Just ran a first game, any advice?

[Protato]

I'm wondering how to avoid railroading, I notice that I've done it a fair bit, or at least I think I do. Here's how my last session I ran went, and a bit of information to contextualize it.

First session of a new game played on Roll20, players are level 3 but everyone has high stats + some sort of boon (flying mount, angelic familiar, deck of illusions, pauldron that gives an extra 1d4 healing when the wearer is healed in battle). The setting isn't all that fleshed out but it involves two countries, Valace and Lebraguia, being at war with one another.

Lebraguia, the antagonist faction, has a more magical element to it, with magical infantry almost as common as martial infantry. The Lebraguian govenment, and people as a whole, worship the dragons they revere as creator god, with a religion/military group called the Draco Progeny, and the ultimate goal of its members is to become a dragon, a feat that hasn't been performed before. Valace is more martially focused, with a good standard of living due to an abundance of people, resources, and education. I haven't developed it much but I'm thinking of giving them a celestial theme somehow, with a focus on sun and moon especially.

The story proper beings when a young Valacian general, Albrecht, has been pulled away from the (as of yet unnamed) capital city of Valace and into a fort in the bustling, but smaller, city of Hullbeck (Greenrest but renamed). From there, the party's first stop was going into a small, burned-out home. The only thing intact was a cabinet made of Ironwood (I didn't expect anyone to ask why the cabinet was still intact so I came up with the answer on the fly), which held a teabrick with three servings left in it. The party then met a woman burying her family, who were burned alive in the house by a Lebraguian commander named Petyr, a draconic Sorcerer. The party Cleric was introduced in this scene, helping her bury the dead, and the party joined in. The party decided they wanted to go after Petyr.

The next scene was the first encounter. A Lebraguian camp, set up to intercept Valacian reinforcements (i.e the party) appeared before them. The Lebraguians didn't know who the party was, and even asked if the party had seen the reinforcements, to which the Cleric said no. This one, somewhat sympathetic soldier remarked about how he didn't like what Petyr had done, but his comrades chastised him for it. The Bard ended up sneaking up on an enemy and started a fight however, and when the only the sympathetic soldier was remaining, the cleric interrogated him before killing him. Something I think is worth noting, is that the soldier's answers were all truthful, and that I came up with he and his friend's personalities on the spot.

Next was a short scene, a small walk in the woods. It was meant to be an ambush with two crows becoming Druids and calling for backup. However, I had decided that since no witnesses from the last battle would have gone back to report, no ambush would take place. I may still have the crows act as enemy spies, but that could be a bit cheap. Either way, the next fight was circumvented completely by one of the players using a Deck of Illusions and drawing a Lich, terrifying all the enemies into retreating. I adlibbed something about the soldiers leaving behind gold and personal letters. Finally, the players managed to reach the fort, where I was to introduce the party to NPCs, but then one of my players' internet started failing and we'd decided we'd gone far enough.

I know this rather long and I apologize, but is there anything you think I could have done better? Are there any aspects of the story I should elaborate on? Or the setting? And finally, the dreaded railroading. My party kind of wanted to go and fight Petyr right away but I hadn't intended that to happen this session, I intended for him to be fought a few sessions later as a sort of story arc boss, and I feel a bit bad for not allowing my players more freedom. With all this in mind, I thank anyone who read this far in, and I hope for your advice in helping me to become a better GM.

[Drayelock]

Hey there! Congrats on running your first game, it sounded like fun! Pretty much any new GM will lean a bit heavier on railroading just because DMing can be a pretty tough thing to get a grasp on from the get-go and just like it takes a bit for players to really "get into their characters" it can take a few sessions for you to feel comfortable.

There really is only two ways to make a game less railroaded though there is some expectation of it in DnD compared to other roleplaying games so it may not be quite as big of a deal.

The first way I don't recommend as it is a lot of work but if you've a lot of spare time or don't mind running through many scenarios that will not get used, you can try and anticipate every major decision or reaction the party will have to your quests. You will have to plan the more mundane things like if they go to the Sparkling Cave instead of the Drowned Manor what monsters inhabit it, what treasure is there, what traps, the atmosphere, the background of the area, etc. The reason this option is rough is because you put in a lot of work for the Drowned Manor if they choose never to go there plus you can never quite fully predict everything a party will do, but you can cover a lot of what they may do.

The other way is to just keep DMing and to flesh out your own world. If you know your world real well, the motivations of major factions and NPC's you can generally come up with decent "on the fly" solutions if a party decides to do something you did not foresee. The problem from not railroading is you get afraid of letting the players do something of impact because it could topple your story if they circumvent a step. By really knowing your world well you can make quick adaptations in your head to bridge the gap between what they just did and what you were thinking they would do. The key though is to make sure the players do have an impact on your world, I've yet to meet a player that does not enjoy leaving their mark in a setting.

Lastly, one of the best things I've learned is to never make your "Macguffin" rely on a dice roll. For instance if your party needs to find some magical key in order to unlock a dungeon door and it is the only way to get the door open, do not put the key somewhere that will require a Perception check as if the whole party fails it...you basically have to just give it to them anyway and that breaks immersion. Instead make the key found without a die roll, or let there be a die roll to find it but there can be other solutions to get the dungeon door open and finding the key would of made it easier. A bonus for finding the key, but still doable if they don't so the story moves on regardless.

It sounds like you already were making ad hoc actions in response to player actions you did not predict which is great! Being a DM is a balance of storytelling, writer, actor, and improvisation. The best way to improve really is to just keep DMing and you'll get more and more comfortable.

[VisionsOfGlory]

It's always great when someone starts to DM and your campaign sounds very interesting :)

Railroading isn't a bad thing, and you can make something that is technically a Railroad seem like its not. You could make out Petyr to be a 'really' big bad, have NPCs say how strong he is and give your group ways to become Stronger and prepare themselves for the fight.

An old group of mine wanted to go fight a God straight away, so I distracted them with other tasks they needed to complete to get into where the God was. Like obtaining disguses, but what use are disguses if you don't know how the acolytes act? In my experience, which might not be the standard thought, is after working to get to the fight when you finally do defeat the big bad it's more satisfying. It makes the fight more memorable.

Your story sounds great, and well thought out. But like Drayelock said don't try and plan every little scenario out, you'll run yourself ragged. Because it seems you've put a lot of thought into this world, improvisation is something you can use. And never be afraid to tell players you need a couple minutes just to think. You've already done some improv, which is great. I hated it when I started DMing.

My last piece of Advice is sometimes just asking the Player's what they thought after a session can give you some of the best feedback. Ask them what they'd like to see next, or encourage a bit of roleplay while their PCs are sat in a tavern, or at the campfire.

I said last Piece of Advice, but this just sprung to mind. Character Backstories can be a blessing (also a curse), using their backstories you can encourage them to do something. Say you had a Fighter who's sister was killed by a low-level officer, so he obviously wants revenge but this low-level officer might have some information that's crucial to the campaign. Unless your characters have lead very happy and fulfilling lives.

[Sir cryosin]

My advice is try a hole lot of different things to find what works for you and your group. Here is a not so Secret secret don't prep a lot. You don't need or will ever use every NPC in a city. You don't need the hole world flushed out.

My DM style is all improvisation. I come up with a encounter like. This is from my new campaign two of my players have been discharged from the military but are still knights of the kingdom. So they were givin a mission to hire some merc's or adventurous (getting my other 2 pc in). Then they are to head to a nameless village to find out why people and live stock is going missing. I know that the problem they are going to go solve. They are going to need to be level 2 or 3 to take on the encounter I have thought up. So they need xp what would they encounter along the way. Oh bandits so I throw 5
4 bandits and a bandit leader at them ( deadly encounter BTW) the 4 use crossbows and leader a special longsword. Now I tend to run deadly encounters but my enemy's provoke a lot of attacks of opportunities. There was a cool fight scene with one pc fighting the leader onto of a downed tree. One pc chased down a fleeing bandit. Then when the leader tried to flee the paladin that untel now wasn't doing anything because the merc pc was fighting the leader and the paladin wanted a duel. So the leader calls form his horse. Jumps down and try ed to ride off. The paladin said oh no you don't. She tell me that she has her horse jump over the tree and she going to cut the saddle straps on the leader horse. I said OK first give me a animal handling check because these are riding horses and not jumpers. DC was 15 she fails so I said OK now give me a attack roll at disadvantage she rolled pretty high. So I said OK heres what happen as the leader jumps onto the back of his horse you push your horse into a sprint and jump over the tree. The horse leg catches on the tree and go's into a flip throwing you from the saddle. The lands with a broken leg and a bad wound it's dying right now. But you look up finding yourself prone next to the leader's horse take 4 damage (I rolled a d6) you swing your sword cutting the saddle straps. The leader fall and his horse takes off into the woods. She gives him a little speech and then finish him off. They to there body looting and talking I give them the xp seeing that they were short some xp to level up I tell them that they come across a few wolf's in the next few day giving them xp to level up. So they level to 2nd level and find coming to the village. I do a little improvise rp with a teen and my Cthulhu pact bladelock pc. The boy tell him that he found well took a weird book. The paladin starts thinking maybe the people going missing is do to this kid. So was the paladin is having a town meeting with the villages she has the rest of the party invastgate the village which is only like 20 people here. The kid doesn't go to the town meet but follows the warlock pc and shows him the book which just turns out to be a H.p Lovecraft story book. So the world K go's off on how Cthulhu is great and what not. They find a few more clues and that were we ended it for the night. All of that was improvise right there at the table. All I had ready was the Monk and paladin are given a mission to solve something going on in a village. When the party get to the village they invastagate miss and murder people they find a hidden abandoned castle and have a encounter there solving the mission.

So like I was saying I come up with cool encounters and put fit them into the narrative as we create it. I tend to let my players go were they want. But they always run into a encounter I come up with. The way I look at DMing is players are driving a car on a road they can turn right, left, forward, backwards. But it me that tells them what they see out the windows and what's up ahead.

The part of DMing I had a rough time with was description of what going on around them. Untel after watching and thinking about how one of my favorite DM's run his game's Adam from Roleplay ( Court of Swords, Nebula Jazz, etc). The was he describe scenes and what's going on with players and NPCs. Is like you watching a movie or TV show.

[Protato]

Thank you for the advice everyone! I have a few more ideas I was hoping to get feedback from.

I was hoping for there to be a fight at the fort. Enemy Warlocks cast Silence to muffle the sounds of their Eldritch Blasts as they fire at the walls to create an opening after an enemy Druid becomes a spider and kills the sentries outside. From there, a Gryphon (encountered earlier but escaped when the Lich illusion appeared) and his master, another Druid, swoop in and attack. From there, people swarm into the holes opened up by the blasts, leading to a big battle.

Sometime after this, the building has to repaired, and I was thinking a good setup would be to have a group with a Wizard join the fort and fix the walls, possibly introducing a friend's PC, he didn't have a PC ready, plus internet problems, when the first session began. I was planning to have the Wizard be an enemy spy, however, and from there attempting to sabotage the party. I'm not sure what he could do, exactly, but I was thinking he could, say, try and lead the party astray, swipe notes and other document, and otherwise sap the party's efforts. I'd also want for this wizard to have some sort of tell. Maybe the actual wizard sent to repair the fort could appear later and the party realizes the wizard sent to "help" earlier was an impostor.

Finally, I was thinking that when the party finally gets to march on Petyr and his forces, they could run into a few things on the way. One idea is, its getting dark and raining a day or two into the march. The party, needing shelter, is directed to a cave, or ruin, or similar, or maybe even a creepy old man running a tavern in the middle of nowhere. From there, things go south. In the cave, I was planning to have a group of cave dwelling monsters (not sure which) ambush and attack the party. Ruins, well, why not undead? Maybe some Lebraguian soldiers were exploring and they died in there, reanimating as zombies again? For the old man's home, maybe he could try to assault the party with illusions, not causing damage but instead trying to warp their minds with fear. Perhaps he could be a powerful magic-user trying to gain an army of thralls, and it'd be cool if I could somehow not have a fight with him. Instead, he escapes and harangues the party throughout the journey.

As you can probably tell, I'm putting a good amount of emphasis on battle, and I'd like to include more peaceful encounters. Maybe there could be a peaceful session or encounter or two to break up the fighting, but what could I do for it? I want at least three games before reaching renamed-Parnast and fighting Petyr (who's encounter I still have to plan out). The one with seeking shelter could be one of them, and maybe for the second there could be an eccentric magic item salesman, willing to give discounts on things...but only if the players can solve some sort of difficult task. Additionally, what about an encounter where the goal is to scout around for the enemy? One of my players, Jodariel, is a druid with a giant heron mount (flying Warhorse with high Int, 15 AC, and scaling HP, but is weak to arrows), so she'd be great at it.