Hi, this is my first time posting on the forum, I might pop up every now and then to ask questions or for advice!

Alright here's my situation: I've played DnD for about a month now, and while fun to play as a character, I thought it might be fun to create a campaign. Since I haven't played for long, I'm not totally for sure about some of the specifics of being a DM. I get the general gist of my roles and jobs, but there might be certain situations where it would take me a second to recall/look up what needs to be done. 

The group that I'll be playing with are, for all intents and purposes, new players. They have virtually no experience in role-playing games, but have agreed to give DnD a shot. This will make things a lot easier for me, just because I'll have to make encounters, combat, etc. much more basic than I would for experienced DnD players. They all agree that they want a pretty short campaign, with usually an hour-long limit for each session. I've got some ideas for a campaign floating around in my head right now, but nothing solid or definitive. I'd like to make the campaign maybe ten to fifteen sessions long, and have it take place in a big city. Having it take place here would help cut down on travel time, lead for more interesting combat, and probably better roleplay as well. 

Anyways, all that to say, do you experienced veterans of DnD have any tips or ideas on what I can do to create a good campaign? I'd love all the help I can get; plot, mechanics of the campaign, what I can do as a DM to help make it fun and interesting, etc. So if you have any advice, please let me know below!

Welcome to the other side of the table.

Some of the best advice (aside from these forums :) is to watch a few of the Matt Colville  "intro to dm" clips on youtube.  ala: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTD2RZz6mlo 

I'd recommend following the beginning of "Lost Mine of Phandelver", or at least skim it as there is a lot of nice advice there as well.  I think it's currently available for free HERE on DnDbeyond.  

Cheers and good luck!

Cheers to you for joining the DM ranks! We have snacks, drinks, and a ton of facepalms. 

One word of caution I have for you is that combat ALWAYS takes longer than you anticipate. If you're sticking to your hour-long sessions, prepare for that entire time to be eaten up by combat alone. Even if you think it's going to be a simple, short encounter...it won't be. New players have to wrestle with game mechanics, spell details, combat placement, and combat decisions, which takes a while. Even veteran players who know the rules and their characters' abilities take a long time to go through a couple rounds of combat. 

You can still have fun and get stuff done in an hour, just be prepared for your encounters to run across multiple sessions. 

It depends a lot on what kind of game you want. Roleplaying heavy, investigations, combat heavy etc, but here we go:

• Find a city map online (unless you really want to draw one yourself. There exists lots of nice maps you can use to create your own city campaign.
• Don't make the city too big.
• Decide upon the key features of the city (who rules it, what kind of temples/churches are there, are there any guilds or mobs etc).
• Create some cool places to visit (inns, shops, landmarks etc) - basically a short trip advisor guide. That can make the city come "alive" for the players.

For plots I often use a formula like (just fill in the brackets and adjust the wording to get it to work):

[The villain] is [doing this], unless the players stop [him/her/it/them], [bad things will happen].

You can use this both for the plot of a session and for a longer campaign. The longer you want it, the more steps you have to put into the word "stop". Steps can be things like:

• Learn how to defeat the villain
• Learn where the villain hides
• Getting aid from someone

If you have created a city with some interesting characters, the players can often find new and creative ways to "solve" the steps.

Make a list of random names for NPCs who crop up.  When your players ask a shopkeeper what their name is, and the shopkeeper has to say that they don't know, you'll feel very silly.

Thanks for all the advice!

Im not a super experienced dm so I’m not gonna pretend to have great advice BUT just create something whether you think it’s a masterpiece or not. No one is great at anything on their first go. And you’ll never improve if you don’t learn from mistakes.
If your sessions are only going to be an hour though combat is going to be tricky. You may have to try and time it so a session ends with combat about to begin so you can start combat at the beginning of the next session and it will probably take the whole hour. Unless you have easy combat that can be over quickly. If you want to progress the narrative then just have several small easy battles instead of 1 difficult one.

Running a published adventure is always a good idea for new DMs. Things like encounter balance and variety is already done for you, and there’s lots of tips on describing locations and people. Lost mines of Phandelver, as noted above, is usually highly regarded for new DMs and players. You might want to check that out. 
Also, that one hour playtime is going to be rough. Part of DMing is basically like running a meeting at work/school. Unless you’re really good at commanding people’s attention, expect at least 20-30% of the time allotted to go to cross-talk and general goofing around. That’s not a bad thing, it’s a big part of the game, but it’s not going to leave you with time for much else if you’ve only got an hour. 

Congrats on being a DM! Remember to have fun!

So here's some of the most important things I've learned:

#1 thing is make sure you don't go over the top with your plots. It's way more fun for low-level players to rescue a kidnapped merchant or recover the innkeeper's old sword than to save the world with the help of the gods: it makes them feel cool and relevant without getting lost in a world that's bigger than they are. Oh yeah, and leave out the complex backstory...it's cool in Lord of the Rings, but most players rightfully hate it, because it takes time and focus away from their heroes in the here-and-now.

#2 thing is remember, your players can help you keep the game on track! If they want to screw around or split up (new players often do), feel free to talk about it out-of-character and remind everyone that it's a collaborative story, not an open-world video game. Work together to make sure everyone has a good time.

#3 thing is the little one, but it's super important. Make sure you have at least 3-4 encounters per long rest. Since you only have one hour a session, but you probably want each session to have its own goal (i.e. don't leave too many games in the middle of a quest, try shorter quests) you can consider the "gritty realism" variant from the DMG, in which short rests take a day and long rests a week. Then, you can have just one fight a day/session for time constraints, but you won't be allowing a long rest after every fight. Doing that is a really common mistake for new DMs—it nerfs fighters and other "milage" classes, while making full casters very overpowered, which will upset your players.

These are all things I've learned through trial and error—you won't be perfect on your first try! I've been DMing for years and I still have a lot to improve on. Just remember, the goal isn't to run a "good game," it's to have fun with friends, and if you're doing that, you ARE a good DM!

Quote from Truthless_of_Shinovar >>

Hi, this is my first time posting on the forum, I might pop up every now and then to ask questions or for advice!

Alright here's my situation: I've played DnD for about a month now, and while fun to play as a character, I thought it might be fun to create a campaign....

 First of all, welcome to the other side of the screen. 

Here is my “Top 5 Basic Tips.”

1. As long as everyone is having fun (including you too, you are also a part of the game), you’re doing it right. That’s really the most important thing.
2. If you don’t know a rule and can’t find it in under MAX 2 minutes, decide what makes the most sense to you right then, and look it up before the next session.
3. Re-read Chapters 9 & 10 of the PHB. At least 50% (low estimate if you use a lot of combat) of the stuff that gets used in the majority of sessions will be in some way related to those two chapters. Of course, the more you know the better it is (up to a point, it tapers after a while), but IMHO, that is the most gain right away for the least amount of effort. You’re gonna have enough to worry about in the beginning, don’t go nuts trying to memorize obscure rules that probably won’t come up for months if they come up at all.
4. Fall damage is 1d6 for every 10 feet up to a maximum of 20d6. That one actually does come up more often than you’d think. 
5. Remember when I suggested to try and get the most value out of the time you invest? Well this is the best information download I can ever suggest to give a new DM the most potential insight for the least amount of time (because being a DM will eat into your schedule just a wee bit): Running the Game

If you don’t know a rule and can’t find it in under MAX 2 minutes, decide what makes the most sense to you right then, and look it up before the next session.

I agree with this but I would add -- tell your players that's what you're doing. "I'm not sure the rule on this so I'm going to do it this way for now, but we will look up how the rules say to do it before next session and we'll use it that way going forward." Don't let them think you're always going to do it the way you made up on the fly when you couldn't find a rule. And definitely don't stick permanently with a rule you made up on the fly if that rule conflicts with the books in some way -- unless AFTER reading it, you and your players decide that your rule is actually better.

I generally agree with the two last posts, but 2 minutes sounds like a long time. Especially if you are planning sessions of just 1 hour (like OP said). If you don't think you can find the rule in 30 seconds, just make a ruling. (And follow BioWizards excellent advice on informing about what you're doing!).

Quote from BioWizard >>

If you don’t know a rule and can’t find it in under MAX 2 minutes, decide what makes the most sense to you right then, and look it up before the next session.

 

I agree with this but I would add -- tell your players that's what you're doing. "I'm not sure the rule on this so I'm going to do it this way for now, but we will look up how the rules say to do it before next session and we'll use it that way going forward." Don't let them think you're always going to do it the way you made up on the fly when you couldn't find a rule. And definitely don't stick permanently with a rule you made up on the fly if that rule conflicts with the books in some way -- unless AFTER reading it, you and your players decide that your rule is actually better.

 Yes, thank you. I should have made that more clear. Thank you for spotting me.

Quote from BigLizard >>

To me, dungeons and dragons is a game about players creating hero characters that go on quests that will involve exploring dungeons, fighting monsters, discovering treasure and create exciting, cinematic action scenes.  The story is the justification for all that, the interaction (role-playing) is a method to personalize it.  In the end however the motivation is playing the game of D&D, which is very much more of a game then other RPG's to me. I feel strongly that THE game should be a much bigger component of D&D and play a larger role in the experience and that the game is challenging in the same way a board game is challenging, aka, you can win and you can lose.

 

This is great advice from BigLizard!  Also would like to add my voice to the chorus that combat is not the only way players can gain experience in the game.  So many examples out there to choose from.  Mysteries, investigations, politics, mercantile stuff, world savers, dungeon crawlers, rescuers, poets, assassinations, etc.  Mix it up and see what the party likes to do the most.  And finally, one last piece of advice (one that I personally struggle with)... you do not need to flesh out everything for an adventure.  With time you will find the right balance of prep vs ad-lib.  Best of luck!!