Great writeup. I've DM'ed a game weekly for the last four years, and much of your experience as a first time DM resonates with me. Fwiw, I'm moving away from 5e as a system. I've discovered that...
Great writeup. I've DM'ed a game weekly for the last four years, and much of your experience as a first time DM resonates with me.
Fwiw, I'm moving away from 5e as a system. I've discovered that my players like "emergent" gameplay, and that it's actually easier to prep for me as well. At the table, I've found that the 5e system takes more than it gives.
It's worth checking out Old School Essentials or other OSR games if you haven't already. They play a little differently, but they'll help you avoid many of the challenges you ran into here.
I have looked at other systems, but it seems like many of the group prefer 5e (probably more due to its popularity than its actual strengths). I'd have loved to try something closer to OSR, but I...
I have looked at other systems, but it seems like many of the group prefer 5e (probably more due to its popularity than its actual strengths). I'd have loved to try something closer to OSR, but I realized that simply convincing them to play at all was the hard part. I'm hoping that once the rest of the group gets more familiar with 5e they'll be more willing to learn something new, or at least give it a try for a one shot (that definitely won't take 7 hours this time I swear).
I actually used the Mythic system when prepping the adventure to give the NPCs more life and some quick backgrounds in case the players asked!
This is such a good point - 5e is very popular and there is a lot of support for it through online resources, but it is SO involved. I remember watching a Matt Colville video where he talks about...
This is such a good point - 5e is very popular and there is a lot of support for it through online resources, but it is SO involved. I remember watching a Matt Colville video where he talks about different systems and he mentions that 5e is actually one of the more complicated systems out there. If you can manage 5e, you can manage just about anything. But a lot of folks (myself included!) have spent a lot of time learning 5e, and it can be hard to want to learn a whole other system, so I understand the barrier to entry as well.
Thanks for the nod to Old School Essentials - I'm going to look into that!
The number one thing I learned when I started running games over a decade ago is that whatever you prep, it will take longer than you expect for players to go through it. There's lots of narrative...
The number one thing I learned when I started running games over a decade ago is that whatever you prep, it will take longer than you expect for players to go through it.
There's lots of narrative "wheel spinning" when players have absolute agency over the story's movement. It's only really heavy combat focused groups that aren't focused on roleplay as much that will get through your prep quickly.
Oh my, what a write-up. As soon as I read "three hours", I kinda knew where this was heading. I wouldn't call myself an experienced player, but I was lucky enough to play under 3 DMs and saw how...
Oh my, what a write-up. As soon as I read "three hours", I kinda knew where this was heading.
I wouldn't call myself an experienced player, but I was lucky enough to play under 3 DMs and saw how their style differed. The best DM is by far the one who prepares less.
I feel like all you need is a map, an overarching story that feels compelling and adventurous... and then good improv skills. Your players should decide what to do, so the sessions should always be a mix of "rail-roading" and free will. If you have more in one aspect, it feels bad.
Your players know it's your first time also and will understand your shortcomings. You seem like you really want to prepare stuff in advance and my advice considering that would be to practice improvising.
Think of random scenarios and how to react to them, random encounters and how you would create them on the fly, if your players intimidate, haggle, destroy, etc., how would you react?
It takes practice to be able to do them perfectly, but good improv will hide those flaws well. In time, you'll encounter all situations, but it takes time. Be patient with yourself and don't be scared to make mistakes. :)
Yeah my approach is to just write a few bullet points as reminders. I make sure the players know the state of the world around them and what their options are, and I have the world react to their...
Yeah my approach is to just write a few bullet points as reminders. I make sure the players know the state of the world around them and what their options are, and I have the world react to their choices in common sense/interesting/player-desired ways. By not preparing in detail I'm free to change plans on the fly; drastically sometimes. It is very rare for me to fudge rolls because I haven't written myself into a corner where the party has to win an encounter or my planning goes to waste.
The only time I plan in detail is for set pieces, which are rare. I only ever plan them in when the players have confirmed they want to do the thing that I want the set piece for to minimise wasted effort. And when I say 'plan in detail' and 'set pieces' I basically mean writing dungeons with specific room layouts with maybe some pre-prepared combat encounters, area gimmick, or chase/escape. At no point do I ever write out a villain monologue or paragraphs of text or anything like that.
This isn't necessarily the best way. One of my friends is a detailed, linear planner who builds a proper 'campaign', and his sessions are awesome. It just isn't something I could do without burning out near instantly so I've adapted to a different approach.
I also don't run 5e though. Some things I do (e.g. not preparing encounters) might not be as feasible in that game.
Yeah, 5e relies quite heavily on stat-blocks that are a bit tough (at least for someone as inexperienced as myself) to estimate on the fly. I do intend to prep some documents with generic...
Yeah, 5e relies quite heavily on stat-blocks that are a bit tough (at least for someone as inexperienced as myself) to estimate on the fly. I do intend to prep some documents with generic encounters and include those stats in it to avoid repeating my mistake of accidentally buffing enemies due to scrambling through the Monster Manual haha!
The random encounter/scenario list was actually an improvement that came to me after my (rocky) one-shot. It seems perfect since I can create possible scenarios and then adapt/improv them to...
The random encounter/scenario list was actually an improvement that came to me after my (rocky) one-shot. It seems perfect since I can create possible scenarios and then adapt/improv them to better fit the situation without getting mad that I prepped something that now can't be used.
Improv is definitely something I need to work on though. I think I was able to keep things seemingly smooth, but there were so many curve balls that I needed a few moments to think of a proper reaction.
This was a great write-up. A few tips that I've learned over the years: Fudging rolls is part of the game. At its core, TTRPGs are a group story-telling exercise. Don't let the rules get in the...
This was a great write-up. A few tips that I've learned over the years:
Fudging rolls is part of the game. At its core, TTRPGs are a group story-telling exercise. Don't let the rules get in the way of a compelling narrative. If the story is improved by someone failing or succeeding, make sure it happens!
In the past, I've always tried to make sure every player gets "spotlight" time. If, at the end of a session, every player can say 'oh man remember when I did this', then I consider it a success. It's less applicable with more "emergent" games as described in another comment thread, but in something like 5e it definitely applies.
Players are dumb. Don't expect them to read between the lines. If you want to speed up gameplay or decision-making, be explicit with them. "You feel a draft coming across the room" can be misinterpreted, but "you're fairly sure there's a secret door in here" can't. It might break immersion, but I've found if you're trying to power through, most players won't even mind it if you dumb it down a little. Hell, I've combined them before: "You find a holy symbol depicting a starburst. The cleric knows this as a symbol of law. This is a good god. Which is weird. Because you're in a dark temple. Why would this be here?"
You may enjoy reading some quick write-ups of mine and the resulting comments from when I first started DMing. I mean I'm not that much more experienced at this point, nearly a year later, largely...
You may enjoy reading some quick write-ups of mine and the resulting comments from when I first started DMing. I mean I'm not that much more experienced at this point, nearly a year later, largely due to the scheduling conflicts you mentioned running into and some burn out on my part.
But reading your post is incredibly helpful to me. It's nice to know I'm not the only new DM that struggled/struggles with these kinds of things. I started writing some responses to your "What went wrong" list and realized I was basically talking to myself because they're all things that regularly go wrong with my own games. But all the same, hopefully they're encouraging and helpful for you!
The three hour one-shot turned into a seven hour epic
I feel that to my core. Was it entirely that things were over-planned, or was socializing before/during/after a factor? Because I struggle with both, tbh!
None of the “optional” scenes were used, leading to wasted prep time
Which leads to burn out REAL quick. I poured every ounce of creativity I had into my first few sessions and meticulously planned every last detail...and then nothing went according to plan and I was left feeling like I wasted my time for nothing. Which led to some burn out and me taking a break mid-campaign because I needed to "recharge" while I figured out a less exhausting way forward.
I “fudged” more rolls than I wanted to due to my poorly balanced fights
But that's totally fine! Our job as DM is to craft an experience that's fun and challenging. That's a tough thing to balance and sometimes you have to tilt the scales one way or another to maintain that.
I did not confirm that everyone knew how to make their characters, leading to one player (new to DnD) to have a poorly balanced character
I have a mixed group of 1 long-time veteran, 2 short-time veterans (I'm one of them), and 3 newbies. So thankfully we could help the newbies out as a group and we could all help form solid characters. I know this was a one-off, but if you do a longer campaign, definitely do a Session 0 where (among other things) everyone makes their char sheets together so questions can be asked and you can hit the ground running on Session 1.
Balancing “story” and “gameplay” was something I was constantly having trouble with
I haven't figured this out entirely, but I think it's largely group-dependent. My group enjoys goofing off in-character more than elaborate story-telling and combat. So I should probably focus my energy into creating fun scenarios for people to RP in rather than elaborate stories with factions and complicated politics.
And if the gameplay doesn't fit the story, bend the gamplay to your will. You're the DM, you're allowed to do that :)
Thanks for those links! I skimmed them just now but will do a more thorough read through this evening. A part of the reason I did a one-shot instead of jumping straight into the campaign was to...
Thanks for those links! I skimmed them just now but will do a more thorough read through this evening.
A part of the reason I did a one-shot instead of jumping straight into the campaign was to try and catch issues before I ended up accidentally burning myself out. I'm glad I did because I found a ton of spots where I would have been wasting time and energy on things that just don't ultimately matter.
A session 0 is planned to happen before we start the full campaign, and the plan is to go over character creation together, discuss expectations, and finally go over a couple house rules. I 100% plan on discussing if the players will want a more rail-roaded or more open ended adventure.
I've been playing D&D for about two years now. We are probably three quarters of the way through our second campaign, Curse of Strahd. My wife has been our DM for both campaigns. When this...
I've been playing D&D for about two years now. We are probably three quarters of the way through our second campaign, Curse of Strahd. My wife has been our DM for both campaigns. When this campaign is over, I'm going to give DMing a try. I'm going to run Phandelver and Below - The Shattered Obelisk.
I have no idea how it's going to go. On one hand, I'm not terribly worried about adjudicating rulings. But on-the-fly creativity…? When it comes to stuff like this, I tend to be a perfectionist and I place verisimilitude and continuity at the top of my creative priorities. I'm concerned I'm going to spend a lot of time pausing to find the perfect, logical response to any given situation my PCs will be in.
One thing I've got going for me, at least, is that I'm not trying to run a one shot, so if a session runs along, I can at least stop and pick up next time. (We try to play D&D every weekend anyway.)
That said, I feel you on groups getting stalled with meaningless crap. I can't tell you how many sessions we've gotten basically nowhere because our excessively large group gets stuck on something dumb and we just spin our wheels. Hopefully I will be able to do what you suggested and encourage my PCs to get a move on. Certainly, I'm not above the idea of things taking place offscreen. We don't need to RP loading the wagon.
Anyway, it's daunting and I'll be curious to see if I can pull it off. And more than that, I'm curious if I will enjoy doing it.
I'm a little surprised that, since you are running your game remotely, you didn't use some kind of Virtual Tabletop (VTT). We use Owlbear Rodeo and it works great. Even the free version. We use it even though our group is 75% in person. It works a lot better than janky maps and miniatures, in my opinion.
I was pretty overwhelmed by the massive selection of services to simulate tabletops, and so many of them either required or basically required by limiting features subscriptions that I gave up and...
I was pretty overwhelmed by the massive selection of services to simulate tabletops, and so many of them either required or basically required by limiting features subscriptions that I gave up and just used a photo editor due to a lack of time. I'm hoping we get to meet in person more often than not, but I'll keep a note to check out Owlbear Rodeo if we ever need to do another remote session!
I discovered it when we were looking for a VTT that was mobile-compatible. Those of us who are physically at the table are using D&D Beyond on our phones for our character sheets and needed a VTT...
I discovered it when we were looking for a VTT that was mobile-compatible. Those of us who are physically at the table are using D&D Beyond on our phones for our character sheets and needed a VTT that could work on any device. I've been really impressed by Owlbear Rodeo. I might just buy a subscription on principle when I am DMing.
Side note: I like this site quite a lot for making VTT tokens. Some of our PCs have designed their characters in Bing Image Creator or Baldur's Gate 3 and we just put them through that to create tokens for everyone. We can also grab the pictures out of the Monster Manual and make tokens from that, too. It's very handy.
I recently hosted a DnD session, and learned a good bit from the experience. I figured my experience might be fun to some, if just to see the number of mistakes I made as a first time DM. Of...
I recently hosted a DnD session, and learned a good bit from the experience. I figured my experience might be fun to some, if just to see the number of mistakes I made as a first time DM. Of course, I am open to any suggestions and tips other might have for running a campaign as well.
The initial plan was to use the one-shot as a way to figure out what did and did not work, and whether or not I'd be using my homebrew setting or an official module, before jumping into hosting a full campaign. There was not a session 0 for this, but there will be one prior to starting the actual campaign.
This is a great reflection! I think new DMs will probably be able to take a lot away from your experience and feel a lot more confident going into their first games. I agree that one significant...
This is a great reflection! I think new DMs will probably be able to take a lot away from your experience and feel a lot more confident going into their first games.
I agree that one significant thing that's hard to plan is how long it will take for players to complete the story. So for me, when I say "one-shot", I mean there is a single thread that we'll be following, that it has a beginning and an end, and that we'll see it through to that end. For my most recent "one-shot", we had 3 full 4-hour sessions plus one mini session to wrap everything up. Everything took place over two in-game days (10am-ish Day 1 through to afternoon of Day 2, one long rest in between); there were 3 main locations (one of which had 3 possible levels to explore). I was prepared for players to rip through it and be done in one session, I was prepared for them to take 6 full sessions to get through it. We have a regular biweekly meeting time, so it wasn't too painful to get that set up. Because it's a short burst, I had characters set up at level 10 and let each of them have either a +1 weapon, +1 spellcasting focus, or +1 armour. They each also found a magical item relevant to their character during the game that was either a lot of fun for them to use or that could help in the final encounter.
One other thing I learned was about the balance between player choice and game direction. If I thought players would go left, they went right; if I created a nondescript hallway insignificant to the plot, they'd spend 30 minutes investigating it thoroughly; if I thought players would talk to a person, they killed them immediately. There's no accounting for that, so I had to be a little bit flexible in the story telling (and move a special item I left for a player that was in a room they completely ignored!!) So in future, if I want players to be in a place or find something or do something, don't make it a choice, don't make it a roll - make it happen.
Also, there are some really great resources out there to figure out things like combat balance. Although challenge rating isn't a perfect system, it does give you an idea of how tough a foe will be, and there are calculators out there you can use to figure out whether your combat is too easy, balanced, or really challenging. I will also keep a few "minion" tokens handy for different interactions - if a fight is going too easily, boom, a few armoured skeletons appear. Or 3 angry ghosts. Or in one case, 5 knife-wielding otterfolk. Use existing resources to make it easier on yourself - keep a document with a list of links so you can grab a stat block or a tavern name or a list of magical items super quick if you need to.
Anyways, that's enough out of me :D Congrats on your first DMing experience, and all the best in your next adventure!
Thanks! I think everyone had fun, which is the important part, which is good enough for me. I figured that my rocky time DM'ing might help other new DMs realize that even with mistakes, the...
Thanks! I think everyone had fun, which is the important part, which is good enough for me. I figured that my rocky time DM'ing might help other new DMs realize that even with mistakes, the session can be an enjoyable experience.
On that note, though, I definitely want to implement some improvements and everyone's suggestions here have been a great source of things to look into. I'm pretty excited to jump back in and have another session.
Great writeup. I've DM'ed a game weekly for the last four years, and much of your experience as a first time DM resonates with me.
Fwiw, I'm moving away from 5e as a system. I've discovered that my players like "emergent" gameplay, and that it's actually easier to prep for me as well. At the table, I've found that the 5e system takes more than it gives.
It's worth checking out Old School Essentials or other OSR games if you haven't already. They play a little differently, but they'll help you avoid many of the challenges you ran into here.
I have looked at other systems, but it seems like many of the group prefer 5e (probably more due to its popularity than its actual strengths). I'd have loved to try something closer to OSR, but I realized that simply convincing them to play at all was the hard part. I'm hoping that once the rest of the group gets more familiar with 5e they'll be more willing to learn something new, or at least give it a try for a one shot (that definitely won't take 7 hours this time I swear).
I actually used the Mythic system when prepping the adventure to give the NPCs more life and some quick backgrounds in case the players asked!
I'm just gonna leave this here as I'm a forever superfan of DCC: https://tildes.net/~games.tabletop/16zi/the_argument_for_dungeon_crawl_classics
This is such a good point - 5e is very popular and there is a lot of support for it through online resources, but it is SO involved. I remember watching a Matt Colville video where he talks about different systems and he mentions that 5e is actually one of the more complicated systems out there. If you can manage 5e, you can manage just about anything. But a lot of folks (myself included!) have spent a lot of time learning 5e, and it can be hard to want to learn a whole other system, so I understand the barrier to entry as well.
Thanks for the nod to Old School Essentials - I'm going to look into that!
The number one thing I learned when I started running games over a decade ago is that whatever you prep, it will take longer than you expect for players to go through it.
There's lots of narrative "wheel spinning" when players have absolute agency over the story's movement. It's only really heavy combat focused groups that aren't focused on roleplay as much that will get through your prep quickly.
Oh my, what a write-up. As soon as I read "three hours", I kinda knew where this was heading.
I wouldn't call myself an experienced player, but I was lucky enough to play under 3 DMs and saw how their style differed. The best DM is by far the one who prepares less.
I feel like all you need is a map, an overarching story that feels compelling and adventurous... and then good improv skills. Your players should decide what to do, so the sessions should always be a mix of "rail-roading" and free will. If you have more in one aspect, it feels bad.
Your players know it's your first time also and will understand your shortcomings. You seem like you really want to prepare stuff in advance and my advice considering that would be to practice improvising.
Think of random scenarios and how to react to them, random encounters and how you would create them on the fly, if your players intimidate, haggle, destroy, etc., how would you react?
It takes practice to be able to do them perfectly, but good improv will hide those flaws well. In time, you'll encounter all situations, but it takes time. Be patient with yourself and don't be scared to make mistakes. :)
Have fun with your game!
Yeah my approach is to just write a few bullet points as reminders. I make sure the players know the state of the world around them and what their options are, and I have the world react to their choices in common sense/interesting/player-desired ways. By not preparing in detail I'm free to change plans on the fly; drastically sometimes. It is very rare for me to fudge rolls because I haven't written myself into a corner where the party has to win an encounter or my planning goes to waste.
The only time I plan in detail is for set pieces, which are rare. I only ever plan them in when the players have confirmed they want to do the thing that I want the set piece for to minimise wasted effort. And when I say 'plan in detail' and 'set pieces' I basically mean writing dungeons with specific room layouts with maybe some pre-prepared combat encounters, area gimmick, or chase/escape. At no point do I ever write out a villain monologue or paragraphs of text or anything like that.
This isn't necessarily the best way. One of my friends is a detailed, linear planner who builds a proper 'campaign', and his sessions are awesome. It just isn't something I could do without burning out near instantly so I've adapted to a different approach.
I also don't run 5e though. Some things I do (e.g. not preparing encounters) might not be as feasible in that game.
Yeah, 5e relies quite heavily on stat-blocks that are a bit tough (at least for someone as inexperienced as myself) to estimate on the fly. I do intend to prep some documents with generic encounters and include those stats in it to avoid repeating my mistake of accidentally buffing enemies due to scrambling through the Monster Manual haha!
The random encounter/scenario list was actually an improvement that came to me after my (rocky) one-shot. It seems perfect since I can create possible scenarios and then adapt/improv them to better fit the situation without getting mad that I prepped something that now can't be used.
Improv is definitely something I need to work on though. I think I was able to keep things seemingly smooth, but there were so many curve balls that I needed a few moments to think of a proper reaction.
This was a great write-up. A few tips that I've learned over the years:
You may enjoy reading some quick write-ups of mine and the resulting comments from when I first started DMing. I mean I'm not that much more experienced at this point, nearly a year later, largely due to the scheduling conflicts you mentioned running into and some burn out on my part.
https://tildes.net/~games.tabletop/1812/dming_my_first_session_of_d_d_5e_tomorrow_night
https://tildes.net/~games.tabletop/184m/i_am_officially_a_dm_now
But reading your post is incredibly helpful to me. It's nice to know I'm not the only new DM that struggled/struggles with these kinds of things. I started writing some responses to your "What went wrong" list and realized I was basically talking to myself because they're all things that regularly go wrong with my own games. But all the same, hopefully they're encouraging and helpful for you!
I feel that to my core. Was it entirely that things were over-planned, or was socializing before/during/after a factor? Because I struggle with both, tbh!
Which leads to burn out REAL quick. I poured every ounce of creativity I had into my first few sessions and meticulously planned every last detail...and then nothing went according to plan and I was left feeling like I wasted my time for nothing. Which led to some burn out and me taking a break mid-campaign because I needed to "recharge" while I figured out a less exhausting way forward.
But that's totally fine! Our job as DM is to craft an experience that's fun and challenging. That's a tough thing to balance and sometimes you have to tilt the scales one way or another to maintain that.
I have a mixed group of 1 long-time veteran, 2 short-time veterans (I'm one of them), and 3 newbies. So thankfully we could help the newbies out as a group and we could all help form solid characters. I know this was a one-off, but if you do a longer campaign, definitely do a Session 0 where (among other things) everyone makes their char sheets together so questions can be asked and you can hit the ground running on Session 1.
I haven't figured this out entirely, but I think it's largely group-dependent. My group enjoys goofing off in-character more than elaborate story-telling and combat. So I should probably focus my energy into creating fun scenarios for people to RP in rather than elaborate stories with factions and complicated politics.
And if the gameplay doesn't fit the story, bend the gamplay to your will. You're the DM, you're allowed to do that :)
Thanks for those links! I skimmed them just now but will do a more thorough read through this evening.
A part of the reason I did a one-shot instead of jumping straight into the campaign was to try and catch issues before I ended up accidentally burning myself out. I'm glad I did because I found a ton of spots where I would have been wasting time and energy on things that just don't ultimately matter.
A session 0 is planned to happen before we start the full campaign, and the plan is to go over character creation together, discuss expectations, and finally go over a couple house rules. I 100% plan on discussing if the players will want a more rail-roaded or more open ended adventure.
I'm excited for what will come next!
I've been playing D&D for about two years now. We are probably three quarters of the way through our second campaign, Curse of Strahd. My wife has been our DM for both campaigns. When this campaign is over, I'm going to give DMing a try. I'm going to run Phandelver and Below - The Shattered Obelisk.
I have no idea how it's going to go. On one hand, I'm not terribly worried about adjudicating rulings. But on-the-fly creativity…? When it comes to stuff like this, I tend to be a perfectionist and I place verisimilitude and continuity at the top of my creative priorities. I'm concerned I'm going to spend a lot of time pausing to find the perfect, logical response to any given situation my PCs will be in.
One thing I've got going for me, at least, is that I'm not trying to run a one shot, so if a session runs along, I can at least stop and pick up next time. (We try to play D&D every weekend anyway.)
That said, I feel you on groups getting stalled with meaningless crap. I can't tell you how many sessions we've gotten basically nowhere because our excessively large group gets stuck on something dumb and we just spin our wheels. Hopefully I will be able to do what you suggested and encourage my PCs to get a move on. Certainly, I'm not above the idea of things taking place offscreen. We don't need to RP loading the wagon.
Anyway, it's daunting and I'll be curious to see if I can pull it off. And more than that, I'm curious if I will enjoy doing it.
I'm a little surprised that, since you are running your game remotely, you didn't use some kind of Virtual Tabletop (VTT). We use Owlbear Rodeo and it works great. Even the free version. We use it even though our group is 75% in person. It works a lot better than janky maps and miniatures, in my opinion.
I was pretty overwhelmed by the massive selection of services to simulate tabletops, and so many of them either required or basically required by limiting features subscriptions that I gave up and just used a photo editor due to a lack of time. I'm hoping we get to meet in person more often than not, but I'll keep a note to check out Owlbear Rodeo if we ever need to do another remote session!
I discovered it when we were looking for a VTT that was mobile-compatible. Those of us who are physically at the table are using D&D Beyond on our phones for our character sheets and needed a VTT that could work on any device. I've been really impressed by Owlbear Rodeo. I might just buy a subscription on principle when I am DMing.
Side note: I like this site quite a lot for making VTT tokens. Some of our PCs have designed their characters in Bing Image Creator or Baldur's Gate 3 and we just put them through that to create tokens for everyone. We can also grab the pictures out of the Monster Manual and make tokens from that, too. It's very handy.
I recently hosted a DnD session, and learned a good bit from the experience. I figured my experience might be fun to some, if just to see the number of mistakes I made as a first time DM. Of course, I am open to any suggestions and tips other might have for running a campaign as well.
The initial plan was to use the one-shot as a way to figure out what did and did not work, and whether or not I'd be using my homebrew setting or an official module, before jumping into hosting a full campaign. There was not a session 0 for this, but there will be one prior to starting the actual campaign.
This is a great reflection! I think new DMs will probably be able to take a lot away from your experience and feel a lot more confident going into their first games.
I agree that one significant thing that's hard to plan is how long it will take for players to complete the story. So for me, when I say "one-shot", I mean there is a single thread that we'll be following, that it has a beginning and an end, and that we'll see it through to that end. For my most recent "one-shot", we had 3 full 4-hour sessions plus one mini session to wrap everything up. Everything took place over two in-game days (10am-ish Day 1 through to afternoon of Day 2, one long rest in between); there were 3 main locations (one of which had 3 possible levels to explore). I was prepared for players to rip through it and be done in one session, I was prepared for them to take 6 full sessions to get through it. We have a regular biweekly meeting time, so it wasn't too painful to get that set up. Because it's a short burst, I had characters set up at level 10 and let each of them have either a +1 weapon, +1 spellcasting focus, or +1 armour. They each also found a magical item relevant to their character during the game that was either a lot of fun for them to use or that could help in the final encounter.
One other thing I learned was about the balance between player choice and game direction. If I thought players would go left, they went right; if I created a nondescript hallway insignificant to the plot, they'd spend 30 minutes investigating it thoroughly; if I thought players would talk to a person, they killed them immediately. There's no accounting for that, so I had to be a little bit flexible in the story telling (and move a special item I left for a player that was in a room they completely ignored!!) So in future, if I want players to be in a place or find something or do something, don't make it a choice, don't make it a roll - make it happen.
Also, there are some really great resources out there to figure out things like combat balance. Although challenge rating isn't a perfect system, it does give you an idea of how tough a foe will be, and there are calculators out there you can use to figure out whether your combat is too easy, balanced, or really challenging. I will also keep a few "minion" tokens handy for different interactions - if a fight is going too easily, boom, a few armoured skeletons appear. Or 3 angry ghosts. Or in one case, 5 knife-wielding otterfolk. Use existing resources to make it easier on yourself - keep a document with a list of links so you can grab a stat block or a tavern name or a list of magical items super quick if you need to.
Anyways, that's enough out of me :D Congrats on your first DMing experience, and all the best in your next adventure!
Thanks! I think everyone had fun, which is the important part, which is good enough for me. I figured that my rocky time DM'ing might help other new DMs realize that even with mistakes, the session can be an enjoyable experience.
On that note, though, I definitely want to implement some improvements and everyone's suggestions here have been a great source of things to look into. I'm pretty excited to jump back in and have another session.