I could use any help I can get, such as what materials to use, how to write a campaign, how to deal with players, etc.

Thank you in advance!

dude, I just fixed up my dungeon for new players to come and relax

The Dungeon Master's Guide lays out pretty much all you need to know about how to design and run a campaign for different types of players. Player's Handbook and Monster Manual are the other two essential books. Everything else is gravy.

I remember when I first a first time DM, and my first session was a train wreck let me tell you. I had a whole lot planned out, but I guess I just didn't plan for what the fools in that session did.  Basically  I had a guy that was being held prisoner that they needed to save because it was the right thing to do.  Saving him was also important to them because he was the exposition.  This was their very first thing to do in the entire campaign, session, and even full D&D experience.  And they didn't save him.  As a first time DM I was so unhappy but they just refused to save him saying that he probably deserved whatever he was getting even though they don't know what's going on at all.  They just refused to investigate.

I look back now and I'm more angry with myself than at them because I realized that as a DM you can't force your players to do anything.  Unless a "deity"  literally forces them too.  Or you tempt the players enough that they can't resist.  Long story shirt just have backup plans.  Or have the improv skills to keep up with them going off track of your plan.  I'm not saying have contingencies for everything, but a basic layout of what the opposite of YOUR desired outcome would be.  It's important to keep up with what they want to do because it lets them have a lot more fun in my opinion.

I hope everything goes well for your first time and make sure you read those books.

Quote from Dungeon_Master_Cobalt >>

Or have the improv skills to keep up with them going off track of your plan. 

Don't over-plan. You'll need to trial-and-error some to find out a good balance of planning and improvising for you and your players, but you'll get the hang of it eventually. If you give your players Path 1 and Path 2, nine times out of ten they'll choose to take Path D and it'll muck all your carefully crafted plans.

Okay so here is how I run it. Start with a Theme, I currently run two games a Wuxia one and a Gothic Horror. The theme for Wuxia is Balance, and the Gothic Horror's theme is Corruption. Using the theme come up with an overarching narrative, this is basically a one-line descriptor of the campaign. So the notation comes out looking like this.

Wuxia: Balance: Seven cities are infected with fear, pain, loss, and other tragedies.

Gothic Horror: Corruption: Evil forces move to bring their rule to the mortal realm.

This gives you a general idea of what your game is about and where it is going. Now you can railroad as much or as little as needed, basically, if you plan for the adventure to start in a tavern and the players immediately leave the tavern to have them wander across a job board. If they ignore the job board, have a merchant approach them and ask to hire them. As mentioned before the DMG is a great resource for designing stuff but you don't have to design everything all at once. In town give the players a list of three to four places that catch their attention. A market, a shrine, and a tavern are pretty much the main three, but flesh them out a bit, have an event happen when the group approaches or leaves each one, this will make the city feel alive/real. 

Do about the same with traveling the wilderness, remember a random encounter does not always have to be a fight, but they can set the tone of the game. A pair of examples.

Wuxia: Traveling to the inn you come across a grisly scene, a man is swinging from a set of hastily erected gallows, a sign hanging around his neck reads Traitor. (Now the players can continue on their way knowing the city harshly treats those who are traitors, or they may even want to investigate, giving you the option to send them on a sidequest)

Gothic Horror: As the group sleeps the person set on watch feels his eyes fall heavy, mist pouring around the group from out of the ground. Suddenly a loud howl awakens not just the watchman but the rest of the group. A wolf with a crown of black rotting flowers watches the party from across the campgrounds. It's fur mangy and rotting, by the time the group manages to get to where it was the wolf is long gone. (This can set up another sidequest, or gives the impression that there is powerful and dangerous undead about.)

Most important, go slow, have fun. If you make a mistake own up to it but do not let it hold you back. If players give you trouble with a rule, or disagree, tell them you are the DM and it's your call. 

Good Luck, Have Fun.

confidence in yourself and your rulings.  If you're playing with a bunch of players who are also new to the game, they won't know if you botched a rule, so just go with it :)

I found, the first 10 minutes or so were super hard my first time, I was nervous, voice shaking, but once we got going, it was smooth.  Not smooth in the sense that everything I planned to do was done, far from it, but smooth in the fact that it felt pretty natural.  Just relax and remember you're there to have fun.  The rules are secondary, of course you need the foundation, but by no means do you need to know every rule or exception.

Be ready to review things after the session, take notes.  Something happens that you're not sure what the right rule is, make a decision, write down the question and your decision, and look it up later.  Maybe talk to your players about it if you don't like the way you ruled it or don't like the way the book rules it and tell them, this is how we're going to do it moving forward (or ask their opinion on what should be done).

Quote from Zach_FR >>

I could use any help I can get, such as what materials to use, how to write a campaign, how to deal with players, etc.

Thank you in advance!

I started my group with two sessions of premade modules with the idea of letting them playtest the system and their characters. However, it did more to help me than I thought it would. If you can find some appropriately leveled modules, run a couple. It'll let you get a feel of how your group's dynamics function as well as where you sit at the helm of the table. Having all the plans premade takes the pressure off content creation and lets you focus on wearing all the other hats a DM has to (the acting, reffing, improvising, etc). You'll learn how you best run your sessions from an objective point of view, allowing your shortcomings and mistakes to come from "how do I run it better" as apposed to the broader "how did I mess up making this session."

Hi! I don't know if this is a completely closed topic, but I do have a couple questions as a completely new DM with a group of all-but-one completely-new players. I have a couple months to plan (we won't all be in the same town until december when we will play for a while and then hopefully skype call after), and I would like to do content creation because the thing that attracts me most to DND and DM-ing specifically is the world-building content creation part. Am I getting completely ahead of myself with this ambition?

I have been doing a ton of research and I don't plan to have a very rigid structure, and I am also in contact with my players about the kind of game they are looking to play (more roleplay or more combat or more mystery, etc). But I am interested in making my own little world (using the general races/realms structure of DnD) and overarching (general) plot, with several potential flexible ways they could get through the story-- I intend to be open ended in my planning so that there is room for improvisation or my players going way off track within the story I want to build. But I really want to develop details about the world and it's history and cultures myself (as a creative writing student it's practically my dream job so it's good practice) and even do things like make my own maps and monster/deity/main villain lore (though they would be mostly surface re-worked DnD monsters with the original (or in rare cases very carefully equivalent) game mechanics so I don't break my game or anything). 

I know these people pretty well and they're all the type to care about things like background and overarching story so, I'm not worried that this kind of care would be wasted on them.

At the same time, if there is a general consensus that this would be over-reaching and I should aim lower for a first game, I am open to basing the game more in the existing game world and concepts.

go buy the compendium edition of lord of the rings, the big thick one with all the appendices in it, or find it in a library, look through it, you don't need to read the story, just look what prof tolkien did when he created midddle earth.
that's everything you need to do to create you own world.

personally the first thing i do when creating a world is draw a map continent scale, then i decide which races are going to live on that map. if there's going to be more map that's not shown (there will be drawing an entire world takes ages) decide if any other races live there and why.
so at this point you probably have a continent,  stick a few cities on it,  decide how those cities get on with each other, decide why they get on with each other

Choose one area, where you campaigns going to be based, map it. stick some smaller population centres on it.

knock up a few details about each, how big is is, does it have an inn, blacksmith, wizard, temples, thieves guild.

put that to one side, decide on your worlds gods, easiest way here is nick them from all the ones that are already out there in published books, change their names if you like. 

sketch out a few details about a handful of factions.
decide how deep you want your timeline to be don't be over ambitious to start with a couple of thousand years will do. create a tale of years, this forms the local legends, tells you how your species got there, how your factions started, builds the basis for local legends and history and establishes heroes and legendary people.
now go back to your continent map and populate it with the residue of that tale of years., does any of that historical detritus land on your local area map, if so add it in.

now back to factions and continent map.decide if they have any members in the local area, give the faction a small group of leaders, give them a place to live and the faction a base, give the faction leaders a motivation. and an aim. consider if any of the factions would have adventurer types in it. if so would any of your party be members. (i'm currently running a game, which has a paladin and a cleric based out of a temple, their first level involved driving a very posh horse drawn hears the long way round a very big marsh to collect a dead body, of a local noble then bringing it back to the temple for burial, it took them 2 weeks of travelling, they healed a local fisherman of swamp fever, saved a small child who had been bitten by a poisonous snake and healed it. collected a mysterious outcast and found him anew home (plot point for later) fought some bandits, sorted out a bar fight in an inn on the way) and met a travelling druid who travelled with a pixie which rides a fairy dragon as a mount, that involved 3 different factions interacting.they also discovered a small dungeon which had some undead in it and as good kelemvorites they got permission from the head of their temple to go back and investigate after the funeral, now the head of the temple wants them to go and visit a druidic circle to see if they can get some more information on something they found in the dungeon. they already have a way in with the circle as they shared their food with the druid one evening in their camp, to get to the circle they need to work with 2 more factions, the local harbour master, who is a mine of info, and local fishermen, through him another faction comes into play, the local merpeople who live in the marsh.(they're going to need them much much later, but now they will know they exist and they will have a contact.) 
so a sound basis in factions gives you the building blocks to create your story.

once that's done. sit down with your local map tale of years and factions. you know how to write stories, so go ahead. get the big bits. something bads going to happen what and to who, then where and why. and who by..next questions are how can the party stop it, how can they find out about it. how long is it going to take. 
once you have the what why and by who, you can split the long game into 4 bits.

Noticing effects, investigating effects. finding a cause, finding a solution, (in my example noticing effects was the finding undead in the little ruin, that shouldn't have been there, then they did a little investigation, they're about to do a little finding the cause, then they will have a small piece of jigsaw, and they wont yet know they have a puzzle)
once you have the basic long story arc in place, 
create your starting point, 
draw yourself a map, you need one of your starting village if it's going to be a base. 
put people in it, local watch if any, local in keeper, couple of shop keepers,  you need names for consistency, if it's going to be party meets in local inn, start then a few local charachters as tavern patrons. you don't need much in the way of specifics,  but consistent names for recurring npcs is a must for world building.
hope that gives you a few ideas.

The best piece of advice I can give you:

Learn to enjoy players taking your plans, stomping on them, setting them on fire, and then throwing them in front of a train.

DND as a DM is a wild ride. 

There's some great advice above, and I'd echo all of it. DMing is an often thankless, time-consuming and difficult role at the table. But when it gels, for me at least, it's the most rewarding experience D&D has to offer. A few bits of my own advice:

• Don't just tell your story. As a DM, your job is to facilitate a combined narrative, led by you - but influenced, added to and enhanced by your players' character stories. If you want to tell a specific story, where the characters do certain things, go to specific places, and resolve the plot in your own way without deviation, then write a book. Finding the line between narration and railroading is a skill that comes with experience; but my advice is to provide an overarching narrative, punctuated by specific events that move the plot forward, and then let the players fill in the gaps.

•  Keep it simple. Leading on from above, keep the narrative simple to begin with. Particularly to begin with, and especially if your characters start at a low level. Remember, they don't have to save the world on their first adventure - they just have to have a reason to do -something- together. This is why backgrounds are really helpful. If your players come into the first session with a motivation to do something; whether that's 'get rich', 'see the world', or 'help the poor', they'll provide the first chapter to your story; all you need to do is provide opportunities for them to live it out.

• Build a strong cast. A session zero is immensely helpful, and I never start a new campaign without one. This 'prelude' session helps your players understand the world, and what type of character they want to live in it. It lets you lay down the rules and setting of your campaign, and can really help craft some fantastic backstories and motivations that you can weave into your narrative. I'll usually create a world map, list a few of the major places, and give the starting point to the campaign. Sometimes I'll give a motivation: "You'll start the campaign in Town A. You're trying to get to Town B - your reason is entirely up to you." I'll privately get the players to send me their characters motivations, and see if I can weave those into the plot.

• Be Flexible. Picture the scene: the players have fought off the kobold ambush, and followed their tracks back to a cave, hidden deep within the forest. They make camp, rest up, and that's where you end the session. You're excited for next time, where the players will delve into the cave, only to discover its actually the entrance to an ancient tomb, and after hours of traps, battles, puzzles and adventure, they'll discover the magical sceptre that releases an ancient evil! You plan it all out, sketch the dungeon, write up the encounters. Then the next session rolls around. The players, not wanting to bother with a pesky kobold cave, collapse the entrance and call it good. Heading back to town to snag their reward for dealing with the 'kobold menace'. Your entire plan is scuppered - all that work wasted! But it's not. Remember - the players don't know what you know. They can discover that 'ancient tomb' while exploring that old mine shaft. Or the sewers beneath the city. Or the Owlbear lair in the woods. Or anywhere. Being flexible and improvising is key to being a good DM. Expect it.

• Be kind to yourself. DMing is hard, and D&D is a complicated beast. You will mess up, you'll miss things out, and you'll spend time between each session kicking yourself about it. Self reflection is good. It'll help you improve. But go easy on yourself. It's easy to watch shows like Critical Roll, and compare yourself to professionals like Matt Mercer - and assume your doing a bad job if you're not as smooth or polished as he (and the group of professional voice actors as players) are. Remember, you're providing a framework for a group of people to have a good time. So long as they're having fun, you're doing it right. Don't get bogged down in tiny details, or get hung up on how things didn't go to plan. In the early days, I used to find myself apologising at the end of the session for things I thought weren't up to scratch. Eventually, one of the players said 'The only thing wrong is how much you're apologising. We're having a great time.' Don't look backwards, you're not going that way.

Ultimately, remember, you're meant to be having fun. If it stops being fun - take a break. Don't get burnt out. Good luck!

Filed under worked for me: 

My first time DMing a game I wrote one town and 3 plot hooks.

For the town:I decided my world would have adventuring guilds and asked players to make characters that wanted to be members in the guild (most just made chars and said yeah sure ill play a member of this guild, one took some talk back and forth to figure out what the guild could offer that their char would want) That way they players had the buy in when I told them the town had Missing persons the guild wanted them to investigate or goblins to clear out from the woods. I also decided the kind of town(trade route where river meets road) and the available resources (blacksmith, shrine, tavern, ect)

My plot hooks were basically one branch investigating (people disappearing in the docks), one straight combat (kill goblins in the woods), one quick dungeoneering (kobolds infesting a local cave, kill them off before they dig in too well) for my purposes each branch gave information about a cult in the area (kidnappers at the docks, organized combat forces in the forest, and ritual site in the cave)

I also kept a list of randomly generated names that i could assign to npc's as they got the players interest, and notes about what general dangers they would encounter if they went an unexpected direction(Bandits/cultists if they pissed people off in town, wolves, goblins, ect if they decided to go into the wilderness)

After session one I had enough info about play-style and what their characters found important that i could build plot hooks to the team

Quote from Noksa >>

Filed under worked for me: 

My first time DMing a game I wrote one town and 3 plot hooks.

For the town:I decided my world would have adventuring guilds and asked players to make characters that wanted to be members in the guild (most just made chars and said yeah sure ill play a member of this guild, one took some talk back and forth to figure out what the guild could offer that their char would want) That way they players had the buy in when I told them the town had Missing persons the guild wanted them to investigate or goblins to clear out from the woods. I also decided the kind of town(trade route where river meets road) and the available resources (blacksmith, shrine, tavern, ect)

My plot hooks were basically one branch investigating (people disappearing in the docks), one straight combat (kill goblins in the woods), one quick dungeoneering (kobolds infesting a local cave, kill them off before they dig in too well) for my purposes each branch gave information about a cult in the area (kidnappers at the docks, organized combat forces in the forest, and ritual site in the cave)

I also kept a list of randomly generated names that i could assign to npc's as they got the players interest, and notes about what general dangers they would encounter if they went an unexpected direction(Bandits/cultists if they pissed people off in town, wolves, goblins, ect if they decided to go into the wilderness)

After session one I had enough info about play-style and what their characters found important that i could build plot hooks to the team

For names, a good idea is also to have some for specific races so you dont end up having to explain the backstory of an elf with a dwarf-sounding name on the spot

hi how did this go for you?