First Time DMing

[zminseo]

Okay so I am in a D&D club at school and they needed another DM so I volunteered.

I feel like I know enough game mechanics to DM, but need help doing enough role-playing to make the game exciting for the players.

Any advice?

[BurgerBeast]

Keep it simple. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Even simple situations are a lot of fun, especially for new players.

Read as much of the Angry GM as you can. The Alexandrian gives good advice, as well.

[EggKookoo]

Don't be afraid to run your first session in a "standard" way with a clear quest and goal. Nothing wrong with meeting in a pub and going on a dungeon crawl.
Remember that what the players visualize in their heads will be the source of most of their fun. Your job is to give them just enough description to kickstart their imaginations.
Let yourself make mistakes. You'll make them, no point in beating yourself up about it.
Keep your clues fairly obvious. What you present to the players is inherently more subtle and ambiguous than you imagine it to be.
Don't let the game be all about the rules, especially from the players' perspective. Try to get them thinking in terms of their characters being actual people who are unaware they're in a game. You figure out what rules are needed as circumstances come up.
Challenge the players but root for them, too.
Don't second guess yourself. You'll be able to tell if they're having fun. Whatever it is that's fun for them, just keep doing more of that. And have fun yourself!

[Protato]

I've been having great fun with the Lost Mines of Phandelver starter set, and letting my players make their own PCs. I use battlemaps (some not included in the book but can be found online easily enough) but that's just how I do it, theatre of the mind is a fine way to do it if you prefer. As far as more abstract advice, I say don't worry too much about it. Just try and keep a consistent tone.

[qube]

First time DM? You will fail.

it might sound harsh or silly, but I always compare DMs to movie-directors (with the difference that your actor don't have the script, of course). Steven Spielburg didn't start out with Jaws - he worked himself up to it. So if you then step up the plate ... it's totally irrealistic that you'd start out with a blockbuster yourself. You'll need to get the hang of it first. You'll need to develop a feel how much you need to prepare, how much you can handle players and their odd choices, how much deviation of the rules you're comphtable with, etc ...

It's completely normal. So, my advice is to prepare what you think you'll need, try to have some fun, and know that it's perfectly normal if things don't go as smooth as though with an experienced DM.
With a bit of luck, you'll have a table that understands a new DM makes mistakes and just go with the flow.


so, I guess, advice 2 is let your players know it's the first time you DM.

Advice 3: a list of 5 random NPC traits (like 'slightly cowardly', ... ). The most memorable NPC my players still talk about, was a on-the-spot-made tailor without a real backbone, the players first intimidated to get a free suit for a party... and then ended up intimidating to join the sailor crew (as it was an NPC they knew) ... and then made him representative of the crew (again, as he was a named character) ... and ended up being part of many of their adventure (at the point the players were attached to 'm, I abducted 'm :smallamused: )

[Callak_Remier]

After your 1 st session

Encourage conversation about the game. Ask if everyone had fun. Get to know what your players expectations are.
(I'm playing a wizard in my brothers campaign and expect a wizard duel at some point in 1-20)

[Unoriginal]

Have a moment or a whole session before the adventure start, where you explain how you're going to DM (including houserules, special things in your campaign world, etc) and the expectations of the campaign, as well as the things that are a big no-no for you. Ask what the players want to do.

Read the DMG, then re-read the PHB.



Read as much of the Angry GM as you can.

I've never seen the Angry GM give any useful advice. Then again I've not read all of his stuff. But what I read was not good advice.

[Pelle]

Have a moment or a whole session before the adventure start, where you explain how you're going to DM (including houserules, special things in your campaign world, etc) and the expectations of the campaign, as well as the things that are a big no-no for you. Ask what the players want to do.


If you haven't DMed before, it might be hard to know how you are going to do it. But yes, stating your intentions is good.



I've never seen the Angry GM give any useful advice. Then again I've not read all of his stuff. But what I read was not good advice.

I don't really considers it advice, but I think he's good enough at breaking things down so that I can better understand my own opinions on stuff, though I don't always agree with his.

[EggKookoo]

I don't really considers it advice, but I think he's good enough at breaking things down so that I can better understand my own opinions on stuff, though I don't always agree with his.

I feel like Angry's stuff is useful for mid-experience DMs. If you're a beginner he's probably getting too thick into the weeds for you, and if you're been doing this a long time you've already internalized what he's getting at. But if you're just past the beginner stage and want to broaden yourself a bit, he has some worthwhile perspective. Even if you disagree with him about something, he has a pretty clear position on what D&D is and how it should be played. You may find it gels with you or you decide that definitely nope, that's not what the game means to me. Either way has value.

[guachi]

Have a Session Zero.

You are in charge. Don't get bogged down in rules discussions.

Keep the game moving. A PC's turn is for declaring and executing actions, not figuring out what to do.

Give each PC the spotlight and ensure no one player hogs it.

Don't tell a PC what he does. You've got all the NPCs. Let the player have his one PC.

[KorvinStarmast]

I've never seen the Angry GM give any useful advice. Then again I've not read all of his stuff. But what I read was not good advice. I've read a great deal of his stuff; some good, some noise. If I could apply liposuction to it for the 33% meat, losing the 67% fat that is his "attitude" and "voice" and "persona" I could make a nice little pamphlet with some good DM ideas. He's putting out a book, that I have ordered (my brother will get a copy for Christmas) because I like to have some reading material when I am dropping a deuce.

One of his better articles was the breakdown of encounter building for 5e during an adventure in a spread sheet. (ANd IIRC, it is linked to his 'mega dungeon' project. Not everyone likes megadungeon / dungeon crawl games, so in that respect some of his article are not going to fulfill a need.

@guachi: nice post. :smallsmile:

[SirGraystone]

There's a reason "Lost Mine of Phandelver" if often the first suggestion for new DM, it give lots of advice on how to run an adventure. For example the introduction come with those advices.

Before continuing with the adventure, take a few minutes to do the following:

- Encourage the players to introduce their characters to each other if they haven't done so already.

- Ask the players to think about how their characters came to know their dwarf patron, Gundren Rockseeker. Let the players concoct their own stories. If a player is hard-pressed to think of anything, suggest something simple. For example, Gundren could be a childhood friend or someone who helped the player's character get out of a tough scrape. This exercise is a great opportunity for the players to contribute to the adventure's backstory.

- Ask the players to give you the party's marching order and how their characters are traveling. Who's in front, and who's bringing up the rear? If the characters are escorting Gundren's wagonload of supplies, then one or two characters need to be driving the wagon. The rest of the characters can be riding on the wagon, walking alongside, or scouting ahead, as they like.

[Man_Over_Game]

Come up with an overarching idea rather than specifics. Like, instead of coming up with a bunch of encounters in a fort, it's just a fort with a bunch of badguys in it. Depending on the time of day/alarms or whatever, come up with some barebones ideas as to what they might be doing when the players go to investigate it.

Follow this for every single specific idea you have. Your players are going to make you do things that you were not prepared for. For example, after my players broke out of jail through a secret tunnel, with guards behind them and corrosive slugs in front of them, they decided to go UP. I had no idea what was up there, so I made up some stuff on the spot.

You're going to be doing that a lot, so rather than coming up with a perfectly planned tour, make it more of a safari.

I like to write some basic notes about each place (owned by Dalgroff, the sentient. Is a staging area for holding slaves captured by nearby bandits. Danger level 3-6, depending on circumstances with local bandits), and just make a ton of notes like this. I can fill in the details later when I know it's relevant (as in, the players are literally knocking on the front door, and no sooner).

[EggKookoo]

You're going to be doing that a lot, so rather than coming up with a perfectly planned tour, make it more of a safari.

Forrest Gump on good DMing: "I don't know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time."

[Armored Walrus]

First, welcome to the club.

Second, relax, you're probably going to suck for a bit, but your players probably won't care. Some won't even notice. Most people in this hobby are nice people that just want to get together and have fun.

Third, here's some actually actionable advice:
- If you want combat to be more than just a time sink, or more than just a tactical board game, think about why your monsters/enemies are there, and what they want. This will help you figure out when combat ends, or roll with it if the players try to avoid combat in the first place.
- Think about the setting for each encounter you plan, or each location you think the PC's may visit, and write down three or four descriptive words or short phrases for each. This will help you keep the players in the world, rather than just having all your encounters/scenes occurring in a blank white room.

That's probably enough for your first few sessions. Learn from there ;)

[JNAProductions]

Above all, remember: Fun. Fun for everyone.

If the players aren't having fun, find out what you can do to help them have fun.

If you aren't having fun, same deal.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Allways have extra stats blocks for monsters and extra NPCs pages because players are weird a thing that will almost never go in the way you think they will go.

I have given up and only make maps and NPCs personality pages, my players always do the things I never think abut(it is fun to always improvaise and I am doing it so quickly now that they don't even notise.).

[2D8HP]

@zminseo,

First off...

....THANK YOU!

With 5e there's been an explosion of new players, but less of DM's.

Other than that...

...Don't read the online blogs advice.

AND DON'T WATCH ANY YOUTUBE ABOUT IT!

I'm serious.

I know you want to be "the best you can be" but I'm afraid that the advice you see is too intimidating.

I don't want you to be intimidated, just jump in.

With practice you'll get better.

Yes mistakes will be made but so what?

It's a game played for fun!

Crack jokes, make faces, do bad acting, forget rules, look them up later, go "whoops" repeat.

You're among friends (or soon will be).

Read the advice next year.

[GlenSmash!]

My first session was with brand new players and a brand new DM. It was one of the most fun nights I've ever had.

It was using the 5e starter set, so I also recommend picking it up.

Apart from that, accept that you will make mistakes. Just try to improve every session.

Once you've got a few sessions under your belt I can offer some more advice, but this early on it would very likely just be information overload.