I'm not new to d&d but am to DMing. any advice for a new DM?

General Advice:

This is not a Dungeon Master vs. Player game. The end goal is to have fun, not to defeat the other players and vice versa.

Communicate with your Players. If one of the players is making you uncomfortable, bring it up and discuss it with them.

Be like water. You can never predict all outcomes, don't try to. If something unexpected happens, don't just decide the players can't do that, keep moving the story. 

Don't let the players roll unless they can succeed. This may seem counterintuitive to these previous, but if the players have no chance of succeeding, don't let them try. It will just frustrate them.

Don't Check the Rules too often. Checking the rules too often leads to the game slowing down to a halt, if you really don't know how a mechanic works, choose whatever result you believe will be funniest for the players.

Play Music. Playing music helps set a tone, think of what you want a scene to evoke, and play a song accordingly.

Try not to remove player agency. Unless you need an event to set up the rest of the campaign, try to let the players attempt almost any action.

Peer Review. Check-in with more experienced Dungeon Masters for feedback on what you write.

Have Fun. The most important advice that can be given is to just have fun yourself. Your players will most likely follow suit.

Map Making Advice:

World Scale. Detail each continent and its defining characteristics. Include major bodies of water.

International Scale. Detail each nation, its defining characteristics, and its capitol. Include major bodies of water.

National Scale. Mark down any major cities / important landmarks. Include major bodies of water.

State/Province Scale. Mark down around 4-6 landmarks for the player. Design this with the intention of making each location interesting enough for the players to visit

Village Scale. Detail the purpose of each building, who lives in each house (if applicable). and their place in the village (i.e. Butchers House, Park)

Dungeon Scale. Create a series of about 10 - 15 encounters, assigning one to each room of the dungeon.

Gimmicks. When making a map, try to add a gimmick to set it apart from the other ones you made.

Homebrew Creation Advice:

Reference Existing Material. When creating, try to see if any existing material may fit the idea you have. If this is the case, then just reflavor the existing content.

Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist. Before attempting anything too crazy, make sure you how the rules function in their base form.

Gimmicks. When creating homebrew, try to add a gimmick to set it apart from the other ones you made.

Reference the official guides. Guides are officially present in The Dungeon Masters Guide, and although they do give helpful information on the mechanical side of things, they are imperfect and easily fallible. The one true way to gauge whether something is balanced or not is to see it in play.

Playtesting. Playtesting is the most important thing to do with Homebrew. If you create something, try it out in play.

Thank you so much this was quite helpful!

The only thing I would add, your first few dungeons should be very simple and maybe even linear.  Don't try something complicated.  Low level, low magic campaigns are simpler to run then mid or high level campaigns.  

If you design a world or campaign, stick to the parts that are going to be played in the next game or two.  Don't spend hours or even days dreaming up stuff that no PC is going to interact with for months.

Rules and books are useful but you are the dungeon master, emphasis on master.  Disallow rules, spells, etc that destroy the game.  

Lastly, there are only a few books as catching as Lord of the Rings.  Don't make something overly complicated and grand.  There is nothing wrong with bashing in goblin heads and solving a puzzle or two for a gold reward.  Everyone will still have fun, especially if you have beer and food!

Matt Coleville's Running the Game series on Youtube is one of the best sources of advice for a new dungeon master you can find for free online.

When you make a plot, write what has happened instead of what will happen.

EG, Don't say "The players will talk to the wizard in the tavern and agree to save his pig who he lost in a bet to the necromancer in the woods", say "there is a wizard in the tavern who has lost his pig. he looks sad. There is a necromancer who has ambitions to own all of the pigs in the world."

Never try to write what the players will do - ponder what they could do and loosely plan a session ahead for it, but don't say anything like "the players will kill the necromancer" because they might not.

I will always plug Johnny Chiodini's series on how to be a GM https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvxuQlafitC3Odredtzzr9Qy2ZN-21z93

It is Johnny actively guiding a new GM through the process of how they plan, getting the newbie to plan and then reviewing the session plan, then running the session, then a debrief after the session.

It's a very practical guide that is in my opinion actually slightly better than Coleville's more theoretical approach. So it might appear to people with learning styles that are less comfortable with Coleville's delivery.


I'd also say that at the core with any game system there are three major factors:

1 - Have a list of what checks you might ask for in front of you for reference.
2 - Know what dice are being used - for checks that's a d20, for combat to hit it's d20, for the damage it's usually the d4, 6, 8, or 10.
3 - The first time a player uses an ability, skill, or spell get them to read the entire description out to the table. This seems wasteful at first but it's really good practice. It is a process assuming zero knowledge on anyone's part and it very quickly resolves disputes and issues of people who have previously houseruled. It also saves you referring to the books quite so often...especially if you're all using D&D Beyond character sheets.


Finally, there's one thing I would add. Do not turn to the internet for rules clarification. People have gotten way to comfortable doing this and is eroding the acceptance of each table running to it's own dynamic. Fact is the whole point of a DM is to adjudicate on inconsistencies and errors in the printed rules (and there are loads of them!). Before we had internet resources for this stuff it was understood that the DM would adjudicate and even if that's not how it worked at every table, it was how it would work at that table.

Oh and really finally, do not be afraid to ask for help or to explain to your players that you're finding something difficult. Players will actually find it more fair if you ask their opinions when adjudicating on something.

Some great advice there.  I would just say try to enjoy yourself.  I started as a DM around 1980 (that doesn’t mean I’m any good by the way!) and am still playing today because I absolutely love the game.  In fact, I am as keen now as I was back then.  It is fortunate if you also have good players and I’ve been lucky I suppose.  Good luck with it, don’t get overburdened, relax and enjoy!