I Just DM my first DnD one shot to see if my friends who never played DnD before would like it and to see if I'd enjoying DMing. It was successful I made my own campaign and world, but I also provided the characters for them and included them in the world.
Now they want to start an actual byweekly campain and inof coarse want to make another world for them to play in. My question is do I establish the world first and tell them what it's like? Or just have them create they're story characters and put it inside the world?
There are two main schools of world creation - top down, and bottom up. Top down means you make a framework of the whole world, and do details later. Bottom up starts at the level of a town, say, and builds the bigger world later. In both methods, there is an opportunity to collaborate with your players. They might have a rough idea of a character or back story, which you can incorporate as you go. You can even make a game of the collaboration. The Dungeon World RPG, for example, uses a collaborative narrative to do the initial world build. At a minimum, leave sufficient space for these backstories to exist somewhere in a meaningful way. Make enough of a framework for your characters to decorate here or there, and wait for their input before baking it in.
There is something in new DMs that they always want to "recreate wheel". Why can't you use existing settings (grayhawk, forgoten, etc). On the other hand why cant you use world from previous adventure?
There is something in new DMs that they always want to "recreate wheel". Why can't you use existing settings (grayhawk, forgoten, etc). On the other hand why cant you use world from previous adventure?
I am debabting beginning with lost mine of Panwielder and then building out from it.
I mainly wanted to know how other dms have they're players create they're characters. And how much information they relay to them or just let them make a character and we put them on a ride. Without saying anything about the land or government or etc.
I'm in the middle of creating a campaign for just my GF and I, a one on one sort of adventure. I basically started with a general idea and a few NPCs such as a main villain and a quest giver. Now that my GF has (mostly) fleshed out a character and backstory I have found the world building aspect to be even easier because I can use her backstory, bonds, flaws etc to fill in key details and to create conflict to drive the plot.
I'm in the middle of creating a campaign for just my GF and I, a one on one sort of adventure. I basically started with a general idea and a few NPCs such as a main villain and a quest giver. Now that my GF has (mostly) fleshed out a character and backstory I have found the world building aspect to be even easier because I can use her backstory, bonds, flaws etc to fill in key details and to create conflict to drive the plot.
It is good to build adventures (or adjust the one already created by good writers) around characters backgrounds but as i said you can use well prepared settings with their lore, gods etc.
There is something in new DMs that they always want to "recreate wheel". Why can't you use existing settings (grayhawk, forgoten, etc). On the other hand why cant you use world from previous adventure?
I suspect because a lot of us who get into DM'ing because we want to tell out own world-spanning stories, and create the Lore of our world ( even though, that's the part that really for us, alone ).
I agree 189% that it's waaaay easier for new DMs to tackle one thing at a time: first learn the mechanics first, then how to handle the game sessions, then worry about creating your own world.
But we were also told to eat our vegetables before we can have dessert - and we didn't like it then, either :D
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I Just DM my first DnD one shot to see if my friends who never played DnD before would like it and to see if I'd enjoying DMing. It was successful I made my own campaign and world, but I also provided the characters for them and included them in the world.
Now they want to start an actual byweekly campain and inof coarse want to make another world for them to play in. My question is do I establish the world first and tell them what it's like? Or just have them create they're story characters and put it inside the world?
Both :)
If you're going to create a new world for your campaign - and there are merits to a new DM using a pre-existing campaign world, as some have pointed out - then create just enough of the world to get by: The local town, a few relevant NPCs, 1-2 gods ( if you have a Cleric and/or Paladin ), a handful of surrounding wilderness features. No more than you absolutely need.
Then, as the player-characters wander further afield, "fill in the blanks" just one step ahead of where they are.
That keeps you from getting overloaded, and it allows you to use your Players' backstories and actions to inspire parts of your world; make the PCs do some of the work ;)
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
For a set of entirely new players and a new DM, I don't think using a pre-existing universe actually saves any time or effort. If no one playing knows anything about the Forgotten Realms then there is a huge amount of reading required for the DM, and then all must be explained to the players as their characters are created to fit in this world. Using a pre-written adventure can certainly save on DM effort, but adopting a universe you didn't invent can actually be a constraint. I'm about to take a group of new players through the Lost Mine, and I intend to keep the adventure agnostic to any universal setting - partly because it doesn't matter and no seeing is more or less familiar to them, but mostly because I want us collectively to create and own our universe.
I think long-time players tend to forget exactly how agnostic 5e is. There are rules and norms in each of the settings that just don't exist in the rule set except as suggestions. Paladins can be any alignment. Every race can be any class. Perhaps the new players want to play as a lawful good goblin bard, a mermaid barbarian, an evil gnome sorcerer, a Goliath rogue and a Yuan-Ti druid. Perhaps you have an existing setting where that would be coherent, but a new DM may have neither the time nor inclination to go find it. It's easier for some to just invent a world where this group of people are a perfectly sensible thing (if a little unusual), adapt it to the chosen backstories, and then kick off the adventure.
I think the best solution is a 'bit of both' approach. I like to sketch out the Big Picture first just so the players know what to expect from the world, its regions, its factions ect. Then fill in the details later on, and if you wish, this is where to involve the players.
For example, if you're starting from scratch, it's worth letting the players know some functional information about the world. Here, you just want the basics. The climate, the culture (in broad strokes), the population, the major historical events, the overall 'tone' of the region (is it a wild land where civilisation constantly battles chaos, is it a place of relative peace and prosperity, is the land unified or divided into factions ect)
I'd also suggest telling the players certain pieces of information that can help them make characters that 'make sense' in the world, rather than not telling them then having to square a character with a world they don't really fit into. Things like 'This region has a mostly human population that typically shuns outsiders' or 'This nation is devoted to the ideals of technology and science, so many will be sceptical of magic users' or 'this part of the world is inhospitable to many less hardy races, so is inhabited mainly by the likes of Half-Orcs and Goliaths'.
This helps guide the characters through writing the history of their characters, though it should never be a hard and fast set of rules. There's nothing saying you can't play a Tiefling in that first example, or a Mage in the second, or a Halfling in the third, but it's important that the players making those choices are aware that there might be consequences to the decisions. This can actually lead to more interesting characters as they come up with justification for an Elf living in a Dwarfish city or a Cleric or Paladin dedicated to an outlawed deity ect. The more players think about things like this, the better they'll fit in the world, so make sure they have the information to make informed choices here.
Once you get into fleshing out the specific locales your campaign will be visiting, this is where to bring the players in. For instance, if you have a Bard hailing from a certain city, let them have some say in the creation of the things they'd be familiar with there, such as the taverns they've plied their trade in or a guardsman they've had run-ins with in the past. This a) saves you a bit of work, which is always nice and b) means that the player (and thus their character) has that knowledge before they go into that area in the game itself, so they know who to speak to or where to go, rather than constantly having to ask if they know an individual or place or piece of information. This is rewarding for the player as it lets them feel like they are special in this part of the world, being able to act as a guide for the rest of the party and take some initiative, and overall makes your setting a more coherent place.
But settings are not some holly cows. You can modify them. You do not have some races? Your player can be emissary from far away. Maybe some goblin god turn to lawful good side and small tribes related to it changed their way of life.
But you have solid base for such modifications.
The same with adventures. You have well ballanced adventure for level 4-6. Take it and change it, move from medievall europe type town to some wild west, ancient asia or something else. You will have opportunities to re-write npcs, change dungeons look and swap monster. But you will have a solid base as some good writers (usually) created it.
There is no one true "better way" or even one true "easier way" to start DMing and adventure/world building.
Some people will find it easier to find a setting book to use, spending effort reading and remembering/referencing the details therein. Some people will find it easier to invent their own answer to any question the players ask about the world around them. Some people are completely halted by the idea of making up everything about a world, but if they get a bare-bones bit of info presented to them by a published adventure that gives a map of a small area and a few names of this or that, they are confident in filling in the rest of the world. Some people might not fit any of those three descriptions.
What a new DM should do is figure out where they fit - experiment with making up your own stuff when you need it since that doesn't cost you money or research time, and if that isn't working or you aren't comfortable, then get into things like checking out some setting-related wikis online for a few specific details to get you going, and if that still isn't working, go for more by choosing a setting and buying the primary book/box/whatever for it.
And remember as you get further along as a DM to re-check your preferences on stuff like this - I used to make up a brand new world for just about every campaign I'd run unless I was using a published adventure, in which case I'd use whatever setting details were present in the adventure and make up the rest as needed. Eventually, I'd run enough adventures that came from the same official setting that I started using what I remembered from one adventure to fill in details on another. Then I actually started buying up the setting products for those worlds rather than just the occasional adventure and I would go all over the place - each campaign I'd run I'd be in a different established setting, whether I was buying the adventures or making them up, and I'd have the events played out in one campaign affect the world and be part of that world for future adventures in that world.
But these days, I've gotten to a preference for a singular world without the previous campaigns always being considered events that happened. So all the adventures and campaigns I make up will take place in that world and the events of other campaigns will likely be considered not to have happened so that what is "true" about the setting will always be what is printed in the books and what has happened in the current campaign. And when I buy and adventure to run, we'll use whatever setting it is set in by way of the details in the adventure itself and wiki searches - or if it is not written with any particular setting in mind, I'll adapt it to whichever world strikes my fancy (likely the one that would require the least changes to the adventure).
And this same thing - there not being any one "best" or "easiest" way - holds true when it comes to rules and rulings, and all the other aspects of playing table-top role-playing games. So new DMs have to figure out what approach is easiest for them and what is best for their group. Though it is still a good idea to start small - whatever small means for the approach and style that fits you best - and expand, rather than try to do everything you might eventually want to do all right from the start.
How I started DMing, is that I did LMoP, and then used that start to build out into a campaign, using my own adventures located in the surrounding areas. Now I have been making my own world and concepts.
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I Just DM my first DnD one shot to see if my friends who never played DnD before would like it and to see if I'd enjoying DMing. It was successful I made my own campaign and world, but I also provided the characters for them and included them in the world.
Now they want to start an actual byweekly campain and inof coarse want to make another world for them to play in. My question is do I establish the world first and tell them what it's like? Or just have them create they're story characters and put it inside the world?
This is not an either/or. This can be a both/and.
There are two main schools of world creation - top down, and bottom up. Top down means you make a framework of the whole world, and do details later. Bottom up starts at the level of a town, say, and builds the bigger world later. In both methods, there is an opportunity to collaborate with your players. They might have a rough idea of a character or back story, which you can incorporate as you go. You can even make a game of the collaboration. The Dungeon World RPG, for example, uses a collaborative narrative to do the initial world build. At a minimum, leave sufficient space for these backstories to exist somewhere in a meaningful way. Make enough of a framework for your characters to decorate here or there, and wait for their input before baking it in.
There is something in new DMs that they always want to "recreate wheel". Why can't you use existing settings (grayhawk, forgoten, etc). On the other hand why cant you use world from previous adventure?
Thanks for the advice.
I am debabting beginning with lost mine of Panwielder and then building out from it.
I mainly wanted to know how other dms have they're players create they're characters. And how much information they relay to them or just let them make a character and we put them on a ride. Without saying anything about the land or government or etc.
I'm in the middle of creating a campaign for just my GF and I, a one on one sort of adventure. I basically started with a general idea and a few NPCs such as a main villain and a quest giver. Now that my GF has (mostly) fleshed out a character and backstory I have found the world building aspect to be even easier because I can use her backstory, bonds, flaws etc to fill in key details and to create conflict to drive the plot.
It is good to build adventures (or adjust the one already created by good writers) around characters backgrounds but as i said you can use well prepared settings with their lore, gods etc.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
For a set of entirely new players and a new DM, I don't think using a pre-existing universe actually saves any time or effort. If no one playing knows anything about the Forgotten Realms then there is a huge amount of reading required for the DM, and then all must be explained to the players as their characters are created to fit in this world. Using a pre-written adventure can certainly save on DM effort, but adopting a universe you didn't invent can actually be a constraint. I'm about to take a group of new players through the Lost Mine, and I intend to keep the adventure agnostic to any universal setting - partly because it doesn't matter and no seeing is more or less familiar to them, but mostly because I want us collectively to create and own our universe.
I think long-time players tend to forget exactly how agnostic 5e is. There are rules and norms in each of the settings that just don't exist in the rule set except as suggestions. Paladins can be any alignment. Every race can be any class. Perhaps the new players want to play as a lawful good goblin bard, a mermaid barbarian, an evil gnome sorcerer, a Goliath rogue and a Yuan-Ti druid. Perhaps you have an existing setting where that would be coherent, but a new DM may have neither the time nor inclination to go find it. It's easier for some to just invent a world where this group of people are a perfectly sensible thing (if a little unusual), adapt it to the chosen backstories, and then kick off the adventure.
I think the best solution is a 'bit of both' approach. I like to sketch out the Big Picture first just so the players know what to expect from the world, its regions, its factions ect. Then fill in the details later on, and if you wish, this is where to involve the players.
For example, if you're starting from scratch, it's worth letting the players know some functional information about the world. Here, you just want the basics. The climate, the culture (in broad strokes), the population, the major historical events, the overall 'tone' of the region (is it a wild land where civilisation constantly battles chaos, is it a place of relative peace and prosperity, is the land unified or divided into factions ect)
I'd also suggest telling the players certain pieces of information that can help them make characters that 'make sense' in the world, rather than not telling them then having to square a character with a world they don't really fit into. Things like 'This region has a mostly human population that typically shuns outsiders' or 'This nation is devoted to the ideals of technology and science, so many will be sceptical of magic users' or 'this part of the world is inhospitable to many less hardy races, so is inhabited mainly by the likes of Half-Orcs and Goliaths'.
This helps guide the characters through writing the history of their characters, though it should never be a hard and fast set of rules. There's nothing saying you can't play a Tiefling in that first example, or a Mage in the second, or a Halfling in the third, but it's important that the players making those choices are aware that there might be consequences to the decisions. This can actually lead to more interesting characters as they come up with justification for an Elf living in a Dwarfish city or a Cleric or Paladin dedicated to an outlawed deity ect. The more players think about things like this, the better they'll fit in the world, so make sure they have the information to make informed choices here.
Once you get into fleshing out the specific locales your campaign will be visiting, this is where to bring the players in. For instance, if you have a Bard hailing from a certain city, let them have some say in the creation of the things they'd be familiar with there, such as the taverns they've plied their trade in or a guardsman they've had run-ins with in the past. This a) saves you a bit of work, which is always nice and b) means that the player (and thus their character) has that knowledge before they go into that area in the game itself, so they know who to speak to or where to go, rather than constantly having to ask if they know an individual or place or piece of information. This is rewarding for the player as it lets them feel like they are special in this part of the world, being able to act as a guide for the rest of the party and take some initiative, and overall makes your setting a more coherent place.
But settings are not some holly cows. You can modify them. You do not have some races? Your player can be emissary from far away. Maybe some goblin god turn to lawful good side and small tribes related to it changed their way of life.
But you have solid base for such modifications.
The same with adventures. You have well ballanced adventure for level 4-6. Take it and change it, move from medievall europe type town to some wild west, ancient asia or something else. You will have opportunities to re-write npcs, change dungeons look and swap monster. But you will have a solid base as some good writers (usually) created it.
There is no one true "better way" or even one true "easier way" to start DMing and adventure/world building.
Some people will find it easier to find a setting book to use, spending effort reading and remembering/referencing the details therein. Some people will find it easier to invent their own answer to any question the players ask about the world around them. Some people are completely halted by the idea of making up everything about a world, but if they get a bare-bones bit of info presented to them by a published adventure that gives a map of a small area and a few names of this or that, they are confident in filling in the rest of the world. Some people might not fit any of those three descriptions.
What a new DM should do is figure out where they fit - experiment with making up your own stuff when you need it since that doesn't cost you money or research time, and if that isn't working or you aren't comfortable, then get into things like checking out some setting-related wikis online for a few specific details to get you going, and if that still isn't working, go for more by choosing a setting and buying the primary book/box/whatever for it.
And remember as you get further along as a DM to re-check your preferences on stuff like this - I used to make up a brand new world for just about every campaign I'd run unless I was using a published adventure, in which case I'd use whatever setting details were present in the adventure and make up the rest as needed. Eventually, I'd run enough adventures that came from the same official setting that I started using what I remembered from one adventure to fill in details on another. Then I actually started buying up the setting products for those worlds rather than just the occasional adventure and I would go all over the place - each campaign I'd run I'd be in a different established setting, whether I was buying the adventures or making them up, and I'd have the events played out in one campaign affect the world and be part of that world for future adventures in that world.
But these days, I've gotten to a preference for a singular world without the previous campaigns always being considered events that happened. So all the adventures and campaigns I make up will take place in that world and the events of other campaigns will likely be considered not to have happened so that what is "true" about the setting will always be what is printed in the books and what has happened in the current campaign. And when I buy and adventure to run, we'll use whatever setting it is set in by way of the details in the adventure itself and wiki searches - or if it is not written with any particular setting in mind, I'll adapt it to whichever world strikes my fancy (likely the one that would require the least changes to the adventure).
And this same thing - there not being any one "best" or "easiest" way - holds true when it comes to rules and rulings, and all the other aspects of playing table-top role-playing games. So new DMs have to figure out what approach is easiest for them and what is best for their group. Though it is still a good idea to start small - whatever small means for the approach and style that fits you best - and expand, rather than try to do everything you might eventually want to do all right from the start.
How I started DMing, is that I did LMoP, and then used that start to build out into a campaign, using my own adventures located in the surrounding areas. Now I have been making my own world and concepts.