Me and my pals are gunna start a D&D campaign soon...

Me and my pals are gunna start a D&D campaign soon. None of us have ever played and they all decided I'd be the best candidate to be GM. Any tips for me?

Make the first quest sooooo simple.
Maybe little girl is crying because her kitty went into THE SCARY WOODS... add in a few orcs,a misunderstood cat aficionado.
You all get to learn rolling dice,have a chuckle and make an in game friend.
Maybe buy a module(if they are still called that) after your players get used to this game.

Start with this.

Make sure everyone brings their own dice and pencils. Photocopy blank character sheets, at least a dozen.

GM should re-read the adventure the day before.
Prepare some graph paper for impromptu maps.

Prep and understand the monster stats, including special attacks, auras, powers, spells, etc.

Make sure each player has read the sections about their own character's skills, powers, spells, etc. It's not the GM's job to explain all that to them in-game.

Play burning wheel instead so you'll start with a good game

Be as criptic as possible and make your descriptions vague as fuck so you can "le tricked you" later when they ignore something you didn't tell them

...

DM a written adventure like Sunless citadel from the yawning portal

Keep the Player Handbook close.

...and the DM guide closer.

... and the players on their toes.

Play the latest edition, 5e

Do a session 0, read the rules, try to balance fun and believeability and play the game

Keep it simple. Run Keep on the Borderlands or an updated version thereof for the classic experience, modify to taste.

The players are adventures, give them adventurous locales to do adventurous things in, not fucking fetch quests.

How did they decide you would make the best DM?

Do everything in this post.

Play Pathfinder instead OP, it is a much more balanced game and provides a deeper roleplaying experience.

dont take advice from Veeky Forums

Just be yourself.

Prepare general, not specific. The party will never do what you plan on them doing.

> Play Pathfinder instead OP, it is a much more fucked up game and provides a abyss deep weeaboo experience which will guarantee no one comes back to play another session of your campaign.

They said this because they believe me to be the most impartial and levelheaded and the nose socially aware. Not trying to jack myself off those are their words

>one of the dozens of classes (hundreds if you count the different archetypes) is a samurai
>hurr durr this game is weaboo, I want to play 5e where I can be a generic piece of shit with the same build as everybody else

1. Drop mutants and masterminds like the hot crock of shut that it is.
2. Use tags for npcs and locations...keeps your notes condensed. Don't write prose for Nov descriptions. Keep it all on one of sheet of paper but make backups or scans somewhat often. Do not underestimate a master sheet for reference to npcs and lore. Call your blacksmith bearded, eye patch, missing son. Don't worry about writing it out.
3. Be vague on worldbuilding. Foreshadow future threats early on so you have an "excuse" for them later. Escalate slowly. Threat maps from apocalypse world are pretty good for this. Dont necessarily use them as is, but read about them and know the concept, you can start doing it naturally in your head.
4. Force PCs to make decisions. Ask what they do. Don't front load shit.
5. Never talk for more than thirty seconds at a time. Max. I do a lot of description so this was hard for me. But it's important, you're not giving a lecture you're running a game.

What are mutants and masterminds?

Shoot shoulda googled my bad.

>Playing a version of DnD that's not 4e

>wanting to play 4e
Why would you even want to play one of the dullest tabletop role-playing games in the history of tabletop roleplaying games? Seriously, each class you play in this game to fight assorted villains, is indistinguishable from the others. Aside from the shitty art, the classes’ only consistency is their complete lack of interesting mechanics and ineffective use of the powers system, all to make spellcasters mundane, and to make martials into spellcasters.

Perhaps the die was cast when Merals decided to make all the classes fit the spellcaster framework; he made sure the game would never be taken seriously as anything but narrative metagaming, just a ridiculously dogmatic departure from earlier editions in an attempt to cement his place in the history RPG design. 4th edition might be anti-Pathfinder (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-D&D in its refusal of the mechanics that made the game attractive despite its inherent flaws. No one wants to face that fact. Now, with Fifth Edition,they no longer have to.

>a-at least the powers were good, though!
No! The powers are dreadful and boring. As I read the core rulebook, I noticed that every class had some daily power for 2[W] damage and half damage on a miss. I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that power showed up again, with a cool-sounding name in a vain attempt to differentiate it. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Mearls' mind is so governed by the few creative ideas he has, that he has no other recourse for creating class abilities. Later I read a lavish, loving review of 4th edition by the creator of DOTA 2. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are playing D&D 4e at 15 or 16 years of age, then when they get older they will go on to play DOTA 2." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you play D&D 4e you are, in fact, being trained to play DOTA 2.

I'm not a fan of 4e but it's still better than pathfinder, martial lack so many options in combat in PF ( and 5E )

Every time.

Please consider a simpler system for your first game. Or keep in mind and tell your players that D&D is close to a non rpg tabletop game and that numbers, stats, party composition and optimization can easily be in the way of the core fun side of this hobby, the role play. Before the autists jump on this post i'm not saying that freeform, diceless or ruleless are better, it's just that there are light systems that don't get in the way of your game narration and the players' minds. And the GM should arrange the game so a party of 4 bards halflings should overcome the adventure. After all if that's what your players want to play, so be it.

Also GMing your first game is like sex, the first time it's always awkward. The second time is always better.
>mfw after gming for the first time

Even though I don't like 5E you could easily run it for your first time if you aren't mentally crippled

You mean spellcasters rule and every good fighter is the same? And plus zilion to skills, and the fact you need a caculator. Game is so deep it surpasea your moms vagina.

Pathfinder.
People play the same builds all the time, I have yet to play with a party that does not pick the same stuff on certain classes. Now switch it to 5E where people play all fucking archetypes, because diversity PF offers is shit, cuz not many arcetypes and/or feats are good. Face it user, Pathfinder needs a remake, because it fails to deliver what it advertises.

Eh, D&D 5E is perfectly fine for beginners, as long as you actually read the book. And it's not an extremely long or convoluted book. Sure, you'll make a few mistakes, but unless you're a total idiot, it'll be fine and your players might not even notice.

Also, if you want to make it even easier you can pick up a pre-made adventure. Or just run the starter set: even a particularly dull 12-year-old should be able to GM it just fine.

Lighter games are great, especially if you feel like RPG game mechanics are slowing your play or inhibiting your creativity. But they bring their own set of struggles, especially if the GM or players aren't confident about their creativity, acting, or improv skills.

Above all, the best way to run a fun game is to give your players what they're asking for. If they want to play as spell-slinging dwarves cleansing the goblins in their ancestral mountain-home, don't try to shoehorn the players into your political intrigue low-magic humans-only setting. If your players say "lets play D&D", don't bring Apocalypse World to the table and try to sell them on why it's actually a much better intro to the hobby.