First time DM

[Sstavix]

You can occasionally shape the campaign to the needs of your players, as well. For example, since you'll have two rogues in the party, try to shape some of the encounters so stealth - or, with the help of the paladin, diplomacy - could be more effective in "defeating" the opponents than brute force. Not every foe needs to be avoided by a club to the head.

[ArchAngel]

That's good to keep in mind.

[ArchAngel]

So, I have a question about an encounter map. I got a hold of an old whiteboard, removed the frame and everything (so I can lay it down flat and easily over the table), and was going to draw a grid on it with sharpie and use it as a re-drawable map.

For PC, NPC and Monsters, I was going to have illustrated and laminated paper squares that can be slid across the whiteboard. Economic and customizable. Maybe even have a downed picture on the other side so it can be flipped when the character goes down.

But now I have a question about how big should the map be?
The board is 24 inches by 36 inches, so I'm wondering how many cells is worth sacrificing for the size of each avatar.

My original thought was 1 inch cells (like the standard grids, giving me an obvious 24 x 26 grid), but the drawings for every character or monster would be pretty small and hard to get any real detail. Especially if we're doing a top down drawing. Not impossible to work with, but I envisioned something a little more.

A 2 inch cell gives a lot more room for drawing the characters, but now the board is only 12x18. I'm not sure if that's big enough. I can always scale it to a 1 inch grid, but all the people would need to be recreated. Might be worth it if we move to figurines.

The compromise option is doing a 1.5 inch grid, which gives a 16 x 24 grid and a decent size for the drawings, but it's a bit unorthodox and I won't be able to switch away from it.

So, I was wondering how big generally do these maps need to be and at what size the map generally become to constricted?

[ArcticFox]

I use one of these (The Megamat) and I find it to be generally a bit small at 1" = 5' scale. I make it work because it's what I've got, but it does mean usually only being able to draw out only 2 or 3 rooms at a time in a dungeon. When I'm designing custom dungeon maps I take the size of the grid into consideration so I can map the rooms in a way that's convenient. I would love to get the large one, but the budget says no.

[ArchAngel]

So, if it's feeling a little small at 34x48 grid, a 12x18 will be way too small.
I can expand it later by another of those whiteboards to double the size, but even then, it sounds like I might want as much space as I can get.

[ArcticFox]

You can always scale down... I do 1" = 5' because we use miniatures which have bases typically around 20mm - 25mm wide/diameter (They use either square or circular bases... in D&D it doesn't matter) and since most games only allow 1 character per 5' square area, it works out great. Since you're using paper cutouts, you can go to a smaller scale no problem.

[ArchAngel]

I might just stick with 1 inch then. It's already feeling pretty small.

[ArchAngel]

Finally was able to DM my first game last night.
My following thoughts:

• I forgot more rules and mechanics than I hoped, but remembered more than I feared.
• It's a ton of work preparing for these campaigns. Even in the end, I was doing ad hoc enemy creations on the spot.
• I think I made their first fight too hard. They all ended up nearly dead, except the one rogue who decided he wanted to stay out of most of the fight, but they were beat it pretty well, so I threw in a free heal. I mean, they haven't even gotten out of town, and they did save it from being burnt down, so it's the least the townspeople could do.
• It was slower than I thought it'd be, but that's not terrible.
• Being flexible is harder than it seemed.
• It was a ton of fun.

[Sstavix]

Very cool. The most important thing is whether or not everyone had fun. If they did and they want to come back for more, then it was a successful night, indeed.

[ccgr]

Sounds like you guys had fun and learned a lot along the way

[ArchAngel]

They were pretty excited for a followup game last Saturday.
One of the struggles for that one was a particular part where only two of the players were interacting and they other two were getting bored, so I rolled an encounter dice and threw in a skeleton fight for good measure, which provided a livening up.

One of the players rolled his character as a bit of loner so he spent much of the missions hanging back and just watching and was pretty resistant to attempts to join, which was a little frustrating for some of the party and me. The other player, the Paladin, (these were the two that were interacting mentioned before) was trying to get him to join the party. He did a pretty good job too and built his character as a natural leader in the meanwhile. Since we're all beginners, the others just didn't feel comfortable enough to step out and try take command of the group dynamics, but I was glad to see the Pally resolve this issue without much DM intervention.

Also, the Paladin ended up scoring a half-plate on a loot drop, which is going to work out well for future encounters.

I'm a bit excited for future campaigns. They seem pretty interested in the campaign, and it's not even yet to the big parts of the plot.

[ArchAngel]

So, from you experienced DMs, I was looking for some advice.
In the group, we have two players who are very active (the Paladin and the Drow Rogue) and two(Druid and Half-Elf Rogue) seem to often be more content by sitting back on playing with their phones. They seem to enjoy it, but it's not uncommon during parts where they feel like the other two sort of take over. They are more active and confident players and I think the other two don't feel so safe inserting themselves. One of the more active players keeps RPing as a loner (the drow rogue, like I mentioned before) and sometimes makes it a little difficult as a group, which leads to a lot of back and forth between the two active players to keep the group together.
I'll ask on their input, etc, but it's usually a small interaction and back to the cell phones.
I'll be starting the next segment of the campaign in a month or so, so I was trying to think of ways to get the other two more involved. Thinking about plot hooks, or talking to the Paladin player about keeping them more involved. I was wondering if you guys had anything you tried to get the "shyier" people more active in the game?

[ArcticFox]

You might consider adding plot elements that absolutely require the skills possessed by the less active players... or maybe use a plot device that focuses on one of them at a time. Maybe in the city they've traveled to, half-elves are reviled due to their "mongrel" nature. Maybe the local Circle of Druids has summoned their Druidic brother to accomplish a quest for them.

You might also consider asking people to put their phones away during the game. D&D is a game that works best when the players immerse themselves in it, and that's not possible to do while web surfing.

[Sstavix]

You might consider adding plot elements that absolutely require the skills possessed by the less active players... or maybe use a plot device that focuses on one of them at a time. Maybe in the city they've traveled to, half-elves are reviled due to their "mongrel" nature. Maybe the local Circle of Druids has summoned their Druidic brother to accomplish a quest for them.

You might also consider asking people to put their phones away during the game. D&D is a game that works best when the players immerse themselves in it, and that's not possible to do while web surfing.

What he said. Basically, the best way to get the shyer, less confident players involved is to shine the spotlight on them and have their characters come to the forefront to do things only they can. This may be a bit tricky with two rogues in the party, but I'm sure that they're different enough that you should be able to come up with something (for example, in most campaign settings I've seen, the dark elves are not very well trusted or liked. Could be time to send the half-elf rogue in....)

[ArchAngel]

Thanks for the ideas, guys. This got some gears turning!