DM Nerves

[paperarmor]

So my group is doing the Red Hand of Doom right now but after we get through I'm going to step up to the plate and start a new campaign in a hombrew setting its been a little of a year since I DM'd and I was wondering if you playgrounders had any tips for me?

[Subaru Kujo]

So my group is doing the Red Hand of Doom right now but after we get through I'm going to step up to the plate and start a new campaign in a hombrew setting its been a little of a year since I DM'd and I was wondering if you playgrounders had any tips for me?

You remember what worked for you last time you DMed? Do that. Remember what really didn't? Don't do that.

I'm sorry for making it that simple, but we don't really have much else to go on with the OP. Maybe give us a little more to go on so we can give you ideas to combat those nerves?

[Honest Tiefling]

What's make you nervous? One general trick I have learned is to ask what people are doing beforehand and run a session 0 to give myself time to prep for what is likely to happen. You might want to brush up on grapple rules, for instance, if you have a bunch of grapplers and summoners.

[paperarmor]

Sorry for my lack of explaination. First off of the player pool two are experenced DMs (one of whom is also a vicious optimizer), one has played the game for over 20 years, we have a newbie who isn't that into it, and our current DM who doesn't have much opfu and just likes to have fun with it. My big challenge is to try and find ways to make the game engaging and challenging for the experienced ones while keeping the newbie's intrest with out discouraging her.

[Subaru Kujo]

Sorry for my lack of explaination. First off of the player pool two are experenced DMs (one of whom is also a vicious optimizer), one has played the game for over 20 years, we have a newbie who isn't that into it, and our current DM who doesn't have much opfu and just likes to have fun with it. My big challenge is to try and find ways to make the game engaging and challenging for the experienced ones while keeping the newbie's intrest with out discouraging her.

Do you have classes for them?

Also, what I found is just talking with the optimizers to keep them low to mid OP usually works. If they want her to stay at the table, they'd understand, at least I'd hope so.

As far as the new player goes, ask them their opinion on matters. Sure, the new guys may have their opinion on how things should go, but make a point to ask her first sometimes. She might surprise them with a nonmagical way of working out a problem.

As far as making it challenging for the optimizers, sometimes throw in situations where their optimization means exactly nothing (not all the time, of course. Just want to keep them on their toes).

[Crake]

Sorry for my lack of explaination. First off of the player pool two are experenced DMs (one of whom is also a vicious optimizer), one has played the game for over 20 years, we have a newbie who isn't that into it, and our current DM who doesn't have much opfu and just likes to have fun with it. My big challenge is to try and find ways to make the game engaging and challenging for the experienced ones while keeping the newbie's intrest with out discouraging her.

Well, your first step should be making sure everyone is on the same page, optimization-wise, or people who are under-optimized relative to the rest of the group will feel useless.

Another option is to have encounters that are engaging in ways other than number-rolling. I've had sessions where not a single dice was rolled, yet the players all left feeling like they accomplished something. Roleplay encounters are great for this, and you should definitely still give xp for it (I've known of more than a few DMs who only gave xp out for combat), that's something I feel should be highly encouraged, xp for roleplay is often way under rewarded. I personally give out CR appropriate xp for each accomplishment achieved in the roleplay, for example, if you encountered a party of orcs in human territory, if you could convince them not to attack you, that'd be CR appropriate xp, then if you could also convince them to leave human territory, that'd be another bunch of xp, and if you could manage to become friendly enough that they'd vouch for you in orc-lands, that'd be a third set of xp.

[paperarmor]

well for what I'm planning in the first few levels (1-5) being subtle is going to matter a lot more than the dice they can throw and no xp for noncombat encounters or even solving one without combat is a pretty worthless rule (I give a bonus for that). the party may look something like Artificer, Psion/Psywar, Bard, Rogue, Druid or Ranger or some other thing. I also like to roll up bosses like PCs and only use monsters in the MMs (with exceptions) as mooks. So given that I think it should work out