The problem was, he hadn't played D&D since the BECMI days, his wife had never played, so without a DM who knew 5e he couldn't get it off the ground. That's where I came in, DM for hire, paid in tea and biscuits. (Let's face it, most game masters have worked for less.)
First I scrapped the generic pre-gens in the magazine, knowing that players love creating their own characters. Rather than sit through a boring session 0, I casually quizzed each player about what they liked in a hero, in fantasy stories, and that gave me enough to get started.
We had four players: Biter and his wife, Rollergirl, the 10 YO Catbro and his 8 YO sister, Splat.
1st-level characters are all relatively basic but I still chose simple, iconic classes. Eventually they'd reach 3rd level.
Duran the Dar
Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)
Comment: Biter's last D&D character back in the Eighties was Duran the Dar. That game was set in Mystara but Biter couldn't remember any firm details about Duran, other than he was a dwarf of Rockhome. In BECMI D&D "dwarf" was a class, effectively a dwarf fighter. So I that's what I made and relocated him to Mirabar in the Forgotten Realms. Nostalgia has a powerful draw.
Kyle Mazik
Halfling Ranger (Monster Slayer)
Comment: Catbro is a fan of Middle-earth and has written several comics featuring the Hobbit adventurer, Kyle Mazik. A halfling ranger was the best fit for his exploits and Catbro was chuffed to be playing a character from his own imagination. In the past I would've used the revised ranger, but Tasha's Cauldron of Everything contained optional class features that neatly fixed the classes shortcomings without resorting to Unearthed Arcana.
Millie Whitefeather
Half-elf Bard
Comment: When we play board games, Splat always seems to pick up the rules quickest and remember them best. So I thought I'd challenge her with a bard, printing out spell cards from The Thieves Guild. The cards worked well and inspired Splat to make more accessories, inspiration tokens for each character.
Sharleena
Human Rogue (Mastermind)
Comment: Rollergirl likes a good mystery novel so a hard-boiled detective made sense. Rogue seemed to capture this archetype best and it doesn't have many moving parts either.
My idea was to give the parents the simplest classes possible, so they could help the kids without neglecting their own characters.
Splat didn't like being a bard though. She didn't like being the centre of attention. After a few sessions, we watched D&D: Honor Amongst Thieves and Splat was sold on being a wildshaping druid. She'd also played Magical Kitties Save the Day and wanted to be a magical kitty again, so I made a tabaxi druid named by Splat herself.
Kitty Meowingston
Tabaxi Druid (Moon)
Comment: I made sure to pick as many of the same spells as Millie as possible. Firstly, to avoid rules overload and secondly, to avoid printing so many spell cards.
I also made a character myself, a hadozee artificer called Erneth, partly because I wanted to learn more about 5e's newest class but also so I could hold up the character sheet at the table as a visual aid when asking for a roll. "You need to roll a DEX save, so look here on your sheet."
I also used some coloured fonts on the sheets for a quick reference. "You're attacking, yes, so look at the section in orange. If you hit, you do the damage in red."
5e character creation has slightly clunky tables to choose from when determining your background. These are a wasted opportunity for a player to think a little harder about who it is they're playing. I rephrased them as questions for the players at the start of session 1, then updated the character sheets later.
- Personality Trait
In a word, you try to approach problems with...? - Ideals
In a word, the quality you value most is...? - Bonds
Name something stolen from you, or that defeated you or scarred you deeply - Flaws
What is it about you that always seems to get you into trouble?