Musings of a new DM

[Wuzza]

Hi all, love the site (been lurking about 6 months) and all the information/advice contained within, and thought I'd share my experience of my first time as a DM. It's going to be a chunk of text, but hopefully it will be of interest, and may even be a bit of help to new DM's. If not, well at least it gives you something to read. :)

I wont go into all the details of the adventure, just things I think are relevant, and the lessons learnt from them.

Quick background: I played AD&D back in my teens, now middle aged, and have only recently started playing again over the last year with some of my old group (we all took a 20+ year break), initially as a player. I said I'd have a go at running something to give the other DM a chance to play.

I was a bit nervous at first, as I wanted to come up with a really strong story with lots of background, as I wasn't at all confident in my improv ability. I spent around 2 months coming up with a home-grown city, various factions, NPC's with intertwined stories and a whole lot of "fluff" The problem was that what I had planned in my head, wasn't really suitable for level 1 characters.

Plan B

I didn't want the awkwardness of the "meet in an inn" starter, so came up with the idea that they had all been working for a travelling mercenary band. They rolled characters on the first session, and started with their task of investigating the goblin attacks on a small farming hamlet. I did start them at level 2, as I wanted to avoid the instant death problem of level 1, and as there was no healer, I also allowed them to use the Heroic Surge optional rule so they can use their hit die to regain health as a bonus action.
They tracked the goblins to a nearby cave where they despatched around 20 goblins and 2 ogres, and saved the missing child.
This actually gave me my first, unintended, slice of "interesting" role-play (other than the generic commoners) One of the group is a Dragonborn, and on the way home the little girl annoyed him with constant questions. "Are you a real dragon?", "Why haven't you got any wings", "Do you live in a mountain" and other such questions you would ask a dragon, done in my best squeaky voice.

+1 to confidence

Up until this point, all I had was the map of the local area, a few key NPC's and some random dungeon maps downloaded from the web. All of the work done in the previous 2 months was all for nought. (although obviously it is all saved, and I intend to introduce it further down the line, but I didn't need any of it yet, not one bit.....)

Lesson 1: You really don't need to "go big". I had a base where I could introduce pretty much any quest/adventure I wanted, which panned out getting them a couple of levels, before the mercenaries upped sticks as the work had dried up. Over this time, maybe 6 weeks or so, I came up with a map of the region they were in, with brief descriptions of the cities, and we also worked some character background into the world.

Well, you don't need to go big, but I wanted to. :) I wanted something epic, that could potentially take the player levels into the high teens. Something with a world threatening sense of foreboding.
Baring in mind that our previous adventures years ago were pretty much dungeon bashes, and the other DM was running TLMOP starter set, for our group, this adventure would go down in legend. (at least that was/is the plan....)

The group were conned into releasing an ancient evil spirit from its long lost tomb by a recurring NPC (now deceased) I came up with an old story of world war, good vs evil type stuff. Thinking about it, you could draw parallels to Lord of the Rings Sauron, but this was completely accidental.

Lesson 2: Steal from absolutely everything you can, nothing should be sacred. it doesn't even have to be from a fantasy source. One PC is a condescending half-elf paladin. We came up with a quick background where he was the love child of a noble family, cast out once he was old enough. I briefly detailed a few family members, one being Sir Edmund (conniving, untrustworthy snipe), a total Blackadder reference that he loved. (old UK comedy show)

Anyway, about going big. This spirit can be brought back to physical form by 5 powerful followers, using ancient relics. This gave me so many options, and could be stretched out to months and months of gaming. I used a gnome NPC seer to impart this story, and they all really got into it, much more then I expected. Awesome! As of now they have just turned level 6, and are just about to battle the first of these followers.

Mistake 1/Lesson 3: While I'm quite chuffed with the planned story, and the players have all bought in, I've realised that as a long term adventure it's not feasible in its current state. All they have to do is seize one of these relics and the evil cant be manifested.... (and I cant have them fail everything for the next 10+ levels, as their enthusiasm would surely wane) They haven't realised this yet, but I've had to come up with a plan where the gnome seer has given them misinformation, although in good faith. I hadn't needed to give them the full story, it would have been much better to feed it to them as and when needed. This also limits my ability to change things on the fly based on the players actions. I'm pretty sure I can work around it, but it's not ideal.

Magic weapons/Mistake 2: I love magic item. More that I love unusual, effect based magic items. I have a pretty big list of them that I've either stolen from the web, or crafted myself. As previously mentioned, my party have no healer, aside from a Paladin, that is pretty much fully offensive, so I gave them a couple with healing properties quite early. In my enthusiasm they were also given a few more, currently about 3 per player at level 5. Yes, I know it's not what he books recommend, but it's fun and the players enjoy it. What it has meant though, is that their offensive capabilities far outstrip the defensive ones, which has made creating encounters a real headache. They would have to encounter monsters of a higher than suggested CR rating for their level, with the issue that a lot of these have the real possibility of one-shotting 1/2 of the party. I've eventually managed to find a balance by having the "boss" monsters always be surrounded by underlings.

Well that's probably plenty for my first post, so a quick summary.

I've realised a DM isn't just there to challenge the players, a DM is the enabler of fun. A player wants to try something you hadn't envisaged? Let them, work with them, come up with a quick house rule if needed. It could be an automatic fail, but they don't have to know that! :D
Also, don't worry if you make a mistake, you're only human. :P

[EggKookoo]

Magic weapons/Mistake 2: I love magic item. More that I love unusual, effect based magic items. I have a pretty big list of them that I've either stolen from the web, or crafted myself. As previously mentioned, my party have no healer, aside from a Paladin, that is pretty much fully offensive, so I gave them a couple with healing properties quite early. In my enthusiasm they were also given a few more, currently about 3 per player at level 5. Yes, I know it's not what he books recommend, but it's fun and the players enjoy it. What it has meant though, is that their offensive capabilities far outstrip the defensive ones, which has made creating encounters a real headache. They would have to encounter monsters of a higher than suggested CR rating for their level, with the issue that a lot of these have the real possibility of one-shotting 1/2 of the party. I've eventually managed to find a balance by having the "boss" monsters always be surrounded by underlings.

Welcome to 5e!

Big, big, big thing about magic items and 5e is that, unless you are specifically going for it, they shouldn't generally provide raw damage output boosts, or really to-hit or AC bonuses (AC bonuses aren't the worst problem, but really stay away if you can). 5e's big tuna is bounded accuracy, which means + to hit and damage can really mess with things. Instead, magic items -- even weapons -- can be better expressed by providing interesting, possibly situational features. Take a sword. Instead of making it +2, allow it to crit on a 18-20. Or perhaps when it crits, instead of rolling an extra damage die it just delivers max damage as if that die had come up the highest (so for a longsword, a crit would be 1d8 + 8 rather than d28). That gives some solid damage boosts but it's not something the PC can rely on and get too complacent with. Or you could bypass damage and have the sword allow you to automatically succeed on a Str check once per long rest. That's also pretty powerful but limited.

Just think outside the bonus as much as possible.

[The Aboleth]

Mistake 1/Lesson 3: While I'm quite chuffed with the planned story, and the players have all bought in, I've realised that as a long term adventure it's not feasible in its current state. All they have to do is seize one of these relics and the evil cant be manifested.... (and I cant have them fail everything for the next 10+ levels, as their enthusiasm would surely wane) They haven't realised this yet, but I've had to come up with a plan where the gnome seer has given them misinformation, although in good faith. I hadn't needed to give them the full story, it would have been much better to feed it to them as and when needed. This also limits my ability to change things on the fly based on the players actions. I'm pretty sure I can work around it, but it's not ideal.

I ran into a similar issue in my campaign where the players started acquiring the Artifacts they were after much more quickly than I had anticipated (thus running the risk of ending the campaign prematurely). To counter this, I placed a "safeguard" on one of the Artifacts--"Your attempts to use the Artifact are being disrupted or blocked somehow." *PC rolls Arcana check* "You discover the Artifact is being protected with powerful Draconic magic. Until the safeguard is broken, the Artifact is essentially unusable in its current form." Cue the party attempting to find the Dragon that had originally had the Artifact (a Dragon the party had previously heard a legend about many sessions earlier), and now my campaign had extra legs to it!

Mistakes and unexpected things happen, but what I love about DMing is being able to turn those situations into great story moments/sidequests/etc. Of course, you have to be careful not to frustrate your players into thinking you're just throwing unnecessary stuff at them to fill time--what made my situation palatable was that I connected the new obstacle to a previous bit of world-building (the Dragon of the previously-heard legend), and so it made sense to the players that this Artifact would be protected/safeguarded before they could use it. It's a fine line, to be sure, but a fun one!

[Throne12]

OK first any peep done is never bad. You just need to find a way to use it or just have it handy. So when your players stumble apon something you got it right there.

Secondly start thinking about having archs in your story that ends with a challenging encounters (P. S encounter don't have to be a combat). For examples check out d&d shows like The Unexpectables, anything from Adam Colbert, or any Acquisitions Incorporated main group or "c" team.


Third you messed up and gave out magic items when you should have. It OK you can fix this but first don't be that DM that say sorry guy I taking your magic weapon away or you come up with some bs encounter that just takes away, steal, damage, drop, lose, ect there magic items. My players saw I was getting player fever and was just slacking with my DMing. I was getting burned out. So one of my players wanted to do a one shot. It was just a simple dungeon crawl but he had a puzzle that got me thinking.

So we go through this dungeon and we know that after this room is the boss room we just need to open the door. But to do that we must go through a few doors and complete a challenge only one person a door. But the catch is there is a bowl of liquid mana that is used to power to open the doors which are portals. But the bowl needs a constant steam of magical energy so the party wizard need to stand there using there spells slots to power this. That's when I had the bright idea of putting one of are magic items in there letting it suck the magic out of it so the wizard can save his spell slots for the boss fight. The DM didn't think about this but liked the idea and told us it will destroy the item if we do that.

So the reason I told that story is we where OK with losing a magic item like that. So you just need to put your players in a situation where they have a choice to sacrifice a magic item to accomplish something or just face the situation in there own way.

[KyleG]

As someone preparing/considering a foray into the role of DM how much session prep are you doing vs improvisation? Im torn between just jumping into it and getting going and my nature which isto overthink everything.

[The Aboleth]

As someone preparing/considering a foray into the role of DM how much session prep are you doing vs improvisation? Im torn between just jumping into it and getting going and my nature which isto overthink everything.

In my experience, there's actually much less prep than you'd think because the players will ALWAYS do something you don't expect.

In general, you should have a firm grasp of the rules and of the class abilities your players will use. Don't try to memorize everything (there's simply too much), but try to have a solid understanding of how combat, ability checks, etc. should work. Don't be afraid to look things up in the books, especially the first few sessions as everyone finds their groove; if the book isn't nearby or it would take too long to look it up, make up a ruling on the fly and the correct it next session if you need.

If you're doing a homebrew campaign, my advice is as follows: Have a framework (a few NPCs, a few major details about the world and specific place the PCs are located, etc) but don't get too detailed. You will constantly be improvising, so having a few bare-bones things that you can flesh out quickly on-the-fly will be a huge help. Don't be afraid to re-work unused concepts or characters, too (the party never met that quirky High Elf wizard NPC in the first city who would have delivered important info, but now you need someone that fills a similar role? Boom, now that unused NPC is an eccentric Gnome alchemist with blue hair and a slight limp).

If you're running a published campaign, my advice above is mostly the same with this caveat: The published adventures offer less flexibility than a homebrew campaign, so make sure you really read the module before diving into and running the story with the group. That's not to say you won't have to improvise a lot (you will), just that much of the lore and major story points can't be easily changed if the party goes completely off the rails, so you want to take care not to accidentally "paint yourself into a corner."

Finally: Communication between DM and Party is key in any great campaign. Don't be afraid to make a controversial ruling (remember: You're the DM, what you say goes), but also clearly explain your reasoning behind the ruling. If there's a stall in combat or Roleplaying, gently nudge them along--and then make the nudges less gentle if it persists ("I need everyone to roll Perception checks!"). Mostly, though, be sure to remember that the goal is for everyone to have fun--if you're doing everything you can to achieve that, you're already doing a great job!

Also, pizza. Lots and lots of pizza.

[Throne12]

As someone preparing/considering a foray into the role of DM how much session prep are you doing vs improvisation? Im torn between just jumping into it and getting going and my nature which isto overthink everything.

This is a answer you might not want but. Being a DM isnt something someone can teach you. Every DM has a different way they do things. My advice though would be try running one shots ever now and then so you can figure out where your comfort style is. Use the one shots to try out different techniques you get from other places. Throw away what feels weird and keep wht works for you.

I have a player in my game that DM's a different group. He preps everything and knows where his group is going to go and do it a bit railroady but it works for them. Where I do very little to no prep I have story and world feels real but it's mostly ok guys what are yall doing today.

If your feel nervous dont worry and just jump in.

[Wuzza]

Big, big, big thing about magic items and 5e is that, unless you are specifically going for it, they shouldn't generally provide raw damage output boosts, or really to-hit or AC bonuses (AC bonuses aren't the worst problem, but really stay away if you can)
Just think outside the bonus as much as possible.

That's pretty much my thinking, although I'd say their items are about 50/50 between damage and effects currently.


So you just need to put your players in a situation where they have a choice to sacrifice a magic item to accomplish something or just face the situation in there own way.

That's actually a pretty cool idea, I may well throw something in like that. Although I don't want to deprive them of too much.


As someone preparing/considering a foray into the role of DM how much session prep are you doing vs improvisation? Im torn between just jumping into it and getting going and my nature which isto overthink everything.

Cant fault either of the above replies to this, at least from my limited experience.
I would say so far I've pretty much over prepared everything. I have a ton of unused PC's that I can draw from, which isn't a bad thing. For example, the mercenary camp had about a dozen NPC's in it, they interacted with 3 of them.
What I have found useful over the last couple of weeks, and realised it would work really well me for me, is to give each NPC a handful of choice phrases I can draw upon. This gives me an immediate reference I can use at the table, and also more of an idea of the character they have.
As Throne12 said, no prep is truly wasted.

My 2cents of advice. Have an idea of where they are going and what they are doing. Maybe a couple of maps, few NPC's and dive in. I've openly said to my group on two occasions that I'm a bit under prepared and need a few minutes just to work something out. Coffee was made, rules discussed and we were back in game with no issue.
It probably took a couple of months before I really started becoming comfortable, and a lot of that had to do with bouncing off what the players brought to the table.

[KyleG]

All good advice. Thanks. Was just interested in how a relative dm newbie was going. I've played lmop thru with the kids but felt like I was constantly referring to the material, and don't want that going into a real group. Hence why I started to create my own world. I've got an overall idea of where id LIKE to see the campaign go with my BBEG but don't want that to drive these first 5 levels. I think with my starting towns first mission a few (hopefully) interesting npcs and a few encounters preped for different situations I might just freeball it and see where it goes.

[The Aboleth]

All good advice. Thanks. Was just interested in how a relative dm newbie was going. I've played lmop thru with the kids but felt like I was constantly referring to the material, and don't want that going into a real group. Hence why I started to create my own world. I've got an overall idea of where id LIKE to see the campaign go with my BBEG but don't want that to drive these first 5 levels. I think with my starting towns first mission a few (hopefully) interesting npcs and a few encounters preped for different situations I might just freeball it and see where it goes.

My group is/was composed of relative newbies to D&D, so I deliberately had the first few sessions be glorified "sidequests" so that they could get into a groove before I threw any "Main Quest" material at them. It worked out quite well, especially since a couple people decided D&D wasn't for them and they dropped out after Session 3. Now, those that stayed are fully invested in the Main Quest, and I think it's in large part because I didn't start right away with BBEG stuff.

Also, one final piece of advice: Have your players roll A LOT, especially for persuasion checks and things like that. New players especially like to roll dice, because it's something that is tangible and the uncertainty of the outcome adds to the suspense. As a new DM, it also allows you a great opportunity to really flex your improve skills...one of the most funny early moments at my table was when the silver-tongued Rogue tried to convince an NPC to give them info via an impassioned, charming speech...only to roll a natural 1 and me have the NPC go "Uh...I stopped listening to you 5 minutes ago, man. Go away."

So, roll a ton, at least for the first few sessions so your players get a good idea of what you will consider a skill check and what you will not.

[KyleG]

Sorry I appear to have sidetracked the ops thread. Good advice thanks all.