Dungeons & Dragons 5e 101- Learn to Play for All Skill Levels!

Dungeons & Dragons 5e 101- Learn to Play for All Skill Levels!

An accessible and fun crash course for any experience level! Make a character, learn the basics, and prepare to jump into any 5e game.

TYPE

One-Shot

EXPERIENCE

Open to all

AGE

18+
2 NEEDED TO START
$15.00

/ Session

Details

Once / Monday – 10:00 PM UTC

Jul 7

3–4 Hour Duration

0 / 6 Seats Filled

About the adventure

Want to learn how to play Dungeons and Dragons but don't know where to start? There are tons of great resources out there, but starting D&D can be overwhelming without someone to answer questions or give one-on-one support. Dungeon Master Kat, who has nearly 4 years of professional experience teaching players how to get started in D&D, is here to help! They'll walk you through everything you need to know to get prepare you for beginning your own home games or joining any of the incredible DMs here on startplaying. Together, we'll make a character from the ground up. No pre-generated characters or dropping in with no explanation- You'll learn important concepts and terminology, including things like stats and proficiency, so you're prepared not only to play, but to make your own characters after the session! Then, you'll learn everything you need to know to actually play, including social encounters, mechanics, and combat. Finally, you'll play through a short adventure where you'll get to put everything you've learned into practice. You'll also be provided with handy cheat-sheets and supplements to help you better understand some of the more complicated parts of the game, like spell casting and combat. This course has been run dozens of times for players of all experience levels (including no experience at all) and has received universally positive feedback. Plus, everything in the course was human-made with a no AI generated content guarantee!

Game themes

Meet the Game Master
DMs Guild Writer
LGBTQ+
Queer
Asian
Neurodivergent
Artist
Cosplayer

Less than a year on StartPlaying

1 game hosted

Highly rated for: Creativity, Inclusive, Teacher

Average response time: 24+ hours

Response rate: 100%

About me

Hi I'm Kat! I've been playing TTRPGs (D&D mostly) for 15~ish years. I've also been professionally teaching people how to play D&D 5e for about 4 years now, and I've gotten a lot of good feedback! I'm all about helping new players get into the game since I understand it can be hard to jump in on your own, even with all of the resources out there. Aside from DnD, I'm a big fan of horror stuff (I love a good game of Dread) and an avid video gamer.

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Character creation

Creating your character

We'll start the session with character creation, and I generally recommend a first-time player makes the character that feels cool and fun to them. This means we'll be going for a less-than-balanced approach to stat generation (rolling for stats), and I encourage you to make choices that make a character that would be fun to play. However, if you're interested in things like min-maxing, I'm happy to give advice in that direction as well. For the sake of simplicity, I've provided resources that only include content from the base Players Handbook. If you have some amount of experience and wish to use content from other sources, I'm happy to work with you, but I have limited access to other books that I would be able to share with you digitally.

What to expect

Preparing for the session

If you want to fill out your character sheet on paper, instead of digitally, be sure to print it out before we begin. Likewise, if you are filing it out digitally, please be prepared to do so with your program of choice. Also, take some time to look at the provided Class and Race Cheat Sheets before we begin and get an idea of what you might like to play. You don't have to have anything solid, and I'll be open for questions as we begin, but coming with a general idea will make things go by a bit quicker. Having a mic will make things much easier in terms of communication, though if you aren't comfortable using voice chat, we can make do with text communication. Likewise, a webcam isn't mandatory, but it may be helpful. As the course is held over discord, you will need to have a discord account.

What Kat Dawes brings to the table

You'll have access to an array of supplemental materials, cheat-sheets, and the Players Handbook for 5e. I've tried to design everything in this course to be as accessible and beginner-friendly as possible. Also, there will be no pressure to jump right into roleplaying, if you're not comfortable with it.

Homebrew rules

While we won't be using any homebrew rules, I'll go over some common ones you might find at other tables.

Equipment needed to play

Microphone

Internet

Platforms used
Safety

How Kat Dawes creates a safe table

While much of the session with be taken up with character creation, once we get into roleplay and combat, I always have an open door policy at my table. I also take the use of safety tools very seriously, and will take some time to go over what they are and their use as a part of the course.

Content warnings

Safety tools used

Frequently asked questions