I am a first time DM and attempting to launch a campaign with first time players. We are all just some friends experimenting with DND. I have purchased the starter kit (not the essentials one) and it will get us going but when I open the rules and the story booklet I nearly get overwhelmed. What’s really holding me back from DMing is not knowing where to start. Any tips or a simple how to start a D&D guide would help a lot.
I would dearly like to get going, but I just feel that I will forget so much or just make a hash of it Poorly done the first couple of encounters will turn off the rest of the crew real bad so the learning curve is very steep In DMs terms, there is really no substitute to stepping between the sheets so get in a weekend and play out the first one or two encounters in whatever starter set you have (yep, there is two. Partake of the pregen characters out of the box.
How do you write a D&D Campaign Your Players will LOVE?
On what you have learnt with the first play through. Then you should understand fairly well how the combats will work, what the characters are capable of doing and some of the traps (not all) that will arise when you start using real players. And when you do eventually get the opportunity to play against actual players then don not sweat the little things. You will miss something somewhere so just go with the flow. I used to run a couple candlekeep mysteries and since it is a mini story there is less prepping involved.
It holds well is, things always take longer than one thinks. And let me tell you, if you, too, are like me you will just want to do lots of preparing but without consuming lots of them. The other thing is that players will most likely do or say something unexpected so no matter what you prepare something can come up unexpected so be malleable. in my case, I no longer like bullet points. I have the ability to go nuts and prepare the events. I even keep a list of npcs that remind me of names as players will query and you forget. And the lastly some places the players can move.
Develop the Campaign Premise
Then I have a description of the book afterwards, in case there are any points that have to be considered such as the title being hidden treasure then I have them noted. have rudimentary knowledge of difficulty as you can above, you can force players to do something that you do not expect so there will be a need to establish difficulty. E.g. perhaps the module has planned that the players should talk to one of the npcs and then it details how that will go down but now the rogue party member decided to burglarize it so now you have to set a acrobatics DC to climb a wall, and a stealth DC to sneak.
Through the house. Associated with this do not be attached too close to the location of important information, in case the players have a good idea then move stuff to the players. Information possessed by an npc got into the game during my initial stint as a player and with the style of play the npc went hostile. We could of killed the npc but would we know it was in the pocket of the npc to keep the story flowing. Begin with small and think small. There are story details and options you will want to prepare that will last through several campaigns, yet you do not need to.
Player’s have Worldbuilding Power Too
The only thing you need to do is to concentrate on what you are going to do with your players during that session only – is it a single fight or a self-contained adventure which can end within several hours. The one-shots are an excellent experience at DMing and to D&D. Or even where you plan to begin with a full-blown campaign, do it session by session. When it comes to forgetting stuff and making something wrong…enjoy it and be forgiving to yourself because even the most experienced DMs get it all the time. As a newbie, there are going to be some fumbling. That is what is there.
Even being wrong is correct as long as everyone is having a fun. I am a player who has done it in the past and I am attempting to DM a group of new people, I would also like to point out that I had stopped playing since covid. Thus, what I am doing is letting our first adventure be based on a book that is already written and we are playing what I would like to term openly. This to me indicates that I am telling my players when to use skills and where to use them, how to carry out during combat and on how to interrogate the NPC. With progress I shall be giving guidance less and less.
Conclusion
This ensures that they learn very easily and creates a lot of leeway in terms of me learning how to DM since I can take my time to research on the spot and we all learn the mechanics, a lot. Whether you are a player of D&D or a dungeon master or have been in the past, you can all sympathize with the fact that composing such an easy structure yet entertaining campaign is indeed boring, so, as a past and present (I am 12 years old) dungeon master, I feel that a rough explanation of this would be beneficial, therefore, here is a simple guideline to making such a campaign.
When it comes to forgetting stuff and making something wrong…enjoy it and be forgiving to yourself because even the most experienced DMs get it all the time. As a newbie, there are going to be some fumbling. That is what is there. Even being wrong is correct as long as everyone is having a fun. I am a player who has done it in the past and I am attempting to DM a group of new people, I would also like to point out that I had stopped playing since covid. Thus, what I am doing is letting our first adventure be based on a book that is already written and we are playing what I would like to term openly.
