I've done a little searching, and can't seem to find any sort of beginner's guide for running . Is there one somewhere I've just overlooked?

Cheers!

Hello, join the Dragon Quest RTA Discord (link above below Dragon Quest Series - NES), and in the General - DQRTA channel, there is a pinned DQ Compendium Google Doc with tabs for all of the DQ/DW games in which there are specific guides, charts, and tutorials.

The most common routing is grind to level 4, walk to Rimuldar to buy a key, open 2 chests in the Mountain cave and deathwarp to initiate infinite chest glitch with which you acquire at least 5,459 gold, buy Large Shield, Full Plate Armor, and Broad Sword, grind to level 12 east of and south of Rimuldar, defeat Axe Knight in Hauksness for Erdrick's Armor, grind to level 13, defeat Golem and get Silver Shield in Cantin, get Erdrick's Token, Silver Harp, and Stones of Sunlight somewhere in level 12-13 and with all the items at level 13 go to the trade-in caves for Staff of Rain and Rainbow Drop, get Erdrick's Sword from Charlock, go back to outside Hauksness and grind to Level 18, finally die repeatedly -- I mean defeat the Dragonlord.