DM advice

Starting a new campaign tomorrow. Any Advice?

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You really, really have to give us more than that if you want advice. What system? Party? What's the campaign premise? Is there something in particular you're having trouble with? Etc.

Do a session zero first.

Ask your players for expectations beforehand.

Be prepared. Improvising is important. Don't just go 100% improvisation and have no notes or preparation and just lead the players around with unrelated hooks and no story going on whatsoever. Have some cool locations done, have fun places to explore, have MacGuffins or villain silhouettes.

If your players do something COMPLETELY unexpected and you are struggling to figure yourself out, it's okay to even explicitly say that you didn't expect that and to call for a break while you sort yourself out. If it still doesn't work, say that this particular development is so crazily unexpected that you don't know how to go on with it and if they could retroactively adjust to help everyone build a story. Relax, don't give yourself a shitton of scrutiny. If you're playing with friends, it will work out.

And whenever there's a lull and a lack of direction, just throw a random encounter at them. Ninjas or whatever the fuck.

Don't plan out an entire scenario to go A->B with. Make guidelines instead.

These are good points. We do need more.

But the three best pieces of advise I could give are:
>If you're going to do a puzzle, don't have a solution in mind.
Players will inevitably come up with the dumbest shit you never thought of. An example would be the players are trying to escape a space station but their ship is being held by docking clamps, there's dozens of solutions to this problem and I couldn't possibly think of them all, so the third clever thing the players come up with will work.

>Never make your players roll for something plot critical that they could fail.
You want them to get to the plot don't fucking hinder them from doing so. Example, Players have to disarm a bomb and if they fail they'll all die. The players need to track a gang of orcs that stole a prize winning horse. All the players fail to detect that an NPC that tells them "I never heard of no Sword of Ruin" was lying.

>Say yes or roll the dice.
Stole this from Dogs in the Vineyard. If there won't be consequences to the players failing something then don't bother to make them roll. It speeds things up.

Your players WILL surprise you, and you won't be prepared. Just come up with as many ideas as possible.

Also, if you want there to be guidelines for your campaign (i.e., no evil characters, mostly human party) let the players know ahead of time because if they show up to session 0 or whatever with an already-fully baked idea of the kind of character they have in mind you might feel like an asshole for saying no.

System is 5e and is a 5 player group. We're doing the underdark. I disallowed drow and aasimar

Are you new to DMing or seasoned? that changes how people will respond. What kind of advice? Ideas or Mechanics?

as you should, drow are faggots

This so much, but to add to it, illusion of choiche for your party is much more important of actual choice. Reskinning is a extremely useful thing for a DM to do.

For example let's say you have prepared a big arc about orc raiders in the mountains but your party decided it want instead to go adventuring in the sea. An easy thing to do is just change to orks into pirates, and then you can still easily use all your notes.

All these people saying you will be surprised are lying, more or less; it means you haven't done enough prepwork to account for surprise.

To seem like you have your shit on poimt comstantly and look like an improv king, have:

>1 planned scenario with whatever amount of work you're comfortable throwing at it

More is better, but focus on creating interesting things for them to interact with, not the way they choose to interact with them. Go read the Tomb of Horrors PDF, the traps and dungeon design have descriptions and drawings that show a level of thought that's on the right track for fun.

>3 fleshed out, prepared hooks to get your players back to your prepped work if they get off track

So if you want them to go to the beach to meet the bad guy, for example, have ready and scripted a few reasons for them to get there if they're not (e.g, there's going to be a festival there, there's a wanted criminal job posting for a man at the beach who's killed ten people and has a penchant for collecting his victim's eyes, and a strange man who washed up on shore set up a stall and is selling strange and alien goods which adventurers in the area all seem to be carrying.
>At least one weakly fleshed out location-independent plot

This is something you can use if they don't give a shit about your prepped stuff or they aren't biting. This is, e.g., instead of the beach, ogres have been raiding granaries and there's an ongoing standoff between the army and ogres holding the food for the winter hostage.

Works anywhere, and is open ended as fuck.

One last thing: never ever tell them you plan like this (people like to think they choose their path, even if all paths lead to the same point), always railroad (because the alternative is aimless wandering, shit tier underprepared NPCs, and a directionless plot), and never get caught railroading (because people go crazy if they have no input)

So yeah. Build a good plot skeleton, have nice set pieces made, and get them there.

Learn to say no.

Choose to say yes.

Most "no's" are because saying yes would be dumb or have fatal consequences. Let players stab that prince, or shit on the floor at the royal ball. Then show the player exactly how bad an idea that was with real consequences.

Do it enough and they either wise up or the table will self-enforce.

Or they have more fun being silly, and if so, who am I to judge?

Don't.

This, but don't forget an "Are you sure? I'm going to let you do that and you don't get a take back if you say yes."

Sometimes they just want someone to acknowledge they're being dumb

I'm a new DM and I really hate that Yes-man meme.
>new player who happens to be a close friend chooses to play as his beloved 10-year old character that's really, REALLY precious to him
>chooses incomplete homebrew class
>"Maybe we shouldn't. We're all new-"
>"It's closest to my character!"
>I couldn't say no
>character turned out to be a huge mary sue
>royalty background
>has a familiar despite being non-wizard
>because it was gifted to him please oh please
>has a halberd that can be used as a sword and can be dismantled into a pair of daggers
>it was also a gift
>me: "Let's save that for a higher level."
>"okay"
>mfw he shows up in game still having that
>the weapon isn't exactly magical. No big deal right?
>Wrong. It was no big deal mechanically, but it made another player (very chill dude) feel like I was playing favorites
>Could've been prevented by me just saying no

Worst of all, the character talks like nobility from an anime.

I know, I know. No one to blame but myself. I hate myself so much for allowing that to happen, but I sure did learn that my friend is a godawful writer.

New DM with another question.

Just started running a game for friends, we're all veteran gamers so I wanted to try and go full-effort on this one.
Problem is, they're all so jaded that they started character gen off with some super-ecclectic classes.

I asked 'Is anyone going a rogue-type?' and got a flat no.

I had eventually figured there'd be locks, traps, or stealth segments, and they don't have anyone to scout ahead of the party when they get close to map encounters.

Do I just... take all those bits out?
How do I avoid pandering to my players, but at the same time not punishing them for not wanting to play a 'boring' slot-fill class?

Don't change anything. If they aren't prepared for traps or anything involving stealth that's their fault.

If that is the best opening post you can come up with, your campaign is doomed by your lack of imagination.

Go buy an adventure path from Paizo.

youtube.com/watch?v=0oD6mF9vSRk

ITS A GAME MAN

I'm fucking tired of all the advice given in this board that always forgets this critical thing

everything is secondary to the objective of having fun, that includes the worldbuilding and more often than not your carefully planned session.
If you think an idea will be fun (within limits of not retardation, of course, it has to be fun for everyone, not just one idiot) then by all means go with it

1 day to plan a campaign? Are you having a giggle mate ? No way you can design anything cohesive in that time.

Run a session zero where you pitch your ideas and get player feedback and have them make characters during this to give you an idea of what to actually have in your campaign.

If you're new run a good module, Out of the Abyss works for 5E Underdark. If you're experienced for the love of god dont railroad them.

So hey, what are some good questions and talking points for a session zero anyways?

I said that OP would be surprised, but we're both giving the same advice: prepare as much as possible. The only difference is that saying that DMs shouldn't expect to be surprised is more likely to leave them underprepared and panicking about it. Being panicked is worse than being underprepared because you're not going to improv well if you're panicked about the circumstances you're in. It's not "lying" to say that at some point you may find yourself surprised. it's wisdom.

Copy paste from my last session zero
Session goals
Introduction, banter
1 week sessions this time till september
Campaign quick pitch , ' I want to run a wilderness survival game where the characters are from a traditional fantasy world and go on an expedition to explore a new continent.' There will be a focus on exploration, survival and adventure. I want to use things like hunger mechanics, injury mechanics and encumbrance to make this feel more realistic and have players map as they go.

Each player goes around, gives a sentence on their character
Players work out a group goal , players work out why characters met, players work out individual goals.


Make Character Sheets after players have an idea of their characters.


Finish, questions, set next session, thanks.

After session ends each player should
have a clear idea of the campaign
each have a character sheet completed stats
have a group goal and each have an individual character goal.
Each character having a relationship link with another character pre-established


Game & Genre Expectations: What kind of D&D are we playing? What are the common elements and rules of the genre?
Setting: What kind of world is this? Where does all the action take place for this adventure?
Premise: What's the situation the characters are in for this adventure?
Tone: Is this a dark tale? Is it comedic? Do we occasionally break the fourth wall or is that frowned upon?
Pacing: How much content do we expect to get through each session? How much scene-framing and time advancement by the DM is acceptable to the group?
Playstyle: What are the goals of play? What methods do we use to achieve them?
Collaboration & Narrative Control: How do we work together to be inclusive of ideas? Who gets to establish what?
Palette: What stuff do we not want to see in the game?
Boundaries: What lines will we avoid crossing with regard to content and what we say and do?

That's awesome. Thanks.