First time DM, what to do

[Cadmus]

Well I dont expect to have any problems with trust because were good friends. How would I even roll in secret? we'll be sitting in one tiny room

 

[nikolokolus]

A lot of GMs use a game screen. They usually have a lot of tables and charts on them that can help you run a game ... and let you plot the demise of your friends' hopes and dreams in secret.

 

[Cadmus]

shit, I'm starting to see how I suffer from zero actual creativity when trying to plan the story, so I'll try to rip off some game or something.

 

[Shadenuat]

Draw a map. I always draw a map no matter which one, be it map of house or dungeon or a bunch of acres of earth in squares with an encounter assigned to them. When you have at least an idea where can players possibly go and who they can meet story can create itself.

Or borrow a map from some book or module.

 

[Melan]

Yeah; create the dungeon and make the background simple. Nobody will care about an intricate, five-page backstory that never appears in play. Make it a paragraph or even a sentence or two, and focus on a simple, interesting concept.

• The resting place of an accursed king.
• An underground temple, once holy, now a place of deeption.
  
• A goblin lair - but they are besieged from below!
• The ruined castle of an enchanted princess, who now walks the halls as an accursed ghost.

Develop the dungeon, let it evolve. Add a few details to your concept again. It will be ready to run. A well-realised cliché is better than an original concept that doesn't work.

If maps are the problem, Dyson Logos has something like a hundred or more free, good-looking maps on his site. They are small to medium-sized and most of them are neat and inspiring.

 

[m_s0]

Speaking of making maps, I haven't tried it out yet beyond playing with it for a couple of minutes, but I've stumbled upon this recently:

http://www.yeoldemapmaker.com/

and it looks like a pretty decent solution if you need to put something together, but don't feel like drawing it, have no time or just no talent for this sort of thing.

 

[nikolokolus]

If you want maps go to Dyson Logos' website and borrow to your heart's content. If you really like what you see buy his books.

 

[Monstrous Bat]

We want to make the game last long so I guess I should make some overarching story

Don't. Half of your group will probably lose interest and quit after 3 sessions so there's not much point in planning too far ahead. Try not to waste too much time thinking about the far future and just enjoy the game while it lasts.

 

[nikolokolus]

Resist the urge to get into any major metaplot stuff. You're not really telling a story per se (which has a predetermined ending and a different structure). The story is what you tell when you look back on the all the events of the campaign and recount the exploits of the players and relive their many character deaths.

No, but seriously, it's fine to invent some backstory for your world if it helps you create a sense of verisimilitude, but focus more on creating interesting encounters, NPCs with goals and quirks and then sprinkle the whole thing liberally with lots of rumors, hooks, and cool locales and then be prepared with just enough that you can throw some semi-random encounters at them or improvise when they do things that you don't expect ... and they will do things that you don't expect. This is one of the reasons I think starting with a module might be a good idea; even if you don't follow it to the letter, they can show you how an adventure is structured and paced and can help you ease into being a GM, which is tough enough in the beginning without having to be a master of creativity and improv.

 

[spectre]

shit, I'm starting to see how I suffer from zero actual creativity when trying to plan the story, so I'll try to rip off some game or something.

Don't overthink it, my first fallout pnp adventure (not my first, but ran for first - timers) consisted of three encounters - the characters were tribals who had to kill a radscorpion as a rite of passage,
after planning how to ambush it and doing the kill, they had an encounter with a slightly retarded super mutant (another player who came late) who threatened them with an empty minigun and wanted to steal their stuff
- this was a no dice and all talk encounter that the players basically made up on the spot. All in all, went pretty lulzy. Finally they were to present their exploits to the elders and at this point I had several hooks ready to lead them to whatever the main campaign might be. Sounds simple, but it was just right for one time.
Lots of memorable stuff will be totally ad hoc and the best you can do is stay on your toes, provide some general framework and let the situation develop on its own.
It's the players who fill out the gaps, so don't try to "plan" amazing stuff to blow them away. In the beginning it's the simple things that work. With experience, you can start building intricate metaplots and epic campaigns.

Another thing you'll see in good time is that people will run out of steam after 3 hours or so, because there's a limit for how long you can stay focused and act hings out (especially if its the first time).
Some time will be lost explaining the system, fiddling with the character sheets (levelups and all) and making idle chit chat. That's how it rolls, don't fight it.
If the session ends a bit earlier it leaves you some time to talk about what worked and what didn't.
You may discover that the setting or system doesn't work for you at all, or maybe someone would like to start over with a new character. Such technicalities will take some time during the first sessions.

 

[Cadmus]

I just crumbled under all the responsibility and still have not produced any adventure. We only got drunk as shit and created the characters =/ I'll have another chance in a few weeks I suppose.

 

[LeStryfe79]

1. Run a sandbox and make up everything.
2. Give away too much loot and fudge the dice in the party's favor.
3. Never, ever, ever under any circumstances get drunk!!!

 

[King Crispy]

I rarely post in here but I stumbled upon this thread and thought I'd throw a suggestion or two out there.

First of all, don't give up. The fact that you have players who are interested and want to keep the campaign going is pretty awesome. I have to admit I'm a little jealous.

The little DM experience I've had (when I was about 16 and it was just me and one friend) taught me that sometimes it's the small details that can really spice up the gaming session. I remember making a short adventure for the old Conan RPG that involved the player investigating the lair of three witches outside of town. I completely ad-libbed the town since most towns are boring and the same as each other, but I went ahead and drew a simple map for the lair itself. I populated it with a few monsters along with the witches themselves, thought of physical descriptions for each of them, and just prepared myself to represent each of their separate personalities (they were all blind and used a single crystal ball to see -- I realize this is an overused trope but hey I was 16).

But one of the more creative things I did to really spice up the session was that I created a hand-written note to the players penned by the witches. I wrote it out in scrawling "ye olde" speech on an aged, brown paper and I tore the outside edges of it and even used a lighter to burn the edges. It came out looking awesome and my friend was really surprised by it. He studied it intently as I say there smugly. The session went great, he defeated the witches and needless to say I still remember that little play session to this day. I'm sure he does, too.

It's not that hard to be creative. Just work within your own confines and draw upon the experiences you've retained from a lifetime of reading fantasy and sci-fi and playing roleplaying games. Just throw a little twist in there to make it your own.

 

[Khor1255]

The game screen idea is a great one. Keeping a map of the area your adventure takes place is essential. Having a rough storyline is really all you need especially if you focus on giving some of your characters or even monsters interactive backstories (interactive in the sense that their stories overlap each other - not to a ridiculous extent and there should be plenty of 'game logic' used to determine who's stories overlap who's, who would be willing to divulge any of this, how it would work in the overall gameworld etc.). A whole town or even region can sort of have a backstory and this would directly affect random encounter tables.

What's a random encounter table?

A random encounter table is a list of all fauna likely to be encountered in game. Depending on level of complexity you might actually want to know if your party sees a deer, a rabbit or even a spider and you are definitely going to want to know if any humans, monsters, enchanted beings or demihumans are going to be encountered. Make the far out stuff rare especially around populated areas (unless there is a good story related reason for there to be such things close to civilization) and as a rule make any encounter a rarity rather than likely. I usually use a per mile or per 15 minutes or some combination of these to determine how often I roll for encounters and flesh my lists out with highly mundane stuff so it really becomes a highlight to see something fantastic but that's more a stylistic thing than a general rule of thumb. I've had a few players complain that there aren't enough monsters per hour but that was by far the exception. They usually appreciate the excitement of meeting fantastic creatures after miles of birds and squirrels.
Better yet, with enough pre planning you can almost have the game play itself by structuring your encounters and backstories in such a way that a stroll through the wilderness can result in a whole new twist to your adventure.

 

[SixDead]

To lazy to create new thread, so I post here.
Never played any ttrpg before, but willing to start. My main problem - I have only 2 friends to play with, so questions:
1) Isn't this number too small?
2) Can I DMing and in the same time play my own character? Is it retard or very retard decision? If not, any useful advice to do it properly?
3) My friends are too low INT persons for dnd, so I plan to use Dungeon World rules, which are seem to be kinda newby-friendly. Is there any other systems for casuals?
Tnx in advance.

 

[HeroMarine]

To lazy to create new thread, so I post here.
Never played any ttrpg before, but willing to start. My main problem - I have only 2 friends to play with, so questions:
1) Isn't this number too small?
2) Can I DMing and in the same time play my own character? Is it retard or very retard decision? If not, any useful advice to do it properly?
3) My friends are too low INT persons for dnd, so I plan to use Dungeon World rules, which are seem to be kinda newby-friendly. Is there any other systems for casuals?
Tnx in advance.

1) No, it's fine.
2) Not a very good idea because it might spoil the fun of your players. Just give them two PCs instead.
3) D&D is very newby-friendly, just play the simplified versions.

 

[Grunker]

you're not infinitron tho

 

[Rean]

 

[Andnjord]

1) Isn't this number too small?

If they are motivated and creative it should be okay.

2) Can I DMing and in the same time play my own character? Is it retard or very retard decision? If not, any useful advice to do it properly?

Very retarded, or at least until you are experienced enough to do so (so definitely not on your first adventure)

3) My friends are too low INT persons for dnd, so I plan to use Dungeon World rules, which are seem to be kinda newby-friendly. Is there any other systems for casuals?

As the DM you can expose them to as much or as little as you want to the inner rules of the game, just make sure to narratively explain well what is happening and the consequences of their actions. You on the other hand should have a very good understanding of the system.

you're not @Infinitron tho

That too :D

 

[Tacgnol]

2) Can I DMing and in the same time play my own character? Is it retard or very retard decision? If not, any useful advice to do it properly?

Don't do this. If you really need to give them an extra character to fill a role, just give them an NPC that takes their orders and serves whatever role is required.

That said, if they're missing something like a healer you can just throw more healing supplies into loot and treasure to compensate.

 

[NJClaw]

3) My friends are too low INT persons for dnd, so I plan to use Dungeon World rules, which are seem to be kinda newby-friendly. Is there any other systems for casuals?

Dungeon World isn't simply newby-friendly, it's an entirely different game. It drops any pretense of simulationism in favor of an entirely narrative approach. It's closer to a make-believe game than to a proper RPG. The only thing DW allows you to do is to tell a collaborative story, which is a very different experience from what someone usually expects from D&D.

D&D 5E is as simple as it gets. It requires almost no effort from the players and a very negligible amount from the DM, especially if you rely on a premade module. The introductory adventure, Lost Mine of Phandelver, is a good place to start. You will find plenty of resources online to help you adapt the module to 2 players.

 

[SoupNazi]

I agree with NJClaw - 5E is super easy for newbies. Needs a bit of help on what to roll sometimes, but otherwise it works "as you expect" in a fantasy setting, doesn't require much, honestly. And at the same time, gives everyone enough of the basics to eventually move to more interesting systems.

 

[FritzedProcess]

To lazy to create new thread, so I post here.
Never played any ttrpg before, but willing to start. My main problem - I have only 2 friends to play with, so questions:
1) Isn't this number too small?
2) Can I DMing and in the same time play my own character? Is it retard or very retard decision? If not, any useful advice to do it properly?
3) My friends are too low INT persons for dnd, so I plan to use Dungeon World rules, which are seem to be kinda newby-friendly. Is there any other systems for casuals?
Tnx in advance.

1) It's good enough. Between three and five would be better; in my experience, more than that usually leads to long waiting times if the group splits, extensive bookkeeping, and arguments.

2) That character would also be an NPC (since it's not being run by a player). Just take care that it does not become a Mary Sue. I've seen that happen too many times.

3) D&D is not hard, and as others have pointed out, D&D 5 is very beginner-friendly. If you want something simpler without going fulI narrative, I recommend Savage Worlds.

 

[SixDead]

So, DM shouldn't be full-player, but can fill the lacking role with a NPC; dnd 5e and SavageWWorlds are good for beginners, and Dungeon World is not a proper rpg. Get it, thanks everyone, hugs

 

[SixDead]

you're not infinitron tho

I am Citizen