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Making new fantasy Dungeons and Dragons third edition game. Wrote out the entire first situation with most general situations in mind. Should I try and just "ole" the whole creative process and have just the enemies and the NPCs planned out? Or should I write out every single situation set out with all of the fine details? I've been panicking over my first DM session for awhile. |
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Yes, it's fine to make it up as you go along. Whether or not that works for you depends upon your ability to remain consistent and to improvise on the fly, but many a good campaign starts with nought more than 4-6 PC's and a map. Also note: many a campaign lies stillborn, suffocated by excess GM prepwork. Many more get off the ground, then grind to a halt under the GM's reams of prepped details. Too much is worse than too little. |
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For your first few stories you'll need to have details, but less than you might fear. Have NPC names, professions and dispositions worked out ahead of time. For combat you'll want to know what they'll fight and how that creature acts. It is a good idea to write out a stat block for the creatures until you know them well. This is because as a new GM you'll be thinking about the monsters tactics, the players tactics, and just how bad that last roll was and whether you need to refill your soda before or after combat. The fact that this creature can do a loopdeloop when it hasn't moved this round can easily get lost in the wash. Worse, you don't want to be halting combat to scan the entry for the creature the whole time. So... have the basic plot outlined, enough NPCs to make that plot advance, and know well all the baddies the chars will have to face down. Do no more than that, and you'll do great/ But also keep in mind that this is a game, and the players are your friends, fun is the goal.. so.. the most important thing is not to stress. |
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As long as your players enjoy the sesssion, and you have enough ideas for the next session, you did it right. The second part is actually easier to make up on the fly; the PCs will have plenty of ideas (good or bad) that bear investigation, and led to more ideas... Keeping the players (not necessarily characters) happy is the tricky bit, but it depends so much on individuals that all I can suggest is make sure you have a chat session at the end where people can say "I hope there's not so much combat next time" or "I wonder if that song we heard is significant". |
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