Learn to Play D&D - Wildin' Out in the Feywild!

Creating your character

As mentioned above, I'll be scheduling FREE character creation sessions for folks to attend if they want the help. I especially recommend this for newer players. So if this is your first time playing/you're still learning how to create characters, don't worry too much about anything besides coming up with some vague ideas of a character you may want to create. We don't have to worry about making a character fit the rules, but instead making the rules fit the character! If you're a newer player, don't feel like you need to read on in this section. We'll work on this together so we can learn! The character creation can be where things get the most confusing and gritty right off the bat, so I want to make this as easy and comfortable an experience as I can for you. I'll also be offering these sessions every time we hit a point where we level up our characters. Even if you're someone who feels comfortable making a character by yourself but would like some more guidance or for me to share some of my source material I have on hand you are more than welcome to join in on those sessions! I'll be offering at least one character creation session geared toward these players, but you'll be welcome to join any of them! If you feel comfortable creating your own character, I'll be allowing the use of either the 2014 or 2024 D&D character sheets. Also for simplicity's sake, I know there's a lot of source material available, but we'll be sticking to these options (which will still give you a lot to choose from in regards to species/backgrounds/classes/bonus spell lists/etc.!) If you would like help accessing these materials/finding something specific please feel free to DM me or set up a time to meet over Google Meets! - The D&D Core Player's Handbook (either the 2014 or 2024 version) - "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" - "Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse" - "Mythic Odysseys of Theros" - The species/background options in the "Wild Beyond the Witchlight" book (if you need a copy of these few pages please reach out!) Also some homebrewed materials (species and spell lists) I'll be allowing in keeping with the "vibe" of the game! - https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-N4JNbXT_vkJWQWxRsYx - https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LqDTVTLJw5ACJ9mOGor - https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/moac3u/comment/gu2hjhr/ - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n4vJg83o7NK2MuFnyfdvCDmukPxOoXms/view?usp=sharing For determining stats: - Hit dice are maxed, don't worry about rolling for your HP except when rolling to get HP back - For your ability scores, roll 4d6 and drop the lowest. Do this 7 times, then choose whatever 6 from those you choose to keep (it doesn't have to be the 6 highest, if you would like a "dump stat" you absolutely can!) If you have any further questions please feel free to DM me!

Preparing for the session

We'll be communicating about game related stuff over Discord (I will be making a server and sending links once we have enough people for the game to run), and I'm planning on running the game itself over Roll20 as well as posting important links and discussion forums on the Roll20 game page, so in order to play you will need a Discord account as well as a Roll20 account (don't worry, they're both free!) We'll also be doing some pre-game/mid-campaign discussions and meetings over Google Meets, so you'll need a way to be able to join those as well as a webcam and mic (which you'll also need for the game itself).

What Maddie brings to the table

This game is full of fun, madcap humor and opportunities for roleplay, so I'll be providing tons of voices and interaction for you! I also am a huge fan of using background ambience and music, so expect both sounds and music as well as the use of background images, and maps when it's needed! I also love creating a full "vibe" and ambience for the game, which will include me sometimes doing my makeup and dressing slightly "on-theme" (not fully dressing up though, unless we decide that's something we'd like). You should feel no pressure to join me in on this, but think of me like your fun "Ms. Frizzle Energy" D&D teacher! In that vein, you can expect regular pauses in gameplay, especially at the start, so you can feel free to stop and ask questions, we will go slow and work through how certain aspects of gameplay work (utilizing things like screensharing to showcase turns in combat, how your turn will look, and that sort of thing). I also have Google Docs readily available that I created to help new players that can act as "cheat sheets" for the basics of things like how combat and spellcasting work. Those and more will be available for you to access and refer to on your own! You'll also find that I'm never going to be that DM that gets on you if you forget a rule or accidentally break one. We all make mistakes, even me! If I do choose to correct you on something in the moment I will always do so with gentleness, but if I choose to let it slide in the moment I'll always be sure to follow up after the session one-on-one just to clarify. In my real-life teaching experience I pride myself in being able to teach my students the "why and how" of what I'm teaching so that they have a basis to work from to help understand the concepts of what they're learning. So I bring this into my GMing as well! I'll always try to explain the reasoning behind certain rules (either in the source material or my homebrewed rules), but am always open to giving further explanation or explaining things in a different way to make things easier for folks with different "brain styles" so to speak, something I really pride myself in in my real-life teaching!

Homebrew rules

- Magic items automatically attune in my games, I also don't limit the number of magic items you can be attuned to unless it truly gets out of hand - Critical hits double the damage dice you roll - Flanking gives you advantage on your attack rolls - Drinking a potion counts as a bonus action. This also goes for things like switching your weapon, removing or putting on small items such as gloves or rings, etc. My reasoning for this hinges on "How much time/effort does this take?" So in this case, popping a cork off a potion bottle and quickly chugging it takes a short enough time that I can see it as a bonus action. But popping that cork off a bottle of poison and taking the time to coat your dagger in it is going to take a long enough time it fits more as a full action. This does mean that I am open to contesting rulings on this. If you feel like you can make a case that your character quickly popping out a hidden dagger from their wrist gauntlet and stabbing someone next to them will take a short enough amount of time that you think it should count as a bonus action or reaction, you are more than welcome to make a case for that!

How Maddie creates a safe table

Leading up to the game starting I will be creating two Google forms (descriptions below) and sending the links out so that everyone can submit their answers privately. I'll then compile the answers from each of these into shared documents for everyone to review and for us to discuss in our session 0, which will be a free session with everyone on Google Meets to get to meet each other before our first session and go over more boundaries, homebrew rules, review other desires for the game, get to know each other, and just build a general basis for how the campaign will look. The Google forms will be the space for you to respond to these aspects: 1. "Lines and Veils" (boundaries within the game) 2. "Want/Will/Won't" lists (more on boundaries combined with what you want out of a game) I'll also be offering short (15-20 minute) "debrief" time after each session for folks to ask questions, talk about what we felt did work, what didn't work, and so on. I'll also send out Google forms after each session for everyone to provide feedback in the form of "stars and wishes" as well as general thoughts on the session, just so that you can take the time to fill that out on your own time and put thought into it and be able to provide that feedback privately. X, N, & Os will be over message, however I do allow players to hold up a "white flag" as a means to ask for a time out for ANY reason, just so if you don't feel comfortable speaking up mid-session to ask us to stop/pause then there is a subtle non-verbal way to do this.