First-time DM

[The Flying Walrus]

Hello everybody!

I'm thirteen years old, and I'm going to run my first game a week from today. So far I've gotten a nice starting adventure for a group of 3rd-4th level characters. It involves a group of dwarves prospecting in the hills for gold near a village. They come upon an ancient dungeon, however, and they are attacked by undead. It's up to the PC's to explore and map the dungeon, bonus if they can find the root of the undeadlings. For 20 GP a day and the treasures they find, it's not a bad deal.

I need some advice, however, on running a game in general. I mean things such as descriptions, keeping a good, steady pace, adding extra challenges, and that kind of stuff. I'm open to any suggestions.

 

[Romotre]

Do you have access to a Dungeon Master's Guide? If yes, then its (obviously) perfect. If you have time to read the whole thing, you will benefit from most of it. If not, Chapters 3-5 are a good place to start. I really can't summarize years of exp. and 100 pages of text. If you have any other spefic ?'s, then i'd be glad to help.

 

[Gizzard]

Its mostly a matter of experience; the more games you run, the better feel you get for what works and what doesnt. One key (and difficult) thing to do is to look at the long term. That is, ask yourself, "will my campaign still be functional in a year if I let event X happen now?" Two simple mistakes I see DMs make are opposite ends of this spectrum:

1) "You are all dead....again! Hehe." Some DMs take DMing to be a contest of wits; DM against the party. They fill their dungeons with CR17 Demons, fatal contact poisons and crushing room traps with no escape. If your players are constantly dying, they probably arent having fun. The DMs role is to put together an entertaining game, not to entertain himself by squishing the party.

2) "You defeat the Kobold and find that he is carrying the Hand of Vecna." Sometimes a DM is entranced by some cool item and feels he must put it in his campaign despite its awesome power. (The Deck of Many things is a frequent choice along these lines.) Sometimes a player is fascinated by the one cool thing which will make his character unstoppable. (The +5 Paladin Holy Avenger Sword or being a Half-Dragon are popular choices.) In either case, obtaining powerful things at low levels seriously upsets the balance of the game. (A level 3 fighter who is also a Half-Dragon is closer to a level 6 character for instance; he'll dominate the party.) It still comes back to the question of keeping the campaign viable; "If I give the Paladin the +5 Sword when he gets to level 5, what do I give him when he gets to level 7?"

A lot of this stuff is really hard to figure out until you've run 3E a couple of times. Subtle stuff comes back to bite you later; classes, feats and items which appeared too strong at first turn out to be junk and conversely, stuff you never thought would make a difference ends up dominating the playfield.

On a totally different tack; one thing to do before you DM is try to get to know the rules as well as you can. Its pretty hard to know them all, but nothing bogs down a game like a player asking if he can do something and having the DM say, "Hmmm, let me check." And then flip through the DMG for 5 minutes before saying, "I cant find anything relevant in here."

 

[Angelsboi]

my advice is unconventional but i love Ray Winninger ....


Do not create a story. Create the world. Let the PCs make the story.

Have some NPCs and have some motivations. You have dwarves digging for gold. Good start.

Cause: Dwarves digging for gold
Effect: Discover ancient dungeon
Cause: Releases Undead
Effect: Undead attack them

Meaning, for everything that happens, make sure there is something to happen EVEN if the PCs cant do anything about it

 

[EOL]

One problem with giving advice on how to be a DM is that every group of players is different. So what may work for one set of players will make another set want to gouge out their own eyes.

I don't want to make any generalizations, but the kind of D&D I enjoyed playing at 13 is a lot different than the kind of D&D I enjoy playing now (at 31). So make sure to know your audience. As I said I don't want to assume anything, but when I was in my teens it was all about combat. I could have cared less if the dwarves had a clan emblem which was embossed on all of their armor. I just wanted to know whether the armor was magical and if so how magical.

At this point I would just try and focus on having a good time. Creating a rich immersive world can be over-rated and will come later in any event.

 

[Doc_Souark]

The only advice I can give you is to make the game FUN for the players and for yourself.

 

[jollyninja]

yup, fun is the key. If you achieve nothing but a good time, you will have succeeded as a dm.

don't try to plan for every thing the players might do and if a player does something unexpected that kind of kills the adventure, do not just have the roof cave in on him. just do some "random" encounters so that you can get used to running combat from the dm's chair. my first dm actually did that to me, poor jim the thief never had a chance.

allways remember, just because it didn't happen the way you thought it would, does not mean it happened incorrectly, sometimes you just have to let the players screw up everything and get themselves killed. they will not be happy but if you let them insult the dwarven king to his face without any consequences, they will probably get bored. don't pull to many punches, and try to be realistic with the consequences of their actions.

by the way that is a truly excellent nickname!

 

[The Flying Walrus]

Thanks, you guys! My adventure is coming along great, and it'll probably be lots of fun!