First Session in two Days! What should I do to prepare?

[Brennan]

Alright, title says it all. I have the visual aides, books, and such all ready for the dungeon delving. We're going out to buy dice from a badass supply store then making the PC's characters. I'll also direct a tutorial for my PC's. (They're all new to the game. I've read the books multiple times over, and planned out multiple campaigns that have never come to fruition, but this will be my first DMing experience as well.)

What should I do for snacks and such? Pizza? I have a really good pizzeria near my house that I could order some delicious morsels from. Luckily, my entire PC team has lightning-fast metabolisms. Lucky S-O-B's. Back on topic, is there anything tasty that I could bring to the table? Possibly something themed to our campaign to make it more interesting? (You eat while your characters eat or something.)

I'm excited, but I'm not sure what exactly to do, lol, I hope you experienced DM's can lend me a hand in this regard.

(Btw, I'm making blueberry-raspberry smoothies for Mindflayer brain matter that the players will have to imbibe to gain immunity to a certain Mindflayer's mental attacks. Should be sweet.)

[Fendalus]

It would help a bit if you said the edition in the title of the thread, because then some people could offer some advice involving that edition's rough spots.

And just in case you didn't read it, here's the So You Wanna Be A DM?: A Potentially Helpful Guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474) that AKA Bait wrote up. It's an old thread, so posting in it is not a good idea, but the guide was very useful for me.

[Lappy9000]

Everyone's gonna ask what edition you're playing so they can give advice. <Preparing for ninja'ing.

Anyway, when it comes to snacks, make sure to have side tables or something similar to keep drinks on during the game. Nothing is worse that a spill of sugary liquid on a bunch of paper :smalleek:

Also avoid anything cheesy (like cheetos, despite their legendary history, although Mountain Dew is fine), 'cause stuff that will get on the character sheets is a no-go. Some may tell you that it's not a character sheet until it gets a little grease on it, though :smallamused:

Check this out! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474)

Only other thing I can suggest is try to be flexible. Keep some random character/place names on hand and the random treasure charts for when the characters completely miss a plot hook or decide to start a tavern in the town. Prepare for the unexpected, 'cause it's gonna happen :smallbiggrin:

[Shademan]

take a sock, fill it with coins, dice, sand other nasty stuff. this will serve as the DM-hammer of justice and truth.
How you use it? be creative...

as for snacks, Popcorn always works. And it's not greasy! thats a big pluss.
Make sure your players are not gonna go lawful stupid or anything and don't be fraid to include a NPC which will help them get started. making him a NOC class (like...expert or aristocrat. or warrior! a guardsman from town) will make sure that he's not too useful in combat ;) after one or two small quests he leaves the PC's.

And try to get them hooked on to the ROLEPLAYING early on :smallwink:

[Jastermereel]

And try to get them hooked on to the ROLEPLAYING early on :smallwink:

I strongly second that!

"What's my motivation?" is a question every player's character should be able to answer.

When my group first started playing we had character sheets but no one had a character. Even with names (I was "Fred the Nameless") no one had a real personality beyond their class. This was made worse as we took turns being the DM; after swapping into the third one the whisper-down-the lane effect destroyed the last traces of a story, we didn't have any idea what our motivation was any more.

When we finally pulled the plug on that story and started anew, each player had to write up a fairly detailed character concept with some idea of where they'd want it to go. No longer is anyone "the monk" or "the druid", but instead they have back stories and goals independent of my larger story and the game is much much much better for it. The Goliath Barbarian (while min-maxed a bit) is also an envoy of her people and the player is even thinking of printing up a flyer that the character might start handing out as part of her national advocacy. Two players started on separate revenge quests and I've found ways to tie both into a villain they won't hear about for another level or two and won't meet for another six or seven, but are eagerly investigating leads instead of forcing me to spoon-feed them a story.

At the very least, make them write up a "7 Sentence NPC" description and build from there: http://www.pandius.com/npcbuild.html

[DabblerWizard]

I can't seem to post this website often enough. It's just awesome.

http://www.miniworld.com/adnd/100ThingsAboutUrPCBackGround.html

It has 100 questions your players can fill out as their characters. I would suggest picking out 20 questions that you like / find the most informative.

[snoopy13a]

E-mail them beforehand to figure out food and drinks. What you don't want to do is spend 15-20 minutes debating whether to order out and if so, where to get the food from.

[Shademan]

and as soon as the session is over...TELL US HOW IT WENT!

[Gamerlord]

3.5?

Grab paper,pencils, a D%, and your DMG, turn to the random dungeon tables.

4e?

Quickly assemble some encounters.

[Tyndmyr]

Alright, title says it all. I have the visual aides, books, and such all ready for the dungeon delving. We're going out to buy dice from a badass supply store then making the PC's characters. I'll also direct a tutorial for my PC's. (They're all new to the game. I've read the books multiple times over, and planned out multiple campaigns that have never come to fruition, but this will be my first DMing experience as well.)

First off, you are way, way ahead of me in preparation. We sorta just opened the 3.0 three pack of books and winged it wildly. We had no idea what was going on. My first character had about half his levels each in fighter and sorc.

So, by reading the books plenty, you're ahead of the game, and this is very good. Character creation will likely take a while, as people toy with decisions and learn what's out there.


What should I do for snacks and such? Pizza? I have a really good pizzeria near my house that I could order some delicious morsels from. Luckily, my entire PC team has lightning-fast metabolisms. Lucky S-O-B's. Back on topic, is there anything tasty that I could bring to the table? Possibly something themed to our campaign to make it more interesting? (You eat while your characters eat or something.)

Pizza is a classic. My group typically goes through three pizzas, a coupla boxes of ice cream cones, and 3-4 12 packs of soda in a night. Sometimes we add donuts and such to that list. By all rights, we should be obese by now.

Any good munchies that everyone likes, really. Bonus points for things that don't require lots of preparation. Chips are great. Veggie trays aren't bad, if you like that sorta thing. Likewise, if anyone wants anything specific, let em bring it. Variety is awesome.


I'm excited, but I'm not sure what exactly to do, lol, I hope you experienced DM's can lend me a hand in this regard.

(Btw, I'm making blueberry-raspberry smoothies for Mindflayer brain matter that the players will have to imbibe to gain immunity to a certain Mindflayer's mental attacks. Should be sweet.)

Nice idea! I think you're doing pretty good here. Sounds like you've got a plot worked up.

If you have any plot-central notes/items, it can be fun to make real-world versions of them. Yknow, soak paper in tea a bit to get it properly yellowed to look old, burn it in spots, etc.

Mini's are also fun. Not at all required, mind you, but a fun thing to dabble in if you want to add something interesting.

[Shademan]

well? how did it go?