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To make a long story short, I, who have had a total Dungeons and Dragons experience of one campaign mission, have the great difficulty of not only DMming for seven people, but teaching every single one of them how to play DnD. Figured it would be fun to keep track of some of the stuff that happens as all eight of us are totally and completely inexperienced and are going to make tons and tons of mistakes. Maybe this way I'll be able to see if I actually improve... I'll put up maybe two or three, and if people like them, I'll keep it up :3 Since this story started a couple of days ago, I'll have a couple entries within this blog entry.
Day 1 - during Creative Writing class, I notice two of my friends in the back of the class, we'll call them W and B, are playing around with a d20. I'm sitting close enough to overhear parts of their conversation; it's obvious they don't know much about the actual mechanics of the game, but they're also just playing for fun. I hear something about a ranger having a bunch of 4s, a 14 in agility, and a 1 in constitution. They'd used a d20 and assigned the stats in the order that they thought of them, no modifiers. I put in a comment or two, and I'm brought to their attention. In the last five minutes of class, I attempt to create a tiny bit of logic out of their hilarious but nonsensical mess.
Day 2 - W mentions it to me in the hallway before school starts, in front of a group of a lot of my other friends as well who are just as nerdy. They decide that they want to do some legit playing...so I get stuck DMmming
Yesterday, Day 3 - We set up some stuff during school lunch. Since I play 3.5, it's impossible for us to find hard copies of the books in our con-less town, so we're stuck on PDFs. We only have two sets of dice. I start them rolling for their stats with a d20.
That night, at 11:00, two of my best friends of the group skype call me, we'll call them T and Z, so I can help them set up their character sheets. I had done a couple of hours of research, trying to get things organized in the PHB and memorize everything, but it just kind of falls apart. I call my sister's boyfriend halfway across the country, who plays as DM in their group, and adds him to the call. I find out that you use 4d6s for character stats...man, it made me feel like such an idiot Dx My sister's boyfriend, who we'll call B, gives the three of us a two hour walk-through of abilities, skills, classes, races, and stats. T sets himself up as a rogue, and Z becomes a bard with a pretty nice top roll - 16 I believe, not adding modifiers.
And then we come to today, Day 4. Once I clean up the house, it's back to doing some research and compiling things for their ease. A lot of them don't realize that even though I have the most experience playing DnD of their group - that experience involves one incomplete campaign - I certainly don't remember everything about every race and class and item right off the top of my head! Ah well, maybe eventually I'll reach their standards...
 
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If you're having trouble finding 3.x books you might want to try Pathfinder. It's an updated version of 3d edition D&D by the company that used to make Dungeon/ Dragon magazines. Most importantly, it's still in print.
Free searchable rules are up online too.
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Lol, this is complete jibberish to me, I hope you had fun though 
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Yeah I would recommend running published adventures until you're comfortable running your own. 3.0/3.5/pathfinder is really tough if you're new to DMing. It works fantastic if both the players and the DM are very familiar with it, but it is needlessly complex and confusing if you aren't. I would highly, highly recommend running 4.0 essentials instead. You will have a much easier time DMing it compared to 3.5, even if you have 0 experience with 4.0 essentials.
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@SiegeMode, thanks for the tip. We have the PDFs of all the core books I'm using, it's just finding hard copies that's the problem...there's a D&D con up near where my sister goes to school, so she's going to try to get us some books, but I think the con is in december, so it'll be almost a year. Phooey.
and lol Saechiis, it hasn't been very rewarding yet - hopefully by the end of the school year they'll appreciate all the effort I'm having to put in for their whims xP
Edit, @kNightLite - the only guy I know with any DM experience plays 3.5, so I feel like it'll be even more confusing to try and play 4.0 instead. I am going to go with published campaigns though, since it'll take up too much of my time both trying to get everything in my head and making up new stuff as well haha. I'm making them at least read through the PBH before they even touch their character sheets on tuesday, so that should help a bit...
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Agreed with @SiegeMode. Pathfinder is super awesome. It actually clarifies a lot of the confusing parts of 3.5. It is also completely compatible with 3.5, so you can continue use the pdfs you already have as well. The best way to learn D&D is just to play! When you have a question, don't be take a quick break from the game and look up the rule. It will be rough going at first but very useful for everyone in the long run. Good luck!
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I highly recommend making a serious effort to buy the books. While playing with pdfs is possible when your players have laptops it really takes away from the game. They tend to focus more on them than the game and a lot of time is wasted.
I don't know how big the area you are in is even though you don't have a con you should still be able to find the books. I recommended checking all the used book stores in your area, any card or comic shops, half price books generally has them and 2nd hand stores like goodwill sometimes have them. If you don't have any of those you can always go online.
If your whole party is just starting i recommended using 3.0. The books are easy to find and CHEAP. A 3.0 players handbook can be purchased used on amazon for around $10 instead of the 30-50 that new books would cost. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0786915501/ref=sr_1_1_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1298137828&sr=8-1&condition=used.
If money is not an issue play pathfinder.
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Canada11367 Posts
This is awesome! I've yet to play DnD, but my cousin and brothers are about to finish a Star Wars campaign that's been running for 3 years (can only play a few times in the summer and at Christmas- work schedule and separate universities.) I've also been DMing/ GMing (Star Wars, it's the Game Master) a campaign at the same time.
I actually prefer to work off of pdf's with my laptop- I can have multiple pdfs open and I sometimes copy-paste tricky rules (grapple rules) into my campaign notes.
I can see how running a campaign after only one partial session would be rather tricky as it was it took our group 3 sessions to really grasp the breadth of tasks that we should be doing (and to always be spotting, listening, and assessing NPC motivation.
Definitely don't worry about having everything memorized. You'll want to know the fundamentals of the character's actions. But all the monster stats- that's why you have a manual. You also don't need to know all the monsters, just the one's you'll be including for that mission and maybe a couple random ones to throw in, just cuz. If you can predict that a certain scenario will come up, you can have the relevant pages bookmarked or copy-pasted somewhere. Also, game flow is more important than digging around the rules for 15min- DM discretion is handy as long as you're even-handed about it. I believe there's a chart for generic encounters- just assign difficulty level, figure out what would be the most reasonable skill to be used, make up any relevant modifiers and have your players roll.)
If you're just starting out, you might want to consider making a DM character to join the group. My cousin and I both did it when we were starting out. You never want the DM character to solve the problem or out-shine the party. But the character can be useful to point the players in the right direction without having to break character as a DM and tell them what to do next. Now that I've run for 6 missions, I feel my DM character is redundant and I'd almost like to get rid of him, but at the beginning he was useful.
After you run a session- ask for feedback. What did they like or didn't like.
One thing that could simplify things for you is not worry about dividing up individual experience between the players for every encounter. Rather, just have everyone level up at the end of every session. (Unless they're really short or you're mission gets divided over 3 sessions.) Eventually, it'll maybe be preferable to have people gaining experience at different times, but at the beginning, it's just one more set of calculations that'll break the flow of the game.
You'd also want to know if you're players are expecting a storyline or more of a sandbox mode- but whatever you do, don't railroad them so they feel they have no choice. However, you can manipulate things in the background- you have an encounter prepared, it really doesn't matter whether they turn left or right, but you'll throw it in when it makes sense. Essentially, if they don't know what they've chosen, you had manipulated all along, that's not so bad (by rearranging how the events happened). But if they are expressly trying to avoid a certain place, and you keep herding them back, that's frustrating.
edit: just realized you're running a published campaign. That's probably a good thing considering, the lack of experience and running it for 7 people. I personally couldn't run a published campaign as the creative side in me won't let me be. However, I still think the same thing stands. Don't be so rigid in following the published campaign. Let them wander around and explore. You know where they are going, so hopefully you can guide them back.
Shamus Young has some good thoughts on Rail Roading:
Shamus Young: A Case For Railroading
What I really love about DMing/GMing is seeing all the inventive things the players come up with. If they wander off into a part of the city or map, you didn't prepare. let them. Let them have a little side adventure because if the your adventure hook was compelling enough, they'll be back. What's most fun, is providing some sort of challenge or puzzle, have several methods that could be used to solve it, then watch as the players find a solution you would never have thought of. As long as what my players are trying to do is reasonable, I'll run with it. If it isn't reasonable, I'll just dump some insane modifiers on it and they can try it anyways.
I could go on, but I'll stop. Best of luck.
Oh, ps. Having got into DnD, you'd probably enjoy this, if you haven't already. Shamus Young took screen shots of Lord of the Rings and turned it into a comic as though LotR's was run by a really terrible DnD DM. Enjoy if you have the time: DM of the Rings
edit again: Do you have a full set of dice d8's, d10's, d4's? I believe 3.5 uses the D20 system, similar to the Star Wars RPG and uses those dice. You can usually pick up a full set at a gaming shop for $5(Can).
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Chipping in another plug for Pathfinder. It's like 3.5 except with the needlessly complex stuff streamlined a bit.
Also, stats are usually rolled with d6s, not d20s. There are a bunch of ways to do it; the one I'm most used to is roll 4d6 and take the top 3 6 times, and assign as desired.
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If you find 3rd edition books, you could use those as well since the rules are 99.5% the same anyway. The main difference is changes to some spells that were completely unfair. 3.5 core books also had a lot of non core material from 3.0 in it.
As an Ex-Dnd DM, I would say that the rules aren't really all that important. If you make a mistake here and there it's not a big deal. The most important thing is that you are all having fun and that you keep your story and characters interesting. If you're looking up rules for setting DCs all the time you are unsure, it's going to get very dull for everyone who is waiting. In those cases, it's often better to wing it.
A challenge you will run into eventually is that if your characters are level 5 or higher, the casting classes tend to get stronger than the other ones, so don't be too generous with loot aimed at casters.
I never used published campaigns, but that was partly because the players I played with would always do things in the game that would spoil any sort of planned campaign. So the way I would do it, is pretty much coming up with characters which I would have prepared and stick them into the game if I saw the opportunity. With monsters you could mostly just use the templates in the monster manual.
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I'm picking up about seven sets of dice tomorrow for the three core players that I know are going to stick with it - Ima stick with the PDFs for now, and then probably use it and the hard copies simultaneously when/if I get them. If I have enough money for the current 4.0 books after buying pretty much everyone dice and not getting paid back until tuesday, I might invest in buying copies, idk
I will definitely have to look into Pathfinder - our first session is on friday, and I'll just be setting up their characters and maybe starting on a mission, so I've got plenty of time to think about it.
As for planned vs. improvised... I'm still going to pick with already drawn up campaigns, and use them as a base line for the events that are going to happen. That way I don't need to think of random creatures off the top of my head lol.
The rules I'd like to stick to for now, because I just know one of them is going to try to argue something because they know I'm inexperienced. I might improvise a quick something, but I'd have to make it a part of my DM notes, right? I hope I remember all that xD
Thanks everyone for the advice :D I'll probably post updates on tuesdays / fridays since we're stuck having only one (albeit three to four hours) session a week on fridays
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EPT
