Hey RPPR People!
I've been playing in a D&D 3.5 Game for a short while, and during this campaign something unusual started happening. Some younger gamers in the gaming shop we play at started sitting in on our sessions. So far we've had 3 people, all younger than 13 sitting in on our (PG rated, so far) campaign. It seems like there was an untapped demand for exposure to D&D!
This gave me the idea of organizing a beginner's campaign of D&D at the game shop. Take sign-ups, lay some pretty strict ground rules for at-the-table conduct to ensure everyone's treated respectfully, and then find a day to play. My hope is that this is an opportunity for kids and parents to ask questions about D&D, try it out, and maybe get started playing.
I sketched an outline for a dungeon-crawl heavy 9 session campaign set on Prospero's Island from the play "The Tempest" so that the tone is appropriate for younger players, and have been brain storming ideas on how to make the game easier for first time players (for example, using 4e rather than 3.5e since I'm more familiar running it, partially making character sheets so that the players have less math to do but still get to create characters, limiting house rules and short cuts as much as possible, stuff like that).
My goal is to try to keep it as simple as possible for the players, so I'm limiting classes and races to the core 3 books. I've also considered making "player mats" like DM Screens with vital "at-a-glance" information about how to attack in combat, how to roll skill checks, some terminology, stuff like that, with the goal of avoiding a situation where, in order to play every parent has to sink a bunch of money in to buying the books. I'll have 2 sets of the core 3 books available, as well as the Monster Manual 2 for reference.
Do any of you have suggestions? Have you ever ran a game for first time players? What challenges did you face? Are there any resources you'd suggest?
