dreadndelight

[dreadndelight]

first dnd session yesterday!

i was the dm for three of my friends who had all never played dnd before. they did super well in terms of adjusting to the rules and mechanics so overall i think it was quite a success. they all said they had lots of fun which is obviously very important!

i spent quite a while coming up with characters for them and creating a simple but still interesting story for a oneshot that would allow them to get a feel for the game without pressure while still being able to come up with ideas and theories of their own. they said i did a good job at describing the town their characters were in and with coming up with npcs for them to interact with. i do feel like i still need to work on my storytelling and my impov skills a lot >_<

i did run into some issues tho: while all of my players were generally willing to engage with the story and the setting i had come up with, one of them practically insisted on playing an evil character. for example when she tried to have her character intimidate a shopkeeper into giving the party a discount on something very valuable and expensive they wanted to buy but didn't have enough money for and it didn't end up working her first reaction was "can i kill him and rob his store?" her fellow players managed to talk her out of it, i couldn't even really say anything to that because i just didn't expect this.

she had told me beforehand that she had seen a video of some people playing dnd where all of the pcs were evil aligned and i guess i should have spoken to her beforehand about her conception of dnd to make sure that she was aware that not everyone just goes about randomly murdering everyone they meet but it didn't occur to me that this one session she watched would have such an influence on her. i hope the next time we meet up to finish this introductory story i'll manage her a little better.

i'm definitely going to discuss some basic things i need from my players with them, especially in terms of them being willing to cooperate with me. i'm a player too after all and them going off to try and murder every npc i've come up with because they're not giving them everything they own for free or because i have the npcs be rude back when the pcs insult them to their faces is not fun for me. i hope i'll manage to do this in a reasonable way, i don't want to be controlling but at the same time i want my players to respect the work i've put into creating this for them.

i feel like i'm making this sound way worse than it actually was, i had a ton of fun i'm just scared that if i don't manage to set clear boundaries soon this will stop being something i enjoy doing.

i'm already looking forward to our next session, i've already come up with something to get them back on track so that we can wrap this introduction up and instead focus on creating characters together!

#dnd #dnd5e #dming #dungeon master #dungeons and dragons #adventures in dming #noahs dnd ramblings