First DM first session (4e) - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

First DM first session (4e)

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
sleap
Mar 08, 2012 12:51:26 Okay, me and my freinds have been playing a bit recently, none of us had played in a while and we played 3.5 to kind of learn the ropes again. We started going to encounters with some of my freinds from FNM and now I'm going to try my hand at being a DM for the frist time. I'm far from being any kind of expert on mythos, basically if I found a cool nugget of flavor as I was reading books and stuffy trying to figure out making my character I would write it down and see if I could explore that.

Our group is going to be about 4 or 5 people and we usually have a pretty good mix of roles so that's never been a problem

I have the story of my adventure as well as whats really going on (We really want to start a campagin and get to higher levels over time so I'm setting something up that can open the world up for more adventures and an eventaul Big Bad for level 30 stuff)

But for now I'm just focusing on this first session. I'm looking for something with a fast pace and intend to finish the night at level 3. Don't worry this is really fast, wont take long to read I could really use some feedback here beacuse I feel like I'm doing it right but I have no idea.

The story is that the city the characters live in, a large costal city, has been sacced by some kind of demonic force and they have to fight their way out of the ruined city to get away to safety. The inner part of the city is on a small island that is surrounded by the coast of the larger more loosey populated area.

(players make various checks and look around to see what is happening)

The characters are in an alley when a rabid pack of wolves come across them and engage!!!
(ENCOUNTER 4 wolfs 500xp)

The destroyed buildings around them leave their only opening as a building infront of them.
(Explore in here for items and look for clues about the dogs, they had leashes, someone sent them to find survivors)

The front door is broken down so they have to go upstairs to the roof of the buidling where there is a swarm of drakes.
(ENCOUNTER 4 Spiretop drakes and 1 Gaurd Drake 525 exp) THE PARTY IS NOW LEVEL 2!

During this encounter there will be cracks in the ceiling and if a character runs over them they will randommly fall though and either make a reflex save and catch themselves, or fall though the hole and take damage and lose a turn coming back up.

On the rooftop the characters can over look the destoryed city, they scale down the side of the building to the next area and do some exploring when a crazed cult member with a torch runs though. (Capture and interrogate, or just kill him and inspect to segway to the next area)

A group of cult members are burning down a curch in the city, for Bahamut. Flaming skeletons are coming out of the fire and you have to put the fire out with magic or a well next to the curch or another skeleton comes out every turn (there are 5 patches of fire that need to be put out)

After they succeede in putting out the curch they can inspect for more clues. They run into a Dragonborn preist who says that if you help him get out of the city he will reward you when you get out of the main part of the city.

The party leads him to the docks of the island when you find that the bridge has been destroyed. There is a boat but it is beging garuded by some Dragnoborne Soldiers
(ENCOUNTER! Dragonborne Warriors) Still figuring out experiance but I think that should be enough to make us all level 3

The party loots the bodies (Upgrade weapons and armor I guess, I'm still not sure)

The party ferries across the river as the city burns and find themselves in a refuggee camp.
They will rest here for the night
They can question around and find out more about why the city was destroyed
Re-supply and tune everything up for the final boss

After everyone is well rested and re situated, preparing to figure out what they are going to do next...

BOSS ENCOUNTER!
Young White Dragon Lvl3
(Because you got to fight a dragon )

As the dragon dies he reveals the plot.

The chromatic dragons, in leauge with a group of rebellios Dragonborne, are giong to raze the land and recreate a Dragon kingdom in honor of Tiamat, the evil dragon diety.

I read this bit that said that Dragonbourne have no land to call their own, and that they worship Bahamut. So When I got this idea of dragonbroune just destroying another city to build their own kingdom I figured I could loop it into a Dietiy conflict so that this campagin would have somewhere to go way later. (Tiamat would be the big bad, using the Dragonborune to build her kingdom on the mortal realm)

So what do you guys think, again, first campagin ever so any pointers would be awesome.
#2
Litmus
Mar 08, 2012 15:04:28 Sounds like a fun first session - it has a cinematic quality to it. It's fairly 'railroady', but I don't think that's a huge issue for a first session. For future sessions I'd try and keep things a little more open so that players feel as though they have some meaningful choices available.

I like the fact that you're taking a 'show, don't tell' approach to introducing the players to your story. I like that you've kept your main story arc simple and broadly defined - complexity and detail will come as the campaign progresses.

A couple of things that you mention make me wonder whether you're planning on running a PC as well as DMing. If so, then that's something that I would recommend against.

It appears that you're not dividing the XP reward between the party members, but awarding the total to each PC. As a result, you're levelling very quickly - not a huge issue if that's what you want to do, but it will give you a few additional challenges (harder to plan encounter difficulty for any parts of your campaign that have a non-linear path for example). I'd personally avoid having the PCs level up more than once per session (once every 2-3 sessions is what I've been aiming for in 4e), but everyone is different. Don't let anyone tell you there is only one right way to play.

Good luck for your first campaign

#3
sleap
Mar 08, 2012 15:11:33 Thanks, I do plan on having a PC, a city patrolman who is just as clueless as everyone else. I will deffinately try to avoid railroading or slipping up in character.

I was thinking that I'm leveling up pretty fast, but me and my freinds have had a lot of trouble getting a group of characters to really get past level 1 or 2, so we would really like a chance to get to the higher levels so we can tool around with more complex characters.
#4
Drecon84
Mar 13, 2012 7:12:03 About the leveling:
You mentioned that your main experience is with 3.5.
You are aware that in 4E starting characters are about as complex as a lvl 5 to 7 character in 3.5?
I couldn't really determine whether you had any precious 4E experience but be aware that for starting players even the options at lvl 1 could be overwhelming.

Other than that, it's an option. I personally like to take the leveling slow, but if you want to level fast there is nothing wrong with that. Just don't overwhelm your players too much.

On the story:
You seem to have a good plan for what you would like to happen. Morst importantly here is: Don't expext your players to go along with your plan. What if your players decide the Dragoborn priest might be evil and try to negotiate with the enemy? What if your players are so desperately trying to save the city that they run in danger of falling to the flames? Try to remain flexible. One rule of DMing is that you should always expect your players to do something other than what you planned for. If they deviate try to make something happen that subtly makes them go into the right direction.

Other than that:
Just try to run with what you have. Find out what your strengths and weaknesses are and try to play into that. You players will forgive you a lot since you're new to DMing, so just do your best, talk to your players afterwards about what they liked and what they liked less and work form there.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 sleap Mar 08, 2012 12:51:26	Okay, me and my freinds have been playing a bit recently, none of us had played in a while and we played 3.5 to kind of learn the ropes again. We started going to encounters with some of my freinds from FNM and now I'm going to try my hand at being a DM for the frist time. I'm far from being any kind of expert on mythos, basically if I found a cool nugget of flavor as I was reading books and stuffy trying to figure out making my character I would write it down and see if I could explore that. Our group is going to be about 4 or 5 people and we usually have a pretty good mix of roles so that's never been a problem I have the story of my adventure as well as whats really going on (We really want to start a campagin and get to higher levels over time so I'm setting something up that can open the world up for more adventures and an eventaul Big Bad for level 30 stuff) But for now I'm just focusing on this first session. I'm looking for something with a fast pace and intend to finish the night at level 3. Don't worry this is really fast, wont take long to read I could really use some feedback here beacuse I feel like I'm doing it right but I have no idea. The story is that the city the characters live in, a large costal city, has been sacced by some kind of demonic force and they have to fight their way out of the ruined city to get away to safety. The inner part of the city is on a small island that is surrounded by the coast of the larger more loosey populated area. (players make various checks and look around to see what is happening) The characters are in an alley when a rabid pack of wolves come across them and engage!!! (ENCOUNTER 4 wolfs 500xp) The destroyed buildings around them leave their only opening as a building infront of them. (Explore in here for items and look for clues about the dogs, they had leashes, someone sent them to find survivors) The front door is broken down so they have to go upstairs to the roof of the buidling where there is a swarm of drakes. (ENCOUNTER 4 Spiretop drakes and 1 Gaurd Drake 525 exp) THE PARTY IS NOW LEVEL 2! During this encounter there will be cracks in the ceiling and if a character runs over them they will randommly fall though and either make a reflex save and catch themselves, or fall though the hole and take damage and lose a turn coming back up. On the rooftop the characters can over look the destoryed city, they scale down the side of the building to the next area and do some exploring when a crazed cult member with a torch runs though. (Capture and interrogate, or just kill him and inspect to segway to the next area) A group of cult members are burning down a curch in the city, for Bahamut. Flaming skeletons are coming out of the fire and you have to put the fire out with magic or a well next to the curch or another skeleton comes out every turn (there are 5 patches of fire that need to be put out) After they succeede in putting out the curch they can inspect for more clues. They run into a Dragonborn preist who says that if you help him get out of the city he will reward you when you get out of the main part of the city. The party leads him to the docks of the island when you find that the bridge has been destroyed. There is a boat but it is beging garuded by some Dragnoborne Soldiers (ENCOUNTER! Dragonborne Warriors) Still figuring out experiance but I think that should be enough to make us all level 3 The party loots the bodies (Upgrade weapons and armor I guess, I'm still not sure) The party ferries across the river as the city burns and find themselves in a refuggee camp. They will rest here for the night They can question around and find out more about why the city was destroyed Re-supply and tune everything up for the final boss After everyone is well rested and re situated, preparing to figure out what they are going to do next... BOSS ENCOUNTER! Young White Dragon Lvl3 (Because you got to fight a dragon ) As the dragon dies he reveals the plot. The chromatic dragons, in leauge with a group of rebellios Dragonborne, are giong to raze the land and recreate a Dragon kingdom in honor of Tiamat, the evil dragon diety. I read this bit that said that Dragonbourne have no land to call their own, and that they worship Bahamut. So When I got this idea of dragonbroune just destroying another city to build their own kingdom I figured I could loop it into a Dietiy conflict so that this campagin would have somewhere to go way later. (Tiamat would be the big bad, using the Dragonborune to build her kingdom on the mortal realm) So what do you guys think, again, first campagin ever so any pointers would be awesome.
#2 Litmus Mar 08, 2012 15:04:28	Sounds like a fun first session - it has a cinematic quality to it. It's fairly 'railroady', but I don't think that's a huge issue for a first session. For future sessions I'd try and keep things a little more open so that players feel as though they have some meaningful choices available. I like the fact that you're taking a 'show, don't tell' approach to introducing the players to your story. I like that you've kept your main story arc simple and broadly defined - complexity and detail will come as the campaign progresses. A couple of things that you mention make me wonder whether you're planning on running a PC as well as DMing. If so, then that's something that I would recommend against. It appears that you're not dividing the XP reward between the party members, but awarding the total to each PC. As a result, you're levelling very quickly - not a huge issue if that's what you want to do, but it will give you a few additional challenges (harder to plan encounter difficulty for any parts of your campaign that have a non-linear path for example). I'd personally avoid having the PCs level up more than once per session (once every 2-3 sessions is what I've been aiming for in 4e), but everyone is different. Don't let anyone tell you there is only one right way to play. Good luck for your first campaign
#3 sleap Mar 08, 2012 15:11:33	Thanks, I do plan on having a PC, a city patrolman who is just as clueless as everyone else. I will deffinately try to avoid railroading or slipping up in character. I was thinking that I'm leveling up pretty fast, but me and my freinds have had a lot of trouble getting a group of characters to really get past level 1 or 2, so we would really like a chance to get to the higher levels so we can tool around with more complex characters.
#4 Drecon84 Mar 13, 2012 7:12:03	About the leveling: You mentioned that your main experience is with 3.5. You are aware that in 4E starting characters are about as complex as a lvl 5 to 7 character in 3.5? I couldn't really determine whether you had any precious 4E experience but be aware that for starting players even the options at lvl 1 could be overwhelming. Other than that, it's an option. I personally like to take the leveling slow, but if you want to level fast there is nothing wrong with that. Just don't overwhelm your players too much. On the story: You seem to have a good plan for what you would like to happen. Morst importantly here is: Don't expext your players to go along with your plan. What if your players decide the Dragoborn priest might be evil and try to negotiate with the enemy? What if your players are so desperately trying to save the city that they run in danger of falling to the flames? Try to remain flexible. One rule of DMing is that you should always expect your players to do something other than what you planned for. If they deviate try to make something happen that subtly makes them go into the right direction. Other than that: Just try to run with what you have. Find out what your strengths and weaknesses are and try to play into that. You players will forgive you a lot since you're new to DMing, so just do your best, talk to your players afterwards about what they liked and what they liked less and work form there.