-------------------------------- Has been edited (9/15/2015) --------------------------------
(I will be editing the main post as I progress)
Hey everyone! 
I am really wanting to get into being a DM. I love being a player, but I think it is time for me to try and run a game. I love the idea of it and I have many fun things planned that I want to be able to do. I came here for some advice, answers to questions, and some good conversation about DMing.
A bit about my D&D history:
I have been playing 5e every since it was released, with just enough info to start a campaign. 5e is the first edition of D&D I have ever played. I played a few weeks of 4e after that, but I prefer 5e. I have played in a continuous campaign that I am still in to this day from the beginning when it came out, as well as other campaigns I have played on the side along the way. In other words I am very experienced with being a D&D 5e player, but not with D&D as a whole. I have also made a total of 5 character. One of those five was for 4e, and the others were 5e. I have also made variations of those characters to fit different campaigns.
What I am looking to do:
I am wanting make my own sandbox world. I know it would be easier to just run a module or something, but I just prefer sandbox a lot more. I do have a world map, and I am going to pretty much let the characters make the story. Let them pick where on the map they want to come from and so on. Then I will give them starting options and throw some situations at them and give them some world events and so on.
What I have, don't have, and need/want:
I will be DMing online, so I won't need any physical materials like actual maps or anything because I can just make them all for the virtual table. I have the PHB, Monster Manual, Elemental Evil, and a DMG. Does anyone know if someone has a list posted anywhere of the basic animals and low threat creatures with their stats, and a table for encounter and challenge rating? Also, is there anything out there for easy map making? I still have a lot of maps to make and I heard of some websites that are good at it. I need maps like landscapes for adventure and combat. I'd rather not use boring line maps.
Any advice or recorces you guys want to share with me would be greatly appreciated.
-------------------------------------------------------------------Contact Info-------------------------------------------------------------------
To contact me outside of the forums to talk about DMing, use one of the following:
Skype: punk-rock-mohawk (yes I know. I made the name a long time ago)
Gmail/Google+: mayolayne@gmail.com / Layne Mayo
Roll20: Layne M
If you just need some basic monsters to get started, you'd be happy to know that you can find them legally and for free in the DM basic rules here. It even includes a table listing them by CR.
Also, you can get a lot of monsters from the adventure module supplements for free (go to the products page of each adventure module to find these):
I do play online by "Play by post" and I draw my maps with paint. I do that as the group progresses, so it just shows what the players have seen already. If you play online real time I guess you're better off using Pen&Paper mapping tools. I'm not familiar enough with them to give advice, though.
JustTheDrummer wrote:
Rya.Reisender wrote:
Okay, I don't know how to do the block quote thing, so I am going to number my replies in order as they appear in your post :P
1) I will check out the links in your signature for sure thank you so much!
2) Thank you. I do have a few "big picture" events going on that can drive them to want to follow it for a while similar to "lets destroy the cult!" So, I should have some things to make the party want to work for. As for character goals. I am going to make this kind of RP centerd (yes there will be plenty of combat I just love RP) So I will require well thought out character backgrounds and things to ensure that they all have their own goals. I hope I am heading in the right direction with that.
3) Yes he has given me some great links! I can look at those tables and try to find a pattern and create my own tables, I just wasn't sure how many good quality, well known, fan published tables there were. I will be doing some googling here in the near future. The random encounter exercise sounds like a lot of fun and a great idea! Thank you!
I love that set up you have there. Give them that "Oh ****, what do we do?" moment. Everyone has at least a medium curiosity about things like that and it will drive them nuts if they never find out what they are haha. I hope I can create good enough encounters like that myself 
4) I also am going to be using Roll20. I just didn't know if it was okay to talk about on the official forums here or not. I am a graphic designer, so I have no problem making the maps outright, but I just don't want making and running this campaign to be a fulltime job. I want to get as many things together as possible to help me make it easier. I am not a paying member, so my resorces on Roll20 are limited to the free user settings. I am in the EST time zone. I would love for you to be able to sit in sometime, or at least chat with me in a voice chat about this some more, you seem very well like you know what you are doing and talking about By the way, how long have you been a DM in that respect?
JustTheDrummer wrote:
One thing, especially for a homebrew sandbox, is using either DMG or online resources sit down and generate some random names.
Make names for shops, random npcs, towns, cities, rivers, roads, anything. I have a hard time coming up with things off the cuff, and the worst thing is to be caught off guard when they ask "what's his name". I dpn't have standard sites, just google name generators.
The DMG will help immensely with making your own sandbox world. I would recommend trying to DM the starter set adventure if you have never DM'd before. It is short, fun, and designed to teach a new DM how to DM. If you have already played it though, I suppose you can just jump right in (that is what I did, about 10 years ago).
Chaosmancer wrote:
DM_HEEGZ wrote:
I've been running a sandbox campaign for a long while now, and for me it all comes down to a ton of preparation. I make sure I know all the names of towns and islands and such. I have lists of npc's prepared before hand, and names for villains. There's an overarching narrative that occasionally progresses, regardless of where the players are at that moment. And then there's local plot lines, that are directly linked to the location where the players are. I also play around a lot of alliances, and have side quests that allow the players to gain the friendship of a particular npc. I also make use of custom random encounter tables, though I never confine myself to them. Often I'll be able to find some way to work the random encounter into the narrative, and this can lead to new plot lines.
An example:
I rolled on my random encounter table for city encounters, and it landed on an angry mob. I figured that given the political situation, the local dwarves in the city might be angry about one of their ships being attacked, and thinking that the city was responsible. In reality this tied back to the main plot, where a faceless threat was attacking various pirate ships, and this was an opportunity to drop some hints about this future plot line. The players got to meet with an important spokesperson of the angry mob, a dwarven pirate captain, and they played a key roll in calming the dwarves down, and they formed a new alliance with them.
Imaculata wrote:
I recently did a video on how I manage my own sandbox campaign that might be handy here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5r54JGiCIE
You might find at least two of my You Tube playlists to be helpful: Particularly my D&D Encounter Ideas videos and my Dungeon Master Mistakes playlists which you can find on my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtbOR51Zalih402BV33BT1w
I do new videos every Monday, and just launched a new one today on handling loot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liRNpGEWLBE
I hope you find some of these resources helpful, and if you've any questions I would be happy to try and help, and maybe even do a video on the topic.
BeckyRose wrote:
JustTheDrummer wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Really cool looking world map. Plenty of parts of the world can be uninhabited, for what ever reason. In fact, the reason why it is uninhabited could be a great quest hook.
People need a reason to pack up and move somewhere else, especially if that somewhere else doesn't have the resources their current location has. So just because people have ships and know what other lands are out there, that doesn't mean they feel the need to settle those lands.
But this does raise the question of how people/civilization came to be in your world. Did they evolve? Or was there a more direct intervention?
Imaculata wrote:
ChelseaNH wrote:
Is there too much land in this world mao? I can remove some islands and things if you guys think I should.
The vertical land mass on the far left looks oddly symmetrical. And so does the area just to the right of the middle. You could add a bit more water by removing bits of land that look unnatural. You can also look at real world maps, to get some inspiration of how land masses form. For example, near polar regions, the shore lines tend to not be so straight. For example, look at the shore of Norway on Google maps, and you'll see what I mean. You could add some fjords to make it more realistic.
Imaculata wrote:
Maybe the land mass close to the north pole. It looks a bit bizarre to have normal landmass directly adjacent to an ice cap.
Imaculata wrote:
Just one thing to keep in mind is that you might fall into a trap that I have in the past: over planning the campaign. Nowadays I plot out a major theme, sketch out the world (or use one premade like FR), and then flesh out the starting town and some quest ideas. I use a lot of random tables to help flesh out encounters and things, and come up with ways that they tie into the overall plot. This way, I can still DM the story early on the in process, but it is more of a "Create as you go" and not a "Make it all before you start" sort of process.
I think the most important thing you can do as a DM is ensure that you and your players are on the same page regarding the type of campaign you will be playing and how you will be arbitrating rules (and even what rules you will be using).
DM_HEEGZ wrote:
guachi wrote:
I'll give you an idea of how I prepare my sandbox campaign. I have a complete world map that my players rarely look at (and which isn't entirely filled in yet). Then I have a regional map, which is very detailed. It is but a fraction of the world, but for many sessions now the players have remained within this region. Down below is that regional map, which so far has been big enough to run a campaign in for several years.
Then I have additional maps for various islands and locations that they visit. Some of these maps I created early on, and some I create when they are heading in that direction. I often don't fill those locations in entirely, so that plenty is left to be discovered by the players (through random tables). Here you can see an island that has been partially explored, and updated accordingly. When an island has a bizarre shape, it's usually deliberate, and I try to think of a cool reason for why the island looks that way. For example, the Island of Witchclaw is crescent shaped, because the island Damnaur came alive, and swam away. So that basically took a big chunk out of Witchclaw. No one ever knows where Damnaur is, because it always changes locations. That is why on all maps it is constantly shown in different locations. Island aren't named at random either. Each name has a story behind it. For example, the Isle of Bones is named after all the cannibals, who create elaborate effigies out of the remains of their enemies. Crab island is filled with crabs, both small and huge. The isle of mazes is a huge coral maze underneath the island itself.
.
When it comes to cities, I add a lot more details. Cities are after all not unexplored areas, and so I cram as many details into the map as possible. I include the names of various shops, taverns and churches that they may visit. I also work out a list of npc's that work there, each with their own very short description. I try to think of everything that they may need, but recently I've had to update this map with over 20 new locations (the result of several sessions where new characters and locations were introduced).
One piece of advice I can give you regarding cities, is to divide them up into districts. I try to think of a mood or ambiance that fits each district. For example, Old Quarter is the oldest part of the city, and includes many old buildings, gothic architecture, gargoyle statues, and ancient magic. Saint-Anna's is the central market district, named after the cathedral of Saint-Anna, which is named after a local saint. Silver Market is named after the many expensive goods that are sold there. New Quarter is the fancy part of town, where many nobles have estates. North Quarter is nearly as fancy, and several succesful merchants have an expensive villa there. Shanty Town is not officially recognized as being part of the city, because it is the slumbs outside the city walls. This is where the poorest of the poor live, and there's a lot of crime there too. North Dayport contains the main garrison of Vertesaux's city guard, and South Dayport has a lot of fish trade along the canals and on the harbor side (it also smells of fish). Finally, South Quarter is a bit more impoverished. It contains the much more modest church devoted to Saint Germain.
Imaculata wrote:
That could also work. A friend of mine DM's his dungeons exactly that way, he covers bits and pieces with sheets of paper.
Random tables can be fun, but it all comes down to how you can incorporate them into the narrative. I try not to restrict myself to what a random table says. If I roll something that does not fit, I roll again, and again, till something comes up that I can work into the story. You can also just write out some simple story moments, that you can introduce whenever you feel like it. Don't restrict the story to where the players are going, and you'll have a much easier job running the campaign. I do this with dungeons too. I may have a cool description of a tomb, or a wall carving, but I don't have to put that on the map in great detail. When my players enter a room, I can just pick one of those pre-written segments, and introduce them on the fly.
But to get back to the point I was trying to make. Having a huge detailed world map is nice as a frame of reference, and it looks pretty, but you might get very little use out of it. Sometimes a map of just a region is enough to keep your players busy for a whole year.
Imaculata wrote:
JustTheDrummer wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Myself, my wife, our oldest son and a friend decided to fire up a game on a whim. I'd heard about 5e from someone that I ran into at our local brew pub. I'd played DND, ADND and 3rd edition so I was familiar with the dynamics of the game.
Our first session was them rolling up characters and me placing them on a road with the intent of them stumbling into an old graveyard with a mauseleum guarded by skeletons. It was so simple that it was sickening, but it allowed us all to iron out the basics of combat, movement and all of the other fine details. There were stutter steps and mis-steps on my part, but we worked it out at the most basic level possible.
As their PCs have advanced and moved out into the greater part of the world, role playing has come more into play. That usually ends up with my wife in a fit of giggles as one of my friends PCs acts like an ass most of the time. In one town a little old woman threw a rock at the party for stirring up the goblins so he picked it up and threw it back at here while a town guard was in sight. Apologies were made by the party, my friends PC was muzzled and the party moved on. All good times.
bakerjw wrote:
JustTheDrummer wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
JustTheDrummer wrote:
JustTheDrummer wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
DM_HEEGZ wrote:
As for encounters at sea, here's what I do: I measure the distance of the voyage, which may be increased if the players failed their navigation check. I then calculate how long the journey is, based on their sailing speed (Wind direction matters here, and can slow the journey down, or speed it up). For each hour of travel, I roll one random encounter. This means that at some point during that hour, they encounter what ever I rolled.
Now a random encounter at sea can be many things. Most of them are in fact not enemies, but discoveries. Some may be allies, some may simply require some ship maintenance or skill checks to get going again. I also have some flavor encounters, and beneficial encounters. Because no one likes going through an endless carousel of monsters. I try to weave all those encounters into the narrative in a way that makes sense.
Imaculata wrote: