So this is gonna be a shorter post but I’m just gonna ask for some advice on being a DM for the first time in DND. If you don’t play DND you can still give me advice for world building and such if you want.
Anyways long story short I somehow got sucked into being the DM for a new campaign me and my friends are doing. (I was kinda pressured into doing it) They know it’s my first time so I’m sure they don’t expect a lot.
But do any of you guys have advice on DMing? I just want it to be fun for them and entertaining.
Anyways long story short I somehow got sucked into being the DM for a new campaign me and my friends are doing. (I was kinda pressured into doing it) They know it’s my first time so I’m sure they don’t expect a lot.
But do any of you guys have advice on DMing? I just want it to be fun for them and entertaining.
What format are you going to be running? A live tabletop campaign? Play-by-post?
Live table top
I would start off with a pre-written adventure module. This'll take a good deal of stress off of you to feel like you need to create a ton of stuff up front.
There's a lot of them out there, so find something that fits the general vibe of the campaign and use it as a starter. Build out from there after the first game session.
If you'd like a recommendation, I love this particular adventure and have run it twice for two different groups, both of which enjoyed it:
Tower of the Black Pearl
It's written for Dungeon Crawl Classics and not DnD, but the rules are close enough. (I ran it once with Castles and Crusades, once with Swords and Wizardry. It made little difference to be honest.)
Edit: For the record, I tried it once as a play-by-post DnD game as well. That one didn't go nearly as well. It worked much better for a live audience.
There's a lot of them out there, so find something that fits the general vibe of the campaign and use it as a starter. Build out from there after the first game session.
If you'd like a recommendation, I love this particular adventure and have run it twice for two different groups, both of which enjoyed it:
Tower of the Black Pearl
It's written for Dungeon Crawl Classics and not DnD, but the rules are close enough. (I ran it once with Castles and Crusades, once with Swords and Wizardry. It made little difference to be honest.)
Edit: For the record, I tried it once as a play-by-post DnD game as well. That one didn't go nearly as well. It worked much better for a live audience.
You can plan every square inch of a campaign and your players will still find ways to vex you and break the system, so imo staying flexible is an important part of DMing. Also, making yourself a quick reference sheet on NPC names, stats, shops, enemies, etc will save you a lot of time once the game starts.
Good luck!
Good luck!
Start small! Your players are local heroes doing local hero stuff. Don't plan (yet) an epic world spanning universe saving quest - you don't yet truly know what type of game your players want, and if they are even compatible with your DM style. Plus, if you are just starting, you may not yet be able to do that epic quest justice. There are lots of quests in official books and available online through DMs guild etc, so don't feel you have to homebrew.
Thank you all for these tips! This actually has been really stressing me out so every bit of advice helps
I hear ya! I am an introvert by nature, so I was super nervous the first time I ran a game. Like anything, it gets easier the more you do it.
A GM screen helps a bit too. I just use a binder where I can store the quick reference rules. And use it as a shield to sometimes fudge a die roll (usually in favor of the PCs!)
A GM screen helps a bit too. I just use a binder where I can store the quick reference rules. And use it as a shield to sometimes fudge a die roll (usually in favor of the PCs!)
I never GM’d a D&D game before.. but my brother used to do it all the time. I myself do a lot of campaign building/world building for freeform roleplay.
The best advice I have for it is to have a solid concept before you start. You want your world build a few steps ahead of the players. In my long run of roleplaying freeform, freeform with dice and watching my brother and his friends do tabletop I have learned that people make very different decisions then you might first assume. So when your building situations for your players to encounter, consider how it might go in any direction and have several paths laid out based upon all the potential choices that could be made. Some choices can derail the adventure entirely, so you have to know how to pull the group back in even when they make those choices. But do it in such a way that their choices still *matter* so it doesn’t feel cheap.
For instance… your group comes to a guarded bridge where they can 1) pay the toll, 2)kill the guardians of the bridge (or tryto anyways) or 3) find another way around them entirely.
Option 1 may come up later as they are short gold for something that can only be solved with gold. Option 2 obviously can result in injury or perhaps one the guards could have given you important information had he lived that you wont have that’s critical to something else you face. And option 3 might lead the group through a more dangerous route with extra conflicts and a longer journey.
All 3 options are valid, and all 3 options have consequences. But trust me when I say there is always that one person in the group that will make up a 4th option you need to be prepared for who uses a charisma roll to persuade the guardians that their mother never loved them and the only reason he asks for tolls on a bridge is because he didn’t get enough hugs as a child to bypass having to pay or avoid the situation. Now suddenly the consequences are this group member has a sobbing bridge guard following him like a lost puppy that might change the dynamic of the next battle.
While that’s just one silly example, my point is.. be ready for anything and know how to drive the story based on diverse possibility. I can do a lot of this in my head and on the fly… but you can do it by writing down the outline of the adventure, and maybe some critical story points where decisions will greatly matter on what happens next. Come up with multiple ways for the group to get to the end so.. like an old goosbump novel, they can choose their own ending. I find people enjoy this structure a lot more then one linear path.
The best advice I have for it is to have a solid concept before you start. You want your world build a few steps ahead of the players. In my long run of roleplaying freeform, freeform with dice and watching my brother and his friends do tabletop I have learned that people make very different decisions then you might first assume. So when your building situations for your players to encounter, consider how it might go in any direction and have several paths laid out based upon all the potential choices that could be made. Some choices can derail the adventure entirely, so you have to know how to pull the group back in even when they make those choices. But do it in such a way that their choices still *matter* so it doesn’t feel cheap.
For instance… your group comes to a guarded bridge where they can 1) pay the toll, 2)kill the guardians of the bridge (or tryto anyways) or 3) find another way around them entirely.
Option 1 may come up later as they are short gold for something that can only be solved with gold. Option 2 obviously can result in injury or perhaps one the guards could have given you important information had he lived that you wont have that’s critical to something else you face. And option 3 might lead the group through a more dangerous route with extra conflicts and a longer journey.
All 3 options are valid, and all 3 options have consequences. But trust me when I say there is always that one person in the group that will make up a 4th option you need to be prepared for who uses a charisma roll to persuade the guardians that their mother never loved them and the only reason he asks for tolls on a bridge is because he didn’t get enough hugs as a child to bypass having to pay or avoid the situation. Now suddenly the consequences are this group member has a sobbing bridge guard following him like a lost puppy that might change the dynamic of the next battle.
While that’s just one silly example, my point is.. be ready for anything and know how to drive the story based on diverse possibility. I can do a lot of this in my head and on the fly… but you can do it by writing down the outline of the adventure, and maybe some critical story points where decisions will greatly matter on what happens next. Come up with multiple ways for the group to get to the end so.. like an old goosbump novel, they can choose their own ending. I find people enjoy this structure a lot more then one linear path.
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