How to get started DMing

[arwink]

You read the books, grab the dice, and run an adventure.

Then, regardless of the outcome, you keep reading the books, you keep rolling the dice, and you keep running the adventure. You remember that no-one is perfect, and you try to do better every time you take to the screen.

DMing advice is all well and good, but to be honest the easiest way to start is to start - the advice becomes useful after the first few games when you work out your strengths and weaknesses. All the advice in the world wont prepare you for the first game, and some advice may be wrong for the style of the group you gather.

It helps to play with friends, to be honest that you're just starting out, and to do things for the sake of having a fun game for everyone rather than doing things by the book.

Everything else comes from that moment on.

 

[Mystic_23]

To answer the question of whether you should have veteran players or novice, I'll give you some advice from when I tried DM'ing, not neccessarilly for the first time, but I haven't had a LOT of experience.

It is nice to have at least one person who is pretty experienced as a player and as a DM. However, you have to be able to trust them to do the right thing.

That is the experience I had. Actually, all of my players were fairly experienced players, but one of them was the guy who regularly DM's in our group. He was always willing to lend advice and, in general, help to keep things going when I was stuck without an answer. It helped a great deal.

I would also suggest, as Open World Press did, using published adventures for your first time out. It is what I did, and I'm sure it was much better than anything I could have made up at the time.

As a side note, I'm soon going into unfamiliar territory by DM'ing a short term game while we pause to retune our current game for 3.5ed. It's unfamiliar territory because I'm going to use a combination of D20 Modern with some CoC added to make a 20's Pulp Horror game. Since I've never ran D20 Modern, CoC or done anything with Pulp Horror, it's going to be a new experience for me. I do have some good ideas (I hope) to keep things interesting.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out.

Have fun, and good luck.

 

[Ed Cha]

I agree that it depends on the nature of your players, not whether they are experienced or not. Experienced, but helpful players can provide guidance and tips to keep your game going. You should feel like you're in charge, but don't be afraid to ask for help either. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the DM occasionally asking about a rule. However, the more you know of the rules the smoother your games will run.

There are always people on-line asking about advice on DMing, how to get a game started, and how to run a 1st-level adventure. These are some of the reasons why I wrote "The Hamlet of Thumble" the way I did. I would best describe it as a "D&D starter kit".

It includes a thoroughly detailed hamlet, area encounters, a short adventure, DM tips, advice on how to get a game started, plot ideas, and a lot of other useful information for someone starting a new campaign or running a game for the first time. I think it will be very helpful to a lot of people.