Not long ago someone posted this on Facebook in the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition forum. Needless to say everyone went off about it. Many of the people thought that OP was saying his girlfriend would not be able to game on the level of anyone else because she was a girl. Some people implied that everyone should be given an easy class to start, others argued that you should start with a difficult class. Others thought he was calling his girlfriend dumb, while others assumed she was dumb and posted for him to make her play a simple class and to stand at the back out of the way.
It was funny to see how many people read this a different way and why OP even posted it this way to start. He could have worded this completely differently saying that she wasn't understanding the game and wanted something easy to learn from or if he thought she would be overwhelmed and never gave her books to see if she would surprise him by coming to the game prepared and fully understanding.
Reguardless of what he actually meant, if someone wants to learn a game it depends on the way they learn. If the person wants to come to a game and learn while playing, they may quickly find that playing a simple class was a terrible choice as the game unfolds and they pick it up quick, they may want to change not having known how quickly they would grasp everything and realize they could be doing so much more. If the person is the type to learn from the books, they may have read everything and come to the game completely prepared and blow your mind at how much they have latched together to create a top notch character, not needing to start easy at all.
I would shy away from finding something easy and giving it to someone to play if they truly want to start playing D&D. The best way is to find out how they learn and teach from there, that person you thought you needed to dumb the game down for might just surprise you with how fast they take to it after all.
Depends on what level they would start at?
ReplyDeleteIf you are starting at level 1 or 2 then everything is all the same, make what you want.
I have a brand spanking new player and we are going to run a 18th level, 4 or 5 session, I have many times mentioned they should just make a Fighter (Champion), it is just simpler.
We shall see how bad or well they play this 18th level Paladin?
Even starting at level one vs level 18. If the player is coming to the game with the mindset of having read all the books and understands the abilities, they are ready to either pick and choose the best abilities for a level 18 build vs someone who got to level 18 by picking abilities along the way. Those abilities that worked at that time but didn't add up to a goal by 18th are nowhere as good as the one coming in at 18th.
DeleteIf they had no idea of the rules and came in at 18th they are still going to struggle with either an advanced character (and have work to do to learn the class) or still fumble with the many abilities granted to their 18th level fighter even with the mindset of just kill the bad guys.
Will be interesting to see how they do with the Pally, but could surprise you. Never know until the player shows how fast they can pick up the game. :)