# how do you start up a D&D group



## hells_fury (Apr 17, 2008)

ok, back in grade 11 a teacher thought it would be good education getting his media class to play D&D, sadly i wasn't in the class but we did con him to do it at lunches and i joined in on the quest. sadly he left town taking all his gear with him.

that was 2 years ago, now im thinking it might be a good idea to start it up again with some friends, say a sunday afternoon of quests. my question is, what should i do and what do i need, imo i think itd be best if we could get a puter to be the DM as we all want to quest but if worse comes to worse we can rotate. 

thanks for any help and if it does work ill be a regular here hopefully


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## Druchii in Space (Apr 7, 2008)

Well the main thing is a group, and it sounds like you have that. Apart from that you need to decide which system you are going to use. 

If it was 2yrs ago it's quite possible he was using D&D 3.5, so if you want to follow the same system as he was running you could go for that. Or you could go for D&D 4, which is probably simpler to learn but has been slated by some for being too MMO like by hardcore RPG fans.

Regardless if you are taking on D&D the bare minimum you will require for the group is the DM Guide, Players Handbook and a Monsters Manual. This will allow you to run the game, although you would need to create a setting/world to play on. 

If you would rather avoid the hassle of creating a place to play, there are a few settings where you could pick up an additional book to get a ready made setting. Usually this will also grant you new races and/or Classes specific to the game world. Good examples are Forgotten Realms for both 3.5 and 4, and quite a few more for 3.5 including Eberron.

Theres lots of good info here for D&D.

There are of course other settings, Dark Heresy for one, which is now much easier (cheaper) to get hold of thanks to Fantasy Flights reprint. It also has much more potential as they are planning on releasing new products and for a while it looked like it might have died before it began. So yeah, a 40K setting is probably always worth a look in. For Dark Heresy you need the main book only to get going, although the Inquisitors handbook wouldn't hurt either at some point.

Info on Dark Heresy.

There are many others as well, as noted in the List at the top of this forum. 

I would probably advise to keep it simple and first make the call of either playing in a Fantasy setting or Sci-fi setting. If you go for Fantasy I'd say grab D&D 4, just as all the new books that come out from now on will be set up with that system in mind. If you like Sci-fi, I'd go for Dark Heresy.


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## zabo (Dec 19, 2008)

You dont technically need anything, my dnd group is bookless, of course we have a smart dm, you might need dice though.


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## hells_fury (Apr 17, 2008)

sadly none of us are that smart lol, a friend found this and it looks like legit info to me http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35 what do you guys think?


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## Druchii in Space (Apr 7, 2008)

Aye, that will give you basics to play by the looks of it and free to boot, always a bonus. Plus in all likelyhood it will be the system the other fella taught you to play with, I hope it goes well for your gaming group. 


edit - dang just checked through some of the files, they don't have Character creation rules there, or xp rules. They say in the FAQ its to stop folks playing for free, so although thats a lot of useful info you'd still need the Players Guide at least.


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## hells_fury (Apr 17, 2008)

rats, lol, owells, i figured that would happen somewhere, now we have to find one cheap lols


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## Initiate (Mar 25, 2007)

If you are not downloading off the internet, you need books. For DnD you need at the very least the player's handbook, then the DM's guide. If you can manage it, you can play without a monster's manual as the DM can come up with stats on the spot.

Our DM has his own interpretation of Thief's world and ADnD 2.0, but it took him over 5 years to compile everything. Something else our DM has and you might want is a lot of models. You don't necessarily need them, but they make life easier. And then there are dice. You would want about 4 of each kind of dice up to d20 to start.

So in the most basic terms, you will need cash and a clever DM.


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## hells_fury (Apr 17, 2008)

great news all, turns out one friend has all the gear, when we did it 2 years ago the teacher gave him all the stuff for safe keeping (thats what the friend claims anyway) so as far as i know we have all the gear. now we just have to stop playing world tour lol. thanks for the hep all, hopefully ill post a story or two in the future


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## Death Shroud (Mar 1, 2008)

Glad you've got the materials sorted, as for your question about who GMs my advice would be to rotate it between whoever wants to try. I was in a RP group for a couple of years and I GM'ed Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (which I loved and seemed to be popular with everyone), another guy loved Call of Cthulhu so he acted as GM on that, another specialised in Vampire (my favourite) and another bagged GM'ing Dark Heresy and so on.

Being GM is extra work but is also really good fun to do. If you let everyone try you'll find that you won't get bored as everyone will have their own ideas to bring. When you are GM'ing remember that you are god, you can change the rules to make it work best for you and the group. 

Some systems to recommend looking at:-
World of Darkness (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage etc). 
Really simple and elegant play system of D10's makes it easy to play without being basic. Amazingly good background. The politicking and intruige of the universe makes it great for intelligent story based roleplay. Being a Vampire with strange powers is fucking cool. Stroke your inner goth.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
You are on this web site so you probably have a good grasp of atmosphere and universe which you can use to your advantage. Uses a percentile system "D100", which is logical and easy to adapt. If the rest of your group knows Warhammer then you can get them excited by describing things that they will recognise. 

Dark Heresy
See above. 

Call of Cthulhu
Uses a mix of D20 style tests for characteristics and a D100 system for skills (less confusing than it sounds). Like being in all the best horror films you've ever seen. Can easily play in any era but works best around early 1900's.

You'll be able to find tons of information about these on the net so you won't have to shell out loads to see which system might appeal to your group. Starting a new system can be expensive when you start buying all those additional books (but they are so hard to resist). My personal recommendation would be to check out the World of Darkness website and check our "Vampire the reqiuem" as it is amazingly good.

One last bit of advice. If you are the GM, try not to get too annoyed if your group decides to take another path than the one you'd painstakingly planned on them taking. Yes you may not be able to spring that cool suprise you had been planning, but remember that the infinte options that a player has is what makes pen and paper roleplaying so great. Don't be afraid to come up with ideas on the fly and don't try and force your players to do something they don't want too (they'll just stop enjoying it).

All the best and good luck.


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## Da Red Paintjob Grot (May 6, 2008)

hey, i have writen a few supliment, and as always, they can probly filted through to you if ypou want. 

Edit: my typing is bad this morning...


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## buckythefly (Mar 16, 2009)

I've been playing every sunday afternoon for going on 7 years now. A couple of important tips I can give you are.

Let anyone play, don't be the asshole who won't let them try at least once, Don't shun the noobs. If you tell someones little brother they can't play your gonna step on toes. If he plays once and makes some sort of robot-pirate or something terrible and really brings down the story, then you can intelligently make a decision to ask him not to play anymore.

Furthermore, Take votes, once you've got a hardcore party any time your gonna add someone vote on it. Its democratic, and it lets everyone be heard.

I've never heard of someone using a PC to play dungeon master for them...So you'll have to give someone the duty. For some its really fun, but remember no DM likes to go without input so be sure to tell them what you like or don't like, if their a total cock make someone else do it.

and finally, pick a setting you like, if you don't want to make your own, like its been said before their are tons of campaign settings to choose from, and even pre-built modules that can be really fun to springboard your ideas.


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## Col. Schafer (Apr 15, 2008)

As long as you have a basic understanding of the D20 system you dont need anything but the players handbook. A flip thru the DMs guide can be helpfull for whoever is DMing, but its not that hard to come up with your own creatures. Just off the top of my head:

Generic goblinoid:
HP: 10
AC: 11 (10 -1dex +2 armor)
Attack:
melee: Short sword: (+1) 1d6+1 damage
ranged: throwing rock: (-2) 1d4-1 damage
Posetions: primitive armor, short sword, 2 rocks, D4 SP, some odd smelling fungus.
Skills: sneek+2 open lock+1 sleight of hand+1

Is it amazing? no. Will it work? yes. With a little more efort its not hard to come up with enemies that have a good flavor to them. 

But of course, I've been playing for a while, so the monster manual might be heplfull to you.


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## ChaplinWhulfgar (May 9, 2008)

All you need is a DM and Player guides, a monster manual, and dice. You also have to have a bit of a story teller in ya. Your good to go. Make sure you read the books to figure out how it works.


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