First DnD campaign on this weekend.

[Cealocanth]

Alright, the title is a lie. It's not the first campaign or session I've played, I've played in a few one shot sessions where nothing has gone right, nothing gets past the character creation process, and the DM has a heart attack mid session. (Not neccesarily all in the same session)

This is the first time I've ever DM'd a campaign before. I've molded the world and rules with my hands to form my ideal campaign. It's a fantasy world that exsists because of science fiction reasons, and the planet is diverse enough that I could run almost anything I want.

So, thouroughly nervous and syked about the upcoming game. Trapped in that mad rush of perfection. The usual. Any last tips for a first time DM before it all shoves off?

[Kaun]

Dont over prepare.

The only thing you can ever guarantee your players wont do is what ever you have spent the most time preparing for.

[Katana_Geldar]

Your first encounter will be long and awkward, make sure it's quick and easy. If you have trouble, don't be afraid to ask for five minutes to make notes or do sums.

[Drakevarg]

Try not to let your PCs get themselves killed through their own stupidity.

Wait 'til you're a few sessions in before you do that. :smallcool:

[mucat]

Try not to let your PCs get themselves killed through their own stupidity.

Then whose stupidity should they get killed by?

[Tyndmyr]

Dont over prepare.

The only thing you can ever guarantee your players wont do is what ever you have spent the most time preparing for.


Your first encounter will be long and awkward, make sure it's quick and easy. If you have trouble, don't be afraid to ask for five minutes to make notes or do sums.

Excellent advice, on both counts.

Start low level, it makes the character generation a lot faster. The first session almost always ends up with a significant portion of it spent in chargen and people learning/relearning rules.

Get your players involved in explaining how they all know each other already. Sure, you can roleplaying them all meeting each other, but this can be dicey, and in conjunction with the first issue, can result in the first session being pretty slow.

Nothing wrong with killing the characters, if they do something sufficiently stupid. Just try not to kill them all, at least not in the first session. Far too much time in chargen if that happens.

[big teej]

Then whose stupidity should they get killed by?

I've an idea

:miko::elan::belkar::thog:

any of those, sounds like an excellent candidate for stupidity related casualties.

[Incontrol88]

I've started a lot of abortive campaigns, so I've got quite a few "first sessions" under my belt.

Here are a couple of suggestions:
--If you don't want your characters to have a shared backstory, make sure you craft the first encounter so that characters of any alignment and history would have to band together to take care of it. This isn't as hard as it might sound, as even polar opposites could justify working together when their lives are in peril.

--I like to start all of my sessions with a sort of "Question of the Day." It's usually simple stuff like "What was the last thing your character ate?" or "What would your character do with a 50 GP purse they found abandoned by the side of the road?" These questions get the players thinking about their characters and eases the transition into RP. For first sessions I usually replace the "Question" with a roundtable where I have every player go around and "introduce" their character to the party as though they were meeting for the first time.

[FyreByrd]

Dont over prepare.


Always OVER prepare...that way you're knowledge of the world/npc's/encounters/PC's/everything else will inform how you can react to your PC's in a believable and consistent way when they inevietably go off reservation.

[Britter]

Do at least some character creation, if not all of it, as a group. Seriously. Let the players figure out, with your help, how the characters fit into the world (very important if the players had no actual input during world-building. They need to know what you expect from them). Let the players figure out how they want their characters to interact, both mechancially and character/backstroy wise.

In my opinion, doing this will help work out a lot of kinks before you even get to actul play, and will allow your players to more directly address the world as they begin play. It will also give you better party cohesion, because the PCs will have more of a reson to be adventuring together than "We met in a tavern and were hired by a mysterious man to do this thing."

[Incontrol88]

I agree with FyreByrd. You have to overprepare, but with an eye toward generalities rather than specifics. It's true that the PCs will inevitably do something you don't expect, and the DM with the better understanding of the intricacies of their world and their NPCs will be far more adept at handling these moments through improvisation.

[Harris the Ford]

Utilize the Rule of Cool. If its not exactly rules kosher but would indeed be awesome, allow it once, but make it clear that this is RoC in effect and not to exploit it as a general tactic later.

In the end, remember its a GAME. let the players make jokes, have fun, and spend half an hour playing around with figurines (as long as everyone is doing it). What is the fun of a long boring game where the DM has to tell the players what to do or how to behave? And if your players derail your campaign to do some meaningless, non-plot-appropriate side quest, then indulge them because obviously it was more fun then whatever you had prepared and it will most likely turn into a funny story later on.

[Cealocanth]

Thanks for the advice so far. I've already used a couple of them.

Being a new DM, I need to make sure that my campaign is sound enough to take off. I'm not worried about the world baing not to their liking, these guys love post appocalyptic stuff, I'm worried about the basic fundamental build of the very first dungeon crawl.

One of my players is quite experienced in the game and would be able to easily go over it and help with the kinks, but I'm afraid of revealing the information to a player who will be playing in that exact dungeon.

Should I let him look it over? Should I bring it here instead?

[BG]

It sounds to me like you have some perfectionist tendencies. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as that is a quality that can lead to some really well-crafted gaming. It also shows that you've got some passion for the story. But the main thing to remember is that DMing is an art, and like any art, there is no such thing as perfection. Everyone has their own tastes and preferences, different people like different things.

I say this also because, unless you're really good, you're going to mess up. It can be little, like forgetting a small detail that you wanted to include, or it can be big, like having an epic meltdown in front of the players after a TPK. I don't want to sound too negative, but it's like trying anything new, you have to go through a period where you stumble and learn before you become proficient. The main thing is to not get frustrated when you do mess up, and to figure out how to move on from it.

Similarly, I always advise DMs not to get too attached to your own ideas (it works the same way with players and their characters). A lot of times you'll have an idea for how something will work, but when you actually start playing in it, it comes out different. Just go with that. There is often a lot of variation in the potential campaign that exists in your mind and the actual campaign that gets played. You can work with the way players end up playing their characters to make the world and the campaign work for your individual group.

Finally, you need to take the time to figure out what your DM style is. I can give you lots of advice that works for me and my groups, but that might not work for you and yours. Realize that your style will be a work in progress. Figure out where you want to fit on the dice fudging spectrum, or how adversarial you want to be with your players. I have strong opinions about these kind of issues, but there really isn't a hard and fast right or wrong answer about this, only what is right and wrong for each group.

Break a leg.

Edit



One of my players is quite experienced in the game and would be able to easily go over it and help with the kinks, but I'm afraid of revealing the information to a player who will be playing in that exact dungeon.

Should I let him look it over? Should I bring it here instead?

For this specific problem, it really all depends. I would say let people on the boards look at the kinks, but there is also value in being able to work things out with your group, to provide a bit of transparency.

[Skorj]

My advice for building a dungeon (or other related series of encounters): make sure you can explain the story behind it, and why it's filled with the stuff it is. I don't usually start with the backstory, myself. I throw together a few cool-sounding encounters, and then start asking myself "how could these things fit together". Once you have some reason for all the creatures/traps/NPCs/whatever to be gathered close to one another, you can fill in all the details, add plot hooks, and a tie-in to the larger world, etc.

You don't really need to know what is in every square of every encounter area beforehand, but you do need to know why. If you have a consistant vision of "what's going on", the rest can be kept consistent even when you're winging it. Anyhow, anywhere there's a dungeon there should be a dark secret, and some bad guys who must be stopped before they complete their evil plan (or some other story element that works for you). Once you get the inspiration for the evil plan, the rest follows logically.