Creating my first 4e campaign...

[Squark]

Well, I've decided to use the rest of the summer as an opportunity to work on a 4e campaign I'll be running at my School Gamer's club. I do have some DMing experience, but not a ton. I have run a 3.5 campaign before, but that one was... not very good, to put it bluntly*. So, when setting out to create a new campaign, I'm a little lost on where to start first.

Question 1: What should I approach first? Worldbuilding? Or should I just dive into the first adventure?

Question 2: None of the players have ever played 4e before, so any advice for helping learners along would be nice.



*To be fair, my first session of DMing was also my first session of D&D period. I was the DM, in no small part because I was also the one with the books.

[Yakk]

Build what you need, when you need it.

Maybe think of one hook if you feel like it.

Worldbuilding is fun, but much of it isn't needed right off the bat.

When building the adventure, don't presume the players will go down the route you think they will go down.

Having power cards, and pre-calculated modifiers, can help people play 4e faster. The point of power cards is having all of the niggley rules-text at your fingertips. Avoid using powers that create lots of random state on the battlefield that isn't significant (an area power that stuns when it hits -- great. An area power that prevents targets from shifting or making opportunity attacks -- um, that is too much state for too little benefit) if you are going to pre-build characters.