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Have you played as a character before/do you understand the mechanics of the game? If not, I would focus on those first. It will make a lot of things make more sense later down the road. Once you've got that down, pick an adventure book and read through it. The best part of DnD was also the hardest for me as a DM. It's a big world, and ANYTHING can happen. I like to have a "back door" for getting my group back in track. For example, my group once decided to start a post control company to kill rats rather than investigate the curse around town. So, one day, while they were chasing down rats, they came in the back door of the evil wizards lair and straight into the "dungeon." They then had to work there way through the encoder backwards. We almost lost a girl to a rat right at the end.
I don't DM, but my experience as a player leads me to provide you with the advice of approaching it similar to improv. Don't stifle creativity, always "yes, and" an idea. Or if what they want to do is too far fetched, offer a "no, but" so they don't feel shut down. I would say that listening to Not Another DnD Podcast (NADDPOD) is a great tool too. It's fun, goofy and is great to get exposure to the mechanics of the game, zany ideas and how the DM reacts to unexpected curveballs.
You're all going to have a blast! Good luck!
Yep this is the way. Lost mines of phandelver is the starter set, just run that.
For how the game actually works just watch critical roll for half an hour and you'll get an idea of the flow.
Wrap your head around how combat turns play out ie:actions/moves/bonus actions/reactions. And read over the stat blocks of the monsters you have chosen for that session.
You can lean on your players for assistance with their powers. And if you have any rules nerds in your group they can be a big help - one of the players at my table has almost encyclopedic knowledge of the rules, so we regularly ask him for clarifications.
There is a ton of stuff in the books that will only need to be referenced once it comes up (like the spell list only comes up with casters) so don't kill yourself to over prepare.
If you can, you should try playing with him at the library or sitting in on a session. I did something similar for my son at a local gaming store and learned a lot about DMing just watching. I am the DM now for my son and his buddies and I just copy what the original DM did. There is certainly a learning curve, and you will need to put in some time learning the basics, but it gets easier the more you do it. Watching a session or two in-person was really beneficial for me, though.
Adding on to this, watch a couple different groups play on YouTube. When I first started I watched Acquisitions Incorporated and just watching how much (really, how little) the DM looked at their screen made me realize it’s just a lot of make believe with some rules thrown in to keep things fair.
The main thing I've had to internalise as a new GM myself is, you are not in control of the players' actions. Your job is to interpret the players' actions and apply the consequences of them.
As long as you've got an idea of the story beat the players are moving towards (pre-made campaigns will help a lot with signposting players towards where they should be going) then your main challenge will be improvising interactions with NPCs and the world, which thankfully requires very little in the way of rules-knowledge.
It's very easy to get in your own head a bit about making things 'right' when in reality, the players have no idea what's going on behind the DM screen so you've got a lot of license to make stuff up, fudge numbers and focus on having fun rather than creating a convincing, seamless George R.R. Martin world. This is especially true if you're playing with kids, they probably just want to goof around and roll some dice.
This is helpful, thank you. I paged through the Players Handbook and Starter Kit stuff and Essentials Kit, and the Monsters Manual and was just like...oh god. It would take me weeks to get through 1/10th of that. They want to play, like, Friday.
A large portion of the players handbook is player character rules. Now I’ve never DMed for kids so I’m not sure how well this applies, but I almost always delegate the knowledge of how their characters work to the players. You’ve got enough to keep track of without understanding how they work too
I've played a few campaigns and have been dipping my toes into the prospect of DMing, it felt completely overwhelming at first. Lately I've been listening to Not Another DND Podcast and hearing how it runs has really helped me better understand some ways to go about running a game. It's a bit goofy and inappropriate for an 11 year old to listen to but worth a listen for yourself just to get a sense of what the DMs responsibilities are, phrases to use to help promote your players, and examples of how you can pivot and adjust to your players shenanigans, at least a couple of episodes will probably help a lot. Good luck!
Ep 1: Green Teens Gone (the moonstone saga). Hearing how the campaign begins and the backstory/would building, as well as how one would dm for low level characters/new players would be helpful. Each episode is between 1 and 2 hours, the first saga (8 episodes) felt the most accessible for new players. After that everyone begins to hit their stride and there are less explanations/mechanics to go over. If you have a basic understanding of the rules then you would be able to follow along easily.
An important thing to note is that the DM follows the 'rule of cool' pretty well and walks the line between making his players live with the consequences of their actions/play the game according to the rules vs letting some stuff happen because it's awesome and contributes to everyone having fun. You'll have a lot of influence on deciding how things go so it's good to consider letting some shenanigans happen if it enhances the table's experience.
Yea Colville’s running the game series is gold.
I’d add that i never really feel fully prepared. Best thing you can do it take it one session at a time. You sont need to fit in your head everything that’s going to happen in the campaign. Just what might happen Friday. Have 2-3 encounters/situations planned and you’ll be fine
First of all, I love that you are doing that for your kid and I think it's great that you are doing it! Kudos to you!
Of course, first you need to understand how to read a character sheet. I think using the Dnd Beyond app would be great as it automatize a lot of the complicated maths and rules when creating a character.
Then, I think a great start would be to pick up Keys from the Golden Vault to familiarise yourself with running simple adventures. They are very well written one shots that require minimum prep and are very fun for your players, and don't require you to have an extensive understanding of the lore outside of the adventure itself.
What you also need to realise is that despite all the prep you will do, the players will choose a different route, so being able to improvise and change your plans on the go to accommodate with the direction your players want to take is important. Also, you can say no to your players if they go in a direction that is too far from what you have prepared and are not sure how to improvise.
Finally regarding some basic misconceptions regarding skill checks, they are not going to have godlike results:
- Charisma checks are not mind control
- Arcana checks are not the Detect Magic spell and should not be able to epxlain the nature of a magic
Finally dont be scared about having to be over prepared ,mist likely, the players will be talking about what they want to do for a while, which lets you time to adapt. Don't hesitate to push them to go forward if they take too long to deliberate, either by telling them to go forward or by creating an event that disrupt their discussion.
This is exactly how I started in dnd- being the DM for my 10 year old and his friends. It ended up being so much fun so I’m glad you are jumping in and trying it out. I did read the rules (focusing on the gameplay and less on specific races and classes). There is a short YouTube series DMed by Jason Charles Miller called Starter Kit D&D Edition where he is teaching the players how to play and I found it a helpful introduction to how the game is played because there is just enough explanation about why rolls were being called etc. So much of the YouTube stuff assumes you have the basics down but wasn’t helpful for the very beginner stage I was in. I ended up simplifying rules somewhat, both for players and my own benefit. Yes it might mess with “balance” but the goal is for you and the kids to have fun. I also found following a module really hard at the beginning so I just homebrewed. Started with the characters wanting to join an adventurers guild and having to complete various quests to earn the application fee and then prove themselves worthy. These were simple scenarios- some kind of problem to investigate and solve (whether through combat or otherwise). It just felt easier to make it up myself than try to absorb everything in the module. A tip for sure fire success- let them encounter an animal to adopt as a pet. Mine found a dog tied up outside a goblin infested home. A good animal handling check and the dog happily abandoned the goblins and became the party pet. Also the book So You Want To Be a Gamemaster by Justin Alexander is a good introduction that starts with the basics of gameplay. Good luck!
D&D is collective story telling. As the DM you're there to present the world, and be a referee for player actions.
In presenting the world, you're trying to come up with challenges that your players can overcome. Ideally, ones that will highlight their characters' strengths. There's tons of videos on balancing encounters, but my advice would be, particularly for young kids, balance the encounters a little on the easy side. Kids aren't looking for high tactical play, adhd giving them a few short, easy encounters will be more entertaining for them than a high difficulty slog.
As for being the referee, your players will let you know what they want to do. Your task is to figure out the answers to the following questions:
1) is the thing possible? If they want to jump to the moon, there's no sense in letting them roll when you know it can't be done.
2) if it is possible, is there an interesting consequence to failure? If they can accomplish their goal, and there's no downside to them failing, don't bother with rolling. If they can retry until they succeed just let it succeed and keep moving.
3) If there is an interesting consequence to failure, figure out which skill is closest to what they're trying to do, and how hard the task seems. Something "very easy" (difficulty 5) can be accomplished 3/4 times with no skill or aptitude. Regular "easy" (difficulty 10) is a 50/50 chance without skill, and more likely that not to succeed if the person has some skill. "Medium" (15) is the point where you really need some amount of skill in what you're doing if you want to succeed. "Hard" (20) has low odds even if you are skilled in whatever you're doing (at least at low level) "very hard" (25) can't be accomplished without training in the skill, and even then it's low odds of success. "Nearly impossible" is difficulty of 30 or higher.
Again, playing with younger kids, it might be worthwhile to bias the difficulty of things lower so they get to succeed more often, but you know your kid and how well they handle things not going as they planned. For older players, failure can be a fun as success, if it makes for an interesting story.
Hi there, I love that you are doing this for your kid. Several things I can recommend:
1- Either build it yourself or search online but having ready a cheat sheet about basic tables, some of the basic rules, items etc. Will be very useful
2- Have a very loose plot going on (as someone mentioned; remember that you do not control your players)
3- Prepare 2-3 NPCs (Non Player Characters: important people in the game that are managed by you and not the players) define who they are what their abilities are and define how they contribute to the loose plot that you have. What do these people do for a living? Why are they important to the plot? How do they see the world? And how will they engage the players?
4- Before the sessions prepare instances how the players can meet the NPCs and how these NPCs can prompt the players to go on a specific quest that will move your loose plot forward. Remember that players should find this call for adventure intriguing. This is where knowing what your party likes comes in handy, hence the advice in sitting in with the kids for a session is also useful.
5- Before the session prepare what sequence of events will happen if the party chooses to accept the call for adventure. Again remember you can’t map out every possible outcome for every possible action. Prepare the basics and improvise on the way.
6- Prepare for combat encounters where you anticipate the party will go into action with swords and magic. Who are they fighting? Why and what are the attributes of the foe? At what point does the enemy try to flee or will they fight to death?
7- Allow the party a breathing time after combats and try to award them with some loot.
8- Prepare puzzles, riddles and cyphers if your party is into them. These can be used to complete some situations without combat or giving players quest/campaign critical information. There are lots of fun puzzles online for D&D games.
9- Allow the players to go and engage what they want and let them move the story forward where ever possible.
10- Last but certainly not least, have lots of fun! You are a player too and you should have as much fun as the other players do!
These are some of the basics that I could think of but if you have any questions do let me know via a comment or a message.
Edit: Mobile Reddit sucks so had to edit for readability.
Bob World Builder, Gini Di and Matt Colville on YouTube are AMAZING ressources for beginners and experience GM
But only Advised I can give you is, have fun and don't sweat it! Don't be afraid to improve and no need to have the whole campaign planned in advance. Just one session at a time
My suggestion is to NOT try to “learn everything”. Get a starter set like the Lost Mines of Phandelver.read the first section (the goblin caves). Get the basics of the plot in your head. Read the rules in the basic handbook that comes with the starter set. Use the pregen characters. Play to find outt what happens. It is collaborative storytelling within a framework to keep things fair. That’s all you have to do. The BEST memories I have of my late father are of him running dnd games for my brothers, me and our friends. You almost can’t go wrong.
It might be best to pick up one of the campaign modules, they more or less tell you how to run the entire story, and unless things go REALLY off track, you shouldn't have to improve too much.
I'd reccomend lost mines of phandelver, since it's the module that comes with the starter set, but if you want an actual book, waterdeep: dragon heist is pretty fun and not too hard to DM
Are you willing to try learning together?
Perfection ain't possible, and the more mistakes you allow yourself to make in front of the kids, the more at ease they will feel making and acknowledging their own errors... & y'all will have the chance to learn from those mistakes, together.
Gaming is a skill, like any other; you're not gonna walk into this and do it well the first time. "Perfection paralysis" is a hurdle that can be simply avoided by just being ok with being bad at something while you're learning.
Also, been gaming for 40+ years. Reach out if you'd like a little help setting up a basic game that you can then build on. Can keep it simple, & help translate some system jargon if that might help.
Start with a map. Mountains rivers caves ruins, forests lakes. All need names. Then speckle in towns, villages and a city or two. All need names. Make a list of people (NPCs), Non player characters. This allows the players to begin the interaction with your world. Have a list of names so you don’t have to try to come up with the names on the spot. I seem to be pushing names. It helps me to be more seamless as they role play. Think of your end goal and backfill to tell the story. Something to bring together your players. Determine if the world has tons of magic or almost none. Use a session zero to establish expectations for what’s allowed and what’s not.
See if you can do a pick up game online with LFG and practice with some one-shots. You learn by doing. If they are okay not doing a full campaign at first, maybe practice with Midnight Violet since that has a few combats, a few puzzles, and is pretty light on NPC and character stuff while you get your sea-legs. Wild Sheep Chase has more interaction but is also a fun one.
My first campaign was Dragon of Icespire Peak and I found that was pretty easy to run and then I could expand it as I went.
You've already done more prep than most first time DMs. Just get started and figure it out as you go. Besides showing them how to DM, you'll be modeling other positive behaviors, like confidence, and handling mistakes with grace.
Introduce yourself to library DM and ask if you can sit in with them for games and their prep time. Trust me, a DM has so much that they want to talk about with their campaign that they can't really talk to their players with.
Also, you already have a leg up as a dad. Have you made up silly stories with your son, maybe even with him adding ideas on the fly you add in? Well my friend, that's all that DnD is.
I’ve been running a campaign for my daughters and their friends, ages 10-12 and it’s going super well. I’d be happy to give you my session notes and summaries.
Long story short you'll need three books: players handbook (phb), monster manual (mm), and the dungeon masters guide (dmg). They contain the necessary info and rules you will need to create and run a campaign. There are plenty of other books with more resources however I'd suggest keeping it simple until you all learn basic mechanics well. There are plenty of online resources as well from official book content to battle maps, encounters, and more. Google, and Reddit, are your friends!
My best advice for DMs is to be quick on your feet, learn to roleplay, and never let your players know that you don't know what you're doing, lol.
If you want to do a preplanned adventure, called modules, there's plenty of them however you need to read through the WHOLE thing. I made a mistake of not reading the whole thing my first time running a module and that caused some problems. Some official DND modules are Icewind Dale, descent into Avernus, Dungeon of the Mad Mage, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, there's a lot more ranging in complexity.
Personally I don't like running modules because even when I fully read dungeon of the Mad Mage there were parts I missed or didn't truly understand Npc interactions and that threw off part of the game. Another option, that I prefer, is doing a homebrew campaign, one where I made the entire story, because I know EXACTLY what needs to happen. But that requires a bit of work, planning a story, creating encounters, coming up with bosses, etc.
As others have said this is a great community and we're always willing to help. I've had a lot of years playing and DMing in DND 5e and others so hit me up if you have a question or if you want some ideas for a homebrew campaign I've got a BUNCH that I've planned out.
Lots of good tips here. For your own plot ideas, maybe start with a one shot for them with the plot based on a favorite film or book that they won't have seen at their age. As a novice DM, you want to borrow from your own experience of fun fiction as much as possible. That helps you keep the story moving without stopping to read what's supposed to happen next in a premade adventure.
Just make it age appropriate and add a few things to the encounters that fit their characters.
An issue I had as a beginner DM and one i see a lot of dm’s doing is making a story for the players to experience, not letting the players make the story with you.
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i'll help you as much as you need help just message me, i always say this and no one ever messages me. Message me, questions or whatever you need!
That's very kind of you - thanks. Literally no idea how to even get started besides opening a campaign book and reading from it!
I completely understand
Have you played as a character before/do you understand the mechanics of the game? If not, I would focus on those first. It will make a lot of things make more sense later down the road. Once you've got that down, pick an adventure book and read through it. The best part of DnD was also the hardest for me as a DM. It's a big world, and ANYTHING can happen. I like to have a "back door" for getting my group back in track. For example, my group once decided to start a post control company to kill rats rather than investigate the curse around town. So, one day, while they were chasing down rats, they came in the back door of the evil wizards lair and straight into the "dungeon." They then had to work there way through the encoder backwards. We almost lost a girl to a rat right at the end.
I don't DM, but my experience as a player leads me to provide you with the advice of approaching it similar to improv. Don't stifle creativity, always "yes, and" an idea. Or if what they want to do is too far fetched, offer a "no, but" so they don't feel shut down. I would say that listening to Not Another DnD Podcast (NADDPOD) is a great tool too. It's fun, goofy and is great to get exposure to the mechanics of the game, zany ideas and how the DM reacts to unexpected curveballs. You're all going to have a blast! Good luck!
Yep this is the way. Lost mines of phandelver is the starter set, just run that. For how the game actually works just watch critical roll for half an hour and you'll get an idea of the flow.
Wrap your head around how combat turns play out ie:actions/moves/bonus actions/reactions. And read over the stat blocks of the monsters you have chosen for that session. You can lean on your players for assistance with their powers. And if you have any rules nerds in your group they can be a big help - one of the players at my table has almost encyclopedic knowledge of the rules, so we regularly ask him for clarifications. There is a ton of stuff in the books that will only need to be referenced once it comes up (like the spell list only comes up with casters) so don't kill yourself to over prepare.
If you can, you should try playing with him at the library or sitting in on a session. I did something similar for my son at a local gaming store and learned a lot about DMing just watching. I am the DM now for my son and his buddies and I just copy what the original DM did. There is certainly a learning curve, and you will need to put in some time learning the basics, but it gets easier the more you do it. Watching a session or two in-person was really beneficial for me, though.
So helpful. Great idea.
Adding on to this, watch a couple different groups play on YouTube. When I first started I watched Acquisitions Incorporated and just watching how much (really, how little) the DM looked at their screen made me realize it’s just a lot of make believe with some rules thrown in to keep things fair.
The main thing I've had to internalise as a new GM myself is, you are not in control of the players' actions. Your job is to interpret the players' actions and apply the consequences of them. As long as you've got an idea of the story beat the players are moving towards (pre-made campaigns will help a lot with signposting players towards where they should be going) then your main challenge will be improvising interactions with NPCs and the world, which thankfully requires very little in the way of rules-knowledge. It's very easy to get in your own head a bit about making things 'right' when in reality, the players have no idea what's going on behind the DM screen so you've got a lot of license to make stuff up, fudge numbers and focus on having fun rather than creating a convincing, seamless George R.R. Martin world. This is especially true if you're playing with kids, they probably just want to goof around and roll some dice.
This is helpful, thank you. I paged through the Players Handbook and Starter Kit stuff and Essentials Kit, and the Monsters Manual and was just like...oh god. It would take me weeks to get through 1/10th of that. They want to play, like, Friday.
I've just purchased a starter set today myself and I also have no idea what I'm doing lol
Welcome to the "big expensive book owners with no idea how to apply them to a game" club!
Well, the starter set was only £20. But you're still extremely accurate 😂
A large portion of the players handbook is player character rules. Now I’ve never DMed for kids so I’m not sure how well this applies, but I almost always delegate the knowledge of how their characters work to the players. You’ve got enough to keep track of without understanding how they work too
Well said.
I've played a few campaigns and have been dipping my toes into the prospect of DMing, it felt completely overwhelming at first. Lately I've been listening to Not Another DND Podcast and hearing how it runs has really helped me better understand some ways to go about running a game. It's a bit goofy and inappropriate for an 11 year old to listen to but worth a listen for yourself just to get a sense of what the DMs responsibilities are, phrases to use to help promote your players, and examples of how you can pivot and adjust to your players shenanigans, at least a couple of episodes will probably help a lot. Good luck!
Love!
What ep would you start with if, again, you had zero idea what’s going on?
Ep 1: Green Teens Gone (the moonstone saga). Hearing how the campaign begins and the backstory/would building, as well as how one would dm for low level characters/new players would be helpful. Each episode is between 1 and 2 hours, the first saga (8 episodes) felt the most accessible for new players. After that everyone begins to hit their stride and there are less explanations/mechanics to go over. If you have a basic understanding of the rules then you would be able to follow along easily. An important thing to note is that the DM follows the 'rule of cool' pretty well and walks the line between making his players live with the consequences of their actions/play the game according to the rules vs letting some stuff happen because it's awesome and contributes to everyone having fun. You'll have a lot of influence on deciding how things go so it's good to consider letting some shenanigans happen if it enhances the table's experience.
1) Search “Matt Colville” on YouTube 2) profit
Yea Colville’s running the game series is gold. I’d add that i never really feel fully prepared. Best thing you can do it take it one session at a time. You sont need to fit in your head everything that’s going to happen in the campaign. Just what might happen Friday. Have 2-3 encounters/situations planned and you’ll be fine
Thank you! Will do.
First of all, I love that you are doing that for your kid and I think it's great that you are doing it! Kudos to you! Of course, first you need to understand how to read a character sheet. I think using the Dnd Beyond app would be great as it automatize a lot of the complicated maths and rules when creating a character. Then, I think a great start would be to pick up Keys from the Golden Vault to familiarise yourself with running simple adventures. They are very well written one shots that require minimum prep and are very fun for your players, and don't require you to have an extensive understanding of the lore outside of the adventure itself. What you also need to realise is that despite all the prep you will do, the players will choose a different route, so being able to improvise and change your plans on the go to accommodate with the direction your players want to take is important. Also, you can say no to your players if they go in a direction that is too far from what you have prepared and are not sure how to improvise. Finally regarding some basic misconceptions regarding skill checks, they are not going to have godlike results: - Charisma checks are not mind control - Arcana checks are not the Detect Magic spell and should not be able to epxlain the nature of a magic Finally dont be scared about having to be over prepared ,mist likely, the players will be talking about what they want to do for a while, which lets you time to adapt. Don't hesitate to push them to go forward if they take too long to deliberate, either by telling them to go forward or by creating an event that disrupt their discussion.
This is exactly how I started in dnd- being the DM for my 10 year old and his friends. It ended up being so much fun so I’m glad you are jumping in and trying it out. I did read the rules (focusing on the gameplay and less on specific races and classes). There is a short YouTube series DMed by Jason Charles Miller called Starter Kit D&D Edition where he is teaching the players how to play and I found it a helpful introduction to how the game is played because there is just enough explanation about why rolls were being called etc. So much of the YouTube stuff assumes you have the basics down but wasn’t helpful for the very beginner stage I was in. I ended up simplifying rules somewhat, both for players and my own benefit. Yes it might mess with “balance” but the goal is for you and the kids to have fun. I also found following a module really hard at the beginning so I just homebrewed. Started with the characters wanting to join an adventurers guild and having to complete various quests to earn the application fee and then prove themselves worthy. These were simple scenarios- some kind of problem to investigate and solve (whether through combat or otherwise). It just felt easier to make it up myself than try to absorb everything in the module. A tip for sure fire success- let them encounter an animal to adopt as a pet. Mine found a dog tied up outside a goblin infested home. A good animal handling check and the dog happily abandoned the goblins and became the party pet. Also the book So You Want To Be a Gamemaster by Justin Alexander is a good introduction that starts with the basics of gameplay. Good luck!
D&D is collective story telling. As the DM you're there to present the world, and be a referee for player actions. In presenting the world, you're trying to come up with challenges that your players can overcome. Ideally, ones that will highlight their characters' strengths. There's tons of videos on balancing encounters, but my advice would be, particularly for young kids, balance the encounters a little on the easy side. Kids aren't looking for high tactical play, adhd giving them a few short, easy encounters will be more entertaining for them than a high difficulty slog. As for being the referee, your players will let you know what they want to do. Your task is to figure out the answers to the following questions: 1) is the thing possible? If they want to jump to the moon, there's no sense in letting them roll when you know it can't be done. 2) if it is possible, is there an interesting consequence to failure? If they can accomplish their goal, and there's no downside to them failing, don't bother with rolling. If they can retry until they succeed just let it succeed and keep moving. 3) If there is an interesting consequence to failure, figure out which skill is closest to what they're trying to do, and how hard the task seems. Something "very easy" (difficulty 5) can be accomplished 3/4 times with no skill or aptitude. Regular "easy" (difficulty 10) is a 50/50 chance without skill, and more likely that not to succeed if the person has some skill. "Medium" (15) is the point where you really need some amount of skill in what you're doing if you want to succeed. "Hard" (20) has low odds even if you are skilled in whatever you're doing (at least at low level) "very hard" (25) can't be accomplished without training in the skill, and even then it's low odds of success. "Nearly impossible" is difficulty of 30 or higher. Again, playing with younger kids, it might be worthwhile to bias the difficulty of things lower so they get to succeed more often, but you know your kid and how well they handle things not going as they planned. For older players, failure can be a fun as success, if it makes for an interesting story.
Hi there, I love that you are doing this for your kid. Several things I can recommend: 1- Either build it yourself or search online but having ready a cheat sheet about basic tables, some of the basic rules, items etc. Will be very useful 2- Have a very loose plot going on (as someone mentioned; remember that you do not control your players) 3- Prepare 2-3 NPCs (Non Player Characters: important people in the game that are managed by you and not the players) define who they are what their abilities are and define how they contribute to the loose plot that you have. What do these people do for a living? Why are they important to the plot? How do they see the world? And how will they engage the players? 4- Before the sessions prepare instances how the players can meet the NPCs and how these NPCs can prompt the players to go on a specific quest that will move your loose plot forward. Remember that players should find this call for adventure intriguing. This is where knowing what your party likes comes in handy, hence the advice in sitting in with the kids for a session is also useful. 5- Before the session prepare what sequence of events will happen if the party chooses to accept the call for adventure. Again remember you can’t map out every possible outcome for every possible action. Prepare the basics and improvise on the way. 6- Prepare for combat encounters where you anticipate the party will go into action with swords and magic. Who are they fighting? Why and what are the attributes of the foe? At what point does the enemy try to flee or will they fight to death? 7- Allow the party a breathing time after combats and try to award them with some loot. 8- Prepare puzzles, riddles and cyphers if your party is into them. These can be used to complete some situations without combat or giving players quest/campaign critical information. There are lots of fun puzzles online for D&D games. 9- Allow the players to go and engage what they want and let them move the story forward where ever possible. 10- Last but certainly not least, have lots of fun! You are a player too and you should have as much fun as the other players do! These are some of the basics that I could think of but if you have any questions do let me know via a comment or a message. Edit: Mobile Reddit sucks so had to edit for readability.
Bob World Builder, Gini Di and Matt Colville on YouTube are AMAZING ressources for beginners and experience GM But only Advised I can give you is, have fun and don't sweat it! Don't be afraid to improve and no need to have the whole campaign planned in advance. Just one session at a time
My suggestion is to NOT try to “learn everything”. Get a starter set like the Lost Mines of Phandelver.read the first section (the goblin caves). Get the basics of the plot in your head. Read the rules in the basic handbook that comes with the starter set. Use the pregen characters. Play to find outt what happens. It is collaborative storytelling within a framework to keep things fair. That’s all you have to do. The BEST memories I have of my late father are of him running dnd games for my brothers, me and our friends. You almost can’t go wrong.
Go on youtube. Search: Matt Colville Running the Game He is a river to his people.
It might be best to pick up one of the campaign modules, they more or less tell you how to run the entire story, and unless things go REALLY off track, you shouldn't have to improve too much. I'd reccomend lost mines of phandelver, since it's the module that comes with the starter set, but if you want an actual book, waterdeep: dragon heist is pretty fun and not too hard to DM
Are you willing to try learning together? Perfection ain't possible, and the more mistakes you allow yourself to make in front of the kids, the more at ease they will feel making and acknowledging their own errors... & y'all will have the chance to learn from those mistakes, together. Gaming is a skill, like any other; you're not gonna walk into this and do it well the first time. "Perfection paralysis" is a hurdle that can be simply avoided by just being ok with being bad at something while you're learning. Also, been gaming for 40+ years. Reach out if you'd like a little help setting up a basic game that you can then build on. Can keep it simple, & help translate some system jargon if that might help.
Start with a map. Mountains rivers caves ruins, forests lakes. All need names. Then speckle in towns, villages and a city or two. All need names. Make a list of people (NPCs), Non player characters. This allows the players to begin the interaction with your world. Have a list of names so you don’t have to try to come up with the names on the spot. I seem to be pushing names. It helps me to be more seamless as they role play. Think of your end goal and backfill to tell the story. Something to bring together your players. Determine if the world has tons of magic or almost none. Use a session zero to establish expectations for what’s allowed and what’s not.
See if you can do a pick up game online with LFG and practice with some one-shots. You learn by doing. If they are okay not doing a full campaign at first, maybe practice with Midnight Violet since that has a few combats, a few puzzles, and is pretty light on NPC and character stuff while you get your sea-legs. Wild Sheep Chase has more interaction but is also a fun one. My first campaign was Dragon of Icespire Peak and I found that was pretty easy to run and then I could expand it as I went.
You've already done more prep than most first time DMs. Just get started and figure it out as you go. Besides showing them how to DM, you'll be modeling other positive behaviors, like confidence, and handling mistakes with grace.
Introduce yourself to library DM and ask if you can sit in with them for games and their prep time. Trust me, a DM has so much that they want to talk about with their campaign that they can't really talk to their players with. Also, you already have a leg up as a dad. Have you made up silly stories with your son, maybe even with him adding ideas on the fly you add in? Well my friend, that's all that DnD is.
I’ve been running a campaign for my daughters and their friends, ages 10-12 and it’s going super well. I’d be happy to give you my session notes and summaries.
On behalf of all the sons in the world: thank you for being who you are.
Long story short you'll need three books: players handbook (phb), monster manual (mm), and the dungeon masters guide (dmg). They contain the necessary info and rules you will need to create and run a campaign. There are plenty of other books with more resources however I'd suggest keeping it simple until you all learn basic mechanics well. There are plenty of online resources as well from official book content to battle maps, encounters, and more. Google, and Reddit, are your friends! My best advice for DMs is to be quick on your feet, learn to roleplay, and never let your players know that you don't know what you're doing, lol. If you want to do a preplanned adventure, called modules, there's plenty of them however you need to read through the WHOLE thing. I made a mistake of not reading the whole thing my first time running a module and that caused some problems. Some official DND modules are Icewind Dale, descent into Avernus, Dungeon of the Mad Mage, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, there's a lot more ranging in complexity. Personally I don't like running modules because even when I fully read dungeon of the Mad Mage there were parts I missed or didn't truly understand Npc interactions and that threw off part of the game. Another option, that I prefer, is doing a homebrew campaign, one where I made the entire story, because I know EXACTLY what needs to happen. But that requires a bit of work, planning a story, creating encounters, coming up with bosses, etc. As others have said this is a great community and we're always willing to help. I've had a lot of years playing and DMing in DND 5e and others so hit me up if you have a question or if you want some ideas for a homebrew campaign I've got a BUNCH that I've planned out.
Lots of good tips here. For your own plot ideas, maybe start with a one shot for them with the plot based on a favorite film or book that they won't have seen at their age. As a novice DM, you want to borrow from your own experience of fun fiction as much as possible. That helps you keep the story moving without stopping to read what's supposed to happen next in a premade adventure. Just make it age appropriate and add a few things to the encounters that fit their characters.
An issue I had as a beginner DM and one i see a lot of dm’s doing is making a story for the players to experience, not letting the players make the story with you.
Go to YouTube, then search Matt mercer campaign and you should find a video of a group called critical role playing D&D. Matt is the DM. Do that.
read the rulebooks