Let me start out by intorducing my self. I live in a small town in rural Idaho. The closest city is several hours drive away. I also work full time.
about 20 years ago I was very facinated by D&D. I was also raised to think it was bad. One night I was staying at a fiends house along with a few other firends and I was introduced to D&D. We played all night and in to the next day. Long story short I was all exicted and it slipped out to my parrents and I was banned from that friends home.
So fast forward to 6 months ago. I friend this same guy on facebook. He now owns a gamming store some where down south. My wife also firends him a few days later. He talkes to me and the wife casually about D&D. I have missed it some and bring up trying it to the wife. She does not seem interested. Then last week one of her old friends from collage lets it slip that she plays D&D. and suddenly my wife wants to try it.
Long story made short. The wife our 4 kids (ages 11-17) some friends of my wife and even a few nephiews all want to play D&D. We got a large pool of people. Now the problem. Of all of them I have the most experence. My 1 night of playing D&D now is what is qualifiyng me to be a DM (along with experence playing baulders gate and Icewind dale). Yeah I am a newb.
I feel over whelemed. I want to know if its even possable. I have bought the begginers guide for 5e online and have been reading through that. I have done a few mock fights just with creatures and the characters included in the beginners guide.
I wish I could go a play some where but being in a very rural area I dont think there is any groups. I could go to Boise but that is a 5 hour round trip drive with out even knowing what I am doing.
Is playing with the beginners guild doiable for a group of newbs?
Thanks for the advise. I will be happy with a No or a Yes.
Like most things in life DM:ing is something you learn by doing it. My advice for a completely fresh DM:
1) Just do it. Reading articles on the internet can never learn you how to DM.
2) Keep it simple. Here is an adventure for you: A band of goblins stole pumpkins from a local farmer. The farmer offers a nice dinner and a few gold coins if the player characters brings the pumpkins back. The ranger gets to roll to track the goblins. If there is no ranger they just track the goblins anyway. A fight against some goblins. Triumphant return to the farm. Voiala. A night of fun. It doesnt need to be harder than that.
3) Read the rules, but dont reference them all the time. In the interest of keeping the game flowing: If you dont know the exact rule just do something that makes sense.
I agree with Kalil. The more you do it, the better you get.
Keep it simple. And really just remember the basic flow of the game.
DM describes a situation and asks players what they do.
Player tells DM what he/she will do (trying to narrate action).
DM responds. If the outcome is not assured, DM tells player to make an appropriate roll/check at set DC (easy 10, Moderate 15, Hard 20, etc.) and then DM narrates the results. Some DMs like to let the player know the stakes before the roll.
Sometimes it helps to watch how other people DM (there are a ton of examples on youtube, etc.), but it isn't necessary.
Lots of people loved using Lost Mines of Phandelver for first time games. I agree with them on that too.
Good luck. Have fun.
I second what Kalil said, and add this:
Being the most experienced doesn't mean you have to be the DM - D&D is just like any other table-top game in that whoever wants to be the DM is perfectly capable, they just need to read the rules well enough to get things moving, and then focus on everybody having fun (better to ignore or completely misinterpret the rules and have a good time than to run the rules flawlessly and feel overwhelmed by the process of having to learn all of them at once before anything fun could happen).
If you change your mind about heading to Boise, let me say that the folks at Phoenixfire Games are a really kind and helpful bunch (the employees, at least - I'm not famiilar with many of the regular customers since I don't get down to the shop nearly as often as I might like to) that would very likely be willing to set up, or help set up, a "demo" game of sorts (whether running a brief adventure to show you how its done, or just by facilitating something like some local DM meeting you in the shop for a quick teaching-adventure).
Because of my health I can't make a guarantee of my availability, but if you can't find the confidence to have fun being a DM any other way, let me know and I can try to work out a way to meet you at a Boise/Meridian game shop and run something for you to help out.
My own qualifications for DMing when I started? I owned the book. I was an average IQ10 year old & had just received this really odd (but interesting) game for Christmas. The "game" consisted of 1 rulebook (the 1980 Basic set), 1 adventure (Keep on the Boarderlands), & a set of weird shaped dice. Oh, and a single crayon. No game board, no pieces, no cards, just a bunch of reading.... We (myself + brother + cousin & a friend) looked at this & said "hmmm". We clearly weren't going to get to play it that day. So I spent a week reading the rules & the adventure. The next weekend we set to playing. I was appointed to be the DM for no better reason than I actually owned the book & had read it. (My brother COULD have read it, he just didnt). So if a 10 year old with an imagination & 0 xp could do it? So can you.Thank you! I have the lost mines of phandelver and I think I may just run the intro with my wife and eldes before we get other people involvedt. I apricate the confidence!
Thanks for recomending Pheonix Fire in Boise. Ill look them up!
Well, most things are already said. It's a game and as long as you don't try to be perfect and concentrate on the fun part, it shouldn't be a problem. For beginner groups, don't mind the small stuff, just say OK to everything, which is either harmless or too much a bother to deal with 'correctly' and remember, that you actually play the game as a DM, too: You might provide the game, but you're an active role in it, too.
Don't be afraid to roll in secret to fake some dice rolls if things look bad, so the first session rolls fluently and no drama arrises. For starters it's hard enough to keep the rules in mind, so they're challenged enough with this.
I, too, regard Lost Mines of Phandelver, in the D&D Starter Set as a good way to start the game for players and DMs. It's not too complicated, it's an easy adventure for a DM to prepare and it gives you some of the most important ways how to make any campaign in any system, not only D&D, since each chapter provides different approaches.
But of course it's totally fine, if you want to run an adventure yourself. It just may be more of a challenge you might thought of before. ;)
Dejavu357 wrote:
Congratulations and welcome back to the hobby!
I recall very clearly the hesitation that I first had when I transitioned from being a player to a GM so I can understand your anxiety. However, as it has been stated previously you really need only an imagination and the willingness to listen to your players to get on the right track to being a successful GM. Further, there is a wealth of information, one-shot adventures and communities to aid you in your efforts.
The bottom line here is that you remember that the purpose of the game is for all included to enjoy themselves. The more the group plays, the more comfortable everyone will become (especially you).
Lost Mines of Phandelver is a good adventure. If all you get through on day one is the Goblin ambush, that's ok. Or just do the pumpkin thing. If you play WoW, you can think of the easy quests for low level characters and adapt one.
An adventure that starts of with lots of role-playing can be a great start. Lost Mines has the wagon trip to Phandalin.
Maybe interacting with the pumpkin farmer at the beginning of the Great Pumpkin Caper adventure. It's two days before the great pumpkin festival and Farmer Bob's prize pumpkin was stolen by goblins! Oh, noes! Write a few notes for Farmer Bob and his family. Encourage the players to interact with each other and Bob's family. Then go kill goblins. Find pumpkin. Players have to figure out how to transport a 1000 lb pumpkin. Farmer Bob wins the pumpkin fest! Yay! Pumpkin pie for everyone!
And that's when you bring out the pumpkin pie from the refrigerator you made beforehand.
One tip: you may want to DM for the adults and have the younger folks work it out for themselves. Otherwise the group would probably be too big, plus it helps if folks of similar maturity levels play together. You can always advise the younger kids if need be, but they may have more fun if they muddle through it in their own.
Just go for it. Have fun.
Use the pregenerated characters from the starter set (you can download them as PDFs and print off spare copies) and give one to each player a day or so before the first session, so they can "get into character" and build on it in fun ways in their heads.
Separate the business of learning the rules from the business of "being" the adventure. Get the players to learn the rules and let them tell you how things are supposed to work. Pass the rule booklet from the starter set around between the players beforehand and ask them to read through the parts that relate to their characters. The two fighters can learn the combat rules, for instance, while the cleric and wizard worry about how spellcasting works. The halfling rogue could learn things about exploration and skill checks, maybe. Divide the work and it will seem a lot less daunting.
Above all, do whatever seems fun for everyone.
In terms of the number of players, I'd say yes, you have too many players for a new GM. Heck, as a long time GM, I wouldn't find running for that many players all that fun. Consider running two games instead of just one, to break the group of players in half.
I generally limit my group of players to around 4 to 5. I also make sure that all players are roughly of the same age as me, and mature. Mixing adults and children in one group could be problematic. Then again, they are aged 11-17, which may be old enough to "get it". I'm not saying its impossible, but for a first time DM it is a rather large group to manage.
I recommend starting with a premade adventure module, because this is a great way to learn how to create a proper campaign. There's a lot of things you may not even think of when it is your very first adventure, so start easy, and pick something someone else already made for you. Premade adventures have the advantage that they already include all the locations and names of characters, plus they have maps of all the locations (including dungeons). But make sure that it is a 5e edition module! Because the rules differ wildly between different versions of DnD, and not all campaigns can so easily be adapted to 5e.
You can also watch a lot of DnD sessions on youtube, to get an idea on how to DM. Also, the first time you all create characters may take a while. You may spend the whole evening doing that first, before you even get to actually playing. Unless you use premade characters. Be sure to print out some character sheets for your players before hand, and make sure there are enough dice to go around. Also print out any maps that you want to show to your players.
Yeah my story is a little similar. First time my friends said hey lets play DnD(this was in the early 90s) I told them I had heard it was devil worship and they all laughed. 20 years later I am still an avid gamer and I only JUST recently started DMing for the first time. I was super nervous at first, but it has turned out to be quite fun. So much so that when the DM I was filling in for returned to town, I wanted to keep running the game. I thought as soon as he came back I would want to jump in and play, but the second he showed back up my first feeling was of disappointment that my players would go back to him. Jealousy is a bitch, lol! Everyone stayed, so that made me super happy.
One thing that helped me when I started DM;ing is to watch the aquisition incorporated videos on youtube. Dungeons and Dragons has their own channel on youtube, and they have videos of them playing their own games. Start small, use your imagination, but this will help give you a few good ideas of how the game should flow and what checks are required in certain situations. This helped me tremendously, so I hope that you find it helpful as well.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfS8QgUdeGYpErbmZ_JAeYBhpGOrPYV6N
You can also check out my actual play transcripts which shows the play-by-play of our games and gives examples of how to describe the environment, adjudicate, and narrate the results of the adventurers' actions. It'll also give your players some ideas of how they might interact with the game world.