New to This and That

[Leedpredator95]

Hey there!!!

I am new here and also will be DM ing my first game in a couple of weeks, In turn i am bricking it slightly...

Although it is a small party of close friends and I myself have been a player for 2-4 Years i am still mildly terrified.

Any advise at all would be a fantastic help. Advise, Do's and Do Not's, Stay away from's :smalleek::smalleek:

Thanks and look forward to being part of this community!

[Telonius]

Communication is the most important part of being a DM. Talk to your players beforehand, let them know that you're a bit nervous about it and that you're probably going to make mistakes since it's your first time.

Don't Panic. Everybody wants to have fun (including you); as long as that happens, you're DM'ing right.

Is the session going to be a one-shot or short adventure, or a longer campaign?

[zlefin]

use a published one-shot module (preferably low-level) to start off with. that tends to be easier to handle.

[Torpin]

limit the sources people can use, my first time DMing I only let the players pull from the PHB

[Resileaf]

Don't be afraid of asking your players to accept a little bit of railroading for your first attempts at GMing. Making modifications to the campaign on the fly can be a fairly tall order if you're simply not practiced to make unexpected changes.
In the same vein, listen to suggestions from your players to bring the game to unexpected places as long as you all work together to do it. If they go against the campaign just for the heck of it, no amount of improv is gonna fix things.

[Nifft]

What works in literature doesn't always work in games.

Look for ways to emulate the feeling of awesome movie scenes rather than trying to re-create them verbatim.

Surprises can be fun, but be very careful about failing to meet player expectations. You're likely to be quite successful as a DM if you can mess with character expectations while meeting player expectations.

Making the game fun for players is your job, and you are a player. Ensuring that you have fun is literally part of your job. Don't skimp.

[ksbsnowowl]

use a published one-shot module (preferably low-level) to start off with. that tends to be easier to handle.

Along this vein, if your players have not yet experienced it, the Sunless Citadel is a fantastic 1st-level introductory module. It takes a small bit of updating (it was 3.0), but I did that already when I ran it 4 years ago. I can email you a text document with the stats of every monster fully updated to 3.5, if you want. Just PM me an email address.

[Hua]

Stick to any house rules that you have played under with this group. It is what they are expecting and you should know them well.
I agree on limiting the source books. At least as tightly as previous games and possibly more so.
Low level the players have just enough control to have fun. High level they have too many options that won't work with what you expect them to do, so avoid it for now.
Avoid over matching them early. Low level parties have very limited healing. Don't expect them to be able to do too many encounters without resting, or they will be likely to die to a bad roll.

Have fun