D&D 5E New member intro and first time DM discussion

[Wikedeye]

Hello everyone!

I did not see a specific place for introductions. I am new to the forum and I am excited to see how much of a resource this place can be. I have already found a number of threads that seem helpful and I am excited to continue to discover more.

I have been playing D&D off and on since I was a kid and I am really enjoying 5e. I have never ran my own game, but I am planning to run Curse of Strahd for my group in the near future. It seems like a good campaign that will allow for a decent amount of role play over dungeon crawling. From what I have read a lot of people find it hard to run, but I am up for the challenge.

Any advice for a new DM?

 

[iserith]

First bit of advice is that, prior to play, you and your players get together to discuss the expectations for the campaign and build a cohesive party that will engage with the adventure you have chosen. When everyone is on the same page, I think you will find that a lot of problems people report with their D&D games will be neatly avoided.

 

[Wikedeye]

That's good advice. My group seems to be pretty good at communicating. We have only been playing together for a couple of months, but we are pretty comfortable with each other.

 

[Bawylie]

Welcome!

Curse of Strahd is some fun adventuring.

In addition to discussing campaign expectations and building a party together, I strongly recommend starting with the Death House adventure so everyone can get their feet wet with the style and tone of the game.

It's a neat adventure with decent horror moments my players enjoyed.

You may also want to treat each leg of the adventure as independent episodes. So you'd be looking at starting and ending segments very strongly as opposed to just a continuous adventure. It helps to focus the players and reinforce the short and long term goals of the campaign.


-Brad

 

[robus]

If you've never DM'd before you might want to run a trial session with your group using some premade characters just to get the feel of being in the DMing seat without entire campaign looming over you

There's plenty of good low-level stuff on DMs Guild. The Death House adventure in CoS is a bit aggressive (from reports I've seen) so probably not the best for a first outing

Good luck and welcome.

 

[aco175]

Welcome to the boards and everyone here is good to deal with and tries to help. (off topic, I loved Savannah when I lived there).

As a new DM, some of the best things to do is to have fun and try to understand what the players want. Some players want to slay and collect treasure while others want more story. There is basically 3 pillars of play and if you mix them you should be fine. They are combat, exploration and roleplaying.

 

[Wikedeye]

If you've never DM'd before you might want to run a trial session with your group using some premade characters just to get the feel of being in the DMing seat without entire campaign looming over you

There's plenty of good low-level stuff on DMs Guild. The Death House adventure in CoS is a bit aggressive (from reports I've seen) so probably not the best for a first outing

Good luck and welcome.

I am not really good at trying things without going all in. I have played many games and I feel like I have an above average grasp on the rules, so that part of running a game should be fairly easy. I am only really concerned with the role play aspect (keeping up with multiple characters). I am a pretty organized person and I am taking my time to prep for this adventure, as much as one can, so I wont be caught off guard.

 

[iserith]

I am only really concerned with the role play aspect (keeping up with multiple characters).

Could you give us an example of what you mean?

 

[Wikedeye]

Being able to keep up with multiple npc's. Coming up with an npc on the fly and remembering who they are for later.

 

[ccs]

Being able to keep up with multiple npc's. Coming up with an npc on the fly and remembering who they are for later.

I suggest using Pen & Paper to help with this. Fortunately both are readily available.