Some of my friends just started playing Dungeons & Dragons [5e] for the first time and don't know anything about how to play. I have tried explaining to them the things that are completely necessary and teach them the rest while playing but I could not get them to understand. None of them have a players handbook and they can't afford one and they really want to play. I really want a simple way to explain the basics and since I have a habit of explaining things in ways that are much too complicated. I have already told them the basic rules so all I need to know is a simple way to explain how to play.
[RPG] How to explain how to play D&D to new players without them falling asleep from boredom
dnd-5enew-playerssystem-introduction
Related Solutions
One off game(s)
If the group is open to it, pre-gen some characters and run through a few simple one-session (3-4 hours long) games that detail a little of the background. In Travellers, an Out of Gas scenario can allow you (with judicious choice of pre-gen character) to introduce a lot of background: When you focus on the back story of one of the PC, the rest play NPCs thus getting a lot of exposure. This could even be your opening pilot episode for the game -- pre-gens are the PCs.
Edit after comment: I agree with CatLord in his comment below. However, I was not advocating anything more than a (short) paragraph of NPCs' descriptions/characterisation. After all, they will play those for 10/15 minutes maximum. There's not point in those NPCs being anything but card board cut outs. But I did not make that clear. Hopefully, it now is.
Second, if your players "do not know how to play", then you have another problem. I assume that the players are mature enough to know what role playing is and how to do it.
A brief preface: if you've been trying for years to teach a topic to multiple different people, it's likely the problem isn't with your students. Teaching is actually rather difficult and it's worth learning some pedagogical techniques.
At the end of the day, there are a number of pedagogical traditions you can draw upon. Here, we will touch on three of them: mimesis, granularity, and system mastery. Before we begin, however, it's worth noting that you should confirm that they actually want to learn these topics. While classrooms have a number of positive and negative reinforcement techniques built in (loss of social status for not complying with norms, validation from grades, social expectations of learning, goal-fulfillment, etc..) hobby games do not have that same structure. Therefore, the only basis for engagement is voluntary pre-commitment. Try to differentiate "saying yes because polite" from "saying yes from general interest." Different social groups consider declining an invitation to be some level of taboo, and will therefore not decline, despite not being in the least interested.
Consider figure one by Boyd and McConville: without a common mutuality of concern and shared social experiences, there is no comprehensible explanation of the activity.
Rule-complexity is actually the least worry about teaching RPGs. Much of what forms a role-playing game is a tradition of play stretching back to the originators of the game. There are cultural expectations and touchstones that are so deeply embedded in our social tradition that they do not bear comment. Simple RPGs, by their very nature, assume more of those traditions. As a gedankenexperiment, try imagining explaining why playing "golf" is fun. "You hit the ball, then you chase the ball." There are a whole bunch of social expectations and experiences bound up in the game of Golf that are actually quite difficult to explain.
Pedagogical technique 1: Mimesis
Humans are creatures that are actually remarkably good at mimicry. We learn our first language by mimicking the sounds of our parents [citation needed] (I'm so not getting into neural-encoding of languages or anything like that here.). Therefore, review the recorded let's plays in this answer, find ones in genres that interest your group, and spend an evening listening to them and discussing.
It is critical to choose genres that your players already have experience in. It is too much to teach the common genre conventions of a given domain of fiction and other things. The point of mimesis is to expose, as novel, only the things that are the topic under discussion. Therefore, try to get favourite books of your group, and find a system that exposes the conventions of the modal genre, Avoid universal systems for now, as they load more of the cognitive work onto the players. This topic is worthy of a well specified game-recommendation question in its own right.
Once you've found the system, and found the favourite books of your group, your objective will be to game in those books. You will, effectively, be engaging in collaborative fan-fiction. This shortcut is useful: originality is great for people who understand the domain. Until then, stick close to your source material.
Again, here, the objective should be to find recorded games that match your desired system and genre. You can recommend listening to these individually, or listen communally as a group. Be prepared for very low compliance for individual assignments: very few people "like" doing homework on things that they're being socially pressured into doing [citation needed].
By listening to these games, and then by discussing these games as a group after the listen, you're not asking your putative players to act. What you're doing is building their background knowledge of the actions expected in an RPG in a zero-risk environment. In these discussions, beware confirmation bias. Ask them to explain what's happening in games to you. Figure out what they're getting and what they're not getting. Make sure to provide positive and negative feedback here: it's important to validate learned concepts as well as correcting mis-learned ideas.
Pedagogical technique 2: Granularity.
Consider the idea of Granularity Hierarchies. Consider the idea of driving. When driving a car, the first time, there are so many things to keep track of: the state of cars on the road, inputs via the front window, the side windows, the rear side windows, the rear-view mirror, the side-mirrors, road noise, the dashboard, people screaming at you to stop!, etc...
After driving for a while, all of those different "tasks" are grouped up into the task called "driving" and become mostly automatic, reducing the cognitive load of driving and allowing for new, more difficult tasks like "where am I now?" and "where am I going?"
There is a rough hierarchy of task difficulty. Mastery of basic tasks is required before advancing into moderately advanced tasks. Die-rolling has a huge number of assumptions bound up into the task, and isn't actually a very good place to start. Get a "RPG board game" to get the idea of characters working on tasks with a chance of failure. Once they have the idea of "hey, this is a 20 sided die, and I should add this number and compare against this other number." then move into simple vignettes in the chosen game system. If they all read Harry Potter, for example, maybe start with "you're trying to avoid Finch's cat while sneaking through the halls" and use that as the basis for teaching action success and failure. While I don't believe this level of granularity is normally necessary, the main reason it's not necessary is because there tend to be few new role-players in any given group, given the level of difficulty you've been reporting, it's likely worthwhile to go back to basics.
Again, make sure to verbalise your own mental procceses when running your side of the screen. "I'm doing this because of this, that, and the other thing. I'm offering you Y, because you did X." By chunking the rules into small chunks, you can test mastery of those chunks before "zooming out" and playing the game.
Pedagogical technique 3: System mastery
At the end of the day, your players will have to learn the rules. Give them the books for the system you've identified, one that matches their genre expectations and one that doesn't presume on too much implicit knowledge. Then ask them to commit to reading goals before the next meeting. At the next meeting discuss what they have read and the implications on the game of that chapter.
So long as it's not pure homework, and you're using the other techniques actively at the same time, expecting them to read the books and remember the rough rules of the game is not too much to ask. It's not your job to be the book: that's the book's job. If they aren't willing to read a long book, find a shorter (but well articulated game) that does what they want. (Again, that's likely in our game-recommendation section already.)
Conclusion:
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Assuming your players are actually wanting to learn, the common theme is to have multiple distinct learning elements that your players can engage in. It's not your job to teach the entire social tradition of RPing. Set up a venue where they can be guided to recorded games, can practice task activities, and can get help in understanding the readings. If they don't engage, just enjoy playing board games and don't force the issue.
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Best Answer
I DM for new players alot, and even play with my wife and 8 year old daughter. Boredom is the enemy, even with seasoned players. If a player gets bored, you lose them. Keep things moving, even if it means handwaving some things.
I make a point of trying to know as much about the rules as I can, so my players don't have to. I mean, I want them to pick up the rules, and know what to do next; but I don't want them to HAVE to know. I want them to be able to say "I want to do X", and be able to say, "great, to that roll a D20 and add..."
Session 0 for New Players
I don't session Zero for parties of new players. I talk to them individually, and ask them to tell me about the character they want to play. I introduce the idea of class and race, and suggest one that matches the vauge ideas they may already have.
Like if I hear "I want to have a magic sword and be really tall"; I'll tell them "that sounds like a Goliath Paladin. A Goliath is a small giant race, and Paladins are holy warriors or principled knights that infuse their weapons with 'smites' to make their attacks more powerful."
I won't have the roll stats, or pick spells. I'll give them one of hte WotC pregrens, or I'll do character creation between meeting with them, and the first session. I'll use the standard array and put stats where it makes sense based on what they told me about their ideas. If it is a wizard, warlock, or sorcerer I might have them pick spells with me during the meeting; but other subclasses that choose spells I'll typically grab what makes sense with their narrative and stats wise.
If they end up liking the game, but not the character; they can build a new one after the first session.
Don't Lecture
What I try to do, is take a "learn as you go" approach. similar to how they learn video games. I start by saying something along the lines of:
I make sure to make clear that the sheet of paper is your character sheet, it's the numbers about how good they are at different stuff. It is just information they will need at times, but don't worry about that until I ask you to do something with it. Then
Jump Right In (Video Game Style)
I jump into the prologue for the first session.
Like a video game tutorial, I slowly introduce concepts, by giving them an opportunity to try it.
Combat
Even if you did lecture, the first combat with new people takes a long time, and they are level one so the first enemies they run across are likely going to be a monster for every party member, and all be 1 HP AC 10 or AC 12 creatures. I want the monsters in this first fight to die in one hit, but there to be a alright chance that someone might miss the first time. This is one point I pull out my regular games favorite minion minis -- gummy bears. Whoever kills it, eats it.
That first combat, even though it is only single hit characters, will take a long time. You should explain up front that this combat will be slow because everyone is learning, but during other people's turn is a great time for them to think about what they might do on their turn. Letting them know on the first person's turn about the action economy. Use the game terms for things as they happen, let them get used to hearing "action, bonus action, movement." Remembering to ask, "Do have a bonus action?" and "Do you want to move anywhere?" and letting them know "If you move, you'll be open to the monster taking an attack of opportunity."
At level one, the options are easy for most of the players as all a lot of characters can do at level one is "I hit it with my X" or "I cast firebolt/Eldritch Blast at it". Spellcasters may have a lot more to consider, but they will still have one "go to" attack. Even still, remember to give color to the attack, like "You slice down into the green rubbery skin...", or ask for color "What does your firebolt look like?" to keep the game feeling like the game even with the added tutorial.
That ended up longer than I meant.