How do I prepare a longer campaign for mixed-experience players?

Question

After having searched for a moment I found that this question (although seemingly commonplace) was not yet answered, so sorry if this is a duplicate.

I'm a DM preparing a new 5th-edition D&D campaign for probably 3-5 players; two have never played before, and the other one/three (depending on if a couple other players end up joining) have a lot of experience with campaigns in general including some of mine. In general I would say based on player reviews that I'm a good DM for creating longer campaigns with complex overarching plots and decent gameplay, but I've never had to also account for the fact that there are newer players involved. Everyone would start with new level-1 characters, but I fear that the more-experienced players will end up dragging the newer players along with them, especially since the length of the campaign lends itself to giving more-experienced players an advantage when they know how to use complex abilities and spells and mechanics while the new players are, despite being the same level, struggling to understand mechanics.

My initial thought was to set up mini-encounters where I can subtly teach the newer players about newly-unlocked abilities and more complex aspects of the game - trap-filled areas where perception is key, distant enemies where attack spells are key, powerful minibosses where teamwork/support spells are key - but I then ran up against the wall that the older players will either a) not enjoy the "tutorial" encounters as much even if just for the brief moment that they last or b) will instantly understand how to get past them and clear them without letting the newer players feel the accomplishment of having done it themselves.

My question is how do I design the campaign in such a way that lends itself to allowing new players to learn the game in a comfortable way without also boring more-experienced players?

I have the story of the campaign already prepared and am currently in the process of writing out the specifics of encounters/dungeons/etc. and have complete freedom as to how the encounters are structured. Any guidance as to how I should design the campaign to teach new players while still entertaining experienced ones would be invaluable. Thank you!

Answer 1

You probably don't need to do anything special, though if you usually make it hard for players to change characters, you may want to give the new players leeway on that.

In my experience, you don't need to do anything particularly special for a mixed experience campaign.

The more experienced players might make more optimized characters. But that is not a certainty. For one thing, the more experienced players might help the new players make optimized character. For another, some experienced players deliberately make less optimized characters (I really like gishy-fighter/mage type characters even though I know that in most systems that is a bad choice for optimizing). And finally, you tagged this as 5E. While optimizing is absolutely a thing in every edition, it is less of an overwhelming concern in 5e then it was in certain earlier editions.

During gameplay the more experienced players are likely to coordinate with the less experienced players and even things out. Now, of course if the more experienced players do so much coordinating that they are basically telling the new players what to do and not letting the new players play, that is a problem that will need to be addressed. But that is separate from campaign development and may never come up.

The one thing that some tables might need to do differently is that new players are likely to have more desire and perhaps more need to change or re-spec their characters than an experienced player would. For some tables, this is not a change at all. I let players ret-con their characters extensively during downtime. I don't even ask for a story or rules-based justification as long as they aren't flagrantly abusing it. (No, you cannot completely rebuild a Rogue into a fire-slinging sorcerer right after you see the group of trolls up ahead. But you could switch during downtime). If your table does not normally permit character changes of that nature, you may want to permit it at least a couple of times for new players.

Other than giving new players some leeway when it comes to changing characters so they don't get trapped into bad choices, it is generally my experience that nothing particularly needs to be done to accommodate a group with mixed experience and usually the more experienced players are more than happy to teach less experienced players so that duty usually only falls on the DM when all of the players are new.

Answer 2

Talking

It constantly amazes me how much angst can be done away with by just talking to people.

Explain your worry to your players. Explain your idea for “tutorial” encounters (which is a good one). Get buy in. Enjoy.

Answer 3

I don't see this as a campaign issue

I see this as a people issue and a learning issue.

The normal way to learn the intricacies of a rules system or a character class within it is to play it. As one gains broader experience, going up that learning curve becomes faster. But advice can help people go up that curve faster, too.

If your more seasoned players are willing to give gentle and respectful advice to your newer ones, and if the newer ones are receptive, then you have a lot of resources you can draw on. (But note well, not everyone is good at giving advice, and not everyone is good at taking it. And two much advice is a related trap.)

What I would do is have a Session Zero that touches on those topics, and then, if everyone is receptive, move into a collaborative character-building session. In that session, you and your more experienced players can help with the design of the characters. In play, they can help suggest courses of action.

That, combined with allowing minor re-specs of characters, should go a long distance in solving a lot of problem. I don't think of that as something just for new players, by the way-- even experienced players realize after the fact that something isn't as awesome as they thought it would be.

On your direct question about "training" encounters...

...I have very mixed feelings:

On the one hand, I think in general they are a good idea, and I have suggested them before, drawing analogies to how video games often introduce one mechanic at a time, highlighting it along the way.

On the other hand, I have always thought of them as a tool for an entire group of new players, not mixed new and experienced. I think there are a lot of subtle ways this can go wrong. Not catastrophically wrong, but sub-optimal. Mainly, I would worry that the new players would feel singled out, or patronized, or that it would tip over into "too much advice."

So basically, I respect both the idea and the hesitation. I think your instincts are overall good. This, too, is something you might talk about in the Session Zero.

Answer 4

One thing I would want to be made clear beforehand: do your players actually enjoy getting into mechanics and optimising character builds.

Personally I would consider myself quite an experienced gamer but when it comes to RP, I find most of my fun in coming up with and playing interesting characters and creating stories with my group. I know that others are more into the whole character optimising and dungeon crawling / combat encounter aspect - but if not everyone is on the same page then it could become an issue where the new players don't really enjoy themselves.

Answer 5

I mostly agree with two of the existing answers above (including the accepted answer).

I would like to add that I've seen it work well when a GM allows beginning players to re-do, or replace, their characters without penalty at a certain point, usually 3rd or 5th level depending on how long it takes to level up.

The point is to allow the beginners to make choices as though they had been more experienced players back at level 1, and therefore have characters appropriate (in ability choices) to the more experienced players' characters.

A small allowance may be granted to the experienced players so they aren't left out - but announcing your intention and why you're planning to allow it as the campaign starts will soften this blow (and hopefully reduce the whining ;-) ).

Answer 6

Split the Party as a teaching tool

There is a lot riding here on how the less-experienced players perceive their treatment by the more experienced players. Do your newbies feel like the veterans are patient teachers who want to encourage them into your social circle? Or is their experience that the others are domineering jerks who order them around because they 'know better'? That is the major dynamic that will decide whether your experiment is successful or not - but it is the part that is least under your control and not the point of your question. (also; we have questions about that if it is a concern of yours)

You have specifically asked about how to structure the plot so that you can run sessions that can act as new-skills tutorials for the new players but which don't bore the more experienced ones. That part is under your control, and it is my recommendation that you split the party for some of these sessions.

When thinking about the skills you want your new players to learn, structure your challenge to occur in four stages:

(1) a group challenge in which all of them participate (and ideally the experienced players are guiding the new players)
(2) a hard sub-group challenge for the experienced players (which the new players can observe)
(3) a soft sub-group challenge for the new players (which the experienced players can critique)
(4) recombine the groups for a final challenge in which the new players synthesize and apply their knowledge

You can run each of these in the order listed (but don't have to). You can have any combination of (1), (2), and (4) or leave one or two of them out, but you will always have (3).

Examples

trap-filled areas where perception is key

The party needs to recover the MacGuffin from within a trap-filled complex; but a rival group has arrived first. They enter the complex together, and together negotiate the dangerous entry chamber (1), or (if you are skipping (1)), in the entry chamber they find evidence of the rival group having passed - including evidence of the deadly nature of the traps. However, beyond the entry area there are multiple branching pathways - if they stay together, they will never reach the MacGuffin before the rival party, and they don't know which way they went. Because of the time element, they have to split up to make sure they arrive first. Flip scenes back and forth between the two groups, and make sure the inexperienced players are watching the experienced players model the skills you want them to try. After the experienced group has negotiated a series of hazards (2), it is time for the inexperienced group to try a few on their own (3). Eventually the experienced group reaches the MacGuffin, but they are soon set upon by the rivals, and have to hold them off for a number of rounds, fighting a delaying action, until the inexperienced group arrives and they finish the fight together. The two groups have both met challengers commensurate with their abilities, and hopefully the new players have seen skills modeled and then had the chance to practice them themselves.

powerful minibosses where teamwork/support spells are key

The party is traveling together from A to B and they are set upon by foes. There is a big group battle (1). If the party is escorting a MacGuffin (personage or object) it might get taken when the foes withdraw and the party has to follow up to recover it. Or they are simply out for revenge on the group that unjustly attacked them.

They follow the retreating group back to their lair / stronghold. But there's a problem; the foe has sensibly put multiple guards on watch with overlapping sight lines, so if the party together assaults a guard, the other(s) will see, retreat, and inform the lair. The party will have to split, approach the guards stealthily, and attack in a coordinated way to eliminate all the guards at once so that a warning cannot be raised. The guards will need to be taken out quickly by combining PC abilities, not by wearing them down through uncoordinated attacks.

You might do (2) and (3) in order, with the new players watching the experienced ones and learning from their tactics, but the experienced players facing harder or more numerous guards. Or you might do (3) first, with the newer players attacking the guards that are farther from the lair and then have the experienced players attack the guards closer to the lair (2). The second way, if the newer players partially fail, and someone 'gets away', it adds more foes to those the experienced players have to deal with in (2), increasing the challenge to their ability level.

After all the guards are eliminated, the party reunites to enter the lair and face the boss and their remaining guards (4).

Strategically splitting the party for specific challenges can thus be a way to provide difficulty levels appropriate to player experience and have experienced players model skills you want new players to learn. If you want, you can incentivize the new players paying attention even when it is not their turn by rewarding insightful observations or questions with experience points or Inspiration points.

Somewhat related and perhaps worth reading if you try this approach: Tasks for a split party

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I haven't used such a technique myself as a DM, but it was used after a fashion in a group where I was a player. We were running 5e but the DM wanted a 'first edition nostalgia' feel for the game, and so was playing with 'training times'. All our characters had come together to a 'training school' when it was time to level, and we faced various skills challenges that were designed to help us (as players) learn our new class abilities. Sometimes our foes were inanimate (traps and such), sometimes they were rival parties, and sometimes they were each other. After each 'training session', the NPC trainers provided debriefs where they critiqued our characters' performance (and the DM offered metacommentary on our performance as players). While not occurring in the explicit stages I have suggested, it worked well as a model of designing challenges with specific teaching objectives for new character abilities and setting a narrative in which performance could be discussed and evaluated.