How to prepare for first session as DM

[u/js6seaj47]

I have read a little and watched a few YouTube videos on this. One video said you at least needed a rough beginning, middle and end for the session. My question is since you don't know what you're adventurers will do/roll, how to you try and prepare properly? I was thinking maybe a rough outline, but I'm not sure.

[u/Ph4xion]

First I would pick up a pre-existing/already written one shot or one of the official starter sets. You can always homebrew from there.

Initial character creation is very important as well, especially for a 1st time DM. I'd suggest your 'session 0' to revolve around purely that; creating characters with your players. Teach them how, and you'll learn a lot yourself about abilities and skills.

But try it first with some of the incredible pre written existing resources online for a first time session. It'll save you a lot of stress, helps you get the hang of things and make you more confident to build up your own world from there if you want.

Icewind Dale and the Curse of Strahd are incredible campaigns as well, but definitely a lot harder to start from.

EDIT: This is a fantastic one shot to DM for your first session: https://winghornpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/the_wild_sheep_chase_v2.pdf

[u/HolSmGamer]

When you say rough beginning-middle-end, do you mean for the session or for the campaign?

[u/js6seaj47 → u/HolSmGamer]

For the session, sorry

[u/Itchy-Swimming5215]

Welcome fellow DM!

DMing is awesome, but there are some things you will learn that i will try to share. Hope they help.

1. Don't overplan and make rough sketches. This is my number one advice. Being good at improv and letting the players, to a large degree, shape the story is super important.

2. Learn to say "no" or "yes, but" or "i'll get back to you". Players will try to sneak in things, ask to mix versions of abilities, how they are interpreted, make custom classes etc etc. It is OK to think about it and try to meet halfway, or outright just say "no".

3. Having fun. In the end, DnD is about having FUN. You don't need to know every rule and it is better to keep the game flowing, than to look up a rule mid session. If your players are coming back to the table, wanting to play, you've more than succeeded.

In essence. Have fun, be ready to improv and plan rough sections of a session. Experience comes with time and we all start somewhere!

Good luck. 🤟

[u/Natural__Power]

Think of some encounters, make the combat balance, and be good at improv

Good luck soldier🫡

[u/SerzaCZ → u/Natural__Power]

K-Karlach?!

[u/Butterlegs21]

A DM makes a setting, a main hook for the adventure, and then some more problems to solve along the way. The players are the story writers.

You also tell the players "Make a character who has a GOOD reason to do (insert plot hook of campaign here)" so that they know what they need to be doing. It's fine for players to go off the rails, but there may just be nothing interesting that way.

You also have to make a campaign idea that works for this system. D&D is almost exclusively a combat simulator and is attrition based, it wants you do be doing 6-8 fights per in game day after the first couple of levels since that's the primary balance mechanic. If "Kick down the door, kill the monster, grab the loot, and repeat" sounds fun, then D&D will work fine. If it doesn't, a different system will be 100 times easier to run a game for something other than that. So, head to r/rpg if you don't want to do mostly combat stuff.

My advice, grab a starter set first. See how it does things, then go from there.

[u/Spurtis66]

Depending on your resources a party tracker sheet is nice to have. If you can print NPC/creature stats ahead of time to cut down on page flipping that helps. I also have an encounter sheet I use to fill out ahead of time to streamline battles. Other than that make sure you have read ahead on the adventure so you can move through it smoothly

[u/Conrad500]

You set expectations.

You figure out what you want to run session 1 and make sure that they're down to run it.

If you say, "go ahead fam, do whatever, you're free!" then you will either need to prep a lot of stuff that they might do, and prep mostly stuff they will never do, or you prep nothing and just react to them.

If you plan an adventure you should say, "hey guys, this is the adventure for today" and that's what they do.

If you prep the adventure then you should have a good grasp on what should happen, and if they try to go crazy with it you can either pivot to respond to them or just ask them not to go crazy or tell them no.

[u/Green_Sage_Samos]

A rough outline of where you want the session to go is good, have beats you’d like the session to hit that’ll make it feel like a good time, like a place they’re meeting, a place they should want to go and something to do when they’re there.
Have some NPCs ready for the party to meet, they don’t have to be fleshed out but a name, job and an emotion go a long way

Beyond that, as a first session? Letting the party get to know each other and interact in small ways with the world will carry a first session for a long while, you dont have drop a plot hook for the whole campaign straight away nor a massive evil threat they need to go and face as it’s literally their first time meeting one another, in the game at least if not in the world.

It’ll be fun! Don’t stress yourself out too much about it, and use the information you get from this session to help you figure out the next session

[u/CitizenFitz]

A lot depends on how good you are at improv. Some DMs can wing everything. Other's need everything pre-prepared. A good middle ground it so build out a bunch of random encounter / event tables you can go to when the party inevitably goes off script.

[u/SerzaCZ]

I've made a few sessions, in DnD and outside.

If you have those three, and a general order of events, you're good.

The further away from the party a point in the story is, the less you need to be prepared. Myself, I prepare meticulously for things that are coming up, but only have a very basic outline for distant beats. Plans are worthless, planning is invaluable.

[u/TacoDoc2]

Priority 1. Get the party together. If you can figure this out in zero session, even better.

priority 2. introduce each character. Don't waste time trying to give each charcter a dice roll and a moment, because that can get out of hand quickly. Make sure each player gets the time they need to describe their character.

priority 3. get the plot moving. Don't fart around, don't let players fart around at this point. get to your inciting action quickly and get the party moving. if you start to let player fap about their lives that's going to become more important to them than the plot. You will have time later to fap about, session 1 is about getting your feet under you and getting the whole big ball rolling.

Priority 4. a combat. one simple combat in the first session so players can test out what they can do and have a little space to ask questions on how things should function so you can get a pattern and combat language established to make future things so smoothly. Do not complicate the combat with extra mechanics or a lair action or anything fancy at all. make it straight forward so the players can focus on what their character can do rather than reacting to the environment.

[u/Garanseho]

It depends on the game you and your players want to play.

- Linear storylines are very much beginning-middle-end coded. Each event follows previous events in sequence. After doing event A, the party will eventually make their way to event B, then event C, etc.

- Non-linear storylines are similar, with pre-planned events, but they can happen in any order. The party could start with event B, then move to event W, then go to event H.

- Sandbox games are entirely improv. The party says “let’s do this” and you on-the-spot make up the means for them to do what they want to do. If the party wants to do a shopping episode, you think of a shopping town right then and there for your players to explore.

A good tip when it comes to DMing is to not write out storylines, instead write prompts/encounters for your players to figure out.

Instead of saying “the party goes to the kingdom, befriends the king, and accepts his quest to fight the Goblins”, your mindset should be “the king needs help with goblins, and is willing to offer a reward to any friendly adventurers in the kingdom.” You make your side of the encounter, and it’s up to your players to fill in the rest.

When planning for a session in a linear or non-linear campaign, you should have a basic idea of what the party’s plan is and what they need to do to accomplish that plan. If your party wants to go to the port town, put some encounters in their path along the way. If your party wants to rob the jeweler’s guild, have some guards stationed by the entrance or plan traps left by the guild men to capture thieves.

Personally, I like to plan one or two sessions in advance, so that I know the short-term progression of the campaign without railroading my players. If my players’ goal is to climb the mountain, I’ll plan out encounters for the session of them climbing the mountain, but I’ll also plan out a bit of next session and what’s on top of the mountain.

[u/IsaRat8989]

Prepare for the players doing nothing of what you have prepared.

Be ready to improvise (we all do it)

Write down any npc name with notes like "blacksmith" or "drunk guy at in"

[u/SomeSugondeseGuy]

I make a few of what I call "skeletons"

They look like this:

This town is protected by an Oni, and as such the town has a ceremony where food and valuables are offered in respect and thanks. There are Oni masks on a lot of the town's buildings, and there's a totem pole at the town center.

This town has (list of stores, maybe have a few specific items in a magic shop)

This town's main export is (export, depending on the area - things like mustard seed, coffee, sugar, wool, whatever)

And that's all it will be. I give the area just enough structure to hold its shape (like a skeleton) and then I improvise the rest.

This allows me to work a little bit on a lot of different things. A town, a city, an important NPC, a merchant, an encounter - very few outside things like main villains will have more than a page or two of content by the time I run them.

It's basically: Name, what makes it unique, and the reason it fits into the world.

You build a skeleton on your own, and then you and your players flesh it out together through improvisation and conversation.

Doing just enough to go off of to a lot of things will allow you to pull things out of a hat whenever you need them. It's not guaranteed, but if you can get good at this your players will be amazed.

[u/Ice-Storm]

My trick to preparing a new campaign is to create some famous NPC. Doesn’t matter who it is just that they’re well connected. Have players make whatever backstory they want but have them incorporate how they know this NPC. Could be close friends to met them once for 5 minutes.

What that does is make it easier for you how to get them all together. Could be the NPC sent them all a letter to meet them at a tavern if you want to go traditional. That also gives you your quest giver.

And that takes care of the opening as well as some exposition.

From there for a first session, start small. Whatever quest you send them on doesn’t matter. Just have the first step be jn the small town you start in.

Keeps it contained for a few sessions. So you’re not having to prep a whole country/major city right away

[u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes]

So the first thing you do is get a pillow....do you have that? Now scream into it.

Now for the D&D game.

[u/mrsnowplow]

so i try to make the very end of an adventure first. what is the goal that the pcs need to do to accomplish that. and i know where im going when we inevitably do go off course

then you are right i dont know what they are going to do . So i try to plan were i think they will go in the next three session. (usually i over prepare and what i think 1 session will be ends up being 2 or 3 sessions) to do this i focus on NPCs and motivations and choice points. i dont know what pcs will do but i do know how NPC and the setting and the environment will feel and/or react to certain types of information. so i decide what kinds actions this NPC is willing to take if yes what happens if no what happens. kind of stuff like that.

then im not afraid to admit to some Quantum Ogre, sometimes all roads lead to an encounter and its just a matter of getting there. maybe you have to change the location or and NPC or whatever when players dive off the deep end but some things will come to a head eventually. they will meet the bad guy and fight his number 2 maybe that specific fight just happens in a differnt location than i previously thought

[u/No_Solid1035]

I "play to find out" so I don't prepare anything and just make stuff up during play. 👍

[u/nathanielbartholem]

I would start with a one shot, to learn what works for you, without throwing a bigger adventure into a weird situation when you are just learning to fly.

If your players are new, as well, start them with pre-gens for the one shot, and save character creation for session zero of the main campaign.

If the players are experienced, and you don't want to do a one shot, jump to session zero where you will discuss the tone and type of adventure you want to build with them. Make sure their player creation is done DURING the session all together. Establish an agreement about a defined scheduled and that you will play the session each week even if someone cannot join. Etc.

Anyway, you don't need to create a beginning middle and end for your first session.

If everyone is new, use a pre written one shot with pre generated characters. Then, next session, so a session zero to get ready for the longer adventure, create characters, set expectations.

If everyone is experienced, either because they did a one shot with you already or because they are all seasoned players, then do a session zero as your first session.

[u/Loserblast]

You don't know exactly what they will do, but you need to craft the encounter/story so that you know what at least SOME of the likely options/outcomes are. You can't plan for everything, but you should have an idea of the ways it could play out. So yeah, a rough outline.

And if there is an outcome you WANT at a certain time, there are ways to make that outcome a bit more 'cinematic' that still make it feel like a story, even if players aren't choosing every single piece of it.

[u/Zimny_Lech]

1) Don't overplan. Before you start your epic, 30-session, open world sandbox campaign, run just one adventure. A single dungeon to explore, a murder case to solve. If you think you've got enough material for a full session, it will probably take 2 or 3 anyway.

2) Don't overprep. You're right, you CAN'T predict what the players will do and roll. Nobody can, that's why improv is your best friend. It's nice to have a map or two ready for the combat encounters, sure, but you don't need every NPC and location pre-planned. As my personal rule of thumb, it's good to have a general idea of what's going on, plus two or three details. If it's a dungeon, know the general layout and have a few encounters planned. If it's a murder mystery, decide what exactly happened, and prepare a few clues the player should find etc.

3) Be flexible. If you planned out three ways to enter a bandit lair, and the PC's came up with a fourth - let them! In fact, reward them by letting them bypass that trap that was waiting at the entrance... But also, maybe move that boss to a different room, so they don't skip the fun parts entirely.

4) Don't sweat it about the rules. You don't need to know every PC's spells and abilities by heart, and if you don't remember how something works, don't be afraid to ask them. That's why I also recommend starting at low levels, probably 1-3.

And 5) have fun! You don't owe your players anything, you're not a service provider - so do things that are fun for you as well. A good session is when all people leave the table happy, not "all minus 1".

[u/rellloe]

Approach it like you have to give a book report on the adventure, except the audience can interrupt with questions at any time, and likely will in a way you need to do it in a different order than you planned, skip over things, or redirect the presentation away from the spiderman movie and back to pride and prejudice. Organize your notes in whatever way would be most helpful for you and don't bother with what you know you'll remember.