I've decided to take the plunge and be a DM, any advice?

[dreaded_beast]

The amount of games I have DMed you can count on one hand.

Taking the advice of many posters on the boards, I have decided to DM a game of my own.

At the moment, I will only be playing with one other person, a good friend but a total newbie to DND. My friend is an avid fan of games like Diablo, the Sims, and Pokemon, but has expressed interest in the past on trying out DND.

The one aspect I like about being DM is being able to create a "homebrew" campaign, so I don't think I will use any published materials as yet.

I think for now, I will try to run a very "simple" adventure, hailing back to BASIC DND: explore the dungeon, try not to get killed, and loot the treasure, heh.

Just to let you know, I am horrendous when it comes to prepping and I can get bored being the DM, and sometimes lose track of all the numbers flying around.

I know, I sound hopeless, so can anyone give me any advice so I don't ruin this poor newbie's first impression of DND and so that I can have fun being a DM at the same time?

 

[Alzrius]

Plan in advance. I cannot stress this enough. Trying to wing it will only cause havoc with the campaign, especially if the player's aren't too interested to start with. Make sure you have a story that progresses with each adventure.

 

[NeuroZombie]

My only advice would be to keep it simple as possible for the newbie, especially as you are new to DMing yourself. I would also suggest that you have stat blocks ready to go for each monster in the adventure and possibly download the blank initiative cards at... shoot forgot the url, and at work so I don;t have my favorites.... do a search

Anyway, simplicity is definitely the key. I am about to run an FR campaign with 4 newbies and 2 experienced players, so my first adventure is a very simple dungeon crawl to get em going b4 I add things like plot and story

 

[Desdichado]

Use a published adventure, it sounds like. You can do other things, but the thing about DMing is you get a lot better with experience. Theory only goes so far.

So I suggest getting a published, shortish adventure; one in which most of the work has been done for you. That way you can concentrate more on making sure things run smoothly and the newbie (and others) enjoy themselves, rather than shuffling around with numbers and trying to figure out where you are.

 

[DrZombie]

Plan in advance. I cannot stress this enough. Trying to wing it will only cause havoc with the campaign, especially if the player's aren't too interested to start with. Make sure you have a story that progresses with each adventure.

Improvise, don't stick to what you've planned. I cannot stress this enough.

I know this is difficult, but there are probably as much different styles as there are dm's.

Allright, my two cents. since your player is a newbie, talk to him. Ask him what he wants to play, what he expects. Broadly sketch out your homebrew, tell him the general feel of the world. Ask him what kind of settinhn he'd like to start in. Does he want to start in the "middle age europe village", or in the"elven forest town" or in the "great and dirty metropolis".

Let's say he really really digs the "ostrich riding barbarians" you casually mentioned when describing an area. Work out the culture with him. Ask him how he sees it. let's hang on to this idea for a second.

Make the background of his character together. Work out a simple tribe with him, brainstorm. Does he want to be the eldest son of the tribal chief, just coming of age? Does he want to be the apprentice of the shaman? What does he think the shaman is like? Do they folow totem spirits? What's the totem spirit of the tribe...

Now you've got a setting that's part of your homebrew that your player is intimately familiar with. He'll have the feeling he contributed, that it's his world as well. Now throw in a few vague settings that are feasably nearby. The player doesn't really need to know about the evil kingdom half a continent away, but the nearby town of peasants that burn down the tundra to plant their crops, and thereby taking in territory that belongs to the tribes, now that's something different. The kobolds that steal the ostrich eggs, the neighbouring tribe that bested the tribal champion in single combat on the grand moot last year....

Now for the first adventure : leave some options that you can work out later : on his visionquest as his initiation as shaman, he hears something. Does he follow the sound, thereby seeing some kobolds preparing to ambush some farmers? What will he do? Does he ignore it and does he find a totem spirit?

Leave your player some choices, loosely prepare two or three options that your player can explore; If he doesn't follow up on one of 'em, keep your notes, you'll be able to adapt it to another adventure later.

Hope this helps a little.

 

[Voadam]

Most adventures are plug and play in any campaign with little work to file off the serial numbers (change a god's name, a city's name, etc.) so making your homebrew world and cosmology is no problem while still using pre-done adventures.

I'd suggest the 2e Diablo D&D supplement for a good hack and slash adventure with a familiar setup for him (it has the whole computer game dungeon done out for 2e) but there would be a lot of conversion work for the monsters and you don't want to be slowed down by the number crunching. The 3e Diablo D&D supplement was generally poor in comparison, although I haven't seen the module.

To keep the numbers easier use monsters straight out of the 3.5 books, keep them simple without adding templates, class levels, or advanced hit dice unless you do out the stat blocks ahead of time. There are a ton of monsters in the MM/SRD alone that will be fresh and new to him so no need to get wacky on monster options.

Don't give the newbie multiple characters or NPCs to run with him, this will just add numbers to the mix to keep track of and make it more confusing for both of you. Instead keep the combat challenges weaker (well below equal CR for the most part). Single player games usually mean more in-depth roleplaying but are significantly weaker when it comes to fighting opponents since there is no backup and no synergy.

 

[KidCthulhu]

Plan what your enemies know, what they can do, and what their motivations are. That way, if your players throw you a loop, you can improvise well. This will give you the flexibility to move with them without having to throw mysterious road blocks in their way to re-direct them.

Write everything you say in game down. I'm improvisational as DM, and this one kicks me in the teeth a lot. I make up an NPC on the spot, and when my players ask me about him three games later, I've totally forgotten his name!

Most importantly, try to think of every player and character action and behavior as a chance to build your world, rather than a flaw. If your players start burning every village they come to, don't pull your hair out. Try to think of a way to bring that behavior back to them in a way that shows them the consequences of their actions. This can be a correction, but it's a method that players understand, rather than an arbitrary party killing. Reward play style and behavior that seems to make the game more fun, and bring down the repercussions for stuff that doesn't.

Never be afraid to talk to your players, especially about what they want in the game. Nothing a player likes better than that a plot about that secret half-brother they mentioned in their character background. Make the world responsive to them, even if the response is to kick their ass.

 

[NewJeffCT]

My first bit of advice is the BE ORGANIZED. You can look like a smooth genius even without a lot of prep work if you have index cards or marked pages with specific monsters and/or NPCs on them. It holds up the game if you are constantly flipping through pages of the Monster Manual or PHB, and then flipping somewhere else to apply a template or to read about an item said NPC or monster has.

Second is to remember the KISS method. Keep It Simple, Stupid. The movie "Star Wars" is a fairly simple quest story, but it is made memorable by a great villain in Darth Vader and a plethora of memorable NPCs - the 'droids, Han & Chewie, Obi-Wan, Princess Leia, etc - and a few memorable locations - the Death Star, Tattoine, the bar in Mos Eisley.

 

[Desdichado]

You might want to get PCGen, because you can generate characters and not have to crunch a lot of the numbers yourself.

I don't know how hard or tedious you find that, though -- mostly for nostalgic reasons, I actually prefer to write in character sheets with pencil.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I'd suggest you use a published adventure to start out with. There's a couple of pretty good free ones on the net if you don't like shelling out money.

If you decide to homebrew, keep your homebrew very, very, very small.


Here is a suggested map of what your homebrew world should look like:

    Town  -----------  goblins

Here is a suggested plot:

1) Goblins attack the Town (where the players grew up) at night. The players each fight off a goblin in one-on-one combat.

2) The town elder calls them together as they expressed valor and asks them to fight the goblins off.

3) If the party has Survival, have them make a survival check of DC 8. If they pass they avoid an encounter with a wolf (give them the exp for avoiding the wolf if they make the roll). Otherwise, they fight the wolf.

4) The goblin fort might have five encoutners. One with a goblin scouts/guards. Two with goblin gaurds inside. The fourth with a Kreshnar they keep as a pet. And the last with two goblins with an orc "boss". Put the kreshnar in the middle of the encounters so they don't get bored fighting the same monster over and over.

Ta-Da! 7 combats! That's about half a level. Probably a little more because the wolf and the orc/goblin encounters are going to be a little tougher than average.

Plot hooks: who was the orc working for? Maybe some kind of crazy evil orc cleric of death and war. Where did they get the kreshnar? Maybe from some wicked trapper who sells monsters to humanoids as guard animals.

That's just an idea to get you going. Goblins are pretty easy creatures for level 1 characters to beat and you don't want anyone dying in the first adventure. To inflict real trauma, you want them dying at level 20 at the climax of the campaign. That's what being a DM is all about!