So we are doing it over discord, none of us know people for D&D and want to avoid drama so we are choosing to do it over discord due to most of us living apart.
Experiance: I have one session of that startwars D&D from a few years ago, the wizard and the ranger never played before, the warlocks have some experience, and the rogue has played for a year with different D&D style games. I have no experiance as a DM and I am the one who is going to have to DM which I don't mind honestly but the lack of experience and anxiety has me struggling here.
So I am looking for advice on these topics and any other advice you want to give I am good at writing stories and making characters btw just not the actually DMing part.
Questions: Okay so over discord I will need to verbally do combat since we aren't using D20 or anything and I want to avoid screen sharing because of my notes. How am I supposed to do this? Kinda hard atm.
What king of encounter balancing should I do they are starting at level 3 and there are 5 of them.
Is it right for me to boch roles to give them a bone or to prevent them from ruining their experience without them knowing? Or should I let fate decide? I have heard different opinions on this matter from some youtubers.
Should I just wing it and say no map and just make a rough sketch outline/obstacles and say "oh yeah this guy is here and it's this far away" or should i make it more detailed for combat?
Thanks for the advice ahead of time btw this is on 5E which I heard is better for what is called imagination theater
I have ran numerous games over Discord. While screen sharing, you have the ability to choose an entire monitor or only an application. This means you could have a map on your screen in Paint, your notes on the side in Notepad, and D&D Beyond monster stat blocks open on the bottom - but only be sharing the Paint application window to your players. This feature may change your preference for using screen sharing, easing encounters as you'll have something visual to aid.
If you're using the Starter kit, it will have encounters pre-generated for you. Since the players are new, start them off easy and bring up the difficulty as you go. You will get a feel for what type of encounters are appropriate for their level and skill. (You can always have enemies run away or ambush as needed)
As for fudging the rolls - this is at DM discretion. There is quite a lengthy (and heated) thread on this HERE for review on the topic.
Build your maps as you see fit. If you can expend the time/effort to continuously keep detailed maps, it will enhance the encounters. If you want to roughly draw something, that's fine too. The players will benefit from detail, dimensions, and combat locations though.
My first piece of advice is don’t be afraid to make mistakes. You’ll make plenty of them, just like your players will make plenty of mistakes playing. All that matters is if everyone has fun so learn from them and have fun.
I’d suggest starting with pre-made modules and don’t worry too much about balancing the encounters. If you pick modules that were designed for 4-6 characters of 3rd level to start with they should already be balanced for you. You’ll learn from experience how to balance encounters over time. My only suggestion about tweaking pre-made modules is you might want to remove some of the Magic items from them. I’m running Ghosts of Saltmarsh right now and there are 3 magic items for the party to find at first level. I’m removing one of them and replacing another one with a spell scroll because I don’t want to deal with 2nd level PCs having permanent magic items.
I fudge rolls to keep from killing PCs when I make a mistake and make an encounter too powerful, but I will knock PCs down to 0 HP when the dice fall that way. And when the players screw up badly instead of me throwing something at them that is too tough for them to handle I’ll let them suffer the consequences of their actions. So, when you make a mistake fudge the rolls to make up for it. When the players make a mistake, let the dice do what they do.
I’m sorry but since I play in person I don’t have any advice for online games.
Thanks this helps a lot, any suggestions for a campaign taking place on tropical islands since we all kinda voted for making our own world since we may swap dms for different campaigns and keep the same world we are building. I so far have a more end game area that is insufferable temp wise and has dinosaurs with a volcano on it, the west side is more cool and mild tropical weather and the further east you go the more you will find higher temps. The main capital is on an island in the center of the islands with the king being a glamour bard named Avidie Bowd (Ave-Eddie Bod) Who appearance wise is themed off of david bowies goblin king. The city is mostly goblins but after becoming a popular port city prospering off of trade routs many races have come to live their from wood elves to Minotaurs.
The yuan-ti clan that is east on an island near the capital island is suffering from a plague killing the old and the clans food sources forcing one of the players who is the chiefs son to go seek help from Zhen and to figure out how to save his clan. The Wizard who went to school at Triton university was attacked by a cult that wanted a dark book that is a danger to the world but he teleported it away, now he is searching for the book and trying to deal with the cult. We have two pirates one wood elf rogue who was the captain of their ship and the other a warlock tiefling and they seek to get revenge on the navy for taking their ship and killing their crew (also they want to get their ship back so that will be good for my plans for the end of the first chapter of the campaign). Then we have the ex soldier wood elf ranger who specializes in hunting mythical beasts (a monster hunter we just verbally flavored it this way) and he starts with undead as his main target.
Sumarry of the setting: Ancient elven race enslaved goblins and experimented on the land Avidie Bowd comes in spends years breaking them down from the inside with his infamous skills he used to use as a theif Became the king of the goblins Built Zhen up Few ancients survived (party doesn't know this part) Ancients are the big baddies seeking revenge for their demise (not evil just seeking their own justice just like a crusader does when they are blinded by their views because they are more chaotic good and saw how primitive the goblins thinking they were granting them prosperity without hunger or danger in exchange for labor)
My plans are to drag this campaign out to at most a year if it goes well, but so far a month for the first chapter where they will go through acts.
act 1: Seeking a way to rent a ship from the port which is expensive due to the down payment (gives time to ease myself and them in by doing small dungeons, personal story quests, and to get the party melding and developing relationships) act 2:To set sail (I want to give the pirates of the group a chance to spot their old ship they will have many chances) act 3: They will go to slay a sea creature with their ship act 4: They will find an underwater temple, they can go back to town or go forth. They will at the end find an member of the ancient civilization that survived and will have to find a way to deal with him (will have peaceful, violent, and clever ways thought up for them to figure out on their own) act 5: Return for the reward from the king for solving the problem and saving their main source of product which would have caused them to collapse economically.
How is this btw? Just curious how someone with more experience than me feels about the first chapters plans.
Thanks this helps a lot also read what i replied with to the other guy looking for opinions on my campaign as well from people with more experience since I am also using this campaign to slowly over the year get more experience with different mechanics.
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So we are doing it over discord, none of us know people for D&D and want to avoid drama so we are choosing to do it over discord due to most of us living apart.
Experiance: I have one session of that startwars D&D from a few years ago, the wizard and the ranger never played before, the warlocks have some experience, and the rogue has played for a year with different D&D style games. I have no experiance as a DM and I am the one who is going to have to DM which I don't mind honestly but the lack of experience and anxiety has me struggling here.
So I am looking for advice on these topics and any other advice you want to give I am good at writing stories and making characters btw just not the actually DMing part.
Questions:
Okay so over discord I will need to verbally do combat since we aren't using D20 or anything and I want to avoid screen sharing because of my notes. How am I supposed to do this? Kinda hard atm.
What king of encounter balancing should I do they are starting at level 3 and there are 5 of them.
Is it right for me to boch roles to give them a bone or to prevent them from ruining their experience without them knowing? Or should I let fate decide? I have heard different opinions on this matter from some youtubers.
Should I just wing it and say no map and just make a rough sketch outline/obstacles and say "oh yeah this guy is here and it's this far away" or should i make it more detailed for combat?
Thanks for the advice ahead of time btw this is on 5E which I heard is better for what is called imagination theater
Hello!
I have ran numerous games over Discord. While screen sharing, you have the ability to choose an entire monitor or only an application. This means you could have a map on your screen in Paint, your notes on the side in Notepad, and D&D Beyond monster stat blocks open on the bottom - but only be sharing the Paint application window to your players. This feature may change your preference for using screen sharing, easing encounters as you'll have something visual to aid.
If you're using the Starter kit, it will have encounters pre-generated for you. Since the players are new, start them off easy and bring up the difficulty as you go. You will get a feel for what type of encounters are appropriate for their level and skill. (You can always have enemies run away or ambush as needed)
As for fudging the rolls - this is at DM discretion. There is quite a lengthy (and heated) thread on this HERE for review on the topic.
Build your maps as you see fit. If you can expend the time/effort to continuously keep detailed maps, it will enhance the encounters. If you want to roughly draw something, that's fine too. The players will benefit from detail, dimensions, and combat locations though.
My first piece of advice is don’t be afraid to make mistakes. You’ll make plenty of them, just like your players will make plenty of mistakes playing. All that matters is if everyone has fun so learn from them and have fun.
I’d suggest starting with pre-made modules and don’t worry too much about balancing the encounters. If you pick modules that were designed for 4-6 characters of 3rd level to start with they should already be balanced for you. You’ll learn from experience how to balance encounters over time. My only suggestion about tweaking pre-made modules is you might want to remove some of the Magic items from them. I’m running Ghosts of Saltmarsh right now and there are 3 magic items for the party to find at first level. I’m removing one of them and replacing another one with a spell scroll because I don’t want to deal with 2nd level PCs having permanent magic items.
I fudge rolls to keep from killing PCs when I make a mistake and make an encounter too powerful, but I will knock PCs down to 0 HP when the dice fall that way. And when the players screw up badly instead of me throwing something at them that is too tough for them to handle I’ll let them suffer the consequences of their actions. So, when you make a mistake fudge the rolls to make up for it. When the players make a mistake, let the dice do what they do.
I’m sorry but since I play in person I don’t have any advice for online games.
Professional computer geek
Thanks this helps a lot, any suggestions for a campaign taking place on tropical islands since we all kinda voted for making our own world since we may swap dms for different campaigns and keep the same world we are building. I so far have a more end game area that is insufferable temp wise and has dinosaurs with a volcano on it, the west side is more cool and mild tropical weather and the further east you go the more you will find higher temps. The main capital is on an island in the center of the islands with the king being a glamour bard named Avidie Bowd (Ave-Eddie Bod) Who appearance wise is themed off of david bowies goblin king. The city is mostly goblins but after becoming a popular port city prospering off of trade routs many races have come to live their from wood elves to Minotaurs.
The yuan-ti clan that is east on an island near the capital island is suffering from a plague killing the old and the clans food sources forcing one of the players who is the chiefs son to go seek help from Zhen and to figure out how to save his clan. The Wizard who went to school at Triton university was attacked by a cult that wanted a dark book that is a danger to the world but he teleported it away, now he is searching for the book and trying to deal with the cult. We have two pirates one wood elf rogue who was the captain of their ship and the other a warlock tiefling and they seek to get revenge on the navy for taking their ship and killing their crew (also they want to get their ship back so that will be good for my plans for the end of the first chapter of the campaign). Then we have the ex soldier wood elf ranger who specializes in hunting mythical beasts (a monster hunter we just verbally flavored it this way) and he starts with undead as his main target.
Sumarry of the setting:
Ancient elven race enslaved goblins and experimented on the land
Avidie Bowd comes in spends years breaking them down from the inside with his infamous skills he used to use as a theif
Became the king of the goblins
Built Zhen up
Few ancients survived (party doesn't know this part)
Ancients are the big baddies seeking revenge for their demise (not evil just seeking their own justice just like a crusader does when they are blinded by their views because they are more chaotic good and saw how primitive the goblins thinking they were granting them prosperity without hunger or danger in exchange for labor)
My plans are to drag this campaign out to at most a year if it goes well, but so far a month for the first chapter where they will go through acts.
act 1: Seeking a way to rent a ship from the port which is expensive due to the down payment (gives time to ease myself and them in by doing small dungeons, personal story quests, and to get the party melding and developing relationships)
act 2:To set sail (I want to give the pirates of the group a chance to spot their old ship they will have many chances)
act 3: They will go to slay a sea creature with their ship
act 4: They will find an underwater temple, they can go back to town or go forth. They will at the end find an member of the ancient civilization that survived and will have to find a way to deal with him (will have peaceful, violent, and clever ways thought up for them to figure out on their own)
act 5: Return for the reward from the king for solving the problem and saving their main source of product which would have caused them to collapse economically.
How is this btw? Just curious how someone with more experience than me feels about the first chapters plans.
Thanks this helps a lot also read what i replied with to the other guy looking for opinions on my campaign as well from people with more experience since I am also using this campaign to slowly over the year get more experience with different mechanics.