Hey there /tg/, looking for some advice.
My friends and I are going to be playing our first game of D&D tonight, and it seems I'm gonna be DM.
I've more or less familiarised myself with the rules and I played a bit of Baldur's Gate II back in the day, plus I'm an occasional lurker here so I'm not completely jumping into the deep end, but I was just looking for some tips that might help me out as a first-time DM.
Anything that might help out with keeping any of my more normie mates involved? Should I do voices for the NPCs or just describe what they say? Is there any accepted wisdom when it comes to maps or boards that the players can see so they can track their own movement in combat and the like?
We're going to be playing 5th Edition, and we have a kind of starter pack thing so I'm going to propose that we start out using the pre-built character sheets (at least for this first session) and the Lost Mine of Phandelver scenario that was included.
Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated, in the meantime I'll shamelessly self-bump now and then with concept art.
Forgot that I can't self-bump any more. Fucking Hiroshima.
IDGAF
>Take a deep breath, relax, and try to have a good time.
>Remember that the DM's job is to make sure everyone has fun. Give the fighter someone to beat up, the rogue some traps to disable, the cleric some undead to smite, the wizard an arcane puzzle to solve, etc. Reward your friends for playing the characters they want to play.
>Contrasting that, don't forget that it shouldn't be a cake walk (at least it shouldn't FEEL like 100% chance of success to your players). I like giving my players 3 things that play to their strengths for ever 1 thing that I know their PC will have trouble with.
>When running NPC's, I would recommend speaking in-character, but make the voice changes small. A bit lighter for a young lass, rougher for a grizzled hunter, strange pitch for a gnome, etc.
>If you're doing D&D/PF, you'll need some sort of battle mat, even if its just grid paper. There are dry and wet-erase mats that you can get cheaply, too. Large grid paper works surprisingly well. For mini's, I used spare dice for awhile.
>Starting with a pre-written adventure is a good idea and will save you a LOT of time. You won't have to worry too much about whether or not your fights are too strong/weak, since the writers (should) have done that for you.
Best of luck!
>>43529115
How would you describe this mountain pass with imagery?
>>43529244
"As your party rounds the corner, you find that the ground to your left side suddenly drops away into a sheer-sided gorge. The trail narrows to nothing more than a precarious ledge, and your horses become nervous as they pick their way forward.
The cliff to your right towers above you, dangling with moss and vines. The wind whistles through your ears and buffets your clothes.
Ahead, you can see that the trail passes though a natural arch that juts out from the cliff face. At either side of the arch you can see a heavily armoured soldier with a spear. They're standing guard, and they don't look friendly."
How'd I do? To be fair, I had the time to write this out, in reality there'll probably be a lot more "y'know, like" and "big ol' fucking cliff".
>>43529230
Thanks man, I think my friend who's hosting has a small whiteboard in his kitchen, we might be able to appropriate that for tonight's mat at least. He's also an engineer by trade, so I'm sure he's got grid paper lying around somewhere.
Cheers for the tips.
>>43529440
Nice! Whiteboards can work very well, but be careful you don't erase/smudge the wrong thing. You'll figure out what works best for you.
>>43529588
Yeah smudging might be a problem. I think sourcing some grid paper and maybe raiding the Cluedo set for some little colour-coded player counters might be the way to go.
Cracking out the Warhammer minifigs would be great, but we all play(ed) 40K so they're not exactly thematically appropriate.
>>43528985
I'm in the same boat as you bro, I'm supposed to come up with a Fallout campaign for my group tomorrow (Thought we were getting together Thursday, nope!), and am completely lost.
We're running Exodus, which literally was Fallout just reskinned.
>>43529680
>Thought we were getting together Thursday, nope!
Oh shi-
Good luck, man, I had no idea it would be this daunting and I didn't even get it sprung on me out of the blue.
Lemme search this folder for Fallout-ish stuff, see if we can't get those imagination juices flowing for ya
>>43529773
Thank you kindly.
From my limited experience, one thing I can suggest is, while having grand-scale battles are awesome, keep it in the background and just make the players face small skirmishes piecemeal.
As an example, when I was doing Rogue Trader, I made my group fight a large group of enemies, with some NPCs assisting them. Fight took for-fucking-ever.
Just have them fight # of party members + 1 or 2, and have the rest of the battle happen in the background.
When describing something consider all the senses. How does it smell, is it loud here? Is it muggy?
Be prepared to change everything you prepped. I do this with the illusion of choice. No matter which way they go, they find themselves in what I've prepped. Names and details may change, but the numbers don't.
For puzzles, have 3 solutions, or paths to the solution. They don't think the same as you, so they may not make the same connections.
Also, remember to have fun. And remember it is ok to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them.
>>43529894
>Just have them fight # of party members + 1 or 2, and have the rest of the battle happen in the background.
This seems like pretty solid advice, sort of like how battles seem to work in action movies and capeshit - big set-pieces in the background while the heroes square up against a few particularly mean antagonists.
Like I mentioned in OP, we are going to be doing a pre-written scenario to begin with, but I want to get my own going before long, so this is all good stuff.
Don't be afraid to do things you think are cool, play your characters the way you would want them to be played, don't be embarrassed, your friends want you to be a storyteller.
>>43529974
>When describing something consider all the senses.
This is the same advice I once got for creative writing - I guess storytelling is storytelling, no matter the medium.
Damn you guys are great, this really is the best board.
>>43530102
No escaping the universal law that is the rule of cool. I don't get embarrassed easily, even when I ought to,so that shouldn't be an issue.
DMing is easy, provided you give a shit.
And when I say "give a shit' I don't mean that you should care intesely about everyone falling in love with your made up homebrew world.
What I mean is that you should care about the EXPERIENCE. This means having a plot that makes actual narrative sense, pacing that doesn't move too fast because you're eager to get to those "epic battles" you envisioned, and most importantly the courage to not bend under the pressure you will certainly put on yourself to not "railroad".
Do not be afraid of making things that can't be overcome in one skill roll. Never let players roll a skill without roleplaying it first. Never let players see the results of their Perception checks. In-character all the time. Always roleplay your NPCs, even the shopkeepers.
Give a shit.
>>43530321
I will give a shit, anon. If not for the players, then for you.
Seriously though, good tips, thanks
>>43530464
I'm being completely serious when I say I you should be prepared, if not assume outright, that none of the people you think are playing actually want to be there. Because it's almost a certainty that quite a few don't.
>>43530622
Yeah, I know for a fact that at least two of our group have been umming and ahhing over the whole idea of D&D and roleplaying. Normally we play stuff like Catan or Agricola - casual, numbers-based strategy stuff that doesn't carry over from session to session.
This is a big step further out of normie territory, so I'm pretty conscious of keeping it interesting and fun for the guys who are skeptical.
>>43530920
Fallout guy here, just had a breakthrough for my campaign.
>Takes place after New Vegas, Independent ending
>New cult is expanding at an alarming rate, the Followers of Za
>Have to stem the growth of this danger to the wastes
>Find their HQ, the Hut of Za
>Within they find the BBEG, Father Jonathan, bearer of knowledge for all things deep dished and evil
>>43530977
Turns out that their HQ was a Pizza Hut, and the toppings of their All Meat pizzas were people. They just worship pizza and Papa John
>>43531026
>what is Arbu
>>43531057
>Arbu
This name seems familiar but I cannot place it. Please assist me with this quandary
>>43530977
>>43531026
That's fuckin glorious anon
10/10, would play
>>43531057
CLEARLY I mean Andale.
>>43528985
>>43530102
this fag is in my dnd group, listen to him
make the game fun and engaging, but be sure to sprinkle in little fun/funny bits if its not edge:the game or warhammer
dont rush to the big battles and take time for the little things, they matter the most
>>43531093
its the cannibal town from fallout equestria
pone andale
>>43531221
Ah yes, I remember now.I actually read the whole thing at one point. As far as autism goes, it's not terrible.I also read Project Horizons up to chapter 30, which is when I realised pone shit was going down the shitter fast
>>43531180
OP here, consider his words carefully heeded.
I've been wanting to do an Only War campaign based off of Mad Max as inspiration, featuring a mechanized infantry penal legion that drives around in trucks and uses grappling hooks to board enemy vehicles.
All of this was invented before Fury Road came out but now I really want to add combat drugs including a "suicide mix" of a shitload of powerful but extremely self destructive drugs that ends up a vial of chrome liquid, when the vial is injected into the user and the chrome color liquid is drained you can see the writing on the inside of the vial in chrome lettering that reads "The Emperor Awaits" also equip their trucks with racks of exploding spears they can throw at people.
I'm wondering though, how Only War's vehicle to vehicle system is, and if it would be exciting enough for the players, and what my general story could be for the campaign.
I'm thinking something like it takes place on a death world rich in Promethium, there are imperial settlements there to harvest it, but the settlements are under constant attacks from the Kult of Speed Orkz and my mechanized penal legion is sent in to deal with the greenskin problem.
>>43531269
i read all of project horizons, was there when the 5th chapter was writtenits my favorite fic
but to each his own i feel
>>43532592
The fic itself was decent, but the rest of the fanbase was descending into autism levels too extreme to handle.I was there for chapter one. There was also that other one with the pink cloud, I forget what it was called.
>DMing
>Throw curve balls at my group
>Hitting home runs, coming up with new, creative ideas
>Throw them a straight ball
>Beyond perplexed
All they need to do is comfort a guy who lost his pet rat to party shenanigans and they're done, they've spent 3 hours tonight trying to figure out how to get him a new pet rat to replace the one they killed.
>>43533357
I kind of love when this happens because it means my content's gonna stretch further than I thought so I have to do less work later. Can be frustrating when you're eager to be done, though.
Some of the most fun I have is when PCs get totally bogged down on one silly thing and turn it into a major ordeal and I get to make up stuff as they overthink the details and make it harder (and thus a funnier story in the end) than it had to be.
>>43533357
>DMing
>party has to deal with a druid
>don't know how to get out of a vine based crowd control
They;re level 13, god damn.
>>43530321
>Never let players see the results of their Perception checks.
What do you mean by this?
>>43533570
Probably
>Somethng is up
>tell players to roll d20
>you know their skills, so add the releveant modifiers
>they learn nothing, so say nothing
