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Forums » Smalltalk » Suggestions to Get Into DND?

Gab

Just like the title said, I want to get into DND. Are there any suggestions on how to start/places I could go to do so?
Claine Moderator

You should Google to see if there are any pick-up games in your city.

There's D&D Adventurer's League which has strong ties to Wizards of the Coast and follow strict guidelines. But many game shops aren't part of this official program and have casual, guest-run games. These games are full of friendly people who are happy to help out newcomers :)
Gab Topic Starter

Claine wrote:
You should Google to see if there are any pick-up games in your city.

There's D&D Adventurer's League which has strong ties to Wizards of the Coast and follow strict guidelines. But many game shops aren't part of this official program and have casual, guest-run games. These games are full of friendly people who are happy to help out newcomers :)

I'll look around! Thanks, Claine!

Though, are there any online options that I could also look into?
For online, the Roll20 community forums are a big pond on the doorstep of one of the more accessible virtual tabletops.
Gab Topic Starter

sland wrote:
For online, the Roll20 community forums are a big pond on the doorstep of one of the more accessible virtual tabletops.

Ah, I actually just signed up for that! Currently trying to figure out how the site works, haha.
With the current licensing drama, you might have better luck finding new Pathfinder 2E games (different rules system, but if you're impartial to D&D 5E *shrug*) because a big chunk of the player base is moving over, and are probably starting new games and looking for players. If you're interested in that, then the Paizo.com forums have tons of play by post games too.
Gab Topic Starter

silentruth wrote:
With the current licensing drama, you might have better luck finding new Pathfinder 2E games (different rules system, but if you're impartial to D&D 5E *shrug*) because a big chunk of the player base is moving over, and are probably starting new games and looking for players. If you're interested in that, then the Paizo.com forums have tons of play by post games too.

Oh, there's drama? I didn't know.

And thanks, I'll check it out!
To say the least. Reddit lawyers can probably give you a better run down than I should.
Also - r/LFG may also be a good place to start for any game
Yeah WotC are really shooting themselves in the foot right now. Paizo's PF2 support has gone up quite a lot because of it, and PF2 is the closest thing to D&D 5e right now.

You may also want to look at other systems like Dungeon World (which isn't a d20 system but it does have all the fantasy trappings baked into it) and I'm sure others can recommend other similar systems.

Having said that, there are still people who play 5e if your heart is set on it. Try r/LFG and its adjacent Discord, which is a general purpose LFG (looking for game/group) subreddit but most of the people there are looking for 5e and PF2.

Try looking for someone who wants to run Icespire Peak, the current 5e "new player" onboarding campaign. You may also want to play Lost Mines of Phandelver which everyone started with before Icespire Peak released.

If you want any older editions of D&D than 5e, you're gonna have to look. If you wanted to investigate OneD&D (the new thing) almost nobody is playing it yet and people will likely stick with 5e for a while yet.

I hope this helps!

Edit: Also, if you find anyone advertising D&D 3.5 campaigns, be warned that these often use Pathfinder 1e rules and you might end up having to read 2 SRDs/wikis which can be quite overwhelming. Ask any GMs running 3.5 if they're running it raw or using anything from PF. (This was a mistake I made early and it made the campaign hard to keep track of by a lot.)
Aardbei wrote:

Edit: Also, if you find anyone advertising D&D 3.5 campaigns, be warned that these often use Pathfinder 1e rules and you might end up having to read 2 SRDs/wikis which can be quite overwhelming. Ask any GMs running 3.5 if they're running it raw or using anything from PF. (This was a mistake I made early and it made the campaign hard to keep track of by a lot.)

Also like .. I LOVE Pathfinder 1E, and it was the first system I've ever played, but I would never start a new player on that.. If ever. Now that second edition is out. The math is so tight and it's so much just easier to run and learn.

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