Guide for the Dungeon Master

Dungeon Master Guide

Your job as DM is to describe the world, play everyone the heroes meet, and decide when dice are needed. You do not need to memorize the rules. Start with a short, ready-made adventure, keep the game moving, and make rulings on the spot. Read How to Play first.

Your job as Dungeon Master

The players bring their characters; you bring everything else. You have four jobs:

• Narrator. Describe places and what happens. Use the senses: "The cave smells like wet dog, and you hear dripping water."
• Every other character. You play the shopkeeper, the villain and the goblins. Voices are optional; "the guard says he hasn't seen anyone" works fine.
• Referee. Decide when a roll is needed, how hard it is, and what the result means. When the rules don't cover something, make a fair call and move on. You have the final word.
• Host. Keep the game moving and make sure each player gets the spotlight.

You are not playing against the players. Your goal is a fun, exciting story where the heroes face real challenges and usually, through clever play, win.

Official advice for new DMs from D&D Beyond: learn the basics rather than every rule (looking things up mid-game is normal), start small with a short adventure, be flexible when players do something unexpected, and prepare only as much as you are comfortable with.

Before the first session

1. Pick a ready-made adventure. Writing your own first adventure is optional. Official options for beginners:

2. Read the rules once. Read How to Play, and skim your adventure's first chapter. Don't try to memorize anything.

3. Hold a short "session zero" (20 to 30 minutes, can be the start of session one):

• Explain the idea: everyone plays a hero, you describe the world, dice decide risky moments.
• Agree on the tone: how scary is OK? Is it fine if characters can die, or should defeat mean being captured?
• Agree on a simple safety signal. A common one: anyone can tap a card or say "let's skip that" and you change the scene, no questions asked.
• Agree on table rules: phones away, one person speaks at a time, snack breaks.

4. Make characters. For the very first game, use pre-made characters. When building your own, use the free character builder on D&D Beyond, which does the math, or the official 2024 character sheet (PDF). Ask players for one sentence about why their hero goes adventuring, and why they trust the others.

5. Gather supplies: dice for everyone, character sheets, pencils, scrap paper for maps, index cards to track initiative, and optionally a grid mat and toy figures.

Building your own first adventure

If you'd rather write your own, keep it to one session with a simple goal. A well-known community shape is the five-room dungeon: five scenes, each with a different kind of challenge.

Writing tips

• Start with a hook the heroes care about: someone asks for help, offers a reward, or something is stolen.
• Give each scene one or two things to notice or interact with, not a long description.
• Write down the few numbers you will need: DCs for likely checks, and the monster stat blocks (from the free Basic Rules or your starter set).
• Plan for at least two ways past each obstacle. Players will still surprise you; that's fine.
• Prepare names in advance. A short list of 5 to 10 names saves you from freezing when a player asks "What's the innkeeper's name?"

Running a session

Every moment of play follows the same official loop:

1. Describe the scene. Where are they, what do they see and hear, what stands out?
2. Ask "What do you do?" Let each player answer. If someone is quiet, ask them directly: "And what is your elf doing?"
3. Resolve it. If the action is easy or impossible, just say what happens. If it could go either way and failure is interesting, ask for a roll. Then describe the result.

A typical 2 to 3 hour session

1. Quick recap of last time (or the hook, for session one).
2. One or two scenes of exploring and talking.
3. One fight, about 30 to 45 minutes for new players.
4. A satisfying stopping point: a reward, a discovery or a cliffhanger.
5. Ask each player what they liked most.

Keeping things moving

• "Yes, and" / "Yes, but." When a player has a creative idea, let it work, maybe with a cost. Saying "no" should be rare.
• Failure moves the story forward. A failed lock pick means the guards hear the noise, not that the game stops.
• Rule questions mid-game: make a quick, fair call, write a note, and look it up after the session.
• Spread the spotlight. Give each character a moment where their skills matter.

When to call for a roll

Ask for a roll only when the outcome is uncertain and failing would be interesting. Walking through an open door needs no roll. Jumping to the moon can't succeed, so it needs no roll either.

Pick the right roll. Ask "What are you trying to do, and how?" then choose the ability and skill. Climbing = Strength (Athletics). Sneaking = Dexterity (Stealth). Spotting a hidden door = Wisdom (Perception). Remembering a legend = Intelligence (History). Talking a guard into helping = Charisma (Persuasion).

Pick the DC. Use the official scale and don't overthink it:

Use advantage instead of math. If a player has a good plan or help, give advantage. If conditions are bad, give disadvantage. It's faster than adding small bonuses.

Group checks. When the whole party sneaks or climbs, everyone rolls; if at least half succeed, the group succeeds.

Passive Perception. To avoid tipping players off, compare a hidden thing's DC to each character's Passive Perception (on their sheet) instead of asking everyone to roll.

Running combat and monsters

Starting a fight

1. Say "Roll initiative!" Everyone rolls d20 + Dexterity modifier. Roll once for each group of identical monsters.
2. Write each name and number on an index card and stack them highest to lowest. Flip through the stack each round.
3. On each turn, say who is up and who is next ("Your turn; you're next") so the next person can plan.

Reading a monster's stat block. Every monster has a short entry with its AC (what players must roll to hit it), HP (how much damage it takes to defeat), Speed, ability scores, and its actions (its attacks, with the attack bonus and damage). That is all you need to run it. Track monster HP on scrap paper. Monsters die at 0 HP, unless you'd rather they surrender or flee.

How many monsters? Each monster has a Challenge Rating (CR) and an XP value. The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide gives an XP budget per character. Multiply by the number of players, then pick monsters whose XP adds up to no more than the total.

Monster XP by Challenge Rating: CR 1/8 = 25 XP, CR 1/4 = 50 XP, CR 1/2 = 100 XP, CR 1 = 200 XP, CR 2 = 450 XP. Example: three level 1 heroes have a Moderate budget of 3 × 75 = 225 XP, which buys four goblins (CR 1/4, 50 XP each = 200 XP).

Fight tips for a first campaign

• Level 1 characters are fragile. Use Low or Moderate fights until everyone is comfortable.
• Make monsters act like creatures, not robots: goblins run when half of them fall; wolves go after the one standing alone.
• Describe hits and misses: "Your arrow thunks into the shield" beats "you miss."
• Give fights a reason other than "kill everything": rescue someone, grab the key, hold the bridge.
• If a fight is going badly, have monsters take prisoners, flee, or let a friendly character arrive. A total party wipe should not happen by accident.
• If players defeat the main enemy, end the fight; there's no need to roll out every last goblin.

Rewards, treasure and leveling

• Level up by milestone. Skip XP math: level the party up after each major goal (finishing the first adventure, for example). Level up fast early on: level 2 after session one or two, level 3 a session or two later. Level 3 is where each class picks its subclass and gets exciting.
• Treasure. Coins, a useful potion (a Potion of Healing heals 2d4 + 2 HP), and an occasional magic item. One small magic item per character over the first few levels is plenty.
• Heroic Inspiration. Give it out for brave, funny or in-character moments. It's the easiest reward you have, and it encourages roleplay.
• Story rewards. A grateful village, a new friend, a clue, a title. Kids often remember these more than gold.

Tips for playing with kids

These are common-sense table tips, not official rules.

• Shorter sessions. 60 to 90 minutes is plenty at first. Stop while everyone still wants more.
• Let them describe, then you handle the math. Help add up rolls until they're comfortable.
• Pre-made or simple characters first. Fighter, Rogue and Cleric are easy to learn. Wizards have many choices.
• Celebrate rolls. Cheer natural 20s. Make natural 1s funny, not punishing.
• Lean on creativity. Reward clever, kind or silly solutions even when they skip a fight.
• Tune the scariness. Goblins can be comic villains. Defeat can mean being captured and escaping, rather than death.
• Name the stakes. Simple goals keep younger players focused: "Find the goat before the goblins cook it."
• Props help. Draw maps as they explore, use toys as figures, hand them a real "treasure map" when they find one.
• Fudging is allowed. Rolling behind a screen and changing a monster's result to keep the game fun is a long-standing DM tradition. Use it sparingly.

First-session checklist

• Adventure chosen (Intro to Stormwreck Isle, a starter set, or your own five-room dungeon)
• Read How to Play and the adventure's first section
• Characters ready (pre-made, or built on D&D Beyond)
• Dice for everyone, character sheets, pencils, scrap paper
• Monster stat blocks for tonight bookmarked or printed
• List of 5 to 10 names for unexpected characters
• Index cards for initiative
• Session-zero talk: tone, safety signal, table rules
• A planned stopping point and snacks

Advanced DM topics (for later)

Skip these until your group has played a few sessions.

• Running a full campaign. Link adventures with a recurring villain and a home town. Continue with a longer official adventure, such as Dragon of Icespire Peak in the Essentials Kit, or the anthologies D&D Beyond recommends for one-shots: Candlekeep Mysteries and Keys from the Golden Vault.
• The core books. The Dungeon Master's Guide (2024) covers building encounters in detail, chases, traps, magic items and world-building. The Monster Manual (2024) adds hundreds of monsters. The Player's Handbook (2024) is the full player rulebook.
• Exact encounter building. The Dungeon Master's Guide's steps: set an objective, pick a difficulty, look up the budget, choose monsters by CR and habitat, and don't exceed the budget.
• Using XP instead of milestones. Award each monster's XP, split among the party, and use the XP table in How to Play.
• Conditions, cover, exhaustion and resting rules. See the Advanced Rules section of How to Play and the Basic Rules glossary.
• Influence rules for talking. Decide whether a character is willing, unwilling or hesitant; only hesitant ones need a check, at DC 15 (or the creature's Intelligence score, if higher).
• Online tools. D&D Beyond offers campaign management, shared character sheets, an encounter builder and a map tool for playing online.

Sources

• D&D Beyond: How to Be a Dungeon Master (role, 7 tips for new DMs, recommended products)
• D&D Beyond: How to Play D&D
• D&D Beyond Basic Rules (2024), free: Playing the Game, Rules Glossary
• D&D Beyond: Creating Combat Encounters Using the New Dungeon Master's Guide
• Wizards Play Network: Starter Set: Heroes of the Borderlands

Notes: the XP budgets for levels 1 to 4 come from the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide table as reproduced by secondary sites (D&D Beyond's article confirms only the level 5 figure). Prices other than Heroes of the Borderlands are approximate. The five-room dungeon is a community technique, not an official rule.