First Game

>>50608273
Well, as for most D&D advice, I often say to try to avoid having it be all combat all the time.

But it depends on your group. They might be dungeon slog addicts.

If you go to the mansion however, you can put on some Hildegard von Bingen music for atmosphere.

>>50608273
Depends, do the three new players come from Vidjya backgrounds?

>yes
They'll want combat. They'll be keen to the idea of experience, and they'll only recognize the reward of gold, weapons and experience. You'll have to learn them that there are no solid rules for dice RPGs. Anything can and will change because you're the DM and you're not a computer. In fact, a fight and struggle is the only thing they'll think about until you challenge them. Give them a simple puzzle. Give them an encounter they can talk their way out of. Ease them into the whole dice RPG thing a bit at a time. They'll get it.

>no
Ease them into it. They'll usually have a hard time with the "What do I do?" part and the answer is always "Whatever you want". You'll have a rocky start as they literally do the first thing that comes to mind, but if they're meant for the hobby they'll curb themselves.

Of course, that's just my experience. Just about everyone I've gamed with, I've introduced into the hobby.

Encourage them to put effort into their backstories. That way you can adjust things so that the PCs have real investment in the story/campaign.

Call out players and present them with a scenario. Usually, a "You wake up in a room [...], what do you do?" is fine but a better way to address a problem is to call out, especially players who have not been in the spot light for a while with for example "You wake up in a dark room [...], Player, you find yourself being restriced in your movement and you hear a shuffling noise and the scraping of something metal being dragged around in the next room, getting closer."

That usually sets them up and they have something to act to instead of just asking "so can I like do this and that?"

Also, sweat the small stuff. Make yourself a list of things that are awesome or interesting as sort of a laundry or grocerie list and just go by these events. Usually, if players ask you of something, the best answers are "yes, and...", "yes, but..." and "no, but..". These always are rewarding the creativity of players and never just stop the argument. It's the kind of DM language you might want to adapt.