New DM Help

>>54229214
Well Anon personally there are plenty of Jewtubes to help get better. Keep reading the Player Handbook (or similar rule book) and the Dungeon Masters Guide (or similar book)

I do think there is benefit to watching other people's DnD games, but one of my friends who used to be a DM was forced to step down, because he saw Matt Mercer hosting critical role and started thinking that if you don't do it Matt Mercer's way then it is bad. Remember that every player group wants different things out of the campaign.

Approaching the problem of your friend who wants to do lots of new things unrelated to the plot, it is fine most of the time. In my current game one of my players kept following this guy around town for no real reason. So I gave that guy a more interesting story other than just faceless NPC. My player had essentially stalked him for a week and found that he was a smuggler working for a crime syndicate.

For your one player who kinda of just goes along and doesn't do much, try to incorporate them more into the action and keep them involved. Come up with a new plot hook related to their background or something similar like that.

Just remember that the party is your retarded dog, and it can keep sniffing that same fire hydrant, but sometimes you gotta pull the leash to go to new places and show your retarded dog new things to sniff.

Hope some of my autistic spewing helped.

>>54229214
You have the ability to control the pacing and effectively fast forward through shit you don't want to focus on. So rather than spending several sessions playing a PC setting up a tea shop in great detail, you can just ask him what his goals are and then cut to end where he's got a tea shop (or say that he's set wheels in motion, but it's gonna take longer to find enough investors or whatever). It's like how in movies only shit that's pertinent to the story gets showed.

You can also talk to your player directly and say something along the lines of "I don't want to get bogged down too much in non-adventure stuff that only pertains to your character," and then go from there. You can also have shit that's time-sensitive for one reason or another, only giving people so much time to fuck around.

>You have a treasure map, but you think others may have it too, and you don't want them to beat you to the loot.
>You've been hired to complete a mission and have to start that mission right away.
>You're tangled up in something that's currently ongoing -- maybe you've been falsely accused of something by the law, or the thieves guild is out to get you, or somebody's been kidnapped, etc.

>>54232054

This.

It sounds like you may have already set the tone for your campaign as fairly light, letting the players fuck around town with little sense of urgency.

If you're new as a GM, I'd suggest getting your players into a dungeon. It makes things easier for you and the players since the number of routes and NPCs to interact with are limited, it helps set the pace due to limited supplies and possibly wandering monsters, and it keeps the focus of the game on wonders and dangers outside the experience of the townsfolk.

Town should be something to timeskip through, the place where adventures stop. Cilivised society can only work if fantastic elements are limited for people to get on with their daily routine. Murderhobos and wizards aren't going to be welcomed or liked by anyone with a regular job that they've built up over the years. Life in town is full of petty shit like paying for meals, paying for accommodation, making sure the house is clean, taxes etc; it's the stuff that you're playing the game to get away from. Timeskip it, and if there's a scene that you play through in town make sure it's bad for the players' standing there. The fun and danger are out in the wilds.

Once your players are in a dungeon, make it legitimately threatening and include plenty of weird shit to interact with. Your player who loves going off the rails can do so by fucking with things he shouldn't, thereby adding to the Fun, and the player who's just tagging along will find himself drawn in when his mate's arm's about to be removed at the shoulder.

I'd recommend Tower of the Stargazer, you can download it off the OSR thread's Treasure Trove. Throw in something that the party needs to collect or an NPC to rescue, let them fuck about in there and have fun.