Hi guys!

I recently rounded up some friends to start playing D&D. Mind you, I have only played one Pathfinder campaign like... 6 years ago. So I'm fresh out of the oven. I was super excited at the prospect of getting this all going until everyone voted me to DM. Now, I'm freaking out a bit. 

I've got all of the core 5e books and have looked over resources here and a few other websites, but I am still pretty overwhelmed.

Is anyone willing to dumb this all down for me or just shoot me some words of wisdom/tips/advice/etc? I would greatly appreciate it!

♡♡♡

 Hey, cwind! First things first, congratulations on starting your journey as a DM. It can be scary starting out, but it's so fulfilling! Reading through all the core books, though highly recommended, can be time consuming, and if you're looking to start up your first session soon you may feel like you don't have time to read everything immediately. Never fear! There are some great resources out there to get you started. 

First, just get started. I know that sounds scary and you'll feel like your in over your head, but the best way to learn is by doing. Try making a character, run a combat encounter, try a published adventure like the Lost Mine of Phandelver. It's a great way to learn context specific information. You'll make mistakes and fall on your face, and that's totally okay. Before you know it, you'll have 5E down better than anyone in your group :) And when you get stumped, you have a great community of fellow gamers to help you out.

Second is the book 'Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master.' It sounds like a sequel, and it is, but you don't have to read the first one (it's more of an update than sequel, really). It's cheap, only about 100 pages or so, and will give you the specific things you need to plan to run a great session, adventure, and campaign. The book absolutely transformed the quality of my DMing, and I wish someone had told me to pick it up when I first started.

Third is the Youtube series 'Running the Game' by Matthew Colville. Even watching the first video is enough to get you started. He's an inspiring speaker and a huge fan of new DMs.

Fourth, run a zero session. Don't know what that is yet? Check out this awesome video by the folks over at Dicebreaker

My #1 piece of advice is to watch Matt  Colville’s Running the Game series. It’s a treasure trove of great advice:

After that, here are my personal top tips:

1. Whenever you wonder if you’re a good DM, look around the table. if everyone is having fun, even if you’re not strictly following the rules, you did it right.
2. It’s okay to make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. It turns out that’s the best way to learn how to avoid that mistake again in future. Making mistakes is not a failing, not learning from them is.
3. If something comes up at the table, and you cannot find the rule for it in about a minute, just make a decision, let everyone know that’s what you are doing, and that you will look up an official answer before the next session.
4. Re-read chapters 7, 9, & 10 of the PHB/Basic Rules, the vast majority of all the rules that get used just about every session are in those three chapters.
5. Run a Session 0.
6. Take notes for your own records, especially names for NPCs you make up on the spot.

Welcome to the other side of the DM’s screen!

Honestly, coming from pathfinder the only real difference is going to be the rules. So I'm going to point you to a few places that I think might help as you'll already be familiar with RP concepts.

I'd add that there's a fantastic how to GM/DM series created by a really good DM - Johnny Chiodini where he's talking someone in preparation for running a session. I honestly think it's the best, and least overwhelming prep and guidance vid I've ever seen. Full playlist here: (16) H2GM - YouTube

First vid


I'd add to that to check out Ginny Di. I recently discovered her videos and having watched and seen her go through the process of learning to DM her videos are handsdown the best I've ever seen. (16) Ginny Di - YouTube

Thanks so much for the advice! 

I've already checked out a few of his videos, and they've cleared a lot of my confusion already.

I appreciate your help! 

Hey @ericblood, thanks so much for all of the info! I'm going to get the book that you mentioned. The title sounds right up my alley, lol. 

I did get all the info the Lost Mine of Phandelver because I heard that it's a good 1st level adventure. Colville's adventure on his channel that's broken up into a few different videos with the Green Dragon Inn/goblins/knight's tomb gave me a lot of good ideas. So far I really like his channel, thanks for that! 

I really appreciate all of your help! Hopefully I don't do too bad now ♡

So there's one more piece of advice that I've learned from my one failure of a campaign, is that improv makes the world go round. Not even an exageration, some of the funniest moments in my campaign(which can't be shared, I don't want to get banned), were from my players doing something stupid and me scrambling to come up with something. Don't be afraid to come up with a small description for a corpse in a ruins, or for an extra description of what happens to a random townsfolk when someone causes an earthquake.

What adventure are you running? I find that once you know what you are running it helps enormously because it gives you a guide on what to prepare. You don't have to know ALL the rules straight away, you just have to be familiar with the rules,  monsters and NPCs that are likely to come up next session.

You're very welcome!

Remember, falling on your face isn't failing, it's learning what not to do. As long as you get back up you'll be just fine.

Happy campaigning!

This, so much. Most of what you plan will get thrown out the window, but if you role (no pun intended) with the punches, amazing things can happen!

you’re gonna do fantastic!

here to echo the folks telling you to check out Matt Colville. I also like Jim Davis from WebDM. Baron de Ropp is newer on the “youtube DM guru” scene but has very interesting videos as well.

I would tell you not to worry too much about getting the rules straight or memorized right now; but understanding them and how they interact is very important in the long run. I frequently re-read the PHB chapters on adventuring, skill checks, combat, and magic; and I regularly re-read chapters 8 and 9 of the DMG. I have the Sage Advice page here on DDB bookmarked.

a DM screen is incredibly helpful for remembering the conditions, setting DCs on the fly, and improvising damage. the one that comes with the collector’s box set or the rules expansion slipcase are my go-to’s.

more important than getting the rules right, I think, is setting boundaries. if you have a rules lawyer at the table, wonderful, you can ask them for the rule and where to find it; but they need to agree that your job is to interpret the rules and decide which ones apply to your campaign and how.

make a ruling in the moment, move on, and let the group know before the next session how the rule will be applied from now on. avoid letting it devolve into an argument over the rules at the table. and make it an open dialogue with your players. their fun shouldn’t come at your expense and vice-versa, so don’t be afraid to ask them for their thoughts.

example from my own table: I forgot the general rule that fractions in 5e round down. I was rounding up. the rules lawyer at the table called me for it, and I thanked them and reminded them that i’ll look into it after the game. I did, and next session I reminded the group of the general rule of rounding fractions down and that’s how we’ll proceed.

While I myself haven't had the chance to DM yet (I'm still working on it), my siblings have given me a couple of tips that have been pretty stress-relieving:

First, start your players relatively low level. 1st or 3rd-level are the best options, but if you want the players to feel somewhat powerful, start them off at 5th-level. High level players have a lot of abilities you'll have to consider when running encounters, especially puzzles.

Second, use milestone leveling rather than exp leveling. Experience leveling requires you to remember to give the players exp after they do combat or puzzles or whatever, and can cause the players to level-up when you might not want them to. Milestone leveling lets you level your players up when you think it's a good moment to do so, which both rewards your players for taking down the high-level enemies, lets them know their on the right track (since they'll know they did something to further the plot), and most importantly: you get to move at your own pace! Everybody at the table should be having fun and that includes the DM.

Third, feel free to bend the rules a little bit; flavor the way spells look to match a character's aesthetic, flavor the way a creature looks and acts to match what you want it to represent, and alter the lore if you don't like the lore given in a creature's stat block or something (this one is especially important if you're homebrewing things, but I wouldn't go full homebrew immediately. It took me ages to figure out how homebrew works!)

And fourth, try and find some places where you an co-DM with a more experienced DM. They'll be able to teach you the basics of Dm-ing while not putting everything on your shoulders.