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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emerald Hawk" data-source="post: 5389677" data-attributes="member: 86819">First of all, thanks a ton for posting this.  I recently started DMing again after a break of about 10 years and it is very hard and very stressful.  I'm not even sure if my players are having fun or not.  It's nice to hear that I'm not alone in worrying if I'm doing it right.I'm running what I planned on making a very sandbox oriented campaign for a group of mostly new players.  However, the point Grabuto138 made about new players was spot on for my group.  They generally jumped at the first plot hook I dangled and ended up running through my encounters in a fairly straightforward manner.  Given that you worked closely with your group to come up with your campaign, I wouldn't worry too much that you are railroading them.  It just wouldn't be the Hunger Games without the characters captured and forced to fight.In terms of combat being slow, my combats take at least an hour each and from what I've read online that's actually average.  To speed things up I mainly concentrate on what I can control: how long the enemies take.  I try to fit every creature for the encounter on to one or two sheets and print them out beforehand.  I even make a block that contains nothing but monster defenses so I can respond to player attacks quickly with "hit" or "miss" (Or hopefully something more flavorful).  Three different types of enemy is about my limit, beyond that I have trouble keeping track of them all.To help the players go quickly, I try to make terrain and all the enemies very clear at the start.  I also allow players to change their mind after they move and take advice from the other players at the table.  I'll even offer advice myself if a player narrates what they are trying to accomplish, I'll tell them how they can do it within the rules.  This could make combat slower at times, but if players aren't as afraid of making a mistake they tend to make up their minds a lot faster.I can't help you with running skill challenges.  I haven't yet run a real one, I just don't like how abstract the X success before Y failures thing is.  I also dislike how it can reward players for doing nothing.  Instead I'll just set up a series of skill checks, each of which has a specific success and failure consequence.  Sometimes, if the situation is time-sensitive, I'll go around the table and ask each player what they are doing (and the response of "Nothing" is basically treated the same as a failure).Good luck out there!</blockquote>

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