Your BEST (& Worst) D&D Advice for Beginners 

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“Bro is that 1d4 wolves right now?” -last words before being mauled to death by a wolf

Last one: As a GM: Plan beginnings, but let the players figure out the ends! An example of this is Ben from Questing Beast's advice on traps: Lay out the signs of the trap, but let the players figure out how it works. Allow yourself to be surprised! It will make your players feel like they are geniuses!

Bob: talks about not railroading Train: heard you was talkin sh**

Another good bit of advice: play fearlessly! Jump into antics and don't be afraid to lose your character to a deadly trap or enemy. Fun will ensue, and you get to make a new character!!

Very cool to see my comment was the top one! I figured I’d add a bit of context. My very first time GMing went terribly. As a 16 year old, I ran it for my family, which was three of my siblings who were all under the age of 13 and my parents. I planned an adventure where a dwarf leader asked the party to rescue his daughter who had been kidnapped by a necromancer. My siblings were into it, but my parents were not. They were just playing to support me, which I really appreciate, but they did not try to hide the fact that they were extremely bored. Lots of little remarks and phone scrolling during the game. The session ended after an hour because my dad ran ahead of the party and one-shot the Necromancer, then left the kitchen table with a sigh of relief. I know he wasn’t trying to be rude, but I felt crushed that my first game hadn’t been engaging like I wanted it to. I probably would have stopped playing if it weren’t for my younger brother who begged me to keep playing after everyone else left. We played for 2 or 3 more hours that night and had fun. Looking back, I’m so grateful that he was supportive, because I might have ended up blaming myself and leaving the hobby rather than realizing that it’s just not everyone’s cup of tea.

Regardless of what system you play, find people who share your definition of "fun". For example, no matter how great the system is, if one or more players loves PvP and antagonizing all the other players, while the rest just want cooperative adventures, it will end up being a poor experience. Oh, and Love the Shadowdark shirt. That's what I use to run my campaign now too.

For GMs: fail forward. When the players fail something don't have the result be "nothing -happens- changes". That's how people get stuck at doors for hours. If the rogue fails to lockpick the door have that orge in the next room come and open the door (loudly).

I would add---just because it's in print doesn't mean it belongs in your world. If something is a player option, but it doesn't fit you the feel you're trying to capture in your campaign, it's okay to nix it. Having too many options can both overwhelm players and DMs. From a DMing standpoint along--there's just too much you have to account for in every encounter if you let everything in. Frequently, limitations inspire creativity on the part of the players, not having more options of mechanics on their character sheet.

I'm so glad to have been warned about Terry! Thank goodness!

Really felt that one about not playing a character based on your current struggles. I did that after a setback and played a very different kind of character - and the melancholy just oozed into the play.

4:40 The group I started with had a tradition that I'm continuing. Whenever we get a brand new player, we give them their first set of dice as a gift.

There are groups that play as specifically therapy/processing sessions, so current struggles are ok in that circumstance. Know when that is appropriate. Which leads me to, "Know or try to learn the expectations of the DM, and of the other players and make sure you communicate yours well. If consensus can't be reached, adjust those expectations, but only so far as you are comfortable. You don't have to play with people who want you to do uncomfortable things."

I just wanted to take a second to say a few things - the mic sounds great and I hope it leads to more videos like this - I love your set up at home and that it isn't "studio-afied", but dang I was digging the outdoors - I appreciate that in your videos you are just you. You don't become a character, you don't go over the top with reactions or bits, but you still show emotion and enthusiasm. I take in a lot of dnd content trying to make my games more fun and continually hone my skills . Your way of presenting makes your videos (which are already great informationally) so easy to digest and ponder on. I don't have to worry if you're going to a bit that I am tired of, or brace for a silly voice. Like you said in this video, you don't have to try to be funny, the goofs will come.

Love the 1d4 wolf encounter and obnoxious train party crasher. Very realistic examples of how no matter what efforts you take to prepare there will be unexpected events to flavor your game. Dont blame Terry, this is the nature of ttrpgs. 😅

"Is that 1D4 wolves right now?" - famous last words 😂

My main advice to my beginner self would be "it's okay that you don't know where this is going. Finding out what happens is the whole point, and your players will surprise you as much as you'll surprise them, go with it!" I spent so much time worrying about not knowing in advance what I should think about next. And it turns out I can just throw a random hook at my players, listen to what they rhink is interesting, and build on top of that for the next session.

Play a version of your character that both fits the kind of story/setting your DM is going for, and which sets up the other PCs to have their moment in the spotlight. Double points if your character has a dynamic with the other PCs that generates lots of interesting interactions.

people saying 'don't pick fireball' are just DMs who had an encounter destroyed by a well placed fireball. the best advice for a player: don't ask what you can roll. tell the dm what you want your character to DO the best advice for a DM: (probably more of equal importance but) don't prep a story, prep scenarios and scenes. at the end of session, confirm what the players want to do next session and prep for that.

Fireball is awesome. It is somewhat overused, but it works, and is powerful. It's so iconic too.

Really good train video. Oh, the advice was spot on as well. I salute your excursion into forest filming, you survived a brush with a dryad, a ranger and his wolf.

"3 if the train counts" ive been trying to think about world sounds a lot as a DM lately because i forget how loud the world is when you dont have headphones on all the time

Been playing dnd for 4 years now and I'm just making my first character with fireball and my first character with fire bolt. Lesson to my past self: don't avoid the popular options just because they're memes. Have fun with it and take them if they fit the character

9:33 I met my college friends at dnd club, about 7 years ago, and we’re still gaming together now. They’ve recently been saying how happy they are to have taken the chance to join a bunch of strangers and play dnd for the first time. I couldn’t agree with them more :)

Another tip: If you learn that someone in your group got kicked out from another group, don't automatically assume they will be a bad fit for your group, they may just not be compatible with the other group, but they may fit right into your group.

The name table on the strahd DM screen is the best things I didn't know I needed for that game.

I encourage having your players roll more often. Random table? Ask someone to roll that d8, d12, d20, d100 for you. Don't tell them what it is for. Make sure some options are beneficial most of the time when they're rolling, though. If it's ALL negative, because it's in a dungeon of doom or something, be the bad guy. Do that roll yourself. Players will feel excitement and fear when you ask for a random roll that could benefit or doom them lol.

Smooth ad integration homie. Gotta say, your videos have become a delight of mine. I'm always stoked to hear from Bob!

I dig the whole "taking a walk with a buddy and chatting about games" vibe of this video. Great location, too!

Play group is number one!!! Just bc your great friends irl doesn’t mean you should/can play together. tastes and expectations vary wildly. You can’t force or teach someone to like what you do

you should add the train whistle to new vids as a joke XD el sponsor train

That train kept coming through really clear. I remember my first time DMing, I just had the Baldur's Gate 2 manual, and that was it. I DMed off of that for years before I was able to buy some books off of Ebay. I like these Bob in Nature videos. Now we just need the applied science 🤣 When developing your character, it is okay to become them, right down to their blood ~Decoy Octopus

The tax form character sheet made me lol

That opening and the way you made yourself laugh so genuinely really got me lol... Love your videos every time, they always brighten my day. Feels like visiting an old friend, although I'm a stranger to you... It's such an odd dynamic streamers have with their fans, isn't it?

Fireball IS fun! If you look up the definition of "fun" in the Oxford dictionary, there's a picture of a fireball right there! That being said, old school fireball was much more fun, especially for the GM.

I love the idea of new players trying a DCc funnel. Between the certain death of 75% of the characters and the thrill of making it through with one character, it sets a fantastic tone with the craziness.

Fireball's a great spell! My second character in Curse Of Strahd was getting old after three(?) sessions and we ran across three flameskulls who instakilled me with fireballs! Now I'm playing a different character and having more fun. Fireball's great!

I watch a fair few RPG channels. But yours is my favourite, Bob. And it's not even the RPG stuff. It's your compassion and humanity. Thanks, Bob!

One of the most fun I've ever had was playing a B/X elf and casting fireball and magic missile. Try the classics to see if you like them!

Don’t be afraid of spell slots is solid advice. I played D&D for well over a year before I built up the courage to play something more magical than a martial with Initiate feat. Now I’m playing a cleric I was blown away by just how much more I got to do on my turns. And that was at level 4.

I think there is SOME merit to not being some stereotypes ("horny bard" and "brooding loner" can get annoying real fast). But rather than avoid stereotypes, play something that you find fun, but read the room and try to fit the tone of the game -if what you're doing at your table is only fun for you, then there's probably a mismatch of expectations.

7:40 Bob, a train is anything but a random encounter, it's clearly railroaded.

I only wish I had gotten back into D&D much sooner. It has become a way for my friend groups to stay connected and have fun.

My biggest tips. As a GM: Focus on putting obstacles in the way of the players. Don't worry at all about how they're going to overcome those obstacles...that's the players job. You root for the players and encourage them to come up with creative solutions to problems but you don't solve problems for them or get attached to any particular solution or outcome. As a player: Focus on roleplaying your weaknesses almost as much as your strengths. That will make the game feel a whole lot more real and make it more fun and easier for the GM to run. Also be creative with your solutions to problems and obstacles. Don't focus on just what's written on your character sheet. Be sneaky. Be daring. And have fun with it.

That camera chime at the end made me smile. Thank you for sharing!

Please do more vidoes in this lovely forest! It was really relaxing to watch! Zen Bob

The comedic tone part: read the room/party. Sometimes you want to joke, often even, but when people are trying to be dramatic try and give em a littttle respect. This one is really up to the individual party tone. I've had fun in games where people take it serious and in games where its laugh a minute, and plenty of gsmes that had both.

Monte Cook was the Guest of Honor at this years' edition of our local convention, Liburnicon (shameless self-promotion :) ) and he was telling us about how he started playing, also with a few bits and pieces of rules cobbled together from various magazines and such. They hadn't had a proper rule book for the first 3 years or so of playing. My situation wasn't much different, I had a Black Box starter pack, in Italian, and had to translate the rules (which I very superficially got myself) to Croatian for my friends who didn't speak Italian, and without any resources that would enable me to clarify any misunderstandings or misconceptions. (This was early-to-mid-90s, no Internet to speak of) So yeah, have fun, the rules will get figured out as you go along. :)

Roleplaying games are COLLABORATIVE! The player and the GM collaborate to tell the best story possible so that everyone has FUN!

I love the community callouts! 😊😊😊

Hey Bob, i call all dogs pups, too.

Got the original basic box set for Christmas in 3rd grade from my auntie and uncle. I still have a few of those light blue dice in my collection. Have the original advanced set of books as well as the 2nd edition ones. We (my group of friends) stuck with our home brew version of 2e for a VERY long time and have only recently made the jump to a hybrid home brew 2e/5e in our nearly 30 year old home brew world. I do also play and DM (DM rotation) in another pure 5e campaign with 3 year old home brew world growing at a rapid pace. Bla bla bla, I've played D&D for a LONG time. My advice to my early D&D self: 1. You WILL find amazing people to play with, be patient. 2. Do not be afraid to change or modify the rules so they work for your table. 3. Have the players keep a party journal. It helps refresh everyone's memory when it has been a while since the last session, and will remind everyone about important details from a recent session if they forgot. It also makes it super easy to track and stay consistent with travel times (logs of how long it took last time), when training will be completed, when projects are done, when spell research is completed, etc etc etc. 4. Do NOT let Mark DM.

The biggest find advice I’d offer, other than to know what you’re doing, is to flavor frequently and fervently! Fireball can be boring if you just point forward and say “fireball!” But if you say “I make a finger gun, and from my pointer a finger a spark shoots forward like a shooting star before erupting into a roaring sphere of flame” now you’re playing dnd!

A wild bob appeared. Roll a wisdom check, nat 20.

Always take fireball, it is the only spell I never have to think if I want it or not. JUST DOOOOOOOO EEEEEEEET!

Love the woods environment, it helps imagination getting to experience different places!

Dude! The call back to Terry got me. Hahaha.

I would go back to the 80’s and tell myself to never stop playing BECMI.

My favorite thing about random encounters is occasionally there will be one that is amazing or challenging and then I turn it into a recurring encounter.

First advices current me give myself as a first-time GM some 20+ years ago: 1) Plan less, play more, and 2) Be the squirrel Also: Fireball IS awesome. Even better with metamagic abilities.

Bob World Builder: Out in the World, BUILDING THINGS!

As a new GM this is some solid advice to keep in mind, I also want to say thank you Bob for encouraging people to try new systems. My table wanted to try a DnD alternative so we played Pathfinder 2e and enjoyed it but we want to try a less crunchy system so we are going to try a couple sessions of Index Card RPG over the holidays. I’m learning there’s so many options for RPGs to play out there that there is bound to be one that unexpectedly clicks with a table looking for something new!

"Never take fireball" Come on! Blowing up yourself and your entire party with your first fireball is like an initiation ritual for D&D spellcasters.

Good roll with that wisdom save against that wild encounter “wolf”!

That's a nice boulder 6:27

I love your Shadowdark shirt!

Here's an advice: Do what you think is right for YOUR character. Everything's contextual. Is fireball a great spell? Sometimes. Are you an evocation wizard or have careful spell as a sorcerer? Then, yes. Otherwise, you will absolutely destroy your poor melee martials. And melee is fun. But also, dont chase the numbers. While it might be really fun to animatd dead an army of skeletons, do you really want your DM and friends to sit there for 10 minutes while you take your turn? Remember the most non optimal thing to do in dnd is to not respect the agency and time of other players AND not being a team player. Main character syndrome hurts dnd parties more than anything. But more importantly, always remember saying no to something because you either don't want it or because it makes you uncomfortable is absolutely valid and you shouldn't succumb to peer pressure.

Looking forward to the next Bobcast!

Whatever park/trail you're at, it looks fantastic. Other channels have great strategic advice, but u love your channel for keeping things calm, realistic, and realizable. Your energy has been really great for me as a new GM.

I have to say the reason that I keep coming back to this channel is cause i think the advice is really solid and has a grounded perspective

I enjoy serious games more than slapstick campaigns, and it's not even close. And funny enough, the jokes that land in a serious game tend to be WAAAAAAAY funnier than whatever lolsorandom thing the horny cleric tries to pull off in that 3 Stooges game. I also never take Fireball or Eldritch Blast, and rarely take Counterspell.

Don't leave out Terry... "Terry loves to be loved!" and we all know Terry "loves when calamity brings people together".

New side quests. Destroy annoying train and train tracks. XP plus items.

I'm so lucky to live in the woods. No trains, no people going by. Just abandoned logging trails

There's a strong overlap with Bleed (a term from LARPing) on this comment (about 11:35 in). Blessed can be good or bad but aiming for bleed that doesn't hit on current struggles is great advice!

I'm a big proponent of "read every game you can get your hands on." Eventually, you'll come across something in your game of choice that you don't like. Having read every other game in existence, you'll have other things back on to replace what you didn't like.

Play a module, but don't be afraid to go off script if your groups wants to. I GM'd a game of SKT that normally only takes you to one of the giants bases, but my group wanted to go through them all so I made the frost giants vikings working with hags, and they ended up joining the fire giants to restart the 1000 year war.

Your new microphones worked great! Thanks for sharing everyone's thoughts. My advice to my younger self would be that while Min-Maxing character builds can be a fun solo activity and a good way to learn the rulebook, it's just as much fun to play an imperfect character and figure out how to overcome their weaknesses in game!

Seconding play with strangers! I'd wanted to play dnd for 2-3 years but didn't have any friends who were into the game, so eventually I ended up contacting a bunch of strangers on an anonymous messaging board. None of us knew each other beforehand but we became great friends and still play (almost) weekly 6 years later! I feel like we nerds can often be quite shy/introverted, but that leap into the unknown can be so worth it!

I really liked the format of wandering the woods

1040EZ character sheet is my favorite!

To DMs: It is good to have plans, but understand that plans never survive contact with the players. Important NPCs will be murdered, or ignored, hastily named boblin the goblin will become central to the plot unexpectedly, and ultimately rolling with those punches is what is fun about being a dm.

I have so much trouble NOT playing a Bladesinger literally every time.

The ad read actually reminded me of something I came across years ago: a list of "You know you're a gamer if..." ... you have enough extra dice to fill a beanbag chair. Immediately followed by: ... you know the last one was a trick; there's no such thing as "extra" dice. My input for the suggestions: don't be afraid to ask questions, especially if you're new to the game. Ttrpg is a collaborative effort and should be treated as such.

I'm stoked I came across this! My brother and sister in law are diving in to DnD head long. We are going to be starting a campaign next week!! Great advice from the community.

I feel like due to the prompt, you really can't argue any advice to stay away from something or play in a specific way is wrong. After all, it's advice to themself and no one else. So it's probably based off their own biases. Thus it's basically always correct in their case This is mostly in defense of the people who were like "don't pick fireball, or play a cliche, because that's boring." I don't agree that it is, but I don't have to. It's advice to themself. If they think it's boring, then that's fine

I gave this video a Like for the train noises. MORE TRAIN NOISES!

When you play a spellcaster, tend to fill the roles the party is lacking rather than competing for the same roles. If you have a couple martials, let them be the damage dealers and tend to take and use more control and buff spells rather than pure damaging ones. You can always have a fireball or other damage dealing spells just in case, but you will probably be much more effective as a party if you use hypnotic pattern, fear, slow, haste, spike growth or a damaging area that others can throw enemies into, etc

Our Terry was named Percy.

You know you're playing too much D&D when you stop counting in numbers and start counting in dice.

The only point of D&D (and ttrpgs period) is to have fun, together. If you're not having fun, or you're aware another player or the DM aren't, it should be discussed about outside the game. It doesn't matter if you're playing with strangers, friends, or family. Issues should be addressed immediately, not ignored until emotions explode. If the issues are not fixed, compromises are not made, or worse, are mocked/downplayed, stop playing. You can always find another group to play with. Do not waste your free time being miserable.

Playing a character based on struggles you've overcome, rather than struggles you're going through; I like that and will have to remember that!

Dice goblins unite!!! My sister has a treasure chest with about 20 sets and I have a chessex package box (complete with storefront display) of 50 sets along my other 9 sets.

I love that by the end of the video Terry WAS the train, and of course you wouldn't want to play with him - he's going to try and railroad everything!

I will second "don't play with Terry." Your Terry may not be called Terry, but you'll know them when you see them. Sometimes they're just a Brenda, who can be brought into the light, but if you encounter an honest to god Terry, just kick them out before they do irreparable damage to your campaign and your friend group.

Bob is my hero. Thanks for the great videos!

Three random encounters and a Dragon roaring in the distance. Ah a war dog passes by.

For building characters: your backstory is important, but voice and character traits are even more important! You aren't in control of when the GM incorporates your backstory, so it's best to make what is interesting about your character obvious from the get-go--they want something badly, they have a certain trait that guides their actions, they have some contradiction at the heart of their character, they have a special skill, or an idiosyncratic way of speaking, or a certain limitation. It's best to think of a character you'd like to roleplay first, and then try to build the backstory in a way that compliments that.

For players, "Flavor is a free action". Flavoring spells and attacks is awesome, gets you more into your characters, it's awesome. Just don't spend too long on it. For DMs, know your strengths and weaknesses. I am bad at rules but great at improv. Also not everyone is good at improv, it's not a requirement to do voices or anything like that. If you want to do voices, take an improv class or volunteer at a community theater for a bit, it will come naturally after that.

Wow that's pretty good outdoors audio