Your First Adventure | Running the Game

Episode 1: Let's make a dungeon! Just a quick, five-encounter Tomb, nothing fancy.

The D&D Basic Rules:

16 Pregenerated Characters!

Map of the Tomb and Notes

The Tomb's Dungeonographer file:

Dungeonographer:

The Green Dragon Inn; People & a Menu!

#RunningTheGame #MattColville #MCDM

[RutichkaM]

I know this is older now but this first time, ADHD-er DM loves three things about it:

1. You speak quickly and don't ramble so I don't get bored. Thank you. Hugely.
2. You use visuals in almost all your explanations so I don't get lost.
3. You don't patronise, just teach.

Honestly, brilliant. Thank you!

[micahtron]

Still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this is 6 years old, and here I am yet again for a new round of binge-watching.

[sakules]

this guy is hardcore, did you see his eraser?

[ThisJam]

This is like Kahn Academy for D&D. Matt, you're killing it, man. Great work.

[jeremyamo]

I love this guy for two reasons. One is he talks really fast but you can still understand him perfectly well. Two, the information is explained very simply and easy to digest.

[RiverSpirit]

Okay, so I ran this adventure with my friends last night (we’re all new to the game so we were shaky on some dice rolls and such, but it was fun!) and when they reached the goblin boss, they got him down to his knees, and I made him beg them not to stop the sacrifice. They immediately asked “what’s in it for us?”, and the hobgoblin said “If the sacrifice succeeds, many goblins will flock to my cause and I will build a stronghold here. As allies, and for sparing my life, I can offer you 50% of any loot we find as we grow.”
They accepted the deal (one of them fuming because they really wanted to save the girl, but couldn’t go against the others), and the goblins actually completed their mission, haha.

So now my new group of players have bonded with the goblins, and helped to partially resurrect the goblin god (they had the chance to swear fealty to get some bonuses, but were too nervous). One of them cracked that riddle afterward and found the burial site of the knights. They opened Varius’s coffin and saw the sword, but when they tried to take it, I decided he would be furious with them for p/much corrupting his tomb, so they had to fight his enraged ghost.

It was really fun, and completely improvised! I’m grateful that you made this whole scenario though, because it was definitely easier to start off with a predetermined setting.

Oh! When they went back to village, the blacksmith was there, drinking heavily to deal with his worry. I wanted them to see the consequence of not saving his daughter. They had to break the news to this grieving father, and he almost attacked them out of rage. The bard in our party had to talk him down. It was great. Very dramatic. :D

[samdykhoff]

As the dungeon was being explained, I realized I had actually played this exact encounter in a group of new players! Our DM must have found your channel and ran this as an intro adventure, and it worked great! He put his own twists on it, but it was kind of surreal realizing I had literally played this out as a character before.

[TheDarkOne]

"in the blah blah down below."

welcome to my subscription list.

[GM_by_blood]

Eight years after starting this series and in the final act of my campaign I'm returning to teach my players how to DM.

Thank you Matt. You're a treasure. A river unto your people, even.

[meytremblay]

Used this for my baby bro's very first game. He's 8. Total party k.o. in the very first room after a series of unfortunate events that ended with crit 1s, like the accidental slashing of his barbarian ally's manhood (played by my neighbor).

They sucked so bad, it was beautiful, we laughed so much,
thank you Matt!

[Anurahm_Kycor]

I've long thought someone like me, who has Aphantaisa, (the inability to create mental images/pictures) could never create a dungeon from scratch since I have no capability of planning before hand how it's going to look. But the bean method for continents, the dice method for dungeons, the rice method for world's, and simple drawing tools allow me to just fuck with stuff until it looks good. Even without the ability to picture things, I can bring my descriptions to life. Thank you for this video, because after spending about 4 hours looking at references and guides, I think I've finally got the courage to run my first game for my buddies.

[maxmustermann]

Ehm, yeah.. I got a question...
Can you provide us with link where to download 'friends' too?
Thanks

[dylanrushbury]

I know literally nothing about D&D but it's Matt so I watched the whole thing.

[bitesizedhero]

Wait. Hold up. Stop. 5 encounters in 4 hours is normal speed? My party must be under a permanent slow spell if this is correct.

[DisasterAuntie]

My father used to take me with him to his D&D games every Thursday night because he couldn't find a sitter. 36 years later, I'm contemplating trying to DM for the first time, and your videos have come just in time for me to use them BEFORE making a fool of myself. You've got a new student. Thank you for doing this!

[the_specialist]

You just made a 20 - 25 minute video only in 12 minutes. GG Matt GG

[leonielson]

I ran a home-brewed campaign with my AL friends with a temple to Leira, goddess of illusion, which has a portal to the Realm of Mist. Beyond the gateway the mist forms a labyrinth that is different every time. I know I wanted to have a small mimic disguised as a spell book, so I had to tweak the mimic's stats from the Monster Manual, along with several doors with sphinx-icons that asked riddles, which forced me to look up riddles to ask. Then I used dice to randomly generate a dungeon.

The response was almost universally positive, the riddle-doors went over well and the baby mimic was a surprise.

What I'm getting at is: don't be afraid to be daring.

[semipessimistic]

Your speed through approach to teaching not only gives me the info quickly but it’s perfect for my ADHD and allows me to absorb the info without getting lost in my brain

[sothisisathing]

Alright time to run dnd! Oh... I need friends? Hmmmm, that's a toughie.

[fearjunkie]

My local library's been trying to get a youth D&D club going. I offered to supervise/DM so I'm gonna be keeping this video in my backpocket if it goes through.