Heya, I'm entirely new to d&d and am about to DM for a group of new people. Any tips...

Heya, I'm entirely new to d&d and am about to DM for a group of new people. Any tips, and also will it be obnoxious to use this huge 3d printed d20 for really important rolls?

Yes, because you won't get truly random dice results from a 3d-printed object.

Go buy Gamescience dice.

SHIT

What edition are you playing? That's key for any advice beyond basic stuff that could apply to any game.

Just 5e, I was told that it would be the simplest version

The die is fine. Any imperfections will likely be undetectable. Nobody needs gamescience tier high tolerance dice. Back in the day, people used their cheap molded polyhedrons and it was fine.

Moreso than anything else, don't be too bewildered when your players try to do crazy shit. Remember that you don't have to lead them down a neat line, but try and nudge them back onto the railroad every now and then.

Are you going to be using a written adventure of some kind?

I'm gonna be using a premade adventure from the official starter kit, but once that's done I'm gonna put the players in a homebrewed campaign, which I'm writing to be as streamlined as possible.

It definitely is, shouldn't be hard at all for you or your group to pick up.

Hop over to the 5e general thread and peek in the trove. There's a lot of resources you can use there, like all the DM's guild paid adventures and the big campaign books.

It's a lot of work to do something completely homebrewed. If you're comfortable doing it, by all means, do so. But sometimes you can also just put your own spin on a preexisting path of adventures.

Alright. I mostly run 4E, so I don't have anything really system specific, but one thing that I've found to work well is making at least one scene that's tailored to each PC's strengths. Don't force it if they go another way, but try to give everyone a roughly equal share of "screen time". Beyond that, like the other user said, don't be afraid to go off the rails. Something that helps there is having a couple premade generic encounters. That way, if your players get too far off track, you can put in a fight with some kobolds or whatever to give yourself time to plan a way to get back on track. The most important thing is to have fun though. If you aren't enjoying running the game, chances are your friends aren't enjoying playing it.

As for the giant die, it seems fun, but maybe not to everyone's tastes, so be sure everyone knows it's an option, not required.

I've been working on the general universe for a month in my free time, and I have the continent they start out on pretty fleshed out, with around 6 or so good side quests to use at any town they show up at. But yeah, resources sound like a good plan, I can't keep up the thing forever

Yea, it just occurred to me it could knock over drinks and food. I'll ask them

Oh, and....don't plan TOO much.

Nothing survives contact with players. And you'll find that if you plan too much, your players will blow past half those things and that work will be mostly wasted.

Absolutely do flowcharts and writeups. But it's often better to do less and fill things in as you go along.

My strategy is to make almost everything modular, in the sense that any NPCs can be introduced in any place they need to be. And I've made the only concrete objective for the first few sessions to be to dispose of an urn in a volcano. I don't know how well writing flexible will work in practice though

Sounds reasonable.

Also, related to giant dice and knocking over drinks:

BEING A GM IS LIKE HOSTING A SMALL PARTY. If you make your players feel comfortable and welcome, and you get a feel for what makes the game fun for them, they will come back for more.

Not even your first session and you're already THAT GUY

I can definitely do that, I was gonna rest a folding table with the legs still tucked in on two Ottomans, giving everyone a good amount of space (in theory)

I know the players well and already asked 2 if they minded, and they loved it. I wanted to make sure that more experienced players wouldn't find a huge flaw

>truly random dice results
>Gamescience dice

Roll it from a big cup.

I have been for forever DM for a good handful of years, so i will give you some advice i needed when i first DMed.

1: This is a player driven, party based game. Make sure all of your players enjoy the idea you have for a campaign. dont make a game about politics if your players want to hit big things and get XP.

2: You HAVE to make sure the players makew characters that can work in a group and get along to some degree, in party conflict is not bad and sometimes helps the game, but it is not fun when the party splits or the fighting becomes too intrusive.

3: Never discourage creativity, if a player does something you did not expect, or solves a problem faster than you had hoped never make them feel bad for doing it, and dont punish them, just make it a little harder next time around.

4: Expect the unexpected, Work on some improv and try your best not to railroad your players. Don't spend hours working on an NPC or an event, because your players might just ignore it, or go off in a totally different direction. if this does happen, dont force them back on the path you want, maybe give them a good nudge in the right direction but dont force them.

hope some of that helps you out!

Seriously dude, go buy Real dices at your gamestore or whatever but you don't wanna have to roll with that hugeass dice on your tiny table

Just a nitpick, but while 5e may be the best option, but it's by no means the simplest, as Moldvay/Cook Basic (which weighs in at 128 pages in total, including monsters, treasure and everything).

I would say that the way it's unbalanced will be random for our perspective, and if it's only used sparingly for really important rolls, it will be fine. If it gets used a bunch, the bias becomes a long-term, repeating affair, and then it becomes an issue.

Also, many of the dice folks use are startlingly biased, so I'm not sure how much better or worse it would be. It does, at least, have sharp edges, which should reduce the effects of weight imbalances on the rolls.

Expect your players to do the opposite of what you think they'll do. And whatever you do, never put Goblin PCs on a boat. I made that mistake once.

...

two quick tips:

the players don't need to see important rolls by monsters. you can't fudge a roll if they see it, and sometimes fudging a roll can help you choose the better outcome from a narrative perspective. plus, rolling random dice behind a screen for no real purpose and not telling your players what it's for is an easy way to build tension.

next, rule number one of improvising: don't say 'no', say "yes, and..." your players don't need an RPG to feel like a failure. give them a fair chance, let them surprise you, but don't be afraid to throw a little wrinkle in their success.

Gamescience dice are vintage and dank as fuck, tickles my dice autism and hipster fancies.

Feels good coloring your max numbers hot pink.