Board Thread:Event Discussion/@comment-27243319-20161205132804/@comment-25310520-20161205154437

For beginner DMs, have as many things written out beforehand as you can. Some things, like combat, you'll need to be more flexible at describing but you'll get the hand of it.

Depending on your guild's or group's chosen system, have combat abilities and enemies ready to go with relevant health or what have you.

Don't make the event about you. Make it about the players with you. A lot of first DMs will take control with their character in order to become the vehicle with which you direct the players and you end up facing the "boss" of the event. While this is fine, it doesn't facilitate a lot of fun events for the players in your group.

Have players lead you. You, as the DM, want to hook them in to places you want them to go for things you've prepared for. There's an adage, however, that goes "no campaign survives first contact with the players"; it is such that sometimes you'll throw out whatever you've pre-written in order to facilitate your players' whims. That's fine. It just means more typing.

As you mature as a person, RPer, and DM you'll learn how to be adaptable and you'll learn how to type quickly in order to better give your players a story. I can tell you that when I started DMing at 17 I was shit, the system we used in the Hawktotem was shit, the stories I wrote for the events were shit. Now, however, they are less shit. I can keep the flow of the event going where I want it to go through subtle suggestions.

I'm notorious for making abilities and NPCs super powerful in order for there to be a challenge during events. If you recall from our RoL campaign against the Cult of the Flaming March, the last Dark Rider -- Baldwin the Betrayer -- almost wiped us and we almost lost. Most of his abilities and his general writing was mostly my job that I collab'd with Llewellan with.

Hope this helps.