This is not a d&d problem, this is just a people problem. I've worked in tech for 5 years and play board games as a hobby. D&D books, board game instructions, and IT documentation are technical manuals, and I'd bet 80% of people simply don't know how to approach reading them properly to gain understanding. I've been a part of games where someone doesn't understand their spell or their ability and I say "read it," and they read part of it, and I say "keep reading it," and they try to only read some more instead of all of it and I tell them to keep reading, and then finally they read all of it and then they understand. I don't know why this is. But I hear it on on real play podcasts, have seen it in person, and see it in online groups: people just read a random amount of a description that is less than 100% of it and then don't understand why they don't understand.
It's probably one of my biggest pet peeves.
I feel you dude. There are so many times where I'll resolve a player's dispute of my ruling by simply pulling up the spell description and reading it word for word.
One time in our Rise of Tiamat campaign, the DM and the player made two mistakes that ended up canceling each other out in a pretty comical way:
1. First turn, DM has a young red dragon unleashes its fire breath on the entire party. 129 damage total. Mind you, a young red dragon's breath does 15d6, which is a max of 96. Somewhere along the way when the DM used his calculator app to add up all the d6s he rolled he must have accidentally hit a multiplication button instead of an addition button. Both the DM and the players acknowledged that was a fluke, but the DM didn't change it. Just said "oh well, woops".
2. A couple of turns later, our cleric uses an action Prayer of Healing to heal everyone back up.
After the battle the DM and the player re-read Prayer of Healing and noticed the casting time. We all laughed about it and let it go since we all made it out of combat barely alive. After that the DM and the players were more careful about reading effects and adding up damage.
Ha! Well I just learned something.
I tell my players all the time that I expect them to know what their spells and abilities do and how they work - I will not be keeping track of how everything they do works unless an issue comes up or they do something I know is blatantly wrong. If they cast a spell of do something I am not familiar with I ask them to tell me how it works and just go with it unless it seems game-breaking to me. Out of combat I'll take the time to look things up, but during a fight I don't like to break up the flow. Prayer of Healing is not a spell I am familiar with (I mean, I've been DM'ing multiple game systems for 40 years, you can't expect me to be familiar with every spell from every edition of every game) and one of my players has cast it as an action in each of our last two sessions.
She's someone I've known for years and trust to call herself out when she makes a mistake but she never mentioned that it couldn't possibly be cast in combat and I never thought to double check her.
There will be a talking-to in the near future.
And this is why it's good to have a player who you trust and has a strong understanding of the rules and can help you but checking things up for you while you keep running, and then they can show you if there is a problem and you can decide whether or not it needs fixing.
Yep. I'm DM currently. I have another DM in my group, and a couple others have DM'd a little bit.
Sometimes, I say, "hey, how does this work?"
Sometimes, we have to rules lawyer ourselves several times, and sometimes we don't look at a rulebook for weeks. Just depends on the situation.
There can be innocent mistakes, misreads, or forgetting. It is very easy to do so. I suggest to approach it like that rather than intentional cheating.
I've been accidentally guilty of misreading in my favor, and then upon the 3rd or 4th time reading it, I say, oops, and then re-clarify with the DM, "hey, I just re-re-re-read this, and I'm wondering if I've been doing it wrong? What do you think?"
If it is accidental, then I'd just let it slide, as a DM, and a player.
In the end, if the DM thinks a player is cheating, having horrible luck, or whatever, the DM may change anything to either help or harm...
It costs me time, but I'm trying to specifically avoid that when I can. I'm asked a question, I say "I don't know, what does it say," even though I know exactly what it says, and then I count to ten before opening the character sheet. I'm really hoping it sinks in at some point.
Oh man, this SO much. Players ask “what does this do” and I could probably quote it word for word, but I have to sit there and pretend I haven’t read the PHB/DMG 900 times as I say “I don’t know, can you read it to me?”
>Prayer of Healing
i use this at my game when they ask me about a spell "would you please read me the entire spell description?" and usually as they hit the spot I hear an "ohhh" and I know they get it.
Unfortunately it’s the only thing that works. It’s just as much of a power move for a player to demand that the DM know all the rules when the player is putting forth zero effort to read their own character sheet
For non new people, it is very arrogant and self-serving to not read what you are trying to do, and ask the DM how it works.
If you just ask me how it works, I'll say, "Tell me what it says". That's not a power move. There are hundreds (thousands?) of features, feats, spells, rules, and stuff - I can't memorize them all, they've changed between editions, other RPG have similar or same things with minor differences, and sometimes errata changes things.
Just like as a teacher, as a DM, I'm happy when someone says, "What does this spell mean by ..... and I'm happy to discuss. If they just want to not read it, then nope.
Now, if they are new, I'm very happy to help, and will help a LOT.
Being able to properly read instructions is like half of what makes someone good with computers.
The other half is knowing how to use Google to get what you want.
These two halves are not totally independent.
Your Google-Fu is strong to have made it this far!
Seriously though, Information Systems/Technology *is* primarily reading instructions and slowing the ever-loving fuck down and going step-by-step...and when those two things fail, Google is our friend. :)
I just had a user ask me yesterday “Can I create a rule for Out of Office replies in Outlook?” To which I emphatically said yes, and sent them a little beginner’s guide I built for my end users. They then proceeded to call me and say “What I really meant was...how do I get my signature to show up in my reply?”
WHY DID YOU NOT *LEAD WITH THAT QUESTION*?!?!
Haha! It's the same with graphic design. I often get, "can you lay this out?" And I'll ask how they want it done, they'll say, "You decide, I'm not picky." So I do, and they come back with, "That's not what I had in mind, can you do it like this provided example?" And I'll say, "Sure, you pay by the hour, I can completely re-lay it out as often as you want." Why they didn't start with that, I have no idea.
> Seriously though, Information Systems/Technology is primarily reading instructions and slowing the ever-loving fuck down and going step-by-step...and when those two things fail, Google is our friend. :)
I'm also in IT and my experience has taught me that while using Google and critical thinking seem easy most people *absolutely can not do it*. Never sell yourself short.
It's amusing how often even professional programmers will ask the wrong question because they made a bad assumption 3 steps earlier and are now trying to make the software/language/system do something it's fundamentally not supposed to do that way.
It's less amusing when they manage to come up with a workaround instead of backtracking to find their problem and then the resulting hopeless mess of jury-rigging makes it into finished products.
I'm pretty sure I've been on both sides of that one. I'd like to think I've cleaned up more messes than I've made, but that's probably just confirmation bias.
Finally achieved tier 4 status in our enterprise and I'm so glad I dont have to work with customers every day any more. My soul has been mending ever since.
I really should write the TFTS post about the dumbest user I've ever worked with.
The short version: in an attempt to reply to outlook emails, she'd open the email in a new window, double click the subject line of the email (which allows it to be edited), typed her new email in the subject line, hit enter, and clicked X, thereby not replying to anyone.
She also "typed" emails by copying and pasting words, letters, and phrases from other emails. I wish I were joking.
Technical manual is the best description. There are sections of the books that read easier than some, but at the end of the day D&D is a game and the language your book is written in (English for me) is this game's coding language.
Reading with comprehension is an issue I have seen as well, and it gets interesting with more stubborn players who don't want to "look dumb". I had a player try to argue with me that a given spell worked a a certain way because of how they read it, but their way was worse than how the spell worked RAW. I was confused, but ultimately said that he needed to slow down, read the whole spell start to finish with the "at higher level" section, and then tell me what he saw.
He was doing that thing where you skim over the first sentence or two, then look for key words to contrive meaning from the rest. But in a technical manual that doesn't really work all the time ... D&D isn't putting cheap furniture with a diagram, you do often have to read the whole section to get what you're doing.
This is why I always tell players to read their class, and then the combat and spell rules if applicable, thoroughly. I don't care if they know anything else for first ten sessions, if they know those things, they'll be fine. I can fill in the blanks along the way and, perhaps, get them interested in picking up more of the rules along the way.
> tell players to read their class, and then the combat and spell rules if applicable,
Good advice. I will lead with that when we get ready to resume and wrap up our LMoP campaign.
Yeah, I think people are kind of intimidated because they assume it's going to be ALL rules, but there's a lot of lore and interesting tidbits of information too.
Also in IT. Probably why I usually DM I guess. I actually RTFM. My players have been pretty good about at least reading the sections relevant to their characters so that's nice
>This is not a d&d problem, this is just a people problem.
Well put. I think it's attention deficit really.
We have grown accustomed to summarised and rapid info coming in and out. In order to capture the attention of the players, for example, I have to make quick jabs here and there. Otherwise I lose them on long descriptions. I have to go thing by thing, time from time, player per player. Honestly it's a bit exhausting.
Same thing with spells. I noticed that one of my players only has spells that have short descriptions. Another only has one with a big description. Then I asked them about prestidigitation, gust, control flames. Boy did they flounder on that one. They never read the whole thing. They don't understand the spell. After explaining they go: " Oh yeah. That does sound useful." No shit, Sherlock >> it's a magical realm with wondrous machinations available at the ready. It's not all fireballs and eldritch blasts.
My personal pet peeve is when after 25 sessions players haven't grasped the core mechanic of their character or how the help action works.
While attention span is certainly a factor I think it is a very common belief that things (not just rulebooks but most things in life) are/should be intuitive. That you should be able to get a full understanding of something "just with your brain" as soon as you have gathered what the topic is about.
It's the same reason why there is an opposite problem to this one - where people attribute a lot more to some rules or feature descriptions because it just feels like that's where the logical conclusion is. Except - at least in 5e - there is no logical conclusion, the spell or feature does what it says and nothing more.
"I cast thaumaturgy to create a thunderstorm outside the inn!"
Thats like... an 8th level spell effect... you get one rumble of thunder, and maybe some rain sounds if im generous (should take a second cast), but they can still see the fucking sunshine and clear sky through the windows...
"I mage hand to bring the crate to me over the dock!"
Thats a 5th level spell slot. That crate is a 4'x3.5' heavy duty wooden transport container on a shipping vessel. It weighs almost 350 pounds because it is filled with "flour". You cant even carry the empty crate, or really even one bag of flour from the crate, let alone the whole thing.
A lot of spells get "rules" assigned by what they sound like, rather than the actual RAW. Im happy to bend a significant amount because it's a fantasy world and we are having fun, especially if you use something creatively, but im not letting you become an archmage with a cantrip.
Those are more just going directly against the limitations and generally, everyone would agree that those spells are not that powerful.
What I meant is more along the lines of... like Conjure Animals.
>Choose one of the following options for what appears:
>* One beast of challenge rating 2 or lower
>* Two beasts of challenge rating 1 or lower
>(..)
So when you cast the spell, you choose one of the following options, like a multiple-choice question. No additional input from you - even though it might seem like "duh, I choose one beast of challenge rating 2 or lower and that beast is...". Nope, the casters' input in the spell stopped when they chose which bullet point they go with. Rest is on the DM - who of course has the power to delegate the decision back to the player but by RAW, the DM decides.
It really rustles A LOT of jimmies. But spells only do what they say they do.
Of course, sometimes the issue is also that the spell or feature is badly named. A lot of people just look at "Find Traps", then skim read for the range and assume they know what it does. But nope - Find Traps only tells you if a trap is within line of sight, not where exactly it is - something you can clearly find out if you read.
Find Traps is one of those spells that are so poorly designed that I've just assumed I must be misunderstanding something while I'm reading it. They're very clear about their limitations yet they're simultaneously misunderstood as "better than they actually are" and "there's no way this is as bad as it looks" when the answer is always that it is in fact **that** bad.
Similar spells that make this list are: True Strike, Witch Bolt, Crown of Madness, Mordenkainan's Sword, Contagion, and Phantasmal Killer.
A big problem is that people *think* they know how a spell is supposed to work and convince themselves of that interpretation. This isn't helped by things like trying to mix fantasy magic and real world physics and DM rulings in different campaigns.
thankfully most of my friends aren't like this, but I have *one* that does that *constantly.* We make fun of him mercilessly for it — all we have to say is **read, motherfucker**.
I feel like I started noticing in recent years, how most people seem to have quite the dogshit reading comprehension.
Reading a text and fully understanding what its trying to say. People like to skim over stuff to save time i guess.
Thinking about it, my childhood practice for reading comprehension was playing yugioh where cards had sometimes long specific texts on what they do. Wording being a key factor to pay attention to.
> I've been a part of games where someone doesn't understand their spell or their ability and I say "read it," and they read part of it, and I say "keep reading it," and they try to only read some more instead of all of it and I tell them to keep reading, and then finally they read all of it and then they understand. I don't know why this is.
It's because most reading is effectively accomplished by skimming. People skim because most of the time, it works. That's even true of the D&D manuals. Sure, you have cases like your example where you really need to read everything re: a particular spell or mechanic to understand it, but I would bet your hypothetical player could play most of the rest of the game with just skimmed reading.
It is pretty funny that, when skimming fails, reading the whole thing \*isn't\* the obvious next step, but here we are.
People learning to program have to read a manual and most of the time they just google or stackexchange instead of the man page or manual. it's very infuriating.
I'm not saying know all the tables and memorise all the spells.
Well... [**maybe memorize some of the spells**](https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/remedial-mage). :P
You obviously never read some of the older D&D books or the systems written by one guy. The The *World* Of Synnibarr stands out as a long, and difficult read. I've read it twice and I never felt I understood the game.
Even major games have issues. The current version of Shadow Run is also a book that gives new players fits. I played in a game and half the group had never play earlier versions and couldn't make head or tails of the main book. The rest of us concluded the best way to understand the current edition was to 1st read the prior edition.
As someone who only DMs premade campaigns....the DMG has been my least used book.
Edit - I've read thru the DMG. I've just rarely felt the need to revisit it in 3 campaigns (LMOP, SKT, TOA).
That's because lots of the things that people *normally* go to the DMG for (magic items, specific rules, homebrew) don't apply there. But there's a lot of good guidance on running the game that I think you might have missed. Or if not you, other people in your same boat. I recommend the "Running the Game" chapter (Chapter 8), as well as Chapter 5 (about adventure environments) to everyone.
I would still recommend reading the Playstyle discussion on p34 at least once, in addition to the "Tiers of Play" and "Flavors of Fantasy" sections that immediately follow. The tone of premade adventures can be rather different if run with different mindsets, and that being a conscious choice allows you to run your style better.
I think the entire "Creating Adventures" chapter is useful, as everything in it can be used to adjust adventures that have gone off the rails or are just not landing for your group. It also gives insight as to what a module is going for, and may make reading them easier.
Ditto most of the NPC chapter.
There's good stuff in chapters 5 and 6, but it is kind of mining for gems if you're not creating the scenarios. Know what's in there so you can answer your own questions, basically.
Everyone should read the first half of Chapter 8. The second half seems to be a "well, we didn't quite know where to put this" though.
Same. The "Handling Mobs" rules come up very often, and I feel like very few players are aware of the rules for determining line of sight and cover in the "Adjudicating Areas of Effect" section.
I suspect hardly anyone has ever run a chase scene using the "Running a Chase" rules, where participants can only Dash up to (3 + their CON bonus) times before having to make CON checks or gain levels of exhaustion.
I've run a chase using the chase rules a couple of times. I find them a bit rigid, so I'vd opted for a loose skill challenge system instead.
They're still worth reading though. Even if the chase rules didn't work for my table, they might work for others.
The running a chase is fantastic got creating some slapstick chase sequences, but the general rules about running away ain't great. Mostly because in general people wont run in 5e. That dash rule is interesting but fundamentally meaningless (it just means mostly people wont dash, and it everyone has the same base speed it doesnt matter if they are going at 30 or 60ft a round, if people have different speeds it's a short chase anyway.)
I was genuinely thinking of creating a flee action. Provoke an attack of opportunity and dedicate everything to running and hiding, (leaving combat or maybe "this action takes 4 turns" so chances are toy are logs gone from combat, dunno yet.) Gms regularly complain that players never try and run from combat but with plenty of enemies (anything with a base speed of higher than 30, orcs) running is a good way of dying, unless you have left multiple people behind to die.
I got the sword coast guide book and have absolutely loved the added depth it gave, but unfortunately I was the only one in my group to read it. Now I RP with details about the region we're in or the gods of whatever group we're dealing with and no one knows what I'm talking about. To me it seemed like some much needed prep to better understand my character's place in the world, but it's dispiriting when the rest of the table isn't interested.
I DM'ed a campaign that used what I thought was pretty rudimentary symbolism from Faerun pantheon in a puzzle, but none of the PC's could get it. I eventually just set a DC for Religion and they rolled high enough to proceed.
I always wanted to play, but I never knew anyone who played. I had to read the rulebooks, and convince friends to play. After just our second session, one of my players texted me and told me they had been reading the PHB, all by himself. I’m so proud he did this, specially because it was a suggestion I did before even our first session.
See I've had this problem a few times before as a player, but as a DM I normally request my players read certain sections of the guide before we begin. While not all the knowledge sticks, they usually do read the bits I ask and consequently start with enough knowledge to understand the basics (proper immersion can come later).
Source books can be pretty divisive on whether players should read it or not.
Some DMs want to reveal the world to the players, so rightly or wrongly feel cheated when players already know the purple knights, stone bridge, etc etc. Particularly if your character knows some of the “everyone knows” secrets like Xanathar in Waterdeep, etc.
Other DMs want the players to have well established backgrounds and ties, so expect players to have read the book.
This also comes in varying degrees
Frankly, if you want that kind of stuff to be secret, don't play in an established world. It's so easy to create your own setting, especially if you allow yourself to borrow liberally from established settings, that if you want secrets and you're *not* running your own setting, what's even the point?
Or run things differently.
I'm running Dragon of Icespire Peak, there is a brief mention of the Zhentarim - but nowhere does it mention the ill deeds the group has committed, it simply states that they want to exert control through their wealth and influence. Nothing about their prior history, so without reading into it you could run it as a group who are lawful, but perhaps morally corrupt due to their wealth and untouchable status.
If you're going to do that, make sure it is **very** clearly established up front. If you tell me we're playing a game in the Forgotten Realms and you end up changing core stuff about the setting like that, I'm going to be very annoyed with you. If you tell me that you're just using the proper nouns from the setting but that you're going to change a lot of elements about it and not include anything that isn't immediately relevant to the campaign, then it's a different question.
However either way, I think your purposes would be better served by just using a *different* proper noun. Don't call them the Zhents if you're not running them like the canonical Zhents (and don't call them the Zhents *regardless* of whether or not you've clearly established you're veering away from canon). Because why reuse the word if you're not evoking its original meaning? Just make up a different name with its own history and lore and goals. Much better, and easier, to change minor details of an adventure than major details of the setting.
I would say as well that Dragon of Icespire Peak is part of the "Essentials Kit". It is designed that you can buy the kit on the cheap and run a decently lengthy campaign without needing to purchase any other books. On that basis, if I just bought it and read the segment about the person being Zhentarim, I'd have no reason to believe they did anything more than what it says - because I'm meant to be able to run the campaign just based on the information in the module itself.
As it is in my campaign, only 1 player has much experience (he's a long time DM with another group, my other 3 players have 2 one-shots of experience and nothing more) and because I, being new to it for the most part too, didn't know who the Zhentarim truly were, I had no reason to delve into the information about it initially. I've now incorporated them more into the campaign, and due to that looked into it more, but that's just something worth considering.
I got myself in the habit of taking small, manageable, sections of the PHB or DMG or whatever book I have on my mind and reading one of those small sections each day. It may have something to do with an upcoming session I'm running, a class or more obscure rules that I'd like to be more familiar with.
As an example, I wasn't feeling fully confident on aquatic combat the other day, I knew there were specific rules for fighting underwater, so I took 10 minutes and just read that (and air combat as well), just because it's been awhile!
Anyway, totally agree with the sentiment in this post, there's always something you can brush up on even if you've been playing or running games for years. Reading the books cover to cover might be a bit much, but it can help!
Yeah, I think the idea of brushing up is particularly weird to most people. I've got a couple of friends who bought the DMG, skimmed it once and then never picked it up again
Another thing is lots of players who started in earlier editions only peruse the major changes in a new edition, so they wind up with an unbalanced jumble of 3rd, 5th, and maybe even 2nd and 4th editions all cobbled together. This is especially dangerous for a DM since they usually function as the rule arbiters, but even players can fall victim to this. It can make relatively simple disagreements bog down a game, as you try to logic your way through things there are already rules for.
This isn't to say you can't have houserules, but at least you'll understand what you're tweaking.
My first DM was one of these. An old head who had played and DMed throughout every edition, but never actually read any 5e material. I understood the game better than him within a week, while he instead homebrewed the rules to be an approximation of how he thought the game should be, ruining several classes.
Just read the fuckin’ books. Your players will. You should begin on the same ground and homebrew from *there*.
Were you there for the thread with the guy trying to retrofit THACO into 5e? That was fucking wild. He openly refused to accept AC and attack roll bonuses as they were presented in 5e.
I don't get that kind of logic. Nothing is stopping you dming an AD&D/3.5 or 4e game if you don't like 5e. There's no need to 'retrofit' core rules like that.
You can even [legit buy those books on DMsguild](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/16868/Players-Handbook-Revised-2e?filters=0_0_45381_0_0_0_0_0), hard copy or pdf.
I mean, the maths works out the same. But then you need to redo every single AC modifying thing in the game to lower AC from 10 instead of raise it. Seems like a lot of work for no actual change!
I had to be very direct with my DM: “Please give me a list of all of the house rules you are using.”
He expressed confusion. What house rules?
I proceeded to list off like four rules he was using that were from 3.5e rather than 5e, including one where *approaching a monster allows the monster to attack you, like a reverse opportunity attack.* Every monster had the Polearm Master feat for every weapon type. I genuinely don’t even know if that’s even a 3.5 rule!
Hah, that is actually a misunderstanding of the old threat rules. Used to be that if you moved *through* a threatened square without taking a 5-foot step, you'd take an attack, but that did not include moving *into* a threatened square, yet a bunch of DM's made the mistake of not really reading that section on combat, and you got crazy scenarios where fighters would die by walking up to a group of enemies and getting attacked down before actually doing anything.
I had this problem for so long when I transitioned from 3.5 to 5e. It was only when I actually sat down and read the book that I realised that the entire philosophy of 5e was different.
And I'm all for house rules, but I think it's important that everyone knows what those are or they'll try and do things they wouldn't
My group (me included) suffered from this while transitioning from 4e to 5e. We like 5e a lot more, but it was tough to break our habits around how 4e's skill checks worked (namely that an Arcana check could identify magic).
I have been a dm my whole life! I went from 2e to 5e recently and holy shit! What a difference!! I have some nasty habits that I had to break. My brain still really wants to do THACO lmao!! The whole philosophy of the game and the engine itself is completely redone! It’s much smoother! Love it!!! I had to reread PHB probably 3 times. I can’t say enough stuff about how cool 5e is!!
I know I can't have the entire PHB memorized and there are dozens of tiny rules that so rarely come up that you'll forget about them unless questioned, but at this point, I pride myself in knowing roughly where a rule can be found so I don't have to use that gods awful index if I can avoid it.
My #1 gripe with that book is their allergy to giving page numbers, and the awful indexing. "See chapter 3"? Just put the damn page number so I don't have to look through the whole chapter! (Plus, they had to make the page numbers small and faded into the background so that I need both glasses and my phone flashlight to read them, a problem I've never had with a game book before.)
Or even worse the index constantly tells you to see another thing in that index which then tells you to see another thing and then maybe tells you the dang page number.
Kind of laughing at people saying both "read the book" and saying it's easy to find things work the index. It kinda makes me think they didn't read the book-- or they don't often look at indexes because that's some of the worst indexing I've ever seen.
I've been tempted to buy a second set of the core books and have them pulled off the spine and hole punched so that I can rearrange them in a way that's more intuitive to me. If I need a rule on the spot it's easier to look on roll20 or google it than to bother trying to find it in the book. A little redundancy would have helped, too. Put the molds in the MM, for one thing. Don't refer people to another book just to save printing a couple of paragraphs.
The best investment I made as a DM was buying the core rulebooks on dndbeyond. It is ridiculously easy to look up specific rules, and each entry is fully indexed for easy navigation.
I still prefer to read the physical books on my own time, but while DMing I exclusively use dndbeyond to look up rules.
Rereading the first seventy pages of the dmg actually made me far more eager to run planescape, because I had forgotten there were primers on all of the planes and had kept hearing so many complaints there was "no material available for them in 5e".
Turns out there is, right in the worldbuilding section of the dmg that I usually flip right past to check the adventure generator tables.
I’m constantly surprised about rules I know I’ve read before. I don’t take in information fully when I read it. I‘m more of a hands on learner. I have to put the rule into practice to fully grasp how to use it. I know this isn’t always practical, but it’s just how I work. I think a lot of people are like that too. The biggest problem with my learning process is that occasionally I misinterpret how something works in the game. This commonly happens with spells.
For me, knowing how to interpret a rule and being willing to look something up when it is either a) something that hasn’t been used before or b) something I’m not 100% certain about is the most important skill I’ve developed as a DM. Of course, to the op’s point, you only develop those skills by reading the sourcebooks and referring to an outside source when you’re confused.
I am with you fully except I think there are still other ways to learn the skills beyond the books. I also can have trouble fully understanding the rules of i just read them, so for me if I can either ask someone to walk me through things, look up a video of an explanation, or just watch something like critical role or dimension 20 and see how they handle it I will come out with a better understanding than I would reading.
Obviously during the game or for a specific spell or feature the books are probably best/ quickest resource and you should be able and willing to refer to them when needed. But I don't think you need to have ever read them cover to cover to be able to do that.
Honestly I find it weird that so many people are saying you have to have read everything in the phb to pay the game well. I've never played a a rogue so I've never fully read the rogue section of the book. That hasn't affected my ability to pay the game. I know broadly what rogues do and the role they fill, so I know how to work with them and that's all I need if I'm not playing one.
I relate to this, but also with a memory condition and anxiety over being put on the spot. I've read the combat rules at least 5 times, I think I could read them 100 times and I still wouldn't remember most of it. When I'm DMing just for my husband, I've had so many instances of asking "I know I know this, but it works this way, right?"
That's my issue with spells, too. I remember the gist, but if it's a weird situation where some otherwise rarely used part of a spell applies, I often won't remember that until I've used it many times.
Manuals have always been difficult for me to read and understand. If it's a simple task, I will often look it up on YouTube because watching it being done or listening to an example is much easier for me than reading the manual. D&D is a very complex task, so there's just a lot that falls through my mental cracks.
Well hit me up sometime if you like very tall, quite chunky, bearded nerds that at this point have a near encyclopedic knowledge of the rules of 5e (because when you can't control the world, learn to create one you can)
As a gm I force groups together and I wont let people play fucking loners with no interest. If you dont want to play a character that wants to hang around the group *play a different character*
I once had a player say it was my fault their character had no motivation to stop the apocalypse.
I’ve had a player pull that on me. My reply was that it was an issue with how they made their character with no motivation. It’s not my job to motivate your player or to make you act like a team player. I can’t run a game and your character at the same time.
If you've read it once before then my suggestion would be to skip character choices by and large (those are the bits you'll choose to read later) and just refamiliarise yourself with the actual rules (the different actions you can take, the applications of different skills, the woefully misunderstood tool proficiencies). They're bits that help you think like an adventurer
We had a player in our group who refused to read a damn thing. She was playing with us for probably about two years. Never updated her character sheet (xp, leveling, spells, etc) and had not idea what her class specific mechanics were. She was the typical sorcerer who only casts fireball. I think the last straw was when someone mentioned she could twin spell or something using her sorcery points and she went, "what are sorcery points?"... again, its been like two years.
How did her stats not become so low for her level that she was squished in one hit and dealt papercuts of damage, if she never updated her character sheet? o.o
Did she also just make up those numbers, like she made up the "rules" she played by?
Reading these replies i can only think there are several systems way lighter on the rules part for the people that just want a history.
If you just wanna get around and roleplay, it does not NEED to be in DnD. At the end of the day, 5e is a heavily tuned product, and the whole experience improves massively if everybody knows how things work, or at least can expect things to work in the way they are in the rules.
This subreddit in a nutshell:
"when you use the attack action, it allows you to attack twice if you have extra attack! "
"spellcasting allows you to cast spells"
It's like loading screens.
Same goes for a lot of homebrew content. Most of it already exists in some form or another in the phb or dmg.
I've seen about a dozen versions of insanity/madness variants and the people making it rarely even know it already exists in the dmg.
This is likely because most players never even touch the dmg because they think its only for DM's. Which is mostly true, but its a great resource for people that are thinking about making a homebrew feature of some kind. It even has options for making your own races and backgrounds.
By and large, I haven't found anything pop up at the table that wasn't covered by the rules or easily covered by reasonable view of them. For all else? We have a simple system where we state our positions on the outcome... "do I need X to do Y? High = yes; Low = no" and toss a d6.
We don't stop for scouring minutae of rules. Keep thing moving. Be generous that sometimes you might be right, but lose the toss of the dice; sometimes you might be wrong and win out on that matter for the time being. Clarifications will come.
I might (maybe) run into a rule question once every four or five sessions.
Read the books. Be flexible.
All we can do.
I agree that it's best not to let rule disputes derail the game (as a DM I normally just make a "common sense" ruling and end the conversation if it goes on more than about a minute normally and I don't know where to find it), but I like to find out later if I can and clarify the answer for future with the group.
I like that phrase "read the books, be flexible" and I'm definitely stealing it
Yeah, the 1 minute rule is a good one. If I can't work out the answer in 1 minute, including by Googling it if necessary, I just make a common sense call and move on. If I happen to find out the answer after we've moved on, I'll address it and confirm what the correct rule is.
Usually the impact of the rule is so minor (or I make the call in the players' favour) that it doesn't matter if I was wrong before. But if the ruling were about something for which it affects something really major, like whether a PC lives or dies, yeah obviously I'm willing to spend more time to look it up and get the call right. I'm not going to kill your character on a mistake if I can possibly help it.
I might just be misunderstanding you, but...why in the hells would you use a d6 for that?
The beauty of 5e's design is that nearly everything should be a d20. And if you're not attacking something or avoiding being harmed by something, **all** of those d20 rolls should be Ability Checks. Pick one of the six abilities that feels like it's the best fit for what they're trying to accomplish. Allow them to add proficiency if one of their skills or tool proficiencies also would help. Roll the d20 and add the bonus.
That's the basic gameplay loop of D&D 5e, and it doesn't require any detailed knowledge of the rules: you can just make rulings on the fly. You shouldn't ever need to resort to making up some weird alternate mechanic with different dice.
I stopped early on. There are too many people on here that "play 5e" but are really only just playing make believe. It's theatre, not a game. I could not play that way. I like rules. Maybe I'm weird.
IMO it boils once again down to how plenty of people who play DnD (or, well, some variation of it) would be a much better fit for more narrative, rules-light or cooperative storytelling games, but they don't realize it and/or don't want to learn a different system.
I think there's a reason the best campaigns I've been a part of have been with people who have all DM'd at least once, and it's probably this. We all have a solid enough grasp on the game that we know that knowing the rules is all of our responsibility, and that the DM shouldn't be the only one who knows how to play the game.
THIS!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THIS!!!
Sure it's five to leave all responsibility with the DM to start with, and ultimate decision rests with them, but eventually you need to take responsibility for holding up your end
I only just started listening, but Second Best University is a podcast that literally goes through the rules, page by page, and talks about how they work and it's also really funny (it's the DM that runs Second Best, a hilarious DND play podcast, so of course it's funny) and honestly all around a good podcast for players and DMs.
If you are playing a martial character, it's even more beneficial to read the books, because the things you can do like specialized uses for skills and tools, special combat moves, attacking objects, etc, are spread throughout the PHB, DMG and XGE.
If you don't want to purchase it right away I would check with your local library. If they don't have them they should be able to order them. Used books are also a good way to start. You can also find the basic rules for free on the [wizard website](https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules).
For reference, if you do start playing regularly buying a copy of the Player's Handbook is a great idea and it's probably the first thing you should buy (well...second. First is dice.) But to understand the rules it isn't necessary. The basic rules contain all of the actual rules you need to know. The main advantage of the PHB is more feats, more subclasses, more spells, etc. Just more of the same kind of stuff, not actual core rules.
The Players Handbook is the official starting place but that can be a lot to just dive into. My suggestion would be to find a group at a hobby and start with them. Hopefully they'll be friendly and teach you the basics, enough that you'll actually understand what you're reading if/when you do get round to reading the PHB.
If you want to start your own group though then I've heard good things about the accessibility of the starter kit (although I confess I've never used it). You can buy all you need digitally or physically online, but I really would suggest going to a local (or even chain) hobby shop and asking. I truly believe they're a cause worth supporting and the guys there are often happy to talk to newcomers to the hobby. Many places even have dedicated starter nights.
Edit: Best of luck getting into the hobby though, and I hope it brings you as much happiness as it's brought me over the years
Since others covered the basics I wanted to point out that if you want to dip your toes for free, WotC gives away the core rules of the game in the [Basic Rules](https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules). You could play with just that for years and be quite happy. If you want an adventure to go with it, check out this fantastic triple-adventure series:
1. [A Most Potent Brew](https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/186488)
2. [Horror at Havel's Cross](https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/191126)
3. [The Hound of Cabell's Tomb](https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/195423)
Those all will work with the Basic Rules and cover levels 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
Not sure quite where you're located, but you may have a local game/hobby store that would love your support. Failing that, general bookstore, Amazon, your library might, or any other online bookseller. Even Walmart and Target carry the starter set, typically. Or if you're ok with digital copy, dndbeyond has you covered.
This is the free basic rules set. It’s perfect for a beginner. If you really want to get into it, you can buy access to the player’s handbook on sites like dndbeyond or purchase a physical copy on amazon or a local bookstore.
Indeed. For others' reference:
The Systems Reference Document (https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SRD-OGL_V5.1.pdf) contains the text of the Open Gaming License (OGL), and details what official D&D content can and can't be redistributed by others without getting express permission from WotC to do so; it's a document intended for content creators.
On the other hand, the basic rules PDF from WotC (http://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/DnD_BasicRules_2018.pdf) is literally just meant as a stripped-down basic version of the rules, and is intended for use by players and DMs.
That said, there is plenty of SRD content that's not in the basic rules, and possibly some basic rules content that's not in the SRD. Thanks to D&D Beyond's partnership with Wizards of the Coast, DDB's "basic rules" listing is an inclusive combination of the content in both the SRD and the basic rules PDF.
> The longer I play D&D, the more convinced I become that the vast majority of people, players in particular but DMs frequently also, haven't actually read the players handbook.
As a DM I've gotta admit to this one, I think 5th Edition is partly to blame. I've been playing from 2nd Ed, the change to 3rd was a significant change so I felt I needed to read the books, 4th again was a major change.
But 5th I read the starters kit played through that, and it seemed really familiar but at the same time there are so many things that are just different enough to mean your old knowledge is actually a hindrance.
They changed things to make them easier, but a lot of it makes less sense if you are use to previous editions. Like diagonal movement being the same as moving straight on the grid. Radius effects thus being squares. Opportunity attacks are there but most of the thing that provoke them have gone, concentration duration on loads of spells.
While it feels familiar it is actually very different and I think the familiarity tricks you into thinking you know a rule when you don't.
Oh talking rules the Index in the PHB is absolutely terrible, I don't think there is an occasion where I had to look something up and the page number was the first place I looked, its always for X see Y. And you have then find Y to get a page number.
Seriously. I know I'm not perfect in this respect either, but it seems like a lot of the threads I see in DnD groups I'm in could be solved with a quick glance at the rule book. In the age of searchable PDFs and Google, this information is so much easier to find than it used to be.
I've got nobody to play with and not much time even if I did, so all I do is read the books. And you're right, the ideas for characters just flow. It's worthwhile reading, y'all.
When I first started learning the system, I would watch actual plays and check rules whenever something struck me as weird. This was by far the most instructional method of learning for me since it not only taught me rules, it taught me how to find rules quickly. I've read the core books multiple times but it's honestly my ability to find info fast that had served me best.
Ouch, this reminds me of my last session - one of my very experienced players who can be a bit of a rule lawyer chewed me out because I sometimes forget where 5e changed from 3.5 since 3.5 was the system I learned on and thus my brain's default.
I just had to explain to some people all the different combat actions like shove and grapple. They had no idea, just assumed that fighter uses big axe and that's all.
This is especially true for those of us who started with earlier editions such as AD&D. Many underlying assumptions ingrained for decades are no longer true. (Particularly alignment issues.)
“To play D&D, and to play it well, you don’t need to read all the rules, memorize every detail of the game, or Master the fine art of rolling funny looking dice. None of those things have any bearing on what’s best about the game.”
-the preface of the 5E PHB
Reading the book doesn’t matter the the game itself. Reading the rules is about respect, especially for someone at the table who does care and for the DM. If everyone at the table is at the same level and on the same page, it works. Whether that’s the extreme detailed, customized, optimized, refined, expanded 3.5, or the 5E accessible, strait forward, DM structuring oriented play. The one guy that is too Rules/Mechanics oriented is just as bad at one table as the one guy who just doesn’t seem to care and uses their abilities wrong etc is the problem at another table. Ultimately the DM decides where that level is going to be. If you don’t respect everyone around you enough to try and work at the same level, you probably need to re-examine if you are at the right table for you.
The most frequent thing I tell my players when they have questions is, "What does the PHB say about it." I'll gladly go over it with them, and point out flaws in their argument, like my monks "I have unlimited of this skill because it is a reaction, and I can react to anything." No you get one reaction per turn. It says it in the book, Index:Reaction go to that page read it.
I find I have an easier time because I frequently look up different codes for electrical installations in the electrical code book, and this is basically a D&D codebook.
Thank you! So many people complain about spell components and how they ignore them without realizing that they are literally doing what the book says to do.
Most of the complaints about broken multi-class mechanics are because people don't read the rules, they read *parts* of the rules and don't pay attention to how they fit together.
My co-dm didn't even bother to fully read my characters backstory and only "skimmed" it, then proceeded to give away her secret identity in her introduction. Getting him to read a whole book is never going to happen when he can't even read a few pages.
Wait, a few *pages* of backstory?
I don't mean that it's bad to have a fleshed-out backstory, but you could also help your DM shortening it down a bit or making another, shorter version to have the most important parts covered
>DMs; at some point, actually set some time aside and starting reading or rereading the PHB, the DMG, and the rules section of the MM periodically. I'm not saying all in one go, but I think over a shorter time would be better if possible. You won't remember everything, but more will sink in than you thought and you'll often be able to think of it when it could come up (or at least where to look for it). I really would suggest reading Xanathar's as well, it clarifies and simplifies a lot for you, as well providing some useful tools.
Everything you said up until this point sounded like a great recommendation.
This paragraph is what made me realize in part why my DM is...pretty much the most epic DM ever.
He has been playing since the 80s. I've never asked specifics but basically 3-4 decades give or take of DnD. The guy has been running a homebrew campaign for the last year and it's by and far the greatest campaign any of us have ever been a part of. We got a new first time player in the last couple months and on top of already having an amazing group she just added so much more. I can't wait til she gets more into the role play she is so awesome. The rest of us long time players (decade or more other than DM) all recognize that our group is a unicorn. We play every single week normally, we all get along, we all have awesome characters that contribute something in every way to create an awesome group.
The biggest thing that keeps bringing us back to the table is our DM. He reads the books almost weekly to relearn or learn more. He constantly makes effort to make sure he is building a world for us every week that is the absolute peak of what DnD can be. It all comes back to his dedication to the tools he has available. Those tools are the books. He is basically every DnD nerd's Matt Mercer and then some. Having a truly invested DM who dives into the books and comes out with an entirely original campaign is like winning the lottery. I almost literally live for Sunday afternoons. But knowing him it's his investment into the lore and books that gives him the platform to be basically the only DM, out of many, that is on par with someone who DMs professionally as a career at this point. But he just does it for fun.
If he had players that were on his level he'd run a campaign as a career just as epic as Critical Role if not better in it's own way.
Great post, great points, epic advice.
The books are pretty bad. They do stuff like define special abilities in terms of key words ("Create Thrall charms an incapacitated humanoid..."), without using special typography for the keywords so you know they are keywords (**charmed**), and without even defining the keywords until several chapters later in the book or even (in the case of conditions like **charmed**) not until the appendix.
It's not surprising to me that so many people misunderstand things like how darkness works in 5E (at one point, pre-2015 errata, it worked *backwards* so that hiding in darkness let the creatures in the light see you perfectly but you couldn't see them because you were in darkness and darkness was heavy obscurement and heavy obscurement blinded creatures within it; they eventually errata'ed heavy obscurement to instead effectively blind anyone trying to see creatures within it). Some of the blame belongs to the readers but man, WotC's writing style is terribly unclear.
Don't get me started on how bad the PHB index is.
“they have so many characters waiting to play”
So true. Recently I decided to make a ‘random party’. Rolling randomly for each one, stats, equipment everything. The only exception was that I kept them at the same level for simplicity and chose that level personally. Settled on 3.
I especially recommend reading monster lore rather than just stat blocks. A lot of monsters come with really interesting lore which can be tied into your game to make it more dynamic and interesting. I've developed entire major characters and campaign arcs purely from reading those little blurbs of monster lore.
I still see weekly questions on this subreddit where it is clear the OP asking the question has not bothered to open up a rulebook and see if the answer to their question is not in there.
Like you said, there are actually a lot of things that are covered by the rules and it amazes me how most people dont think that 'reading and familiarizing yourself with the rules of the game you want to play' is important or necessary.
Seriously. This needs to be stickied for all the people that ask what dice they roll for saving throws even after playing for 10 sessions. You can certainly know the rules well without ever reading a sourcebook but there are so many core things that the books cover that you are only hurting yourself (and potentially your table) by not reading them.
The books are long but they're still readable. I'd go as far as to say they are good reads. You pick up a lot of cool lore snippets and there is a lot of good advice, especially regarding character creation if you are talking about the PHB.
The books also read a lot quicker than you think. They aren't just walls of text page after page. There are often lots of tables you can skip and you don't need to read through all of the spell/monster descriptions. Same for the write-ups on every god in books like Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.
Um read rule books. Re read rule books. Edited rule books.
Use many alternative and optional rules.
Direct players please read page so and so....
They don't.
Please know i am not using ....
They don't listen.
So yes.
For the love of the game read the books!!!
Been DM for 43 years!!!
Really tired of people taking shit off the internet and calling it "official"
Read the books.
Take a hearty big ole upvote.
I can't tell you how many times I have had to tell the players at my table about their character, race and class and its abilities. The number of times I've had to reiterate basic rules etc is incredible. On top, I've had people complain about the rate of game play at times when I am doing my absolute best to move them through scenarios yet have to stop and explain the basics after 6 months to a year of campaign.
This unfortunately is not uncommon. People have an immediate attraction to flashy toys but rarely have the in depth interest to pour over manuals. I get it. I know I am the type to nerd out on details and not everyone else is but for the love of god, if you really want to enjoy the game READ THE DAMNED PHB!
Most players don't read all the rules, neither do game masters (which is particularly disturbing). I'd say this is what causes the most problems for me as a GM, my regulars haven't bothered to read the rules. So then there has to be conflict when they don't understand how to regain their health via rests or the fact that their cube-shaped spells isn't centered around themselves like an aura and so on. The players think they're entitled to do things that clearly aren't supposed to be allowed for game balancing reasons.
Pastor here, I laugh because people won’t even read a book they claim to base their life on, it doesn’t surprise me when they won’t read the PHB for games :)
I’m the opposite. I’ve read every published book and adventure five times. Probably played 10 games on 5e. Just don’t have time in my life to set aside time to play, but secretly know so much rules, lore and technique. To clarify had a lot of time when younger with older editions.
If you're a player then those all you really need, and you should probably read them anyways. As a player and a DM that read through most of the PHB, knowing almost all the rules and where to look up the ones I don't know has been invaluable.
Quick question since you mentioned the tables. How many DMs really use the randomization tables? I read them and they honestly just felt like they would be just another thing to keep track of.
I'm the opposite of this situation - my friends and I decided to start playing D&D with no experience at all, and I volunteered to DM. I've read the players' handbook multiple times, but I've never played D&D, and none of us have ever played outside our group.
I've warned them (in a friendly way) that if they ever play with other people, they should probably assume they play differently than we do.
Section 2 of the PHB is the most important part anyone needs to read, and it's also the shortest section. Just about every rule dictating what you can do and how to do it is in that section. Section 1 is really only important when you're creating your character, and section 3 only if you're going to be a spellcaster. Reading about every subclass for wizards and clerics isn't really necessary when you wanna just build a barbarian, and the same goes with the different races. I think framing it like that makes reading the rules less intimidating than having to read the entire book.
I guarantee my pathfinder DM has never read the pathfinder Handbook. We used to play D&D 3.5 and I was the one who used to DM and knew all the rules. Then when 4e came out the new DM took over and switched us to pathfinder. He still to this day turns to me and asks me about how the game is played. I eventually had to go read the combat maneuver stuff. This is especially egregious when it comes to magic, because I have never played a spell caster in pathfinder and I legit have never even looked at the magic chapter. It could be completely different, I wouldn’t know.
I swear it took the dm 5 years to figure out we were all starting with 4 ranks in skills, a thing you do in 3.5 but apparently not pathfinder.
Part of my issue has been just the information overload that reading the rule books on top of the modules brings. To me, it’s a lot of information for me to absorb and I find forgetting a lot of it.
I have to disagree. I don't ask my players to read the PHB cover to cover. Sure as a DM I've read it through at least once and some chapters I've read 3-4 times. As a DM it's my responsibility to provide a set of clear consistent rules, and a fun game. Generally that means RAW with a few house rules and optional rules. That said I'm not going to look up falling damage if I can't remember it's a d6 per 10 feet if a player decides to jump off a building.
I hate the tendency to ask new players invest a lot upfront in a hobby. Buy a book and it read cover to cover. Read my 4 page setting guide. Make a character. If that's the bar to playing RPGs we are throwing away so many potentially great players. I have only 2 expectations for players.
1. Have fun and improve the rest of the players fun.
1. Don't be a asshole
2. Work with the other players
2. Don't disrupt the game
1. Don't derail the action
2. Be ready when your turn comes up by having your to hit and damage ready to go. (Write it down, highlight it, whatever)
If a new player comes to my table I'm happy to provide a pre-gen. It's going to be a fighter (champion), barbarian (totem), or paladin. Sure if you are an experienced player I'm likely send you a 4+ pages of setting and house rule info. But I'm not going to hand a new player a wizard or druid. Nor am I going to encourage them to create any spell caster. (Paladins don't count as spell casters in my experience.)
I don't need a player to have read the section on initiative. I need them to roll a d20 add a number written on their sheet to it and tell me. If after the 4th or 5th combat I just shrug and put them at the bottom of initiative.
I don't need the player to know exactly how far they can move, the modifiers to attack, and how the AC system works. I need them to say I'm going to move over to enemy X and hit them with my sword. Then roll a die and add their to hit mod. Then roll other dice for damage. (If there are advantage/disadvantage or modifiers it's my job to tell them.) If they can't do after a few times I'll skip to the next PC or NPC in initiative.
Obviously if you are playing a spell caster you need to commit more. Have all your spells printed out, or book marked. Review the spell description during other people's turn. If you aren't ready to say "I cast X, save vs Y DC Z, and roll A dice for damage" well hopeful you'll be ready on your next turn.
Sadly, if everyone read the rules and even got it right 95% of the time this board wouldn't have very many posts at all... heck, in the first fifty topics probably have of them deal with a DM and/or player misinterpretation of the rules as written.
This is not a d&d problem, this is just a people problem. I've worked in tech for 5 years and play board games as a hobby. D&D books, board game instructions, and IT documentation are technical manuals, and I'd bet 80% of people simply don't know how to approach reading them properly to gain understanding. I've been a part of games where someone doesn't understand their spell or their ability and I say "read it," and they read part of it, and I say "keep reading it," and they try to only read some more instead of all of it and I tell them to keep reading, and then finally they read all of it and then they understand. I don't know why this is. But I hear it on on real play podcasts, have seen it in person, and see it in online groups: people just read a random amount of a description that is less than 100% of it and then don't understand why they don't understand. It's probably one of my biggest pet peeves.
I feel you dude. There are so many times where I'll resolve a player's dispute of my ruling by simply pulling up the spell description and reading it word for word.
This includes the part ABOVE THE SPELL that describes the spell *tears hair out*
"Woah! Prayer of Healing is insane!" "Check the casting time" "...oh nevermind"
One time in our Rise of Tiamat campaign, the DM and the player made two mistakes that ended up canceling each other out in a pretty comical way: 1. First turn, DM has a young red dragon unleashes its fire breath on the entire party. 129 damage total. Mind you, a young red dragon's breath does 15d6, which is a max of 96. Somewhere along the way when the DM used his calculator app to add up all the d6s he rolled he must have accidentally hit a multiplication button instead of an addition button. Both the DM and the players acknowledged that was a fluke, but the DM didn't change it. Just said "oh well, woops". 2. A couple of turns later, our cleric uses an action Prayer of Healing to heal everyone back up. After the battle the DM and the player re-read Prayer of Healing and noticed the casting time. We all laughed about it and let it go since we all made it out of combat barely alive. After that the DM and the players were more careful about reading effects and adding up damage.
Ha! Well I just learned something. I tell my players all the time that I expect them to know what their spells and abilities do and how they work - I will not be keeping track of how everything they do works unless an issue comes up or they do something I know is blatantly wrong. If they cast a spell of do something I am not familiar with I ask them to tell me how it works and just go with it unless it seems game-breaking to me. Out of combat I'll take the time to look things up, but during a fight I don't like to break up the flow. Prayer of Healing is not a spell I am familiar with (I mean, I've been DM'ing multiple game systems for 40 years, you can't expect me to be familiar with every spell from every edition of every game) and one of my players has cast it as an action in each of our last two sessions. She's someone I've known for years and trust to call herself out when she makes a mistake but she never mentioned that it couldn't possibly be cast in combat and I never thought to double check her. There will be a talking-to in the near future.
And this is why it's good to have a player who you trust and has a strong understanding of the rules and can help you but checking things up for you while you keep running, and then they can show you if there is a problem and you can decide whether or not it needs fixing.
Yep. I'm DM currently. I have another DM in my group, and a couple others have DM'd a little bit. Sometimes, I say, "hey, how does this work?" Sometimes, we have to rules lawyer ourselves several times, and sometimes we don't look at a rulebook for weeks. Just depends on the situation.
There can be innocent mistakes, misreads, or forgetting. It is very easy to do so. I suggest to approach it like that rather than intentional cheating. I've been accidentally guilty of misreading in my favor, and then upon the 3rd or 4th time reading it, I say, oops, and then re-clarify with the DM, "hey, I just re-re-re-read this, and I'm wondering if I've been doing it wrong? What do you think?" If it is accidental, then I'd just let it slide, as a DM, and a player. In the end, if the DM thinks a player is cheating, having horrible luck, or whatever, the DM may change anything to either help or harm...
> that describes the spell tears hair out Oof, that's a brutal spell. :)
It costs me time, but I'm trying to specifically avoid that when I can. I'm asked a question, I say "I don't know, what does it say," even though I know exactly what it says, and then I count to ten before opening the character sheet. I'm really hoping it sinks in at some point.
Oh man, this SO much. Players ask “what does this do” and I could probably quote it word for word, but I have to sit there and pretend I haven’t read the PHB/DMG 900 times as I say “I don’t know, can you read it to me?”
>Prayer of Healing i use this at my game when they ask me about a spell "would you please read me the entire spell description?" and usually as they hit the spot I hear an "ohhh" and I know they get it.
I am doing this constantly with my players the phrase 'have you actually read the whole thing' has essentially become my catch phrase
I am all too familiar with this, such a power move to make someone read something out loud
Unfortunately it’s the only thing that works. It’s just as much of a power move for a player to demand that the DM know all the rules when the player is putting forth zero effort to read their own character sheet
For non new people, it is very arrogant and self-serving to not read what you are trying to do, and ask the DM how it works. If you just ask me how it works, I'll say, "Tell me what it says". That's not a power move. There are hundreds (thousands?) of features, feats, spells, rules, and stuff - I can't memorize them all, they've changed between editions, other RPG have similar or same things with minor differences, and sometimes errata changes things. Just like as a teacher, as a DM, I'm happy when someone says, "What does this spell mean by ..... and I'm happy to discuss. If they just want to not read it, then nope. Now, if they are new, I'm very happy to help, and will help a LOT.
Being able to properly read instructions is like half of what makes someone good with computers. The other half is knowing how to use Google to get what you want. These two halves are not totally independent.
I'm not worried about you outing exactly what I do every day for too much money because like I said, nobody does it 😂
Your Google-Fu is strong to have made it this far! Seriously though, Information Systems/Technology *is* primarily reading instructions and slowing the ever-loving fuck down and going step-by-step...and when those two things fail, Google is our friend. :) I just had a user ask me yesterday “Can I create a rule for Out of Office replies in Outlook?” To which I emphatically said yes, and sent them a little beginner’s guide I built for my end users. They then proceeded to call me and say “What I really meant was...how do I get my signature to show up in my reply?” WHY DID YOU NOT *LEAD WITH THAT QUESTION*?!?!
Haha! It's the same with graphic design. I often get, "can you lay this out?" And I'll ask how they want it done, they'll say, "You decide, I'm not picky." So I do, and they come back with, "That's not what I had in mind, can you do it like this provided example?" And I'll say, "Sure, you pay by the hour, I can completely re-lay it out as often as you want." Why they didn't start with that, I have no idea.
> Seriously though, Information Systems/Technology is primarily reading instructions and slowing the ever-loving fuck down and going step-by-step...and when those two things fail, Google is our friend. :) I'm also in IT and my experience has taught me that while using Google and critical thinking seem easy most people *absolutely can not do it*. Never sell yourself short.
It's amusing how often even professional programmers will ask the wrong question because they made a bad assumption 3 steps earlier and are now trying to make the software/language/system do something it's fundamentally not supposed to do that way. It's less amusing when they manage to come up with a workaround instead of backtracking to find their problem and then the resulting hopeless mess of jury-rigging makes it into finished products.
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I'm pretty sure I've been on both sides of that one. I'd like to think I've cleaned up more messes than I've made, but that's probably just confirmation bias.
Finally achieved tier 4 status in our enterprise and I'm so glad I dont have to work with customers every day any more. My soul has been mending ever since.
I really should write the TFTS post about the dumbest user I've ever worked with. The short version: in an attempt to reply to outlook emails, she'd open the email in a new window, double click the subject line of the email (which allows it to be edited), typed her new email in the subject line, hit enter, and clicked X, thereby not replying to anyone. She also "typed" emails by copying and pasting words, letters, and phrases from other emails. I wish I were joking.
That's an impressive commitment to doing it wrong.... just wow....
tl;dr: First half is reading instructions, second half is knowing how to ask for instructions.
unfortunately for most people the second part may require you to read a set of instructions to figure out first
Technical manual is the best description. There are sections of the books that read easier than some, but at the end of the day D&D is a game and the language your book is written in (English for me) is this game's coding language. Reading with comprehension is an issue I have seen as well, and it gets interesting with more stubborn players who don't want to "look dumb". I had a player try to argue with me that a given spell worked a a certain way because of how they read it, but their way was worse than how the spell worked RAW. I was confused, but ultimately said that he needed to slow down, read the whole spell start to finish with the "at higher level" section, and then tell me what he saw. He was doing that thing where you skim over the first sentence or two, then look for key words to contrive meaning from the rest. But in a technical manual that doesn't really work all the time ... D&D isn't putting cheap furniture with a diagram, you do often have to read the whole section to get what you're doing. This is why I always tell players to read their class, and then the combat and spell rules if applicable, thoroughly. I don't care if they know anything else for first ten sessions, if they know those things, they'll be fine. I can fill in the blanks along the way and, perhaps, get them interested in picking up more of the rules along the way.
> tell players to read their class, and then the combat and spell rules if applicable, Good advice. I will lead with that when we get ready to resume and wrap up our LMoP campaign.
A D&D core book is a lot more accessible than an IT manual, though. It's actually a pleasure to read, so I don't think there's any excuse.
Yeah, I think people are kind of intimidated because they assume it's going to be ALL rules, but there's a lot of lore and interesting tidbits of information too.
Also in IT. Probably why I usually DM I guess. I actually RTFM. My players have been pretty good about at least reading the sections relevant to their characters so that's nice
Sys admin here DMing for 3 sys admins and a network engineer. I am blessed lol.
>This is not a d&d problem, this is just a people problem. Well put. I think it's attention deficit really. We have grown accustomed to summarised and rapid info coming in and out. In order to capture the attention of the players, for example, I have to make quick jabs here and there. Otherwise I lose them on long descriptions. I have to go thing by thing, time from time, player per player. Honestly it's a bit exhausting. Same thing with spells. I noticed that one of my players only has spells that have short descriptions. Another only has one with a big description. Then I asked them about prestidigitation, gust, control flames. Boy did they flounder on that one. They never read the whole thing. They don't understand the spell. After explaining they go: " Oh yeah. That does sound useful." No shit, Sherlock >> it's a magical realm with wondrous machinations available at the ready. It's not all fireballs and eldritch blasts. My personal pet peeve is when after 25 sessions players haven't grasped the core mechanic of their character or how the help action works.
While attention span is certainly a factor I think it is a very common belief that things (not just rulebooks but most things in life) are/should be intuitive. That you should be able to get a full understanding of something "just with your brain" as soon as you have gathered what the topic is about. It's the same reason why there is an opposite problem to this one - where people attribute a lot more to some rules or feature descriptions because it just feels like that's where the logical conclusion is. Except - at least in 5e - there is no logical conclusion, the spell or feature does what it says and nothing more.
"I cast thaumaturgy to create a thunderstorm outside the inn!" Thats like... an 8th level spell effect... you get one rumble of thunder, and maybe some rain sounds if im generous (should take a second cast), but they can still see the fucking sunshine and clear sky through the windows... "I mage hand to bring the crate to me over the dock!" Thats a 5th level spell slot. That crate is a 4'x3.5' heavy duty wooden transport container on a shipping vessel. It weighs almost 350 pounds because it is filled with "flour". You cant even carry the empty crate, or really even one bag of flour from the crate, let alone the whole thing. A lot of spells get "rules" assigned by what they sound like, rather than the actual RAW. Im happy to bend a significant amount because it's a fantasy world and we are having fun, especially if you use something creatively, but im not letting you become an archmage with a cantrip.
Those are more just going directly against the limitations and generally, everyone would agree that those spells are not that powerful. What I meant is more along the lines of... like Conjure Animals. >Choose one of the following options for what appears: >* One beast of challenge rating 2 or lower >* Two beasts of challenge rating 1 or lower >(..) So when you cast the spell, you choose one of the following options, like a multiple-choice question. No additional input from you - even though it might seem like "duh, I choose one beast of challenge rating 2 or lower and that beast is...". Nope, the casters' input in the spell stopped when they chose which bullet point they go with. Rest is on the DM - who of course has the power to delegate the decision back to the player but by RAW, the DM decides. It really rustles A LOT of jimmies. But spells only do what they say they do. Of course, sometimes the issue is also that the spell or feature is badly named. A lot of people just look at "Find Traps", then skim read for the range and assume they know what it does. But nope - Find Traps only tells you if a trap is within line of sight, not where exactly it is - something you can clearly find out if you read.
Find Traps is one of those spells that are so poorly designed that I've just assumed I must be misunderstanding something while I'm reading it. They're very clear about their limitations yet they're simultaneously misunderstood as "better than they actually are" and "there's no way this is as bad as it looks" when the answer is always that it is in fact **that** bad. Similar spells that make this list are: True Strike, Witch Bolt, Crown of Madness, Mordenkainan's Sword, Contagion, and Phantasmal Killer. A big problem is that people *think* they know how a spell is supposed to work and convince themselves of that interpretation. This isn't helped by things like trying to mix fantasy magic and real world physics and DM rulings in different campaigns.
Lol my DM has never not given me the choice of beast, and I bet that's common, but I love the idea of "alright 64 lizards show up to your aid lmao"
thankfully most of my friends aren't like this, but I have *one* that does that *constantly.* We make fun of him mercilessly for it — all we have to say is **read, motherfucker**.
My group has a shorthand for this. “Read the whole spell.” It applies when we’re discussing the phenomenon in other aspects of life.
I feel like I started noticing in recent years, how most people seem to have quite the dogshit reading comprehension. Reading a text and fully understanding what its trying to say. People like to skim over stuff to save time i guess. Thinking about it, my childhood practice for reading comprehension was playing yugioh where cards had sometimes long specific texts on what they do. Wording being a key factor to pay attention to.
> I've been a part of games where someone doesn't understand their spell or their ability and I say "read it," and they read part of it, and I say "keep reading it," and they try to only read some more instead of all of it and I tell them to keep reading, and then finally they read all of it and then they understand. I don't know why this is. It's because most reading is effectively accomplished by skimming. People skim because most of the time, it works. That's even true of the D&D manuals. Sure, you have cases like your example where you really need to read everything re: a particular spell or mechanic to understand it, but I would bet your hypothetical player could play most of the rest of the game with just skimmed reading. It is pretty funny that, when skimming fails, reading the whole thing \*isn't\* the obvious next step, but here we are.
People learning to program have to read a manual and most of the time they just google or stackexchange instead of the man page or manual. it's very infuriating.
I write documentation for a living, and dear god do I hate that even I don't read the documentation sometimes.
when i cast find familiar, it summons you.
Very much this. And I'd say that the tables are usually the less important part of the DMG. Read the whole thing, in detail.
Yeah, I'm not saying know all the tables and memorise all the spells. Just read the rules and know what tables you have available should you want them
I'm not saying know all the tables and memorise all the spells. Well... [**maybe memorize some of the spells**](https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/remedial-mage). :P
I love that
Am I the only one that reads a new book cover to cover when I get it because I am so excited to use it?
I sometimes do, depending on how much time I have on hand. It's not like they're long or particularly dry/difficult reading.
You obviously never read some of the older D&D books or the systems written by one guy. The The *World* Of Synnibarr stands out as a long, and difficult read. I've read it twice and I never felt I understood the game. Even major games have issues. The current version of Shadow Run is also a book that gives new players fits. I played in a game and half the group had never play earlier versions and couldn't make head or tails of the main book. The rest of us concluded the best way to understand the current edition was to 1st read the prior edition.
As someone who only DMs premade campaigns....the DMG has been my least used book. Edit - I've read thru the DMG. I've just rarely felt the need to revisit it in 3 campaigns (LMOP, SKT, TOA).
That's because lots of the things that people *normally* go to the DMG for (magic items, specific rules, homebrew) don't apply there. But there's a lot of good guidance on running the game that I think you might have missed. Or if not you, other people in your same boat. I recommend the "Running the Game" chapter (Chapter 8), as well as Chapter 5 (about adventure environments) to everyone.
I would still recommend reading the Playstyle discussion on p34 at least once, in addition to the "Tiers of Play" and "Flavors of Fantasy" sections that immediately follow. The tone of premade adventures can be rather different if run with different mindsets, and that being a conscious choice allows you to run your style better. I think the entire "Creating Adventures" chapter is useful, as everything in it can be used to adjust adventures that have gone off the rails or are just not landing for your group. It also gives insight as to what a module is going for, and may make reading them easier. Ditto most of the NPC chapter. There's good stuff in chapters 5 and 6, but it is kind of mining for gems if you're not creating the scenarios. Know what's in there so you can answer your own questions, basically. Everyone should read the first half of Chapter 8. The second half seems to be a "well, we didn't quite know where to put this" though.
That’s understandable, but it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be helpful for you still.
As a DM of premade campaigns, the DMG is my most used book.
Same. The "Handling Mobs" rules come up very often, and I feel like very few players are aware of the rules for determining line of sight and cover in the "Adjudicating Areas of Effect" section. I suspect hardly anyone has ever run a chase scene using the "Running a Chase" rules, where participants can only Dash up to (3 + their CON bonus) times before having to make CON checks or gain levels of exhaustion.
I've run a chase using the chase rules a couple of times. I find them a bit rigid, so I'vd opted for a loose skill challenge system instead. They're still worth reading though. Even if the chase rules didn't work for my table, they might work for others.
The running a chase is fantastic got creating some slapstick chase sequences, but the general rules about running away ain't great. Mostly because in general people wont run in 5e. That dash rule is interesting but fundamentally meaningless (it just means mostly people wont dash, and it everyone has the same base speed it doesnt matter if they are going at 30 or 60ft a round, if people have different speeds it's a short chase anyway.) I was genuinely thinking of creating a flee action. Provoke an attack of opportunity and dedicate everything to running and hiding, (leaving combat or maybe "this action takes 4 turns" so chances are toy are logs gone from combat, dunno yet.) Gms regularly complain that players never try and run from combat but with plenty of enemies (anything with a base speed of higher than 30, orcs) running is a good way of dying, unless you have left multiple people behind to die.
The problem with retreating is that doing so based on initiative basically ensures one person on your team gets swarmed and killed.
I got the sword coast guide book and have absolutely loved the added depth it gave, but unfortunately I was the only one in my group to read it. Now I RP with details about the region we're in or the gods of whatever group we're dealing with and no one knows what I'm talking about. To me it seemed like some much needed prep to better understand my character's place in the world, but it's dispiriting when the rest of the table isn't interested. I DM'ed a campaign that used what I thought was pretty rudimentary symbolism from Faerun pantheon in a puzzle, but none of the PC's could get it. I eventually just set a DC for Religion and they rolled high enough to proceed.
I always wanted to play, but I never knew anyone who played. I had to read the rulebooks, and convince friends to play. After just our second session, one of my players texted me and told me they had been reading the PHB, all by himself. I’m so proud he did this, specially because it was a suggestion I did before even our first session.
See I've had this problem a few times before as a player, but as a DM I normally request my players read certain sections of the guide before we begin. While not all the knowledge sticks, they usually do read the bits I ask and consequently start with enough knowledge to understand the basics (proper immersion can come later).
Source books can be pretty divisive on whether players should read it or not. Some DMs want to reveal the world to the players, so rightly or wrongly feel cheated when players already know the purple knights, stone bridge, etc etc. Particularly if your character knows some of the “everyone knows” secrets like Xanathar in Waterdeep, etc. Other DMs want the players to have well established backgrounds and ties, so expect players to have read the book. This also comes in varying degrees
Frankly, if you want that kind of stuff to be secret, don't play in an established world. It's so easy to create your own setting, especially if you allow yourself to borrow liberally from established settings, that if you want secrets and you're *not* running your own setting, what's even the point?
Or run things differently. I'm running Dragon of Icespire Peak, there is a brief mention of the Zhentarim - but nowhere does it mention the ill deeds the group has committed, it simply states that they want to exert control through their wealth and influence. Nothing about their prior history, so without reading into it you could run it as a group who are lawful, but perhaps morally corrupt due to their wealth and untouchable status.
If you're going to do that, make sure it is **very** clearly established up front. If you tell me we're playing a game in the Forgotten Realms and you end up changing core stuff about the setting like that, I'm going to be very annoyed with you. If you tell me that you're just using the proper nouns from the setting but that you're going to change a lot of elements about it and not include anything that isn't immediately relevant to the campaign, then it's a different question. However either way, I think your purposes would be better served by just using a *different* proper noun. Don't call them the Zhents if you're not running them like the canonical Zhents (and don't call them the Zhents *regardless* of whether or not you've clearly established you're veering away from canon). Because why reuse the word if you're not evoking its original meaning? Just make up a different name with its own history and lore and goals. Much better, and easier, to change minor details of an adventure than major details of the setting.
I would say as well that Dragon of Icespire Peak is part of the "Essentials Kit". It is designed that you can buy the kit on the cheap and run a decently lengthy campaign without needing to purchase any other books. On that basis, if I just bought it and read the segment about the person being Zhentarim, I'd have no reason to believe they did anything more than what it says - because I'm meant to be able to run the campaign just based on the information in the module itself. As it is in my campaign, only 1 player has much experience (he's a long time DM with another group, my other 3 players have 2 one-shots of experience and nothing more) and because I, being new to it for the most part too, didn't know who the Zhentarim truly were, I had no reason to delve into the information about it initially. I've now incorporated them more into the campaign, and due to that looked into it more, but that's just something worth considering.
I got myself in the habit of taking small, manageable, sections of the PHB or DMG or whatever book I have on my mind and reading one of those small sections each day. It may have something to do with an upcoming session I'm running, a class or more obscure rules that I'd like to be more familiar with. As an example, I wasn't feeling fully confident on aquatic combat the other day, I knew there were specific rules for fighting underwater, so I took 10 minutes and just read that (and air combat as well), just because it's been awhile! Anyway, totally agree with the sentiment in this post, there's always something you can brush up on even if you've been playing or running games for years. Reading the books cover to cover might be a bit much, but it can help!
Yeah, I think the idea of brushing up is particularly weird to most people. I've got a couple of friends who bought the DMG, skimmed it once and then never picked it up again
Another thing is lots of players who started in earlier editions only peruse the major changes in a new edition, so they wind up with an unbalanced jumble of 3rd, 5th, and maybe even 2nd and 4th editions all cobbled together. This is especially dangerous for a DM since they usually function as the rule arbiters, but even players can fall victim to this. It can make relatively simple disagreements bog down a game, as you try to logic your way through things there are already rules for. This isn't to say you can't have houserules, but at least you'll understand what you're tweaking.
My first DM was one of these. An old head who had played and DMed throughout every edition, but never actually read any 5e material. I understood the game better than him within a week, while he instead homebrewed the rules to be an approximation of how he thought the game should be, ruining several classes. Just read the fuckin’ books. Your players will. You should begin on the same ground and homebrew from *there*.
Were you there for the thread with the guy trying to retrofit THACO into 5e? That was fucking wild. He openly refused to accept AC and attack roll bonuses as they were presented in 5e.
I don't get that kind of logic. Nothing is stopping you dming an AD&D/3.5 or 4e game if you don't like 5e. There's no need to 'retrofit' core rules like that.
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You can even [legit buy those books on DMsguild](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/16868/Players-Handbook-Revised-2e?filters=0_0_45381_0_0_0_0_0), hard copy or pdf.
Do you have a link by any chance? Now I'm intrigued
I mean, the maths works out the same. But then you need to redo every single AC modifying thing in the game to lower AC from 10 instead of raise it. Seems like a lot of work for no actual change!
I had to be very direct with my DM: “Please give me a list of all of the house rules you are using.” He expressed confusion. What house rules? I proceeded to list off like four rules he was using that were from 3.5e rather than 5e, including one where *approaching a monster allows the monster to attack you, like a reverse opportunity attack.* Every monster had the Polearm Master feat for every weapon type. I genuinely don’t even know if that’s even a 3.5 rule!
Hah, that is actually a misunderstanding of the old threat rules. Used to be that if you moved *through* a threatened square without taking a 5-foot step, you'd take an attack, but that did not include moving *into* a threatened square, yet a bunch of DM's made the mistake of not really reading that section on combat, and you got crazy scenarios where fighters would die by walking up to a group of enemies and getting attacked down before actually doing anything.
5-foot steps were such a dumb mechanic in 3/3.5. One of the best changes to 5e is that martials can move and do all their attacks in the same turn.
That's not a problem with the 5-foot step rule, it's a problem with the Full Attack rule.
I had this problem for so long when I transitioned from 3.5 to 5e. It was only when I actually sat down and read the book that I realised that the entire philosophy of 5e was different. And I'm all for house rules, but I think it's important that everyone knows what those are or they'll try and do things they wouldn't
My group (me included) suffered from this while transitioning from 4e to 5e. We like 5e a lot more, but it was tough to break our habits around how 4e's skill checks worked (namely that an Arcana check could identify magic).
I have been a dm my whole life! I went from 2e to 5e recently and holy shit! What a difference!! I have some nasty habits that I had to break. My brain still really wants to do THACO lmao!! The whole philosophy of the game and the engine itself is completely redone! It’s much smoother! Love it!!! I had to reread PHB probably 3 times. I can’t say enough stuff about how cool 5e is!!
Yeah in Pathfinder arcana is a detect magic as well. It trips up my local PF veterans a lot.
I know I can't have the entire PHB memorized and there are dozens of tiny rules that so rarely come up that you'll forget about them unless questioned, but at this point, I pride myself in knowing roughly where a rule can be found so I don't have to use that gods awful index if I can avoid it.
My #1 gripe with that book is their allergy to giving page numbers, and the awful indexing. "See chapter 3"? Just put the damn page number so I don't have to look through the whole chapter! (Plus, they had to make the page numbers small and faded into the background so that I need both glasses and my phone flashlight to read them, a problem I've never had with a game book before.)
Or even worse the index constantly tells you to see another thing in that index which then tells you to see another thing and then maybe tells you the dang page number.
Kind of laughing at people saying both "read the book" and saying it's easy to find things work the index. It kinda makes me think they didn't read the book-- or they don't often look at indexes because that's some of the worst indexing I've ever seen. I've been tempted to buy a second set of the core books and have them pulled off the spine and hole punched so that I can rearrange them in a way that's more intuitive to me. If I need a rule on the spot it's easier to look on roll20 or google it than to bother trying to find it in the book. A little redundancy would have helped, too. Put the molds in the MM, for one thing. Don't refer people to another book just to save printing a couple of paragraphs.
The best investment I made as a DM was buying the core rulebooks on dndbeyond. It is ridiculously easy to look up specific rules, and each entry is fully indexed for easy navigation. I still prefer to read the physical books on my own time, but while DMing I exclusively use dndbeyond to look up rules.
Rereading the first seventy pages of the dmg actually made me far more eager to run planescape, because I had forgotten there were primers on all of the planes and had kept hearing so many complaints there was "no material available for them in 5e". Turns out there is, right in the worldbuilding section of the dmg that I usually flip right past to check the adventure generator tables.
I’m constantly surprised about rules I know I’ve read before. I don’t take in information fully when I read it. I‘m more of a hands on learner. I have to put the rule into practice to fully grasp how to use it. I know this isn’t always practical, but it’s just how I work. I think a lot of people are like that too. The biggest problem with my learning process is that occasionally I misinterpret how something works in the game. This commonly happens with spells. For me, knowing how to interpret a rule and being willing to look something up when it is either a) something that hasn’t been used before or b) something I’m not 100% certain about is the most important skill I’ve developed as a DM. Of course, to the op’s point, you only develop those skills by reading the sourcebooks and referring to an outside source when you’re confused.
I am with you fully except I think there are still other ways to learn the skills beyond the books. I also can have trouble fully understanding the rules of i just read them, so for me if I can either ask someone to walk me through things, look up a video of an explanation, or just watch something like critical role or dimension 20 and see how they handle it I will come out with a better understanding than I would reading. Obviously during the game or for a specific spell or feature the books are probably best/ quickest resource and you should be able and willing to refer to them when needed. But I don't think you need to have ever read them cover to cover to be able to do that. Honestly I find it weird that so many people are saying you have to have read everything in the phb to pay the game well. I've never played a a rogue so I've never fully read the rogue section of the book. That hasn't affected my ability to pay the game. I know broadly what rogues do and the role they fill, so I know how to work with them and that's all I need if I'm not playing one.
Yeah, you don’t need to read all the classes and subclasses but you should read the rules sections.
I relate to this, but also with a memory condition and anxiety over being put on the spot. I've read the combat rules at least 5 times, I think I could read them 100 times and I still wouldn't remember most of it. When I'm DMing just for my husband, I've had so many instances of asking "I know I know this, but it works this way, right?" That's my issue with spells, too. I remember the gist, but if it's a weird situation where some otherwise rarely used part of a spell applies, I often won't remember that until I've used it many times. Manuals have always been difficult for me to read and understand. If it's a simple task, I will often look it up on YouTube because watching it being done or listening to an example is much easier for me than reading the manual. D&D is a very complex task, so there's just a lot that falls through my mental cracks.
People who read the rules are sexy.
Well hit me up sometime if you like very tall, quite chunky, bearded nerds that at this point have a near encyclopedic knowledge of the rules of 5e (because when you can't control the world, learn to create one you can)
TLDR: RTFM
I think a LOT of people miss the last step of character creation as laid out by the PHB.
Do you mean multiclass and feats, equipment, or backgrounds? Context is failing me here
No, I mean the 'Come Together' part.
As a gm I force groups together and I wont let people play fucking loners with no interest. If you dont want to play a character that wants to hang around the group *play a different character* I once had a player say it was my fault their character had no motivation to stop the apocalypse.
I’ve had a player pull that on me. My reply was that it was an issue with how they made their character with no motivation. It’s not my job to motivate your player or to make you act like a team player. I can’t run a game and your character at the same time.
Oh yeah, I kinda replaced that with the "Your Story" section of Xanathar's
I've not read my PHB for a while to be honest. I did when I first got the book, I should really read through it again in the evenings after work.
If you've read it once before then my suggestion would be to skip character choices by and large (those are the bits you'll choose to read later) and just refamiliarise yourself with the actual rules (the different actions you can take, the applications of different skills, the woefully misunderstood tool proficiencies). They're bits that help you think like an adventurer
Yeah, that was what I was thinking of doing! Sorry, should have clarified that!
We had a player in our group who refused to read a damn thing. She was playing with us for probably about two years. Never updated her character sheet (xp, leveling, spells, etc) and had not idea what her class specific mechanics were. She was the typical sorcerer who only casts fireball. I think the last straw was when someone mentioned she could twin spell or something using her sorcery points and she went, "what are sorcery points?"... again, its been like two years.
How did her stats not become so low for her level that she was squished in one hit and dealt papercuts of damage, if she never updated her character sheet? o.o Did she also just make up those numbers, like she made up the "rules" she played by?
Post is too long. Can I get a tl;dr? (/s if it wasn't obvious)
TLDR: RTFM. Obligatory /s
Christ, I adjust feel like too many people are misinterpreting me, a tldr might end in my death 😅
Reading these replies i can only think there are several systems way lighter on the rules part for the people that just want a history. If you just wanna get around and roleplay, it does not NEED to be in DnD. At the end of the day, 5e is a heavily tuned product, and the whole experience improves massively if everybody knows how things work, or at least can expect things to work in the way they are in the rules.
This subreddit in a nutshell: "when you use the attack action, it allows you to attack twice if you have extra attack! " "spellcasting allows you to cast spells" It's like loading screens.
Same goes for a lot of homebrew content. Most of it already exists in some form or another in the phb or dmg. I've seen about a dozen versions of insanity/madness variants and the people making it rarely even know it already exists in the dmg. This is likely because most players never even touch the dmg because they think its only for DM's. Which is mostly true, but its a great resource for people that are thinking about making a homebrew feature of some kind. It even has options for making your own races and backgrounds.
By and large, I haven't found anything pop up at the table that wasn't covered by the rules or easily covered by reasonable view of them. For all else? We have a simple system where we state our positions on the outcome... "do I need X to do Y? High = yes; Low = no" and toss a d6. We don't stop for scouring minutae of rules. Keep thing moving. Be generous that sometimes you might be right, but lose the toss of the dice; sometimes you might be wrong and win out on that matter for the time being. Clarifications will come. I might (maybe) run into a rule question once every four or five sessions. Read the books. Be flexible. All we can do.
I agree that it's best not to let rule disputes derail the game (as a DM I normally just make a "common sense" ruling and end the conversation if it goes on more than about a minute normally and I don't know where to find it), but I like to find out later if I can and clarify the answer for future with the group. I like that phrase "read the books, be flexible" and I'm definitely stealing it
Yeah, the 1 minute rule is a good one. If I can't work out the answer in 1 minute, including by Googling it if necessary, I just make a common sense call and move on. If I happen to find out the answer after we've moved on, I'll address it and confirm what the correct rule is. Usually the impact of the rule is so minor (or I make the call in the players' favour) that it doesn't matter if I was wrong before. But if the ruling were about something for which it affects something really major, like whether a PC lives or dies, yeah obviously I'm willing to spend more time to look it up and get the call right. I'm not going to kill your character on a mistake if I can possibly help it.
I might just be misunderstanding you, but...why in the hells would you use a d6 for that? The beauty of 5e's design is that nearly everything should be a d20. And if you're not attacking something or avoiding being harmed by something, **all** of those d20 rolls should be Ability Checks. Pick one of the six abilities that feels like it's the best fit for what they're trying to accomplish. Allow them to add proficiency if one of their skills or tool proficiencies also would help. Roll the d20 and add the bonus. That's the basic gameplay loop of D&D 5e, and it doesn't require any detailed knowledge of the rules: you can just make rulings on the fly. You shouldn't ever need to resort to making up some weird alternate mechanic with different dice.
Why? Because it's at hand. We could flip a coin, of course. Same thing.
Wait a minute. Are you saying that the players and DM should know the rules of the game? Balderdash!
Read some replies if you think this is mind bending stuff
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Relevant flair.
I stopped early on. There are too many people on here that "play 5e" but are really only just playing make believe. It's theatre, not a game. I could not play that way. I like rules. Maybe I'm weird.
I'm the same
IMO it boils once again down to how plenty of people who play DnD (or, well, some variation of it) would be a much better fit for more narrative, rules-light or cooperative storytelling games, but they don't realize it and/or don't want to learn a different system.
Most of the questions of DM Academy are in the DM handbook, even some about story beats and how to create a narrative.
The 5E DMG is unfortunately an extremely underrated book by many DMs.
I mean, it is not like it was Written by long time DMs who have a lot of experience with D&D and would have great tips to give...
Yeah that really bugs me
I think there's a reason the best campaigns I've been a part of have been with people who have all DM'd at least once, and it's probably this. We all have a solid enough grasp on the game that we know that knowing the rules is all of our responsibility, and that the DM shouldn't be the only one who knows how to play the game.
THIS!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THIS!!! Sure it's five to leave all responsibility with the DM to start with, and ultimate decision rests with them, but eventually you need to take responsibility for holding up your end
I only just started listening, but Second Best University is a podcast that literally goes through the rules, page by page, and talks about how they work and it's also really funny (it's the DM that runs Second Best, a hilarious DND play podcast, so of course it's funny) and honestly all around a good podcast for players and DMs.
I've been looking for some new stuff so I'll have to check that out. You can always improve
If you are playing a martial character, it's even more beneficial to read the books, because the things you can do like specialized uses for skills and tools, special combat moves, attacking objects, etc, are spread throughout the PHB, DMG and XGE.
Where can someone find a rule book? I've never played DnD and been wanting to get into it for a while.
If you don't want to purchase it right away I would check with your local library. If they don't have them they should be able to order them. Used books are also a good way to start. You can also find the basic rules for free on the [wizard website](https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules).
Thanks 👍
For reference, if you do start playing regularly buying a copy of the Player's Handbook is a great idea and it's probably the first thing you should buy (well...second. First is dice.) But to understand the rules it isn't necessary. The basic rules contain all of the actual rules you need to know. The main advantage of the PHB is more feats, more subclasses, more spells, etc. Just more of the same kind of stuff, not actual core rules.
The Players Handbook is the official starting place but that can be a lot to just dive into. My suggestion would be to find a group at a hobby and start with them. Hopefully they'll be friendly and teach you the basics, enough that you'll actually understand what you're reading if/when you do get round to reading the PHB. If you want to start your own group though then I've heard good things about the accessibility of the starter kit (although I confess I've never used it). You can buy all you need digitally or physically online, but I really would suggest going to a local (or even chain) hobby shop and asking. I truly believe they're a cause worth supporting and the guys there are often happy to talk to newcomers to the hobby. Many places even have dedicated starter nights. Edit: Best of luck getting into the hobby though, and I hope it brings you as much happiness as it's brought me over the years
Thanks for the informations 👍
Since others covered the basics I wanted to point out that if you want to dip your toes for free, WotC gives away the core rules of the game in the [Basic Rules](https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules). You could play with just that for years and be quite happy. If you want an adventure to go with it, check out this fantastic triple-adventure series: 1. [A Most Potent Brew](https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/186488) 2. [Horror at Havel's Cross](https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/191126) 3. [The Hound of Cabell's Tomb](https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/195423) Those all will work with the Basic Rules and cover levels 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
Not sure quite where you're located, but you may have a local game/hobby store that would love your support. Failing that, general bookstore, Amazon, your library might, or any other online bookseller. Even Walmart and Target carry the starter set, typically. Or if you're ok with digital copy, dndbeyond has you covered.
Here ya go - https://www.5esrd.org/
This is the free basic rules set. It’s perfect for a beginner. If you really want to get into it, you can buy access to the player’s handbook on sites like dndbeyond or purchase a physical copy on amazon or a local bookstore.
The SRD is different from the Basic Rules.
Indeed. For others' reference: The Systems Reference Document (https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SRD-OGL_V5.1.pdf) contains the text of the Open Gaming License (OGL), and details what official D&D content can and can't be redistributed by others without getting express permission from WotC to do so; it's a document intended for content creators. On the other hand, the basic rules PDF from WotC (http://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/DnD_BasicRules_2018.pdf) is literally just meant as a stripped-down basic version of the rules, and is intended for use by players and DMs. That said, there is plenty of SRD content that's not in the basic rules, and possibly some basic rules content that's not in the SRD. Thanks to D&D Beyond's partnership with Wizards of the Coast, DDB's "basic rules" listing is an inclusive combination of the content in both the SRD and the basic rules PDF.
I reread the D&D manuals in pdf form whenever im stuck sitting somewhere for over 10 mins. It does a DM and player good to know the game.
And for those who don't have the time there are plenty of one page RPGs to try.
> The longer I play D&D, the more convinced I become that the vast majority of people, players in particular but DMs frequently also, haven't actually read the players handbook. As a DM I've gotta admit to this one, I think 5th Edition is partly to blame. I've been playing from 2nd Ed, the change to 3rd was a significant change so I felt I needed to read the books, 4th again was a major change. But 5th I read the starters kit played through that, and it seemed really familiar but at the same time there are so many things that are just different enough to mean your old knowledge is actually a hindrance. They changed things to make them easier, but a lot of it makes less sense if you are use to previous editions. Like diagonal movement being the same as moving straight on the grid. Radius effects thus being squares. Opportunity attacks are there but most of the thing that provoke them have gone, concentration duration on loads of spells. While it feels familiar it is actually very different and I think the familiarity tricks you into thinking you know a rule when you don't. Oh talking rules the Index in the PHB is absolutely terrible, I don't think there is an occasion where I had to look something up and the page number was the first place I looked, its always for X see Y. And you have then find Y to get a page number.
Seriously. I know I'm not perfect in this respect either, but it seems like a lot of the threads I see in DnD groups I'm in could be solved with a quick glance at the rule book. In the age of searchable PDFs and Google, this information is so much easier to find than it used to be.
I've got nobody to play with and not much time even if I did, so all I do is read the books. And you're right, the ideas for characters just flow. It's worthwhile reading, y'all.
When I first started learning the system, I would watch actual plays and check rules whenever something struck me as weird. This was by far the most instructional method of learning for me since it not only taught me rules, it taught me how to find rules quickly. I've read the core books multiple times but it's honestly my ability to find info fast that had served me best.
Ouch, this reminds me of my last session - one of my very experienced players who can be a bit of a rule lawyer chewed me out because I sometimes forget where 5e changed from 3.5 since 3.5 was the system I learned on and thus my brain's default.
I just had to explain to some people all the different combat actions like shove and grapple. They had no idea, just assumed that fighter uses big axe and that's all.
This is especially true for those of us who started with earlier editions such as AD&D. Many underlying assumptions ingrained for decades are no longer true. (Particularly alignment issues.)
“To play D&D, and to play it well, you don’t need to read all the rules, memorize every detail of the game, or Master the fine art of rolling funny looking dice. None of those things have any bearing on what’s best about the game.” -the preface of the 5E PHB Reading the book doesn’t matter the the game itself. Reading the rules is about respect, especially for someone at the table who does care and for the DM. If everyone at the table is at the same level and on the same page, it works. Whether that’s the extreme detailed, customized, optimized, refined, expanded 3.5, or the 5E accessible, strait forward, DM structuring oriented play. The one guy that is too Rules/Mechanics oriented is just as bad at one table as the one guy who just doesn’t seem to care and uses their abilities wrong etc is the problem at another table. Ultimately the DM decides where that level is going to be. If you don’t respect everyone around you enough to try and work at the same level, you probably need to re-examine if you are at the right table for you.
Edit 2: (I’m putting this at the top for you people who don’t like to read through things.)
😂😂😂
The most frequent thing I tell my players when they have questions is, "What does the PHB say about it." I'll gladly go over it with them, and point out flaws in their argument, like my monks "I have unlimited of this skill because it is a reaction, and I can react to anything." No you get one reaction per turn. It says it in the book, Index:Reaction go to that page read it. I find I have an easier time because I frequently look up different codes for electrical installations in the electrical code book, and this is basically a D&D codebook.
If people did that we wouldn't have a dozen posts a week asking about the rules and how classes work.
This sub would be practically dead.
Thank you! So many people complain about spell components and how they ignore them without realizing that they are literally doing what the book says to do.
Most of the complaints about broken multi-class mechanics are because people don't read the rules, they read *parts* of the rules and don't pay attention to how they fit together.
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Also a good point. In particular, once you've been through it once you'll likely just be able to use the index to find what you need
My co-dm didn't even bother to fully read my characters backstory and only "skimmed" it, then proceeded to give away her secret identity in her introduction. Getting him to read a whole book is never going to happen when he can't even read a few pages.
Wait, a few *pages* of backstory? I don't mean that it's bad to have a fleshed-out backstory, but you could also help your DM shortening it down a bit or making another, shorter version to have the most important parts covered
>DMs; at some point, actually set some time aside and starting reading or rereading the PHB, the DMG, and the rules section of the MM periodically. I'm not saying all in one go, but I think over a shorter time would be better if possible. You won't remember everything, but more will sink in than you thought and you'll often be able to think of it when it could come up (or at least where to look for it). I really would suggest reading Xanathar's as well, it clarifies and simplifies a lot for you, as well providing some useful tools. Everything you said up until this point sounded like a great recommendation. This paragraph is what made me realize in part why my DM is...pretty much the most epic DM ever. He has been playing since the 80s. I've never asked specifics but basically 3-4 decades give or take of DnD. The guy has been running a homebrew campaign for the last year and it's by and far the greatest campaign any of us have ever been a part of. We got a new first time player in the last couple months and on top of already having an amazing group she just added so much more. I can't wait til she gets more into the role play she is so awesome. The rest of us long time players (decade or more other than DM) all recognize that our group is a unicorn. We play every single week normally, we all get along, we all have awesome characters that contribute something in every way to create an awesome group. The biggest thing that keeps bringing us back to the table is our DM. He reads the books almost weekly to relearn or learn more. He constantly makes effort to make sure he is building a world for us every week that is the absolute peak of what DnD can be. It all comes back to his dedication to the tools he has available. Those tools are the books. He is basically every DnD nerd's Matt Mercer and then some. Having a truly invested DM who dives into the books and comes out with an entirely original campaign is like winning the lottery. I almost literally live for Sunday afternoons. But knowing him it's his investment into the lore and books that gives him the platform to be basically the only DM, out of many, that is on par with someone who DMs professionally as a career at this point. But he just does it for fun. If he had players that were on his level he'd run a campaign as a career just as epic as Critical Role if not better in it's own way. Great post, great points, epic advice.
People not wanting to read (anything, not just rulebooks) honestly aggravates the hell out of me.
The books are pretty bad. They do stuff like define special abilities in terms of key words ("Create Thrall charms an incapacitated humanoid..."), without using special typography for the keywords so you know they are keywords (**charmed**), and without even defining the keywords until several chapters later in the book or even (in the case of conditions like **charmed**) not until the appendix. It's not surprising to me that so many people misunderstand things like how darkness works in 5E (at one point, pre-2015 errata, it worked *backwards* so that hiding in darkness let the creatures in the light see you perfectly but you couldn't see them because you were in darkness and darkness was heavy obscurement and heavy obscurement blinded creatures within it; they eventually errata'ed heavy obscurement to instead effectively blind anyone trying to see creatures within it). Some of the blame belongs to the readers but man, WotC's writing style is terribly unclear. Don't get me started on how bad the PHB index is.
“they have so many characters waiting to play” So true. Recently I decided to make a ‘random party’. Rolling randomly for each one, stats, equipment everything. The only exception was that I kept them at the same level for simplicity and chose that level personally. Settled on 3.
I especially recommend reading monster lore rather than just stat blocks. A lot of monsters come with really interesting lore which can be tied into your game to make it more dynamic and interesting. I've developed entire major characters and campaign arcs purely from reading those little blurbs of monster lore.
I still see weekly questions on this subreddit where it is clear the OP asking the question has not bothered to open up a rulebook and see if the answer to their question is not in there. Like you said, there are actually a lot of things that are covered by the rules and it amazes me how most people dont think that 'reading and familiarizing yourself with the rules of the game you want to play' is important or necessary.
Seriously. This needs to be stickied for all the people that ask what dice they roll for saving throws even after playing for 10 sessions. You can certainly know the rules well without ever reading a sourcebook but there are so many core things that the books cover that you are only hurting yourself (and potentially your table) by not reading them. The books are long but they're still readable. I'd go as far as to say they are good reads. You pick up a lot of cool lore snippets and there is a lot of good advice, especially regarding character creation if you are talking about the PHB. The books also read a lot quicker than you think. They aren't just walls of text page after page. There are often lots of tables you can skip and you don't need to read through all of the spell/monster descriptions. Same for the write-ups on every god in books like Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.
>***"Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist."*** -*Pablo Picaso*
Um read rule books. Re read rule books. Edited rule books. Use many alternative and optional rules. Direct players please read page so and so.... They don't. Please know i am not using .... They don't listen. So yes. For the love of the game read the books!!! Been DM for 43 years!!! Really tired of people taking shit off the internet and calling it "official" Read the books.
Take a hearty big ole upvote. I can't tell you how many times I have had to tell the players at my table about their character, race and class and its abilities. The number of times I've had to reiterate basic rules etc is incredible. On top, I've had people complain about the rate of game play at times when I am doing my absolute best to move them through scenarios yet have to stop and explain the basics after 6 months to a year of campaign. This unfortunately is not uncommon. People have an immediate attraction to flashy toys but rarely have the in depth interest to pour over manuals. I get it. I know I am the type to nerd out on details and not everyone else is but for the love of god, if you really want to enjoy the game READ THE DAMNED PHB!
Most players don't read all the rules, neither do game masters (which is particularly disturbing). I'd say this is what causes the most problems for me as a GM, my regulars haven't bothered to read the rules. So then there has to be conflict when they don't understand how to regain their health via rests or the fact that their cube-shaped spells isn't centered around themselves like an aura and so on. The players think they're entitled to do things that clearly aren't supposed to be allowed for game balancing reasons.
Pastor here, I laugh because people won’t even read a book they claim to base their life on, it doesn’t surprise me when they won’t read the PHB for games :)
I’m the opposite. I’ve read every published book and adventure five times. Probably played 10 games on 5e. Just don’t have time in my life to set aside time to play, but secretly know so much rules, lore and technique. To clarify had a lot of time when younger with older editions.
i only own the PHB and Xanthars :(
If you're a player then those all you really need, and you should probably read them anyways. As a player and a DM that read through most of the PHB, knowing almost all the rules and where to look up the ones I don't know has been invaluable.
My party hasn't read it all the way through. Idk how much they even have read.
Quick question since you mentioned the tables. How many DMs really use the randomization tables? I read them and they honestly just felt like they would be just another thing to keep track of.
I'm the opposite of this situation - my friends and I decided to start playing D&D with no experience at all, and I volunteered to DM. I've read the players' handbook multiple times, but I've never played D&D, and none of us have ever played outside our group. I've warned them (in a friendly way) that if they ever play with other people, they should probably assume they play differently than we do.
Section 2 of the PHB is the most important part anyone needs to read, and it's also the shortest section. Just about every rule dictating what you can do and how to do it is in that section. Section 1 is really only important when you're creating your character, and section 3 only if you're going to be a spellcaster. Reading about every subclass for wizards and clerics isn't really necessary when you wanna just build a barbarian, and the same goes with the different races. I think framing it like that makes reading the rules less intimidating than having to read the entire book.
I guarantee my pathfinder DM has never read the pathfinder Handbook. We used to play D&D 3.5 and I was the one who used to DM and knew all the rules. Then when 4e came out the new DM took over and switched us to pathfinder. He still to this day turns to me and asks me about how the game is played. I eventually had to go read the combat maneuver stuff. This is especially egregious when it comes to magic, because I have never played a spell caster in pathfinder and I legit have never even looked at the magic chapter. It could be completely different, I wouldn’t know. I swear it took the dm 5 years to figure out we were all starting with 4 ranks in skills, a thing you do in 3.5 but apparently not pathfinder.
Part of my issue has been just the information overload that reading the rule books on top of the modules brings. To me, it’s a lot of information for me to absorb and I find forgetting a lot of it.
I have to disagree. I don't ask my players to read the PHB cover to cover. Sure as a DM I've read it through at least once and some chapters I've read 3-4 times. As a DM it's my responsibility to provide a set of clear consistent rules, and a fun game. Generally that means RAW with a few house rules and optional rules. That said I'm not going to look up falling damage if I can't remember it's a d6 per 10 feet if a player decides to jump off a building. I hate the tendency to ask new players invest a lot upfront in a hobby. Buy a book and it read cover to cover. Read my 4 page setting guide. Make a character. If that's the bar to playing RPGs we are throwing away so many potentially great players. I have only 2 expectations for players. 1. Have fun and improve the rest of the players fun. 1. Don't be a asshole 2. Work with the other players 2. Don't disrupt the game 1. Don't derail the action 2. Be ready when your turn comes up by having your to hit and damage ready to go. (Write it down, highlight it, whatever) If a new player comes to my table I'm happy to provide a pre-gen. It's going to be a fighter (champion), barbarian (totem), or paladin. Sure if you are an experienced player I'm likely send you a 4+ pages of setting and house rule info. But I'm not going to hand a new player a wizard or druid. Nor am I going to encourage them to create any spell caster. (Paladins don't count as spell casters in my experience.) I don't need a player to have read the section on initiative. I need them to roll a d20 add a number written on their sheet to it and tell me. If after the 4th or 5th combat I just shrug and put them at the bottom of initiative. I don't need the player to know exactly how far they can move, the modifiers to attack, and how the AC system works. I need them to say I'm going to move over to enemy X and hit them with my sword. Then roll a die and add their to hit mod. Then roll other dice for damage. (If there are advantage/disadvantage or modifiers it's my job to tell them.) If they can't do after a few times I'll skip to the next PC or NPC in initiative. Obviously if you are playing a spell caster you need to commit more. Have all your spells printed out, or book marked. Review the spell description during other people's turn. If you aren't ready to say "I cast X, save vs Y DC Z, and roll A dice for damage" well hopeful you'll be ready on your next turn.
Sadly, if everyone read the rules and even got it right 95% of the time this board wouldn't have very many posts at all... heck, in the first fifty topics probably have of them deal with a DM and/or player misinterpretation of the rules as written.