Never played D&D and taking role as DM

[pawsplay]

Characters can make Listen checks while asleep, at a penalty (-10). The character on watch can wake one sleeper per standard action.

As for the rogue... the problem should be self-correcting. But technically, anyone with really low stats is allowed a reroll (if you have nothing over 13, or your net modifiers are 0 or below). Maybe you could have him reroll, and supervise the placement of the scores? No score should go down, for instance.

 

[Whisper72]

Already tons of good advice. One thing I have not heard yet is on the personal/human interaction side. Agree with eachother that:
- yes you are all new at this
- yes you are all trying to have fun
- yes you (and they) will make plenty mistakes about this

The important thing is to talk about it with eachother. Ask and give feedback. Between DM and players, between players etc.

Also, if ppl do not have the books, make printouts of the class descriptions in the SRD, stapled per class. If more then one person is interested in the same class, consider making two copies. This way, everyone has the basic rules of what their PC's can and cannot do in front of them.

As for a slow response on your side. Is this because you are looking up rules?

The best way to act, if you are comfy with this, is to make a ruling on the spot, based on what you know and understand of the rules already and common sense. Write down both the issue and your ruling quickly, and check it out after the session what the rules really have to say about it.

Since you all agree (see the beginning statements) that you are all still learning, and chances are that there is not yet a whole lot of RP'ing and world-building going on in the first bunch of sessions, any 'disconnects' from having a ruling run otherwise in a next session should not be a problem. Simply begin the next game saying somthing like:
"remember guys, that ruling last game where I said it took 2 rounds to wake up? The rules actually say blah blah blah, so that is the way we are going to do it next time"
This way, ppl can take the changed ruling immediately into account for the next time this situation occurs.

Furthermore, despite all the 'keep it simple and only core books', DO consider buying the DMGII. Not for all the variant rules, but for the DM advice and for the completely statted out village of Saltmarsh, which has plenty of adventure hooks for the first however many sessions. Simply put the Sunless Citadel somewhere several days travel away from the village, and all will be well.

As for the attendance thingy. If there is not yet a whole lot of story building and RP'ing going on, it matters little if every session has a different line up of players and characters. If you know this is likely to happen, try to plan the sessions such that the party ends at a place where it is somewhat logical for the constellation of the party to change (i.e. back in town), where you can simply say that some PC's decided to stay in town to shop/whatever and others hook up for the next foray into the dungeon.

Try to make clear to all involved however that a tabletop RPG is a group effort. Just as with a sports team, not showing up dupes the rest of the team. So everyone should commit to the game, and understand that a no-show (especially if it was not announced early on) is a real nuisance for the rest of the group.

Anyhoo, enough for now, enjoy the game!

 

[cmanos]

Im willing to spend up to $100 (my guitar money :'( ) on books and materials for this group...I was thinking about getting Ebberon, but i dont know much about it....

My advice is start with the core books. PHB, DMG and MM. POSSIBLY add in the DMG2. Don't allow players to use anything that isn't in the PHB. There are way too many supplements out there for a noob DM to accept anything that the players bring on.

Keep it simple. Until you understand the rules, don't make for huge world-spanning plots. Hack and slash adventures are great for learning the rules. Start with basic combat and don't allow things like trips, bullrushes, grapples, at least until you get a handle on basic combat.

Published modules are a great way to start. They give you an idea of flow, and what types of encounters are good for what level of characters. Dungeon magazine has some great adventures in it, and they just started a new 'campaign', starting players out at L1 and running them all the way up to L20 over the course of 12 adventures.

As much as I love Eberron, you may want to hold off on making it your setting to start with. It adds more classes, more races and more rules. Then again, the flavor of it is great. I'd suggest buying the book, as it is fantastic reading and will give you some great ideas, but you may wish to not use it right away. It all depends on what you want to take on.

So...for $100, retail, this is what I would buy as a starting DM. Assuming you are the only one with the books, and your players aren't going to run out and buy their own copies of the PHB, a second copy of the PHB would be a very good thing. Granted, most rles can be found in the SRD. Monster Manual would be a good thing. You got the DMG. That adds up to around $60 right there unless you go to e-bay or somewhere and get them cheaper.

Now...decide if you want to use miniatures in your game. You don't need to. I started out (25 years ago) with nickels and dimes representing the characters, but quickly purchased my first set of miniatures, that I painted in an oh so ugly way, that only a 9 year old with gloss Testor's model paints can master. The prepainted ones are nice, and you can buy them individually from e-bay and paizo.com, but the rare ones are pretty expensive (see demogorgon and collossal red dragon).

So yah, for your last $40, you can decide on miniatures or biting the bullette and adding in Eberron.

Feel free to PM if you want more information or have more questions.

 

[Mitchbones]

I dont think I can express how much you guys (yes all of you :O) have helped me, and I can't thank you enough. All the players keep coming up to me asking what time this week it is, and asking random questions (which I oddly had the anwser for all of them).

I've decided on the jellybean idea for now (Got all my money for my guitar, Danny: Its a ESP LTD of some sort on Ebay). Im also thinking about giving the first 2 players who buy their PHB, a xp reward, or maybe a slightly better weapon

Here are some pictures

Im wearing the NEDM shirt in the back.

The players phear that d20

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Heh! Thanks for putting up the pix!

Brings back memories...

ROCK ON!