New DM Tips

Hello and I'm a new DM. I'm starting to make my first campaign? Is there any tips y'all have or just cool things? Thank you!

There are so many, but your question is extremely broad. Are there any particular parts of GMing you have question about?

However, here's a general tip: 

Talk with your players outside of the game. Do it beforehand to set expectations, and during to try to sort out problems that occur during play, and just to get a general feel of how things are going.

I want to get better at Making monsters and storys

Don't be too ambitious with your first game. It's easy to set your own expectations too high and then feel overwhelmed.

Good on you for jumping in! As a new-ish player, I would say, challenge your players, but don't think of yourself as playing against them, if that makes sense?

For example, with monsters & combat, sometimes you want to feed into your players' abilities, not run away from them. That's called "shoot the Monk," because the Monk has a cool projectile redirect ability. Like if someone has Fire resistance, know you can't always use Fire, but also don't avoid it entirely. Reward them for build choices, while mixing in challenges to some weakness, forcing them to think creatively. It can be a balancing act for sure (one I've never tried). But no one wants to feel like the DM is intentionally planning to exploit loopholes in your build regularly, essentially negating your build choices.

Best of luck!

1) Never be afraid to say the words "That may be the Rules as Written, but I am house ruling."

2) Lets make a deal:  When you feel like you want the  players to 'win' but they just barely miss a roll to 'win', survive, etc. do not just fudge the dice rolls.  Instead, offer them  a sacrificial win. Example: DM asks "Are you willing to break your sword?" if they say no, they missed.  If they agree say "You hit the villain, but your sword breaks off in him, killing him."  This can turn a boring run of the mill battle into something the players remember.

3) AVOID minions.  If you have 3 players trying to kill a dragon, that is 4 turns.  If the dragon has 3 children and the PC's each have a squire/apprentice then suddenly you have 10 turns.  That can make a battle take 2 hours of real life time instead of 20 minutes of real life time (especially as players and you are likely to be less familiar with what the minions can do.). 

Thanks!

I think you don't need to do a lot of background histories, just focus on the encounters, the battle sistem and the progressivity sistem at all

I might respectfully disagree about minions - I think multiple combatants usually make an encounter more fun and guard against certain problems. 

Multiple targets give diversity to the battlefield, making it more dynamic. And it challenges the players have to decide on: do I focus fire on the big bad, or do I take out these other enemies so they stop doing damage? Not everyone can reach or target some big bads due to extreme mobility, etc, but also if they don't move at all, it can devolve into a stand & box match, with less tactical choice needed. Also if someone lands some type of control spell/move or serious debuff to your big bad, it can end the fight. Yes legendary resistances, but those run out. And I'd say it feels more interesting to instead have multiple points of agency instead of being able to just negate a whole group of actions players can take.

That said, if that is too much, one big bad is certainly fun. I just think putting everything in one basket bears greater risk of the whole combat grinding to a halt.

Having Minions is a great equalizer.  If the the encounter is too easy add a few more, if too hard remove them aka retreat off the table.

Some quick tips to add to those above:

• Start simple!
  • Start the game at a low level, and the first quest in one location.
  • Use already published monsters and if possible a published adventure
  • At the very least maps and art pieces that are free on the internet. 
• For your first encounters, use 2-3 monsters all of the same type. Have in your mind a one-sentence description of the goal or strategy the monsters will use so that you know what the enemies will do on their turns. 
  • e.g. zombies : they move towards and attack the nearest living thing.
  • e.g. bandits : they gang up on whomever looks weakest.
  • e.g. troll : it wants to capture a player character and take it back to its lair to eat later.
  • e.g. harpies : they want to lure their prey into a lake and drown them.
• Balancing on the fly: It is all but certain that you will mess up with your encounters at the start - everyone does - and either the encounter will be too easy or too hard.
  • If it is too easy, have the enemies be able to call reinforcements from another room or just off screen. But don't go over board, it's ok to have some easy encounters.
  • If it is too hard, you can reduce enemy hit points on the fly. Or have an excuse ready for the enemies to leave early without killing the player characters.
• Story : take inspiration from things that already work! You don't need a completely original story / plot line, and even if players figure out what you are inspired by in-my-experience they love it!
• Yes - And (aka Rule of Cool)
  • try to help your players do what they think is cool even if it doesn't completely follow the rules.
  • If they come up with a great conspiracy theory, go with it make it become the truth even if you originally planned a different idea.
  • But don't feel beholden to all of their ideas, if they try to go off on a totally different quest that you had planned, just let them know that you haven't prepped that so they'll have to wait until next session to explore that.
• Don't worry too much about getting the rules right.
  • Talk with your players before starting the game to set out how you'll deal with rule confusion & rule conflicts.
  • If you have an experienced player feel free to let them help everyone else remember the rules but ensure they know to do it politely and that your decision can over rule them.
  • Don't stop the game to look up rules in the middle of the action, let the players know you're making a ruling on the fly to keep the game going and you'll look up the rules later to let them know how it will work going forwards.