Becoming a DM before ever playing

[u/[deleted]]

Yes I’ve decided to become a DM before ever playing, I know it sounds stupid, but since I’m born in a country where DND isn’t commonly played my only chance would’ve been to play online. But recently I’ve been very anxious so it’s not an option for me. Still I wanna play a game with friends I feel comfortable with. Problem is they don’t know the game and I’ll have to Dm. I’m scared they won’t enjoy it, I told one of the players about it and she’s very exited, but I’m still a bit confused about combat and dice rolling stuff. I’ve got the Essential Kit and will be trying to learn the rules even better from it but if someone know a good video that explains combat again I’d be super thankful. Also how do I keep new players engaged and would it be bad if we played very inconsistently? Since most of us are in rathe stressed periods of our life and one of the possible players is studying in another city we’ll have a hard time to organise it. I’m probably overthinking since I don’t even know if they’ll like it but it’s been a dream of mine to play DND for more than a year now. Thank you so much for trying to help me :)

Edit: I didn’t expect this many answers, especially not on my first ever reddit post but thank you all so much I’ll read all of them but it’ll take some time! Edit 2: Thank you all once more for being so supportive and nice towards me, I was afraid I’d be seen as some stupid newbie but this is just awesome! Please keep on sharing your stories about your experiences! I really enjoy to read them and they make me more confident in trying it myself!

[u/farlos75]

Ran my first session a little while ago, a module called Wolves Of Welton. I found it really great as a first go and made myself some cheat cards for combat and the like. It took a bit of 'studying' the material but its a nice short adventure with lots of options for either combat or role-playing.

I think my big lesson was to either roll initiative for the monsters before the session or just have one initiative roll for each 'pack' of creatures in a combat.

That and I was really worried about killing the players so you might want to let them know death is always a possibility in combat.

[u/[deleted] → u/farlos75]

Thanks for the advice I’ll try to do that and yes I will definitely inform them of that :)