New to being a DM

[Novir Vetru]

Hey everyone, I would like to start running a 3.5 campaign with my friends, but I have never done so before. I was wondering if anyone could possibly help me come up with a campaign to play through, or if i could get some advice on doing so. Any help would be appreciated.

[RoboEmperor]

Hey everyone, I would like to start running a 3.5 campaign with my friends, but I have never done so before. I was wondering if anyone could possibly help me come up with a campaign to play through, or if i could get some advice on doing so. Any help would be appreciated.

Get a pre-written official 1st party adventure or adventure path and just do exactly as it says.

[Anxe]

Yeah. I doubt any of us here will want to commit to helping you that much. If you have some ideas we can help flesh them out? An adventure path or just a series of unlinked modules is a great way to learn how to DM. It's the way I and many others on the forum learned.

If you do want to come up with your own stuff with our help, we'll need more from you. What kind of campaign do you want to run for your group? Hack and Slash? Mystery? Political drama? Save the world from evil?

I'd also suggest not doing a full-on campaign at first. A series of unconnected adventures can be just as fun and is less stressful as a DM in my opinion.

[Novir Vetru]

Alright, I'll check out the individual pre-generated adventures. I was originally planning to try to come up with my own campaign, but you guys seem to know what you are talking about so I will trust your judgement. I appreciate the assistance.

[RoboEmperor]

Alright, I'll check out the individual pre-generated adventures. I was originally planning to try to come up with my own campaign, but you guys seem to know what you are talking about so I will trust your judgement. I appreciate the assistance.

Emphasis on 1st party, as in made directly by WotC. The reasons are:
1. They are very, very simple. They are more of a dungeon grind rather than a "campaign"
2. Everything is well detailed, colorful, well organized, and well documented. Easy for the new DMs.
3. 3rd party is black and white, walls of text, with the stats at the end so you gotta flip back and forth back and forth, it's maddening. Very few illustrations. You can get overwhelmed.

Having said that, after you ran 1 dungeon at least of a 1st party adventure, check out just the 1st module of War of the Burning Sky. I think it shows how a non-dungeon-crawling campaign shoot look like. Just the first module, you don't have to go deeper than that. It's quite good.

As with anything, learn to walk first before you run. I highly advise against making your own at the start because you will be overwhelmed and may make the whole experience unpleasant for you and your table. Get the basics down and then customize.

Red Hand of Doom and Shackled Citiy have been praised the most so if you want a good experience running a level 1-20 campaign, run one of those first. Couldn't get any better 1st hand experience than those two.

[Bronk]

Hey everyone, I would like to start running a 3.5 campaign with my friends, but I have never done so before. I was wondering if anyone could possibly help me come up with a campaign to play through, or if i could get some advice on doing so. Any help would be appreciated.

Never run a game, or never played? Either way, I'd suggest keeping it simple to start with, and start at level one so everyone can get used to their characters.

Maybe...

************

Encounter 1: Have everyone start in a tavern, and the tavern gets attacked by skeletons. They stream through the door, and the PCs have to save the patrons, destroy the skeletons, and maybe barricade the door. Maybe one or two come through a window or something to change things up.

Encounter 2: The tavern is all set for now... the door is barred, tables are pushed against the windows, and the patrons are all armed with table legs and stuff. But now that the place is quiet, they can hear screams and battles happening to other buildings... and, in the distance, a voice alternating between chanting and yelling orders! There's a necromancer of some kind out there, and this isn't going to stop until he or she is defeated. The PCs can slip out of the tavern, and battle some more of the necromancer's minions on their way over, more skeletons and maybe an individual zombie. Saving scared townsfolk would be like a minigame here.

Encounter 3: They've found the Necromancer, a level 3 cleric, and she's got four bodyguards... human zombies. Do the PCs attack from an ambush, or are they noticed and have to attack head on? The minions will engage the PCs while the Necromancer backs them up with spells (obscuring mist, then command or cause fear, at most a cause moderate wounds if she's cornered)

Loot: crummy swords from the skeletons, decent clubs from the zombie minions, and a masterwork weapon, a nice breastplate, some divine scrolls, a few hundred gold, and a holy symbol from an evil god from the necromancer.

Aftermath: If the PCs did okay, they might be well regarded in the town, and they're given some free drinks and have a great party, something like that.

************

That might take one session, or more than one, depending on how long the fights take, or how long the players spend sneaking around, scouting, and doing fun stuff like that. At low level, it's easy to use monsters right out of the Monster Manual. If they have problems, give them hints, like mentioning how clubs seem more effective against skeletons, or having some townsfolk join in (to help attack, or to soak up some damage). See if they have fun!

Next time, you could do something else, like accepting a quest in the form of a request from the mayor, or the PCs could go to a bigger town and take jobs from a merc guild, etc.

Or, and this is where a campaign can start, they might be interested in the necromancer. What was her deal? Maybe they research this in game (or out of game!) and figure out that it was weird that a relatively low level cleric could control so many undead. How did she do it? Where did all the skeletons come from, or her zombie bodyguards? That's when you can turn it into a campaign by having the PCs discover that this necromancer was herself a minion!

Alternately, you could go on to something else, then have another necromancer attack later on, and they find some sort of distinctive trait that links the new one to the first one. Same holy symbol? Same handwriting on the scrolls? That sort of thing, but at this point you have to say 'You notice that this links to that'.

Edit:
If you're bad at coming up with names on the fly, like I am, be sure to pick some out ahead of time, maybe keep a list. In this case, you'll want to at least have a name in mind for the bartender and a few patrons in case the players decide to talk to people and make friends or order people around, and the necromancer, in case they decide on an interrogation)

[Fouredged Sword]

I suggest you read some of the PBP games here to get a feel for the way the game flows. Trying out a brief adventure that is premade is a great idea, even if you just do a session or two before you get into your own campaign. I suggest "something's cooking" as a free option if you can still find it on a WoTC site. It likely got backed up somewhere and survived the purge.

[edathompson2]

Read the PHB, MM, DMG and DMG 2 cover to cover.

[King of Nowhere]

Depending on how creatively oriented you are, and how likely are your players at pushing the boundaries of the setting, I would suggest having your own campaign and learn along the way. I did it and it worked fine for me, though I was always prone to worldbuilding, even when it came to random details the pcs would bever figure out.

[daremetoidareyo]

Tell the PCS that they need to all know each other already. Otherwise you're going to get some new players who decide they don't like other players because that's what their character would do and then you have a bunch of people wanting to go in random directions.

For first level characters a simple 3 room dungeon will do. Something was kidnapped and there's a bounty on retrieving it. Choose your first level monsters: goblins, kobolds, Orcs, brain rats.

Put a caster in charge and cast spells that your players will want, then drop a scroll of those spells. Loot should include one very minor magic item, a few potions and a few hundred gold.

New players sometimes like to dismantle everything and try to sell it, set limits

[Novir Vetru]

Never run a game, or never played? Either way, I'd suggest keeping it simple to start with, and start at level one so everyone can get used to their characters.



I've never run a game, I have played in several campaigns, some of which were led by a few members of the group I want to run for. It is because of my experience in playing in campaigns that I would like to run a campaign of my own.

[radthemad4]

Red Hand of DoomRed Hand of Doom is awesome and possibly my favorite published adventure, but it's on the hard side difficulty wise. It's a great read for any DM, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to run if the players are new (The OP doesn't say if this is the case). Could that be mitigated by making the PCs higher level than the campaign suggests?

[Incorrect]

Read the PHB, MM, DMG and DMG 2 cover to cover.
I got this advice once, and I consider it the worst piece of advice I have received in my gaming career.

Don't try to know all the rules. You will drown yourself in work.
If you want a 3.5 campaign, just know the basics, and get used to making judgement calls. How many hitpoints does a wall have? Make a guess, and move the game along, if its important you can look it up later.

On what to play, I would also recommend a prewritten adventure. Personally I like the one-shot "Night of the straw men" (available on google) as a starter.

[RoboEmperor]

I got this advice once, and I consider it the worst piece of advice I have received in my gaming career.

Don't try to know all the rules. You will drown yourself in work.
If you want a 3.5 campaign, just know the basics, and get used to making judgement calls. How many hitpoints does a wall have? Make a guess, and move the game along, if its important you can look it up later.

On what to play, I would also recommend a prewritten adventure. Personally I like the one-shot "Night of the straw men" (available on google) as a starter.

As a player sure, as a DM, no. If you're the DM you gotta be the best ****ing player at the table. You need to be an absolute master of the game. Otherwise you become a DM that says Vow of Poverty is too OP because you can give your share of the loot to your party. You become a DM who let players do illegal plays because you have no ****ing idea how anything works. You become a DM that gets blindsighted by player's partially illegal plays and become at a loss at what to do.

I played with DMs who didn't even know what the **** the web spell does. He ended up scolding the players for not picking a healbot and a blaster and did not know what the **** a BFC wizard does.

I also played with a DM who thought troll's regeneration was too OP and made a huge crybaby hissy fit when i pointed out to him that you can't coup de grace a troll with a mundane knife.

No, if you're the DM, not only do you have to read all materials you allow in your campaign, you also have to be a master of them.

[King of Nowhere]

As a player sure, as a DM, no. If you're the DM you gotta be the best ****ing player at the table. You need to be an absolute master of the game. Otherwise you become a DM that says Vow of Poverty is too OP because you can give your share of the loot to your party. You become a DM who let players do illegal plays because you have no ****ing idea how anything works. You become a DM that gets blindsighted by player's partially illegal plays and become at a loss at what to do.

I played with DMs who didn't even know what the **** the web spell does. He ended up scolding the players for not picking a healbot and a blaster and did not know what the **** a BFC wizard does.

I also played with a DM who thought troll's regeneration was too OP and made a huge crybaby hissy fit when i pointed out to him that you can't coup de grace a troll with a mundane knife.

No, if you're the DM, not only do you have to read all materials you allow in your campaign, you also have to be a master of them.

Depends, strongly, on your players.

First thing, most people play casually, and don't want to put too much involvment in the game. They'll barely know how to calculate their total attack bonus. So if you tell people in that kind of party that they must be masters of the game, they will give up. DM included. And yes, in those tables people keep breaking the rules because they don't know them well enough, and they have anyway.

Second thing, not all players are ruthless cheating jerks trying to swindle the DM. This portrayal is as inaccurate as the DM trying to cheat and kill the players. Good players cooperate with the DM. Now, what you need is either a group of people where nobody is trying to swindle the DM, or a good cooperative player who knows the rules better than the swindlers.

Third thing, since the game is cooperative, you can keep and open mind and let your players talk you into stuff. If you don't know a rule, just let your players tell you how it is supposed to work. If they try to cheat you, you'll find out eventually; and then you can exact retribution. But most people won't.
I don't know what kind of tables you play at to get your opinion, but I don't think I'd have fun in them.

That said, it is actually a good idea to read the manuals (except for the lists, of course) because:
- there are several good tips, especially in the DM manual. Ok, an experienced DM will have no use for those tips, but a new one will find them useful
- you need to have at least a basic idea of what your party can do. You may not realize what black tentacles do or what is the relative effectiveness of a fireball compared to a ligthning bolt, but you should at least be aware that at 9th level your wizard will be able to teleport, so if you planned to base your story around an extended trip, it won't work. Similarly for spells with the potential to solve a plot by themselves (stuck in the desert? create food and water)
- there's no way you'll remeber all the rules (nor should you try to; it's a game, not a university exam!), but you'll at least have an idea where to look for them.

[RoboEmperor]

Second thing, not all players are ruthless cheating jerks trying to swindle the DM. This portrayal is as inaccurate as the DM trying to cheat and kill the players. Good players cooperate with the DM. Now, what you need is either a group of people where nobody is trying to swindle the DM, or a good cooperative player who knows the rules better than the swindlers.

I didn't say the players were cheating jerks. I said the players do illegal plays and the DM thinks they're legal and gets upset. Players are noobs too, and noob players misinterpret the rules and think they can do ludicrously powerful things. If the DM is experienced he can teach the noob that the rules don't work that way. If the DM is inexperienced he will be flabbergasted and think that's too OP and ban it in future games.

I am guilty of doing some illegal plays myself because I didn't read the rules too closely.

Anyways from my experience, DMs have to be literally the best player in the table. Otherwise you get into debates whether standing up from prone is a move action and whether you can do a 5ft step or not, or the DM makes a **** ton of stupid house rules that ruin the fun of others, or the DM brings in a **** ton of DMPCs, or the players can't play to their full potential because the DM doesn't know how to handle a strong PC. As the Judge of what works and what doesn't, you gotta be a master lawyer not an amateur, hence why our legal system selects experienced lawyers to be judges.

[daremetoidareyo]

I didn't say the players were cheating jerks. I said the players do illegal plays and the DM thinks they're legal and gets upset. Players are noobs too, and noob players misinterpret the rules and think they can do ludicrously powerful things. If the DM is experienced he can teach the noob that the rules don't work that way. If the DM is inexperienced he will be flabbergasted and think that's too OP and ban it in future games.

I am guilty of doing some illegal plays myself because I didn't read the rules too closely.

Anyways from my experience, DMs have to be literally the best player in the table. Otherwise you get into debates whether standing up from prone is a move action and whether you can do a 5ft step or not, or the DM makes a **** ton of stupid house rules that ruin the fun of others, or the DM brings in a **** ton of DMPCs, or the players can't play to their full potential because the DM doesn't know how to handle a strong PC. As the Judge of what works and what doesn't, you gotta be a master lawyer not an amateur, hence why our legal system selects experienced lawyers to be judges.

Playing the game is the best way to learn how to play the game. The expectation of system mastery is way too onerous and not directly tied to the capacity to have fun. Playing the game wrong is fun too.

The DM doesn't need to know every rule. Especially if WOTC is going to market a new edition every 4 years. The DM needs to know when to say, "no that doesn't work," "Sure, you can try." and "Are you sure that you want to do this?" "and pretty much the rest falls into place.

[RoboEmperor]

Playing the game is the best way to learn how to play the game. The expectation of system mastery is way too onerous and not directly tied to the capacity to have fun. Playing the game wrong is fun too.

The DM doesn't need to know every rule. Especially if WOTC is going to market a new edition every 4 years. The DM needs to know when to say, "no that doesn't work," "Sure, you can try." and "Are you sure that you want to do this?" "and pretty much the rest falls into place.

I recommend playing the game as a player first to learn the game, and DM once you have enough experience observing other DMs and how they DM and setup encounters.

In anycase I believe mastering at least the core rules and have at least been in a party with core classes decently optimized is recommended before attempting DMing.

[Sagetim]

Hey everyone, I would like to start running a 3.5 campaign with my friends, but I have never done so before. I was wondering if anyone could possibly help me come up with a campaign to play through, or if i could get some advice on doing so. Any help would be appreciated.

It depends on how much reading you want to do. I would suggest starting with a starting adventure to run so that you can see the rules in action and get a feel for how the game can operate, and what kinds of things you might want to prepare ahead of time.

Now, you don't have to prepare everything that a pre-made adventure does, but it gives you a structure to start with.

Finally, there are a Lot of 3.5 books out there, but to start with you should get familiar with the Player's Handbook, and the Dungeon Master's Guide. You don't need to memorize the Monster Manual (but as the DM, you should probably look through it, if only to see the monster names and get an idea for what kinds of things are ready and statted for you to use).

From there, additional reading is optional. I would suggest leafing through the Dungeon Master's Guide 2, as it has some interesting material in it. I would also suggest the Expanded Psionics Handbook, but that's because I like Psionics. You don't Have to have psionics in your game, and you don't have to ban it. You'll probably want to get familiar with the Player's Handbook 2 as well, as it has some nice classes in it that your players might want to use. Tome of Battle, like Psionics, is another book that sees a lot of splitting of opinion over it (some people love it, some hate it with a firey passion). So looking that over is probably a good idea.

The Expanded Psionics Handbook and Tome of Battle both represent new subsystems for the game (the player's handbook provides the default subsystem of Magic for the game). And while neither of those two have nearly so much support in the various supplements for 3.5 as magic does, they do allow for characters to have more supernormal options available to them that might otherwise be only possible through magic.

I would suggest continuing to read more dnd books as time goes on. You might never want to use anything beyond the core rules presented in the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual, but one of the strengths of 3.5 was the depth provided by it's many supplements. If nothing else, you could do something I've done in the past and run short campaigns to familiarize yourself and your players with subsystems that looked interesting. I'm currently running a game to introduce my group to the Pathfinder version of the rules presented in the Tome of Battle.

In the end, it's about having fun. Building a world for the players to interact with, for the story to grow from the interactions of the players with the world. It's not about you vs the players, it doesn't have to be about all combat all the time, and you don't have to stick to premade stuff only and forever. But it provides a good starting point, as others have already mentioned.