I want to try my hand at being a DM

[ironblood]

I've played several different table top RPG's as the adventurer but wanted to attempt to DM a campaign.

I've never tried to do it before So was curious if any one knows any Crash course I might be able to read up on?

 

[MerricB]

Are you planning to use 2e or another system?

My general advice is to start small and let the campaign grow as you and your players get used to it and discover what you really want to do. There is a reason that a small dungeon and village is often the first place games start in! They're easy to run!

Particularly good advice can be found in the 4e DMG and DMG 2, along with 3e's DMG 2. Paizo's Gamemastery Guide also has good advice.

Cheers and good luck!

 

[dd.stevenson]

This thread is listed as 2nd edition D&D. Is that the game you intend to run? There are four editions of D&D out there, each with distinct flavors and implied playstyles--and, a bit confusingly, they are all currently in print at this time. So maybe take a good look at your choices and find the edition that best fits your style.

If you're running a second edition game, then you can do a lot worse than googling "ray winninger dungeoncraft" and clicking on the darkshire link. (Even though it's probably being hosted illegally, mearls has tweeted this exact same advice before so I'm going to not apologize for mentioning it here.) The play he described is late second edition sandbox, which I particularly love, but different people will like different games so be sure to talk to your players beforehand.

Also, welcome to EnWorld!

 

[ironblood]

It will be 2nd edition and I've played it enough to know about it just not from the DM stand point... My issue is with balance of power amongst adventurers I don't want to make it seem too tough or too easy.

And intentions were that there would Be a dungeon riddled with not only creatures but logic stuff.

 

[MerricB]

AD&D (1E and 2E) has particular difficulties when you're trying to balance encounters, which magnify when you use optional material. An encounter that is balanced for a core-only game is unlikely to be balanced for one that uses all the supplements! However, to a certain extent, it doesn't matter. The major reason you need to know how difficult an encounter is comes from designing an encounter the group *has* to overcome. If the group always has a chance to bypass or avoid encounters, then their strength isn't as important.

The basic balancing technique in AD&D is for one hit die of monster to balance one level of character - so a group of six 1st level characters would find a challenging encounter to be 12 kobolds, six orcs, or an ogre and one orc. This isn't extremely accurate, but most balancing systems aren't. It's just a useful starting point. You want a range of encounter difficulties anyway, so it doesn't matter if it's somewhat inaccurate. Great inaccuracies in judging difficulty come from special abilities - both monster and character. The best way of balancing 2E encounters is just by having lots and lots of experience and knowing your group; it'll allow you to much better judge what they can handle.

Cheers!

 

[ironblood]

Thank you very much.... For the help... Im going to start planning out the campaign while at work tomorrow

 

[S'mon]

My general advice is to start small and let the campaign grow as you and your players get used to it and discover what you really want to do. There is a reason that a small dungeon and village is often the first place games start in! They're easy to run!

I want to emphasise this - my current Loudwater campaign is the first one that really followed this advice, starting with a well-detailed little township plus local dungeons and events, and it feels by far the best and most 'robust' I've ever run. It's really easy and effective to build outward organically from that starting base, following the inclinations of players and GM. I think it definitely beats the heavily pre-plotted approach.

I think having a cast of well-detailed local NPCs from the beginning helped hugely, something I've tended to skimp on in the past. And the open, somewhat sandboxy feel lets players focus on what they find interesting, so the GM can build on that.

 

[ironblood]

I want to emphasise this - my current Loudwater campaign is the first one that really followed this advice, starting with a well-detailed little township plus local dungeons and events, and it feels by far the best and most 'robust' I've ever run. It's really easy and effective to build outward organically from that starting base, following the inclinations of players and GM. I think it definitely beats the heavily pre-plotted approach.

I think having a cast of well-detailed local NPCs from the beginning helped hugely, something I've tended to skimp on in the past. And the open, somewhat sandboxy feel lets players focus on what they find interesting, so the GM can build on that.

I'm meticulously crafting a small town with NPCs and a back story...

I have an idea where I want the opening of the campaign to be somewhat of a cinematic story with me asking for die rolls from the players and changing what happens accordingly... For instance the town is getting raided in the night Player A high or low fails the call so he fails to wake up because he is a heavy sleeper...

The out come of all these rolls will determine the initial quest and determine the love/hate relationship the town has with the adventurers

 

[Orius]

I have to honestly say that 2e is probably not a great choice for a novice DM. I'm speaking form experience here, I did my early DMing in the later days of 2e, and I never really had a firm grasp on what was balanced. Learning what was balanced for a party tnds to take a lot of trial and error. You could go by an enemy's HD. Another thing to look at is XP, since 2e calculates XP by the sorts of special abilities a monster has.

I don't want to bash 2e here, I'm interested in possibly returning to the system, but I remember the frustrations I had with it back in the day.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Im going to start planning out the campaign while at work tomorrow

Wish I had your job...