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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Number47" data-source="post: 247367" data-attributes="member: 84">For DMs who have DM'd very little...When starting your game, don't try to do too much. You're new, so just put together as much as you're comfortable with. A good idea is to first decide what area-type you are starting in. Rural, wilderness, village, town, city or whatever. Make a quick map of it. No need to have too much detail. A good rule of thumb is to make a map with only as much detail as you would want to show players anyway.Start at first level. Trust me on this. Starting at a higher level will only make your job harder, and you are a new DM here.When coming up with a world, city or adventure, steal and plagiarize. There is no need to come up with an innkeeper character like no other innkeeper that anyone has ever used. Somebody has done the work for you, take advantage of it.Jot down some ideas for an adventure. Players start out here, lean this, and need to go there in order to accomplish that. Don't bother with too many details yet.Have your players make up characters. Even if you own more than the core rules, ignore those accessories for now. Those are for later introduction, when you're more comfortable. Whatever method you use, make sure everybody uses the same method. Make sure they have all the necessary numbers down, and strongly encourage them to have a name. Although you want richly backgrounded characters, people often change their idea of who their character is after playing a little bit and interacting. Ask them to come up with background before the second session, and you will give them XP for it.Tell the players the type of game you intend to run. If it is a heroic game, a dungeon-crawling type game, a living fairy tale, whatever. You want to adapt to their style of play, but they have to play by your rules.Tell the players that they are all together in this place and have all agreed (or forced) to work together to do whatever the plothook is. This is railroading the players into working together and doing what you want. Do it this time, for the purpose of making them a party, and then never do it again.Give the players an opportunity to talk with NPCs and explore the town (or village, city or whatever). Also allow them to not do it, if they aren't the type. If players want to spend an entire session interacting with innkeepers and roleplaying buying equipment, let them. If they simply want you to summarize the information they find over the day in a couple minutes so they can get to the combat, do that. This is adapting to their style.When running a game:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Use different voices. Have a least one generic man, one generic woman, one old coot and one monster voice. Try to remember which voice for which NPC.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Players like handouts. They don't have to be super-cool or take a long time to make. Easy things to do are letters from home (this really makes their characters real for them), hand them the map they find, or use some painted washers for coins.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Learn to pretend to read from a blank notebook. You will never have everything prepared that you could possibly need, but your players don't need to know that. Just look at your notebook and make up the description, or monster or whatever, and use your reading voice.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Throw a bone. Especially at early levels. When a player makes an exceptionally good skill check, have it mean something even if you have to change things. If they check for traps on an untrapped chest, then they roll a twenty, go ahead and put a minor trap there.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Sometimes your players come up with interesting, odd or wild ideas. Often this is because of some error or flaw in your own designs. Don't say "Wait, it isn't supposed to be like that, let's do it over". Instead, just adopt their idea or something that's similar to it. You get a richer background for your adventure, and they feel smart.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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