How to start Dungeons and Dragons with no experienced DM

LilRedDorcha

Hi guys,

A few friends and I are attempting to start up our own small DnD group. Problem is, none of us have ever played it before. I'm more than willing to buy the necessary books to learn the game, but I was wondering if you had any tips for beginners about where to start, or even if this plan is possible.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

conor222

Me and my mates have just started a group. None of us had played 5e before (but some of them had played 4e previously)
I'm DMing, never done it before, played a sum total of 2 sessions of DnD beforehand, but its grand. Just expect you'll need to do some double checking of rules and stuff.

I got the starter pack, Mines of Phandelver, gives you prerolled characters, basic rule book, a fun scenario that will take you from starting to level 5. Think its on Amazon for about 15 euros at the moment so I'd advise that.

If you give that a play through you'll have a great handle on it, its setup for beginning at D&D so should suit you perfect

DinoRex

Yep. The Starter Pack is great. Really good little campaign.

Players Handbook is very much a must buy first after that. The Dungeon Masters Guide and Monster Manual are only really for if you're making your own campaigns. But they're all absolutely lovely books to read so you'll never go wrong buying them.

LilRedDorcha

Excellent, thanks for the advice

Greyjoy

I came across a series of animated videos on youtube as an intro to D&D 5th edition. It breaks the game down into basic concepts and gives you a good grounding of the rules... https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJmFJXf3BXjwXkNFo_-iwtHb24AuJcXqx

HivemindXX

It absolutely is possible. It's what my friends and I did when I was in school and it has got to be pretty common.

I don't know if you've ever heard the term "actual play", which is used for video games mainly I think. It refers to some media, like a blog, podcast or video which isn't about how you play the game or a review or opinion about it but is someone actually playing the game (I know, seems obvious right).

This can be useful for RPGs because I think it can be tricky to know what you actually DO during a game. I am not familiar with any actual play stuff for RPGs but I had a quick search and found the following. It seems decent but since it was the first one I found chances are there are better examples out there.
http://majorspoilers.com/2009/08/15/critical-hit-8-in-the-ruins-of-moonhold/

Greyjoy

If you & your friends are new to rpgs in general then have a look at the 'gm tips' videos/articles that "Geek & Sundry" put out on their website -

http://geekandsundry.com/tag/gm-tips/

These tips are not specific to D&D itself but rather broad generic advice like creating npcs, encounters, getting players to roleplay etc.

Mollyb60

Geek and Sundry do actually have an RPG show called Critical Role which (AFAIK) follows a group playing a campaign so that might be useful/entertaining to watch - haven't actually seen it myself.

But my group just decided one day to start playing, one of the guys took it upon himself to be our GM. We got a starter campaign online somewhere and we just ran through that. The set up gave him everything he needed to run the encounters for us. Took us a good 4 hours of faffing about to set up characters and work out what was supposed to happen but it flowed pretty naturally once we got into it.
Dig in I say! What's the worst that can happen?? You'll learn by playing.

EntryNumber5

Go head first!

I had a campaign in mind for nearly three years while acting as a player and never went through with it because of nerves but eventually I ran a single game and it changed my world. I ended up writing my college thesis on RPG's and running a 6 player campaign as a test study.

The D&D Starter is an absolutely fantastic starting point, after that the DM Guide + Player manuals are essentials for designing and running your own homebrews. I know for a fact the staff in The Warchest in Dublin, possibly in Gamers World as well, Sandbox in Cork, The Gathering in Galway and the lads in Black Cat Games up in Kilkenny should be more than happy to help you out with advice should you need it. Besides that there are plenty of videos on youtube and series like Critical Roll as previously mentioned as sample/tutorials.

Rory's Story Cubes are also spectacular for foundation ideas for new stories and campaigns, which you can buy cheap enough from most small childrens toy shops, Easons or Smyths.

niallb

Critical Role is well worth watching.
Be warned there are hundreds of hours of it!
It's a campaign with characters that have known each other for many years. What makes it even more interesting is that most of the players are voice actors from TV film and video games.
http://geekandsundry.com/critical-role-cast-where-youve-heard-them-before/

Tweedle Faduh

We started recently after having not played for years. We started with the Mines of Phandeler, it's great. Gives the DM a break down of the rules needed and how tips on how to run the campaign. It builds slowly at a steady pace so the DM and players can get a handle on the rules.
After completing that we wanted a larger campaign so we moved to Princes of the Apocalypse as I thought it would be more straight forward than designing my own campaign. I also didn't have the time to create one from scratch. Its a pre-designed campaign from the makers of D and D. It's my first time DMing after years of playing and it really stretched me. It's complicated to run as its more of a sandbox and allows the characters can go wherever they want which can lead them into areas they are way below level for. There are simpler/more structured campaigns which may have been better for me as a new DM. if you do want to go down the predesigned route my advice would be to read through reviews of each campaign before committing to one.
As regards books the Players Guide should be your groups first purchase. Then the Monster Manual. The DMs guide has rules for running your own campaigns but also some rules for magic items etc. It's the book I've used the least. We us the Players Handbook and Monster Manual every game we play.