I'm going to DM, what do?

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Sure thing.
First, you will need to decide on a genre. After that, you need to make the first session. Do NOT world build first. Wait out the first session before you make a world of political intrigue for a bunch of murder-hobos.
Then after that session, world build and come up with your "end-game". My sessions run on too long for the payoff to be worth it, so having a natural progression towards one or many endings from the get-go removes the headache of making it serious mid-game and tells the group that you mean business.
Come up with a big bad that you would like the party to face-off against but don't get attached to him. If you can, have a backup big bad.

>>51422736
To engage the players, you are to involve them. Find something they have invested into and interact with it. Blend it into your story and spend some time thinking about how to include it. Sometimes, you can let their investment drive the story and you can write alongside it. DnD's storytelling comes naturally and is driven by the group. So have plenty of OOC communication with your players. They'll tell you what you did wrong and what you did right.

>>51422798
Finally, you might want to know that a DM's best trait most of the time is going to be execution. Rehearsing your notes to become familiar with what you have down is very important. Stutters and awkward conversions can be immersion breaking, but isn't the end of the world. The better your execution, the smoother sessions go.

>>51422853
By the way, if you use Ainz as a big bad, you might want to use lesser big bads for the players to fight first. Give them victories and such before having to deal with Ainz's overpowered bullshit, so it feels like there was more foreshadowing/better pacing.

Well first off, welcome to /tg/ friend. To answer your inquiry, there's really no 100% guaranteed way to make a campaign interesting or even fun but there's definitely some helpful methods you can try.

>know your players

This is probably the most important thing you can do. Knowing who your players are, their interests, etc. can give you some insight into what you'll be putting in your campaign to make the experience enjoyable for them. A lot, if not most players, especially new players couldn't really tell you what they like and don't like until it's in front of their faces, so many times you just have to test the waters in a session. Sometimes it'll be a hit. Sometimes it won't

>know the rules

Self explanatory but this really just needs emphasis. Make sure you've read through every supplement and core book you can get your hands on. Even if you choose to run a rules-lite game, you need to have the most in depth understanding of the rules of everyone at the table.

>Be prepared

Notes, bookmarks, maps, minis, etc. Do as much as you'd like, or as little as you want, but some prep is definitely mandatory. Disclaimer: Prep does NOT mean world building. Building a world around players that you don't know the motivations/playstyles of could end terribly for you. As they might rip apart you ideas in the spirit of just having fun.

>be immersive

Encourage roleplaying among your players and have some narrative material, especially introductory sequences describing towns, inns, dungeons, npcs, etc. pre-written. This will increase immersion. I'd also recommend adding some illustrations or maybe music to enhance this further but that's up to you.

>Get feedback

Ask your players how you did. plain and simple. The only way to improve is to have your players tell you what you did right and what you can do better.

That's all the advice I have for you OP. Good luck in your campaign.

>>51422040
>all DnD 5e so far but maybe Pathfinder in the future
why the hell would you plan to downgrade from 5e to PF

>>51423161
>all DnD 5e so far but maybe Pathfinder in the future
why the hell would you plan to downgrade from 5e to PF

I'm a gurps fan and I must agree with this. Don't go pathfinder unless you really must (for some weird reason). Keep the system simple. Pathfinder and d&d 3rd edition in general gets progressively worse with levels. Bunch of modifiers and number crunching destroys the game. You can always look at pathfinder for inspiration but I would suggest not playing it.

(before someone says sometime about me using GURPS and talking out of my ass about simplicity, I use GURPS lite)

>>51422040
If you're preparing, never expect your players to follow a logical order.
That's not to say, don't drop them hints or clues--
But if you expect them to go
>A, B, then C
They're gonna go
>C, Q, then kill the quest giver accidentally

Just have fun with it and don't be afraid of improv

>>51422040
Things to do:
>invent stuff on the spot
>have resources readily to hand that you can use for anything - I don't just mean ideas, but also monster stats, names you can slap onto people the party meets, stuff like that
>have a decent level of structure to your rulings - not just "sure, I'll let you hit that. But not that" (had a DM who didn't use dice, just abstractly decided whether attacks hit)
>remember that you're the storyteller, not god

Things not to do:
>allow a nat20 to do anything regardless of logic
>punish your players for not following your script (current DM has a tendency to say "you get eaten by a dragon, no rolls, no reason, it just swoops in and kills you" if someone tries to burn the plot to the ground)
>act like being DM makes you god
>force players into anything
>hand out loot like it's candy