The first thing I suggest doing is to get yourself in the mindset that your players, who are more experienced with the game, are just as responsible for their enjoyment of the game you play together as you are.
Then, recruit them to help you. Their experience includes knowing what they find to be good things for a DM to do and good ways for a DM to handle various different situations, so they can educate you on their preferences - you don't have to guess at it and risk failure to entertain them.
Those points aside, keep things as simple as you can, minimize your own workload by outsourcing as much as you can to others (which you are already wisely starting at by using a published adventure instead of devising your own, and you can also do stuff like have one of the players keep track of initiative for combat, another taking notes of important details as they are revealed so you don't have to remember what information the party should already have and where to find it in the adventure book), and work as a team with your players towards the goals of everyone having fun and you finding your stride as a DM.
All that is left is to advise just what every adventure book says at the beginning; read over the whole thing to familiarize yourself with both the story and the organization of the book in advance of beginning play.
And the most important bit of advice you can get: never treat any aspect of the game as more important than the group having a good time - not even things that seem important, but ultimately really aren't, like getting all the rules "right."
I am currently running a Curse of Strahd PbP and I used the "Plea for Help" adventure hook.
In the adventure, I like to describe the locations and the weather in a way that adds a feeling of a world drained of optimistic thought.
In addition, I discovered I can make the adventure more frightening and fun for my players by adding elements to the story that the published version did not include (as can be seen in my PbP game here).
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Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. From remote temples in jungles, swamps, and deserts, the yuan-ti plot to supplant and dominate all other races and to make themselves gods.
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Hey guys
Been playing d&d for about a year as a pc
And i just picked up the curse of strahd book because i want to start dm/gm and thought this book would be great as a start.
Man do i feel like i have a job ahead of me.
If you fine people could give me some advice on where to start that would be great
I have 5 players who are interested in playing and they have been playing for THERE WHOLE LIFE
I dont want them to be bored or have them not like it.
The first thing I suggest doing is to get yourself in the mindset that your players, who are more experienced with the game, are just as responsible for their enjoyment of the game you play together as you are.
Then, recruit them to help you. Their experience includes knowing what they find to be good things for a DM to do and good ways for a DM to handle various different situations, so they can educate you on their preferences - you don't have to guess at it and risk failure to entertain them.
Those points aside, keep things as simple as you can, minimize your own workload by outsourcing as much as you can to others (which you are already wisely starting at by using a published adventure instead of devising your own, and you can also do stuff like have one of the players keep track of initiative for combat, another taking notes of important details as they are revealed so you don't have to remember what information the party should already have and where to find it in the adventure book), and work as a team with your players towards the goals of everyone having fun and you finding your stride as a DM.
All that is left is to advise just what every adventure book says at the beginning; read over the whole thing to familiarize yourself with both the story and the organization of the book in advance of beginning play.
And the most important bit of advice you can get: never treat any aspect of the game as more important than the group having a good time - not even things that seem important, but ultimately really aren't, like getting all the rules "right."
Thanks for that mate. Thats alot of info for me to use and build from.
I have a book with the card reading already planed out.
And i have a small idea of some encounters that might take place ie; running into strahd and the person who is going to help the party esmerelda :).
The one thing i have not done is jot down what could happen in the other areas if they find there way there.
If you do a simple Google search you'll be able to find a number of very good GM advice sites for CoS.
There is also a couple of good adventure blog sites which discuss the experience from players PoV.
Lastly Dice, Camera, Action has a Youtube play through of CoS which is good.
All these resources provide great support and information, I'm certainly using them to my benefit.
I am currently running a Curse of Strahd PbP and I used the "Plea for Help" adventure hook.
In the adventure, I like to describe the locations and the weather in a way that adds a feeling of a world drained of optimistic thought.
In addition, I discovered I can make the adventure more frightening and fun for my players by adding elements to the story that the published version did not include (as can be seen in my PbP game here).
Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. From remote temples in jungles, swamps, and deserts, the yuan-ti plot to supplant and dominate all other races and to make themselves gods.