped grease combat for my players.

When there is a new player to my tables, I like to give them Max HP at first 3 levels when they are getting started, I also offer prompts and choices just like how you said Ginny. One thing I found really helpful are micro games. We use quick start level 1 characters and play mini adventures with different types of characters in order to see how they like. I keep the plot SUPER and overly simplified in order to get through the pillars of play fairly quickly (exploration, roleplay, and combat) By putting a couple of micro games together, the players rotate their roles and see what they like the best. I pair the new player(s) with experienced ones who have shown to be good at mentoring and offering suggestions without giving orders or anything like that. A couple of tools I give them are an action flow chart and simplified modular character sheets. I was thinking of creating a Kickstarter with my sheets for various classes and abilities, but I'm still in the middle of simplifying and streamlining the system without being cluttered... I may have to go to an app...

I haven't had the chance to really play yet, but I love the idea of having a sparring session at the beginning. I can see that tied into the initial quest. The quest giver posts an opening for his quest. The players and a few npcs arrive at the location. The quest giver only wants the most capable adventurers, so he proposes a set of one-on-one sparing matches to decide. Each player is paired with an npc that the DM feels would give enough challenge to let the player fully test their character out (maybe the opponent prods the player with smack talk for them to realize a spell they forgot/etc.). The player doesn't have to win to be selected. Maybe the npc damaged the surroundings too much to be worth choosing. Maybe the quest giver saw a spark of potential in the player and would rather train them more during the quest instead of choosing the npc who seems to have plateaued in their skills. The party gets selected in the end, some clerics are on hand to heal everyone, and maybe the npcs that fought make enough of an impact to become reoccurring characters (rivals, backup, etc.)

All good tips You have to be willing to help new players and be patient with them. Everyone is there to have fun 🤩

I still remember my first session. It was on a friend’s livestream, and I was terrified. We at least had plenty of time to prepare though, so that was helpful. The DM was the only one out of the group who’d ever played before, but he didn’t directly explain the rules to us. Instead, he sent us info on a bunch of races and encouraged us to look up the rules ourselves so we could gain our own understanding of the game. After that, he sat with us individually to help make our characters and answer any questions we had to make sure we all had a good idea of what we were getting into. DM took extra time with me to make sure I could read the character sheet he sent me, as I’m legally blind, and he wasn’t sure the PDF he sent would be accessible to me. It wasn’t perfect, but I made it work, yet I still felt wildly unprepared by the time my halfling rogue saw action. We all struggled a bit during the session. The bard tried to stealth, the wizard and fighter ran away or hid in a shed, and my character’s tiny butt was left to take on a rampaging minotaur with nowhere to hide. We somehow survived the encounter, and after a six hour session, I didn’t wanna stop. Been hooked ever since.

My second time DMing, my first session (not including the character creation session), with 5 players, 3 of them couldn't make a character sheet by themselves. Most of the session was devoted to the debate on whether or not to trust one NPC. :)

On the topic of character creation, I hang out in a D&D discord that has a whole dedicated channel for this. When a person comes in asking for advice, I almost always start with "What role do you want to play?" or "What do you want to do?" It allows me, a somewhat more experienced player, to provide options. From there I help them narrow things down and often clarify how certain things interact with each other. I never say "no, that's a bad choice" because sometimes certain class, race, background, or really anything else is more for flavor than power. My goal is not to dissuade anybody from picking what jumps out at them but rather to make sure they are making choices as informed as possible. I'm currently a first-time DM for a group of mostly first-timers with some knowledge from actual play shows, and it's been really fun learning together because sometimes even I don't know what's RAW and what's not, so when I look things up we all gain more mastery of the rules!

My first time was with my brother and cousin, all three of us had never played before. It actually went really well, mostly because my cousin and I did good research and had seen other people play.

I'm currently running sort of an "introductory campaign" for my group so we all learn to play longer-term games. They're still learning how spells, attacks and other rolls work, and I'm still learning how to write actually viable stories (not just this heroes' journey I'm running, sort of teaching myself what not to do in the future), how creature statblocks work and all that fuzz.

Started my first ever campaign with a sort of tutorial session that served as both the new player's introduction to dungeons, being careful when opening a chest that's a mimic, testing the party dynamic by forcing them to work together to escape and confronting character death with low stakes where they would essentially respawn if they did die. I think it was the right play because it not only helped me iron out how I wanted to prep for future games and control the flow of the narrative, but also because it let the players get an idea of what they could expect from each other and me without any lasting consequences.

This video was incredibly timely, as I am trying to wrangle the schedules of some coworkers to put together a game. Three have never played before, so this was a great reminder. I know it sounds odd, but I am 20-25 years older than the rest, and will be the only white person at the table, so the safety checklist will probably be a good thing.

My latest first session was totally a tutorial setup, It was a first-year adventurer-acadamy hazing ritual, where a team of newbies had to run an obstacle course while being sniped at by padded arrows. They ran skill checks for climbing-balancing-swimming, explored cover, difficult terrain, distracted the sniper (magic missle vs bowstring, anybody?), solved a simple puzzle, and ploughed through a 'flag-combat' (three hits and the enemy is out). It was a blast, and the new players felt comfortable with most of the basic mechanics by the end of that session. Then, when level 3 rolled around a few months later, we did a 'danger-room' session. 3 combat scenarios against increasingly difficult opponents, so that they could test their new abilities (magic for the rogue, beastmaster for the ranger, sorceror points for the sorceror). When a deadly encounter rolled around a few sessions later, they all knew what they could and couldn't handle, a worked to outsmart their opponent rather than charge in head on. Could not have been more pleased with the results. I'm thinking that around level 5, I'll run another scenario session with practice for team-work and synergizing some of the abilites. (They are still playing a little bit like 3 individuals rather than 1 team).

My first major intro into playing multi-session RPGs was with my ex-boyfriend. He invited me to watch his group play a session of Anima, and I was curious for sure. Two sessions later, I asked the GM if he could loan me the rule book during the session and give me a character sheet, and I created my first character. A few weeks later, we started a Vampire campaign. A few months later, I ran my first RPG, Changeling The Dreaming, as a home brewed DM. When we (amicably) broke up in 2014 and I moved away to Colorado, it was the day after Free RPG day, which I spent at our friend’s GAME AND COMIC STORE that he opened while we were a group, and I was very emotional. My ex was, and still very much is, an amazing man, and I credit him with getting me to a better place in my life. Soon, I will be joining my first table in a few years, and that passion, creativity, and excitement is still there, because they taught me that it’s fun to be nerdy and creative, and that the right people will love me as I am.

Thank you very much for mentioning safety tools. Please keep mentioning them and dunking on those who would speak against their use in dismissive/hateful ways!

When it comes to being patient, remember: no player knows all the rules. As a close friend once told me, even Matt Mercer has to look up the rules sometimes.

I ran our first ever DnD at the Library event today, and our players ranged from ten years old to that kid's dad, and none of them were very experienced. We took some time to build character sheets, and then we launched into The Joy of Extradimensional Spaces from Candlekeep Mysteries. I've been DMing for a few years now, but I've never run an official module before, and I couldn't believe how quick and easy it was to get these newbie kids invested in their characters and the game. We made level one characters and played a campaign written for level one characters, and by the end of the session, they were all getting the hang of it pretty well. The dragonborn rogue got the final blow on the mimic in the dining room after the half elf sorcerer hit it with two fire bolts

As a new DM, and long time player, I like having new players have an NPC mentor that gives them an early skills test. This is a mask for teaching the player what weapons, spells, and actions they have available, and if they demonstrate the skills well after training, the mentor NPC might give them a special item, or for some plot fun, have the mentor be a future enemy for a ‘student has become the master’ opportunity.

I started with D&D and then went into the S.C.A.. When I went to the Pennsic War S.C.A. event for the first time I was impressed. I like that the S.C.A. is non-profit and tries for a little bit of real historic study. I did briefly perform at a ren faire but I am turned off by the greedy behavior of many who run ren faires. Furthermore, nearly all renaissance faires should not be called renaissance faires as they are not accurately portraying the renaissance. They should be called fantasy faires.

Unfortunately, my first time playing was a nightmare. An evil campaign is just an excuse for players to do whatever the hell they want. DM gave no consequences to players and absolutely no safety tools or boundaries (murder and slavery are just the milder cases). When I tried to steer the players to do better, I was bullied (at least glared at with stink eyes). And the DM eventually sided with his wife, his wife sided with her clique. So I was forced to quit the game, dnd is best played with friends. And they were not my friends.

Lots of great advice here. I think new players are often looking for what they should do versus what they can do. The openness of the game can be overwhelming. Having a character arc where a new player gains self-confidence over time allows their natural initial hesitancy to perfectly fit their role playing.

I DM'd a level 1 session one week ago and while the characters really do lack special powers which can make it boring, they also lack something else that makes things very tense: hit points. The weakest one had 7 max hp, the strongest had 15. A greatsword can outright kill the weaker one in a single blow. It was very deadly. The stakes felt real, damage felt serious. I played a couple months ago in a level 5 session as a player and when the displacer beast hit me I was like "whatever I have 48 HP, that's not even a scratch"

I love how in every single video I watch her hair is a different color like she's using Prestidigitation to magically change it every time. That's something imma have to remember to try with my tiefling