D&D General Advice for a new DM

[HooliTheBird]

I read someplace, so I cannot take credit for it, that there is an art of illusion. The players will believe you if you do not show them behind the curtain so to speak. Don't tell them about the trap secret or the magic item they missed. If they run into a NPC and ask his name and you have nothing, you pick up your notes and page through them as you make something up and say- "Here it is, his name is Twigleaf." Like you had it there all along and your players will think you put all this work into the world.

You can also ask your boyfriend. Ask him first if he would help, but this means that he would know some of the stuff and it might not be as fun when everyone discovers it. He might/should be willing to help if you are having design problems or he might be great with making maps and such. If he is a good player and boyfriend he should not let his prior knowledge spoil the fun and others enjoying things.

A key part of designing world stuff is that the players will not care as much as you. You can spend all this time making a great list of gods and how they interact and relate to each other, but the players will be just as interested with copying the list from Forgotten Realms or Grayhawk. Now if you have a player that wants all this, plan some and let them plan more.

You only need to plan one week at a time. Do not burn yourself out making this grand level 1-20 campaign when it might never last that long. Plan some vague plans on the big bad guy and a couple cool ideas, but nothing set on paper. Do make the initial adventure and some detail on a small home base town. Have an idea on a small level 1-3 or 1-5 plot with a minion of the big bad. Work on this but you only need to stay just in front of the players and what they want to do and go. After they wrap up these few levels and save the village or defeat the underling, then they learn of a bigger threat with maybe the bid bad and some of his plans. Then you plan out a few more levels with something to defeat a plot of the big bad and so on.

Very true. As a long-time player, I truly never suspected a thing when plans got tossed out the window for my boyfriend. It wasn't until after our campaign wrapped up that he told me everything we had unintentionally made him scrap. Really makes you wonder how things would've played out if the content didn't have to get cut.
He has helped me quite a lot in planning this game, and I'm very grateful for it. I actually tend to limit what help he can give me cause I don't wish to spoil the fun for him, especially as he never gets to be the player.
I really appreciate the push to not burn myself out and overplan, as I do tend to do that; it's a rather nasty habit. That's one piece of advice he gave me as well, not to worry about planning too far ahead, as players tend to scramble your schemes up and go in directions you hadn't even considered.
All this to say, I really appreciate your comment! Thank you.

 

[HooliTheBird]

Really, you need a smaller group to start. At least say two groups of four, or even groups of 2-3 players.

To start, you really want to keep it simple. You don't need several interlaced plots, you just need one simple one. What you want is a classic plot, and give it your own unique twist.

Avoid writing out a campaign. Your not writing a multi season TV show arc....your not even writing a single TV show....your writing a 'short' (aka something under 20 minutes), or even "a webisode" to use a modern word.

Haha, I absolutely do need a smaller group! It didn't start out this large, but I have a tough time turning down new eager players. Fortunately... or perhaps unfortunately, I have three brand new D&D players, which means they'll at the very least be gracious with me.
But I agree, another person had also suggested splitting my group, and it's something I've been highly considering, especially with the many schedules to keep up with.
I'll definitely be focusing on simplicity and quality. Thank you!

 

[HooliTheBird]

To continue on a theme: Y.A.G.N.I.
You Ain't Gonna Need It.
It can be really hard to stop yourself from fleshing out your world. But, especially as a beginning GM, build literally ONLY what you need, nothing more. If your PCs are exploring the local dungeon, you need the town, and a skeleton framework of the world/society surrounding it. You don't need to flesh it out, just place it into a context.

One I haven't seen yet, but was my hardest won lesson - Don't Panic.
Your players WILL do something that you never anticipated, that completely derails the plan you had. Let it happen, roll with it. When you panic, you make bad decisions, mostly (as a GM) on how to save your lovingly built evil plan by forcing the players to do what you want. Let it go. Relax. Let it happen. Then adapt.

And on a similar note - never box yourself in. Don't write a puzzle/situation that only has one solution, and it MUST be that one (or none at all). Write the situation, know how YOU would solve it, but then note that it's only a possible solution. So when the players come up with their wacky answer, you don't panic.

A wonderful acronym! I'm going to keep it on a sticky note in my D&D notes, ha!
You're so right! In our first session, a couple of the guys wanted to beat up an old shopkeeper that I had them meet... certainly wasn't anticipating it. That is fantastic advice, thank you so much.
I'm seeing a big theme of just letting things happen as they are meant to happen, and I think that I really needed to hear that the most.

 

[Celebrim]

I have about eight players in my group right now, which is a great deal more than I initially anticipated, but nevertheless, I’m determined to give them an exceptional experience.

Eight players is tough to manage, even for an experienced GM.

So the main thing to remember is the sort of game you can run as a GM depends very heavily on the number of (and particulars of) the players you have. If you have 1 to 3 players, you can run a game that depends very heavily on player goals and motivations, that heavily explores the player characters internal feelings, and really is about those player characters. Once you get up to 4-6 players, you have to think about running a game that depends heavily on the group having a single overriding goal and the characters are contributing toward that goal. That doesn't mean that you can't have interesting group dynamics, but the story can no longer be about the individual player goals. If you get up over 6 players, then you really need to start to have to thinking about story structures that are more episodic, like a TV series, than like a grand elaborate novel and you really start to have to have a combat focus, because otherwise it real be really hard to keep spotlight on every single player, you'll have introverts that aren't participating often enough, you'll start to have extroverts dominate play and so you really want to focus on trying to have scenes and challenges that are team efforts and combat is the definitive team effort thing. So now your game starts to look like this team of mercenaries travels from place to place solving problems (or causing problems) that are interesting to the group as a whole, whatever dynamic they have - "we're all pirates!" or "we want to be the big heroes!" or "we're in it for the money, honey!" Maybe a little blend of that for everyone if you have a really diverse crowd.

Now, I’ve had a fair bit of experience in D&D, but have never committed to DMing before, and it’s been a very daunting task.

Yes it is. Don't let anyone ever tell you that GMing is easy or that there secret tricks that you can use to make it all easy, especially not if you are running eight players. Hopefully you have some really emotionally supportive players that bring you the snacks and tell you how awesome you are, or you won't make it in the long run. You have to be able to feed of people's laughter and smiles and you have to be the sort of person who writes because you have to and not because you want to.

I don't say that to dishearten you but to make you understand that if you are finding it hard you are probably doing it right, because I've been doing it for 40 years or more and I still find it hard.

The trouble I now find myself in is mainly in regard to writing out the campaign I have in mind. I fear I may have gotten too ambitious in homebrewing my own storyline, and now I’m kind of regretting it, and a growing dislike for my idea has begun to fester.

Don't we all. I always make big plans and rarely do I get to the end of them. And yes, it's the curse of writers that you always hate your own work (most of the time).

It’s hard for me to know if an idea I have is truly bad or if I’m just too stuck in my own head.

Be the GM you'd want to have as a player. If you'd have fun in your game, it's probably a good game.

But I would caution to try to break the story down into episodes and think of shorter story arcs and shorter term problems or even flex into a more West Marches style/Gygaxian game. The later is particularly good once you get up over eight players because it tends to handle "I can't show up this week" particularly well.

I am more than willing to help you create content. The boards are sort of barren of content lately and I'd far prefer creative exercises and brainstorming to the usual arguments over theory and semantics.

 

[Celebrim]

You're so right! In our first session, a couple of the guys wanted to beat up an old shopkeeper that I had them meet... certainly wasn't anticipating it.

sigh Only because you are new at this. This is an almost invariable problem that will show up in the first session or two. Someone, flush with their first character and thinking that they are really thinking out of the box, and possibly with a background in videogames where nothing you do has long term consequences, always in the very early part of the game wants to play a "bandit".

And the problem with it is that if you don't somehow squash it, it's an inadvertent act of attention grabbing by the person that can wreck the session or the campaign.

And squashing it is challenging. Traditionally, a lot of GMs and cRPGs squash it by having merchants be very surprisingly tough and more than capable of handling themselves, but this stretches credibility and also can result in a dead player character which is educational but not exactly fun. Sometimes you have to railroad out of this or even go OOC and explain to them the likely consequences of their action. I'm curious to hear how as a novice GM you managed to handle this inevitable early challenge.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Welcome!

I inevitably forgot to add in some plot points and scenarios and had to fudge my way through a bit,

Welcome to DMing. Fudging things is the biggest tool in the toolbox.

Fortunately, your players don't know the plot, so you're all good.

 

[HooliTheBird]

Eight players is tough to manage, even for an experienced GM.

So the main thing to remember is the sort of game you can run as a GM depends very heavily on the number of (and particulars of) the players you have. If you have 1 to 3 players, you can run a game that depends very heavily on player goals and motivations, that heavily explores the player characters internal feelings, and really is about those player characters. Once you get up to 4-6 players, you have to think about running a game that depends heavily on the group having a single overriding goal and the characters are contributing toward that goal. That doesn't mean that you can't have interesting group dynamics, but the story can no longer be about the individual player goals. If you get up over 6 players, then you really need to start to have to thinking about story structures that are more episodic, like a TV series, than like a grand elaborate novel and you really start to have to have a combat focus, because otherwise it real be really hard to keep spotlight on every single player, you'll have introverts that aren't participating often enough, you'll start to have extroverts dominate play and so you really want to focus on trying to have scenes and challenges that are team efforts and combat is the definitive team effort thing. So now your game starts to look like this team of mercenaries travels from place to place solving problems (or causing problems) that are interesting to the group as a whole, whatever dynamic they have - "we're all pirates!" or "we want to be the big heroes!" or "we're in it for the money, honey!" Maybe a little blend of that for everyone if you have a really diverse crowd.



Yes it is. Don't let anyone ever tell you that GMing is easy or that there secret tricks that you can use to make it all easy, especially not if you are running eight players. Hopefully you have some really emotionally supportive players that bring you the snacks and tell you how awesome you are, or you won't make it in the long run. You have to be able to feed of people's laughter and smiles and you have to be the sort of person who writes because you have to and not because you want to.

I don't say that to dishearten you but to make you understand that if you are finding it hard you are probably doing it right, because I've been doing it for 40 years or more and I still find it hard.



Don't we all. I always make big plans and rarely do I get to the end of them. And yes, it's the curse of writers that you always hate your own work (most of the time).



Be the GM you'd want to have as a player. If you'd have fun in your game, it's probably a good game.

But I would caution to try to break the story down into episodes and think of shorter story arcs and shorter term problems or even flex into a more West Marches style/Gygaxian game. The later is particularly good once you get up over eight players because it tends to handle "I can't show up this week" particularly well.

I am more than willing to help you create content. The boards are sort of barren of content later and I'd far prefer creative excercises and brainstorming to the usual arguments over theory and semantics.

Eight players is tough to manage, even for an experienced GM.

So the main thing to remember is the sort of game you can run as a GM depends very heavily on the number of (and particulars of) the players you have. If you have 1 to 3 players, you can run a game that depends very heavily on player goals and motivations, that heavily explores the player characters internal feelings, and really is about those player characters. Once you get up to 4-6 players, you have to think about running a game that depends heavily on the group having a single overriding goal and the characters are contributing toward that goal. That doesn't mean that you can't have interesting group dynamics, but the story can no longer be about the individual player goals. If you get up over 6 players, then you really need to start to have to thinking about story structures that are more episodic, like a TV series, than like a grand elaborate novel and you really start to have to have a combat focus, because otherwise it real be really hard to keep spotlight on every single player, you'll have introverts that aren't participating often enough, you'll start to have extroverts dominate play and so you really want to focus on trying to have scenes and challenges that are team efforts and combat is the definitive team effort thing. So now your game starts to look like this team of mercenaries travels from place to place solving problems (or causing problems) that are interesting to the group as a whole, whatever dynamic they have - "we're all pirates!" or "we want to be the big heroes!" or "we're in it for the money, honey!" Maybe a little blend of that for everyone if you have a really diverse crowd.



Yes it is. Don't let anyone ever tell you that GMing is easy or that there secret tricks that you can use to make it all easy, especially not if you are running eight players. Hopefully you have some really emotionally supportive players that bring you the snacks and tell you how awesome you are, or you won't make it in the long run. You have to be able to feed of people's laughter and smiles and you have to be the sort of person who writes because you have to and not because you want to.

I don't say that to dishearten you but to make you understand that if you are finding it hard you are probably doing it right, because I've been doing it for 40 years or more and I still find it hard.



Don't we all. I always make big plans and rarely do I get to the end of them. And yes, it's the curse of writers that you always hate your own work (most of the time).



Be the GM you'd want to have as a player. If you'd have fun in your game, it's probably a good game.

But I would caution to try to break the story down into episodes and think of shorter story arcs and shorter term problems or even flex into a more West Marches style/Gygaxian game. The later is particularly good once you get up over eight players because it tends to handle "I can't show up this week" particularly well.

I am more than willing to help you create content. The boards are sort of barren of content later and I'd far prefer creative excercises and brainstorming to the usual arguments over theory and semantics.

Goodness! You get the award for longest reply, ha!
You’re telling me, though. Eight players was insane of me.
I really appreciate you breaking down the kind of focus you can have with different numbers of players. My hope would be to have two groups of four that, on particularly special sessions, could come together as one group so that everyone can still experience playing together. But on typical sessions, I’d like to have smaller groups so I can be more intentional about the time I spend with my players.

I think D&D is a really powerful medium that has the ability to greatly impact people and bring them closer together, and I’d love for that to be the case with my group.
It’s why I feel so determined and committed to keeping this thing going at all, to give my friends that outlet, and a means to bond with each other. It’s very important to me, even if the work is hard.
And I’m very proud to say that I have the most awesome and supportive group of players. I will refrain from getting into all I could about how much they mean to me and how D&D is the reason we’ve all been able to stick together, so as not to ramble (which I am already fully doing), but I do it all for them.

I’m glad to know that my struggles are a sign of things flowing in the right direction. I really appreciate the realness and honesty in your words.
I shall always strive to be the kind of DM that would be a blast to play under.
Much of what I do is based on what I’ve observed from my boyfriend when he would DM for us. He’s the most fun to play under, and I’d love to be the very same, with my own twists, of course.

It is so kind of you to offer your help, and I would love nothing more than to bounce ideas off you! I am hurting for creatives to brainstorm with right now, as all of my writing friends are playing under me. But it would be so awesome to get some story opinions and ideas!

 

[HooliTheBird]

sigh Only because you are new at this. This is an almost invariable problem that will show up in the first session or two. Someone, flush with their first character and thinking that they are really thinking out of the box, and possibly with a background in videogames where nothing you do has long term consequences, always in the very early part of the game wants to play a "bandit".

And the problem with it is that if you don't somehow squash it, it's an inadvertent act of attention grabbing by the person that can wreck the session or the campaign.

And squashing it is challenging. Traditionally, a lot of GMs and cRPGs squash it by having merchants be very surprisingly tough and more than capable of handling themselves, but this stretches credibility and also can result in a dead player character which is educational but not exactly fun. Sometimes you have to railroad out of this or even go OOC and explain to them the likely consequences of their action. I'm curious to hear how as a novice GM you managed to handle this inevitable early challenge.

Yes, I do fear it will be at least temporarily unavoidable, though I didn't mind it too much.
Thankfully, with this NPC in particular, he was already above the players' levels, so he was able to knock them straight without any terrible repercussions.
He was an old ex-paladin who now trades "totally legal" weapons in his retirement. The boys thought they could pick on him, but they did not succeed. He did give them a discount, though, for giving him a fun time, ha!

 

[HooliTheBird]

Welcome!

Welcome to DMing. Fudging things is the biggest tool in the toolbox.

Fortunately, your players don't know the plot, so you're all good.

Yessir! Just trying to fake it till I make it out here, and they have noooo idea!

 

[Stormonu]

Welcome to the forums!

Sorry to dogpile, but as everyone has been saying eight is a lot of folks to start out with, and I would encourage splitting the group if you have the time to run two games. You can use plot to even encourage splitting up (half the group needs to go here, the other half here, due to time constraints). You don't even have to split for every game, but the more you do I think the less burnout you'll face.

Also, take some of the load off your shoulders and let the player's actions/reactions write the direction of some elements of the storyline, especially if they have written backgrounds for their characters (if they haven't, encourage them to drop something about their past occasionally, then see if you can riff off it). Having things open enough so the players can pursue what interests them helps both you (giving you fodder for prep) and them stay involved in the game. Just be careful not to run things in a direction where if a player drops out or their character dies the game comes to a screeching halt because the plot thread is now dead.

Finally, if you haven't already, check out places like DriveThruRPG/DM's Guild or other online shops. There's a lot of premade material out there that can help enhance your game and adventures and scenarios you can drop in to cut down on back-end prep. There's various free random generators all over the web that also help in those times when you get stuck or sideswiped by your players. If you don't use electronics at your game table, visit them ahead of your game and download/print them out for later use when you might need them.

Good luck!