Need help DMing my first campaign

[Donutman3546]

I was introduced to D&D fairly recently. Just finished up my first campaign and I totally fell in love. The group who introduced me to it will be starting another campaign, and I will be another average player.

I have one friend who is not a part of this group who would love D&D. The problem is that his schedule doesn't line up with the rest of ours, so he can't join our main group. Because of this, I volunteered to DM a one-on-one campaign for him. Just starting some of the prep of world building and familiarizing myself with the rules and am a bit overwhelmed.

Any advice you guys can offer a fairly new player and brand new DM? Specifically world building and making sure the player stays interested, as there won't be other players to bounce things off of. (Figuratively and literally)

[Crichton]

I was introduced to D&D fairly recently. Just finished up my first campaign and I totally fell in love. The group who introduced me to it will be starting another campaign, and I will be another average player.

I have one friend who is not a part of this group who would love D&D. The problem is that his schedule doesn't line up with the rest of ours, so he can't join our main group. Because of this, I volunteered to DM a one-on-one campaign for him. Just starting some of the prep of world building and familiarizing myself with the rules and am a bit overwhelmed.

Any advice you guys can offer a fairly new player and brand new DM? Specifically world building and making sure the player stays interested, as there won't be other players to bounce things off of. (Figuratively and literally)

I'd say start with something short and easy, for both of you. Maybe do Caves of Shadow with him. It's a super-basic, very short module designed to introduce players to D&D. It doesn't even require that you use all the dice, and it has characters all premade. It's not even D&D 101. It's like Intro to D&D.

After that, do a simple, short, but fully featured adventure. Maybe something like A Dark and Stormy Knight. Again, pretty simple, which makes it easy on you, and on your new player. Gives you both a chance to get used to things. As the new DM, read through the adventure module thoroughly beforehand, maybe even a couple times, so you're familiar with all that's going on. Make yourself notes or cheatsheets of any stats or skill check DC's you might need, so you don't have to spend too long flipping though your Dungeon Master's Guide.

After that, just keep the momentum going! One on one is hard. You'll want more players.

[finaldooms]

A Dark and stormy knight is great for new players! Its my go to module when i want to introduce people to dnd. If its just one player you will need to make sure to scale the fights back especially at lower lvls,. One monster will be pretty challenging at lvl 1

btw if you happen to use the dark and stormyknight module becareful!! The boss at the end is actually really strong for such a low lvl module..ive personally had the boss kill half my party ( typically 2-3 players) with minimum effort ..so changing it might be a good idea ( to like say...a skeleton or something instead)

On the otherhand you could give them a companion to help ( also known as a dmpc or dmnpc :) ) if they make a combat guy just tag a free cleric who is there to heal and just keep him alive..cause thats what he is paid to do ( note! Unless the person really needs help with story related stuff the dmpc should not be allowed to have an opinion)

Since you are also new expect to make mistakes..its fine it happens everyone starts somewhere :) when you do something wrong and it ends badly just apologize and learn from it..if it ends well or they had fun still then great!! Having other players vs just having 1 player can be a big difference and takes some getting used to when suddenly that group of mobs or even a trap is to much for the solo guy to handle so be patient and always offer a way around if need be!

[Firest Kathon]

One thing to keep in mind especially for a one-on-one campaign is the action economy. In case you are not familiar, this expression describes the balance (or inbalance) a group of players or enemies has in a single round. For example, a group of four characters fighting a single enemy will have the action economy in their favor, as they have 8 actions per round against the enemy's 2 actions.

In a one-on-one campaign, the player will have the action economy against them in most cases. Therefor, he should not be alone in order to balance this a little bit. Some options:

• He can play a character with a companion class feature, e.g. Druid, or a summoner-type
• Give him some NPC companions
• Have him play two characters at once
• Give him a free Leadership feat
• Play a character yourself (not recommended for multiple reasons¹, but especially as this is your first time as DM and you will want to focus on the DMing part)

In any case, keep in mind that the challenge ratings (as unreliable as they are) are calculated for a 4-character party, because they take the action economy somewhat into consideration (e.g. by giving the monsters more hitpoints). A single character or a 2-character party will therefor have more difficulty in fighting enemies of even CR. Consider this when designing your encounters, and especially when running a pre-made adventure.

¹ Search for "DMPC" on this forum

[Catarang]

I would recommend the Gestalt rules for a one on one, and/or starting at level 3. These 2 things will help stop your one-on-one from getting derailed by a random critical hit (a crit on an orc’s great axe that rolls even a low roll can kill a level 1 with its x3 modifier). It also helps stop combat from becoming a slog of “ok I guess I’ll just attack him again”. It will make character creation more complicated, but since it’s a one-on-one he should have the DM’s undivided attention during character creation to answer all his questions/give him advice.

Since your player is new as well, be ready to accept him changing his character a little after character creation. If he didn’t realize how cool/important elves are and he’s a human, let him switch races and retcon it. Or if he never uses one of his feats, let him change it. Don’t stick him with a useless feat just because neither of you noticed that it was useless at character creation. If both of you are cool with a change to his character, let it happen. Of course only do this if it’s not a huge pain in the ass.

Also, remember that the player is the main character. He should be the person that people focus on, and shouldn’t be outshone by npc’s (within reason). This helps keep it fun for your player and keep the game from becoming you talking to yourself for an hour. Keep inter-npc conversations short (paraphrase them when possible), and even if the character is someone’s employee (in the case of a mercenary/bodyguard/soldier) he should have plenty of room to maneuver/make decisions. Lastly, never ever have an npc who is so important the plot can’t continue without them. He/she is going to die somehow (usually the PC’s fault) and then you get screwed. It’s happened to me and to my friends who dm’d and it sucks every time.