I recently got invited to a DnD group at my work and while I'm excited, I'm also extremely nervous. Never played any TTRPG, never roleplayed, never was in theatre or anything. So, I'm kinda lost as to how I get started with this aspect of the game. I've watched some TTRPG shows (though none of them were DnD), would that be a good place to start to get an idea of what to expect?
Thank :blob-help:
My advice is not to sweat the mechanics of DnD and instead focused on understanding your character and being creative.
Have an idea on what is mechanically easy and difficult for your player to do, but don't sweat not knowing the exact probability of a successful action.
While playing, state what you envision your character doing and ask the DM how to resolve that. Instead of saying "I roll my Athletics to jump over the gap", try saying " I'd like to jump over the gap" and let the DM say "Roll your Athletics" or even better "You do it".
Lastly, remember that TTRPGs are not video games. The goal is (typically) to tell an interesting story through collaboration, while expressing creativity.
All of this is obviously contingent on having a like-minded DM and fellow players, so while playing try to gauge if your actions compliment those of the group as a whole.
I sincerely hope you have a great time and find a new source of enjoyment in life!
okay, one thing to remember is that even if you have an idea of what RPing would be like from other sources, you still have to consider the table.
If you have the confidence, start at full tilt. If you'd rather warm up, that's fine too. If you need someone to break the seal on that, that's fine too.
What really helps with RPing is to have a solid, not complete, idea of who your character is. When you RP, you're also building your character. You have to make decisions and be willing to stick with them.
My character is a bit neurotic, lacks confidence in her independence, but has training from her backstory to fall back on. There are also decisions I would make as a person, that i leave a lane open for my character. I also react to what the party is doing in how they RP, and their decisions in combat. So as a healer, they're kinda stressing me, :agony:
The book and some people online will tell you to exaggerate your own personality, which isn't a bad way to go. You know best how to act in a situation.
But if anyone gives you shit, stop them. This is a game of pretend.
People on TTRPG shows are mostly professional actors trying to show off to each other. The meat and potatoes of DnD is problem solving. How do you navigate your character and party through the scenario the DM is presenting to you successfully? Can you do it while making your friends believe that your character is a person who would do these things on their own, not just because they're a game piece? If so, congrats! You're amazing.
If you're nervous about acting, can you rope some friends into helping you play a weird improv game? My all-time favorite goes like this:
(Person B secretly picks an emotion from one of the four cardinal emotions; mad, glad, sad, and afrad.)
Person A establishes a scene by asking a completely mundane question.
Person B reacts whole hog on their chosen emotion.
Person A reacts.
New people!
A few rounds of that and you should feel pretty loosened up.
The beginning of The Adventure Zone podcast is a great intro to a simplified DnD
But for roleplaying, there really isn't better than Critical Role in terms of production quality and commitment to the characters. Just don't ever expect your DM to be as good as Matt Mercer, and know that the people you'll play with won't take it nearly as seriously.
CR is a good entertainment product and a bad game of DnD. There are some tables, maybe 1 out of every 20, where there is both an expected vibe of "take this very much in character" and the players and GM are good enough at that to make it worth the added stress. Most people will never play at one of those tables, and with every CR fan I've taken up into one of my groups we've had to get through the mental block of "you are not playing Critical Role" for them to actually get into the game and have fun.
For you and everyone else that wants free access to sourcebooks, or just digital access to stuff they already have in print like me, 5e.tools is the website
And as an answer to your question, there's a lot to learn about how D&D functions, but I think a good start would be to just get on a voice call with your DM or an experienced player, and just start filling out your character sheet. This way you can talk about numbers and game systems with the context of something you can grasp
I've played a lot of DnD and the most important thing as a new player is finding where your vibe is and working it into the table. I currently DM two groups. One group is very into playing characters, and the other is very into playing the game DnD (we actually switched to Pathfinder once that became apparent to me). What I mean by that is the first group likes to have long dramatic conversations with NPCs that develop character motivations and such, and will often go entire sessions without combat, which is great. The other likes to scour rule books to build really interesting characters and then use those really interesting characters to kick total ass in a tactical combat simulator. For them, battle mechanics are a method of getting into character, and the plot and personality, while still important, play a supporting role to Doing Cool Shit like lassoing and riding mammoths, which is also great. Neither of these groups have "actors" in them, in the sense that they'd probably be really uncomfortable at a CR table where people are doing voices and such. I only rarely do voices, although a GM can do a lot with just speech patterns.
Point being, there are tons of ways to play DnD and no correct way to do so. You need to explore the different play styles and find what you like to do. When I play, I like starting with a mechanical concept and building my character's personality and story around that. I.e. this character is really freaking good at Linguistics, but why? Well, they were training to travel throughout the planes as a diplomat of Axis before tragedy struck and had to know two dozen languages, etc.
Definitely talk to whoever's gonna DM and see what the moods like/ how heavily everyone gets into roleplay. As far as gamplay, ask your DM what edition you guys are running (probably 5e but always good to ask) and just kinda watch a few YouTube videos on basic gameplay/rules. Important to note that every group does do stuff a little differently but after a few sessions you'll get the hang of everything. Have fun!
Definitely this. My dm has a pretty casual vibe so we switch between characters and real names and there’s sometimes a touch of metagaming, but that’s just how our group operates and that’s what we have fun with. Of course we also consider our characters personalities and actions when making decisions. The key idea is reading the room and doing what you’re comfortable with, you don’t have to go hard if you don’t want to, and always keep in mind it’s for fun and everyone has it a little tough at first.
All this definitely gives me a place to start. Thanks comrades! :Care-Comrade:
I really like the Dungeon Dudes. They have two campaigns based in a homebrew world called drakenheim, which are quite good, but their channel has a lot of good tidbits if you look around like how to create a backstory and unspoken rules that might be useful. There class specific guides are a nice balance too. I wouldn't worry too much about the power game tier ranking stuff, but they also usually give little hints for ideas on how to shape the personality or story of your character.
One thing that might not be immediately obvious to a new person though is that a fair few of their videos are geared towards dungeon masters (the person facilitating the session). I would avoid those where possible if they are talking about monsters. I usually DM, but go out of my way to not learn about monsters that I don't plan to use because it really spoils the fun if you encounter a monster and you know all about it.
