I'm planning on starting my first campaign as a DM soon and, as the title suggests, I'm wondering what kind of things I should avoid. Thanks in advance!
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Work with the players, not against them! Don't be too worried about the rules, if you or the players don't like a rule, feel free to change it! Don't expect your players to do any one action, try to be prepared to improvise any situation.
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Hell yeah I am going to Polymorph the boss into a Rabbit. I have always wanted a being a pure evil stuffed into a ball of fluff.
Set expectations. Be transparent about the feel of the game you want (light-hearted, comedic, horrorful, dramatic, etc.). Be clear on whether you want things like player's bucking the world to be a thing or you want players to be part of and bought into the conceits of the world (avoid people arguing with shopkeepers if you want a world where its so alien to do that, culturally). Make sure they "get" if you want character death to be just part of the game or something to avoid. If you want rules to lean toward a particular resolution or not (by example, I make sure my players know that deception is a short-lived experience and the consequence of failure is an NPC being actively engaged to consider the PC a fraud... avoiding re-rolling).
The more you share with them how you want a game to feel and play out, the fewer problems or frustrations on everyone's part.
Another example is my players know that I don't like cracking books to figure things out. I'll make table rulings, I'll usually make them quickly and fairly but we're going to "move on" often. My Barbarian thinks they can do X, I think (from what I know) that I don't think X works that way... instead of going to books and stopping the game, I'm going to toss a dice... high's they're right, low's I'm right. Roll. Decide. Done. Move on, we'll litigate it afterward. Not every table wants to do that, but if that's an expectation you set? Players know they're about to play something that might require them to operate under an occasional false (but well intentioned or justified) ruling and everyone should chill and deal with it after. Also, for the sake of candor, it means they know that I may be right and they wrong, but we won't have to stop the game to debate that and we'll move on. My players knowing that, understanding it, makes the table smoother.
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Be sure to be very familiar with the basics (combat, saving throws, various checks, etc.). If you have the basics down you really can make it your game! My first time as a DM was nerve racking for me because i didn't want to mess up, but once i realized how open D&D is it made me a lot more comfortable and made it a lot more fun.
One of the biggest things I need to work on is to make sure everyone has enough time for them to participate in an encounter. My party keeps getting split and I end up forgetting a player or two while the others dominate most of the session. Didn't notice until a player messaged me about how they didn't get any chance to speak up. So that's my advice to you!
Other things like messing up on a rule, being ill prepared for the unpredictable behavior players can go towards, or even speaking with a lot of filler words such as, "uhh" and "umm." Just know that whatever mistake you or your players make is an opportunity to improve and you shouldn't beat yourself too much over such things if they happen since this is all supposed to be fun in the end!
One concern I often hear from new DMs, is how to best handle derailing. I always recommend to roll with it. Eventually, a point will come where you can bring them back around to the main plot. The important thing is to know the story well and remain flexible.
It's also totally okay to tell the players that you need a minute to plot out stuff or to look something up if they catch you off guard. Everyone is there to have a good time. And nobody is expecting you to have all the answers as a new DM. Just be honest with your players and they'll have your back.
Also, I try to find ways to say "Yes" to my players instead of "No" whenever possible. It's their story too. And often their ideas are better than mine. If they know that an idea isn't going to get simply shot down, they'll be more willing to share. And sharing is key in cooperative tabletop rpgs.
Lastly, don't worry overly much about the rules. They'll come in time. If you don't know, make something up and then promise to talk about it after the play session. If you don't like a rule, ignore it or change it. The rules are tools for telling a story, nothing more.
Remember that tabletop roleplaying is essentially open-source storytelling. If players know that you're on their side and that their contributions are important, they will be more willing to help create a fun story.
Focus on having fun and the rest will take care of itself. Good luck!
Don't jump straight in, and by that I mean have a session zero. It helps set expectations and is a good way to get thing like character creation out of the way so when the game starts there are as few hold-ups as possible.
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So you are telling me that a giant monkey can beat the KING OF MONSTERS!? Do you want me to hate you?
Also this isn't much of a mistake but more of a suggestion,
I highly recommend not metagaming as a DM. For example, I know for a fact one of my players are immune to fire damage due to certain circumstances. However, a random enemy wouldn't know that and I would sometimes throw a fireball at that player. This is very empowering as it leads to him rolling intimidation rolls as he casually walks through the flames menacingly towards the enemy.
So don't build encounters around the strengths/resistances of the party unless they really messed up by fighting an opponent who knows them or is very powerful and experienced.
The biggest mistake I've ever seen a new DM make is to set unreasonable expectations for themselves, or interpret their players' unreasonable expectations for them as proof of failure.
No one is ever as good as they are going to get at DMing during their first campaign, unless they also choose for it to be their last. So don't look at mistakes as failure. Look at them as the stones that pave the road to you being an excellent DM.
My first campaign I DM'ed was me basically railroad tracking my dad and little brother into a monster crawl. It was a fun disaster, but I learned a great deal! Don't be afraid to make mistakes and learn from them. Bahamut knows, no one is perfect, so make sure you and your players go in with that expectation.
I highly suggest looking at a prewritten adventure at the very least for your first time. It'll give you a good sense of a how to prepare a good adventure, and it'll help you manage the story in the long run.
Finally, things will never go exactly as planned. As much as you will try to plan for every eventuality, your players are going to surprise you. Get ready to improvise, and have some random encounters and names at the ready for when they go off book.
The best advice I've ever received for new DM's is; you will make mistakes, it'd be unbelievably lucky if you made none in your first session, and you just gotta accept it. I'm sure your players aren't expecting you to know absolutely everything immediately, and you probably won't, so don't beat yourself up when mistakes are made, try and reverse if possible, and if not then just go with it. Unless it's an incredibly important matter, your players will probably not notice even if you do stuff up. Chin up and good luck!
The one thing that I really should have checked on in my session 0, was familiarity with fantasy as a genre (that is, for the straightforwardly Forgotten Realms game I am running - change the genre if you have other plans). It's not a huge hindrance (if anything, it's quite funny), but now I have a pc who thinks that a 'wood elf' is an elf made out of wood and another who (as a halfelf child) claims to have been lovingly nurtured by a camp full of goblins and orcs, and who has decided she needs to fight all 'big polluters' and has a grudge against climate change deniers. Since I was planning to tie in their backstories as much as possible, this is proving somewhat... daunting.
I honestly assumed that telling them 'think Tolkienesque' would be enough. Little did I know that neither of them had ever read / watched / heard of anything that even approaches fantasy, let alone Tolkien.
Otherwise, I find that I'm just horribly unbalanced. My NPCs are either too forthcoming or near-mute, I either ask the PCs to roll too often or not enough. One fight is over before the enemy gets a single blow in, whereas in another (for the exact same amount of xp) I had 3/4ths of the party rolling death saves simultaneously. I'd like to get to a point where I don't fudge rolls anymore, but I'm just not there yet and have decided to give myself a break. At this point, any fudging is due to me being a noob, not due to my having to save stupid PCs.
I have to admit, some of that stuff sounds pretty fun. Wood elves actually made of wood? Hey sure why not! You're now susceptible to fire damage tho ... Raised by friendly goblins and orcs? Okay, there's a tribe of peace-loving goblins and orcs in the High Forest (or wherever) but they are incredibly protectionist and don't trade or interact with other tribes or races. Those things aren't necessarily game breakers, and I think could be a good example of how to say "yes" to your players and roll with it when things go in silly, unexpected directions.
On that other stuff, it sounds like you have the right perspective. It's going to get easier to manage with time. It sounds like you're still learning, and honestly, I don't know if DMs really ever stop learning. I've been doing it for a couple of years and I'm still figuring new things out; my friend who runs the game I'm player in has been DMing for two decades and learns new ways of doing things all the time. And we all make mistakes, so be forgiving of yourself when you do.
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DM: The Cult of the Crystal Spider (Currently playing Storm King's Thunder) Player: The Knuckles of Arth - Lemire (Tiefling Rogue 5/Fighter 1)
Sometimes you might feel upset that a party walked through your battles and go as far as even trash talking it. "we powned them!" don't take it personally.
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Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. I will protect those who cannot protect themselves, I will protect even those I hate so long as it is right.
Don't prepare what the players will do: prepare what they will experience. Your players will do something you don't expect 90% of the time. So don't get frustrated when they do: roll with it (sometimes literally).
Similarly, remember that you aren't the enemy to the players nor are you their friend. You're the world. Nothing exists until you say it does. If you have everything prepared for when they turn right, and then they turn left, guess what? All that stuff is now on the left.
D&D isn't a video game! Lots of video games are inspired by it, either directly or indirectly, but it's more like improvisational theater with rules and dice rolls than Dragon Quest. Which goes back to the other points. In a video game, if you don't talk to an important NPC the story doesn't progress. It just stands still until you do what you're supposed to. But in D&D, the world is as dead or alive as you and your party make it. The party probably should talk to the priest about the children who have gone missing in town, but if they screw off to the local brothel, guess what? People are talking about the children going missing and how they don't trust the local church.
And ultimately, (and this is true for literally everything in life) you will probably not be amazing at first. You might be terrible. Almost everyone was terrible at anything when they started. Keep doing it. In the great words of Jake the Dog, sucking at something is the first step to becoming sort of good at something. You'll learn and get better. You'll have good nights and bad. But you'll get better as you learn what works and what doesn't.
I have DM-ed all of two sessions so yeah :D Still learning is putting it very kindly.
So far, I've made a childNPC respond to the woodelf by rubbing him and asking him why he's green and I've written in the goblins exactly as you suggested (except I'll hide a kidnapped friendly goblin from her adopted tribe somewhere, so that PC can have a bit of a moment when the party finds the 'friendly gobbo'). I'll find a way to work with it, somehow, but I think my players would have liked to have a better understanding of the world prior to writing back stories. It's my job as a DM to manage expectations, after all.
A rather big mistake I tend to see relatively often is that often times DMs will go in with the mindset that they have to "beat" or "win against" the players when it's actually the complete opposite. In my opinion, DnD- and by extension, any table-top RPG is a partnership between the players and the person running the game. It shouldn't be a competition when the end result should ideally be, to have fun.
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I'm planning on starting my first campaign as a DM soon and, as the title suggests, I'm wondering what kind of things I should avoid.
Thanks in advance!
Work with the players, not against them! Don't be too worried about the rules, if you or the players don't like a rule, feel free to change it! Don't expect your players to do any one action, try to be prepared to improvise any situation.
Hell yeah I am going to Polymorph the boss into a Rabbit. I have always wanted a being a pure evil stuffed into a ball of fluff.
Set expectations. Be transparent about the feel of the game you want (light-hearted, comedic, horrorful, dramatic, etc.). Be clear on whether you want things like player's bucking the world to be a thing or you want players to be part of and bought into the conceits of the world (avoid people arguing with shopkeepers if you want a world where its so alien to do that, culturally). Make sure they "get" if you want character death to be just part of the game or something to avoid. If you want rules to lean toward a particular resolution or not (by example, I make sure my players know that deception is a short-lived experience and the consequence of failure is an NPC being actively engaged to consider the PC a fraud... avoiding re-rolling).
The more you share with them how you want a game to feel and play out, the fewer problems or frustrations on everyone's part.
Another example is my players know that I don't like cracking books to figure things out. I'll make table rulings, I'll usually make them quickly and fairly but we're going to "move on" often. My Barbarian thinks they can do X, I think (from what I know) that I don't think X works that way... instead of going to books and stopping the game, I'm going to toss a dice... high's they're right, low's I'm right. Roll. Decide. Done. Move on, we'll litigate it afterward. Not every table wants to do that, but if that's an expectation you set? Players know they're about to play something that might require them to operate under an occasional false (but well intentioned or justified) ruling and everyone should chill and deal with it after. Also, for the sake of candor, it means they know that I may be right and they wrong, but we won't have to stop the game to debate that and we'll move on. My players knowing that, understanding it, makes the table smoother.
Expectations.
Set them.
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Be sure to be very familiar with the basics (combat, saving throws, various checks, etc.). If you have the basics down you really can make it your game! My first time as a DM was nerve racking for me because i didn't want to mess up, but once i realized how open D&D is it made me a lot more comfortable and made it a lot more fun.
One of the biggest things I need to work on is to make sure everyone has enough time for them to participate in an encounter. My party keeps getting split and I end up forgetting a player or two while the others dominate most of the session. Didn't notice until a player messaged me about how they didn't get any chance to speak up. So that's my advice to you!
Other things like messing up on a rule, being ill prepared for the unpredictable behavior players can go towards, or even speaking with a lot of filler words such as, "uhh" and "umm." Just know that whatever mistake you or your players make is an opportunity to improve and you shouldn't beat yourself too much over such things if they happen since this is all supposed to be fun in the end!
One concern I often hear from new DMs, is how to best handle derailing. I always recommend to roll with it. Eventually, a point will come where you can bring them back around to the main plot. The important thing is to know the story well and remain flexible.
It's also totally okay to tell the players that you need a minute to plot out stuff or to look something up if they catch you off guard. Everyone is there to have a good time. And nobody is expecting you to have all the answers as a new DM. Just be honest with your players and they'll have your back.
Also, I try to find ways to say "Yes" to my players instead of "No" whenever possible. It's their story too. And often their ideas are better than mine. If they know that an idea isn't going to get simply shot down, they'll be more willing to share. And sharing is key in cooperative tabletop rpgs.
Lastly, don't worry overly much about the rules. They'll come in time. If you don't know, make something up and then promise to talk about it after the play session. If you don't like a rule, ignore it or change it. The rules are tools for telling a story, nothing more.
Remember that tabletop roleplaying is essentially open-source storytelling. If players know that you're on their side and that their contributions are important, they will be more willing to help create a fun story.
Focus on having fun and the rest will take care of itself. Good luck!
Creator, writer, and producer of Heroes Not Included
Don't jump straight in, and by that I mean have a session zero. It helps set expectations and is a good way to get thing like character creation out of the way so when the game starts there are as few hold-ups as possible.
So you are telling me that a giant monkey can beat the KING OF MONSTERS!? Do you want me to hate you?
Also this isn't much of a mistake but more of a suggestion,
I highly recommend not metagaming as a DM. For example, I know for a fact one of my players are immune to fire damage due to certain circumstances. However, a random enemy wouldn't know that and I would sometimes throw a fireball at that player. This is very empowering as it leads to him rolling intimidation rolls as he casually walks through the flames menacingly towards the enemy.
So don't build encounters around the strengths/resistances of the party unless they really messed up by fighting an opponent who knows them or is very powerful and experienced.
The biggest mistake I've ever seen a new DM make is to set unreasonable expectations for themselves, or interpret their players' unreasonable expectations for them as proof of failure.
No one is ever as good as they are going to get at DMing during their first campaign, unless they also choose for it to be their last. So don't look at mistakes as failure. Look at them as the stones that pave the road to you being an excellent DM.
My first campaign I DM'ed was me basically railroad tracking my dad and little brother into a monster crawl. It was a fun disaster, but I learned a great deal! Don't be afraid to make mistakes and learn from them. Bahamut knows, no one is perfect, so make sure you and your players go in with that expectation.
I highly suggest looking at a prewritten adventure at the very least for your first time. It'll give you a good sense of a how to prepare a good adventure, and it'll help you manage the story in the long run.
Finally, things will never go exactly as planned. As much as you will try to plan for every eventuality, your players are going to surprise you. Get ready to improvise, and have some random encounters and names at the ready for when they go off book.
PBP: DM of Titans of Tomorrow
PBP: Lera Zahuv in Whispers of Dissent
PBP: Evaine Brae in Innistrad: Dark Ascension
PBP: Cor'avin in Tomb of Annihilation
The best advice I've ever received for new DM's is; you will make mistakes, it'd be unbelievably lucky if you made none in your first session, and you just gotta accept it. I'm sure your players aren't expecting you to know absolutely everything immediately, and you probably won't, so don't beat yourself up when mistakes are made, try and reverse if possible, and if not then just go with it. Unless it's an incredibly important matter, your players will probably not notice even if you do stuff up. Chin up and good luck!
"Roll for kink."
My homebrews - Naturalcrit
Also, don't overprepar your campaign. You will do mistakes and that is ok, it takes experiece to learn how to improvise.
Don't stress over everything being exact. Relax and have fun as well. You'll naturally get better in time.
If you're having fun, chances are your players will too. And that's the most important factor.
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My homebrew: [Subclasses] [Races] [Feats] [Discussion Thread]
The one thing that I really should have checked on in my session 0, was familiarity with fantasy as a genre (that is, for the straightforwardly Forgotten Realms game I am running - change the genre if you have other plans). It's not a huge hindrance (if anything, it's quite funny), but now I have a pc who thinks that a 'wood elf' is an elf made out of wood and another who (as a halfelf child) claims to have been lovingly nurtured by a camp full of goblins and orcs, and who has decided she needs to fight all 'big polluters' and has a grudge against climate change deniers. Since I was planning to tie in their backstories as much as possible, this is proving somewhat... daunting.
I honestly assumed that telling them 'think Tolkienesque' would be enough. Little did I know that neither of them had ever read / watched / heard of anything that even approaches fantasy, let alone Tolkien.
Otherwise, I find that I'm just horribly unbalanced. My NPCs are either too forthcoming or near-mute, I either ask the PCs to roll too often or not enough. One fight is over before the enemy gets a single blow in, whereas in another (for the exact same amount of xp) I had 3/4ths of the party rolling death saves simultaneously. I'd like to get to a point where I don't fudge rolls anymore, but I'm just not there yet and have decided to give myself a break. At this point, any fudging is due to me being a noob, not due to my having to save stupid PCs.
I have to admit, some of that stuff sounds pretty fun. Wood elves actually made of wood? Hey sure why not! You're now susceptible to fire damage tho ... Raised by friendly goblins and orcs? Okay, there's a tribe of peace-loving goblins and orcs in the High Forest (or wherever) but they are incredibly protectionist and don't trade or interact with other tribes or races. Those things aren't necessarily game breakers, and I think could be a good example of how to say "yes" to your players and roll with it when things go in silly, unexpected directions.
On that other stuff, it sounds like you have the right perspective. It's going to get easier to manage with time. It sounds like you're still learning, and honestly, I don't know if DMs really ever stop learning. I've been doing it for a couple of years and I'm still figuring new things out; my friend who runs the game I'm player in has been DMing for two decades and learns new ways of doing things all the time. And we all make mistakes, so be forgiving of yourself when you do.
DM: The Cult of the Crystal Spider (Currently playing Storm King's Thunder)
Player: The Knuckles of Arth - Lemire (Tiefling Rogue 5/Fighter 1)
Sometimes you might feel upset that a party walked through your battles and go as far as even trash talking it. "we powned them!" don't take it personally.
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. I will protect those who cannot protect themselves, I will protect even those I hate so long as it is right.
Haha! Wood Elves being made of wood is one of the funniest mistakes I've heard in a while.
I can only wonder what that player thought of High Elves.
Site Rules & Guidelines - Please feel free to message a moderator if you have any concerns.
My homebrew: [Subclasses] [Races] [Feats] [Discussion Thread]
Don't prepare what the players will do: prepare what they will experience. Your players will do something you don't expect 90% of the time. So don't get frustrated when they do: roll with it (sometimes literally).
Similarly, remember that you aren't the enemy to the players nor are you their friend. You're the world. Nothing exists until you say it does. If you have everything prepared for when they turn right, and then they turn left, guess what? All that stuff is now on the left.
D&D isn't a video game! Lots of video games are inspired by it, either directly or indirectly, but it's more like improvisational theater with rules and dice rolls than Dragon Quest. Which goes back to the other points. In a video game, if you don't talk to an important NPC the story doesn't progress. It just stands still until you do what you're supposed to. But in D&D, the world is as dead or alive as you and your party make it. The party probably should talk to the priest about the children who have gone missing in town, but if they screw off to the local brothel, guess what? People are talking about the children going missing and how they don't trust the local church.
And ultimately, (and this is true for literally everything in life) you will probably not be amazing at first. You might be terrible. Almost everyone was terrible at anything when they started. Keep doing it. In the great words of Jake the Dog, sucking at something is the first step to becoming sort of good at something. You'll learn and get better. You'll have good nights and bad. But you'll get better as you learn what works and what doesn't.
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D&D Beyond StaffA rather big mistake I tend to see relatively often is that often times DMs will go in with the mindset that they have to "beat" or "win against" the players when it's actually the complete opposite. In my opinion, DnD- and by extension, any table-top RPG is a partnership between the players and the person running the game. It shouldn't be a competition when the end result should ideally be, to have fun.