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HELP! I'm a new DM

speederbike101

First Post
Hey y'all, I'm new to this site. I have been playing DnD for about 10 years now starting with 3.5. My group has been playing 5e for the past 6 months or so, we like it. I have just undertaken the responsibility of DM in my group. Anybody have any good tips for a new DM? I feel a little overwhelmed trying to prepare each week and come up with good ideas, as well as coming up with things on the fly because the PC's never do what you would think they would do. Ay help would be appreciated.
 

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An approach that saves a lot of work and frustration: prepare situations, not stories.

If you prepare a specific story, a sequence of events, and you are not very proficient in subtly guiding players along it, they will go in another direction. Then either you railroad and force them back, or all your prep is lots.

If you instead prepare background events, locations and NPCs (what they want, what they can do, how they relate to each other), you can react to what players do and you can easily determine what the NPCs will do where the PCs don't intervene. You put the PCs in the situation you prepared and they decide what to do with it.
 

Welcome to the ranks of the exalted and frazzled DMs!

I run twice a month, so I’ve more time to prepare than you do. Sometimes, at the end of the adventure, I ask the PCs "what do you want to do?" and let them figure out the seed of what comes next. With a vivid enough world and invested players, they can come up with all the ideas you need.

Also, how long are your sessions on average? I think most of us would rather play an awesome four hour session than a so-so six hour one.

I really like the advice in 4e’s DMG II. There’s some really great stuff in there that can apply to any edition of any game.

And finally, when I’m really stuck, I turn to Goodman Games’ The Dungeon Alphabet. It’s a wonderful collection of weird and inspiring tables.
 

New DM? One word: railroad. If it can work for Skyrim, it can work for you. Create "dungeons" in which every alternative path is caved in/collapsed. So your players get to fight monsters, avoid traps, and loot treasure chests - but all in the order that you've nicely laid out beforehand so that you're ready for it.

Basic tip: write out everything you KNOW you'll need, and organize it in a way that will make it easy to find. Your players will come up with stuff that you don't know you'll need, but you can't really plan for that, can you? (Actually, random tables help for a lot of that.)

Sort of an intermediate tip, but important: watch your players. Don't just look at your notes. Notice which ones need (not want) DM-attention. When you can't pay attention to a player who needs it, try to get another PC to engage him. I mention this because even if you have all your charts and NPCs, your players won't want you to DM again if they don't have fun - which often requires DM attention.
 

Just a few quick most basic tips for anyone who dons the DM cape:

- Relax
You are not there to entertain, but to make play possible. If you don't know something or are lost in the job of DMing, talk the other players and tell them about the situation you are in. If you feel that your game night was unsatisfactory then talk to one another what would make it more fun for everyone.

- Situations not Stories
You lay out certain situations (see [MENTION=23240]steenan[/MENTION]'s spot-on advice) in which the PCs can interact but you don't have to create hundreds of interlocking parts of a world. (And in fact: also shouldn't.)
Pro tip:
Write down three NPCs (maybe three helpful or neutral ones and up to three "bad guys") that can be of importance to the next 4 hours of play (or the next session if it's longer then 4 hours). Write down one (!) motivation/trait/quirk for these NPCs. When they appear (whether it's a magical pawn shop owner, a fighting military baroness, or a dragon librarian) try to go with the flow and improvise. (There are no false ways to do it.)

- Let it go
Don't try to control everything in the world or the gameplay situation. Let your and the players' imagination run wild if you wish. And don't let the rules stop you too much. (If you have e.g. a great underwater fighting scene with a demonic kraken and you keep messing up rules for underwater fighting: ditch them now and if you really wish, look them up later.)


One of the most useful and empowering DMing advice I ever read can be found at slyflourish's "The Lazy Dungeon Master". Absolutely great!
 

My advice, DON'T RAILROAD! Contrary to a previous poster, I advice the exact opposite. I don't think any tip that we would give to an experienced DM should be all that different to what we'd tell a new DM. I don't think railroading is a crime, but I think it is bad to start DM'ing from that principle. Why not learn your DM'ing correctly right from the get go?

Personally I believe D&D is all about choice, and so railroading is somewhere on the opposite spectrum of that. That is why i think railroading in general is simply inferior to none linear storytelling in a D&D adventure. That said, none linear story telling DOES usually require plenty of preparation. To a new DM this can be a daunting task, so maybe you want to consider first running an Adventure Module, to get the hang of things?

But lets get down to the question at hand, how do you prepare a campaign when you run one of your own?

Prepare!
To me it is all in the preparation. I would advice a new DM to prepare enough material so that they have a framework in place that allows them to keep the story rolling for the next couple of sessions. This means that you probably want to create a world map, and prepare a list of npc's and plot points that you want to work into the story at some point. Having a list of characters at the ready is a great tool, plus it helps you remember what a character looked like, and it helps you think about the finer details. I tend to create a basic outline document that describes all of the general areas of the world, along with short blocks of text for all the key npc's in the story. Have a list of tavern names, and name for cities and villages.

Monster lists
It also helps to have a list of monsters at the ready, that you can use at any moment when you see fit. You can keep sticky notes in your Monster Manual, or just print out a copy of their stat blocks for easy reference. You don't want to be searching for monsters during the session. Have your foes ready for use, and make sure you've read their special abilities before using them!

The world map
As previously mentioned, you'll want a map. This can be a map of the entire world, but more likely you'll only need a map of the current region that the story takes place in. This means you'll have to think ahead a bit, and consider where the story may lead next. Perhaps you've at one time seen a fantasy book, which often open up with this massive map full of countless lands and cities that NEVER show up in the book? Don't be that guy! Just limit the map to what the story needs, and you can fill in the rest later. What is the point of drawing the north and south pole of the world, when the players will never go there?
If you instead prefer to use an existing setting, such as the Forgotten Realms, you can of course download tons of beautiful maps of those, and save yourself a lot of trouble.

Work out a list of deities
If you are creating a setting of your own, you might want to consider coming up with some gods of your own. You can take the roman pantheon as an example, and make up gods for all kinds of silly things. Try and think about how those gods are portrayed by their followers, and how they are worshiped. Of course you could also take the lazy way out, and just use the gods of an existing setting. But that is entirely up to you.

Know the game rules
You don't need to read all the books from cover to back, to run the game. But as a DM you are expected to be both a storyteller and a referee. So players will expect that they can turn to you, in case the rules are unclear. You need to at least know how to run combat, how initiative works, how armor and attacks work, how magic and saves work, and how experience and levels work. You should also be familiar with character creation, because you'll need that knowledge not only to assist your players in making their characters, but also when designing npc's of your own.
 
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Worse to worst, you can always run pre-generated (pre-gens) adventures to get used to running combats and the like. Given your 3.5 experience, you'll find that 5e doesn't vary that much from those core rules.

I do count DMing as being a bit of an entertainer, in that you need to know what your players enjoy to maximize fun all around (and minimize wasted prep energy). Check out this article by The Angry GM about the 8 kinds of fun and see if you can identify your players' types.
 

Ah well, [MENTION=6812937]speederbike101[/MENTION], don't blame us if we give you somewhat contradictory advice - those depend on different DMing philosophies. Some of us find railroading a good start, some despise it. Some say that preperation is king, some think that you shouldn't over-prepare. It is kind of confusing, I know. Maybe you can ask yourself what suits you most. You can always try out different DM-styles and see what is best for you.

So you want to run a 5E game? Why not start with the 5E Starter Set and the adventure Lost Mines of Phandelver? Or you can grab a copy of Princes of the Apocalypse. This will give you a very solid framework and you won't have to worry about creating a world by yourself. But if you want to you can always add your own stories and content into the adventure.

To turn your initial question upside down: What is it specifically what you want to know about DMing? Do you want us to give you tips about world building, preperation time, improvisation? Or something else?
 

I feel a little overwhelmed trying to prepare each week and come up with good ideas, as well as coming up with things on the fly because the PC's never do what you would think they would do.

Okay, I re-read your initial question. You ask about how to get good ideas for the game session and also how to manage player choices that you haven't anticipated.

Preperation and "good ideas":

I can't stress this enough, but you don't have to deliver or produce high quality adventure content just right from the beginning and on your own.

First, this is a team game and the players are not here that you give them fantastic adventures on a silver plate. The players have to put at least a small amount of effort into getting the story going by themselves. So: the responsibility for "good ideas" does not entirely lie on your shoulders.

Second, even the smallest ideas for an adventure often lead to hours of real time play. Let's say that the local lord sends the adventurers out to stop some bandids in the woods. The PCs have to find their camp first, so either they go rummaging around the woods or maybe they ask around the shady parts of town. There they stumble upon some ruffians who don't like people sniffing around, find a small hideout at the docks, where a map to the bandid camp is stashed. In the woods the PCs stumble upon a old shrine of a forest god which is corrupted and host to dire owlbears. Lastly the PCs find the camp and discuss how to investigate further or to sneak in or even to go berserk and tear down everything by sword and magic. And voila: now you have content for at least two or even three 4-hour sessions. And although this is only a variation of one of the easiest and oldest adventure plots, your group can have fun with it.
Mind you: Even if your group is experienced, has playes for years and knows every story and every trick in the book, they are not entitled to "the greatest story of all time" (tm). You are a beginning DM and they should not expect highest drama and unforseeable plot twists.


Problems with player choices:

If you have trouble to steer your players into doing what you thought would be best: just don't. I know that improvisation sounds hard to do at first. But it solves so many problems. You don't have to prepare every eventuality beforehand and you don't have to think every situation through. That does cost a lot of time. You can spend it better in preparing some small lists that help you improvise. Take a piece of paper and write down ten NPC names, ten names for taverns, ten places to buy goods, ten small sites in the region where the PCs are right now (smth like "Mungo's abandoned mill and illicit casino", "The pool of dryads that is besieged by bullywugs", "Fort Crag, infested by a handful of lazy orcs", "The tower of Dashao, a helpful but slightly confused wizard", "Smallfeet company, halfling trading outpost where the two rivers meet"). For the ten NPC names write down ten quirks or visible features that you can use in describing the improvised NPCs. Or if you want more dungeon-themed lists, write down ten features of possible dungeon rooms: "very high ceiling with a small crack through which rainwater drops", "room with broken mirrors", "room with the scent of mint and ash", "room with a statue that seems absolutely life-like" etc.
Use those basic information to improvise scenes on the fly.

Let's use it in the adventure-example from above: the PCs stumble upon the corrupted shrine, suddenly loose interest in the bandid camp and want to investigate the corruption first. You have not prepared anything for it so you start to improvise. Maybe you can throw in a small three-"room" dungeon under the shrine and use the dungeon-room table? Maybe it leads to the pool of dryds that is besieged by bullywugs (see list list above) (or is infested with an old and vengeful spirit? Maybe it was awoken through the malavolence of the bandids?) Maybe the PCs meet a half-mad druid at the shrine (and whose name and features you can pick from your ten-names and ten-features list)?
 

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