Now... I should clarify that I have played D&D, but I died before I even made it out of the tavern (sad). I have also been following D&D content and optimizing characters for 6-7 months now. I have a firm grasp on the rules, and feel that if I don't know the exact ruling for a maneuver a player wants to take, I can make something up on the fly.
However, I have no idea on how to hook players, pace sessions, or balance encounters. How do I improvise when players kill an NPC I needed to progress the story? Does the story even matter if the players have fun killing NPC's? How do I acknowledge all of my players backstories, and not make them feel like I have favorites? What do I do if a player doesn't give a backstory, and is feeling left out? I have no idea! If there are any DM's that are reading this out there, what are some things you wish you knew before you started DMing? And how do you expect the unexpected..?
I suggest a new DM, especially one new to the game, start out with a canned adventure. It lets you get your feet under you before you also start making your own scenarios. It's not required, but I think it's a good idea.
You should probably get a copy of the new DMG. They spent considerable effort rewriting it to be a guide to running the game. From my perspective, it looks decent for that. (I have, however, been running RPGs for... a while now, so I may not be the best judge.)
The most important thing I think you should do is have what's known as a session zero. Get your players together, and set expectations for the game. Some things you should do:
Establish the tone of the game. Is there going to be Serious Drama, goofy fun, or (most likely) something in between. Are they going to play clearcut good guys, or is the door open to darker themes?
Establish how people feel about conflict within the party, both interpersonal drama, and out-and-out fighting.
Establish the structure of the game. For a new GM, I suggest establishing that you're going to present them with a scenario, and they're going to engage with it, and also you're not going to stick them with scenarios that their characters likely wouldn't want to get involved with. (You can open up the structure later, but it's a good place to start if everyone's new.)
Establish the basics of their characters. Not just the top-level construction (class, species, background), but some basics of who these people are. Why are they doing this instead of living safe lives? How are the party connected to each other? Establishing role-playing connections within the party is really helpful to keeping things going smoothly -- a party of moody loners is much more likely to go running off in all directions than. "X and Y are siblings. A and B were in the army together. B and X had the same teacher. A and Z are on-and-off lovers. Z saved X's life once." Everyone should have at least one connection to somebody else, and they shouldn't all be to the same character.
Find out what sort of things people don't want to see in game. On-screen torture, death of children, etc. (This includes you. You are also a player, and your fun also matters.)
Also, optimizing characters isn't relevant to running the game, or how the game is typically played. You shouldn't expect your players to do so. You certainly shouldn't encourage them to. If they're all into it, that's fine, but you're going to need to upgrade the encounters. If one person is into it, keep an eye out -- it can lead to them dominating combat and mucking up other people's fun. But if they're new players, it's unlikely.
Use what ever media/games you've learned about D&D from as a template. I don't know what kind of campaign you are running, but hooks are partially on the player to provide. In my mind, they should either give you backstory that would naturally hook their character, or they should bring a character/attitude that would be reasonably enthused about the adventure beats.
When I first started DMing, I had a bunch of flow chart scenarios. Now I just need a decent idea about where the party is going, and a handful of player/story hooks that I can throw at them in between. After that it's just riffing, and that's kind of where rule of cool comes into play. The only thing that has stayed constant is that I'm DM'ing to help my players have a good time.
But look, I also feel like you need to just dive in. Find out what works. Fall on your face if you have to (maybe with a one-shot). And then learn and get better. Challenge yourself to make the experience more fun for yourself and your players, and I think you'll be fine.
However, I have no idea on how to hook players, pace sessions, or balance encounters. How do I improvise when players kill an NPC I needed to progress the story? Does the story even matter if the players have fun killing NPC's?
For hooks and all, might be worth establishing with the players that there's going to be some jankiness. Sometimes it's unavoidable.
For a sess this night, the hook was "A dude walks up to you and is like, 'Bros, please help me with some hobgoblins.'" And it was also a total 180 from the party's current goal. (I ran a one-shot side adventure while the current DM was busy.)
So obvious things can work. Can have someone come up and be like, "Hey. Help me please?" Could be as direct as directly walking up. Could be a quest board. Could be getting summoned by a king. Heck, you might even consider starting with, "Your characters have already agreed to help with the town's goblin problem. The trail has been rough but doable. And now after having followed tracks from the latest ambush, you see the goblin camp in the distance. What do you do?"
When you talk about them perhaps killing an NPC you need to advance the story, how so? Like a villain that was going to surrender the next location? Could have written letters in their inventory or such.
But if they're going around killing NPCs, even friendly ones, willy nilly, that may be better to fix with an over-the-board conversation if you're not down for that kind of game. Be like, "Bros, could you tone it down please? It's hard for me to think of a fun way to progress things when y'all keep killing everyone."
How do I acknowledge all of my players backstories, and not make them feel like I have favorites? What do I do if a player doesn't give a backstory, and is feeling left out? I have no idea! If there are any DM's that are reading this out there, what are some things you wish you knew before you started DMing? And how do you expect the unexpected..?
In my group we didn't really do much with backstories. So it's not something all groups will do. In my case we learned personalities of each character. If I want the cleric's character to be interested in something, I offer alcohol as a reward. If I want the warlock's character to be interested, there's money and the chance to kill little green goblin men.
If a player doesn't give backstory and then feels left out, talk to them. Figure out a backstory with them if they feel they need one. If you feel like you're playing favorites, try to work against that and make sure you go, "Hey, while this is happening, does your character do anything?" In other words, actively taking a spotlight off one person to give someone else a chance to take some initiative.
Remember that a DM's custom content is only as good as the thing it's stolen from. This isn't to condemn stealing in any way, you should steal and steal and steal and glue all the pieces of the sources of inspiration you stole from together and watch them coalesce into something that appears new and original. The more out there and obscure your inspiration, the better.
As far as rules, you said you've got experience optimizing characters, beware. Players and monsters/NPC's use different rules, and not everything needs to be done from the rules of the player side. DnD is not balanced for pvp, so using player classes to make bad guys will produce unpredictable and often underwhelming results, as your OP bbeg gets crushed through sheer action economy.
As far as story elements, keep things simple at first. Start in a small town, surround it with wilderness, use goblins or skeletons, keep plot hooks pedestrian (more "my daughter wandered into the Dark Woods and hasn't come out yet!" and less "you must recover the Crown of Awesomeness to stop Harold the World-Eater from eating the world!) At first. As you grow in DMing experience/confidence, you can expand your setting and introduce more and more complexity.
As you do so, remember that complexity often looks like simplicity on this side of the screen. Your bad guy has a goal, they will do XYZ to achieve the goal, profit. Think of your plot from the bad guy's perspective and picture how all the events would go if the heroes never got involved. Really think of and plan of the first couple steps of the plan so you can show their effects on the world to your players to hook them in, and then be ready to throw the rest of the plan out the window once they do involve themselves, because from then on the bad guy will have to adapt their plans to account for the actions of the players.
Keeping your story structures open like this helps to avoid the "oh no the players killed the One NPC On Whom Everything Depends!" problem because you're not putting all of your story eggs in one basket like that anyways, and also because it makes the world feel more imersive to your players because they can see that their actions in the world have an effect on the outcomes of the game, which no other gaming medium really lets you do and is really cool.
Lastly, go look up "Running The Game" by Matt Coville on YouTube and listen to it while you do dishes or fold laundry or play videogames, because that series is so full of useful advise and tips that it can keep you running for a long time.
Ok a little real life injection - if you and the players are all brand new then the advice above is fine, if you are new and the players are experienced then have ne of them DM while you play and get some experience and familiarity with the rules and playing styles. Keeping track of a single character and all its bits and pieces can be hard at first, keeping track of all the NPCs, rules, positioning, etc can be near impossible.
If you run a canned adventure to start, backstory is pretty much irrelevant, and it can get your characters going and connected to each other. Let backstory be a latent easter egg, a ticking time bomb that comes forward later.
Don't feel obligated to start out with a multiyear campaign. If you give yourself (and your players?) a short throwaway campaign, then you don't have to feel nearly as much pressure for continuity or meaning or tone or getting it right on the first try. And especially while you're learning, it's okay if some stuff comes above the table while you're figuring it all out. Start with a group that will be forgiving and is just there to have a good time together. If it works out and you like the characters, you can always homebrew them into a larger world later, or start over when you feel confident of what you really want to run.
All of these tips have been super helpful! I have decided on running the one-shot Frozen Sick (because it's free haha) rather than my dream campaign with airships and pirate lol
I have also downloaded the 2024 DMG! I will be reading thru it after I get done going thru Frozen Sick!
All of these tips have been super helpful! I have decided on running the one-shot Frozen Sick (because it's free haha) rather than my dream campaign with airships and pirate lol
I have also downloaded the 2024 DMG! I will be reading thru it after I get done going thru Frozen Sick!
Thank you again for all of the wonderful tips :)
Frozen Sick is a nice little adventure for your first time, especially because it's free. As others have said when you're starting out try not to get too ambitious, including lots of character backstories is nice but it's easy to get lost in your own plot. If you love airships and pirates might be worth checking out Eberron as a setting, it's heavily steampunk/aetherpunk themed so might fit what you need and having the world building already done can be a big weight lifted as you write a first homebrew campaign (or go to DM's Guild and buy an Eberron campaign)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Now... I should clarify that I have played D&D, but I died before I even made it out of the tavern (sad). I have also been following D&D content and optimizing characters for 6-7 months now. I have a firm grasp on the rules, and feel that if I don't know the exact ruling for a maneuver a player wants to take, I can make something up on the fly.
However, I have no idea on how to hook players, pace sessions, or balance encounters. How do I improvise when players kill an NPC I needed to progress the story? Does the story even matter if the players have fun killing NPC's? How do I acknowledge all of my players backstories, and not make them feel like I have favorites? What do I do if a player doesn't give a backstory, and is feeling left out? I have no idea! If there are any DM's that are reading this out there, what are some things you wish you knew before you started DMing? And how do you expect the unexpected..?
I suggest a new DM, especially one new to the game, start out with a canned adventure. It lets you get your feet under you before you also start making your own scenarios. It's not required, but I think it's a good idea.
You should probably get a copy of the new DMG. They spent considerable effort rewriting it to be a guide to running the game. From my perspective, it looks decent for that. (I have, however, been running RPGs for... a while now, so I may not be the best judge.)
The most important thing I think you should do is have what's known as a session zero. Get your players together, and set expectations for the game. Some things you should do:
Also, optimizing characters isn't relevant to running the game, or how the game is typically played. You shouldn't expect your players to do so. You certainly shouldn't encourage them to. If they're all into it, that's fine, but you're going to need to upgrade the encounters. If one person is into it, keep an eye out -- it can lead to them dominating combat and mucking up other people's fun. But if they're new players, it's unlikely.
Use what ever media/games you've learned about D&D from as a template. I don't know what kind of campaign you are running, but hooks are partially on the player to provide. In my mind, they should either give you backstory that would naturally hook their character, or they should bring a character/attitude that would be reasonably enthused about the adventure beats.
When I first started DMing, I had a bunch of flow chart scenarios. Now I just need a decent idea about where the party is going, and a handful of player/story hooks that I can throw at them in between. After that it's just riffing, and that's kind of where rule of cool comes into play. The only thing that has stayed constant is that I'm DM'ing to help my players have a good time.
But look, I also feel like you need to just dive in. Find out what works. Fall on your face if you have to (maybe with a one-shot). And then learn and get better. Challenge yourself to make the experience more fun for yourself and your players, and I think you'll be fine.
For hooks and all, might be worth establishing with the players that there's going to be some jankiness. Sometimes it's unavoidable.
For a sess this night, the hook was "A dude walks up to you and is like, 'Bros, please help me with some hobgoblins.'" And it was also a total 180 from the party's current goal. (I ran a one-shot side adventure while the current DM was busy.)
So obvious things can work. Can have someone come up and be like, "Hey. Help me please?" Could be as direct as directly walking up. Could be a quest board. Could be getting summoned by a king. Heck, you might even consider starting with, "Your characters have already agreed to help with the town's goblin problem. The trail has been rough but doable. And now after having followed tracks from the latest ambush, you see the goblin camp in the distance. What do you do?"
When you talk about them perhaps killing an NPC you need to advance the story, how so? Like a villain that was going to surrender the next location? Could have written letters in their inventory or such.
But if they're going around killing NPCs, even friendly ones, willy nilly, that may be better to fix with an over-the-board conversation if you're not down for that kind of game. Be like, "Bros, could you tone it down please? It's hard for me to think of a fun way to progress things when y'all keep killing everyone."
In my group we didn't really do much with backstories. So it's not something all groups will do. In my case we learned personalities of each character. If I want the cleric's character to be interested in something, I offer alcohol as a reward. If I want the warlock's character to be interested, there's money and the chance to kill little green goblin men.
If a player doesn't give backstory and then feels left out, talk to them. Figure out a backstory with them if they feel they need one. If you feel like you're playing favorites, try to work against that and make sure you go, "Hey, while this is happening, does your character do anything?" In other words, actively taking a spotlight off one person to give someone else a chance to take some initiative.
This is a signature. It was a simple signature. But it has been upgraded.
Belolonandalogalo, Sunny | Draíocht, Kholias | Eggo Lass, 100 Dungeons
Talorin Tebedi, Vecna: Eve | Cherry, Stormwreck | Chipper, Strahd
We Are Modron
Get rickrolled here. Awesome music here. Track 48, 5/23/25, Immaculate Mary
Remember that a DM's custom content is only as good as the thing it's stolen from. This isn't to condemn stealing in any way, you should steal and steal and steal and glue all the pieces of the sources of inspiration you stole from together and watch them coalesce into something that appears new and original. The more out there and obscure your inspiration, the better.
As far as rules, you said you've got experience optimizing characters, beware. Players and monsters/NPC's use different rules, and not everything needs to be done from the rules of the player side. DnD is not balanced for pvp, so using player classes to make bad guys will produce unpredictable and often underwhelming results, as your OP bbeg gets crushed through sheer action economy.
As far as story elements, keep things simple at first. Start in a small town, surround it with wilderness, use goblins or skeletons, keep plot hooks pedestrian (more "my daughter wandered into the Dark Woods and hasn't come out yet!" and less "you must recover the Crown of Awesomeness to stop Harold the World-Eater from eating the world!) At first. As you grow in DMing experience/confidence, you can expand your setting and introduce more and more complexity.
As you do so, remember that complexity often looks like simplicity on this side of the screen. Your bad guy has a goal, they will do XYZ to achieve the goal, profit. Think of your plot from the bad guy's perspective and picture how all the events would go if the heroes never got involved. Really think of and plan of the first couple steps of the plan so you can show their effects on the world to your players to hook them in, and then be ready to throw the rest of the plan out the window once they do involve themselves, because from then on the bad guy will have to adapt their plans to account for the actions of the players.
Keeping your story structures open like this helps to avoid the "oh no the players killed the One NPC On Whom Everything Depends!" problem because you're not putting all of your story eggs in one basket like that anyways, and also because it makes the world feel more imersive to your players because they can see that their actions in the world have an effect on the outcomes of the game, which no other gaming medium really lets you do and is really cool.
Lastly, go look up "Running The Game" by Matt Coville on YouTube and listen to it while you do dishes or fold laundry or play videogames, because that series is so full of useful advise and tips that it can keep you running for a long time.
Ok a little real life injection - if you and the players are all brand new then the advice above is fine, if you are new and the players are experienced then have ne of them DM while you play and get some experience and familiarity with the rules and playing styles. Keeping track of a single character and all its bits and pieces can be hard at first, keeping track of all the NPCs, rules, positioning, etc can be near impossible.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
If you run a canned adventure to start, backstory is pretty much irrelevant, and it can get your characters going and connected to each other. Let backstory be a latent easter egg, a ticking time bomb that comes forward later.
Don't feel obligated to start out with a multiyear campaign. If you give yourself (and your players?) a short throwaway campaign, then you don't have to feel nearly as much pressure for continuity or meaning or tone or getting it right on the first try. And especially while you're learning, it's okay if some stuff comes above the table while you're figuring it all out. Start with a group that will be forgiving and is just there to have a good time together. If it works out and you like the characters, you can always homebrew them into a larger world later, or start over when you feel confident of what you really want to run.
All of these tips have been super helpful! I have decided on running the one-shot Frozen Sick (because it's free haha) rather than my dream campaign with airships and pirate lol
I have also downloaded the 2024 DMG! I will be reading thru it after I get done going thru Frozen Sick!
Thank you again for all of the wonderful tips :)
Frozen Sick is a nice little adventure for your first time, especially because it's free. As others have said when you're starting out try not to get too ambitious, including lots of character backstories is nice but it's easy to get lost in your own plot. If you love airships and pirates might be worth checking out Eberron as a setting, it's heavily steampunk/aetherpunk themed so might fit what you need and having the world building already done can be a big weight lifted as you write a first homebrew campaign (or go to DM's Guild and buy an Eberron campaign)