Starting Some DnD

Gate28

Tomorrow, some friends and I are going to start playing some DnD. I don't know if it will become a weekly thing, but we are going to start trying for it. None of them have ever played DnD before, and I (being the DM for the campaign) am still a bit fresh. I have the starter box I bought from the store, so I have a map, basic beastiary, rulebook, and adventure book. Any suggestions noob character creation (the tool from Wizards seems fine) and are there any good, short beginner campaigns out there, besides the one the game came with? Just any tips on starting DnD? Thanks!

QCH

Key to being a good DM.... learn to go with the flow and let the characters move the story along. Make them feel like they are the game instead of playing your game. Think of several possibilities for each event and be ready to take a weird path if they decide to do something you didn't think they would.

Nothing is worse than a DM that says "Well, there is a little girl getting robbed and is just about to be killed... how do you want to save her?" That makes them become a tool to the story instead of helping write the story.

QCH

On to a character creation and a "campaign"...

Character Forget the stats and the tools and the books.... help them "feel out" a character. Help them develop a history, talk about traits that define them. After they have that, mold a character around that idea. They become attached to the character and understand how to play it in a realistic way. If they want a player that is basically good but not really a "by the book or law" kind of guy, then make them unaligned. If they want to be the hero and ALWAYS jump to the rescue, make them good.

Now, I rarely follow the books rules when I make a character. The new edition is more adapt to a vast pool of skills, traits, and such. If you don't like the wording, change it. Treat the books as guidelines not cannon. Make the player love his character and he will play it better.

Campaign Here are some things that I learned in my 15+ years of gaming and DM a ton... Don't take a "module" from Wizards of the Coast and play it as is... Take a story and start there. Develop a history for the world. How common is magic. What is the economy (how much does a gold piece buy you). Are there wars going on? Is the world/ country/ local area peaceful? Now, at first level these guys are suppose to be the equivalent to high school hero's. You know, the one kid in your school that is really smart, or the kid that is just gifted at just about every sport, or the one that gets EVERY girl by just walking by... They aren't supper-beings, just a bit more gifted than average. They aren't college material yet...

So, take a simple story and mold it around these guys. Maybe they are all looking for misc jobs and some merchant needs some cooks/ stable boys to go on a caravan trip. Add in a scholar that wants a scribe to help copy local documents while in route to a bigger city. You now have a group of low level folks all going together... now throw in an attack and they are forced to help defend or maybe they are all that survives and now they must help lead the caravan to safety or rescue an object...

Battle vs Story OK, here is an argument waiting to happen. Some think that D&D is all about kill'n the bad guys. Other would rather just tel stories and figure out puzzles and never fight. Me? Balance between the two. A good story needs to be told to keep it intersting. Add in some puzzles and a battle or two... Awesome in the making.

primesuspect

Most important: have fun. Welcome to what is probably the greatest game ever made.

Gate28

Thanks, this helps a lot! I think I'll start with the campaign from the starter book to get my bearings, then maybe I'll start to try to make my own.

I was looking at the 4th and 3rd edition character sheets and they blew me away. The pre-built characters that came with the starter set had really simple and easy to read stats spread over two pages. The 'official' ones have everything everywhere and they totally blew my mind. Feats and deities, those are all new to me.

kryyst

One of the biggest skills you need to develop is confidence. You need confidence in the story your telling and confidence in the rules your using. Without confidence you'll find yourself stumbling and sputtering and that will lead to players second guessing your judgement calls. Then the books crack open, rules are consulted and the game starts to bungle. Things just go downhill from there.

Confidence though only comes from experience with DM'ing and familiarity with the rules and the story you're running. DM'ing experience will only come from DM'ing so there's nothing much you can do there. You just have to play and play often. Start small and don't try and bite off a story idea bigger then you can handle. That will only lead to your own frustration.

It's perfectly fine to do a simple save the princes dungeon romp. Rule familiarity comes from reading the books over and over again. It also comes from playing the game and understanding how the rules you've been reading actually are applied. If you get a solid grounding that will help to inspire confidence in your players as they learn to respect your judgement calls.

If you are running a canned adventure read through the module plenty of times so you know it more then a paragraph ahead. It's also a good idea to create your own simple point form plot outline for what's supposed to happen. It'll be far quicker using that to navigate, then page flipping the whole time like a choose your own adventure. Also expect for the players to come up with ideas that aren't in the module. You need to be prepared to handle them.

Regardless of how the first session turns out don't give up, it will get better.

QCH

D&D was my creative spark. My love of Medieval History, my attachment to Video Games started with D&D based games.

Colgere

QCH2002 wrote:

D&D was my creative spark. My love of Medieval History, my attachment to Video Games started with D&D based games.

^ ditto this for me, I'm a huge D&D gamer (along with about every other type of gaming you can name), even though I haven't had a chance to play D&D recently.

Thrax

#1. Read the book from cover to cover. Do not fail this. You are the GM, and you need to know your game world.

#2. Give players latitude, but don't let them walk all over you. A gamer that tries to abuse the system or ruin the game ruins it for <b>everyone</b>.

#3. You're the boss. You decide the rules and parameters of the game world; leave some things open to debate, but know when to put your foot down and say "this is the way it is."

BuddyJ

Killing the players isn't the sign of being a good DM. Never give the players a reason to think you wouldn't let them die, however.

/me has died twice in his current campaign.

Thrax

#4. And most importantly: Develop your own style. Some people think the rules are just a guideline, some people think they're inviolable canon. Get a feel for your players and develop a styling of DMing that works for you and the party, but be CONSISTENT.

Gate28

Buddy J wrote:

Killing the players isn't the sign of being a good DM. Never give the players a reason to think you wouldn't let them die, however.

* Buddy J has died twice in his current campaign.

One of them was hit by a falling trap rock and died and the other ate a poison stew and died....in the same room....after killing a room full of goblins and dure rats....heheh...

troll

One DM years ago kept us in boats on a river for 2 Sundays, played once a week back then, grew real old real fast... (Dude how long we gonna be in these boats? Soon, Soon)

You see he was making up the campaign as we went along, not a good thing...

Good Luck with it, it was a lot of fun once we got a good DM.

Think Geek got some sweet dice...
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/745a/

CB

I make up the campaign as I go along, and I've had very few complaints.

troll

Then you Sir, have some fine skills!

This other DM just plain sucked...

Gate28

Today was fun. We started by having my friends create characters (a Halfling Ranger and a Half-Elf Sorcerer), but they died on the second map of the campaign to a rock and some stew. They rerolled a Dwarf Fighter and A Half-Elf Cleric and continued on their merry way. We plan on continuing the campaign later on this week =D

CrazyJoe

Well yea, a ranger and a sorcerer are both squishy... Need some tanking going on in there...

QCH

Ranger IS a tank... when played right.

kryyst

Nothing wrong with making it up as you go along. That's been my GM'ing style for nearly 2 decades. I think in my entire time DM'ing I've only ran 4 premade adventures ever.

drasnor

CB wrote:

I make up the campaign as I go along, and I've had very few complaints.

I wouldn't call making up the entire world and political situation in advance making it up as you go along :P.

I play the Fighter and I am the tank.

-drasnor

primesuspect

he's not much without his healer behind him

drasnor

Parties are like casserole, any one piece is disgusting by itself but all together we're tasty.

-drasnor

primesuspect

Dal'Ruth still stinks

Ampersand

I'm actually going to be DM'ing a 4th ED campaign this summer for the first time for some of my friends who have also never played (I was in one campaign that failed within 5 weeks making me the most experienced XD). IT'S LIKE WE'RE THE SAME PERSON.

kryyst

We just wrapped up a running Dark Heresy campaign (it's an RPG based on the Warhammer 40,000 setting for if you don't know).

A friend of mines going to be starting up a Warhammer Fantasy RPG set in Freeport, which is a D&D setting based around a pirate setting with a Cthulhu-esq backdrop.

After that finishes it looks like I may be running another Warhammer Fantasy game where all the players are Skaven. So it'll be a lot of backstabbing, paranoia and power struggels. Where the group must succeed or likely get eaten by their supperiors as is the skaven way. But within the group they'll be wanting to one up each other and shift blame from themselves.

Good times.

Xiper

Hey Guys,

I am New to D&D but I do know the rules good enough to DM. Well I made a World, Places, religion, and so on. I made a cool intro with a ship crashing into a village and so But as we started playing EVERYTHING went down hill. My NPC's were not how I wanted them to sound, I droped my friend (the PC) in spots where he didnt really know how to move on, Worst of all I had this village made for 100% story so it would welcome him to the world more or less but he ended up playing for 3 hours and neaver geting out of the village because the talking went slow as hell. I think I have a good story and after that village it heats up into "freedom" we all know as D&D but the whole "First Chapter" just failed. This Really put a dammper on how I thought I could be a good DM

Well we are meeting again tonight, What should I do? I think I all-ready screwed by story up? Any Good Info about DM I need to know?
Thanks

BuddyJ

Three hours in a village isn't bad. These things take time to develop. If your player is having trouble and doesn't know how to get through something, perhaps you should have the character encounter a mentor or guide to help them through the task. New players especially will benefit from an example to follow. Just be patient and use your resources and creativity to steer the player, but remember that RPGs never work out as a linear series of events that will go according to your plan.

Xiper

Thats True..... Looking back I cut some things out and added a few more. It Might move easyer now. Let me ask some thing though, I am makeing my game in chapters more or less.... Should I move them onward in story everygame or should I just throw them on a quest

For Example:

If last game they were walking on a road out of town - Should I start them next game on that road

Or Should I just start with "You now Find your self next to a cave. You seem to hear growling from with-in"

Also- We have only one DM (me) and one Player (My brother) we are looking into geting more but is the game worth it with only 1 player?

Thank You for the feed back, Anything helps

BuddyJ

I'd start up on the road. Jumping from place to place makes it seem really episodic. You don't have to do a single chapter per session. In our game, a chapter can take many sessions to complete. Use the time between major story events to flesh out characters, upgrade basic gear, and give the players some time to heal and take a break from combat.

With just one player, you're in a rough spot. The best thing do to would be to find two more people. A party of three works well and will have more fun in the long run. Do you or your brother have friends who could join in? The more PCs, the more conflict and camaraderie you'll see. And that's what makes the game great.

Xiper

Yes, We are trying to get freinds to join us. We have one that is thinking about it. We should get 3 PCs if they want to play. I like the longer chapter idea, im going to do that so I dont have to call everyone a chapter. Ok I think with the changes I can give that a better try. Thanks for the help and ill come back if I need anymore. Its nice to see there are this manny other players out there but then again its not like this is a new game.
Thanks, Xiper

BuddyJ

Good luck with it. :thumbup