I'll be first time DM'ing in a few weeks, and I was

>>44750819
Make the players use pre-made characters.
This allows you to more or less keep the story on rails as they can't go apeshit without breaking the character.

>>44750819
Are you using a premade adventure or something more homebrew?

>>44750819
>Posting a reddit meme

Yeah

Nah

Fuck off

>>44750999
Homebrewing a short little adventure. Approached by a merchant or city guard, track down smugglers, enter hideout and kill them all. Return MacGuffin for a reward.

Half of 'em are still MMORPG murderhobos who'll cart the underpants of every goblin they kill to the nearest merchant, so I'm keeping it short and relateable.

>>44751132
When you find something more appropriate, I'll be glad to hear it.

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>>44750819
1/3

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>>44751332
2/3

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>>44751350
3/3

>>44751332
>>44751350
>>44751386
And on that day, OP was pleased. This'll help a great deal Anon, thanks a lot.

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>>44751417
You're welcome OP. I wish you the best for your first session man!

>>44750819

A few encounters I've had and players have enjoyed

>See an Ogre in the woods just sitting around a bunch of dirt mounds
>They approach
>Ogre sees them and stands up, saying "Right there, mates. You just be cool, me's mindin' me own business, just makin' some bandit roast."
>If they attack, standard Ogre fight, except this one has Int 14 and goes for the squishy first
>If they inquire, Ogre becomes ecstatic and begins pointing at every mound in turn
>"This 'ere's rosemary and rabbit, then venison, garlic, pepper. And right 'ere, hum.. uh.. ahm."
>Depending on the party reaction offers them a dinner or fights them.

Another one.

>Party traveling the countryside
>Suddenly ambushed by rocks
>The rock-throwers are hard to see, good at hiding and deal only small amounts of damage
>They're actually a bunch of halfling kids
>If tracked back home, their parents will be furious at their offspring and apologize to the adventurers (please don't murderfuck us)
>Offer a couple of potions from Old Uncle Fleetfoot's stash as an apology.

>>44750819
My first bit of advice is don't play 5e its shit

Some advice you could use this session though is remind your players to bring water with them when they go out.

>>44751522
>remind your players to bring water with them
Care to elaborate on that point?

>>44751522
Here
>>44751295
Sounds like you have a good idea for a first quest

Nothing wrong with getting all the loot you can either.

>>44751555
Honestly I realised most of my dming advice was not overly useful at the start of a campaign but I had to put something

And my go to advice for new adventures is always pack water in hindsight when I realised I had nothing useful to say I should have just not posted anything.

>>44751579
Thanks. Although I've been fleshing out the world more than thinking about the actual quest up until now, although now that I have the surroundings of the starting area figured out in more detail I can focus on that.

>>44750819
ONe thing to consider is to not get stuck in a 'monster rut'. Too often, as a DM, you'll go "Goblins, Giants, Dragons, done." You'll stick to classic monsters because they'll fit.

You know what's a CR 2 creature? A Plesiosaurus. Your players could fight Nessie and win. Cockatrices look like hideous chickens, and can turn a player to stone for 24 hours, a threat simultaneously hilarious, terrifying, and easy to overcome.

Spend a bit of time with every session to see where you could add something a touch more outlandish. The orcs have a Gargoyle in their lair, knowingly or unknowingly. The players encounter a Galeb Duhr with helpful advice, as long as they promise not to explore the ruins nearby. It was bound to guard a wizard's tower, but the wizard blew up, along with most of the tower. But the galeb Duhr has to keep protecting it for at least another...200 years? The ruins will be worn down by then.

>>44751555
>>44751648
It's a fair point to help break MMORPG guys of some of the inherent thought-processes: They need food, and drink, and bedrolls, or their characters are going to end up exhausted. They can't hearth back to civilization when they're injured, they'll have to walk back, or ride back if they were rich enough to afford a horse. It's a small bit of versimilitude that can help them get in the mind-set of the system.

>>44751555
In D&D, characters need to eat and dring from time to time. It's a nice addition to make the players feel like they're in a more realistic world, so it would be a waste to ignore that system only because they didn't knew about it. They're coming from a MMORPG perspective, so tell them about simple things that can make the world sound more alive and give them the notion of actual freedom. They'll probably cause a bit of mayhem at first, but after killing one or two innocents and paying for it, they'll enjoy the idea.

>>44751747
I hear ya. We played Lost Mines of Phandelver for our first game (this is our group's second campaign, I'm switching out with the DM) and we ended up destroying the blacksmith's shop and killing three people in a tavern brawl, one of them quite on purpose. When we came back to the town later we got chased out again by a lynch mob.