I am writing a campaign set in an ancient Egypt style desert with mummies and tombs etc. All of my players are going to be first-timers. Does anyone have some good advice when building tombs and just dungeons in general that will give a good impression of what dnd is like to new players?
To clarify, I am going to open my campaign with a tomb of a pharaoh's chief priest who knows vital information about the undead pharaoh who has risen and taken over the continent. I want to make sure to hit all the necessities in this dungeon to introduce the world of dnd to my first-timers. I myself have been a DM for small adventures but not a campaign on this scale. help would be appreciated.
If you are creating a whole Campaign from scratch for a group of all brand new players, you have your work cut out for you.
Without getting into details, I would include a good balance of the three main parts of D&D Adventures; Exploration, Roll Playing & Battles.
As these players don't know if they like D&D yet as they are new players, maybe grab a free official D&D Adventure like one of These, or if you have access, you could run Lost Mines of Phandelver, and if your players like it, then you could keep it going with Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk.
This would keep you from creating an entire campaign that is wasted if your players don't like the game, and save you a LOT of time.
Believe me, I understand the joy of creating a Homebrew Campaign, just know that it is more time consuming than you think :)
Cheers!
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Breathe, dragons; sing of the First World, forged out of chaos and painted with beauty. Sing of Bahamut, the Platinum, molding the shape of the mountains and rivers; Sing too of Chromatic Tiamat, painting all over the infinite canvas. Partnered, they woke in the darkness; partnered, they labored in acts of creation.
Look at older modules and supplements on Drivethrurpg Modules: B4 The Lost City, Look at I3 Pharaoh, I4 Oasis of the White Palm, I5 Lost Tomb of Martek. Supplements: FR10 Old Empires, FR3 Empires of the Sands, FR 13 Anauroch, GAZ2 the Emirates of Ylaruam. Suggested reading: get a copy of 1001 nights the older the copy you can get the better. If you can find them the 16 volume copy of the Burton translations is an incredible resource. Any Persian, Mesopotamian, Baylonian etc myth or legend*. Suggested Watching: Kingdom of Heaven
Beyond that you need The core rules or books , a notebook and a pad of graph or hex paper,
Engage your players let them help you make the world.
*the public library in your area should be able to help with this or google can be your friend too.
I agree about including "the three main parts of D&D Adventures; Exploration, Roll Playing & Battles," but I would also include some puzzles if it's an Egyptian theme, and not just one sphinx. :) Have secret doors, passages, sliding walls, traps, etc. It's nice to have a town with shops. NPCs for RP are nice.
Always be one session ahead of the players for incase they don't do or go where you expected.
Make sure you cover any rule changes or banned classes, spells, races, items (ie, firearms, gunpowder, cannons), behavior (ie, are they heroes, are murder hobos ok), etc in your session zero. Yes, have a session zero. I would even go over their basic character concepts prior to the session zero so that they don't come in with something that doesn't work with your theme (which newbies sometimes do).
My friend did something that was borderline brilliant - also with new players.
There's a dungeon. It's full of low threat undead. So the PC's learn that .. they can fight these, and win. All is good.
Then they come to a wall of Darkness. Inky, black, impenetrable Darkness. They have a rope. Conveniently, there's a ring fastened in the wall next to the Darkness. The players tie a rope to the ring, and venture slowly, cautiously into the Darkness.
Then the rope is cut behind them. Panic ensues. The session ends at a cliff hanger, with players rolling perception to avoid attacking each other in the Darkness.
And it's just a skeleton. 1 skeleton cut the rope.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
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I am writing a campaign set in an ancient Egypt style desert with mummies and tombs etc. All of my players are going to be first-timers. Does anyone have some good advice when building tombs and just dungeons in general that will give a good impression of what dnd is like to new players?
To clarify, I am going to open my campaign with a tomb of a pharaoh's chief priest who knows vital information about the undead pharaoh who has risen and taken over the continent. I want to make sure to hit all the necessities in this dungeon to introduce the world of dnd to my first-timers. I myself have been a DM for small adventures but not a campaign on this scale. help would be appreciated.
Greetings DaHardWun,
If you are creating a whole Campaign from scratch for a group of all brand new players, you have your work cut out for you.
Without getting into details, I would include a good balance of the three main parts of D&D Adventures; Exploration, Roll Playing & Battles.
As these players don't know if they like D&D yet as they are new players, maybe grab a free official D&D Adventure like one of These, or if you have access, you could run Lost Mines of Phandelver, and if your players like it, then you could keep it going with Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk.
This would keep you from creating an entire campaign that is wasted if your players don't like the game, and save you a LOT of time.
Believe me, I understand the joy of creating a Homebrew Campaign, just know that it is more time consuming than you think :)
Cheers!
Breathe, dragons; sing of the First World, forged out of chaos and painted with beauty.
Sing of Bahamut, the Platinum, molding the shape of the mountains and rivers;
Sing too of Chromatic Tiamat, painting all over the infinite canvas.
Partnered, they woke in the darkness; partnered, they labored in acts of creation.
Look at older modules and supplements on Drivethrurpg Modules: B4 The Lost City, Look at I3 Pharaoh, I4 Oasis of the White Palm, I5 Lost Tomb of Martek. Supplements: FR10 Old Empires, FR3 Empires of the Sands, FR 13 Anauroch, GAZ2 the Emirates of Ylaruam. Suggested reading: get a copy of 1001 nights the older the copy you can get the better. If you can find them the 16 volume copy of the Burton translations is an incredible resource. Any Persian, Mesopotamian, Baylonian etc myth or legend*. Suggested Watching: Kingdom of Heaven
Beyond that you need The core rules or books , a notebook and a pad of graph or hex paper,
Engage your players let them help you make the world.
*the public library in your area should be able to help with this or google can be your friend too.
The "What Makes A Good First Adventure" section might be of interest to you OP: https://theangrygm.com/let-start-a-simple-homebrew-campaign-your-first-adventure/
I agree about including "the three main parts of D&D Adventures; Exploration, Roll Playing & Battles," but I would also include some puzzles if it's an Egyptian theme, and not just one sphinx. :) Have secret doors, passages, sliding walls, traps, etc. It's nice to have a town with shops. NPCs for RP are nice.
Always be one session ahead of the players for incase they don't do or go where you expected.
Make sure you cover any rule changes or banned classes, spells, races, items (ie, firearms, gunpowder, cannons), behavior (ie, are they heroes, are murder hobos ok), etc in your session zero. Yes, have a session zero. I would even go over their basic character concepts prior to the session zero so that they don't come in with something that doesn't work with your theme (which newbies sometimes do).
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.
thanks you so much guys, this helps a lot
My friend did something that was borderline brilliant - also with new players.
There's a dungeon. It's full of low threat undead. So the PC's learn that .. they can fight these, and win. All is good.
Then they come to a wall of Darkness. Inky, black, impenetrable Darkness. They have a rope. Conveniently, there's a ring fastened in the wall next to the Darkness. The players tie a rope to the ring, and venture slowly, cautiously into the Darkness.
Then the rope is cut behind them. Panic ensues. The session ends at a cliff hanger, with players rolling perception to avoid attacking each other in the Darkness.
And it's just a skeleton. 1 skeleton cut the rope.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.