The main advice I have to give? Keep the event or story about the players!
What I mean by this is, when developing an event, be careful not to just run a giant cutscene. Make it interactive! Create situations where the players will have moments to shine, and be flexible if they introduce new ideas that may take your story in a different direction than planned.
Take into consideration the skills and backstories of your players, and throw in a few situations that would possibly appeal to them in particular. Especially if not everyone is a combat character - it can be nice to let them have some fanfare by flexing what they ARE good at.
For example, maybe someone is good with machines. While the combat characters have a foe to fight, you may introduce another facet to the encounter where one or more players have to diffuse a bomb.
I'd advise against making the FC plot revolve around your own character, as that tends to turn some people off to participating. It's perfectly fine to run some side stuff that's your-character-centric, but themes that are more broad seem to be more approachable by others, from what I've seen.
If you're DMing for a large group, you may want to recruit a co-DM and figure out a way to split them up into smaller groups. This lets everyone get a little more spotlight, and will also be much less stressful to manage.
When it comes to combat, I tend to use /random if their foe would not be easily defeated. I designate a turn order and keep posting that order OoCly to keep everyone on track. On their turn, a player will describe what they intend to do, then they'll roll, and the number they get will determine my "DM response" as to how successful they impact the foe. A particularly low roll would result in them getting injured, a middling roll will have a slight impact, and a high roll would have a very effective impact.
Again, I typically only use /random when the foe (or general conflict) is a match versus the player/s. Even a master swordsman who has trained all of his/her life could potentially slip up when faced with a fantastical beast that's two stories tall and breathes raw lightning.
If it's five people versus one villain NPC, though? I'm okay with letting them freeform type what they do, as they would likely succeed with those odds.
Hope some of these tips help out! Feel free to take or discard whatever advice you wish. ^^
What I mean by this is, when developing an event, be careful not to just run a giant cutscene. Make it interactive! Create situations where the players will have moments to shine, and be flexible if they introduce new ideas that may take your story in a different direction than planned.
Take into consideration the skills and backstories of your players, and throw in a few situations that would possibly appeal to them in particular. Especially if not everyone is a combat character - it can be nice to let them have some fanfare by flexing what they ARE good at.
For example, maybe someone is good with machines. While the combat characters have a foe to fight, you may introduce another facet to the encounter where one or more players have to diffuse a bomb.
I'd advise against making the FC plot revolve around your own character, as that tends to turn some people off to participating. It's perfectly fine to run some side stuff that's your-character-centric, but themes that are more broad seem to be more approachable by others, from what I've seen.
If you're DMing for a large group, you may want to recruit a co-DM and figure out a way to split them up into smaller groups. This lets everyone get a little more spotlight, and will also be much less stressful to manage.
When it comes to combat, I tend to use /random if their foe would not be easily defeated. I designate a turn order and keep posting that order OoCly to keep everyone on track. On their turn, a player will describe what they intend to do, then they'll roll, and the number they get will determine my "DM response" as to how successful they impact the foe. A particularly low roll would result in them getting injured, a middling roll will have a slight impact, and a high roll would have a very effective impact.
Again, I typically only use /random when the foe (or general conflict) is a match versus the player/s. Even a master swordsman who has trained all of his/her life could potentially slip up when faced with a fantastical beast that's two stories tall and breathes raw lightning.
If it's five people versus one villain NPC, though? I'm okay with letting them freeform type what they do, as they would likely succeed with those odds.
Hope some of these tips help out! Feel free to take or discard whatever advice you wish. ^^
