Gonna run a campaign for the first time, help?

[notjer]

Hey Folks
Well yeah, I’m going to run a DnD 3,5v campaign with some friends, and probably start in the next weekend. I haven’t much experience, and if people asked us about our knowledge of DnD, they would probably laugh, and say we are newbies. Anyways. If I’m not trying, then I’ll never get a chance to learn it.
To the point; as I said, I don’t have that much experience, so I would like to ask for some tip for a beginner DM. I have played and reading about DnD in 1 year. I used many hour with my DM in school, I asked him about everything that I didn’t know about (we wrote message to each other in lessons, many lessons, maybe 50% of them). It’s means I did nearly know as much as my DM who had played it in 4 years before I was starting to know the game.
Can I follow some main-way, who I can use for a campaign, with me as DM?
Hmm it would be a high magical world, average lvl for npc in city: 3, adventure average lvl: 5-6,
It would be a western middle age. City is like 75% humans. Humans are dominating overall.

I hope people here will give me some good advice, would be glad for a successful first-try-campaign.

See Jon/Notjer

 

[Mystery Man]

Read Uncle Figgy's Guide to Good Game Mastering my Danish brother!


Keep it simple.

 

[deltadave]

step one - start small and build from there
step two - have fun
step three - repeat as neccessary

I have a sheet that I stick on the back of my dm screen to remind me of the important things in running a game

http://www.deltadave.net/dming_tnt.html

 

[Qvintus]

I got two pices of advise...
One start on a low lvl. I've seen many first time GM's start on a realy high lvl and even for an expiresed GM high lvl's are realy hard to handle. Im still having trouble with handeling my players on lvl 14
And two keep in mind what the players want.
Best of luck and have fun

 

[Ed Cha]

step one - start small and build from there
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I agree. You might want to start in a village or town rather than a city. It's easier to manage.

I'd also suggest picking up one of these books I've written:
http://www.openworldpress.com

"World of Whitethorn 1A: The Hamlet of Thumble" is especially helpful for beginning DMs as it has a ready-to-go mini campaign setting and a great "DM Tips" section.

You might want to look at Johnn Four's site, too:
http://www.roleplayingtips.com

Good luck and let us know how it goes!