As a new player, it is important to know what type of time commitment does it take to play your first game or session of Dungeons and Dragons.
As a new player, you will likely start with what is called a one-shot, an adventure with no expectation of an on-going story. For players, a typical one-shot session can go for 3 to 4 hours. If you are going to the be the Dungeon Master, then you will probably have 2 to 3 hours of preparation time.
In your first session, if you’re the Dungeon Master, you’ll need to decide whether or not to pre-generate characters. This means that you will go through the process of generating several characters for your players. You should make more characters than the players you have, so they have a variety of options.
Pre-Session Preparation: Generating Characters
Pre-generating characters will allow your new players to focus on learning the basics of how to play. Creating a character can feel overwhelming as there are many choices. Doing so without know how the game is played means your players are making choices in character creation without the context of what those choices mean.
Pre-generating characters will also allow your group to focus more of its time on the adventure. Even with players who know what they’re doing, creating characters together can take upwards of an hour. That’s time your players could instead spend exploring dark dungeons or ancient ruins. If you’re not using the pre-generated characters from the Starter Set, you do not need to completely fill out the character sheets.
You should follow the character creation steps from The Player’s Handbook. Pick the race, class, and statistics. I recommend that you use the Standard Array, rather than rolling each character’s Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. The next steps are picking the character’s background and equipment.
You should just pick the starting equipment for each of your characters. Write in the name of the equipment on the sheets, including the weapons and armor. Do not write in the weapon and armor’s statistics on the sheet. Instead, have your players fill in the attack bonus, damage dice, damage bonus for the weapons. This teachers your players where to find that information on their character sheet.
Next, teach them how to calculate their armor class and fill in that information. Do not have them calculate the saving throw values, save that when you’re playing the game. This is also true with the skill values, with one small exception. You do not want your players to feel overwhelmed. But have them fill in the Initiative Bonus.
The one exception is character backgrounds. You can select them if you want to just jump right into the adventure. But selecting a background will allow your players to customize, to personalize their characters. Within most backgrounds, there is a skill choice or a tool proficiency choice, plus an item. This allows you to teach them about skills and proficiencies without overwhelming them with choice.
Speaking of feeling overwhelmed, let us talk about spell choices. This is the ultimate analysis paralysis. There is nothing wrong with picking all of the spell caster’s spells. But I would not fill in the Spell Save DC and Spell Attack Bonus. You will want your spell casting characters to fill those in to learn where to find those numbers.
If you want to give your spell casters some choice, then I recommend not selecting their cantrips. For most classes, the cantrip list is not overwhelming. This will let your players customize the character. The one exception might be the Wizard. Wizards have the most expansive spell list, including cantrips. You may want to present the wizard player with a curated list of cantrips.
Assuming you know how to create characters, you’re an experienced Dungeon Master, it should take you fifteen to twenty minutes per character. If you’re just as new as your players, it may take you thirty minutes to an hour to make your first character. But for each subsequent character, it should become faster and more efficient.
Pre-Session Preparation: Learning the Adventure
If you are a new Dungeon Master and have never played Dungeons and Dragons, then I do not recommend creating your own adventure. It would be like being asked to paint a cat having never seen one. You want the first session to be successful for you and your players. Dungeons and Dragons has three beginner sets: The Starter Set, The Essentials Kit, and the Stranger Things Starter Set. These are designed for new players and new Dungeon Masters.
I have read the adventure in The Starter Set and the Essentials Kit, but not the Stranger Things Set. If you have the time, I recommend that new Game Masters read the entire adventure front to back. The time it’ll take should be an hour or two, depending on your reading and comprehension speed.
This step is important, even though your first session may only deal with the first few handful of pages. Players have an uncanny knack of turning left when you fully expected them to turn right or even go straight ahead. Reading the entire adventure will help plant seeds to let you improvise in reaction to unexpected player choices.
For the Starter Set Adventure, your first session will likely get the party through Part 1: Goblin Arrows and maybe into the Part 2: Phandalin. Even if they somehow steamroll through Part 1 in ninety minutes, you should still end the session with the party entering the streets of Phandalin. The new Dungeon Master will want to be fresh for the various non-player characters in the town and adventure seeds.
With the Essentials Kit, it requires more improvisation by the Dungeon Master. There is a Job Board outside the Mayor’s Office in Phandalin. Starting characters have a choice of three different jobs or adventures to choose from. You will not know which one your players will choose.
You will want to read about the various non-player characters (NPC) in Phandalin. Unlike the Starter Set, your party will be given the option to meet these NPCs at the start of the session while the Dungeon Master is still fresh. Then you’ll need to read the first three adventures associated with the starting jobs.
I recommend that you end the first session too soon rather than too late. You want to leave your players wanting more, not thinking when will this session end. With the Essentials Kit, whether that means ending after completing one or two of the starting jobs is a call you will have to make.
At the risk of repeating myself, you will definitely want to read all of the various adventure locations. When I ran my group through the Essentials Kit, they ignored all three of the starting jobs. They instead went after a rumor they heard in the Inn. The fun of Dungeons and Dragons is reacting and responding to unexpected twists and turns as you and your group tell a story together.
For players, the first session will be played over three to four hours. The first thirty to forty-five minutes will be spent completing their pre-generated character sheets. But for the new Dungeon Master, you will want to budget two to three hours, maybe four if you have a lot of players, of preparation time.
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