I'm Thinking Of Running My Own Game

[Bartmanhomer]

You know what, I'm thinking of running my own game as DM and also a player as well. I know I have mentioned this in the past of running my own game but I was inexperienced of the time and also I wasn't ready to go to that route until I have the chance to know the basic rules of D&D 3.5. But know I'm ready to become a DM and I got my character ready as PC. So I need some advice on how to run a successful game as a DM. Any advices anyone?

[tstewt1921]

The best thing to do as your first time is grab a prepackaged adventure of the appropriate level read it over a couple times and run that, after you have done that then start world building and designing your own storyline/world.

[zlefin]

aye, the best place to start as a DM is with a prepublished module. Not a long adventure path, just a single module, preferably of fairly low level.

past that, another key question is where you're finding games; do you have a pre-existing playgroup or do you need to find people? and are you playing in person or online?

I'm sure someone around here also has links to alot of good DM'ing guides, sadly I don't.

[Bartmanhomer]

aye, the best place to start as a DM is with a prepublished module. Not a long adventure path, just a single module, preferably of fairly low level.

past that, another key question is where you're finding games; do you have a pre-existing playgroup or do you need to find people? and are you playing in person or online?

I'm sure someone around here also has links to alot of good DM'ing guides, sadly I don't.


The best thing to do as your first time is grab a prepackaged adventure of the appropriate level read it over a couple times and run that, after you have done that then start world building and designing your own storyline/world.
Well I already start my very own storyline and the world that I'm playing but I guess I have to learn the basic first. :frown:

[Elkad]

I'll Nth the thread and say "run something prepublished". It can be placed in the world you are creating somewhere, but use it pretty close to as-written.

Then watch/read some guides.

Matt Colville has some great stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP_

[Bartmanhomer]

I'll Nth the thread and say "run something prepublished". It can be placed in the world you are creating somewhere, but use it pretty close to as-written.

Then watch/read some guides.

Matt Colville has some great stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP_

Thank you. I'll definitely watch these videos. :smile:

[Elkad]

Thank you. I'll definitely watch these videos. :smile:


One of his episodes is specifically about sandboxing. He starts the party in a town with almost nothing to do. Meet up, clear a 5-room dungeon or something. Easy stuff to get people started.
And then drops rumors/hooks to 4-6 different low level prepublished modules in different nearby towns, and doesn't help them choose. Whichever way the players head, he preps that one.
Then he repeats with some bigger ones.

So his "custom world" is full of a couple dozen pre-published modules (it helps to have a big library of stuff of course), and he just spreads rumors. Whether they go to defeat the Steading of the Hill Giants or go to explore the strange creatures in the Barrier Peaks at 9th level is completely up to his players.

[blackwindbears]

You know what, I'm thinking of running my own game as DM and also a player as well. I know I have mentioned this in the past of running my own game but I was inexperienced of the time and also I wasn't ready to go to that route until I have the chance to know the basic rules of D&D 3.5. But know I'm ready to become a DM and I got my character ready as PC. So I need some advice on how to run a successful game as a DM. Any advices anyone?

https://theangrygm.com/jumping-the-screen-how-to-run-your-first-rpg-session/

This is advice I wished I had.

[Ghen]

So the consensus is to go with a pre-published module. But which module should you use? We certainly have lots of options... but who has time to read through them all? Also from the time standpoint I would argue that while watching videos on the subject will certainly be very informative, it *can* be time consuming to watch (though I admit that haven't checked out the videos that Elkad has most thoughtfully recommended; they might be very succinct and to-the-point).


In light of this goal of getting to the game as quickly as possible, I proudly point you in the direction of the Sunless Citadel. Here's the brief overview on it from Wizards, but it's basically the perfect way to break in a new DM. It's for adventurers levels 1-3, and it's designed to be seamlessly inserted into any setting that you may already have in mind. Couldn't get any better, in my honest opinion.

http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/TYP_SCIntro0313.pdf

[Bartmanhomer]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I actually thought of my own adventure involving dragons that the adventurers will hunt for evil dragons. But I guess that ship have sailed. :sigh:

[Gerner]

I don't think that ship have sailed.

Not knowing you PC's, I would begin simple let them start low level. So you have a chance getting use to DMing.

I know my issue was (I have written all my Campaigns) not getting frustrated when the PC do not catch your clues or goes a total different direction. But you learn to improve.

And I would agree with watching the Matt videos on youtube.

[Ghen]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I actually thought of my own adventure involving dragons that the adventurers will hunt for evil dragons. But I guess that ship have sailed. :sigh:

You know, you can still do that. It's just more work. Nothing says you have to do any of these suggestions, we're just telling you what's easy. If easy doesn't interest you, do your own thing. I can tell you that my first experience as a DM was not with a pre-made module, so it can definitely be done.

Just a cautionary note for this adventure though; dragon CR's are a bit high at first for your classic looking dragon. I think that a dragon hatchling is like, CR 2 or something. It might be hard for your players to feel heroic smashing eggs.

[Quarian Rex]

You know what, I'm thinking of running my own game as DM and also a player as well. I know I have mentioned this in the past of running my own game but I was inexperienced of the time and also I wasn't ready to go to that route until I have the chance to know the basic rules of D&D 3.5. But know I'm ready to become a DM and I got my character ready as PC. So I need some advice on how to run a successful game as a DM. Any advices anyone?

For the love of the babby jebus do not do this thing. A DM-PC in a game is pure cancer. Any action you take in regards to the character is seen as manipulative grand-standing, any victory your PC achieves just looks like masturbatory favoritism. If you are new to the hobby you may not have seen this yet, but take it from the vets, don't.

Please avoid committing one of the worst sins of DMing before you even have a chance to begin. You will have your hands full (trust me on this) and you don't want your first DM experience to be tainted by the inevitable ill will and breakdown that a DM-PC always causes.

[Bartmanhomer]

You know, you can still do that. It's just more work. Nothing says you have to do any of these suggestions, we're just telling you what's easy. If easy doesn't interest you, do your own thing. I can tell you that my first experience as a DM was not with a pre-made module, so it can definitely be done.

Just a cautionary note for this adventure though; dragon CR's are a bit high at first for your classic looking dragon. I think that a dragon hatchling is like, CR 2 or something. It might be hard for your players to feel heroic smashing eggs.

I know the CR of the dragon hatchling. I checked the SRD for that. :smile:

[martixy]

For the love of the babby jebus do not do this thing. A DM-PC in a game is pure cancer. Any action you take in regards to the character is seen as manipulative grand-standing, any victory your PC achieves just looks like masturbatory favoritism. If you are new to the hobby you may not have seen this yet, but take it from the vets, don't.

Please avoid committing one of the worst sins of DMing before you even have a chance to begin. You will have your hands full (trust me on this) and you don't want your first DM experience to be tainted by the inevitable ill will and breakdown that a DM-PC always causes.

Pay no attention to Rex's ramblings of doom.

...except for 1 point - you will have your hands full. Therefore managing a PC as a DM is inadvisable until you get comfortable with the actual DMing part.

That said, if your players are new, I'd be inclined to offer the same advice, as newbies might not know when to speak up about game-ruining behaviour the same way veterans might.

[Bartmanhomer]

Pay no attention to Rex's ramblings of doom.

...except for 1 point - you will have your hands full. Therefore managing a PC as a DM is inadvisable until you get comfortable with the actual DMing part.

That said, if your players are new, I'd be inclined to offer the same advice, as newbies might not know when to speak up about game-ruining behaviour the same way veterans might.
I'll consider that advice to my new players.

[Gerner]

I have learned if they never have played before, a bit of railroading goes along way, othervise they just run around with no idea of what to do.

And dragons can have alot of different minions such as Kobolds and if if Tiamat is behind maybe so Spawn of Tiamat (DragonSpawn).

So you can use the dragons in more special events

[Algeh]

I'm with the people who say not to have a DM PC as a new DM. One of the hard things that a DM has to do and a regular player doesn't is to manage the spotlight for all of the players and make sure they're all getting enough airtime.

This is already a hard thing to do that most people don't do much in their daily lives (unless they have a job as a teacher or as someone who runs really good meetings or something), and it's much harder when you're also trying to keep track of a bunch of DM-character-actions because then you're trying to keep track of your own spotlight time and everyone else's. It's natural to kind of mentally break up the time into "my time" and "not my time" and assign each of those things half of the time, but if there are 4 players then it should really be more like 20% your time and 80% their time, and you need to fit everything about the situation into your 20% so there really isn't time to play a character in as much detail as if you weren't DMing. (It's ok if the DM takes a little more than their "share" of time would be as a player since they have to describe all of the non-player things that happen, but it's easy for it to get out of hand.)

It's even worse when those DM-actions are related to a character that you are attached to, because you'll want that character to be involved in stuff, so you have to constantly monitor yourself to make sure you're not having that character too involved. You already know where all of the cool stuff in your adventure is, and there's a tendency in new DMs to have their DM PC show the other players all of that cool stuff rather than let the players find it themselves. It's also hard because you as the DM know things that the players don't about your adventure, so you can't really play a PC without walling off that DM-only knowledge of where the secret doors are, what the Big Bad is up to, how dragons really work, or whatever it is that's going on in your game. This makes it particularly tempting to have the DM PC find all of that neat stuff for the players, which makes them feel like they didn't really need to be on this adventure in the first place since the DM PC could handle it on their own.

I'm not saying that you can't ever have a DM PC, but I am saying that it's not something you should do until you've been DMing for quite a while and have a better idea of how to manage a group.

In general, not starting your first session will all of the cool ideas you have stored up is a really good idea. You will learn a lot your first few times out, and you can then use all of the things you learn to tweak your really cool ideas to make them even better when you do run them later. Sometimes, you may realize that they won't work well in a game at all, and are better "story" ideas than "game" ideas. Other times, you will figure out that they will only work with the right other house rules or restrictions in place. However, it's hard to know how to adjust things until you've run a few really straightforward games to see how it all works by default.

[Zombimode]

So I need some advice on how to run a successful game as a DM. Any advices anyone?

Do you have good players that you trust? For starting out DMing having a playerbase in that you feel comfortable and that engage on their own with each other, the world and the plot is very helpful.

[Bartmanhomer]

Do you have good players that you trust? For starting out DMing having a playerbase in that you feel comfortable and that engage on their own with each other, the world and the plot is very helpful.

To answer your question. No I haven't started my game yet.