Beginning DM Needing Assistance [Archive] - Wizards Community

Beginning DM Needing Assistance [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
MojoRisin69
03-12-08, 10:15 AM Hi! This is my first post, so let me introduce myself. My name is James and I played D&D way back in the 80’s during high school (I was never the DM, just a player). I’m 36, married with three children ages 11(girl), 12(boy), and 16(boy). I haven’t played D&D since high school, but have recently rediscovered my interest in it. After regaling my family with some of my groups exploits back in the day, they all want to learn the game.

I’ve already picked up the Basic D&D Starter set, the PHB and the DMG (3.5) and a few sets of miniatures, so I’m ready to start a campaign. As I said before, I’ve never DM’d a game, so I’m a little lost on how to begin. I’m leaning toward a pre-made adventure to start with, however I need some help. I’d like to use the Dragonlance setting for my game. Can someone recommend a good DL adventure for first time players? They are all beginning as level 1 characters. I would also consider using Forgotten Realms as a setting, but my preference is DL.

If anyone has any pointers for a fledgling DM, I would appreciate that as well.

Thanks and happy adventuring!
James
toucanbuzz
03-12-08, 10:49 AM The free adventures on the D&D website can easily be adapted to most worlds. Dragonlance doesn't have orcs, so you'd have to substitute. "A Dark and Stormy Night" and "Burning Plague" are nice starts.

Also, if you have the Dragonlance Setting Book, it has a pre-made adventure in the back for 1st levels that is pretty good. The book runs really cheap right now, though it is written for the period after the 5th age as far as setting descriptions and NPCs described. The rules are still good for any era, though. I have not seen the War of the Lance setting supplement.

Finally, my players highly enjoyed the 3.0 premade "Sunless Citadel" for level 1. With one or two changes (i.e. the spells for the druid), you can use this right away.
Loftower
03-12-08, 10:53 AM [My standard New DM post]
HAVE FUN!

The most important aspect is to HAVE FUN. If you get the rules all wrong (and you will), if your story is cheesy (this is normal for a beginner), if the NPCs are a joke (they frequently are) it’s not a disaster. If everyone at the table has fun, you are a successful DM; congratulations. You can work on the rules, game pacing, scenario writing and acting as you go.

How do you start as a DM?
1) Limit the rules that you need to know. There are a lot of core rules and an insurmountable pile of optional rules. I don’t know anyone who had time to learn them all before they got started.
Limit the character choices (class, race, alignment etc.) to the things that you have read and understand. That could be a big list or a short list depending on what you have to work with and how much time you have to spend.
There are also a lot of rules you can avoid simply by not putting them in your adventure. You don’t need to learn how to run every monster, just the ones that you use. You don’t need to master planar travel if it doesn’t occur in your adventure.
Start characters at level 1. The rules, options, and creatures become more complex as you go. Start small.

2) Start small
You can buy an adventure to run. That will limit the amount of preparation time that you need. Personally, I dislike pre-made adventures so I can’t recommend them, but it is an option that you should consider.
If you write your own adventure, don’t start with your epic. A storybook, cliché adventure is a fine beginning. Keep it relatively short. You are going to need to adjust your style and correct your mistakes. It is easier to do this after a short scenario. You can pick up the story where you left off with the next adventure, just have a clean break.
I recommend a small, backwater town as a base of operations. This lets you limit what’s there without seeming arbitrary about it. Also, when you find out later that it doesn’t match what you want for your world, you can wipe it out easily (fire, flood, famine, war, whatever).

3) Start easy. Go easy.
For both you and the PCs, don’t worry about challenging them too much in the first adventure. Everyone will have enough challenge just learning the rules and figuring out how this RPG thing works. Try to put at least one thing in the adventure to which each character type would be particularly suited. Combat-based characters are fairly easy, but don’t forget that the Rogue isn’t much fun if he can’t use his special attack and/or pick locks and find traps. Do not make up situations to intentionally block or avoid the PCs abilities. (E.g.: The party is all Rogues and no Cleric, don’t send them against undead.)
There are lots of discussions on this board about alignment and paladins and fair application of the rules. Forget them. When you have some momentum as a DM they become important. Until them, don’t worry about it. If someone plays grossly out of alignment in your first adventure you can talk to them about it, but short of that I would let it ride as much as possible. You can tighten it up in the future – just be sure to let your players know what has changed when you do.

4) Know what you plan to use (the flip-side of use what you know)
If you are going to have Goblins raiding the town, know your Goblins and know your guardsmen (or militia, if you took my small town advice, above). As much as possible, you do not want to be looking up rules as you go. When the session happens, you will find yourself looking stuff up, it can’t be helped, but hopefully it will be the rules that you did not expect coming into play.
You will need to be involved in the character creation of the PCs in order to know what they can do and learn the rules surrounding them. For instance, if you have a Mage in the group you should know what her spells do.

Did I mention, “HAVE FUN?” There are a lot of different playing styles. Yours may be different than mine, and that’s fine. Some people play from pun to pun and laugh through the whole session. Some people have lip-biting edge-of-the-seat suspense throughout, which is also cool. Some people run their games on constant hack-and-slash combat, and that’s OK too. (You have no idea how hard it was for me to write that. :) ) Whatever style you develop, if you and your group are enjoying the process then you’re doing fine.
MojoRisin69
03-12-08, 11:29 AM Thanks for the help and suggestions. I do have another question. My books are v3.5. How difficult is it to adapt a v3.0 adventure to use v3.5 rules? I've downloaded the level 1 adventures you recommended, but they appear to be for v3.0.

Thanks again!
toucanbuzz
03-12-08, 02:52 PM There's very little that actually impacted adventures as the change really affected the rules. For monsters, just take a glance at the MM (e.g. Skeletons in 3.0 had 1/2 damage to edged and now have Damage Reduction 5/blunt). Same with spells.

The following references should cast up flags:

Druids
Bards
Sunder ability

Beyond that, most of the freebies and 3.0 require very little tweaking!
MojoRisin69
03-13-08, 08:04 AM Thanks for all the help!
sakuradm
03-13-08, 05:08 PM Hehehe. Welcome back James! :D I like to be retro (hence the nickname 'Hippie'...) Anyways.. since I play a lot of 1st/2nd edition stuff, i might have an idea what you talk about if you go into that at all :D Hmm, agreed with above posts. Burning Plague and Dark and Stormy Knight are always good starters. Or, feel free to look at my website (link is in my signature) for quest ideas, npc ideas and the like. HAVE FUN AND GOOD LUCK :D

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MojoRisin69 03-12-08, 10:15 AM	Hi! This is my first post, so let me introduce myself. My name is James and I played D&D way back in the 80’s during high school (I was never the DM, just a player). I’m 36, married with three children ages 11(girl), 12(boy), and 16(boy). I haven’t played D&D since high school, but have recently rediscovered my interest in it. After regaling my family with some of my groups exploits back in the day, they all want to learn the game. I’ve already picked up the Basic D&D Starter set, the PHB and the DMG (3.5) and a few sets of miniatures, so I’m ready to start a campaign. As I said before, I’ve never DM’d a game, so I’m a little lost on how to begin. I’m leaning toward a pre-made adventure to start with, however I need some help. I’d like to use the Dragonlance setting for my game. Can someone recommend a good DL adventure for first time players? They are all beginning as level 1 characters. I would also consider using Forgotten Realms as a setting, but my preference is DL. If anyone has any pointers for a fledgling DM, I would appreciate that as well. Thanks and happy adventuring! James
toucanbuzz 03-12-08, 10:49 AM	The free adventures on the D&D website can easily be adapted to most worlds. Dragonlance doesn't have orcs, so you'd have to substitute. "A Dark and Stormy Night" and "Burning Plague" are nice starts. Also, if you have the Dragonlance Setting Book, it has a pre-made adventure in the back for 1st levels that is pretty good. The book runs really cheap right now, though it is written for the period after the 5th age as far as setting descriptions and NPCs described. The rules are still good for any era, though. I have not seen the War of the Lance setting supplement. Finally, my players highly enjoyed the 3.0 premade "Sunless Citadel" for level 1. With one or two changes (i.e. the spells for the druid), you can use this right away.
Loftower 03-12-08, 10:53 AM	[My standard New DM post] HAVE FUN! The most important aspect is to HAVE FUN. If you get the rules all wrong (and you will), if your story is cheesy (this is normal for a beginner), if the NPCs are a joke (they frequently are) it’s not a disaster. If everyone at the table has fun, you are a successful DM; congratulations. You can work on the rules, game pacing, scenario writing and acting as you go. How do you start as a DM? 1) Limit the rules that you need to know. There are a lot of core rules and an insurmountable pile of optional rules. I don’t know anyone who had time to learn them all before they got started. Limit the character choices (class, race, alignment etc.) to the things that you have read and understand. That could be a big list or a short list depending on what you have to work with and how much time you have to spend. There are also a lot of rules you can avoid simply by not putting them in your adventure. You don’t need to learn how to run every monster, just the ones that you use. You don’t need to master planar travel if it doesn’t occur in your adventure. Start characters at level 1. The rules, options, and creatures become more complex as you go. Start small. 2) Start small You can buy an adventure to run. That will limit the amount of preparation time that you need. Personally, I dislike pre-made adventures so I can’t recommend them, but it is an option that you should consider. If you write your own adventure, don’t start with your epic. A storybook, cliché adventure is a fine beginning. Keep it relatively short. You are going to need to adjust your style and correct your mistakes. It is easier to do this after a short scenario. You can pick up the story where you left off with the next adventure, just have a clean break. I recommend a small, backwater town as a base of operations. This lets you limit what’s there without seeming arbitrary about it. Also, when you find out later that it doesn’t match what you want for your world, you can wipe it out easily (fire, flood, famine, war, whatever). 3) Start easy. Go easy. For both you and the PCs, don’t worry about challenging them too much in the first adventure. Everyone will have enough challenge just learning the rules and figuring out how this RPG thing works. Try to put at least one thing in the adventure to which each character type would be particularly suited. Combat-based characters are fairly easy, but don’t forget that the Rogue isn’t much fun if he can’t use his special attack and/or pick locks and find traps. Do not make up situations to intentionally block or avoid the PCs abilities. (E.g.: The party is all Rogues and no Cleric, don’t send them against undead.) There are lots of discussions on this board about alignment and paladins and fair application of the rules. Forget them. When you have some momentum as a DM they become important. Until them, don’t worry about it. If someone plays grossly out of alignment in your first adventure you can talk to them about it, but short of that I would let it ride as much as possible. You can tighten it up in the future – just be sure to let your players know what has changed when you do. 4) Know what you plan to use (the flip-side of use what you know) If you are going to have Goblins raiding the town, know your Goblins and know your guardsmen (or militia, if you took my small town advice, above). As much as possible, you do not want to be looking up rules as you go. When the session happens, you will find yourself looking stuff up, it can’t be helped, but hopefully it will be the rules that you did not expect coming into play. You will need to be involved in the character creation of the PCs in order to know what they can do and learn the rules surrounding them. For instance, if you have a Mage in the group you should know what her spells do. Did I mention, “HAVE FUN?” There are a lot of different playing styles. Yours may be different than mine, and that’s fine. Some people play from pun to pun and laugh through the whole session. Some people have lip-biting edge-of-the-seat suspense throughout, which is also cool. Some people run their games on constant hack-and-slash combat, and that’s OK too. (You have no idea how hard it was for me to write that. :) ) Whatever style you develop, if you and your group are enjoying the process then you’re doing fine.
MojoRisin69 03-12-08, 11:29 AM	Thanks for the help and suggestions. I do have another question. My books are v3.5. How difficult is it to adapt a v3.0 adventure to use v3.5 rules? I've downloaded the level 1 adventures you recommended, but they appear to be for v3.0. Thanks again!
toucanbuzz 03-12-08, 02:52 PM	There's very little that actually impacted adventures as the change really affected the rules. For monsters, just take a glance at the MM (e.g. Skeletons in 3.0 had 1/2 damage to edged and now have Damage Reduction 5/blunt). Same with spells. The following references should cast up flags: Druids Bards Sunder ability Beyond that, most of the freebies and 3.0 require very little tweaking!
MojoRisin69 03-13-08, 08:04 AM	Thanks for all the help!
sakuradm 03-13-08, 05:08 PM	Hehehe. Welcome back James! :D I like to be retro (hence the nickname 'Hippie'...) Anyways.. since I play a lot of 1st/2nd edition stuff, i might have an idea what you talk about if you go into that at all :D Hmm, agreed with above posts. Burning Plague and Dark and Stormy Knight are always good starters. Or, feel free to look at my website (link is in my signature) for quest ideas, npc ideas and the like. HAVE FUN AND GOOD LUCK :D