The most important thing to remember is... Your players will do whatever comes into their minds to do, even if it isn't completely logical.
Oh my yes.
<Party member dies> "Well, guess we have a martyr to bring back to Phandalin to show we gave it all for the town." "She's really heavy though, how do we get her out of the cave and back to Phandalin?" "We could just take the head?"
My first session went really well. There were a few hiccups but all in all, everyone had a good time. I did realize quickly that I need to be better prepared with DCs and an understanding of when to use them. I think I have that all ironed out now.
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DMRDonn
Way too much D&D and then way too many years without it...
One thing that I like to keep in mind is not to not ask for rolls just because they are trying to do something that falls into a check category. It slows the game down and sometimes things are easy, and shouldn't have a chance to fail and there really aren't varying degrees of success. For example, str check for breaking a window.
One really important thing I like to recommend is to have a random travel encounter or 2 ready and on file to throw at your party for when they decide to go to a region you have nothing prepared for. Combats take a while so it will buy you time to prep and saves you from having to choose between railroading your the group away, or winging an area you haven't put any time into and doing a half-assed job of it.
Random tables are your friend. Have a name table for random NPCs and remember that he players can’t tell if you’re winging it or running straight from the book. I tend to keep a bunch of tables at the ready. I also love the official monster cards—they are so much easier when dealing with mixed groups of monsters than flipping from one to another in the Monster Manual.
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Oh my yes.
<Party member dies>
"Well, guess we have a martyr to bring back to Phandalin to show we gave it all for the town."
"She's really heavy though, how do we get her out of the cave and back to Phandalin?"
"We could just take the head?"
Me:
My first session went really well. There were a few hiccups but all in all, everyone had a good time. I did realize quickly that I need to be better prepared with DCs and an understanding of when to use them. I think I have that all ironed out now.
DMRDonn
Way too much D&D and then way too many years without it...
Congrats!
One thing that I like to keep in mind is not to not ask for rolls just because they are trying to do something that falls into a check category. It slows the game down and sometimes things are easy, and shouldn't have a chance to fail and there really aren't varying degrees of success. For example, str check for breaking a window.
One really important thing I like to recommend is to have a random travel encounter or 2 ready and on file to throw at your party for when they decide to go to a region you have nothing prepared for. Combats take a while so it will buy you time to prep and saves you from having to choose between railroading your the group away, or winging an area you haven't put any time into and doing a half-assed job of it.
Random tables are your friend. Have a name table for random NPCs and remember that he players can’t tell if you’re winging it or running straight from the book. I tend to keep a bunch of tables at the ready.
I also love the official monster cards—they are so much easier when dealing with mixed groups of monsters than flipping from one to another in the Monster Manual.