u/Spliff-Merigold

New DM here just thought id share my top 5 tips after my first campaign

1. TPK your party regularly in random encounters, throw a couple wolves at them but just fudge their health and attack rolls. This will create a level of understanding between you and your players- you are god and you decide if they live or die.

2. Deus ex Machina- moving on from first point if you kill them all, just have a god turn up and resurrect them all, if a PC has a god you

3. could use that or just make your own one up on the spot. Likewise if you make too many plot threads with no idea how your players will resolve them, just make the god resolve it

4. Micro transactions- you are spending way too much time and possibly money as the dm, most likely you bought the mini figures/maps/books and they are just getting this for free. Offer a magic item for some real world money, £10 common £40 rare £100 legendary, have it appear next to them next short rest after they’ve paid you. Even better do it as a subscription make the magic item disappear if they don’t pay again next session

5. Publicly and Loudly ban players- lay down the LAW, you are in control. If a player disagrees with your decision ban them. Online its easy you can just kick them, in person you can embody your inner bouncer and physically remove them; or even better just call the police on them.

6. Stop prepping- who cares? “Does this hit” idk does it

New DM here just thought id share my top 5 tips after my first campaign

1. TPK your party regularly in random encounters, throw a couple wolves at them but just fudge their health and attack rolls. This will create a level of understanding between you and your players- you are god and you decide if they live or die.
2. Deus ex Machina- moving on from first point if you kill them all, just have a god turn up and resurrect them all, if a PC has a god you could use that or just make your own one up on the spot. Likewise if you make too many plot threads with no idea how your players will resolve them, just make the god resolve it
3. Micro transactions- you are spending way too much time and possibly money as the dm, most likely you bought the mini figures/maps/books and they are just getting this for free. Offer a magic item for some real world money, £10 common £40 rare £100 legendary, have it appear next to them next short rest after they’ve paid you. Even better do it as a subscription make the magic item disappear if they don’t pay again next session
4. Publicly and Loudly ban players- lay down the LAW, you are in control. If a player disagrees with your decision ban them. Online its easy you can just kick them, in person you can embody your inner bouncer and physically remove them; or even better just call the police on them.
5. Stop prepping- who cares? “Does this hit” idk does it

I ran Shattered Obelisk as a first time DM and made a lot of changes that I think helped it run better, below is a list of changes i made with varying degrees of homebrewing required

- if a player attunes to glasstaffs staff give them his quasit as a minion, add find familiar and enjoy ur good alligned players trying to deal with an evil quasit who still has to do what his master commands but his suggestions will always be awful.

- Change the trial of Glasstaff to Halia whipping up a mob demanding his execution, the PCs can give in and let him being hung or they can make speeches to try and calm the villagers etc

- ignore most npcs, the town is filled with npcs, when they first explore use as many as u can but only keep around the ones they engage with the most. That being said always keep Harbin hes a great npc for the players to hate. And later on their are a bunch of NPCs in dungeons dont use them all just choose what u like or make ur own

-the spider is easy af spice up his encounter by having him plead to ilvaash when hes almost beaten and transform him to a mindflayer, just dock his health and damage a bunch, give the players a scary 3/4 rounds but dont let him tpk them

- introduce a magical items salesmen who comes by every couple of levels, there is nowhere for pcs to spend their money in this campaign they are just hoarding gold for no reason, i homebrewed some items/potions/scrolls that he sold and a special discounted section of cursed items for some fun, if u dont want to choose what items they sell just use the magic items they didnt find from the many dungeons in the campaign

- set up ilvaash earlier, have the spider talk about him and ruxithid

- do a time jump between the mines section and the latter half of the book (i did 2 years), then ur pcs can develop their characters abit more and give them a reason to return, especially if they are also first time as by that point they will feel more comfortable crafting the character

- make a second hub, the last half of the book takes place in the underdark with essentially tunnels leading to each dungeon, this is boring. I created an underdark area called the garden of stone and had a little deep gnome village there for players to hang out at, and then had the dungeons be locations in the garden of stone.

- get the gods involved, the stakes by the end are pretty high, have gods wanting this fixed or even better have them wanting the obelisk for its power/ to keep it out of others hands. Use gods that connect to ur pcs (backstory, clerics, warlock pact etc) and deffo get a devil involved trying to make a pact to get it for themselves

- make the kidnapped characters the characters that ur players cared about from the first half, the second half introduces loads of new characters to phandelin u can pretty much ignore them all.

- the last finale is like 7 dungeons in one that does not feel appropriate for ur players to rest in, simplify this illithinoch is great but make the portals smaller encounters eg (a corridor that they run through with fleshy walls and hands that try and grab them, or a large empty void with a leviathan in that they have to escape quickly)
I would also say ditch the endless void islands, beef up the mind flayer cult instead,that fight straight in to ilvaash is enough, if you dont feel comfortables changing stats just add another 1/2 mindflayers depending on your party size

-Make the briney maze collapse when ilvaash is killed, ending with an escape encounter is just so much fun

Admittedly as i was a first time DM i have never run it RAW so cant really say if my changes are better, but we all had a great time playing and if i ran it again id keep these changes. Obvs might not work for your groups but just thought id share:)