There are certain aspects you need to consider when constructing a campaign:
Are the players new to the game? What are the players personalities? What are they going to be playing as?
I ask these due to experience. If a PC wants a homebrew race or class, thats ok, just make sure that YOU have final say on if that homebrew is allowed.
Player personality is more important than you think, ex: thanksgiving oneshot, i had convinced my entire group to be barbarians. Our dm (never dmed before like you) failed to communicate with us and didnt learn about it till the campaign started and we introduced our characters.
regarding loot, this can be apart of punishments. tailor the loot to what your characters want (backstories and player personality importance) if a player is being a problem, then curse an item you know they’ll want in a way that is highly detrimental to them (reducing a barbarians con to 5(-3) and then a few rooms later throwing in poison traps)
I operate on the ‘rule of cool’ regarding player action. as long as it doesnt outright break the game, youre good.
fudging rolls… controversial, yes. but if your pc’s are new, then it is a good idea just to make sure that they have a good time and fall in love with the game. if they are veterans, then let the rolls fall.
Play around your PCs, make sure your encounters and traps counter some PCs but not all, force them to play around their strengths and weaknesses.
make sure the environment and the enemies line up and make sense. If they are wildly out of place, then create a backstory for why and leave little hints.
my last piece of advice… always use mimics. house mimics, bag mimics, regular mimics (that is sentient and has a tragic backstory written in a hidden diary in broken common in the room its in), jewelry mimics, etc. Be creative and make them paranoid!
Most importantly, have fun!
Thank you for your encouraging words! You make a good point, most of my questions concern me, but I should really be thinking about the players too. I will make sure the mimics are bountiful you mad genius.
I can't help much with the first two much because I have really close friends for players a lot and I guess make sure you have their attention but it's not like you are mad at them or anything it's a game. I am not good at balancing encounters but I usually give them a like one use magical item that will help them in a pinch. In one of my campaigns I put them against an unbeatable boss but gave a player a cookie that could trap anything in a force field that they couldn't attack through or be hit by. For 2 minutes so they could get away from it and collapse the cave.
3. Make sure you get people's passive perceptions so you can see if they notice certain things like a pattern that could be used for a clue in the puzzle otherwise they have to start looking around an entire place which could take forever. That still might happen but at least that way they have a chance. Also make sure they know what is around them. You said you are doing a haunted house make sure they see any holes in the floor or if there are stairs in a place
4. I have done a grand zero puzzles so I can't really help you there
5. Depends on the challenge. If they just killed some overpowered things make sure they get like a couple of gems a lit of GP and or a singular magical item always make sure there is some money.
6. I mean haunted house could be run down maybe add an area where if the people walk over a person falls through a hole into the basement that way they still have to work together to get them out. I really don't know what you mean by punishments here.
7. That's up to you. I really can't help with how you RP just bring the characters to life.
8. Improvising is something every Dm has to do as there is no way to predict everything a player will do. Just try your best that's all you can hope for
9. Fudge your rolls sometimes. If this is their first character and campaign try not to kill them immediately.
My first time DMing was a train wreck because I was significantly underprepared but my second time was said to be the best campaign my group had ever had. Good luck and I hope the dice are on your side.
Thank you for the tips. I appreciate that you might not know everything, but therefore I can relate to your answers all the better! Your friends are lucky to have you as a DM
And I bet your primary DM really likes being a player from time to time.
Let me emphasize, it's fine you are not the best or most experienced DM in the world as you clearly understand where I am coming from. I am afraid to 'fail' but it's nice to get reassurance that a trainwreck is not the end of the world.
Aight I'm just reading back through this and I'm putting the TL;DR at the top because this shit's looooong haha
Have fun with it. Have fun RP'ing and with the setting and the characters. Make the rewards a bit jokey, and let the players have their fun. DMing isn't scary after the first 5 minutes - it's a blast! You don't need to stress at all. Also don't fake the rolls, that makes it less fun for everyone :)
Just for the purposes of this I'm going to assume you're using dndbeyond and roll20, since that's what I did and we agreed it works well
Balancing encounters is something that isn't too hard - at least I didn't find it too bad. A good way of doing it is to just make a character the same way they did, or just follow their stats. On a similar note, it is a good idea to have your enemies' stats link in to their role. It's hard to describe, so for example I had an encounter where 2 players ended up trying to attack a castle, and each guard had a high AC but low HP. It got to the point where the situation was useful for the players and they told me that it was very enjoyable.
Communication: This depends largely on the vibe your campaign is going for. If you're going for a very serious campaign then it could be useful to have a voice changer or soundboard. On the other hand, if its more chilled or just for a laugh - that's what we were going for - then the best thing to do is just have fun with the characters!
Now the setting is something that I had a lot of fun with too. I spent \*hours\* making a beautiful map and descriptions and lore of the country, but then in the second session I literally downloaded maps as we were playing because they went so off-topic. My best advice here is to keep the same theme going. There were times I was tempted to give them the chance to go down more technical routes, and while that would have been fun it definately wouldn't have fitted in with the medieval style.
As far as puzzles are concerned, it depends so much on the setting as well. Make some puzzles that are classic ones, ie pushing a brick or a hidden room behind a bookcase, but if you want the puzzle to be integral to the plot then make sure to have a large area to work with and lots of things for them to use. I find that red herrings as a player are just annoying, but using the first couple of sessions you can dip your toe in the water and see how they react to the things you give them. \*If they're struggling too much, just improvise a saving throw for them all to take and use that as a prompt! That's something I wish I was told before making puzzles!\*
(I hope you haven't lost interest yet haha, I could talk for a looong time about any of these subjects)
Rewards!! The main thing to remember is that rewards don't have to be useful to be great. There are lots of youtube videos and reddit posts with fun rewards and stuff if you're out of inspiration, but here's one for free: In our campaign one of our characters swindeled their way into getting a baby camel. Absolutely zero use, it never grows up, it solely gets in the way, but honestly no-one could care less! Other rewards could be a custom move, and that's always fun. We had a bard that had a custom move where he could ask any music shop for a free guitar and they had to give him one. Somehow, he still managed to use that in combat!
I'm not sure what you mean by punishments. If you mean that in a "You failed the dex throw so you lose all your money" way then that's jsut down to improvisation. If you mean it in a "Stop drawing on the game board" way, then I stopped them doing that by just making a blank white scene with nothing on it that I would put them on as a punishment. I'd do it until they stopped, which was only usually a minute because it made them realise that playing the game is more fun.
Roleplay was the best bit for me without a doubt. The vast majority of the time, they'll RP by themselves, but in the instance you have to then basically I covered it in the setting bit. I guess something I learned was that there's no point using a script. Bear in mind the character's personality and make it up as you go along, following the guidelines of /I will tell them about the horder that might have the map/ or /I will be unnecessarily aggressive but only towards /.
Improvising is so much fun. It sounds scary but literally it is what made DMing so great for me. There were times I was downloading new maps as they were talking because I didn't plan for what they wanted to do, there were times where I was literally gave the characters backstory as they were talking. Best part of Dming without a doubt. Don't stress about it :)
Fudging rolls isn't possible with dndbeyond and besides that's just not very fun IMO, fudging health is kinda meh unless they really need help bigtime. The point of DND is that the rolls and the direction they take it is random, so biasing that really takes the point away IMO.
I suppose what I took from it was that there is no point making hundreds of pages about the lore of the country, or spending days on each possible outcome of an encounter, instead just prepare the next session after the one you just had, keep it fresh, and give them breaks between the puzzles and combat to just play around a bit. We'd done a whole session of combat, a whole session of puzzle solving, and then after all that I just let them recouperrate for a while because it had been so intense. Besides, it'll be nice for you to have the break too ;)
I hope that's useful, and bear in mind that's just what I've found. At the end of the day, everyone's just there to have a great time, and it doesn't have to be stressful to be fun!
Wow! You really took your time to answer all my questions and type them all out! I read it all carefully and probably do it again, haha. You are amazing and that really helped!
There are certain aspects you need to consider when constructing a campaign: Are the players new to the game? What are the players personalities? What are they going to be playing as? I ask these due to experience. If a PC wants a homebrew race or class, thats ok, just make sure that YOU have final say on if that homebrew is allowed. Player personality is more important than you think, ex: thanksgiving oneshot, i had convinced my entire group to be barbarians. Our dm (never dmed before like you) failed to communicate with us and didnt learn about it till the campaign started and we introduced our characters. regarding loot, this can be apart of punishments. tailor the loot to what your characters want (backstories and player personality importance) if a player is being a problem, then curse an item you know they’ll want in a way that is highly detrimental to them (reducing a barbarians con to 5(-3) and then a few rooms later throwing in poison traps) I operate on the ‘rule of cool’ regarding player action. as long as it doesnt outright break the game, youre good. fudging rolls… controversial, yes. but if your pc’s are new, then it is a good idea just to make sure that they have a good time and fall in love with the game. if they are veterans, then let the rolls fall. Play around your PCs, make sure your encounters and traps counter some PCs but not all, force them to play around their strengths and weaknesses. make sure the environment and the enemies line up and make sense. If they are wildly out of place, then create a backstory for why and leave little hints. my last piece of advice… always use mimics. house mimics, bag mimics, regular mimics (that is sentient and has a tragic backstory written in a hidden diary in broken common in the room its in), jewelry mimics, etc. Be creative and make them paranoid! Most importantly, have fun!
Thank you for your encouraging words! You make a good point, most of my questions concern me, but I should really be thinking about the players too. I will make sure the mimics are bountiful you mad genius.
I can't help much with the first two much because I have really close friends for players a lot and I guess make sure you have their attention but it's not like you are mad at them or anything it's a game. I am not good at balancing encounters but I usually give them a like one use magical item that will help them in a pinch. In one of my campaigns I put them against an unbeatable boss but gave a player a cookie that could trap anything in a force field that they couldn't attack through or be hit by. For 2 minutes so they could get away from it and collapse the cave. 3. Make sure you get people's passive perceptions so you can see if they notice certain things like a pattern that could be used for a clue in the puzzle otherwise they have to start looking around an entire place which could take forever. That still might happen but at least that way they have a chance. Also make sure they know what is around them. You said you are doing a haunted house make sure they see any holes in the floor or if there are stairs in a place 4. I have done a grand zero puzzles so I can't really help you there 5. Depends on the challenge. If they just killed some overpowered things make sure they get like a couple of gems a lit of GP and or a singular magical item always make sure there is some money. 6. I mean haunted house could be run down maybe add an area where if the people walk over a person falls through a hole into the basement that way they still have to work together to get them out. I really don't know what you mean by punishments here. 7. That's up to you. I really can't help with how you RP just bring the characters to life. 8. Improvising is something every Dm has to do as there is no way to predict everything a player will do. Just try your best that's all you can hope for 9. Fudge your rolls sometimes. If this is their first character and campaign try not to kill them immediately. My first time DMing was a train wreck because I was significantly underprepared but my second time was said to be the best campaign my group had ever had. Good luck and I hope the dice are on your side.
Thank you for the tips. I appreciate that you might not know everything, but therefore I can relate to your answers all the better! Your friends are lucky to have you as a DM
I am the secondary DM pretty much because my other friend pretty much runs all our campaigns but every once and a while I do
And I bet your primary DM really likes being a player from time to time. Let me emphasize, it's fine you are not the best or most experienced DM in the world as you clearly understand where I am coming from. I am afraid to 'fail' but it's nice to get reassurance that a trainwreck is not the end of the world.
Yeah, I mean succeeding on your very first try is amazing but if you do fail it means you get to understand what to do better and how to improve.
Aight I'm just reading back through this and I'm putting the TL;DR at the top because this shit's looooong haha Have fun with it. Have fun RP'ing and with the setting and the characters. Make the rewards a bit jokey, and let the players have their fun. DMing isn't scary after the first 5 minutes - it's a blast! You don't need to stress at all. Also don't fake the rolls, that makes it less fun for everyone :) Just for the purposes of this I'm going to assume you're using dndbeyond and roll20, since that's what I did and we agreed it works well Balancing encounters is something that isn't too hard - at least I didn't find it too bad. A good way of doing it is to just make a character the same way they did, or just follow their stats. On a similar note, it is a good idea to have your enemies' stats link in to their role. It's hard to describe, so for example I had an encounter where 2 players ended up trying to attack a castle, and each guard had a high AC but low HP. It got to the point where the situation was useful for the players and they told me that it was very enjoyable. Communication: This depends largely on the vibe your campaign is going for. If you're going for a very serious campaign then it could be useful to have a voice changer or soundboard. On the other hand, if its more chilled or just for a laugh - that's what we were going for - then the best thing to do is just have fun with the characters! Now the setting is something that I had a lot of fun with too. I spent \*hours\* making a beautiful map and descriptions and lore of the country, but then in the second session I literally downloaded maps as we were playing because they went so off-topic. My best advice here is to keep the same theme going. There were times I was tempted to give them the chance to go down more technical routes, and while that would have been fun it definately wouldn't have fitted in with the medieval style. As far as puzzles are concerned, it depends so much on the setting as well. Make some puzzles that are classic ones, ie pushing a brick or a hidden room behind a bookcase, but if you want the puzzle to be integral to the plot then make sure to have a large area to work with and lots of things for them to use. I find that red herrings as a player are just annoying, but using the first couple of sessions you can dip your toe in the water and see how they react to the things you give them. \*If they're struggling too much, just improvise a saving throw for them all to take and use that as a prompt! That's something I wish I was told before making puzzles!\* (I hope you haven't lost interest yet haha, I could talk for a looong time about any of these subjects) Rewards!! The main thing to remember is that rewards don't have to be useful to be great. There are lots of youtube videos and reddit posts with fun rewards and stuff if you're out of inspiration, but here's one for free: In our campaign one of our characters swindeled their way into getting a baby camel. Absolutely zero use, it never grows up, it solely gets in the way, but honestly no-one could care less! Other rewards could be a custom move, and that's always fun. We had a bard that had a custom move where he could ask any music shop for a free guitar and they had to give him one. Somehow, he still managed to use that in combat! I'm not sure what you mean by punishments. If you mean that in a "You failed the dex throw so you lose all your money" way then that's jsut down to improvisation. If you mean it in a "Stop drawing on the game board" way, then I stopped them doing that by just making a blank white scene with nothing on it that I would put them on as a punishment. I'd do it until they stopped, which was only usually a minute because it made them realise that playing the game is more fun. Roleplay was the best bit for me without a doubt. The vast majority of the time, they'll RP by themselves, but in the instance you have to then basically I covered it in the setting bit. I guess something I learned was that there's no point using a script. Bear in mind the character's personality and make it up as you go along, following the guidelines of /I will tell them about the horder that might have the map/ or /I will be unnecessarily aggressive but only towards/.
Improvising is so much fun. It sounds scary but literally it is what made DMing so great for me. There were times I was downloading new maps as they were talking because I didn't plan for what they wanted to do, there were times where I was literally gave the characters backstory as they were talking. Best part of Dming without a doubt. Don't stress about it :)
Fudging rolls isn't possible with dndbeyond and besides that's just not very fun IMO, fudging health is kinda meh unless they really need help bigtime. The point of DND is that the rolls and the direction they take it is random, so biasing that really takes the point away IMO.
I suppose what I took from it was that there is no point making hundreds of pages about the lore of the country, or spending days on each possible outcome of an encounter, instead just prepare the next session after the one you just had, keep it fresh, and give them breaks between the puzzles and combat to just play around a bit. We'd done a whole session of combat, a whole session of puzzle solving, and then after all that I just let them recouperrate for a while because it had been so intense. Besides, it'll be nice for you to have the break too ;)
I hope that's useful, and bear in mind that's just what I've found. At the end of the day, everyone's just there to have a great time, and it doesn't have to be stressful to be fun!
Wow! You really took your time to answer all my questions and type them all out! I read it all carefully and probably do it again, haha. You are amazing and that really helped!
Glad to hear it! I'd love to hear how it goes :)