[RPG] the best way to help a new player join a mid-level party

character-levelsdnd-5enew-players

Having spent lockdown watching us play from the sidelines, and having played in one-shots of a couple of different systems, the partner of one of our players would like to join the D&D campaign I am running. As a DM, I have no issues with this; she gets the game and has been reading the rules, and the party of 4 could easily accept a 5th member.

However, I am now wondering how best to create her character with her. In the past, when a party member has joined a campaign I am running, they have not been new to role-playing – it was not their first campaign, and so they had already experienced taking a level 1 character through the ranks. Therefore, starting them at the same or a slightly lower level than the party was not an issue; they had played enough to be able to quickly pick up all the extra skills and abilities a sudden jump gives them, and the magic items I allow them to start with at that level were not something more to learn to use.

The party are all roughly level 8-10 right now, so I can’t bring her on as a level 1 character.

What is the best way to help her not feel overwhelmed by everything, while allowing her to jump in with a more powerful character than most start with?

She hasn’t yet told me her race or class. We are planning an evening together to flesh all that out soon, and I would like to go in prepared with some tips to help her get the most out of this, so we can avoid her spending the first few sessions feeling lost as she tries to remember everything her character can do.

Best Answer

Simplify their choices

The breadth of choice during character creation and combat is usually the thing that overwhelms new players the most. I will give you a couple of ways I have simplified these options for new players I have played with. But first a disclaimer for your specific situation.

Does this player actually need help?

It's great that you are proactively searching for a solution to a potential problem, that's the sign of a good DM. However you have said the player has played a few ones shots, "gets the game and has been reading the rules". To me that sounds like someone who might be capable of taking on an 8-10th level character without too many issues.

If you help them through the character creation process and maybe be a little lenient on them knowing the rules for the first few sessions, you may find you are worried over nothing. It's best to check in with the player and see what level of help they feel they might need.

Simpler Character Creation

5th edition has done a good job of reducing the number of choices players need to make during character creation, it is one of the reasons the game is so popular with new players. Therefore I have found this to be much less of an issue than with a game like Pathfinder 1e.

There is a lot of good advice on helping players with character creation on this site and I won't repeat it all here. It is worth reading the following questions for ideas:

My major advice for helping new players create characters is to let them changes their minds later. Inexperienced players have no way of knowing if a certain cool sounding ability is actually good or not. So I take the pressure off by letting them changes out choices later on once they learn more about the game and their character.

For my first time party I actually let them all completely re-stat their characters after reaching level 4 as many had use point-buy poorly and weren't enjoying the way their characters worked. The players all loved this as it let them be the character they actually wanted to be rather than the one they thought they wanted to be before playing.

Simpler During Play

Many classes and characters have a huge variety of tools at their disposal during gameplay. The options can often paralyze new players as they struggle to choose what to do. I have successfully used a few tactics to help my players overcome this.

  1. List their options. If a new player is stuck in the "I don't know what to do" phase, you can help by quickly giving them a short (2-4 item) list of options their character would be capable of doing. Sometime new players simply can't think of what the options are so by laying them out like this you allow them to choose the best one for their circumstance.
  2. Spellcasting Loadouts. Usually the most likely classes to overwhelm new players are spellcasters. Choosing their spells for the day from an enormous list is complicated and confusing. The best solution for them is to help them create "spell loadouts". A preset list of spells for a certain situation. You might create 3 loadouts, one for exploring, one for combat, and one for in town/social encounters. Doing so reduces the players options from 10+ choices of spells across varying levels to just a choice between 3 loadouts for that particular day.
  3. Identify a good default action. One thing I have done with my players is try to work out a decent default action to take in combat. If they are confused or unsure they just do that and it will always be a decent action to take. For example I have a Bard who used to struggle with options in combat, I gave her a magical crossbow and now her default action is "shoot crossbow, use bardic inspiration".

Specific options and recommendations will vary based on the class they choose and the person playing it. Different players struggle in different situations and it can be good to come back and ask us for specific advice if they are encountering a particular issue.

A More Drastic Solution

The advice I have given above assumes you want to stick with the standard rules for your player, which would be my normal suggestion. However, if you have a player you think will really struggle, or a group of entirely new players I have another option.

My friend and I developed a set of homebrew/house-rules to create simplified characters that are as easy to play as first level characters but won't get squished trying to play at higher levels. We call it "signature abilities".

You give them the hitpoints, ability scores proficiency bonuses and appropriate equipment for the level you want them to be. Straight statistical bonuses are easy for new players to understand. There is no real difference between adding +3 and +8 other than you are more likely to hit, which is good.

Then, instead of giving them their full set of class abilities you choose a few that are the core features of their class. For fighter's we granted Action Surge and Extra Attack, Bards we gave Bardic Inspiration and Vicious Mockery. Clerics and Wizards we gave a short list of spells 4-5 signature spells and a number of spell slot but dropped the spell level part to simplify the mechanics.

The goal is to give the feel of the class and let them do some cool things without being bogged down by the mechanics. This system has been a storming success. We developed it to run a one shot for 20+ players for a birthday party and we have used it multiple times since to introduce new players to the game.

As your player becomes more confident you can introduce more rules and mechanics back into their character. Eventually becoming a full character once they are ready. This system can slightly upset the power dynamics but it is focused on getting new players enjoying the game as quickly as possible. Which to me is really the goal.