I've been involved in roleplaying games for about thirty years now, on both sides of the GM screen. While I'm the furthest thing from an expert in the field, I do feel long-term exposure has taught me a few things along the way, and I enjoy passing those on to others. There are tons of topics and options to explore, but I feel that perhaps the most important is remembering that mixture of excitement and fear when playing a game for the first time, when I was still unfamiliar with most of the rules and trying to find my place in the world as a player. With that in mind, I'd like to offer up a few tips for new and novice players that will help you navigate those twists and turns and hurdles you won't realize are in your way until they're almost smacking you in the face. Since D&D is the game I'm most familiar with, the examples I'll use will all come from this particular system, but many of them are applicable across a wide variety of products and systems.

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So you're relieved that you don't need to know all of the rules to start playing, and you've created a character you find compelling. Now it's time to enter the world and start living your alternate life! There are all sorts of hints and tips I could offer here, and many of them might seem like common sense, but you'd be amazed at how often even long-time players manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by forgetting this cardinal rule of playing the game:

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Be Aware Of Every Talent Your PC Has!

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A personal example of my own carelessness, so you can see how easy it is to mess things up even for a veteran:

In the early 2000's, the Third Edition rules had just been published, and I was playing in a small group who were excited to put the new rulebooks to the test and see what happened. Not wanting to make things too difficult for myself, I decided that instead of playing a Cleric or a Rogue, I was going to instead play a Human Fighter. Under 3E rules, every starting character regardless of race chooses one starting Feat from the list. One of the ways Humans differentiated themselves from other races was that they got to pick a bonus Feat upon character creation. The Fighter class also gave first level characters a bonus Feat, so my very first 3E character started out at level 1 with three separate Feats.

Feats make an appearance in 5E, but they're not as ubiquitous in terms of customization offerings as they were in 3E, and being able to pull three separate ones at first level was awesome as hell. One of the feats I chose was Toughness, which immediately granted me 3 additional HP--it was automatic, and after I applied the results to my character sheet, I never needed to remember that I had it. My next two feats, however, were Power Attack and Dodge. Power Attack allowed someone with high Strength to make a more powerful swing by taking a penalty on a to-hit roll, but gaining an identical bonus on damage if the blow connected. So if I invoked my Power Attack feat, I could for instance take a -2 penalty on my hit roll, but if I did hit my target, they took +2 damage. I didn't often use Power Attack, but it was very useful when facing down creatures with really weak Armor Classes, and it was a prerequisite to take the insanely useful Cleave feat which allowed you to make another attack against a separate creature (with no penalty) if your first attack felled your original target.

Then there was Dodge.

Dodge is quite a useful feat for a front-line melee combat character, especially at low levels. It allows you, every round, to pick an enemy on the battlefield. For the remainder of the round, as soon as you invoke the feat, that enemy suffers a -1 penalty on any attempt they make to hit you with an attack. You can attack one enemy and dodge the attacks of a different one, so I could swing at the goblin in front of me while Dodging the arrow his buddy thirty feet away might fire at me. Because attack success is determined by rolling a 20-sided die, that penalty meant I was 5% less likely to be hit by whoever I was Dodging.

The problem is that Dodge isn't automatic--it doesn't permanently boost your Armor Class or do anything else you can record on your character sheet, you have to actively remember to do it, and what's more, you have to decide to do it during your turn while taking your action. If you make your attack roll, forget to Dodge, and the enemy rolls enough just to clip you, you can't then declare you're Dodging and make them miss. The good news is that once you announce your Dodge, it remains in effect until you say you're changing your focus to another enemy, or that enemy exits the combat somehow (runs away, dies, falls unconscious, etc...). Once you've invoked Dodge, it's on until you redirect it. But if you forget? That bonus just sits there, unused, a missed opportunity to use an unlimited resource.

I didn't always remember to declare my Dodge intention when entering combat. And even if I remembered to engage it initially, I often forgot to change it in the excitement of combat if my target was removed from combat. Five percent may not seem like much, but that basically means the DM will miss you one additional time out of every twenty to-hit rolls he makes. Over the course of a session, for a front-line warrior, that can add up to a lot of lost hit points, which then results in you burning more party resources getting yourself up to fighting strength, assuming it doesn't result in your death. Thankfully I never died because I forgot to invoke Dodge, but it often wasn't until our DM rolled a to-hit against me and made it by 1 point that I remembered, "Oh shit, I forgot to Dodge!" and paid the price in the form of a claw to my thigh, a stab to my shoulder, or an arrow in my chest. It finally got to the point where I put a bright pink Post-It Note right on top of my character sheet with the word 'Dodge' written on it, just so I'd remember not to let that resource go to waste when I got hack-happy in battle.

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Fifth Edition player characters have all kinds of skills and bonuses conferred upon them by various races and classes, including Feats if your campaign world is using them as an optional variant. My point is to know your character, backwards and forwards, before you set out on your first mission, and keep all those options either in mind or in front of you so you don't forget you can use them. This is especially important for things you can only use a limited number of times, or abilities that don't come in handy very often.

Dragonborn, for instance, have the Breath Weapon innate racial ability, which lets them fire off a blast of something obnoxious at an enemy as their action for the turn. They can only do this once before requiring a short or long rest to recharge, and it may not always be the best course of action during every battle, so there are times when it won't be helpful...but in a pinch, there's nothing like being able to breathe a cone of fire at a group of enemies fifteen feet away from you for 2-12 points of damage to everyone caught in the path of your halitosis. Don't be afraid to use it when you think it's useful--if at any point your group takes a short rest and you haven't used your Breath Weapon beforehand, it was a wasted opportunity. Most other races and classes have similar skills or abilities, like the Halfling's Luck or Half-Orc's Savage Attack, that are massively useful but don't kick in unless you, the player, remember to use them and choose to do so at the appropriate time. The Dungeon Master may remind you of your skills from time to time, and so might the other players, but eventually you'll have to stand on your own and let the dice fall where they may.

The other major area for forgetfulness relates to Actions. Specifically, it's easy to remember in a combat situation that you can attack, cast a spell, or dash to put some distance between you and an enemy (or close the gap between yourself and something you want to stab). But don't forget there are other actions available to you during melee!

Remember the Dodge discussion from before? While it was a specific Feat in 3E, it's been upgraded to a standard combat action in 5E, usable by anybody, and the effects are even better: by foregoing your attack, every single attack roll made against you by any opponent until your next turn automatically has disadvantage. If you need to buy time in order for the melee fighters to get to your position, or you're provoking a group of mooks to keep them occupied so your ranged attackers can keep dishing out crossbow bolts, or you find yourself in a tight spot and need some breathing room, or you find yourself in combat with an enemy you can't hurt (because you lack the weaponry needed to pierce its defenses, or its AC is so great you're likely to miss), take the Dodge action and increase your chances of staying alive until the next turn.

Help is another extremely useful action that players often forget about in the middle of battle. Helping another player gives them advantage on the next roll they make pertaining to the thing you're helping them with. You'll most often see this used in situations where one PC is ineffective against a nearby enemy, or to help one PC gang up on a powerful enemy. If you Help the Fighter Attack, the next time he swings his mace, he gets to make two attack rolls and pick the better option, so if you're in proximity to another character and helping them is a greater boon than any other decision you could make, use your Help action and bring the end of combat that much closer.

Disengage is one of the most useful actions, and it's often forgotten until it's too late. Using Disengage, you can move out of close combat without provoking attacks of opportunity from enemies close enough to do so. Note that it doesn't just prevent the enemy you're Disengaging with from getting that free strike, it prevents every potential strike from any enemy that would or could otherwise try for a hit on you. Disengage powers up your Move action, so whether you're using it to escape from a bad situation or using it offensively to cross the battlefield and improve your positioning (maybe because you want to Aid someone next turn...?), if that move puts you within striking distance of an enemy, make sure you Disengage, otherwise you risk unnecessary damage.

And then there's Ready.

Oh man, you could write books on how useful Ready is. Ready is basically storing your action in preparation for a specific trigger event. You can use Ready to prepare an attack against the first enemy that steps in front of you, to prepare a spell you can unleash if the Bugbear kicks down the door, or get ready to throw a torch and ignite a patch of oil once the orcs have all marched into the puddle. There's practically no limit to what you can Ready, and it can be combined with your move to put you in position to strike first if an enemy moves into range--if your goal is to attack the goblins but they're 40' away, then move your 30' and Ready an attack with the intention of swinging at whoever is dumb enough to move into the area you threaten. Ready has a down side in that if the trigger doesn't happen you've basically wasted your action for the round, and this can result in the loss of a prepared spell if your timing is off, but never underestimate the power of Ready. The best defense, after all, is a good offense and that's what Ready is all about.

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Another common mistake even veteran players make is failing to use consumable resources out of fear they might need them later. You only have one Scroll of Fireball...it would be massively useful to hit that group of kobold archers over there who are otherwise out of attack range, but what if your group finds some bigger enemy later? Your Fighter is down to half health, and has a Potion of Healing, but what if using it during this fight means he doesn't have it later, when she might really need it?

It's an easy trap to fall into, but the thing to remember is that surviving the encounter right here, right now, is the most important thing of all. Unless there are massively extenuating circumstances, once you've survived the battle you can worry about taking a rest, making camp, or leaving the dungeon and heading back to town to restock. It's much better to plunk down a few more gold from the party's communal treasury to buy some more scrolls or potions than it is to pay a priest to resurrect a fallen character. This leads to the next helpful rule:

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If The Situation Calls For It, Don't Be Afraid To Use It!

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Believe me, you'll kick yourself for the rest of the evening if you skip drinking that potion as your bonus action only to have the next attack hit hard enough to drop you to exactly 0 HP. Weigh the cost of replacing the Scroll of Fireball against the cost of burning through all those healing spells and supplies you'll use up suffering three more rounds of unanswered ranged attacks from the Kobold archers, and you'll see the choice is clear.

Now obviously you don't want to go overboard, and it's always good to keep in mind the DM might have given you a particular item or cache of items because one or more of them will be very useful against something you will encounter later...but it's also possible the DM intended for you to use that scroll right then and there, because the final "boss" enemy of the dungeon is strong against fire.

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You never want to sit back after a defeat and realize, after the fact, things would have gone differently if you had just remembered to do X, or that failing to use item Y was a critical mistake. If you have special skills, powers, spells, and items, especially ones that aren't frequently used, make sure you're familiar with them. Re-read your character sheet from time to time, because I guarantee after a few sessions you will have forgotten some of the stuff you found earlier or a skill you don't use regularly. It's bad enough to die because you don't have a Potion of Healing handy, but it's even worse to look over your deceased PC's sheet and realize you had one all along and just didn't realize it.

"My next character will do even better!" are words every player will find himself or herself uttering at some point during a D&D campaign. The trick is to make sure those words are never spoken too early, and intimate familiarity with your skills, options, and equipment is the best way to die another day.

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Thanks for reading! If you find these articles helpful, I hope you'll give me a follow and an upvote. You should also check out @loreshapergames for more great gaming content, and consider following/joining the @archdruid curation community, which is devoted to uncovering and rewarding excellent gaming-related posts here on Steemit.

Until next time, may all your hits be crits. Hoody-hoo!!