Confessions of a Newbie Dungeon Master: Or How I Learned to Stop Being Afraid and Just Run a Game Already
Hello world! It’s been a while, but I’m finally out of my blanket fort and ready to talk to the world again. The back half of 2018 was….challenging to say the least, with massive day job projects, family trips and adventures in home improvement. But, there was something else exciting that came into my life in 2018: an opportunity to take my first stab at sitting in the DM’s chair for a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
As some of our readers may know, I’m an OG #critter, having discovered Critical Role during the very early days of their weekly live stream. Watching Critical Role reignited my love for playing D&D, a game I’d shied away from for years, thanks to a terrible experience playing in a 3.5 campaign with an awful DM, and I began longing to find a new table to join. Finding that table turned out to be harder than I thought, with our many FLGS being either way too far out in the suburbs, or not running games at a convenient time, and…and…and…do you see me making excuses here? I realized I was avoiding joining a table full of strangers [hey there social anxiety, how you doing?], especially as a lady-identified person.
In 2016, some friends and I put together a group and started a game set in The Witcher universe, but that burned out quickly due to the all-too-common issues of scheduling conflicts and personality clashes. Another group fell apart in 2017 because of new babies and new jobs. A 3rd group in there somewhere fell by the wayside because of scheduling problems, life, and distance. I started to feel like my goal of getting into a D&D campaign that lasted longer than 2 sessions was out of reach entirely. Thanks adulthood!
And so, I started directing that desire another way: I made endless characters, I started building an entire world, I wrote Critical Role fanfic and started participating more in the Critter community. I tried not to be sad about how I couldn’t get a game together. I took on a huge project at my day job, I was too busy, there wasn’t time. It was Con season, and I had panels to prep and preview articles to write. Really, it was fine. I didn’t need a game, look at all these other exciting things I had on my plate! But hosting 3 D&D themed panels at Denver Pop Culture Con last June only fueled the flames of wanting, even needing, to actually fracking PLAY some D&D.
During this busy stretch of time, I made a discovery. A lot of my colleagues at Day Job are huge D&D nerds. Huge D&D nerds that were also trying to find a way to fit a regular game into their complicated and busy adult lives. We started talking D&D over slack, and eventually spun off our own channel. We shared silly memes, and talked about the rise of D&D live streams like Critical Role, and Dice, Camera Action!. We tweaked each other’s characters, built custom magic items and just generally completely geeked out. I anxiously floated the notion of getting an office group together to play, assuming everyone would say they were too busy, and also we are in about 47 different time zones. But, there was a ton of interest! Multiple polls and discussions later, I somehow found myself volunteering to DM a Tal’Dorei campaign for 5 of my colleagues.
Readers, I panicked.
I’ve never run a game before, only played. My players are spread out across 4 time zones. They are all men, and I was worried about all the gaming stereotypes coming to ruin my fun. Some of them have never played before. Some have more experience than I do. I cautiously posted my House Rules to our channel and hoped they didn’t all run away from my boundaries and expectations. I introduced them to the world of Tal’Dorei [and created a few new critters in the process]. I started framing out a plot. Through it all, I was terrified. Of failing, of players quitting or having a bad time. Of coordinating our crazy schedules, and the public speaking aspect of being a Dungeon Master. Basically, if I could worry about it, I worried about it.
I turned to everyone’s favorite teacher, the internet, to try to learn all the secrets of being a Master DM in 4 weeks or less. [Spoiler Alert: Play, play some more, and then when you’re done with that, play again. Also, take notes.] I scoured the twitter feeds of Matt Mercer, Mark Hulmes and Chris Perkins. I waded into r/DnD and r/DnDBehindTheScreen, 2 very welcoming subreddits. I bounced ideas off of friends, over thought everything, and endlessly tweaked my first planned encounter with tools like Kobold Fight Club.
Player characters sheets came in, and the date of our first session approached. I read backstories and started weaving my players into the established history of the world. I bought some shiny new dice. I worried, and doubted and second-guessed myself. I assumed this would end up a one and done campaign, like so many others. Time marched on, and the day of our first session finally arrived.
And It Was Awesome. We hopped on chat, and I dove into my carefully crafted opening speech. My players had elected to go with the traditional “We all meet at an inn” opening, so their level 1 characters found themselves, of an evening, sitting in the Sunset Stride Tavern in the shady port town of Stilben. We moved quickly and easily through the awkward mechanics of getting their characters to talk to each other, and soon enough they were debating the merits of which job to take on from the conveniently located board by the corner of the bar. Dice were rolled, choices were made and before I knew it, my adventurers were out on the road in pursuit of a missing merchant for a well-paying tiefling smuggler. All too soon, our first session was over.
I felt a little like this:
The next day, everyone couldn’t wait to tell me how excited they were to play again, as soon as possible. How much they enjoyed the first session, and were looking forward to our first combat encounter. Precisely none of my worries ever came true, though I still get anxious on session nights that my encounters are garbage, or that the players won’t like the story. I’m falling in love with our story, and I think they are too. My players send me backstory ideas, character’s hopes and dreams, secrets and fears. What I’m saying is, this has been, and continues to be, an insanely amazing experience. I can’t believe I waited this long to jump into the DM’s seat. It’s a rush that’s so different from being a player, and it is damn empowering, leading a group of friends through a storytelling experience.
And so, even though we don’t get to play nearly as often as we like, and sometimes we have to cancel because of work crises, or babies getting born or someone getting sick, we’ve been running this campaign for 7 months now. The players are now level 4, and really starting to get to know their, and each other’s, characters. They’ve taken on their first biggish quest, and soon? Soon they’re gonna need a name for this ragtag bunch of adventurers. Stay tuned as I’ll be starting to document our adventures here in this ongoing series, and maybe someday, I won’t be a Newbie DM anymore.
Meet The Party
Algernon, the Goliath Paladin: Charming and uneducated, Algernon, aka Turtle, follows the Moonweaver, a goddess of the moon and secrets. He believes in supporting the little guy [and you all look little to him] and has ideas for a saffron based spice empire, thanks to that Heward’s Handy Spice Pouch he got his hands on.
Gnorm, the Gnome Barbarian: Though he is small, Gnorm packs a mighty wallop with his trusty axe. A veteran of the fighting pits in Vaselheim, Gnorm idolizes “Philip” and devours any and all information he can find on Philip and his adventuring band, the famous Vox Machina, who saved the world. A lot. He has a pet rock named George, and the ability to light things on fire, thanks to his Storm Herald aura.
Leaxus, the Firbolg Cleric: Slow to anger, methodical in battle, Leaxus is the party’s gentle healing giant. Dedicated as a War Priest to a minor nature goddess, Leaxus left his small firbolg clan to serve a greater purpose. Now he protects his party and keeps them from dying, while watching for signs from Mielikki of what comes next on his journey to cleanse corruption and protect nature. Hopefully his stubbornness doesn’t get in his way.
Ori, the Tiefling Rogue: Ori inherited a bit of magic from her mother, and her rogueish charm from her father. Orphaned young, she was raised in Emon by the famous thieves guild, The Clasp. Is she on the run from them, or from something else? She’s not saying. But she’s great with a bow, an expert at traps and locks, and if you’ve lost something of value, she can probably find it for you.
Stevid, the Gnome Artificer: An experimenter, a tinkerer and an inventor, Stevid’s promising career in alchemy was cut short when an explosion cost him his reputation, and a perfectly good eye. He spent several years tutoring rich merchant children in Stilben, but those jobs eventually dried up. He found himself alone and broke, in the Sunset Stride looking for work. He’s always working on new formulas, and enjoys trying them out against evil beasts. He’s recently discovered a knack for harvesting those creatures for valuable alchemical ingredients.
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