Dungeons and Dragons players, can anyone help?

[BigBlueTeapot]

I appear to have committed a faux pas.

I saw on a local FB page someone setting up a D and D group. My autistic young adult has wanted to join a group for ages so I signed them up. It wasn't clear in the post it was for experienced players only.

They are meeting for the first time next week to start a new campaign

It has now transpired that the others in the group are experienced D and D ers and two or three don't want my youngster joining as a newbie. The DM says it's ok though.

My youngster like a lot of autistic people has done a bunch of research and understands in theory how D and D works

Is he going to ruin the game somehow? Is there anything he can do to get up to speed before session zero? I am worried the others will be hostile to him and it's the first event he is willingly leaving the house to go to for a couple of years. Would it be better to just pull him out? I am reluctant to if it's salvageable, because he really could do with a regular group like this to get out of the house.

Yes it's 5E
What are Tashs and mordenkainens?

Good tip on spell cards - would that be best avoided as a newbie playing with experienced players? So he doesn't fumble around with the cards too much and ruin the flow?

If I were joining a new group (which I haven't for a while) I would probably volunteer to play a "support class" with healing abilities, as most players want to be the Big Damn Hero and those people love the medics who keep them fighting.

Oh he should deffo have some idea about what he wants to be!

We have a pixie, barbarian and bugbear druid so far ...plus undecided players. what would go well with them?

They're supplements with additional rules and idea. D&D like most hobbies can sprawl in many different directions so groups tend to use basic rules + add-ons to taste (and budget).

Spell cards speed things up. They're just like index-cards for each of your abilities rather than having to look them up in the rulebook every single time.

They are expansion books which have extra bits for classes and spells and stuff.

I wouldn't have thought spell cards would ruin the flow we use them and some of our players have been going since 1e,

I would agree with a support character that buffs others like a cleric or a tank fighter/ranger because often no one wants to do that and you need one. I would also recommend human as it's a good all rounder unless everyone else is a race with night vision then maybe half ef

OP, your thread has caught the eye of lots of experienced players. They might well disagree with me but I would go for a really boring-on-paper character that would be super-straightforward to play, like a Human Cleric. I guarantee that everyone will love that pick.

Snap!

That's what I was. Called Mother Agnes. Ah, happy days

Ok reading the chat it does mentions Tasha's and mordenkainens are ok but no one else mentions those later
I will buy a 5e rule book for him to study and suggest he consider playing as a human cleric

Sounds like a great plan to let him go to the first session and sound it out. What a lovely mum you sound. There's so many groups out there, so remind him this one isn't the be all and end all but it's worth giving it a try if the DM is happy. (I'm a reluctant dnd widow and know far more than I ever wanted to... I even do artwork based on the characters and my husband uses my (frankly, brilliant) character in his campaigns as DM)

Good luck to you both! And well done for trying to be a DM even if it didn't work out, not every parent would even attempt it.

Invested in this now... come back with an update after session 0? 😀

DS is a fan (also ND) and we play D and D with him, my first character was a mountain dwarf, fighter class and I enjoyed that one the most as it was quite simple - just go round double axing baddies. Don't have to worry about spells or powers or anything too complicated.
Just checked with DS and apparently at level 3 you unlock a subclass and I chose Eldritch Knight which he said is a good starter class as it gives you a few useful spells but not an overwhelming amount so is a good introduction to spell casting but you still mostly go round hitting people.
I much preferred this to my later choices of High Elf Wizard or Paladin Dragon Born.

Ah just seen you have a pixie - that's race but what class?? No likely to be fighter I'm guessing, a Barbarian, they'll be a fighter and a druid which can do healing and spells so IMO really you can go either way (figher/spell caster). But as I say I'd recommend mountain dwarf fighter on my limited experience.

Oh no my reply has been hidden I think because I used the people that go with Snow white (there's 7 of them) and they think I'm being offensive. Fucks sake.

Please do come back and let us know how your DS gets on!

As a DM I drove him mad as I found all the dice rolling and calculating boring and tried to suggest we skipped over that bit and focused on the twists and turns of the story!

I will let you know how he gets on. I had such high hopes that this might give him a bit of a boost and I am kicking myself for not grasping the significance of new players Vs experienced!

I'm 58 and don't play any more - not sure i still have the brain power - certainly don't have the time!

I play World of Warcraft instead.

One of the other undecided players I have just spotted is thinking of adopting that role!

Such nostalgia in this thread!

Can I just say, a big thank you for coming on and helping, everyone.

I know it's a really nice and supportive community hence I was a bit taken back by people being not keen on a newbie - but I get it more now

Oh it's my favourite as it's lots of hitting with 2 axes and not having to worry about spells. I was a mountain Df, fighter class. We play with ds who is also ND. I've been Paladin and Wizard but didn't like them as much as too complicated, definitely keep it simple to start with!

DS say human cleric is the simplest spell caster so a good starter one if you want to do spells but is more complicated than a fighter. They're one of the tougher caster, not too squidgy. Human is the simplest race, as you just add one to all stats when you start. It's considered one of the 'worst' though because you can't boost your most useful stats and you don't have good attributes such as being able to see in the dark or other extra abilities.

When I have run games, various settings, not just D&D, I always go for storytelling over combat. I am currently running a science-fiction game with a bunch of work colleagues (yes, really!) in which one laser shot is typically deadly and there's no magical healing, so we don't roll dice all that often. BUT horses for courses and most players love the strategic combat.

This might be a little de-railing, but if anyone on this thread likes the idea of tactical combat, has some willing friends or family, but can't find an RPG group or a DM... the last five years have seen the publication of a whole bunch of Big Expensive Boardgames sometimes called "DnD in a box." I've played a few of them with my kids and they work really well as two/three player epic campaigns. (There are card-or-dice systems for running what the baddies do.)

Update
I messaged the DM (who was supporting my kid joining) and alerted him in the group chat, as we are not connections so he would have to find my message request. The message was an apology about not understanding the group was intended for experienced players, and a little extra info re his social anxiety.

This triggered a message from someone clarifying that it was their group set up by them.

So...I decided that there is definitely some prickliness in the group about my youngster being included and I don't feel like that is the right supportive setting for a person with high social anxiety on their first social outing with strangers in several years. I have withdrawn from the group with apologies and asked to be included if a newbies group is set up.

I feel bereft. I had such hope that this would get him out of the house regularly and mixing again.

Oh that's such a shame
I'm sorry to read this OP

Oh no, I'm sorry to hear that, but it sounds like the right call.

One idea. Do you live in a university city? Some but not all university RPG or Boardgame clubs are open to non-students as well, and this is the ideal time of year with Freshers' Week in most places, so there would be a lot of new people looking to make friends.