So I haven't gamed in nearly four years and last week one of my friends found my D&D 3.5 player's manual on the shelf. He INSISTED we give it a shot since he had always wanted to play and was actually too socially awkward to associate with the "geeks" in school so never got the chance. I've been conned into running a small game for a few people. I have three days until game session one and honestly am floundering a bit. I never actually got the chance to DM while I was playing regularly and probably should have been paying more attention to what went into it other than work and a hint of evil. I have a basic storyline (albeit a simple one,) a couple basic towns, a list of things for them to kill, a large bag of dice and a cabinet full of snacks.

Basically I'm just looking for a morale boost, some pro tips for making this easier on first time players and a first time DM and possibly a kick in the rear sending me in the right direction.

Playing some pre-written adventures might be the best place to start. I know I've always been too lazy to DM anything other than pre-written stuff!

Just like a battle plan, nothing ever survives the first shot.

Always be prepared to think of stuff up on the fly. A good DM will be able to think up of stuff on the fly and come up with ideas.

Trust me, even if you have thought out of everything the players will find a way to bypass your "fullproof" game.

Now, also character creation will probably take way longer than you think as it always does so I try to have everyone have their characters done before hand.

And don't think of this stuff as intimidating, just make sure that you have some little ideas in the back of your head.

Also running a module might seem like a great idea but unless you want to sit down and read the module completely through I try to shy away from them, as it bogs down the game since the DM tries to flip through pages and pages of stuff to try and find the correct thing to do. If it's your own homebrew stuff then you know everything and can push the game along at your own pace!


*edit* ninja'd by Ginafae :p, and if you do like to do pre-generated stuff and just roll with what the players do then maybe that will be a better idea. I know I don't work well with modules, so maybe I'm just biased :p

I agree, a pre-writeen adventure would probably go a long way towards helping you out.

rpgarchive.com and dndadventure.com are EXCELLENT resources for this.

I've looked at a few but none of them I've found really appeal to me. I like the story I've come up with and the stubborn part of me says I can do this the hard way.

So long as my friends have fun I suppose it doesn't matter, but I'll feel better about myself if I do it myself.

Edit: Thank you guys all for your help. I feel like this is something my group's just going to have to hold hands and jump into. If I mess up too horribly the first go round I may try a premade adventure, but for my pride and my sense of adventure I can't start that way.

Well, then, write out an outline of your story. Come up with your NPCs, and go ahead and stat out any possible encounter monsters and such ahead of time.

Note cards are great; do what you can to minimize having to look up rules in mid session.

You might want to simulate a battle round or three ahead of time - just to get a feel for what dice to roll when, and how it ought to flow, before you get your players around a table.

...that they'd come running, didn't I?

Masochist!

And, yes... you nailed it... As long as you and your friends have fun, that's the most important thing. Grab a buddy, put your toes in the water, and if nobody comes out squealing and shivering with hypothermia... CANNONBAAAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!

One thing I've become overwhelmed with is the sheer number of enemies I could throw at them. I found five different monster manuals. Obviously I'm not going to go throwing ancient dragons at them day one, but there's hundreds... how do you chose?

You choose by what makes sense for your story. If you are after an evil wizard, he might have onstrous or undead minions. He might have a paid ban of thugs and retainers.

If you are trying to rid the valley of an ogre tribe, then you have ogres and perhaps their allies.

If you are in a desecrated graveyard, you have skeletons, zombies, maybe ghouls.

If you are doing a classic dungeon... well, almost anything goes. It's a cliche that is a bit of an inside joke, that a dungeon can hold any number of different monsters for no real reason.

...my guess would be that, first, you'll want to narrow down the choices by "terrain"... Your party is more likely to encounter gnolls out on the plains as opposed to in a town, right?... And, it's not likely that they'd encounter an Ixitxachitl in the desert, is it?

Next, of course, you're gonna wanna think about your party's "strength" and what they might feasibly be able to handle... A group of level 1 PCs up against a stone golem or three probably isn't going to go at all well for the PCs but toss a handful of kobolds at 'em and they stand a snowball's chance.

Lookit me, talking like I'm some sort of DM or something... ... I'm not... but I do have a thought every now and again.

For some reason that makes me want to make them run into a dire shark with a fish bowl on his head. I'm not silly enough to do that just yet, but that may change if we stay up too late.

I supose they wouldn't really know the difference if I sent giant scorpions after them when they weren't in a desert area. They'll be to worried about not dying and less concerned with it being in the wrong enviroment.

Thank you guys so much. This really is making me feel like it's not quite so scary.

The key thing is to make monsters fit into the narrative and story you're telling. Also try and make the scenario you run flexible enough that you give players more than one route that they can take to get to the end. That'll encourage you to work on the bits beyond combat

I think now it's just little things that are going to freak me out. I feel like I'm going to need the little tabby thingies to put in my book so I can quick flip to important pages I'll need.

I guess I just have to go for it. I'll probably come screaming back for help immediately afterwards with fifteen thousand problems, but for now I'm feeling decently confident that I can at least entertain my friends for a night.

...does that sound like a particularly cute gamer-chick that we all know from Loaded Dice, at all?

Good to know you're easing into that "comfort zone," Kriea... and, as far as coming back with more screaming goes... We love that kind of thing, you know? Pop in whenever you like (hopefully, often)... we'll be around.

...since you didn't tack up an intro post in the "Comings and Goings" thread and I've already done the whole 'welcome to the Inn' spiel elsewhere, I guess there's no harn in putting this here...




You're official, now.