Hi i'm a first time DM too, personally the first thing i did was go to a fantasy map generator and got a world map with place names and so on, obviously you can create your own map if you prefer but this is the first step i think. Once you have a world and places you can then start making stories for them, not necessarily all of them, i chose three places for each major race in my campaign and made a bit of a brief backstory for them. Enough to whet players appetites but not so much as to truly take all my time. Extra information can always be made up on that basis or added later when the players actually go to those places, same for the places on the map you haven't created backstory for. Hope this is helpful :D
Repeating some advice - if it's your first time as a DM, try running something pre-written. It helps you to see the kind of info you need to prepare once you branch out to creating your own adventures.
Lost Mine of Phandelver is great. I'd also plug the Acquisitions, Inc. starter adventure - it's really well laid-out as long as you're OK with a little bit sillier take on the setting.
As a first time DM, I am going to suggest you start with an idea. What genre or situation do you want to tell? Does the image of an out of control coach filled with fainting noblewomen as goblins riding wolves chase them appeal to you? It might not be a full blown campaign, but it is a start. Run the encounter, and expand from there fleshing out your ideas based on what the PCs indicate interest in. A common mistake new DMs make is the creation of campaign worlds whole cloth. They write reams of lore and backstory for things that really are not important and will never impact the players or their characters: do not waste your time on these pursuits.
Alternatively, if your group has not run the scenario before the Lost Mines of Phandelver or the new Dragon of Icespire are designed for beginning DMs and players alike and are very "hand-holdy" for those just starting out.
Warning about sandboxes versus railroads coming up...
The very best DMs I have seen (yes, even Matt Mercer) rely on Railroads as the basis of their games. They might be very nice railroads, often they have thrown some sand on them to disguise them, but the rails are still there to some degree. Okay, maybe not full blown rails, but more guard rails for the plot. If the game gets too far astray, they gently guide the party back to the central plot. Open Sandbox can lead to adventure paralysis where no one has a motivation to do anything or suffer from too many options to decide a single course of action. You should never be afraid to outright tell the Players that this way furthers the plot, and the other way leads off the path.
My first time DMing, I made one town with three problems(connected in the background, one investigate a mystery, one just kill goblins surrounding the town, one 5 room dungeon full of kobolds). I also asked all the players to tell me why their characters joined an adventuring guild so I could have a shared NPC explain what was wrong. I then made a store owner, guild master, head of the local church and a list of names I could apply to NPCs as needed. That was enough for the first 3 or 4 sessions and gave plot points to jump off of.
Alright, so either go on to a different WoTC published module, something on Drivethrurpg.com, or build something you would like from scratch-maybe taking something from everything you like in other games or genres and blending it together. In one of my previous replies to this thread I mentioned a scene that sparked my own mental juices flowing: a run away carriage being chased by wolf-riding goblins. I can use just that image and spawn off lots of ideas, but I could just as easily start the PCs in media res as they give pursuit to the goblins and see what happens.
The only concrete advice I can give is to not be a "never good enough" tinkerer with a campaign. There are loads of supposed Dungeon Masters that have slaved for months or even years on the details of their precious, but they have never deployed it to the players because "it isn't ready yet." The secret these potential DMs do not understand is the secret ingredient is the player's involvement. Similar to Jeffersonian Deism, in a game, a player's enjoyment of the game completes it and gives it purpose.
There is no wrong way to start when creating a campaign for your players! You can come up with your own adventure and world, or use a pre-existing one, or meld the two into something you and your friends find fun. Go with the idea that sounds the most fun to you, because if YOU are enjoying it then your players will too.
If you go with something premade then either of the adventures from the Starter Set (Lost Mines of Phandelver) or the Essentials Kit (Dragon of Icespire Peak) are excellent places to begin. They are both well written adventures that offer plenty of options for you and your players without overwhelming you with too much, and are very good at explaining what is going on so you don't have to make up everything from step one. They are also a bit shorter then the big book adventures, so if you're interested in running your own campaign but want to use a pregen to get your feet wet, these are excellent places to start that will give you plenty to use without tying you to an adventure for months.
I also suggest Matt Colville's series, Running the Game. It looks like a huge YouTube playlist, but really what you're looking for is the first few short episodes to get you going. He breaks down a lot of being a DM and creating a starter adventure very well, and keeps it super simple so you feel empowered to run a game TONIGHT.
I’m a new DM, new to 5e, but played plenty in decades past. I decided to run Lost Mines of Phandelver. It is a very well crafted module. My players are taking forever with it, though. I also bought Dragon of Icespire Peak because that one is a lot less linear. It’s basically full of mini modules that you can drop into any time for one or two sessions, and they’re pretty good at letting you know what your party level needs to be for each mini module.
I’m responding to your post because I was asked to DM a second party with some overlap with the first, so I can’t just rerun LMoP. I decided to go with Down the Hole! which is a module designed to take players from 1st to high 2nd or maybe low 3rd. I just finished reading it and prepping it, and it’s pretty great. It is styled as a true homage to Gary Gygax and is a slightly campy tribute (not campy enough to be annoying) to the classic dungeon crawler 1e modules of yore. It is designed with the new DM in mind, and is just brimful of advice and tips. It is considerably narrower in scope and therefore shorter than LMoP. It is nominally set in Waterdeep, but that connection is slender and the module could be set in any city setting of your choosing. It would be a quick way (one to two sessions at most) to get you into the DMing groove, and because there isn’t a lot of geography involved, if you want to segue into home brew that’d be really easy, especially if you don’t place the module specifically in Waterdeep.
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I’m a gamer. I’m in my 50s. I’m female. And Iblog about it. I also have an instagram devoted tophotos of dice.
If you have a regular group, you should really ask your players what they want. It can help set some parameters for you so it’s not overwhelming. If they really want a pirate campaign, or an urban campaign, or whatever kind of campaign, you can devote your energies to fleshing our that part of the world. As they advance and travel to other places, you can expand those places, or maybe they stay put and you don’t have to. I’m a big fan of not spending too much time developing a whole world, when the players will only see a fraction of it. and if the whole thing plays out in one place, that’s fine too. Then when you move the next campaign to the next town over, there’s already some context for the world.
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I am going to make a campaign, where do I start?
Hi i'm a first time DM too, personally the first thing i did was go to a fantasy map generator and got a world map with place names and so on, obviously you can create your own map if you prefer but this is the first step i think. Once you have a world and places you can then start making stories for them, not necessarily all of them, i chose three places for each major race in my campaign and made a bit of a brief backstory for them. Enough to whet players appetites but not so much as to truly take all my time. Extra information can always be made up on that basis or added later when the players actually go to those places, same for the places on the map you haven't created backstory for. Hope this is helpful :D
Oh thx
Repeating some advice - if it's your first time as a DM, try running something pre-written. It helps you to see the kind of info you need to prepare once you branch out to creating your own adventures.
Lost Mine of Phandelver is great. I'd also plug the Acquisitions, Inc. starter adventure - it's really well laid-out as long as you're OK with a little bit sillier take on the setting.
As a first time DM, I am going to suggest you start with an idea. What genre or situation do you want to tell? Does the image of an out of control coach filled with fainting noblewomen as goblins riding wolves chase them appeal to you? It might not be a full blown campaign, but it is a start. Run the encounter, and expand from there fleshing out your ideas based on what the PCs indicate interest in. A common mistake new DMs make is the creation of campaign worlds whole cloth. They write reams of lore and backstory for things that really are not important and will never impact the players or their characters: do not waste your time on these pursuits.
Alternatively, if your group has not run the scenario before the Lost Mines of Phandelver or the new Dragon of Icespire are designed for beginning DMs and players alike and are very "hand-holdy" for those just starting out.
Warning about sandboxes versus railroads coming up...
The very best DMs I have seen (yes, even Matt Mercer) rely on Railroads as the basis of their games. They might be very nice railroads, often they have thrown some sand on them to disguise them, but the rails are still there to some degree. Okay, maybe not full blown rails, but more guard rails for the plot. If the game gets too far astray, they gently guide the party back to the central plot. Open Sandbox can lead to adventure paralysis where no one has a motivation to do anything or suffer from too many options to decide a single course of action. You should never be afraid to outright tell the Players that this way furthers the plot, and the other way leads off the path.
My first time DMing, I made one town with three problems(connected in the background, one investigate a mystery, one just kill goblins surrounding the town, one 5 room dungeon full of kobolds). I also asked all the players to tell me why their characters joined an adventuring guild so I could have a shared NPC explain what was wrong. I then made a store owner, guild master, head of the local church and a list of names I could apply to NPCs as needed. That was enough for the first 3 or 4 sessions and gave plot points to jump off of.
I have done those two already
Lost Mines of Phandelver And Dragon of Icespire
Alright, so either go on to a different WoTC published module, something on Drivethrurpg.com, or build something you would like from scratch-maybe taking something from everything you like in other games or genres and blending it together. In one of my previous replies to this thread I mentioned a scene that sparked my own mental juices flowing: a run away carriage being chased by wolf-riding goblins. I can use just that image and spawn off lots of ideas, but I could just as easily start the PCs in media res as they give pursuit to the goblins and see what happens.
The only concrete advice I can give is to not be a "never good enough" tinkerer with a campaign. There are loads of supposed Dungeon Masters that have slaved for months or even years on the details of their precious, but they have never deployed it to the players because "it isn't ready yet." The secret these potential DMs do not understand is the secret ingredient is the player's involvement. Similar to Jeffersonian Deism, in a game, a player's enjoyment of the game completes it and gives it purpose.
Ok thank you you are a really big help
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InsiderWelcome to D&D!
There is no wrong way to start when creating a campaign for your players! You can come up with your own adventure and world, or use a pre-existing one, or meld the two into something you and your friends find fun. Go with the idea that sounds the most fun to you, because if YOU are enjoying it then your players will too.
If you go with something premade then either of the adventures from the Starter Set (Lost Mines of Phandelver) or the Essentials Kit (Dragon of Icespire Peak) are excellent places to begin. They are both well written adventures that offer plenty of options for you and your players without overwhelming you with too much, and are very good at explaining what is going on so you don't have to make up everything from step one. They are also a bit shorter then the big book adventures, so if you're interested in running your own campaign but want to use a pregen to get your feet wet, these are excellent places to start that will give you plenty to use without tying you to an adventure for months.
I also suggest Matt Colville's series, Running the Game. It looks like a huge YouTube playlist, but really what you're looking for is the first few short episodes to get you going. He breaks down a lot of being a DM and creating a starter adventure very well, and keeps it super simple so you feel empowered to run a game TONIGHT.
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
I’m a new DM, new to 5e, but played plenty in decades past. I decided to run Lost Mines of Phandelver. It is a very well crafted module. My players are taking forever with it, though. I also bought Dragon of Icespire Peak because that one is a lot less linear. It’s basically full of mini modules that you can drop into any time for one or two sessions, and they’re pretty good at letting you know what your party level needs to be for each mini module.
I’m responding to your post because I was asked to DM a second party with some overlap with the first, so I can’t just rerun LMoP. I decided to go with Down the Hole! which is a module designed to take players from 1st to high 2nd or maybe low 3rd. I just finished reading it and prepping it, and it’s pretty great. It is styled as a true homage to Gary Gygax and is a slightly campy tribute (not campy enough to be annoying) to the classic dungeon crawler 1e modules of yore. It is designed with the new DM in mind, and is just brimful of advice and tips. It is considerably narrower in scope and therefore shorter than LMoP. It is nominally set in Waterdeep, but that connection is slender and the module could be set in any city setting of your choosing. It would be a quick way (one to two sessions at most) to get you into the DMing groove, and because there isn’t a lot of geography involved, if you want to segue into home brew that’d be really easy, especially if you don’t place the module specifically in Waterdeep.
I’m a gamer. I’m in my 50s. I’m female. And I blog about it.
I also have an instagram devoted to photos of dice.
If you have a regular group, you should really ask your players what they want. It can help set some parameters for you so it’s not overwhelming. If they really want a pirate campaign, or an urban campaign, or whatever kind of campaign, you can devote your energies to fleshing our that part of the world. As they advance and travel to other places, you can expand those places, or maybe they stay put and you don’t have to. I’m a big fan of not spending too much time developing a whole world, when the players will only see a fraction of it.
and if the whole thing plays out in one place, that’s fine too. Then when you move the next campaign to the next town over, there’s already some context for the world.