In your search for players who dare to challenge your world and campaign, you may have come across friends who have always dreamed of playing Dungeons & Dragons, but unfortunately never did. This begs the question, how can I properly introduce this game to those who know so little about TTRPGs?
With patience and guidance, you can turn your ignorant friends into mighty adventurers and fans of the game, and who knows, even future Dungeon Masters themselves. And here are some tips for doing that.
5 Be very patient
If your players are new, they will ask a lot of questions. Be prepared to answer the same thing over and over, and make concepts that are fundamental to you complicated for them. You may have to explain the lore a few times and help them make their characters’ blades, especially if magic is involved. You also need to explain what they can do in turn and what each spell can do, among a bunch of other things. Patience, young Padawan.
This explanation will be repeated several times before they finally process it all as they may forget things between sessions. You can also perform simple battles during session zero, as well as simple battles at the beginning that work more like a tutorial than a real battle. After all, it is a lot easier to absorb information in practice than in theory.
4 Use the internet to your advantage
An important thing for anyone who wants to play D&D, or any game for that matter, is to read the rules. However, it can be quite an undertaking to read everything the Player’s Handbook has to offer. Not many people have read it back to back, especially since most of us know the rules from experiencing the games ourselves.
However, if there is one source of knowledge that could be a lot smoother, especially for newbies, it’s the internet. For example, you can find many dedicated D&D channels on YouTube to learn the basics. You can even go deep into explaining how each class works, and good racing class combinations. Make sure your players are still free to do their own thing, rather than just copy and paste an online build on their first run – they still need to understand the game as a whole before they start optimizing builds.
3 Use video games for comparison
Not many DMs like comparing their games to video games, which makes sense because TTRPGs work very differently from video game RPGs. However, they still have many similarities and you can take advantage of that. It means that even newcomers to D&D will understand things like races, classes, builds, roles, what an NPC is and a lot more just based on playing games. This makes all your explanations easier if you approach things with the right terms, which they will also understand through video games.
Keep in mind that it’s also important to make them understand that TTRPGs are different. From experience, the three biggest differences you should let them know right away are as follows:
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First, that they can use their actions to do things that are not in the book;
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Two, that their choices will usually have bigger consequences, such as committing crimes and getting arrested;
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Three, if the character dies, it will be very hard to come back, especially at lower levels. They will most likely lose the character and have to create another one.
However, you should try to prevent newcomers from dying too early unless they really force you.
2 Give them suggestions and advice
As mentioned, TTRPGs have the beauty of letting us pick what we want, as long as it’s something we can at least try and be willing to face the consequences. However, that is a difficult concept to assimilate in the beginning. When a new player asks what they can do in a certain situation, and you reply with “anything you want”, chances are your player will get stuck. They will either come up with too many possibilities, not sure which is the “right” one, or they will say something ridiculous like “I want to chop off all enemies’ heads” when that is way beyond their capabilities.
If they are still learning, you can give them a few options. That’s okay, and you’re not going over the railroad or anything. “Hey, I see you’re trying to buy/get a weapon you’re not good at; I suggest you look for other weapons like this one” or “if you can’t reach the enemy on this turn, you should you can go to the nearest ally and give them a Help action, or you can lie low and stay behind cover”. These things are still unknown to new players, and just saying “do what you want” won’t help them at all. Once they get the hang of it, you can tell them to stop making suggestions.
1 Have a more experienced player in the party
If you have a patient friend with experience in the game, you can talk to them about your newcomers party and add this player to the mix. An experienced player among the new ones can provide some leadership and serve as an example of what can be done in the game.
Your friend can help you by picking up plot clues that the others won’t get at first, and their turns in battle will show everyone else what a player can do during battle. This friend will also help with general social interactions as new players can sometimes be shy when it comes to the roleplaying aspects of the game. They can also teach anyone tricks and strategies. Just make sure they don’t kill other people’s ideas. After all, there is a big difference between leading and bossing around.
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