People's advice. (Previously called "May I recruit a team to help make a campaign?")

[AdamEternal]

I don't have any first-hand experience with D&D. So I'd like to get some. However, with my group of friends at my high school I'm planning on playing with, I'm the most capable of being DM by far. So my first step is to make a campaign.

However, every time I tried to start making a world to play in, it just never felt right, so I kept starting over. Now I'm wondering if there are some people who are willing to lend some skills and ideas. (Especially map-making skills.) So is there anyone interested?

PS. The name I've been using for many of my attempts was "Eophyn", with the starting country called "Greon". I like those names. :smallsmile:

[Kane0]

Simplest way to start?
Steal.

Take what you like from books, games, movies, you name it.
Take the map from Fable, rename locations and insert elements of jade empire where you want them. Throw in some roman history to spice things up and add a touch of tolkien for that familar feel.

Use this to get a feel for the game before you roll up your sleeves and put together your own world from scratch. It saves a whole lot of writers block and takes away the pressure of having things done or not messing it up.

Oh and donjon has some fantastic tools for generating maps, names, loot, etc.

[Steampunkette]

Well! My first suggestion would be to grab an Adventure Path. Something you haven't played that runs from level 1 to about 12-15. Something that interests you and really hooks your attention in it's style and execution.

Paizo has a bunch of them for Pathfinder. There's also the Tyranny of Dragons for 5e if you don't want to do any conversion.

Then, sit down and read the adventure path. Get a good feeling for the flow of the story, the pacing of it. Understand the characters and their motivations. If you use a Pathfinder or 3rd edition adventure this would be a good time to crack the Monster Manual and DMG to see how things compare between the systems.

Once you've got that done, write out all of the locations mentioned in the adventure path. Then all the NPC's names and their races. Then start making changes!

If you're looking to do something in the veins of a Japanese Shogunate campaign, immediately change all the names to japanese ones. Think of the races you want to have in your setting and apply them to the NPCs based on archetypal decisions. Got a big hulking half-giant race? Well that Half-Orc mercenary in act 2 just grew 2 feet taller and lost the green tint of his skin.

Once you've done that, expand outward. Grab another adventure path and make it fit the world you're creating. Every NPC, every Town, every Forest and Mountain and Desert. Move them around and make them your own. Then do it again. And again. And again.

Before you know it, you'll have a campaign setting made up of dozens of locations your players can explore thanks to the skeletal framework the adventure paths give you.

Hope that helps!

[Chaosvii7]

I'm not 100% certain, but I think Roleplaying Games general is more fit to help you than just the 5e subforum, unless you want something specifically and heavily 5e. I'd suggest you ask to get this topic moved either way, it might get a little bit more traffic if it's exposed to the whole of the roleplaying community.

That said, there's a ton of resources for starting your campaigns by fleshing things out. You can use preconstructed notions or get help, but you've gotta take the first steps by establishing what kind of a setting you want and some ideas for things you want to explore. Think about whether you want something gritty, realistic, or epic, and go from there so that others can help you develop ideas along those lines.

[Ghost Nappa]

I'm actually doing a similar thing at the moment (not DMing for friends) but building a world to DM in.

I'll let you through my process so far.

The first thing I did was read The Giant's articles in the sidebar. He hasn't written any new ones for some time but they were admittedly super helpful.

Next I drew a gigantic landmass and followed the Giant's "where would the mountains and islands be based on this?" line of questioning. Eventually I had a geographic map of a continent. The continent I drew incidentally came out looking like Australia had gone to the hairstyler that day.

Afterwards I realized that I had an issue: I needed there for there to be a logical reason for the people of this continent to share a common tongue. Wherever the characters went there needed to be some sort of reason for why there was so much commonality despite the large geographic area. I decided to make an empire along the northern half of the continent (following the Giant's example) and that it had shrunk recently a little and was in a bit of a minor political snafu with its new empress (who was fierce, determined, and powerful but also close-minded, immature, and arbitrary) who was making bad decisions.

Her bad decisions had seen a major part of the country (roughly 1/4) attempting to break away. They had the advantage of geographic strengths and natural resources but lacked the manpower to decisively break away and thus were fighting to secede.

I continue around the continent eventually creating an autocracy, a large independent kingdom, a merchant republic, and a couple of smaller duchies and kingdoms that were kind of by themselves on isolated islands.

I eventually decided to go into some of the cultural heritages of these places and eventually created 5 major deities (An LG Valkyrie Paladin Goddess, a CG Moon Bard God, a TN Druidic Creator being of indeterminate gender, an LE Conqueror God akin to Tarquin in his serious moments, and a CE Goddess who might be best described as Bellatrix LeStrange with wings) and determined what some of the world's earliest heroes and figures look like, what they did, why they were famous, and what people remember them for doing (which is different than what they did).

A little bit after this, I decided that this was too ambitious for me for a first try. I kept the map but zoomed in on a particular province and decided to change the rules.

The players aren't going to be generic adventuring heroes going to save the day from the evil lich sorcerer of Trilsdale.

They're going to be the first sentient lifeforms made by the TN Druidic Creator being. They're going to be the participants in the world's Genesis as it were, and I intend for them to eventually become deities themselves with any of their choices affecting what future cultures and peoples look like.

One of them plays a woman whose 6'2" and another plays a man whose 5'4"? Natives of this world expect women to be taller.
Someone attempts to repay another character for breaking an item of theirs? The story evolves the idea of debt and punishment (and their limits).
Befriending a hungry wolf set as a challenge is really easy? Dogs are everywhere and they're really friendly.
World is saved by Zhang Wu the powerful and wise Monk? Future generations dedicate their lives to monasteries by the millions.
Someone struggles to light a torch in a hilarious way? Societies place great emphasis on learning how to make and maintain torchlight.

[Shining Wrath]

Start small and at level 1. Your characters aren't ready to take on the world yet. This means you need a city or two and to understand what characters can do at low levels, before they get into mind-boggling power.

Start with your first city or town or village and your first adventure. Why are the characters there? What's the town like?

So you decide the mayor is corrupt. Who corrupted him? Aha! You now have a bad guy or bad organization.

So there's an abandoned mine outside town. Why did they abandon it? Hey! You now have some history.

What's the racial composition of the town? Is it all humans? If so, why are there non-human PCs? Where did they come from? Zounds! You just got a start on some geography larger than your town.

Complex systems that work are made by combining simpler systems that work. This is a fundamental principle of large engineering projects, and it's good advice for DMs as well.

[eleazzaar]

If you've never done this before, i'd strongly recommend going with a pre-written adventure. The Lost Mines of Phaldelver is good and pretty cheap, but if money is an issue you can find and download third party adventures for free.

Worldbuilding is fun-- but until you have more experience playing or DMing you won't really know what sort of details are important for an adventure, and what are not, and how to try to guide your players along a certain path, and be ready for them going off the rails.

Being a good DM is a complex enough skillset to learn without simultaneously trying to learn how to write an adventure.

[Clistenes]

Well, you can always take a peek at this for inspiration:

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/212/8/8/the_only_fantasy_world_map____by_eotbeholder-d42b141.jpg

Most D&D typical worlds use variations of those countries:

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii521/Shibboleth/Generic%20DampD%20Map_zps5pjscgiz.jpg~original

Just seek some material around about those countries, change the names, and you have the basis for your first game. Don't try to make everything different or be very original the first time. Classic D&D worlds are popular for a reason, and your players still haven't gotten tired of classic D&D worlds.

For your pantheon, this is my advice:


I like to split the pantheon into branches, each with its own origin and traits:

-Elemental Gods: Basically big ass powerful ancient elementals, similar to Kossuth, Grumbar, Akadi and Itishia. They don't care much for worship, they don't need it to live or to be gods, but they get some extra power from it, so they will grant power to clerics who make rituals startling enough to make themselves noticed.

-Nature Gods: Animistic spirits, similar to Genius Loci, Oreads, Dryads and Theltors, only instead of being the spirit of a hill or a tree they are the spirit of Earth (Beory), the Sea (Soggelos), Atmosphere (Thor) or the Sun (Pelor). Just like Elemental Gods, these don't need worship to live or to be gods, but they need worship to remember their mortal followers and keep their human-like personalities. Pelor, for example, would slowly become a neutral, aloof deity without worship.

-Ethical Gods: Gods of Justice, Freedom, Tyranny, Wrath, Sin...etc. They are either ascended Outsiders (mostly ascended fiends like Orcus or Lolth) or Gestalt entities created when a whole host of Outsiders merge (mostly from the merging of a Celestial Host, like Maat, Goddess of Truth, Tyr, God of Justice, Rao, God of Peace...etc.). They are so strong as their Virtue or Sin, regardless of worship, but they use religion to advance their portfolio.

-Patrons of Mortal Activities: Gods of Crafts, Arts, Business, Travel, Marriage, War...etc. They are mostly ascended mortals who became worshiped after their demise or minor spirits ascended to true godhood. Good examples are Valkur, God of Ships, Hephestus, God of Blacksmithing and Metalworking. Ohgma, God of Knowledge...etc. They rose to godhood thanks to mortal worship, but now they depend mostly on the strength of their portfolio to keep their divinity.

-Deities of Life, Death, Destiny and Magic. A mysterious lot. They don't care too much for worship.

-Racial deities: Mostly ascended paragons, like Bahamut, Tiamat, Moradin...etc. They are very dependant on worship to keep their level of power.

I pick whatever deity fits better what I want, and modify them if necessary.

Use the Wheel Cosmology, changing the bits you don't like.

Once you have that base, start introducing your original ideas, what will make your world different. I'm sure you already have in your head a few places, NPCs, legends and stories that you wanted to use.

[mephnick]

Always meant to make a campaign based off of that parody map. It's so good.

Anyways, I think you're thinking too much, like others have said, start small.

Take Greon, the nation, and give it a simplistic description, eg. "Arabian trade nation" or "Coastal viking monarchy".

Now that you have a theme, make a town to start in. The town of Blahblah, a desert trade hub, or coastal fishing village. What's wrong with Blahblah? Are the fishing stocks low? Have the desert trade caravans supplying it dwindled from the east? There, you have a quest that ties into the theme of your country. Start the party there. Have them investigate the low fishing stock. Maybe it leads to a sahaguin cult. Maybe the disrupted desert caravans are being lured to fake city made of psionic sand people. Who knows?

I find it best to start big. Then go small and work your way back out. Map a continent, steal a map. Put some nations in it. Then pick a nation(Greon), put the party in a starting area, and flesh it out as your party explores it. Say a few months in they need to go to another country. Start the process again. You can work ahead if you really need to. You can drop hints that the neighbouring nation is a badass monk jade empire, but that's all you need to say for quite a while. Eventually this world will be fleshed out without you doing a whole lot of up front work.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Oh and donjon has some fantastic tools for generating maps, names, loot, etc.

Seriously, donjon is the business! Random prophesy generator? Check! Demographics calculator? Of course. Map-drawing machine? You betcha!

My advice to the OP is to start with a villain. The campaign I'm working on at the moment started with three or four rolls on the DMG's random villain tables and they just clicked in my mind as: "yes, this is brilliant! I could build a campaign around this!"

A compelling villain can drive everything else you need for an adventure. Also, since you'll be controlling/playing this villain in the game, it can help keep you focused and interested as you form a kind of relationship with them and want to explore the world through their eyes. Or is that just me...?

[AdamEternal]

Not what I expected, but some pretty good advice is here.

Now how do I make a map look good, is the next question. :/ I'll look into that part.

I'll try again. Thanks! (I'll go ahead and change the title, too.)

[Easy_Lee]

I support the steal option regarding maps, though I would change the word to "appropriate."

The first time I ran a campaign, I wanted to have my players go through an aqueduct beneath the town. I wanted it to be a sprawling, confusing labyrinth, but had no idea how to even start with the map. So I used the Qeynos Aqueducts from classic EQ instead, knowing that none of my players had ever played the game.


http://wiki.project1999.com/images/QeynosCats1.jpg

Once I had the map, all I had to do was decide on the scale, put some notes about where various creatures exist, and populate it with some stuff from the MM. It was simple and easy, and I was even able to give a handout when one of the players found a map on the corpse; turned out that the town had an ecologist who was trying to map the place out and catalog its inhabitants, before his untimely death at the hands of a necromancer who moved in and was trying to find ways to create ooze-undead hybrids.

[mephnick]

Now how do I make a map look good, is the next question. :/ I'll look into that part.

There is some decent software out there for making maps. Dunjinni, Campaign Cartographer, Photoshop.

They're expensive, but you can st...uh.."appropriate" them pretty easily.

One trick I learned if you need a city map, is to look at ancient maps of major cities. Florence, Moscow etc. Some of them even come in fancy old timey themes. Change the name and bam: new capital of Greon.

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/russia/moscow/maps/gottfried_1695_s.jpg

[AdamEternal]

There is some decent software out there for making maps. Dunjinni, Campaign Cartographer, Photoshop.

They're expensive, but you can st...uh.."appropriate" them pretty easily.

One trick I learned if you need a city map, is to look at ancient maps of major cities. Florence, Moscow etc. Some of them even come in fancy old timey themes. Change the name and bam: new capital of Greon.

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/russia/moscow/maps/gottfried_1695_s.jpg

I have Gimp, which is practically a free Photoshop. And I'm not very good with drawing by mouse. (Or touchpad, for that matter.)

I got Google Earth for inspiration, so I'm ahead of you there. Thanks for the suggestion anyway. :)


I think I've finally got a good map going. Here's how I'm doing it. In Gimp.

Step 1: On layer 1, I drew some "tectonic plates".

Step 2: On layer 2, which I named "0MAB" (for "zero million years after beginning") I drew one big land mass, then made it transparent.

Step 3: On layer 3, which I named "50MAB", I imagined the previous land mass breaking apart and interacting with the tectonic plate faults, moving about. (Note: I don't actually know how tectonic plates worked, but doesn't matter, the tectonic plates can be temporary.)

Step 4: Repeat step 3 somewhat. Make a new layer, name it "nMAB", with n representing the previous n plus 50, imagine the land moving about, interacting with the faults, maybe start an island or archipelago at a fault, etc. until you get to 300MAB or something. (Of course, you could stop whenever you wanted.)

Bonus: I also have an ice sheet layer and temperature layer.

Planned: Several label layers, an elevation layer, several civilisation-related layers, etc..

And the map looks great so far!

PS. I'm planning on the world having edges, for simplicity.

PS. (Again.) Once I've got a good map going, I may try to find someone willing to make a good-looking map. Maybe one for the PCs, and one for the DM (me).

[Brendanicus]

In terms of making encounters, ie: what you players are actually going to do, and deciding when people level up, I like to use this system:
Players should have to overcome 20 encounters in order to level up. Those encounters should be approximately as follows:

• 4 Standard Combats - Fights that should be just hard enough to get the players to think. Don’t try to kill them, just make them expend dailies and HP. Making twists for these encounters is recommended.

• 3 Easy Combats- Because the players have a right to feel powerful, and because if everything is too strong, it feels a bit contrived.

• 1 Epic Boss Battle- Plan on killing players, and making the setpieces epic. The fight could also have side objectives. There are many guides out there to making good boss fights. Look up The Angry DM in particular.

• 1 Bigger Fish- This should be a combat encounter that the players realize is too much for them to handle. Conveyance is key; try to have the antagonists be introduced in a way that clearly shows the players that they are screwed if they stand and fight. Just saying, “The monster is huge, looks terrifying, and has an ass-ton of magic gear” isn’t good enough. Ramping up the encounter’s difficulty over time is a good way to do this. Reintroducing a tougher version of a previous hard encounter is also a good way to do this. Watching the massive dragon burn down the capital, then fly towards the PCs is a good example.

• 2 Objective Combats- These should be just like the Standard Combats, but the players should have a goal past “kill/incapacitate the bad guys”. Perhaps they need to destroy a bridge, protect an NPC, or are fighting mid-chase. If you can’t come up with a specific objective, then at least make the combat have a BIG twist that fundamentally affects how players fight. (Players are waist-deep in rushing water; the fight takes place during a sandstorm; every cursed zombie felled causes two more to rise)

• 4 Skill Encounters- Anything that can’t be solved by hitting or talking to the thing. Stealth, tracking, traps, puzzles, navigating, breaking and entering, etc. Make interesting consequences should the players fail. Maybe they completely mess up the magical properties of an area, or the triggered chute trap separates the party. Of course, alerting the guards, having the room flood, or having the trap kill the rogue are classic consequences for a reason. Maybe failures lead to more difficult combat later on, such as the boss getting reinforcements or the ooze getting fed potions from the secret trap.

• 4 Social Encounters- Anything that can be solved via Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, bribery, and/or role-playing.

• 1 Friendly Encounter- Players should interact with genuine allies in a safe area on a semi-regular basis. They need a place to clean their wounds, unwind, get reliable quests from, get told how awesome they are, and sell loot. Downtime can also be RP time.


EDIT: Big piece of advice number 2: Don't focus on building a world first. Focus on building a compelling plot/adventure first. The world-building aspects will come with it.

[Shining Wrath]

In terms of making encounters, ie: what you players are actually going to do, and deciding when people level up, I like to use this system:
Players should have to overcome 20 encounters in order to level up. Those encounters should be approximately as follows:

• 4 Standard Combats - Fights that should be just hard enough to get the players to think. Don’t try to kill them, just make them expend dailies and HP. Making twists for these encounters is recommended.

• 3 Easy Combats- Because the players have a right to feel powerful, and because if everything is too strong, it feels a bit contrived.

• 1 Epic Boss Battle- Plan on killing players, and making the setpieces epic. The fight could also have side objectives. There are many guides out there to making good boss fights. Look up The Angry DM in particular.

• 1 Bigger Fish- This should be a combat encounter that the players realize is too much for them to handle. Conveyance is key; try to have the antagonists be introduced in a way that clearly shows the players that they are screwed if they stand and fight. Just saying, “The monster is huge, looks terrifying, and has an ass-ton of magic gear” isn’t good enough. Ramping up the encounter’s difficulty over time is a good way to do this. Reintroducing a tougher version of a previous hard encounter is also a good way to do this. Watching the massive dragon burn down the capital, then fly towards the PCs is a good example.

• 2 Objective Combats- These should be just like the Standard Combats, but the players should have a goal past “kill/incapacitate the bad guys”. Perhaps they need to destroy a bridge, protect an NPC, or are fighting mid-chase. If you can’t come up with a specific objective, then at least make the combat have a BIG twist that fundamentally affects how players fight. (Players are waist-deep in rushing water; the fight takes place during a sandstorm; every cursed zombie felled causes two more to rise)

• 4 Skill Encounters- Anything that can’t be solved by hitting or talking to the thing. Stealth, tracking, traps, puzzles, navigating, breaking and entering, etc. Make interesting consequences should the players fail. Maybe they completely mess up the magical properties of an area, or the triggered chute trap separates the party. Of course, alerting the guards, having the room flood, or having the trap kill the rogue are classic consequences for a reason. Maybe failures lead to more difficult combat later on, such as the boss getting reinforcements or the ooze getting fed potions from the secret trap.

• 4 Social Encounters- Anything that can be solved via Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, bribery, and/or role-playing.

• 1 Friendly Encounter- Players should interact with genuine allies in a safe area on a semi-regular basis. They need a place to clean their wounds, unwind, get reliable quests from, get told how awesome they are, and sell loot. Downtime can also be RP time.


5th edition, early levels, it's more like 5 or 10 encounters per level.

[Brendanicus]

5th edition, early levels, it's more like 5 or 10 encounters per level.
Now that you mention it, I should probably scale it down to a Rule of 15 for my game.

[AdamEternal]

In terms of making encounters, ie: what you players are actually going to do, and deciding when people level up, I like to use this system:
Players should have to overcome 20 encounters in order to level up. Those encounters should be approximately as follows:

• 4 Standard Combats - Fights that should be just hard enough to get the players to think. Don’t try to kill them, just make them expend dailies and HP. Making twists for these encounters is recommended.

• 3 Easy Combats- Because the players have a right to feel powerful, and because if everything is too strong, it feels a bit contrived.

• 1 Epic Boss Battle- Plan on killing players, and making the setpieces epic. The fight could also have side objectives. There are many guides out there to making good boss fights. Look up The Angry DM in particular.

• 1 Bigger Fish- This should be a combat encounter that the players realize is too much for them to handle. Conveyance is key; try to have the antagonists be introduced in a way that clearly shows the players that they are screwed if they stand and fight. Just saying, “The monster is huge, looks terrifying, and has an ass-ton of magic gear” isn’t good enough. Ramping up the encounter’s difficulty over time is a good way to do this. Reintroducing a tougher version of a previous hard encounter is also a good way to do this. Watching the massive dragon burn down the capital, then fly towards the PCs is a good example.

• 2 Objective Combats- These should be just like the Standard Combats, but the players should have a goal past “kill/incapacitate the bad guys”. Perhaps they need to destroy a bridge, protect an NPC, or are fighting mid-chase. If you can’t come up with a specific objective, then at least make the combat have a BIG twist that fundamentally affects how players fight. (Players are waist-deep in rushing water; the fight takes place during a sandstorm; every cursed zombie felled causes two more to rise)

• 4 Skill Encounters- Anything that can’t be solved by hitting or talking to the thing. Stealth, tracking, traps, puzzles, navigating, breaking and entering, etc. Make interesting consequences should the players fail. Maybe they completely mess up the magical properties of an area, or the triggered chute trap separates the party. Of course, alerting the guards, having the room flood, or having the trap kill the rogue are classic consequences for a reason. Maybe failures lead to more difficult combat later on, such as the boss getting reinforcements or the ooze getting fed potions from the secret trap.

• 4 Social Encounters- Anything that can be solved via Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, bribery, and/or role-playing.

• 1 Friendly Encounter- Players should interact with genuine allies in a safe area on a semi-regular basis. They need a place to clean their wounds, unwind, get reliable quests from, get told how awesome they are, and sell loot. Downtime can also be RP time.


EDIT: Big piece of advice number 2: Don't focus on building a world first. Focus on building a compelling plot/adventure first. The world-building aspects will come with it.

This sounds good. I'll keep this in mind. However, if this formula is always kept to, a noticeable pattern may eventually appear to some eyes, so I'll try to not stick to it too toughly. :smallwink:


5th edition, early levels, it's more like 5 or 10 encounters per level.

I'll also keep this advice in mind.

[Inchoroi]

Any chance you can afford to buy the DMG for 5e? It's an amazing tool for designing adventures as well as nations and the campaign world.

[Brendanicus]

Oh, I just read that you've never played D&D before, and I'm assuming that this is your first tabletop ever.

Look, don't worry about making a big adventure for your first time at the table. Work your way up.

Grab your friends for your first session and say, "Make a bunch of characters, then you're just going to fight a bunch of monsters. No plot, just fighting." Keep it simple but interesting, maybe some Orcs, a dragon, or an evil adventuring party. Call it a tutorial for everyone, yourself included.

When that's over, maybe one day you can make an adventure with a plot that lasts for one session, like an adventure to slay a dragon. Along the way, the party has to march through the lands of an angry orc tribe, and get ambushed by a group of evil, glory-hungry adventurers who wants the dragon's hoard for themselves.

Once you've gotten a handle on very short plots, you can make an adventure with a big, epic, long plot.

Don't think you have to make a big adventure right from the get-go. You're inexperienced, and so presumably are your friends. You'll have fun. Don't put any pressure on yourself. DMing for the first time is a pain in the ass even if you DO know the system.

[Piscivorous]

Not what I expected, but some pretty good advice is here.

Now how do I make a map look good, is the next question. :/ I'll look into that part.

I'll try again. Thanks! (I'll go ahead and change the title, too.)

Join the Cartographer's Guild. Between the maps, tutorials, pdfs and advice you'll be making high quality maps in no time. There are a lot of tutorials regarding GIMP, Photoshop and many other tools. I'm using Photoshop and when I started, I was lucky to be able to draw lines and circles.

[AdamEternal]

Any chance you can afford to buy the DMG for 5e? It's an amazing tool for designing adventures as well as nations and the campaign world.
I actually can't afford anything. I'm stuck with whatever's free. The DM and player guides on the official site give you the required rules, right? So then anything else needed I'll homebrew myself, or get from the D&D Wiki?


Oh, I just read that you've never played D&D before, and I'm assuming that this is your first tabletop ever.

Look, don't worry about making a big adventure for your first time at the table. Work your way up.

Grab your friends for your first session and say, "Make a bunch of characters, then you're just going to fight a bunch of monsters. No plot, just fighting." Keep it simple but interesting, maybe some Orcs, a dragon, or an evil adventuring party. Call it a tutorial for everyone, yourself included.

When that's over, maybe one day you can make an adventure with a plot that lasts for one session, like an adventure to slay a dragon. Along the way, the party has to march through the lands of an angry orc tribe, and get ambushed by a group of evil, glory-hungry adventurers who wants the dragon's hoard for themselves.

Once you've gotten a handle on very short plots, you can make an adventure with a big, epic, long plot.

Don't think you have to make a big adventure right from the get-go. You're inexperienced, and so presumably are your friends. You'll have fun. Don't put any pressure on yourself. DMing for the first time is a pain in the ass even if you DO know the system.
Well, I've been kicked out of school for a while, so I have time. Thanks for the advice anyway. I guess I'll make a few extra one-offs as well. If I wasn't kicked, I'd thank you even more for the advice. ^_^

I can't wait 'till I move out. Then I'd have all the time I would need.