Dungeons and Dragons N00b wants people to play with online

After Watching the Dungeons and Dragons Giant bomb unplugged video, I really wanted to play Dungeons and dragons. But the problem is that I am a complete Dnd noob and have no experience playing tabletop role playing games and don't have anyone to play with. Where is a good place online to find people to play dungeons and dragons with ? I want to learn as I play and I don't want to watch a billion hour lecture series before I actually get to play it. Do you guys know where I can find experienced Dnd players who are willing to teach me ?

Check out roll20.net. It's a virtual tabletop service with a fairly decent community. I actually wouldn't mind getting back into the game myself.

I second Snipper, roll20.net is pretty much the go to virtual community for tabletop from what I've seen. A few of us duders even got on there after seeing the Unplugged and played a session mixed with seasoned vets and first time noobs. Even though you'll learn the most from playing, there still is some value in looking through the player's handbook or the base rules on the DnD website, otherwise you'll just be asking 'Ok what do I do, and what do I add, and what die do I roll?'

I have some interest as well. Not sure with what the most though. D&D looks fun but always had a fascination with Shadowrun for example (seems like more fun to play from the start).

That website is really awesome too.

I have also never planer before, and really want to try.

I am free in a couple of hours if someone wants to try and get a group together?

Roll20 is a good place to play. I also use a site called Infrno.net that has a good community, but its suffered a bit recently due to problems with the local chat.

@koshyg15 Well, if you actually live in Thiruvalla, India I would look for a hobby shop in your area? Or, maybe a place where people use computers...nerd hangouts.

Also, sorry to say it, if you have never played a role playing game, it would REALLY help to watch a few hours of video. If you are hoping to find a group, then do the right thing - be the guy/girl who did 'some' pre-education. You could get lucky and find people who would want to teach you, but I that would be rare.

Man I've always wanted to play, but the local D&D community I know of are also kind of pricks, guess I'm going to have to check this out!

@gaminghooligan said:

D&D isn't exactly something like MTG where there's a 'local' scene in the macro sense. I would probably estimate out of my ass 99% of sessions are friend groups.

Hobby shops that sell the books often do D&D encounters, sort of like ones shot adventures. And you can also usually through them find some games. In my area of the world in Pittsburgh there is a once a month game day called GASP which sees a lot of table top games being played, including various rpgs. (I run two games there myself, including a playtest for my own system.)

That said roll20 is a great resource for online games, and you might also want to look at official D&D forums.

@monkeyking1969: The thing is I live in Thiruvalla, India and I wouldn't be surprised if nobody else knows what dungeons and dragons even is.

You really need to collect a few friends willing to set aside some time to play. Playing with friends is what MOST people do. Trying to get into a game with strangers is you basically being the "odd guy" who knows nobody else.

I am trying to get a group together right now. Only like 1/10 of the people I know locally woudl even be suitable...so its a long process. One of my friends a 60 y.o. woman said she would not play with me....I didn't even ask her...that was sort of funny. (To be honest, if she had wanted to play, I would have accepted her...why not? She's a wine drinker and very fun!) As of right now, I have two maybes, both 25+ year old women. I just need three more people I think, and I'd like at least one other male...although I think a group of four women would be awesome as they would probably be far more stable than most of the men I know. ~~ There are far too many Dan's and Brads in my life right now! ;-)

I too have been looking to get into more D&D, good thread!

@monkeyking1969: @slowhanded: I know the guys that play near me, some of them are my friends actually. However there are a handful of people in the group that are pretty terrible, and they're the ones that own the store where they play. So I pretty much steer clear of that.

I've tried getting a group together before of about six friends, now that we're all out of college this website might be the way to get this together. Do you guys recommend buying player guides/monster manuals or is most of that stuff available online? I've found some pretty basic stuff with a quick google search. I'd assume we'd need to at least buy a starter set to have an adventure to go on.

@gaminghooligan: So a Starter set would give you the basics, and there is a barebones online guide for some of the classes. If you end up running out of the starter stuff you'll need the Player's Handbook, A Monster Manual, and a Dungeon Master's Guide wouldn't hurt. There are of course a few avenues to go with. Once you have the basic ideas down you could choose to run pre-made adventures, or if one of the people in your group is interested, you could run custom ones. For newbies it might be easier to run pre-made adventures. Personally as a more experienced player I find them a little constraining.

Another option is Pathfinder, which is more or less a branch that split off from an older version of D&D, the real advantage there is that almost all of it is available online via the d20PFSRD for free, and Paizo, its publisher, has dozens upon dozens of pre-made adventures that range from single modules, to full campaigns that take characters from level 1 to the cap.

I'd say 5e is probably less difficult to get into at the moment simply because Pathfinder has a lot of content, and it can be overwhelming if you are new, but in terms of cost investment you could get by with just using the PFSRD if you go that route, and it also has more published adventures with a wide variety of styles. (Want to be a pirate? check. Want to go on a crusade against demons? check. Want to visit an ancient egypt like land and explore tombs? check. Etc, etc.) The difference in gameplay, though blasphemous to some hardcore fans, in my opinion is minor from one d20 system to the next, though 5e is much lighter in terms of rules at this point.

@mrwakka: wow thank you. This is fantastic advice. Sounds like pathfinder might be the place to start and gauge it from there

I am new after 30 years away from D&D. But from what I have seen I think 5th ed Start Set gives you the basics and you might eb able to download some "extra" materials. But, I don't know enough except to say for $11.99 you can buy the Starter Kit from Amazon.

ON A SIDE NOTE:

I just printed a nice 3D figure on my MakerBot...still needs tweaking. On TinkerCAD it 3 inches tall, but I printed it at 1 inch....perfect for playing on a map of squares. The original I found on TinkerCAD, but I played around with the design a bit.

The starter kit is a fantastic intro set, the adventure in it is surprisingly robust for a starter adventure.