New DM Tips
Attention
This article isn't finished yet! Using it to test the article/blogging system. Come back soon!
Intro
Becoming a new DM after playing the game for several years was a hard transition for me. It didn't come naturally to me at all, and in the beginning I made a lot of mistakes. So below I've compiled a list of advice that I either was given and didn't understand, or simply never received. I hope you find it useful.
I'm still writing this article, so some of the content here might change
Starting small
Starting small is common advice. I started by doing a multi-year campaign of many sessions. We had a lot of fun playing. If I were to go back, I would have started way smaller, and it would have been better for everyone. But what does starting small mean? If not a full campaign, what should you prep?
The basics
To me, starting small means run a single adventure. This adventure could span multiple sessions (in fact I would recommend not trying to run a single-session adventure at the start, but that's just me), but the idea is that you have a clear idea of what the players are trying to accomplish. A solid beginning, middle and end. This is easy enough to say, but what does it actually look like?
Prepping Just Enough
What do you actually need to run a simple adventure?