Breathe. You'll do fine. Start wherever you like, but make sure you start in the middle of an action scene. "En media res" as they call it. If you start at the bar, start during a bar fight that someone in the party started. If a jail, mid-break-out. If at a zoo, then right when a zoo monster breaks out of its enclosure and threatens to trample or eat some guests.
Just make sure your opener is action-packed and fun. The players will sort things out from there.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
You'll do great! Focus on everyone just having fun, the rest will come. You'll learn what your players like and don't like as you go. Having a session 0 might be a good idea too. Meet with your players and ask what kind of campaign they want to play.
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***Happily Forever Dungeon Master***
Trying to be active in the community and help those in need
Welcome to this side of the GM screen! We have cookies. These cookies are given to us by players in the faint hopes of appeasing us mouahahahahahaha...
My biggest suggestion for starting the game is to make the players do some work. Require them to tell you how their characters met. Lone wolves and/or orphans are boring, so make it their responsibility to generate relationships and links between characters.
You can certainly lead this discussion.
GM: We're starting at a wedding. One of you is sibling to the groom. Who is that? A: Me! GM: Awesome! It's the wedding of A's brother and his finace. B, why are you here, who do you know? B: Ummm.... I'm the date of one of the bridegrooms. GM: Great! How long have you known the bride? B: Ahh, not long, a few months. GM: Good to know. You know who A is, you've met them a few times, but you haven't spent much time with them. Now, I need someone to be related to the bride? C: Yeah, I like that. D: So do I. Hey, C want to be brothers and sisters? C: Not really, how about cousins? D: I can do that.
1. On the road. "You are an established adventuring party, and know each other. You are on the road to the town of Heckle, which you hear has the best library/colloseum/eating around (make it relevant to the characters), so let's go around the table and say what we see on the road!"
2. At a Festival. Festivals let you foreshadow the adventure (if it's relevant), and they give the party a good scene to explore, getting them moving without it being overly plotty. Makes the players start roleplay, however they enjoy doing so!
Have fun and enjoy, and remember however badly you think you did, you did 10 times better from the point of view of the players, who don't know what you missed, what went wrong, and how much was improvised!
It may be a bit late but if you choose a starting point where the players start off with a background knowing each other then that might make it easier since they may have more reasons to stay together and assist each other. School is a good choice for that if you want to run a campaign where they start as classmates. A wedding is also an option since they could all be guests - both ones that knew each other previously and others who might meet at the wedding.
Of course, you can set the intro anywhere and it will work fine but an intro/campaign that has a small part of backstory incorporated may encourage both role playing and the players helping each other out.
My two cents to cover the bases... Read the core books, and a couple pre-written adventures to give you a feel for how things should shape and flow. If you want to practice, create a party of "crash test dummies" to run through it and test it out. I call mine Slashy, Stabby, Healy, and Boom. But ultimately, remember the beauty here is the seer emotion you can cause in your players. Fear, Love, Terror, Hope... Do it right and you will take them on a roller coaster and bring them home safe... Except that one time with the Cult of the Dragon... Ignore that one...
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My first thoughts is it is cool and I’m can and will do great. But I’m scared that I will mess up and I have a story line.
Breathe. You'll do fine. Start wherever you like, but make sure you start in the middle of an action scene. "En media res" as they call it. If you start at the bar, start during a bar fight that someone in the party started. If a jail, mid-break-out. If at a zoo, then right when a zoo monster breaks out of its enclosure and threatens to trample or eat some guests.
Just make sure your opener is action-packed and fun. The players will sort things out from there.
You'll do great! Focus on everyone just having fun, the rest will come. You'll learn what your players like and don't like as you go. Having a session 0 might be a good idea too. Meet with your players and ask what kind of campaign they want to play.
***Happily Forever Dungeon Master***
Trying to be active in the community and help those in need
STR: 12 INT: 12
DEX: 14 WIS: 17
CON: 14 CHA: 14
Welcome to this side of the GM screen! We have cookies. These cookies are given to us by players in the faint hopes of appeasing us mouahahahahahaha...
My biggest suggestion for starting the game is to make the players do some work. Require them to tell you how their characters met. Lone wolves and/or orphans are boring, so make it their responsibility to generate relationships and links between characters.
You can certainly lead this discussion.
GM: We're starting at a wedding. One of you is sibling to the groom. Who is that?
A: Me!
GM: Awesome! It's the wedding of A's brother and his finace. B, why are you here, who do you know?
B: Ummm.... I'm the date of one of the bridegrooms.
GM: Great! How long have you known the bride?
B: Ahh, not long, a few months.
GM: Good to know. You know who A is, you've met them a few times, but you haven't spent much time with them. Now, I need someone to be related to the bride?
C: Yeah, I like that.
D: So do I. Hey, C want to be brothers and sisters?
C: Not really, how about cousins?
D: I can do that.
And so on.
Thx you guy it help me I will tell you how it go
Welcome to the good side of the screen!
My most successful opening have been:
1. On the road. "You are an established adventuring party, and know each other. You are on the road to the town of Heckle, which you hear has the best library/colloseum/eating around (make it relevant to the characters), so let's go around the table and say what we see on the road!"
2. At a Festival. Festivals let you foreshadow the adventure (if it's relevant), and they give the party a good scene to explore, getting them moving without it being overly plotty. Makes the players start roleplay, however they enjoy doing so!
Have fun and enjoy, and remember however badly you think you did, you did 10 times better from the point of view of the players, who don't know what you missed, what went wrong, and how much was improvised!
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It may be a bit late but if you choose a starting point where the players start off with a background knowing each other then that might make it easier since they may have more reasons to stay together and assist each other. School is a good choice for that if you want to run a campaign where they start as classmates. A wedding is also an option since they could all be guests - both ones that knew each other previously and others who might meet at the wedding.
Of course, you can set the intro anywhere and it will work fine but an intro/campaign that has a small part of backstory incorporated may encourage both role playing and the players helping each other out.
My two cents to cover the bases... Read the core books, and a couple pre-written adventures to give you a feel for how things should shape and flow. If you want to practice, create a party of "crash test dummies" to run through it and test it out. I call mine Slashy, Stabby, Healy, and Boom. But ultimately, remember the beauty here is the seer emotion you can cause in your players. Fear, Love, Terror, Hope... Do it right and you will take them on a roller coaster and bring them home safe... Except that one time with the Cult of the Dragon... Ignore that one...