First-time DM--Where Do I Start???

[ragingpeanuts]

@ dice4hire: Lol, thanks. Got a year in now, it's only recently that I've actually become a bit accustomed to the role. We're starting paragon tier in a month or so after a short break, so I'm very curious as to what that brings.

BTW: if you use monsters pre MM3 releases, be sure to adjust their hp and damage. It'll soon turn into a grind otherwise. Make the first encounter easy, just so your players learn the basics of combat.

Oh yeah, bit of extra advice: when narrating things, just name the stuff that defines the area in a scenic way. Most of the time you got it perfectly in your head, but the players will be overwhelmed by so much info that they don't need it all. My players like it when I use pictures to illustrate stuff. You can get lots of good stuff over at deviantart.com.

Also: beware of the story not becoming a trainride where the players just sit and watch as the train moves along. On the other hand during our second session I wanted the world to be a bit more sandbox. My players felt directionless cause they hadn't a full grasp of what they could do. There's a learning curve there is all I'm saying.

You're gonna stumble in the beginning, but don't be afraid of doing so. In the end there's so much that factors in. Willingness and mood of players for instance is also important.

After dm'ing for a while, if you've never really played before: switch places with someone for a few sessions, so you experience what a player does. A lot of the stuff I learned comes from combining the two experiences of playing and dm'ing.

I'll shut up now, if you've got any questions just post here or pm me

 

[DEFCON 1]

One of James Wyatt's Dungeoncraft articles on the WotC website called 'Building Block Adventure Design' I thought was a very simple, easy and actually cool methodology for new DMs to creates compelling "story arcs" without needing massive experience in plotting.

It's basically "The Rule Of Threes" as state above... with three short delves that each end with three similar McGuffins... which when taken as a whole make a simple but engaging "plot". Some of his examples included:

* The heroes might quest after the three items in a set (a rod, crown, and scepter), three pieces of a broken relic, or three components for crafting a unique item.

* Kill three hags, three ogres, or the three shadar-kai who lead the bandits in Raven Roost. They might be three agents of the same greater lord (who will be a villain in a later adventure) -- or two lieutenants and the master himself. They might be three otherwise unrelated monsters each infected by a shard of corruption that produces a similar pattern of behavior in each one.

* The party travels to three similar outposts and carries the same important message to them, or three shrines to the same or related gods and perform a ritual to reconsecrate them.

* They might have to deal with the repercussions of the same event in three different places. They might have to secure the aid of three disparate groups to accomplish a greater quest. They might have to save or protect the baron's three sons.

If you follow the advice above and make each delve about five encounters (3 combat, 1 skill challenge, 1 roleplay), you now have a 15 encounter cohesive plotline, at the end of which the party should have earn enough XP to go up a level or two.

What's also great about this building block method is that once you've become comfortable running this first building block plot of three delves... you can take it further by building two more of these 15 encounter blocks... thereby giving you an even bigger overarching plot when all is said and done. Before you know it, you've "plotted" a storyline that takes players through 45 encounters over half a tier of play. And by this point, you'll hopefully have become more comfortable and can begin playing around with things (by changing the number of encounters per delve, the numbering of delves per block, the necessity of blocks at all, etc. etc.)

 

[Dedekind]

Important caveats at bottom.

For a plot based story arc, each adventures needs:

background (mainly for DM)
hook encounter (the players have to start somewhere)
obstacle encounters (includes both fights, journeys, and skill challenges)
resolution encounter (the last obstacle, usually a bad guy)
aftermath encounter (the implications must play out)

Everything you do should plug into one of these and each one should be covered. You'll also need obvious connectors between them. Else wise, players get confused and the adventure doesn't have narrative cohesion. If an encounter has little affect on this adventure's plot arc, considering excluding it.

Important caveats:
Different gaming groups are different. My understanding is that you are new to writing adventures, so this is generic advice that will result in an adventure with a point. Some players like encounters that don't fit the arc (the kitten in a tree side quest). Some players may want non-linear adventures (main bad guy encounter is the plot hook, not the resolution). Some players may want the plot arc to be only of their devising (player seeks vengeance on NPC of their choosing).

 

[ragingpeanuts]

What I'm currently also doing is making a map filled with generic stuff. Amongst others:

1. Generic skill challenges (e.g. sneaking, diplomatic talking, travel, etc.)
2. NPC names
3. Standard NPC templates (if they decide to attack a guard, I can make one in a few seconds)
4. diseases
5. riddles
6. gaming rules (e.g. a modified version of poker, three dragon ante, other stuff)
7. A standard town/city
8. random letters and notes

I figure this will allow me to allow more sandbox playing.

 

[Fusiox]

Thanks so much for your help! I've finally started (woohoo) and got a nice 4-or-more-encounters session in the works, thanks to you guys.

My campaign setting is *very* simple. The single more-experienced player in the group suggested leaving the setting very open-ended in case other players wanted to try their hand at DM'ing. Therefore, if I run an adventure for the exploration of a volcano, and the next guy runs an adventure on a desert in a different continent, if all else fails we can say "When you return, your guild sends you to blah" without the story falling apart too much.

The characters are, by now, 4th level. This means they've already been set apart from "standard" (standard being natural humanoids like humans and elves) warriors like guards and bandits, but a good-sized group of them still poses a threat.

Leading to my planned adventure.

I was hoping to have this adventure span 3+ sessions (beginning, climax, and aftermath, if not others). I was making it war-themed, the players being "mercenaries" of a sort, who are hired to defend a fortress city on the borderlands from a siege. As the character I use to play when I won't be DM'ing happens to be a Rogue, I need to craft the encounter to tailor a party missing striker support (the majority of the players being slayers and power gamers, I think an edible helping of soldiers and brutes sprinkled with a generous amount of minions would be lots of fun to them, rather than having to march up to controllers or artillery all the time).

1st. Session:
Characters help save a caravan they happened upon while traveling home. The caravan defenders, who happen to be a secret junction of knights that answers to the Crown of their homeland, inform them of the worsening situation at this certain fortress city (a couple more hooks, mostly reward-themed, are available in case the PCs need a little more "persuasion"). The players travel to the fort, fighting a few battles along the way, and the rest of the session is spent rescuing beleagured battalions, raiding enemy supply barricades, and generally getting ready for the siege, which will be the climax.

2nd. Session:
The siege of the fort begins. This session will be nearly wholly combat-based, as the next session will have a lot more RPing than the previous one (once again, power gamers and slayers will probably have lots of fun with this session regardless). The entire session is in "real-time", meaning there are no time-lapses where the players sleep, travel, or rest (although I will let the PCs recharge encounter and daily powers, as well as HP, during opportune moments such as establishing a strong defensive foothold). Instead of strung-along encounters at different times, the actions of the PCs determine the course of the battle in what is a few hours in the game time (and a few hours in the real world), which basically means this session is a "super-combat-encounter". I am hoping to make this encounter "epic" (involving lots of minions the players will need to cut through, like in a real-world castle siege, along with some quite-strong warriors needing teamwork to take down) and very tactically-friendly.

3rd. Session:
The players have (hopefully) defended the fort city. If not, the outcome will still be the same, except the Crown will be disappointed (trying to keep it simple and not have to build two different sessions when only one will be in use) with the PCs for failing to defend the fort. This session involves finding key traitors in the Crown military, negotiating with the Crown to gain military support, and leading a counter-siege against the opposing force's nearest main military outpost. Depending on how this session goes, I may make the final counter-attack a short encounter if the players blast through it, or another session similar to the second one if they don't make it to this siege before the game-night ends.

As you can see, I have a pretty good idea where the session storyline is going. I'm a bit scared that I'm going out of my league here regarding DM'ing experience (instead of using hobgoblins, which would be the obvious choice for this war-themed, I made my own enemy army [which are humans], although being so inexperienced at the game may mean these monsters are too weak or too powerful, in which case I can wing it), but I think, given a little work and more than a little trial-and-error, it can really come to life.

Wow, that was long. Thanks for reading this, and thanks for all the good suggestions! It really help kickstart my adventure!

 

[jbear]

Good advice all round so far. Here is some practical advice that will hopefully add to what you already have got so far:

Buy the Monter Vault.

Seriously. The monsters are streamlined with some very interesting fluff to get your creative juices flowing. Plus they hit hard and are challenging.

But apart from that the box comes with 6 or 7 sheets of beautiful thick card moster tokens that are red on the other side, so you can flip them over when they are bloodied. They are really REALLY cool.

But apart from that, it comes with a short 4th level adventure and a beautiful poster map. You already have a start on your adventure, all you have to do is build the readymade adventure to fit what you already have, changing a few details here and there.

Well worth your money. Honestly.

That is how I build my adventures. I have ideas more or less where the PCs are heading ... lets say, a ruined castle in a swamp. So I look for ready made adventures. I found one with a ruined castle ... in a swamp! Ok, so the castle in the adventure is meant to whisk them away to where the castle is caught in time about midway through the adventure, which wasn't part of my original idea, but hell, it's a pretty neat sidetrek, so...
I start readjusting the story, adding details and complexity to bind it in to my original idea. I flesh out the swamp a bit more. Now the original Red Hand goblin horde they are tracking down are working in cohoots with a group of blood cultists (from the ready made adventure) who freed a demoness from her prison in time and space (the castle towhich they might be whisked away to); both bands worship the demoness. She wants the cultists to retrieve the powerful artifact she used to escape her prison from this castle lost in time and space and they are beginning a dark ritual (as per the ready made adventure) just as the PCs arrive in search of the entrance into the Red Hands lair (below the ruins). If they get caught up in the ritual (which they did) they may be whisked away with the lead cultist (which one of the pcs was), however the artifact they will need to retrieve in order to escape will bear significance on the continuation of the adventure, aiding them disarm and defeat the demoness behind the Red Hand. If they bypass it, great ... but the ruins will feel alive and dynamic, with 'other things going on'. Stealth and roleplay becomes overtly useful, critical even in how the adventure plays out. And preperationwise, all the time spent is on ideas, readjustments and linking ideas to make the story make sense. The encounters, NPCs, maps monsters and challenges are already pre built. I just bring them to life.

That is perhaps more complex than what you want to get into at this stage, but it is something to keep in mind.

 

[aco175]

Just a few ideas to build on what others said.

I'm trying to develop each tier of play to be its own campaign which has ties if the group wants to go further. This way if the group wants to start something else, or bring in new characters there is a fresh break to start the paragon tier. I ended the heroic tier with a raid on dormant volcano caldera that housed a band of Yuan-Ti who used portal in town sewers to steal children to turn into followers. There was a big end fight involving a mummy lord yuan-yi. The volcano ties into the land on the other side of the mountains where undead death knights rule over the land and have a final end fight with a lich and maybe a dracolich. Have not figured out epic tier yet, the game may move on by then.

Another idea is to develop npc's for future use, especially where the group has a home base they come back to. Some npc's assist them with shelter or healing, while others may provide info the bad guys. Having a few memorable characters adds to you world and provides good ties to involve the characters. In my earlier example, the Duke's son what taken by the yuan-ti and the party was asked by the Duke himself to go and rescue. He also sent forces to assist in the final raid, leaving the pc's free to meet the big encounters.