New to DM'ing, Need help?

[dragonspit999]

So it's not a major issue, but I'm new to DM'ing, as in this will be my first game, and I'm doing it with close friends, but they have all mostly played D&D before, so their expectations are up there. I do not want to disappoint, and have been brainstorming ideas for my "campaign", but I can't exactly ask them about their ideas on the subject... That would ruin the story. So here I've come, to spill my hours-on-hours of storystorming onto you guys, in hopes somebody can help me sort things out, or add ideas, or whatever else you think might help.

Now, I haven't made any stats or anything yet, but I plan on using the donjon generator to generate my three dungeons, or at least the shape and such. If you have any better ideas for that, shoot, but the generator looks really nice. Also, I'm sticking to core 5e. I don't want to add any of the expansions classes or such for my first game. I want to see my DM'ing in its natural habitat before expanding. If this goes well, maybe we'll see where it goes. Either way, without further ado:

Possible Plots:

- Side Quest Ideas

> To go stop a bar fight
* Barkeep runs from bar/tavern to tell of fight
* Asks anybody to stop it and promises free drinks if you do
* Two very large men are duking it in the middle of the bar
* Everybody else has left or is hiding behind tables
* Men demand party fights them to make them stop
* Easy to beat, opener of city's quest
* Gives citizens a reason to trust

> Quest Board
* Clearing out rats for gold
- Someone's basement is loaded with rats
- Small reward
* Plant collection quest
- Collect so many of ____ (She only needs 5, but will take up to 15)
- Easy to find, but only in one spot
- In middle of woods, hard to spot during day
- Easy to spot at night, but much harder to survive in woods at night
- Glowing plants
- Small to Medium to Medium-Large reward
* A love triangle
- Letter written by wife to go discover husbands doings
- Letter says to check around
- People say to check with [insert lovers name here]'s workplace
* She works at the local meadery
* In the woods away from town
- If party goes to tell wife now, wife gets mad with no evidence
* She sends them to go find who this lover is and confront her for the reward
- Party finds meadery, but no [insert name here]
- Told to go to her house, back in town
- Party finds her there, with the wife
- If party confronts lover in front of wife, both get mad
* Wife fires you from job
* Party can continue to find the lover, but with smaller or no reward
- If party doesn't confront her, they find her later with the husband
* Party can tell wife what they seen for a medium reward
* Party can confront lover and husband, husband offers a large reward to tell wife it was just rumors
- Wife will believe it and give small reward
- Wife will give large reward if told of her husband's adultery
* Escorting someone (important?) at night through the city
- Insert group of assassins?
* Are all really illusions
* If captured, they simply fade away into purple fog and dissipate
* Not hard to fight, hard to capture
* Gives players hints of what the purple fog means
* Escortee has no idea about the illusions
- Fair reward
* Fetch Quest
- Read below
- Promises large reward, but much, much danger

- Search for Book of [insert cool dark magic book title here] ("Fetch" quest)
> Could use dungeon generator for this
> Fetch magic book
* Similar to Tom Riddle's diary/journal
* Magic writing on its own
* Tells a riddle of the teleporting dungeon
- In another language, only be translate by an NPC
> Person dead to cultists when party goes to deliver
* No large reward besides the book itself
> Maybe in a cave, with Kobolds?

- Teleporting Dungeon LV 1
> Teleports into middle of town (maybe out of town, but nearby)
* Only after the Book is collected
> City is cursed
* If players try to leave, they walk for 3 days into purple fog to find themselves back at the city.
> Teleporting Dungeon requires a riddle answer to enter
* Talking Gargoyle heads on the entrance require answer to move
> Party figures out the riddle, goes to stop necromancer
* People in town send party to a spiritual hermit
* Hermit lives in a cottage on the largest hill nearby the town
* Hermit decodes the riddle
> Skeletons and Zombies (Undead Dragons, obviously (maybe small versions?))
* Room before necromancer is a large skeletal Cerberus-style dog, chained to the floor next to the door
* Party has to fight dog to get through door
> Last room, fight necromancer

- Necromancer
> Head boss of the Teleporting Dungeon
* He gives up immediatley
* Hes innocent, was trapped by cultists
* Party has to stop the cultists

- Dark Magic / Cultists
> Plot twist with necromancer as head of TD
* They were really controlling the dungeon
* The dungeon is a religious ordeal used for sacrificing to the gods
* It happens annually, as a kind of Purge ordeal, but only for travelers or adventurers
- People in the town are super afraid of it
- Nobody will ever go near it, because nobody has ever come out, only gone in
* They attempt to sacrifice the party when the party finds out
* Knocks out the party, leaves them inside the dungeon to fend for themselves
- Uses magic gaseous forms to knock out party
- Party is left inside Teleporting Dungeon again, only bigger and better
* Party has to escape and stop the cultists (or not)
> One has majorly high-level spell book, used for the dungeon illusion and hiding the castle of dark magic
* So no super-high level sorcerer or wizard is around to fight

- Teleporting Dungeon LV 2
> More dangerous, higher level and more plentiful monsters
> Rooms have changed, same look, different layout (Except new dark purple fog around certain doors...)
* This fog can be seen through with the magic book, if used here.
* Appears to be regular wall with fog
* Is actually doors to secret rooms in which some contain loot and some contain monsters
> Dark and evil magic abound all over
> Next to no loot, but that on monsters
> Loaded with traps

> End-of-story castle-like dungeon, all illusionary
* Very large, tough, large rewards
* Group of nine cultists as bosses in dungeon
* Last one is main boss
* Book is destroyed when last guy dies, linked to his soul
* Each is in a different room, containing a key
- Other than the two large men
* Main door with 8 keyholes in main room
* Leads to last boss guy
* 9 cultists
- Guy who decoded riddle
- Lover of love triangle
- The barkeep maid
- One looks oddly like the necromancer, only much older
* Necromancer's father
- The escortee's sister, sent the assassins
- The two large men who were bar fighting
- The rats-in-the-basement questgiver
- The main boss, who wields the book
* All in black cloaks, fully covered, shadowed hoods
* Before each fight, they flip their hoods back to reveal who they are
- And maybe say something witty about how the party knows them


- Town rewards you for your valiant efforts, access to approx. ___ gp worth of things from each place
> Their only way of reawrding party
> Maybe just one thing from each place?



Also, my one of my players dared me to add in a fat elf, but he/she doesn't fit into the story, so what's a humorous way to add a fat elf into a small town or such?

[Alejandro]

Don't worry too much about the story, especially starting out. Your players are never going to uncover, discover, or care about as much of your storyline as you do. Just run with what happens, and see what they enjoy the most.

[FlourescentKing]

My advice would be to take some awesome, unique NPC characters and throw them in whenever it would make sense while running along the path the players choose to follow. Perhaps also choose to make recurring characters out of that random NPC the characters, for some reason, engage in a detailed conversation with.
Another idea is to think of an awesome concept and, as before, introduce it when you want to. From what you said, this seems like a mostly sandbox campaign with a bunch of possible paths to follow; thus, rather than plan each one out entirely, have some things that could work for multiple paths.
If you want your characters to be interested, make NPCs quirky, mysterious, with their own unique personality, and make enemies work in mind-boggling ways. For example, my friend (who had never DM'ed before either) wanted to run a brief 20th level campaign. All our characters were minor deities, with their own unique items, abilities, and enhancements (I was the "God of Consumption," a moon druid who could wildshape into anything he ate that had a mouth). Because our characters were very, very strong, the enemies were almost mind-bogglingly more so. We fought a purple dragon who turned all our spells and abilities against us, we fought hyper-intelligent oozes coating an entire dungeon interior controlled by a massively powerful demilich....As a player, I would strongly recommend to stay away from enemies who are much more powerful, and instead go for average to even weaker enemies with tactics and a battle plan (think Tucker's Kobolds :smallsmile:).
Now, all of this advice may be completely terrible and I might have no idea what I'm doing....do what you feel is the most fun.

[Daishain]

Perhaps the number one rule of being a DM is: Be flexible

This is important for several reasons. It is said that in warfare, the battle plan is the first casualty. Much the same can be said for DM campaigns. Perhaps your players are getting bored of your city intrigue and want to go hit things (or vice versa). Perhaps the group figured out where the story was going and killed your BBEG six sessions before his scheduled big reveal. Or perhaps they didn't figure out or weren't interested in your plot hook and went sailing off to become pirate.

With this in mind, I like to set up a timeline of significant events. IE, these things will happen if the future is unaltered, these are critical points that our rogue variables (the players) can interfere at, and these are the consequences of that interference. Bear in mind that the players interfering in an antagonist's plans won't always have an exclusively positive impact. For instance, if prevented from harvesting souls of the recently departed at a cemetery for his dastardly plan, the BBEG may instead resort to the quicker and messier method of ripping what he needs from the village over yonder. Or maybe that cult doing the human sacrifices were all that was keeping a demon imprisoned.

Furthermore, its a big world, with lots of things going on "off stage". Most campaigns have room for just one world ending threat (at least in the short run), but a lot of smaller items can occur along the way, and they don't have to exist in a vacuum. Players chose to root out corruption in the city guard? While they were busy with that, the road bandits they'd heard of before have effectively cut off nearly all trade with their raids and have been hiring extra muscle with the revenue. Prices of everything has gone up, and the people are suffering.

Then there's recycling. Plan out a whole dungeon run, but it never happens? Shift things over to another locale, change details as necessary, and you're ready to go

[dragonspit999]

Thanks for the help, guys! I guess that I can try and make this a bit more flexible, and reuse what I can if it doesn't get used. Thanks for the fair warning. I figured it was a factor, but after 3 people posted with the same essential tip, I'm going to be much more prepared to be less prepared, in a way. Hopefully, even if they leave the town or such, I can still use the teleporting dungeon idea. If anything, I'll throw in a more over-arcing threat if they leave the town or burn it down, etc. Maybe I'll get lucky, though, and they'll follow a nice, laid path, but that's just being wishful.

Again, thanks so much. I'll come here if I need help ever again. (It might be soon, too, as I've already got 2 of the 3 players' characters.)

Would you guys suggest 3 or 4 players for a starting game? Or would you suggest more or less? All are people I know pretty well so far, and are creative and flexible, so hopefully who I have so far will work out pretty well.

[Typewriter]

What I do for planning a campaign is 3 simple things. First off - I plan a vague outline of the campaign. Just like, a one page writeup that sort of details what I think the structure of the game is going to look like. Something like:

Start in town - party does whatever they like for a while
-Find out about orcs collecting 'taxes'
--Party should seek out the orcs hideout
---Party finds out that the orcs have a lot of corpses
---Also, take a plot hook from a players backstory and have a clue leading to it here that will take them to a nearby town
-Players do stuff. Involve them in a murder mystery.
--Murder mystery leads party to hide out where corpses are being horded again

Very vague, very generic stuff like this. Lots of room for side-adventures, distractions, player personal quests are tied in at various points, lots of plot hooks in lots of different locations all lead to a similar location (why are bad guys hording bodies?).

Then, for a session, I write up a 'plan' for how I expect it to go. I write half a page that just sort of describes a few NPCs and a few lines of descriptive text for various places.

So that first line, 'Find out about orcs collecting 'taxes'', becomes:
You all currently reside in the town of loft. Loft is a town built near a lake which is famous for being home to a magic academy. Despite the fame of the academy Loft itself remains a small and quiet place. One thing that it does have going for it is that it's on the road to everywhere. Why are you all here?

*Let players answer questions, write down results*

Have players do misc. tasks - they can find work or just hang around doing whatever for a while. General activities, nothing major. Introduce a character named 'Janey' a friendly local who helps the party out now and again and another named 'Tom' who thinks the party is cool. Go back to these NPCs a few times.
After a day or so, the players are hired to do some work - kill some goblins, find a missing person. When they return the townsfolk are upset. Don't push the issue.
Give the players another day or so to do things, have NPCs mention being low on money.
If by this point the party hasn't' investigated and learned of Orcs have someone hire them to help with the situation.
Orcs are due back in town for more taxes after a week, so a couple days remain.
How does the party prepare for the Orcs return?
Do they have anything they want to do before the Orcs return?

When the Orcs return there are 6 of them, one of them is particularly big and will run away when the PCs attack. If he gets away the party will be told that he's probably going to get help and they should pursue him. If they kill him they find a map to his hideout. During the battle the NPC that the party liked the most is either killed or captured.



That's about half a page of writing, but what it turns into is a four hour adventure. I only plan out 2 NPCs for this starting town, but the players are talking to a gravedigger and an innkeeper and asking about the magic school. They're building contacts with merchants passing through or stuff like that. If they don't care about the plot hooks then they don't care about them and I update my plans accordingly. My intentions for 'small starting quests' turn into the discovery of a student who went crazy and went missing a few years ago - the party is very interested in that thing I made up on the spot, but not the Orcs - at that point the missing mage becomes part of the story and gets written into my original plot outline.

By modifying my plan a few times over the first few sessions it slowly becomes tailored to what the party likes and dislikes. I didn't plan the big bad guy at the beginning of the campaign, maybe it could have been a dark god collecting corpses for necromancy, but now because the party is interested in this mage the big bad guy is going to wind up being a wizard building flesh golems and that missing mage is his apprentice. Maybe the party will try to 'save' him or kill him.

So, in short, I like to have an outline, but my outline starts vague and minimal. I like to make plans, but the plans are a generalized, "this is what NPCs are doing" where as the importance is in "what the PCs are doing" and that should always take priority. That doesn't mean that stuff that's supposed to happen doesn't happen, it just means that it doesn't have to be the focus of the plot. The town doesn't have gold to pay the taxes and the party ignored that quest and went to do something else - maybe when they get back they find a lot of people in town dead? Nothing wrong with that.

[Brendanicus]

Keep it solid and simple.

Ideally, for your first campaign, run a module for 4-5 sessions and see how it goes. There are three great things about modules, especially if you are fresh behind the screen. First, provide the new DM with a lot of structure and direction. Secondly, if things go wrong, your players will probably blame the module before they blame you. Third, modules nonetheless provide a new DM with ways to be creative. Once you've got a session or two under your belt, feel free to tweak encounters or NPC's in order to practice putting your own spin on thr game.

However, if you don't want to run a module (Which I strongly recommend you do), I recommend keeping a simple plot. That doesn't necessarily mean a dumbed-down game, simple plots like "Orcs invade" or "Go slay a dragon" can be executed quite well with a lot of nuance. Relying on cliches as a foundation for something greater is a great method to allow you to get your hands dirty with plot-writing and encounter design. You shouldn't, for example, write an epic mythology for your setting if it won't come up in your low-level game, or write some plot about how it's the Dead Age of Magic and spellcasters are illegal and Dwarves went extinct, for example. Keep it simple so you and your players have an initial sense of direction.

Finally, someone above posted the advice of "Introduce cool NPC's" which I disagree with. I've seen a few new DM's misconstrue that kind of advice as, "Make a few scenes that showcase a new NPC as opposed to advancing a the plot, or giving the players stuff to do aside from listen to/buy stuff from said NPC." Remember that it's only a social encounter if the players spend their time trying to solve a problem, as opposed to going to an NPC for help/advice/merchandise. I'm not saying to never include social scenes, but bear in mind that social encounters work differently.

Best of luck! If you want to bounce any ideas you may have off of me, feel free to PM.

[Ninja_Prawn]

It is said that in warfare, the battle plan is the first casualty.

The phrases you're looking for are "truth is the first casualty of war" and "no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy".

The point about flexibility in DMing is fair, but I'm afraid those sayings don't necessarily back it up.

[Celcey]

The best piece of advice I can give you is this: be prepared to improve, because no plan survives contact with the PCs.

Having a few random odds and ends on hand to help out- level appropriate treasure halls, small encounters, dungeons, and NPCs- will definitely help out though.

[MBControl]

You have the perfect opportunity to start DM'ing. Close friends with experience. They should be helping you to make the technical side run smoother. They best thing I learned starting out, is to have strong understanding of the basic story points, but not all the details, because the more you have planned, the less flexible you are as DM. I had heard in a DM panel at PAX that as a DM you are helping to tell the players story, so you must remain flexible.

Focus your prep on the little things. Prepare your encounters well, and know your mechanics well. For example random encounters, know your stats for the bad guys, if you have a chandelier in the room, know how much damage it will do if it falls on a PC etc. These things help keep pace of the game, and regardless of the story you tell, your players will stay more engaged. Their is nothing more boring than the game stopping every 15 minutes for the DM to roll up some numbers or look up creature stats. This will happen often anyway, so the more you can remove those moments, the better it is for your party, and the more you can concentrate on the narrative.

Most importantly, make stuff up. a lot. Just make sure it's intuitive. If their is ever a rules question that you don't know, or your players can't assist with, picture the situation, and use the story to determine a result. I think every DM and player group has a difficult time with the way the grapple mechanic works in 5e, so our group makes situational rules for grapple all the time. Just make it make sense.

[Daishain]

The phrases you're looking for are "truth is the first casualty of war" and "no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy".

The point about flexibility in DMing is fair, but I'm afraid those sayings don't necessarily back it up.
It has been said by many people in many different ways, including the wording I chose. But that's largely beside the point. The saying is relevant to DMing for much the same reason it is a truth of warfare. Battle plans are volatile because it is impossible to account for all of the factors involved. One can plan based upon the major details one is aware of and thus minimize the chances of things going completely screwy, but anything that is unknown ahead of time or too small to factor in will skew the results. As a result, any competent commander must learn how to use flexibility to deal with uncertainty.

In DMing, you have the same problem. There are fewer variables outside of one's control, but those variables have also much more influence than normal, and can be considerably less predictable than, for instance, an enemy commander.

[McNinja]

The deck of many things. Don't do it. Ever.