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so surprisingly my college age daughter has expressed an interest in D&D.
its been years since ive looked at it so i thought i'd ask you guys where would be the best place to start for a 0 experience person?
books for mood and setting?
rulebooks?
It's been decades since I last played but I guess the important thing is finding people to play with. She might not need any books at all if she plans to join an existing group of players. If she does join a group they will be best placed to say what books she does or does not need.
You say she is of college age. Is she at college? If so then depending on the size of the college there is likely to be a Roleplaying / Board game society there. Or at least a community that caters to such tastes in the town of her college.
College is a great time to start playing D&D. I think the best thing to do is figure out which version that's currently being played - which is probably the main WOTC version that you'd see in any shop. There are loads of other versions of D&D too - Pathfinder or OSR games or older editions that people like to play.
So if you find a group, find out what they're playing. It's probably just the most recent version, but the playerbase has fractured a bit, and if your daughter is a total newbie she will have piles of fun playing regardless of version.
Personally, I'm not a fan of the more modern rulesets any more because I think they over complicate the experience and have gone for cheaper and to me more accessible versions. But it's a safe bet that your daughter will end up getting at least the Player's Handbook, maybe the Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual for the current edition and having a lot of fun with it.
Do you want only name brand D&D or 5e style OGL offshoots as well? Or even older editions redone in modern formats/presentation?
If the first, Id say go for the new Borderlands starter set with as easy to learn all inclusive one box experience you can get with current 2024 edition official D&D.
I’ve been enjoying Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures, available from Drivethru RPG (I picked up the hardback rulebook, it’s great).
It has DnD at its core, but starts the characters out in a village, with character generation done via playbooks that establish their ‘class’, their connections to the village and NPCs, and each other.
It’s got a YA novel setting/tone/conceit that can be embraced or ignored, and several dials and options that can be turned on and off.
It is simpler than 5e, and all you really need is the core book. I really like it (speaking as a DnD player for the last 40 odd years.
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warboss wrote: Do you want only name brand D&D or 5e style OGL offshoots as well? Or even older editions redone in modern formats/presentation?
If the first, Id say go for the new Borderlands starter set with as easy to learn all inclusive one box experience you can get with current 2024 edition official D&D.
Yup, it is always worth remembering that the fact that D&D is the most well known RPG*, it doesn't mean it is the best, either in general terms or for a given specific player in particular.
(*- just like MTG is the most known card game, Warhammer the most known miniatures wargame, or Monopolt the most known board game and I would call neither of them the top pick in their category)
Functionally though the best RPG is the one that the people you want to play with are playing. It's really rare that a good group will be unfun to play with because of a system whereas a bad group will be no fun to play with regardless of system.
Now when you get established there's lots of scope for trying out different games. But when joining a group it's a bit hard to be like "Oh hey, I heard this game I've never played is great, wanna swap over to playing that?"
I personally don't like official D&D very much but I'd play it fairly happily with a nice group.
I'm at the point where I'm fine with playing 5e but not DMing it without so many house rules/homebrew that it would be instead more accurately described as a d20/OGL game.
Da Boss wrote: Functionally though the best RPG is the one that the people you want to play with are playing. It's really rare that a good group will be unfun to play with because of a system whereas a bad group will be no fun to play with regardless of system.
Now when you get established there's lots of scope for trying out different games. But when joining a group it's a bit hard to be like "Oh hey, I heard this game I've never played is great, wanna swap over to playing that?"
I personally don't like official D&D very much but I'd play it fairly happily with a nice group.
Absolutely! It is just worth it to do at least a little research not to miss out on a much more fitting option a newbie group would just not even know about otherwise.
It's the case of some people learning board gaming is in its golden age nowadays, going to a shop and getting Monopoly, because that's the only board game they know. Is there a chance they will have fun with Monopoly? Absolutely, as a group of friends they might have fun doing anything, really. Are they missing out on what the medium has to offer and possibly something that would be much more to their taste? 100%
For example when I was that age, my RPG group consisted mostly of girls. We didn't play D&D. They were crazy about the World of Darkness, though. It turns out most of them weren't into min-maxing a clunky miniature skirmish dressed as an RPG but really enjoyed the deep intrigue of Vampire or closely-knit relations in a Werewolf community.
Agree with both Da Boss and Cyel. Find the group first, then find the game to fit the group.
Does her college have a gaming group / society she can get involved with? My son went to Warhammer and D&D clubs at school, and now goes to a D&D club at college. If she's only tentatively interested, learning to run a game and recruiting a group to play it with is really going in at the deep end.
NB I'm assuming the USian OP means college age to be 18 to early 20s, attending university? Here in the UK college and university are distinct things, college is age 16-18 and comes before university. Just checking as meeting people aged 16 is slightly different to meeting people as an adult...
I started with my brother, my friend and my friend's brother - playing old D&D, the 1980s BECMI boxes. That was aged about 12-13 I think. Then at secondary school a different group coalesced, and we played Shadowrun and Vampire: The Masquerade. Now I'm in a third group with my brother and some of his friends playing Vampire, Call Of Cthulhu, and a 40K homebrew cobbled together from Call Of Cthulhu.
I mean, I say 'playing now' - if a group that meets maybe once a year, and hasn't met for a couple of years at this point, counts as 'playing now'...
Yeah like the biggest hurdle with modern D&D is making a character. There's a lot of choices you don't really have context for and it's not a very easy process. So I'd suggest a pre-gen character can work well to start with if you are worried about/not interested in that part.
Once you have a character playing is actually relatively simple - you just describe what you want to do and then people will help you to figure out which dice to roll and what counts as success. If you have abilities they will be generally self contained and explain themselves when you go to use them.
I'm of the view that OD&D from the 70s cleaned up into a more comprehensible retroclone is the easiest D&D to make a character in and therefore the easiest to start, because you don't need to make choices really as you roll up your character and then generally pick a class based on your best stat and there's never any going back and modifying what you've done before, picking skills or feats or any of that guff.
Honestly, if you are completely new to the game and are not hoping in with a gaming group with experience. The best thing to do it grab the starter set of the most modern version and use the pregen characters to start.
If you try to jump in by buying all the books and trying to learn with no frame of reference it may be too difficult. I mean the game itself isn't hard to pick up but it becomes super easy if you start playing with people who are experienced. If you don't have that, take the easy route to get your feet wet then you can jump in harder if you enjoy it.
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Where did she learn about D&D in the first place? There's groups out there on social networks. I've also seen gaming groups on Meetup. Otherwise I guess it depends on what her expectations are. I'm not much for anything beyond 3.5, in fact if I were to start up again, I'd probably switch to Dungeon Crawl Classics.
Also getting into any rules-heavy system might be quite discouraging on its own. First of all there might be noone willing to read thoroughly (or at all) thorugh a thick book. Also constantly browsing, checking and consulting a book, doing calculations and having the game slow down to a tedious multi-hour crawl where players mostly wait, bored, for their turn every time a fight happens might not be seen as helping the experience of the colaborative storytelling at all. In fact, here's my proposal for a complete set of RPG rules summarized in six points that allows for an unlimited range of stories:
1. Choose a setting with the GM.
2. Create a character within that setting.
3. Write down two things the character is exceptionally good at and two things they are definitely weak at.*
4. Play.
5. When a situation arises where the outcome is uncertain, roll a d6. On a 3+, you succeed, and on a 1-2, you fail.
6. If it's a situation that can be associated with the character's strengths or weaknesses, the player rolls 2d6 and chooses the higher or lower result, respectively.
(* - of similar weight and not, for example, "excellent physical fitness" vs. "poor knowledge of Nigerian silent cinema.")
I also recommend excellent videos from Quinns Quest, made by Quinns of Shut Up & Sit Down fame. This guy can really hype all these amazingly varied titles, so more research and self-constraint is needed before commiting But it can widen the choice of exciting options without the need to go for the most generic, bland one just because of its popularity. Honestly, Mythic Bastionland and Heart are absolutely on my list of "would love to try" after his reviews anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/@Quinns_Quest/videos - all reviews on the channel are excellent - they are released rarely but it's easy to see why. They are not "let's flip through the book on camera" type of (so-called) reviews but come from actual experience with the system. Some examples:
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2026/02/07 09:47:18
Lots of good advice here. I happen to have started a new D&D campaign last June, which is cross-generational, so it's got first-gen geezers like me and a couple of my kids, who are college age.
We settled on 5e D&D but use the 2015 printing because they are cheaper. Books are a prime consideration, and if you can buy used, you can save a ton of money down the stretch. If you move beyond the "branded" stuff, there is a lot out there, and the only downside of picking one of the roads less traveled is interoperability later on.
For those of a certain age, 5e is very much a return to the old paperback book boxed set. In fact, the old modules port over very easily, and because I've been in stillborn campaigns before, I ran modifications of my old stuff until it was clear that the campaign was going to hang around.
Like Basic D&D, the power curve is flatter, so armor doesn't become useless because everyone hits THAC0 (remember that?) on a 3 by the time they reach 9th level. Instead of boosting stats and bonuses, it gives more subtle upgrades. It also discusses (regrettably not in as much detail as I would like) the idea of plot-driven XP awards, which our group loves (particularly the Grognards who recall it taking years of killing huge ancient red dragons to level up).
There are various bound campaign books out there, and these were a godsend to my daughter when she decided to relieve me of DMing duties. They run from levels 1 to 15 so basically the lifespan of most characters. Plenty of room to switch stuff around and improvise, but it takes a lot of the creative load off of the DM. We liked the first book so much we got a second and are running a 'relief' campaign while the DM recovers from jaw surgery.
I'll also note that much of the rules are now online, which has obvious advantages and disadvantages. No lugging books for the smart phone set!
She might check around on social media of local shops, many have a RPG night and always looking for new players.
Here's an example of a recent post of Miniature Market, I know that might not be local for her, but if she just wants to try a game, it's a place to good start.
https://www.instagram.com/miniature_market/p/DUvhyjODN1b/
It reallty depends on what edition, or game system, they are using. What systems we prefer or want to advocate for aren't really pertinet find out which they are actually using and then we can go from there. The basic needs are still generally in play in that players need a Players Handbook and the DM will also need a Dungeon Masters Guide and Monster Manual.
Unless it is 3/3.5 then I'm afraid you might have to disown her.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2026/02/17 22:21:26
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
The WORST thing she can do is go to the local shop to find a game. That is where all the folks who failed to be accepted into a home game congregate.*
However, at college there is often groups organized and in safe places at the college to learn to play. Heck, my local library even has a "Learn to Play D&D" night now-a-days. This is not like in the days of old where you had to go on a quest of your own to find people to play D&D with.
*= This bit is blatant elitism on my part.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2026/02/24 02:21:17
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The WORST thing she can do is go to the local shop to find a game. That is where all the folks who failed to be accepted into a home game congregate.*
Well, after the main character of "The No-Girlfriend Rule" gets burned when trying to join a store group, she finds another, friendly, full-girl one by checking the announcements board in said store. So maybe visiting a local store might prove helpful after all.
You could... but at that point you'd probably be better off just replaying Baldur's Gate 3 or downloading new fan created mod adventures for Neverwi ter Nights or something. Also,
Yup, RPGs devoid of the social interaction element are pretty pointless. There are solo board games that can do the thing more effectively, but I doubt anyone who's looking to try RPGs is thinking of a solitary experience.
(Also a reason why I'd never want to play RPGs with random strangers. They are much more personal, emotional and intimate in how they are experienced and quite different from wargames or boardgames in that respect.)
(Also a reason why I'd never want to play RPGs with random strangers. They are much more personal, emotional and intimate in how they are experienced and quite different from wargames or boardgames in that respect.)
So no convention one shot games then? I had a blast going to Gencon for over a decade and playing hundreds of games with strangers fwiw. It's not the same exact experience as playing with long time friends in a dedicated campaign but it is fun in other related ways.
Cyelepends on the game. You can dungeon bash with lighthearted comedy roleplaying for years without ever touching on anything serious and have an absolute whale of a time the entire way.
That said, I generally try to rope people I already like into my games than going to find strangers who are also there for the game, because I'd rather be confident about hanging out with someone once a week for three hours or so for potentially years before I start.
Convention games are no problem though, because there's no expectation I have to play with any of them again. And you can meet really cool people that way.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2026/02/26 18:59:05
One-offs and simple dungeon crawls? No, not really. When I want something like that I'd rather get a dc board game out - easier to prepare, manage, learn/teach and set up with rules more tailored to this type of experience.
Honestly, as RPG rules are usually all over the place (to cover the vast range of possible situations) and (like Warhammer) usually are based on old, uninteresting mechanics (wait 10 minutes for your turn to see if you roll a miss) they don't really offer a compelling combat/exploration ruleset that can compete in that category with a lean, elegant, focused board game like Gloomhaven, Tidal Blades 2 or Machina Arcana. Seriously, after 30+ years in the hobby I am still waiting to find an RPG that has combat that isn't tedious or random or devoid of interesting decisions (when compared to said boardgames or good miniature wargames). Usually it's all three.
Also, not a necessity, but like with tv series it takes some episodes for characters to present what kind of people they are, so their interactions with the world and each other are much more engaging (whether dramatic or funny). Even when I first played BG3 with my wife, I created my character, Rosalya, a halfling wizard just as a tongue-in-cheek counter to her Lizardman Paladin...but by the end of the adventure I've grown to love Rosalya so much, as she just grew as a believable , compelling character through how she behaved in the situations in the game.
So yeah, while I technically see the option of one-off RPG sessions and focus on mechanics of combat and exploration instead of role-play, for me it robs RPGs of all of their strengths and puts their weaknesses in the limelight, while, at the same time other gaming genres do one-off / combat / exploration / gamified puzzle much better.
I think you need very little in the way of mechanics to do interesting exploration in an RPG, and in fact very simple mechanics can also give interesting and satisfying tactical and strategic play.
And you roleplay just as much in exploration or combat as you do in social situations - social interactions should be part of the exploration anyway in a good dungeon game.
I could run a good dungeon exploration game in almost any system I think, because the system isn't the main thing - it's having designed an interesting environment to explore with lots of interesting things in it to interact with, which is something you hardly need rules for at all. And once you've made your cool dungeon, you can re-use it easily especially with strangers or once offs.
You could... but at that point you'd probably be better off just replaying Baldur's Gate 3 or downloading new fan created mod adventures for Neverwi ter Nights or something. Also,
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But it can widen the choice of exciting options without the need to go for the most generic, bland one just because of its popularity. Honestly, Mythic Bastionland and Heart are absolutely on my list of "would love to try" after his reviews anyway.
epends on the game. You can dungeon bash with lighthearted comedy roleplaying for years without ever touching on anything serious and have an absolute whale of a time the entire way.