I've been wanting to introduce my group of friends to D&D and looked for a DM for a while, but I wasn't lucky so I decided to be the DM for the first time.
I plan on using the Forgotten Realms setting and begin with using the Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure. But I am terrified and lost and I'm not sure where to start since there are so much things to consider.
I'd say the most important thing to remember is that if everyone is having fun, things are going the way they are supposed to. The second thing to remember is that you don't need to know all the rules to start. Everyone is new, so you will all be looking things up as you go, and that's OK. If you can't find a rule right away, make a ruling for the moment and promise to look up how to do it later.
Also, try watching Matt Coleville's "Running the Game" series. He has lots of great advice for new DMs.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
No offense, but that's not exactly the type of advice I was looking for. I already know the spirit of the game and the basic stuff, it's my organisation and planning that worries me the most.
Thanks for the video recomandation though, I don't think I've ever encountered this series and I will watch it.
Using a pre-packaged adventure should help with the planning. After that organize things the way that you have found have helped you the past - with school or work. I like to go through the adventure and underline the things I consider important. For me those things are DCs and names mostly. I outline each session making sure to have more material than I really think I will need. That helps if the party burns through stuff and if they don't, I have half as much work to do the next time.
Your DM screen is where you put anything and everything you think you might need to reference quickly: monster stats, maps, NPC names from the module and NPC names that you make up because your party is invariably going to ask the name of a random guard.
Google docs can be helpful where lore is concerned because you can pull it up when needed. I use hyperlinks in my outlines so I can quickly look things up as needed. If you are using the D&D Beyond Encounter and Combat tools hyperlink to those so you can quickly enter combat.
Improvising is a part of Doing but it helps to consider what could happen and be prepared for it with a few quick notes and maybe some hyperlinks. Don't be afraid to tell the party one moment let me check while you quickly Google the Forgotten Realms wiki or a spell description.
I know some DMs use Excel spreadsheets but I've never gotten into that.
Lost Mine is an excellent starter adventure. It has tips throughout to help you run it along with all of the information you need in one book (with the addition of the basic rules).
Remember that everybody is there to have fun, that includes you. Try to avoid thinking that it is you vs them, the game is coop story telling, not competitive play.
Something that sometimes surprises new players is the ability to do anything. Video games have limits and walls, D&D not so much. So they might do silly things, and that is ok, try to roll with it.
Have a session 0. Get together and talk about what kinds of heroes the players want to play and guide them towards a class they might enjoy. There are a ton of pop culture examples on google. Draw some basic lines like no PvP - I would say this is a non-option for beginners. No fighting amongst the party, no skills used, no harmful spells, no attacks. PCs doing things against each other breeds too much bitterness between players and then nobody is having fun. I would suggest that you tell the party the people in the starter village have nothing worth taking so don't attack them either.
Ask what they are looking for in the game. Take notes and try to incorporate those things some time in the future.
I am an advocate of open rolling. That means I don't hide my dice rolls. If you keep them hidden behind a screen some folk can feel you are cheating rolls.
Come to these forums often and ask for advice. That's what we are for.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Welcome to this side of the table! Many of us think its more fun here than on the player side.
It's normal to be scared. A lot of us don't remember our first few times in front of a group of RPGers, so we forget how intimidating it can be. Personally, my first experience GMing was in the (cough) early 80's. Yeah, I know. Get off my lawn you young punks!
If you make mistakes, or can't remember rules, don't stop the game and look it up, just keep going.
For the first few sessions, flow and progress and "doing" is far more important than getting rules right and looking stuff up. Focus on getting into the flow and the fun, leave the rules stuff for a few weeks. It doesn't matter if you get the rules wrong for a few sessions while you are learning. You can change rules later.
I started with LMoP as well, and part of the understanding with my group was that it was a "practice round" for everyone, especially me as the DM. That let me deliberately change my session prep to test my ability to adapt. Initially, I way over prepared. I created custom printouts with annotated maps, and NPC, monster, and location summaries; Fully color coded and planned out. Eventually I realized that searching my own notes slowed down the game just as much as referencing the book. The next session, I tried to work with just the book, and felt a little overwhelmed because it wasn't organized the way I needed it to be.
Now that I've got a better grasp of adventure pacing, I've tailored my prep for a 3-session window: detailed imminent encounter, basic transitional encounters, conceptual major reveal. This essentially means that you're prepared with what you're doing today, have some filler content that you can borrow from the next session as needed, and you know what you're trying to build up to, so that your improv will be informed by where you expect the story to go.
(Generally speaking, one significant encounter can consume half of a 4-hour session, so if you are prepared to run 2 major encounters, or 1 major and 2 minor encounters, you'll have more than enough to safely make it through the next session.)
Within that structure, the most important things for me are the following 3 categories:
Encounters
Have a sheet of terrain appropriate monsters of various levels for random encounters (If the players make a mistake while wandering in a forest, or camp in the wilderness, you can throw a trivial encounter at them.)
Have 3 or 4 "optional", but significant, encounters that you can draw upon depending on where the party goes. (e.g. Bandits ransacking a random farm house along the road, troll lair in the woods, etc...)
Have the next major campaign encounter prepped. (Pre-written introduction, best/worst case contingency, epilogue hook to advance the story)
If the party decides to go somewhere unexpected at the last minute, you can toss one of the "optional" encounters at them mid-travel to buy yourself time until the next session.
Exploration
Have a generic skill challenge in mind, with major/minor failure consequences (e.g. Survival checks to safely navigate the woods, investigation checks to gather information in town, etc... A player might stumble and land on a mushroom that releases poisonous spores, or they might get lost and wind up somewhere unexpected.)
Have a sheet of environmental highlights to give the world depth, such as weather changes, and a few plants/animals/smells/sounds that represent the area.
Write down 3-4 pieces of gossip, in case the players talk to an NPC or search an area.
Don't bother trying to make every NPC unique and special ahead of time, they don't actually exist until the players encounter them. Whoever the party visits first shares the first piece of gossip, the second shares the second, etc.
Spotlighting
Make notes on how to draw attention to the PCs strengths, background, or previous choices. For example, a player who lives locally might find treasure marked with a familiar insignia, or a party with a Barbarian might find their path blocked by a heavy object. If the party harasses, or flirts, with NPCs, they may return to town to find that said NPC has hired a bodyguard or wants to introduce the player to a friend of theirs.
Beyond that, just skim and flag a few key pages in the DMG, such as the treasure tables for later reference.
If the players do something unexpected, like ask the clergy of a temple for help, you can have the clergy tell them that it will take a day or two to prepare "the thing", which is generally enough of a buffer to push it back to the next session.
TL;DR
If you can stretch a lazy stroll down the road into its own mini-adventure, then you'll also master buying yourself enough time to navigate whatever your players throw at you.
I'm running LMoP too and this guide more than Colville or Lazy DM (tho they are both great) turned my game from one my friends were joining to help me learn how to DM to one where they now bug me to run more sessions :D
How many players, what’s their experience with 5e, and how long are you planning each session to be?
I started about a year ago running LMOP with a mix of 2 players who had dm experience and 2 who watched streams. We ran 2 hr sessions, so I found that if I planned the first 15 minutes I was more than covered for the rest of the session. We also averaged about one social and one combat encounter per session.
The biggest hurdle for the new players was having them understand they are tissue paper at first level. I recommend getting them to level 2 as quickly as possible and, if they are new to the game, not killing them with the traps right after the goblin ambush.
Welcome to DMing and yes, it can be very scary. I suggest organizing the book for you to reference easier. If you have a physical copy, tag it with post its. I actually created a binder for each location, copying and pasting text with pictures of enemies and the layout for each encounter, down to a page for each room even. Each page had a graphic of the monster with boxes for hit points so i could fill them in as they landed damage. Once.you run the first session you will have a better feel for what you need to reference. I would pick the cave of course to work out first. Phadalin is a great one for a new dm. Its what I used to get up to speed on 5e after being away from d&d for over 20 years.
Good luck. And remember, they wont know you made a rule up unless you tell them! haha
Just relax man. DMing is like a roller coaster ride. The climb is the only scary part.
You might think that there is a lot to consider, but really there isn't. You are the Dungeon Master, God himself. Your whim is the only thing to consider. Don't let lost mines of phandelver tell you otherwise.
In fact I would just throw that book out for my first game. Just make up something you think is cool and plop your players in the middle of it. Doesn't matter if it is 100% theater of mind, amateur improv while getting every single rule wrong. That's how I learned. Heck I didn't even have a system, was just literally making stuff up. None of that matters though, point is you are simply learning what it feels like to be a DM.
I will introduce them to D&D through Roll20, because of Covid and distance issues. I am not that preoccupied concerning access to information. There's loads of apps for that and I know exactly how to access it in a few seconds. The most basic questions I'm asking myself is how am I going to present the Forgotten Realms setting to them. What are the basic informations they should know about it ? What do the characters know without a doubt? I think one or two of them have played Neverwinter Nights so there's that.
Also for any who know about the module I heard the first fight was kind of difficult and it worries me a little, I think my players will be mostly roleplay oriented and I wouldn't want a hard and long fight at the begining to make them lose interest.
Don't worry about presenting the entire Forgotten Realms to them, just a small area of the world.
Depending on backstories, have them be from somewhere along the mid-northern part of the Sword Coast (Ie Neverwinter or Leilon or Phandolin itself or around). The last time I ran LMoP I simply started the group on the road with something like, "For reasons known to each of you, you accepted a quick job escorting a small wagon of supplies from Neverwinter to Phandolin. The merchant, Gundren Rockseeker gave you a gold each to start with the promise of more on successful delivery -- for the roads have been getting worse and bandits are on the rise."
This avoided the "start in a tavern" trope and provided strong initial direction. In continuing with the "roads are dangerous" theme, the first evening I threw two bandits at the group. This let them understand combat and provided tension to pull them together. The next day was the other "first enounter". While that encounter can be deadly (based on rolls) you can always have a small number of enemies (ie 3 instead of 4) or perhaps have one or two run away quickly. This forces the party into a decision -- do the pursue, do the continue with the wagon or what?.
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
I will introduce them to D&D through Roll20, because of Covid and distance issues. I am not that preoccupied concerning access to information. There's loads of apps for that and I know exactly how to access it in a few seconds. The most basic questions I'm asking myself is how am I going to present the Forgotten Realms setting to them. What are the basic informations they should know about it ? What do the characters know without a doubt? I think one or two of them have played Neverwinter Nights so there's that.
Also for any who know about the module I heard the first fight was kind of difficult and it worries me a little, I think my players will be mostly roleplay oriented and I wouldn't want a hard and long fight at the begining to make them lose interest.
The default assumption is their characters don't know any more about the world than an average dark age peasant. They will know the starting hometown and most folks in it, and have heard of nearby locations such as other towns and have maybe visited them a few times. You are not obligated to give them any more than that.
They are ADVENTURERS however. Destined to go forth into the world and explore it. It isn't about what they know, but what they will learn. That's the charm of the game.
What they know about Forgotten Realms out of character is entirely up to them and their interest in the settings.
As for the worry about combat, that's their problem not yours man. D&D is combat at its core. Just look at the PHB, most of those pages are devoted to describing things you do or use in combat. If they don't like tactical and challenging combat, they might want to find a new system hate to say it.
The most basic questions I'm asking myself is how am I going to present the Forgotten Realms setting to them. What are the basic informations they should know about it ?
The only thing they need to know is where they are and what they can perceive. The rest of the realm doesn't matter because they are not everywhere. Forgotten Realms is the basic medieval fantasy land, with magic and dragons and stuff. Things only matter when they get there.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
D&D is before everything else a roleplaying game, at least it is how I perceive it and how I think my players perceive it. Just because there's pages about how to do combat doesn't mean it has to revolve only around combat. I'm not saying I don't want to do combats or that my players won't like them, but I do think they will prefer roleplay over it. Which is why I don't want to start the game with the combat aspect directly and have the first combat be a long and difficult one.
For the knowledge part, I know they're not supposed to have vast knowledge of the world. I don't expect them to know what a beholder is, but a dragon yes. Basic knowledge of the world that comes to my mind would be that gods are real and it's a fact, that magic is a thing people at least know exist, those kinds of things.
For my most recent campaign, I gave my players access to the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. It includes the basics like gods, holidays, significant organizations, and basic lore; more than they need, but also more than they'll read.
If they care, they'll skim through the parts that are relevant to them. If they don't, then they'll learn along the way as they make low DC knowledge checks to recall information.
I also have no issue with my players reading the monster manuals between sessions, just not during the session. The world has bestiaries and legends, so I encourage them to have a basic understanding of what awaits them. However, I modify my creatures as needed, so they are also warned that the books aren't going to be reliable beyond the fundamentals.
For the knowledge part, I know they're not supposed to have vast knowledge of the world. I don't expect them to know what a beholder is, but a dragon yes. Basic knowledge of the world that comes to my mind would be that gods are real and it's a fact, that magic is a thing people at least know exist, those kinds of things.
Well of course. It is likely that one of your PCs will be a caster of some sort. In many worlds they have a passing knowledge of the "other side" meaning wizards know where their magic comes from, and also know that clerics get their magic from someplace else.
You don't have to put every explanation on a plate and hand it to your players. Just start playing and if they ask, tell. If there is something you want them to know, drop it in there. I don't tell my players that there are no horses in my campaign, I show them that their mounts like it when their wings are scratched; they chirp when they see their friend; when a rat runs by, they snatch it up with their beak.
It is up to you to determine if you tell the players, "You see a brock in the distance waving at you." OR "A bipedal creature emerges from the brush, it is covered in fur and its head resembles a badger. It seems to be wearing dyed leather, and it waves at you."
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
When it comes to how much of the world they know - that's what history checks are for. You can make Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide available to them to read after a session or whatever but really just wait for them to ask if their character would know something about the world. For example, a player might have a backstory that includes Neverwinter so if they meet an NPC who talks about it, the player might ask if he or she would know about X. Tell them to make a history check and then give them info based on the roll.
The same can go for monsters. In our last session the Dm mentioned a monster, our cleric asked if she would know what it was. She rolled high on an arcana check (it was a magical creature) so the DM told her what she would know about it.
Don't have that info at your fingertips for some reason? No problem. The NPC doesn't know but he or she knows someone who does and directs the players to the new NPC that you just made up on the spot so the players have to travel while you look stuff up :-)
-Are you going to be using the pre-generated characters that came with the print version of LMOP (and are available as printable PDFs on WOTC's site)? I ask for two reasons 1) each of the characters have "hooks" or tie-ins to the adventure, and that could narrow-down what lore you need to be "up" on and 2) if one of your players is playing the rogue, you really need to read their background/backstory and do some careful thinking about how that affects part of the adventure. As a general rule, LMOP is great for new DMs, doing more "hand holding" at the beginning and gradually weaning you from dependance on that hand holding, but they completely missed alerting DMs to that piece. I can provide more info in a PM or in a spoiler block if that is what your group is doing.
-Your campaign is your version of the Forgotten Realms. So don't sweat getting all the "lore" right; be willing to make stuff up as you go along and adapt as needed. If what you decide doesn't fit with the "official" FR lore, don't worry about it.
-Players don't need to know everything about the setting at the beginning. They can always ask you "What would my character know about X" and you can provide that info at that point.
-In terms of the first fight, I've read that some groups found it very challenging, even deadly. My group cake walked it thanks to a wise choice on the part of my daughter, and a good roll. But you have several options here, including 1) reducing the number of opponents; 2) reducing HP of opponents (maybe they already took some damage?); 3) having some opponents run away if/when others of their allies are killed. (This is particularly appropriate given the antagonists of the first battle)
I've been wanting to introduce my group of friends to D&D and looked for a DM for a while, but I wasn't lucky so I decided to be the DM for the first time.
I plan on using the Forgotten Realms setting and begin with using the Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure. But I am terrified and lost and I'm not sure where to start since there are so much things to consider.
Help please?
I'd say the most important thing to remember is that if everyone is having fun, things are going the way they are supposed to. The second thing to remember is that you don't need to know all the rules to start. Everyone is new, so you will all be looking things up as you go, and that's OK. If you can't find a rule right away, make a ruling for the moment and promise to look up how to do it later.
Also, try watching Matt Coleville's "Running the Game" series. He has lots of great advice for new DMs.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
No offense, but that's not exactly the type of advice I was looking for. I already know the spirit of the game and the basic stuff, it's my organisation and planning that worries me the most.
Thanks for the video recomandation though, I don't think I've ever encountered this series and I will watch it.
Using a pre-packaged adventure should help with the planning. After that organize things the way that you have found have helped you the past - with school or work. I like to go through the adventure and underline the things I consider important. For me those things are DCs and names mostly. I outline each session making sure to have more material than I really think I will need. That helps if the party burns through stuff and if they don't, I have half as much work to do the next time.
Your DM screen is where you put anything and everything you think you might need to reference quickly: monster stats, maps, NPC names from the module and NPC names that you make up because your party is invariably going to ask the name of a random guard.
Google docs can be helpful where lore is concerned because you can pull it up when needed. I use hyperlinks in my outlines so I can quickly look things up as needed. If you are using the D&D Beyond Encounter and Combat tools hyperlink to those so you can quickly enter combat.
Improvising is a part of Doing but it helps to consider what could happen and be prepared for it with a few quick notes and maybe some hyperlinks. Don't be afraid to tell the party one moment let me check while you quickly Google the Forgotten Realms wiki or a spell description.
I know some DMs use Excel spreadsheets but I've never gotten into that.
I hope some of this helps
Lost Mine is an excellent starter adventure. It has tips throughout to help you run it along with all of the information you need in one book (with the addition of the basic rules).
Remember that everybody is there to have fun, that includes you. Try to avoid thinking that it is you vs them, the game is coop story telling, not competitive play.
Something that sometimes surprises new players is the ability to do anything. Video games have limits and walls, D&D not so much. So they might do silly things, and that is ok, try to roll with it.
Have a session 0. Get together and talk about what kinds of heroes the players want to play and guide them towards a class they might enjoy. There are a ton of pop culture examples on google. Draw some basic lines like no PvP - I would say this is a non-option for beginners. No fighting amongst the party, no skills used, no harmful spells, no attacks. PCs doing things against each other breeds too much bitterness between players and then nobody is having fun. I would suggest that you tell the party the people in the starter village have nothing worth taking so don't attack them either.
Ask what they are looking for in the game. Take notes and try to incorporate those things some time in the future.
I am an advocate of open rolling. That means I don't hide my dice rolls. If you keep them hidden behind a screen some folk can feel you are cheating rolls.
Come to these forums often and ask for advice. That's what we are for.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Welcome to this side of the table! Many of us think its more fun here than on the player side.
It's normal to be scared. A lot of us don't remember our first few times in front of a group of RPGers, so we forget how intimidating it can be. Personally, my first experience GMing was in the (cough) early 80's. Yeah, I know. Get off my lawn you young punks!
I'll repeat my advice (from https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/98712-your-advice-for-a-first-time-dm).
If you make mistakes, or can't remember rules, don't stop the game and look it up, just keep going.
For the first few sessions, flow and progress and "doing" is far more important than getting rules right and looking stuff up. Focus on getting into the flow and the fun, leave the rules stuff for a few weeks. It doesn't matter if you get the rules wrong for a few sessions while you are learning. You can change rules later.
I started with LMoP as well, and part of the understanding with my group was that it was a "practice round" for everyone, especially me as the DM. That let me deliberately change my session prep to test my ability to adapt. Initially, I way over prepared. I created custom printouts with annotated maps, and NPC, monster, and location summaries; Fully color coded and planned out. Eventually I realized that searching my own notes slowed down the game just as much as referencing the book. The next session, I tried to work with just the book, and felt a little overwhelmed because it wasn't organized the way I needed it to be.
Now that I've got a better grasp of adventure pacing, I've tailored my prep for a 3-session window: detailed imminent encounter, basic transitional encounters, conceptual major reveal. This essentially means that you're prepared with what you're doing today, have some filler content that you can borrow from the next session as needed, and you know what you're trying to build up to, so that your improv will be informed by where you expect the story to go.
(Generally speaking, one significant encounter can consume half of a 4-hour session, so if you are prepared to run 2 major encounters, or 1 major and 2 minor encounters, you'll have more than enough to safely make it through the next session.)
Within that structure, the most important things for me are the following 3 categories:
Encounters
If the party decides to go somewhere unexpected at the last minute, you can toss one of the "optional" encounters at them mid-travel to buy yourself time until the next session.
Exploration
Don't bother trying to make every NPC unique and special ahead of time, they don't actually exist until the players encounter them. Whoever the party visits first shares the first piece of gossip, the second shares the second, etc.
Spotlighting
Make notes on how to draw attention to the PCs strengths, background, or previous choices. For example, a player who lives locally might find treasure marked with a familiar insignia, or a party with a Barbarian might find their path blocked by a heavy object. If the party harasses, or flirts, with NPCs, they may return to town to find that said NPC has hired a bodyguard or wants to introduce the player to a friend of theirs.
Beyond that, just skim and flag a few key pages in the DMG, such as the treasure tables for later reference.
If the players do something unexpected, like ask the clergy of a temple for help, you can have the clergy tell them that it will take a day or two to prepare "the thing", which is generally enough of a buffer to push it back to the next session.
TL;DR
If you can stretch a lazy stroll down the road into its own mini-adventure, then you'll also master buying yourself enough time to navigate whatever your players throw at you.
I found this the single best resource on how to DM. It really clearly breaks down the absolute basics of DMing and it HUGELY upped my DM game;
https://theangrygm.com/how-to-fing-gm/
(I also find the guys humor funny so that helps)
I'm running LMoP too and this guide more than Colville or Lazy DM (tho they are both great) turned my game from one my friends were joining to help me learn how to DM to one where they now bug me to run more sessions :D
How many players, what’s their experience with 5e, and how long are you planning each session to be?
I started about a year ago running LMOP with a mix of 2 players who had dm experience and 2 who watched streams. We ran 2 hr sessions, so I found that if I planned the first 15 minutes I was more than covered for the rest of the session. We also averaged about one social and one combat encounter per session.
The biggest hurdle for the new players was having them understand they are tissue paper at first level. I recommend getting them to level 2 as quickly as possible and, if they are new to the game, not killing them with the traps right after the goblin ambush.
Welcome to DMing and yes, it can be very scary. I suggest organizing the book for you to reference easier. If you have a physical copy, tag it with post its. I actually created a binder for each location, copying and pasting text with pictures of enemies and the layout for each encounter, down to a page for each room even. Each page had a graphic of the monster with boxes for hit points so i could fill them in as they landed damage. Once.you run the first session you will have a better feel for what you need to reference. I would pick the cave of course to work out first. Phadalin is a great one for a new dm. Its what I used to get up to speed on 5e after being away from d&d for over 20 years.
Good luck. And remember, they wont know you made a rule up unless you tell them! haha
Just relax man. DMing is like a roller coaster ride. The climb is the only scary part.
You might think that there is a lot to consider, but really there isn't. You are the Dungeon Master, God himself. Your whim is the only thing to consider. Don't let lost mines of phandelver tell you otherwise.
In fact I would just throw that book out for my first game. Just make up something you think is cool and plop your players in the middle of it. Doesn't matter if it is 100% theater of mind, amateur improv while getting every single rule wrong. That's how I learned. Heck I didn't even have a system, was just literally making stuff up. None of that matters though, point is you are simply learning what it feels like to be a DM.
I will introduce them to D&D through Roll20, because of Covid and distance issues. I am not that preoccupied concerning access to information. There's loads of apps for that and I know exactly how to access it in a few seconds. The most basic questions I'm asking myself is how am I going to present the Forgotten Realms setting to them. What are the basic informations they should know about it ? What do the characters know without a doubt? I think one or two of them have played Neverwinter Nights so there's that.
Also for any who know about the module I heard the first fight was kind of difficult and it worries me a little, I think my players will be mostly roleplay oriented and I wouldn't want a hard and long fight at the begining to make them lose interest.
Don't worry about presenting the entire Forgotten Realms to them, just a small area of the world.
Depending on backstories, have them be from somewhere along the mid-northern part of the Sword Coast (Ie Neverwinter or Leilon or Phandolin itself or around). The last time I ran LMoP I simply started the group on the road with something like, "For reasons known to each of you, you accepted a quick job escorting a small wagon of supplies from Neverwinter to Phandolin. The merchant, Gundren Rockseeker gave you a gold each to start with the promise of more on successful delivery -- for the roads have been getting worse and bandits are on the rise."
This avoided the "start in a tavern" trope and provided strong initial direction. In continuing with the "roads are dangerous" theme, the first evening I threw two bandits at the group. This let them understand combat and provided tension to pull them together. The next day was the other "first enounter". While that encounter can be deadly (based on rolls) you can always have a small number of enemies (ie 3 instead of 4) or perhaps have one or two run away quickly. This forces the party into a decision -- do the pursue, do the continue with the wagon or what?.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
The default assumption is their characters don't know any more about the world than an average dark age peasant. They will know the starting hometown and most folks in it, and have heard of nearby locations such as other towns and have maybe visited them a few times. You are not obligated to give them any more than that.
They are ADVENTURERS however. Destined to go forth into the world and explore it. It isn't about what they know, but what they will learn. That's the charm of the game.
What they know about Forgotten Realms out of character is entirely up to them and their interest in the settings.
As for the worry about combat, that's their problem not yours man. D&D is combat at its core. Just look at the PHB, most of those pages are devoted to describing things you do or use in combat. If they don't like tactical and challenging combat, they might want to find a new system hate to say it.
The only thing they need to know is where they are and what they can perceive. The rest of the realm doesn't matter because they are not everywhere. Forgotten Realms is the basic medieval fantasy land, with magic and dragons and stuff. Things only matter when they get there.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
D&D is before everything else a roleplaying game, at least it is how I perceive it and how I think my players perceive it. Just because there's pages about how to do combat doesn't mean it has to revolve only around combat. I'm not saying I don't want to do combats or that my players won't like them, but I do think they will prefer roleplay over it. Which is why I don't want to start the game with the combat aspect directly and have the first combat be a long and difficult one.
For the knowledge part, I know they're not supposed to have vast knowledge of the world. I don't expect them to know what a beholder is, but a dragon yes. Basic knowledge of the world that comes to my mind would be that gods are real and it's a fact, that magic is a thing people at least know exist, those kinds of things.
For my most recent campaign, I gave my players access to the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. It includes the basics like gods, holidays, significant organizations, and basic lore; more than they need, but also more than they'll read.
If they care, they'll skim through the parts that are relevant to them. If they don't, then they'll learn along the way as they make low DC knowledge checks to recall information.
I also have no issue with my players reading the monster manuals between sessions, just not during the session. The world has bestiaries and legends, so I encourage them to have a basic understanding of what awaits them. However, I modify my creatures as needed, so they are also warned that the books aren't going to be reliable beyond the fundamentals.
Well of course. It is likely that one of your PCs will be a caster of some sort. In many worlds they have a passing knowledge of the "other side" meaning wizards know where their magic comes from, and also know that clerics get their magic from someplace else.
You don't have to put every explanation on a plate and hand it to your players. Just start playing and if they ask, tell. If there is something you want them to know, drop it in there. I don't tell my players that there are no horses in my campaign, I show them that their mounts like it when their wings are scratched; they chirp when they see their friend; when a rat runs by, they snatch it up with their beak.
It is up to you to determine if you tell the players, "You see a brock in the distance waving at you." OR "A bipedal creature emerges from the brush, it is covered in fur and its head resembles a badger. It seems to be wearing dyed leather, and it waves at you."
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
When it comes to how much of the world they know - that's what history checks are for. You can make Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide available to them to read after a session or whatever but really just wait for them to ask if their character would know something about the world. For example, a player might have a backstory that includes Neverwinter so if they meet an NPC who talks about it, the player might ask if he or she would know about X. Tell them to make a history check and then give them info based on the roll.
The same can go for monsters. In our last session the Dm mentioned a monster, our cleric asked if she would know what it was. She rolled high on an arcana check (it was a magical creature) so the DM told her what she would know about it.
Don't have that info at your fingertips for some reason? No problem. The NPC doesn't know but he or she knows someone who does and directs the players to the new NPC that you just made up on the spot so the players have to travel while you look stuff up :-)
-Are you going to be using the pre-generated characters that came with the print version of LMOP (and are available as printable PDFs on WOTC's site)? I ask for two reasons 1) each of the characters have "hooks" or tie-ins to the adventure, and that could narrow-down what lore you need to be "up" on and 2) if one of your players is playing the rogue, you really need to read their background/backstory and do some careful thinking about how that affects part of the adventure. As a general rule, LMOP is great for new DMs, doing more "hand holding" at the beginning and gradually weaning you from dependance on that hand holding, but they completely missed alerting DMs to that piece. I can provide more info in a PM or in a spoiler block if that is what your group is doing.
-Your campaign is your version of the Forgotten Realms. So don't sweat getting all the "lore" right; be willing to make stuff up as you go along and adapt as needed. If what you decide doesn't fit with the "official" FR lore, don't worry about it.
-Players don't need to know everything about the setting at the beginning. They can always ask you "What would my character know about X" and you can provide that info at that point.
-In terms of the first fight, I've read that some groups found it very challenging, even deadly. My group cake walked it thanks to a wise choice on the part of my daughter, and a good roll. But you have several options here, including 1) reducing the number of opponents; 2) reducing HP of opponents (maybe they already took some damage?); 3) having some opponents run away if/when others of their allies are killed. (This is particularly appropriate given the antagonists of the first battle)
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
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